The Silence (9 page)

There was a moment when Nell thought the woman was not going to move and that she would either have to stop or reverse into her. She touched the brakes warningly, and as the brake lights glowed, quite suddenly the woman was no longer there. Nell’s heart jumped. Had she hit her after all? No, she could not possible have done; she would have felt even the smallest impact, and the woman had been several feet away.

‘She’s run away,’ Nell said, forcing her voice to sound calm. ‘It’s all right, Beth – we’re absolutely safe.’

In a frightened whisper, Beth said, ‘She had something in her hands. She was sort of lifting it towards you. What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Nell manoeuvred the car the rest of the way to the lane, then drove away from Stilter House at top speed, swerving around the sharp bends, praying not to meet another vehicle, constantly looking in the driving mirror to see if they were being followed. This last was the height of madness, of course, because unless the woman had a car of her own, which surely they would have seen, she could not be following them. But Nell kept looking.

‘Where are we going?’ said Beth. Her voice sounded tight, as if she was determined not to cry.

The main thought in Nell’s mind had been to get away from Stilter House, and for a moment her mind was blank. Then from nowhere came the obvious answer. ‘We’ll go to The Pheasant,’ she said, and with the words came the image of the low-fronted old pub and its feeling of warm security. She felt instantly better. They would be safe at The Pheasant.

Beth seemed to pick this up, because in an almost normal voice, she said, ‘That’d be brilliant. Because even if that woman did try to get in there, she’d never get past that man who served our lunch.’

J
oe Poulson at The Pheasant would certainly not allow any menacing or burglarious people through his doors, and was shocked to his toes to think of Mrs West and her small daughter enduring such an ordeal.

‘Out there on your own, and there’s nothing worse than a deserted old house for attracting odd people.’ He reached for a pot of freshly percolated coffee and poured out two cups, adding a generous measure of brandy to Nell’s. ‘For the shock,’ he said, firmly. ‘I’ll phone Sergeant Howe at the police station at once. He’ll go out there and take a look round, but it’s my bet it’ll have been nothing worse than some nasty tramp.’

Nell, drinking the coffee gratefully, thought,
Could
it have been something so relatively innocent as that?

‘Whoever she was, she’d have thought the house was empty,’ said Poulson. ‘And she’d think to herself, Aha, this will do me nicely for a night’s kip.’

Nell said, ‘I’m hesitant to go back – tonight, at any rate. Your sign outside says you do bed and breakfast. Is it possible we could have a room?’

‘Indeed you can,’ said Poulson, beaming. ‘There’s one double and one very small single, so maybe you’d prefer to share the double. There’s twin beds in it, and my wife can have clean sheets on in ten minutes.’

Nell, thankful she had been able to snatch up her bag containing her wallet with cash and bank cards, said that would do very well indeed.

The room turned out to be whitewashed and chintz-furnished, with oak ceiling beams and a huge fireplace with a copper jug filled with dried flowers. Poulson’s wife, who seemed to be a lady of few words but serenely plump disposition, unlocked the room, indicated the bathroom next door, and murmured that there could be a bite of supper in half an hour if that would suit.

‘We don’t have to go back to the house, do we?’ said Beth, after Poulson’s wife had gone. ‘That’d be double-bad.’

‘We’re definitely not going back,’ said Nell.

‘Good. Will the police catch that – um – woman?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Nell, at once. ‘They’ll know the area – they might very well know who she is. You don’t have to worry about any of it. There are some peculiar people in the world, and we happened to meet one.’

‘I don’t mind so long as we don’t have to go back,’ said Beth, bouncing on one of the beds. ‘I like it here. What will we do for pyjamas and toothbrushes and things?’

‘It won’t hurt you to sleep in your vest for one night, and we’ll ask if we can have an apple each after supper instead of brushing our teeth. Tomorrow I can go back to the house myself and collect our things. It’ll be all right, though,’ she said, seeing Beth’s expression. ‘I shan’t go on my own.’

‘You’re phoning Michael,’ said Beth, as Nell reached for her bag and felt inside for the phone.

‘Yes.’ Nell was slightly annoyed to find herself behaving like the classic wimpish heroine seeking masculine comfort, but she suddenly wanted very much to hear Michael’s voice.

But Michael’s direct line at Oriel College was switched to voicemail, and when Nell dialled his mobile number that, too, went to voicemail. She left a brief message on both numbers to say they had removed to The Pheasant in Caudle Village for tonight, and added the number.

It had been unreasonable to expect Michael to be on hand at the exact minute she wanted him. She was perfectly able to cope with this situation, in any case; she did not need a knight in shining armour dashing up to her rescue, and there was also the point that Michael would most likely get lost on the road between Oxford and Caudle, because he had the worst sense of direction Nell had ever come across.

Michael knew his judgement might have been affected by sloshing down the Music Director’s sherry during the afternoon. But he reread Beth’s email, and then he reread Emily West’s letter and Brad’s essay, and although individually the contents of the letters were not particularly sinister, put together they seemed to him to take on very menacing shapes.

He considered Brad’s essay. Brad had written that Esmond always waited for him in the music room. ‘He doesn’t speak,’ Brad had written. ‘We have a private sign language.’ This was not particularly strange or unusual. Children did make holiday friendships and have private languages, although nowadays those languages tended to be spattered across social websites.

So far so good as far as Brad West was concerned. But then more than twenty-five years later, Brad’s daughter had sent an email in which she talked about Esmond in exactly the same way. ‘He walked into the music room,’ Beth had said. ‘He didn’t speak but I understand what he means without having to speak.’

It could still be coincidence. Just about. Beth was a modern child, but she had a rather endearing liking for the worlds of long-ago children; she loved
Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass¸
and she adored C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, and Pamela Brown’s
Blue Door Theatre
series. But Michael did not think Beth would have dreamed up a ghost-companion, at least not in the space of twelve hours, and even if she had, she would not have given it the same name as her father’s long-ago friend.

What about Great Aunt Charlotte? She had seemed to know about Esmond, and Emily West, repository of Charlotte’s slightly fey stories, had sounded genuinely fearful that Esmond might come back for Beth. And according to Beth, Esmond, that elusive silent child, seen by three different people at three different time spans, was indeed coming back to Stilter House.

It’s too many coincidences, thought Michael. I can’t ignore them. He wondered if he could track down a local police station and ask if they would check on the temporary residents of Stilter House. But when he tried out a possible dialogue for this, it sounded so nonsensical, he abandoned the idea, and instead dialled Emily West’s number again. There was still no reply, so he searched for a number for the other aunt – Margery, in Edinburgh. But he had no address and there were so many Wests listed for the area, it would take hours to work through them, by which time it might be too late to do anything else.

I’m building this up into something absurd, he thought. It’s gothic fiction – the ghost-child who appears at intervals. But this is Nell, said his mind. And Beth. And if there’s even a tiny possibility that they’re in some kind of danger . . .

To go mad-rabbiting up to Derbyshire because of an elderly lady’s imagination and a long-ago schoolboy’s essay was the height of madness. But by half-past six Michael knew that unless he could reach Nell by phone, he would have to do just that.

This fact finally faced, he hunted out road maps to see exactly where, and how far, Caudle was. He found it with difficulty – a tiny place on the southern edge of the Peak District. Nell had said the journey was just over a couple of hours and when Michael checked with an online route planner, this was confirmed. But route planners never seemed to allow for mundane things such as diversions or traffic hold-ups, so he would add an extra half an hour for that, and he had better add a further half hour for taking a wrong road, because it was remarkable how often roads and road signs could be misleading. He zoomed into the directions as far as possible and was gratified to see that Stilter House was shown, and that it was in Gorsty Lane.

What about all the sherry he had drunk with the Music Director? How far over the limit was he for driving? He tried to calculate times and quantities, and thought he might be borderline. Would a train journey be more sensible? More to the point, would it be possible? He wrestled with rail helplines and websites for fifteen minutes, before concluding that Caudle was simply too far off the beaten tracks and that it was completely off any National Rail tracks as well.

Was there anyone he could ask to drive him? Most of the dons were either immersed in end-of-term tidying-up or interviews or had already left College, and Michael was not keen on involving any of them in this peculiar business anyway. The majority would probably smile rather pityingly and later tell one another that Dr Flint was off on another of his peculiar exploits again, and before Michael knew it, he would be summoned to the Dean’s study to be told College was a hotbed of gossip about his ghost-hunting activities and had he considered the effect on his students.

Surely if he ate a substantial meal in Hall and set off just after half past seven the sherry should have dissipated, and with reasonable luck he would reach Caudle by eleven. He might be able to raise Nell by phone before then anyway and not need to make the whole journey.

He emailed his editor to say he would send the chapter on Wilberforce’s visit to Great Aunt Tabitha by the end of the week, and, to indicate he was working diligently away, added that he was, in fact, visiting the real Egg-nog Village for a day or so.

Oriel turned out to be serving a very substantial chicken casserole with accompanying vegetables that evening, so Michael had a large helping, followed it with some fruit salad, hoped this was blotting up most of the sherry, and went off to ask the porter to put out Wilberforce’s food for the next twenty-four hours.

‘I’ll certainly do so, Dr Flint, although it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t, for that animal would eat human flesh if it was offered him and there was nothing else available,’ said the porter.

Michael agreed, handed over several tins of Wilberforce’s favourite cat food with a bottle of milk, and added a ten-pound note for the porter’s trouble.

After this, he threw a few overnight things into a bag and checked his phone for messages and his computer for emails. He had hoped to hear from Nell, but there were no phone messages at all, and his inbox contained only one email, which was from his editor who liked to keep her authors on their toes by firing off emails at hours when most other people regarded work as being over for the day. She was, she wrote, intrigued to hear he was visiting the real Egg-nog Village and eagerly awaiting the new instalment of Wilberforce and Great Aunt Tabitha. She had already alerted their illustrators to Aunt Tabitha’s recent creation, and would soon be sending over some images of Tabitha herself, suitably adorned with mob cap and pince-nez. As a PS she added that Michael should not forget he could claim the cost of his journey against income tax as ‘Allowable Research’. Michael could not decide if this was a polite way of telling him his publishers were not going to foot the bill for the trip to Derbyshire. He locked up his rooms, and set off.

Sergeant Howe from Caudle Moor police station was large and reassuring. He arrived at The Pheasant after Nell and Beth had eaten their meal, and said he had taken a good look round Stilter House and its grounds and had found no signs of intruders. Likely there had been a gypsy wandering around or a tramp, that would be what Mrs West had seen, and very alarming for her too, he did not doubt. But whoever had been there earlier was definitely not there now.

It seemed to Nell that Sergeant Howe’s bovine eyes flickered towards the hovering Poulson and that something passed between them. But Poulson only said, warmly, that this was very comforting, and they were much obliged.

‘Shall you be going along to the house again tomorrow?’ asked Howe, buttoning his notebook into his tunic.

‘Yes, I’ll have to. I’ve still got some sorting out left.’ Nell did not say that the prospect of returning to Stilter House was a daunting one.

‘Then I’d suggest I come along with you, or that my constable does,’ said the sergeant. ‘Just to be sure, you know.’ He prepared to take his leave, having refused – with palpable reluctance – Poulson’s offer of a pint of home-brewed. ‘Stilter’s an odd old place. Joe knows that better than most of us, don’t you, Joe?’

Poulson nodded solemnly, and the sergeant said, ‘Old Caudle family, Joe and his wife. Always been a Poulson here at The Pheasant. And Joe’s wife had a grandmother—’

‘Great-grandmother, if you don’t mind, Fred, and maybe one or two more greats, in fact.’ Poulson winked at Nell and Beth. ‘No call to make my wife older than she is.’

‘A great-great-grandmother who lived and worked at Acton House – that’s the place that was on that land before they built Stilter.’

‘In service to the Acton family, my wife’s great-great grandmother,’ nodded Poulson, who was polishing glasses. ‘A Stump she was, and that’s a good old name hereabouts, for all the teasing it gets. She was housekeeper to the Actons. Eliza Stump, that was her name. As for the Actons themselves, they were a well-respected Derbyshire family.’