The Shade of Hettie Daynes (5 page)

‘See – I’m not barmy, am I?’

Alison shook her head and shivered. ‘Wish you
were
,’ she murmured.

FOURTEEN

NORAH CRABTREE PEERED
at her daughter in the light from the TV. ‘What’s up, lovey – somebody bother you or something?’

‘No.’ Alison shook her head. ‘Nothing’s up, Mum, honest. Where’s Dad?’

Her mother snorted. ‘Guess.’

‘Down The Lamb?’

‘Right first time. And the lads’re out somewhere, don’t ask.’ She frowned. ‘
Something
’s shaken you up, Aly, I can tell.’ She turned to Bethan. ‘What is it, Bethan – what happened?’

Bethan looked down. ‘It’s nothing really, Mrs
Crabtree
. We . . . we saw the ghost. I don’t think Alison believed in her.’

‘Ghost?’ Norah Crabtree laughed. ‘Ghost, my foot.’ She looked at Alison. ‘I’ve told you before, you great softie, there’s no such thing as a ghost.’ She sighed. ‘There’s enough to worry about in the real world without making stuff up to scare yourself with.’

Alison looked at her mother. ‘Bethan got a picture.’

Norah turned to Bethan. ‘Picture?’

Bethan produced the camera. ‘Yes, Mrs Crabtree. On this.’

‘You’ve got a photo of a
ghost
?’ Norah held out her hand. ‘Let me see.’

Bethan pulled a face. ‘I haven’t really looked myself yet, it might be a bit . . .’ She pressed quick view, peered at the screen. ‘Yeah,’ she murmured, ‘it’s not very sharp.’

‘Give it here.’ Norah zapped the TV, plunging the room into darkness. ‘If there’s a ghost I’ll see it, and that’ll be a first.’

Bethan passed her the camera.

There was a long silence while Norah stared at the tiny screen. She tilted the camera, rotated it,
held
it close to her eyes and far away. The two girls watched. After a while she cleared her throat and murmured, ‘There’s something that
could
be a person, but it must be a stump, a shadow, a trick of the light.’ She handed the camera back to Bethan. ‘People have come up with photos of flying saucers, lovey. Fairies. The Loch Ness Monster.’ She chuckled. ‘A newspaper even printed a picture of an old aeroplane they reckoned had crashed on the
moon
.’ She shook her head. ‘All sorts of funny things happen with photos. I’d whatsit if I were you, Bethan – delete it.’

Bethan shook her head. ‘I think I’d like to look at it on a computer screen first, Mrs Crabtree, if you don’t mind.’

Norah shrugged. ‘I don’t mind, lovey, ’course not – it’s
your
camera.’ She smiled. ‘Just don’t go having nightmares about it, that’s all – either of you.’

FIFTEEN

THIS WAS BETHAN’S
nightmare. It was night. She stood on the shore of Wilton Water, alone. There was a brilliant moon. Everything stood out clearly – no blurring of one object into another.

The woman’s face, silvery like the moon, was turned towards her. One thin white hand was visible against the black skirt. The index finger pointed down.

Bethan looked where the finger pointed, then at the luminous face. The spectre stood motionless, its eyes pools of inky shadow. It didn’t speak or beckon, yet Bethan felt herself called.

She was moving down the bank. Reeds
brushed
her bare legs. Water spilled into her shoes, so cold it made her cry out. She called to the spectre: I’m not like you, I have weight, the water won’t . . .

It was then she heard Mrs Crabtree say,
I’d whatsit if I were you, Bethan – delete it
.

The water was up to her knees. She woke.

‘Wakey wakey, Bethan.’ Alison was shaking her. ‘Put a sock in it, you numpty, you’ll have everyone out of bed.’

‘I have weight,’ mumbled Bethan, ‘the water won’t support me.’

‘Yeah, whatever.’ Alison giggled. ‘You’ve been yelling the place down, what happened?’

‘Huh?’ Bethan shook her head to disperse the last shreds of dream. ‘Oh . . . she called me, Aly. I tried to walk to her, but I was sinking. Then I heard your mum.’

‘Yeah,’ Alison nodded, ‘and Mum heard
you
, I bet.’ She smiled. ‘Anyway it was a dream.’ Her smile faded. ‘Last night though – we did see her, didn’t we?
That
wasn’t a dream.’

‘No,’ murmured Bethan, ‘that was a
nightmare
, Aly.’ She shivered. ‘One I wish I could wake from.’

SIXTEEN

SUNDAY MORNING, HALF
past eight. Bethan lay on her side, looking across the room at the sleeping Alison. She’d slept like a log herself after the scary dream.

Come on, Aly
, she thought,
wake up – we’ve stuff to do
. They’d decided to link the camera to Alison’s iMac, get the snapshot on the big screen. If the ghost showed up clearer, Aly would call her mum to come and look.

Bethan was impatient to begin, but there was no way you could rush this family. The expression
laid back
might have been invented for the Crabtrees. She rolled onto her back,
clasped
her hands under her head and closed her eyes.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew Alison was shaking her. ‘Come on, lazybones, let’s not waste the day.’

‘Uh?’ Bethan scowled at her friend. ‘What a cheek! I was awake ages before you, must’ve nodded off again.’

‘Yeah, right,’ growled Alison. ‘There’s a bacon butty on the unit, and a coffee.’

Alison dressed while Bethan ate, then booted up the computer. ‘I can’t actually do the photo bit myself,’ she admitted. ‘Have to get our Tony to do it.’

One by one, the Crabtrees rose to fix their various breakfasts. Seventeen-year-old Tony carried his banana and marmalade sandwich into his sister’s room. ‘What you got that’s so desperately urgent you have to get a guy up in the middle of the night?’ he grumbled.

‘Middle of the
night
?’ Alison laughed. ‘It’s quarter to ten, you skulking loafer.’

The lad shook his tousled head. ‘Yeah, but it’s
Sunday
, sweetheart. What
have
you got?’

‘Ghost,’ said Alison. ‘On Wilton Water.’

‘Wilton
backside
,’ growled her brother.

Alison nodded. ‘That’s what Mum said, more or less.’

Both girls secretly hoped the enlarged snapshot would show only stumps and shadows. Ghosts are exciting as an idea, but nobody really wants to be involved with one.

It was there though, plain as Bethan’s nightmare. Same moon-washed face, same pools of shadow hiding the eyes, same pointing finger.

‘Blooming heck!’ spluttered Tony, stippling the screen with bits of sandwich.

Norah Crabtree arrived in her dressing gown. She peered over Tony’s shoulder, made a little choking sound in her throat.

‘I can enhance it,’ he offered.

‘D . . . don’t bother,’ croaked his mother. ‘It’s bad enough the way it is.’ She shivered, pulling the dressing gown more snugly round her. ‘Hang on while I fetch Dad.’

Mr Crabtree declared himself flabbergasted. ‘I never believed,’ he murmured. ‘Thought it was a load of old cobblers in fact.’ He looked at Bethan. ‘How about I phone the
Echo
, sweetheart – make you famous?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Mr Crabtree,’ protested Bethan, but she was too late. He was already on his mobi.

SEVENTEEN

LUCKILY FOR BETHAN
, the newsroom of the
Rawton Echo
had only one man on duty Sundays. He listened to Mr Crabtree’s story and said, ‘I’ll run it by Stan Fox, sir, first thing tomorrow morning. He’s our senior reporter, he’ll decide whether to send somebody round. What’s the address again?’

‘Coming tomorrow,’ said Mr Crabtree, pocketing his mobi. ‘Perhaps.’ He looked at Tony. ‘Better save it, son.’ He turned to Bethan. ‘Can you get round here in the morning, sweetheart? They’ll want to talk to the photographer in person.’

Bethan shook her head. ‘It’s school, Mr Crabtree, I can’t.’

‘Can’t you bunk off, just for one morning?’ He sounded really disappointed. ‘It’s not every day you get the chance to be famous, you know.’

Bethan pulled a face. ‘My mum wouldn’t let me. And anyway, I can’t let her find out I was at the reservoir after dark, she’d kill me.’ She looked at Tony. ‘Can’t you say
you
took the picture, Tony?’

The lad nodded. ‘I could, I suppose, but then I’d get famous instead of you.’

Bethan nodded. ‘That’s all right, I don’t mind.’

Mr Crabtree shook his head. ‘Won’t work, sweetheart. I told the guy my daughter’s friend took it.’

‘Oh, heck,’ groaned Bethan.

‘
I
know,’ beamed Mr Crabtree. ‘I’ll say
I
was with you and Aly. Your mum wouldn’t mind you going to the reservoir with your friend’s dad, would she?’

Bethan shrugged, stared at the floor. She suspected her mother’s distrust of Norah Crabtree extended to the man she’d married, but you just can’t say that sort of thing. Instead she
mumbled
, ‘I never said I wanted it in the paper, Mr Crabtree. I wish you’d call back and say it was a mistake or a joke or something.’

Mr Crabtree was about to protest when his wife chipped in. ‘If that’s what Bethan wants, Gilbert, you’d best do it. It’s her snapshot after all.’

‘Hmmm.’ Mr Crabtree frowned, looked at Bethan. ‘If you’re sure, sweetheart?’

Bethan nodded. ‘Yes please, Mr Crabtree.’

A reluctant Mr Crabtree made the call, and not long afterwards Bethan left her friend’s house and set off home. She knew she’d disappointed him, but he ought not to have phoned the paper without giving her the chance to object.
I didn’t want to be famous
, she told herself.
All I wanted was to see the ghost again, so I could maybe stop thinking about her all the time
.

Hasn’t worked though, ’cause she’s still here, doing my head in. Wish, wish
, wish
I could get her out of my head
 . . .