by Nick Moseley
He took the proffered tumbler, which contained what Granddad referred to as ‘a gentleman’s measure’. This meant about four standard measures in one glass.
‘Cheers,’ said Granddad, knocking back his own drink in one and smacking his lips as if it were no stronger than fruit juice.
‘Cheers,’ echoed Trev, taking a small sip and trying to restrain the resulting grimace. ‘Er, thanks very much for my birthday present, by the way.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Granddad. ‘It’s a cracking book, that one. Read much of it yet?’
‘Well, just a quick flick through so far,’ lied Trev. ‘Looks very interesting. I saw there was a chapter on... er, a chapter on... um, Brackenford’s... you know. Yes, interesting,’ he finished lamely.
Granddad nodded and gave him a long, steady look which caused some more squeaking of the armchair.
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll find it useful,’ he said eventually. A thought seemed to strike him and he rummaged around on his desk. ‘Got something to show you, come to think of it.’
Let me guess, the local rag, thought Trev. Granddad had spent most of his working life as a journalist before retiring to forge a reputation as Brackenford’s foremost local historian. In that capacity he had his own column in the town’s evening newspaper, The Brackenford Crier. It was called, rather unimaginatively, ‘Memory Lane’ and Granddad was very proud of it. Sometimes he interviewed local people of historical note, but mostly it consisted of old photos and anecdotes.
‘Here we are, tonight’s edition,’ said Granddad. ‘I’ve done an interview with Alastair Kolley, you know, the supermarket chap. His family have been in this town for generations.’ He pointed out a small box on the front page which contained a file photo of Kolley being presented with a gold plaque, no doubt awarded for some charity work or other. The caption read ‘Alastair Kolley interview - p.7’.
Trev was only vaguely aware of it, though, because he was staring in open-mouthed shock at the main photo and its accompanying headline.
Six
The photo was of Captain Comb-Over. More specifically, Trev observed, it was of a blood-stained Captain Comb-Over being restrained by two policemen. The huge headline above it read “DOUBLE MURDER HORROR”, and below “JILTED HUSBAND KILLS WIFE AND HER LOVER”.
‘Nasty one, that,’ said Granddad, pouring himself another Scotch.
‘I hadn’t heard about it,’ mumbled Trev.
‘Happened this morning,’ Granddad explained. ‘Chap’s wife had left him for another man, so he went to the house and killed them both.’ He swallowed his drink. ‘With a cricket bat.’
Trev stared at the picture, remembering his earlier confrontation with Captain Comb-Over (whose real name, Trev read, was Robert Byfield). Gone was the raw, animal rage Trev had seen in the Hot Cuisine; the man in the photograph had a glazed, almost confused expression. At first glance the two policemen appeared to be restraining him, but on closer inspection it looked more like they were holding him up.
He nearly attacked me in the cafe, then less than an hour later he’d killed two people, thought Trev as he skimmed through the details. The image of the black shape seeping out of the shadows of the Hot Cuisine and into Byfield’s body rose in Trev’s mind. The thing had had eyes, and it had looked at him... right at him...
‘Trevor?’
Trev started. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘You’re just staring at that photo,’ said Granddad. ‘You don’t know him, do you?’
‘I saw him this morning,’ replied Trev, slowly. ‘In the Hot Cuisine Cafe. He thought I was looking at him and he threatened me.’ He threw the newspaper back onto Granddad’s desk. ‘From that, it looks like I got off lightly.’
‘I should say so,’ said Granddad. ‘Good God, Trevor - if you’d been unlucky this could’ve been a triple murder. You should call the police. You’d be an important witness to his mental state before the murders.’
‘It was strange,’ said Trev, ignoring Granddad and talking almost to himself. ‘He was just sitting there with a drink, looking at a photograph... of her, I suppose. And then... I saw... he just changed. He went for me. I wasn’t even looking at him, not really.’
‘What did you see?’ said Granddad, so sharply that Trev was snapped back from his dreamy state.
‘What?’
‘You said you saw something. And then he - Byfield - “just changed”. What did you see?’ He leaned forward in his chair, transfixing Trev with an intense gaze.
‘Nothing,’ said Trev hurriedly. The chair creaked and groaned. ‘I just saw him get angry. It was very sudden. Took me by surprise.’
‘Is that all?’ persisted Granddad, watching Trev closely. ‘Nothing else? Nothing... strange?’
‘No,’ said Trev, very keen to get home all of a sudden. He got up from the armchair. ‘I’d better get going. Thanks again for the birthday present, and the drink.’ He took a large gulp of the Scotch and put the tumbler down.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you,’ said Granddad, moving around from behind his desk. ‘I don’t want to drive you out.’
‘No, it’s not that,’ lied Trev. He was glad he wasn’t still sitting in the squeaky armchair, which he was starting to believe was some kind of primitive polygraph. ‘I’ve had a bad day anyway, then finding out I could’ve been murdered this morning, well, it’s just all caught up to me a bit.’
Something brushed past his leg and in his agitated state it was all he could do to prevent himself from climbing the nearest bookcase. He looked down into the face of Oscar, Granddad’s cat. Oscar was a black-and-white tomcat. He returned Trev’s irritated gaze with a look of faint contempt.
‘Scared the crap out of me,’ said Trev, shaking his head. Unperturbed, Oscar headed for his basket by Granddad's desk.
‘You’re sure you won’t stay a bit?’ said Granddad.
‘No, I really ought to go,’ said Trev, heading for the door. Granddad trailed after him, a concerned expression etched onto his face.
‘All right, but remember you’re always welcome here if you feel like dropping in,’ he said, standing in the doorway. Trev was already out onto the front path and buttoning his jacket. It was dark outside and the temperature had dropped noticeably.
‘Er, OK, thanks,’ said Trev.
‘I think you should go to the police about Byfield,’ said Granddad.
‘Yeah,’ said Trev. ‘Probably I should.’
‘And, um, if you ever want to talk about anything, let me know,’ said Granddad. ‘Even if it’s something...’ he seemed to struggle for the right word, ‘...odd,’ he finished, rather lamely.
‘Odd,’ echoed Trev, standing at the gate and not really listening. ‘Right. Well, ‘bye.’
He turned and walked out onto the street.
Trev was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he’d walked almost halfway home before he remembered about calling a taxi.
‘Arse!’ he growled. Alarmed at the sound of Trev's voice, a cat bolted from its vantage point on top of a nearby wall. Trev smiled at getting a little revenge on the feline species.
He decided that it wasn’t worth calling a cab. By the time it turned up he’d probably be home anyway, though if one passed him he resolved to flag it down.
It really has been a crap day, he thought. Crap, and weird. Shadows that seemed alive. The dark-clad woman who liked sneaking up on him and disappearing. The murders. And just what the hell had Granddad been on about? For the first time he gave the old man’s final remark some consideration.
...even if it’s something... odd
What did that mean? And why did he take such an interest when Trev had almost let slip about the shadow in the Hot Cuisine? What did he think Trev might’ve seen?
This train of thought was interrupted when Trev noticed a gang of lads hanging around the off-licence up ahead. He slowed. Although it wasn’t that late, it was dark and cold and there were few other pedestrians. A smartly-dressed bloke might draw t
he wrong kind of attention. Trev had been mugged once before and hadn’t enjoyed the experience, particularly given the fact that his assailants had looked to have an average age of about ten years old.
Well, they’d outnumbered him three to one, what could he have done?
The lads outside the off-licence looked a good deal older than ten, and there were five of them.
‘Bugger it,’ said Trev. He glanced to his right. The row of houses ended abruptly, opening out into a grassy area known as Bandstand Park. Trev remembered Granddad telling him that the Park had been there since Brackenford was founded. At one time it had been a central meeting place, but the expansion of the town meant it now lay on the western side of Brackenford, not far from the river.
The eponymous bandstand had been burned down decades ago by a mystery arsonist who’d escaped capture. Two bodies had been found in the charred remains, but neither had ever been identified; it was just another of Brackenford's riddles.
In the summer the Park was quite pretty, but in the darkness of a wintry night it was less appealing. A light mist had descended, creating haloes around the streetlights. Trev shivered and cast another glance at the five youths. They looked both drunk and bored, a combination that was likely to spell trouble for some unfortunate person. Trev decided that person wasn’t going to be him, and headed into the Park before he was spotted.
Going through the Park was a minor short-cut, but Trev rarely used it at that time of year because he preferred to stick to the roadside where there was lighting. On this occasion, though, he reasoned that if the local ne’er-do-wells were loitering outside the off-licence, then they weren’t in the Park and it ought to be safe. Well, safe-ish.
Trev followed the concrete path that meandered between the denuded trees and sparsely-populated flowerbeds. He could still see the streetlights through the line of trees that encircled the Park, but he was separated enough from them that they afforded him little comfort.
The mist seemed thicker in the Park, combining with the night to make the way ahead increasingly indistinct. Trev thrust his hands into his pockets and walked faster, wishing that he’d called that bloody taxi.
There was a noise.
Trev stopped and looked back fearfully, afraid that the gang had spotted him and had followed him in, but there wasn’t anybody behind him. The sound he’d heard hadn’t been like footsteps, anyway. It had been more like a short burst of... of... whispering.
‘No more weird shit, please,’ he muttered, remembering the spare bedroom at Fancourt Street. He started walking again.
Immediately the sound returned, not in a short burst this time but in a wave that rose and fell in its own strange rhythm. Trev felt as if someone had poured a bucketful of ice down his back; he stumbled to a halt, throwing his head around wildly in an attempt to determine the source of the whispering so that he could get away from it, but it was all around him. Whichever direction he moved in, the sound rose as if to force him back.
‘SHUT UP!’ he shrieked, grabbing the sides of his head to block his ears. He staggered forward on the path, no longer caring about the warning swell of whispers.
It’s not far to the gate, said a part of his brain that had remained remarkably calm while all its colleagues had dived into bed and pulled the covers over their heads. Just run, whispers can’t hurt you.
Trev took a few faltering steps, then broke into an unsteady jog. It was true, the gate wasn’t far away. All he had to do was run through that patch of thick mist...
...which had eyes.
Without him thinking about it, Trev’s feet went into reverse. He lost his balance and fell hard on his backside, from which position he began scrambling backwards.
There was more than one set of eyes, he now saw. There were several. No, quite a lot more than several – they were all around him. They were pits of pure darkness, exactly like the eyes he’d seen in the shadow that had possessed Byfield.
Possessed? queried the one still-rational part of his brain, which seemed to be intrigued rather than frightened. The other parts were still cowering under the covers, but now they’d put their fingers in their ears and were shouting “la la la, I can’t hear you”.
Possessed was right, though. In a bizarre flash of clear thought amidst the blinding terror, he was suddenly sure that was what had happened to Byfield. Whatever the shadow-thing was, it had taken control of the man and made him... well, the front page of the Crier had pretty much covered it with “DOUBLE MURDER HORROR”.
The whispering continued unabated, although there was a fresh note of excitement in it. The disembodied eyes swarmed around Trev as if clamouring for a closer look. He thought he could see the faces around the eyes now, little more than vague suggestions of rounded shapes, but there nonetheless. The closest Trev’s rational brain could come to describing it was the effect caused when someone pulls cling-film over their face; the shapes were pressing against the mist itself as if trying to force a way through, and Trev again thought of the thing in the Hot Cuisine, hauling itself free of the shadows.
It was that thought that got him moving. If all the things surrounding him were to break through, he didn’t want to be anywhere near them.
He clambered onto his feet and began to walk forward, waving his hands in front of him in an attempt to ward off the swirling faces. The whispering sound changed from excited to angry, but Trev felt no resistance to his movement. He picked up his pace until he was running as fast as he could, his arms windmilling.
A low moan issued from his mouth as he ran, its pitch increasing as he accelerated until it was a full-blooded howl. He burst through the Park’s gates and onto the pavement, across both lanes of the road (fortunately no cars were passing at the time, otherwise this story would’ve had a sudden and unsatisfactory ending) and off up the street, wailing like a banshee with toothache and sending an elderly couple, who'd been out for a quiet stroll, diving for cover in a nearby hedge.
The howl petered out as Trev began to struggle for breath, but he didn’t stop running until he reached the newsagents above which he lived. The entrance to the flat was a narrow doorway to the right of the shop, and he collapsed against it, fumbling for his keys.
He got the door open at the third attempt and half-walked, half-crawled up the steep staircase. Once inside he headed straight for the kitchen and retrieved a dusty bottle of vodka from the cupboard. Unscrewing the cap he sloshed himself a measure his Granddad would’ve been proud of into a glass and downed it in one. Then he stood leaning against the wall, shaking.
He stayed there until he felt able to move again, then weaved his way to the dingy bathroom and splashed cold water on his face.
‘Sleep,’ he murmured, and headed for his bedroom.
He didn’t bother getting undressed, settling for throwing his tie over the back of a chair and kicking off his shoes. He collapsed onto the bed and closed his eyes. If he could just get some rest, maybe everything would be normal again in the morning. Maybe the whole day had just been a dream? Trev doubted it, but it was a nicer thought than the possibility that it was all real. Or that he was going insane.
He took a few deep breaths and let his eyes open again. The first thing he saw was the dark-clad woman standing by his desk and looking at him. The detached, rational part of Trev’s brain noted that her feet were several inches above the floor.
He tried to scream again, but his dry throat betrayed him and he just went ‘eep’. His first instinct thwarted, he instead grabbed his pillow and put it over his face, babbling to himself.
‘She’s not really there you’re not mad you’ve just had a bad day it’ll all be better in the morning,’ he croaked.
‘In order, yes I am, no you’re not, I’m sure you have and no it won’t,’ said a clipped female voice.
Trev slowly lowered the pillow from his face. The black-clad woman was now floating beside his bed. Trev cringed away from her.
‘For goodness sake pull yourself together, I need to talk to
you,’ she said, her disapproving expression more pronounced than ever. ‘I’m Agatha.’
Seven
‘A-a-agatha?’ stammered Trev.
‘No, just Agatha,’ replied the woman, arching an eyebrow. Trev goggled at her. She appeared to be in her late thirties, possibly early forties. She was wearing a high-necked collarless black blouse, buttoned all the way up, and a matching long skirt that fell all the way to her shoes, which were flat-soled and practical. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and secured with a dark blue bow. Trev was reminded of an old photograph his Granddad had once shown him of a Victorian schoolmistress. ‘What on earth’s wrong with you?’ she said.
‘You’re not touching the floor,’ said Trev.
‘I can’t touch anything, let alone the floor,’ replied Agatha. ‘I’m not altogether corporeal, I’m afraid.’
Trev slowly reached out and tried to touch Agatha’s arm. She looked as solid and real as any normal person (albeit a little more airborne), but his fingers passed through her. It was like putting his hand into a concentrated patch of cold air.
‘I fear that I am also lacking a shadow,’ said Agatha, somewhat sadly.
‘I’m going mad,’ Trev said, shaking his head. ‘I’m only thirty and I’ve cracked up.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Agatha in a no-nonsense tone. ‘I realise this is all rather new to you, and possibly distressing, but I can assure you that you are perfectly sane.’
‘Oh that’s all right then,’ said Trev, sitting up. ‘The bloody ghost says I’m not barking. That’s a relief.’
‘I prefer the term “spirit”,’ said Agatha, primly. ‘And I would prefer it if you would mind your language.’
‘Bollocks,’ growled Trev, his initial fear giving way to annoyance. Agatha sighed. ‘What do you want to talk to me about, anyway? You’ve been popping up all day watching me. Are you some sort of supernatural stalker, or what?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Agatha. She looked genuinely offended. ‘I admit that I have been keeping an eye on you, but I have hardly been taking pleasure from it.’
