Ash (30 page)

‘What do you mean by “presence”? Ghosts?’ Haelstrom’s tone was distinctly belligerent, almost as if Ash had suggested an infestation of cockroaches.

‘Not necessarily ghosts,’ Ash answered, ignoring his client’s brusqueness. ‘Unnatural forces, images of real people now dead. Some of them are simply caused by draughts, though. It’s a centuries-old building,’ he added unnecessarily.

‘You’re saying?’

‘Certain things – sounds, rappings, cold spots – they may seem like phenomena but probably have easily explicable causes. Wooden beams and floorboards contracting at night as the castle cools down can often sound like knocking, or floorboards contracting one by one can sound like footsteps. Cold spots can be due to small holes in the stonework, chilly air from outside sweeping through, sometimes a whistling draught can be mistaken for a creature
howling
. And Comraich is high on a clifftop with, I’m told, caves running beneath. Subsidence, flowing underground streams, small animals such as bats, can also create noises or shifts in the atmosphere as well as rancid smells. And I haven’t even mentioned vermin.’

‘The castle has five cats to control rodents.’

‘Well, there again, cats themselves can make noises in the night. I’m just trying to assure you that there are many common occurrences in buildings – especially large buildings with structural weaknesses, or resident animals and pets – which might cause concern if their unobserved movements are misunderstood.’

Haelstrom harrumphed in displeasure. ‘Would you say a man splattered against a wall and hung there to die of, let’s face it, fright, can be explained as a natural act?’

‘Good God, no.’ Ash leaned forward, wrists on knees, fists slightly clenched. ‘Sir Victor, you obviously do have a problem here. Whether Douglas Hoyle was murdered by some unnatural force or someone human with incredible strength and an attitude problem can’t be decided at this point. I have to look into it further.’

‘You surely can’t suggest a
person
did this to the poor man, killed him then used his blood as some sort of extraordinary Velcro to pin him to the wall.’ Haelstrom’s chortle at his tasteless joke was scornful and meant to be so.

‘No, of course not,’ said Ash, sitting back with a frustrated sigh. ‘But that’s precisely why I have to look around the level
underneath
Hoyle’s observation suite. I felt energy emanating from there, energy so powerful it literally threw me bodily through the doorway.’

‘Yes, I was told about that. Babbage assures me there was no trickery involved.’

That comment irritated the parapsychologist even further, but it took more than that these days to make him lose his cool. ‘Can you think of any possible reason that I, or the Institute, should try to dupe you? I’m here to carry out a serious investigation.’

‘For which you are being generously rewarded,’ Haelstrom came back at him, this time the one who leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

‘No, you’re paying the respectable and highly respected Psychical Research Institute to discover whether Comraich is haunted or not. And I’m the best investigator you’ll ever get. Now, there might be a practical solution that has nothing to do with spirits, poltergeists, demons or any other paranormal forces, and I’ve no intention of inventing them just to earn our fee, no matter how high it might be. That’s between you and Kate McCarrick.’

‘All right, all right,’ Haelstrom murmured gruffly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Without chagrin, Ash told the big man, ‘I need to see those architectural drawings I asked you for at lunchtime.’

‘I’m afraid Derriman has found only two, one dating back to the 1950s, when extensive renovations were carried out, the second from sometime in the nineteenth century. The original plans unfortunately no longer exist. All others have been either lost or destroyed.’

He swivelled his head round to his manservant, who had been dutifully standing by the drinks cabinet, hands held behind his back, body straight.
Maybe the poor guy’s never at ease in his master’s presence
, thought Ash sympathetically.

‘Byrone, go through to the drawing room and fetch the two rolled drawings that are lying on the desk there,’ Haelstrom ordered before turning back to the investigator. ‘The castle has a bloody history, d’you see? Many things have been lost to the past.’

But not the ghosts, Ash mused. They were not lost to Comraich.

Byrone quickly returned carrying two long rolls of paper, one an off-white vellum, the other yellowed like old parchment. He brought them directly to Haelstrom, who had been gazing at Ash without speaking. He indicated the investigator with a pointed finger.

‘Give them to Mr Ash,’ he said.

The butler crossed the room again and handed the drawings to the investigator before returning to his place by the drinks cabinet.

‘Study them later, Ash, within the confines of your own room. I don’t expect they’ll be much use to you, but you never know – something might turn up. Perhaps a room that shouldn’t be there, a wall so thick there might be a secret passageway inside. I wish you luck.’

Ash didn’t bother to unroll the long scrolls there and then, but placed them carefully beside him on the satin seat.

‘So far, you haven’t told me much,’ said Haelstrom, his displeasure evident.

‘So far, there isn’t much to tell,’ Ash responded. ‘Tonight I intend to go through the castle’s upper regions, just to make the initial observation complete. I’ll take some equipment with me, in case I find an opportune location to test. Tomorrow I can set up many more detection instruments, and I’ll have to declare some parts of the building out of bounds, not only to your guests, but your staff too.’

‘I’d like you to be accompanied by someone tonight – Babbage or Derriman. Only to guide you and keep you away from anywhere out of bounds.’

‘That’s not going to work. I have to have freedom of movement.’

‘Yes, it’s an awkward predicament, isn’t it? Unfortunately, that’s how it stands.’

‘I take it that still includes the old dungeons.’

‘It does, though I’m sure you wouldn’t like it there, anyway.’

He frowned at Haelstrom. ‘Just what have you got down there, Sir Victor? Is there something you’re hiding?’

The question was put bluntly and belligerently, so Ash was surprised by the big man’s reaction. Haelstrom laughed, and this time it was genuine, bringing tears to the corner of his small deep-set eyes. He beat the arm of his chair with the flat of his free hand, the other holding on to the dregs of the Japanese whisky.

Still spluttering, and with Ash just staring at him, Haelstrom managed to say, ‘Hide . . . hiding from . . . you. That’s very rich. Don’t . . . don’t you see it’s for your own . . . your own good?’

Ash stiffened, his anger becoming hard to hold down. What made this thick-headed buffoon laugh so much at the suggestion that he might be hiding something from the investigator? Then it dawned on him. Comraich was hiding
all
its guests from the outside world – Hoyle, Lucan, the defrocked archbishop, the Serbian war criminal – but was it so obvious? Making a joke of the obvious? Was that why Haelstrom was laughing so much?

Whatever it was, Ash was quickly losing patience. ‘Have you got someone
imprisoned
’ – he used the word coldly, dispassionately – ‘in the cells down there you don’t want me to see? Is that the big secret?’

Haelstrom placed the crystal glass on a small side table and reached awkwardly into his trouser pocket. He drew out a wrinkled handkerchief, laughing in short fits now. He blew his nose noisily and it seemed to sober him a little.

‘No, Ash,’ he managed to say between gasping in breaths. Finally, his broad shoulders stopped shaking and he was in control once more.

‘No, Ash,’ he repeated, with scarce apology in his voice.

‘Then what is it? You want me to make a thorough investigation, yet you’re banning me from key areas.’

‘I wasn’t joking. It really is for your own safety.’ His shoulders jerked as he suppressed another chortle. He did his best to regard the investigator seriously.

‘You see, Mr Ash, underground . . . Well, underground is our containment area. It’s where we keep our lunatics . . .’

Kate McCarrick sat alone in her office in the Psychical Research Institute and struggled to calm her own anxiety. Most of her staff had left for the night, so only a few other offices and the hallways were lit. She’d become used to the peculiar sense of loneliness that came with working late in a building almost emptied of other people. And sometimes, for her, it could be even worse.

That was when she had time to go through reports of hauntings that were sometimes horrific in their detail. Seasoned though she was, hardened to all things weird though she might be, there were times when Kate would rather be in normal company, particularly on late evenings like this.

She’d expected to receive a status report from Ash, but there had been no word. Kate had rung his mobile phone number, but there was no connection, not even a ring tone, and because she had no number for Comraich itself, she’d been forced to call Simon Maseby at his office.

Simon had assured her that all was well, that he’d spoken to someone at Comraich who told him David Ash had arrived safely and was already busy with his investigation. He had also explained that she couldn’t reach David on his mobile phone because there was no signal, and no, he couldn’t give her the castle’s phone number because of the strict security there. Kate had almost flipped when she heard that. Why hadn’t he told her all this before? Simon allayed her anxiety by telling Kate that he would be visiting Comraich himself the next day for an important conference. He would report back directly to her of David’s progress. In fact, Sir Victor was hoping his initial investigation would be completed before the conference took place.

He’d finished by asking her whether she fancied a late supper. ‘I really enjoyed last night – you still know all the right moves in bed.’

Kate had wanted to gag at that, but she only had herself to blame: she’d allowed the little toad to seduce her with hardly a fight. And what a miserable night it had turned out to be. She wasn’t sure it was the alcohol or just plain bloody boredom. But regretting it now was no good; the deed was done, with no reward on her part.

‘Fuck you, Maseby!’ she’d said aloud, but only after she’d slammed the phone down.

Kate needed to be in touch with her investigator, mainly because she couldn’t be sure of how well David would stand up to another ghastly haunting.

But Kate had other friends in high places and having contacted one in particular that afternoon, she might just find out a bit more about this rather sinister organization called the Inner Court.

On returning to his room, Ash found a surprise waiting for him in the form of a small silver-foil-wrapped package laid on his bed where he couldn’t miss it. Beside it was a brief note:
David, thought you might miss your dinner tonight because of the work you have to do, so arranged for the kitchen to make you a sandwich for later on. Hope it’s to your liking.

It was signed D and with a big X for a kiss. God, he hoped it wasn’t from Derriman.

He smiled to himself as he put the note back on the bed and picked up the package to sniff at it. It smelt like chicken and he realized he was hungry despite the good lunch he’d had.

He left it by the note on the bed and mentally thanked Delphine for being so thoughtful. The marked kiss, despite his self-imposed reservations, was a bonus.

Opening up his suitcase, he began assembling the equipment he required for his investigation that night. For this opening stratagem he needed only basic kit: a brushed cotton multi-pocket gilet, the type serious anglers might use (he slipped it on before his field jacket so that now he had more pockets than he would ever need, but it would serve as an extra layer during the cold hours). He’d be taking with him a Nite MX10 wristwatch with gaseous Tritium self-powered light sources that made the dials brighter than luminescent paint; a digital nightsight with a direct video output so that whatever was happening could be viewed on a tiny battery-powered television screen; another powerful torch, impact- and water-resistant, that used capacitor technology so that it took a mere ninety seconds to recharge fully; next came a folding steel walking stick, so it could be either hand-held or tucked away in one of the jacket’s deeper pockets; and a fully automatic ‘wildlife’ infrared camera that could wirelessly transmit pictures to a remote monitor; finally, he picked a short LED torch with flood-to-spot beam.

Left in the suitcase were a set of ultra-powerful 12 km range walkie-talkies, a pocket monocular, and a fibre-optic flexiscope, used for inspecting nooks and crannies, or any fissures that might prove interesting.

These were all instruments that could come in useful for his night vigil, but there were other pieces of equipment he chose not to use on this initial surveillance, such as an electrometer (for measuring electromagnetism) which he often found too sensitive to the static in one’s own body to be truly useful. The voice- or noise-activated tape recorder would be a must when he really got down to the job the following night, as would thermometers, barometers (for measuring atmospheric pressure), motion sensors, and other miscellaneous apparatus. Talcum powder, graphs, chalk, coloured pencils, transparent tape, cotton, were all standard paranormal search equipment, and all devices required for a psychic study, but again, unnecessary for this night: he still wanted to get a ‘feel’ of the castle, rather than exact proof of ghostly, nocturnal activity.

As an afterthought, he lifted out a thermal scanning gun which could measure cold spots from a distance of thirty metres.

Before leaving, he mixed an absinthe and water and downed it in one.
It’s going to be a long lonely night
, Ash thought to himself as the drink momentarily warmed his chest. And the big question was, would he find ghosts roaming the hallways and chambers of Comraich Castle? Or any evidence at all of a haunting, and a particularly malign haunting at that? Outside the window was an almost full moon, the huge courtyard below washed silver, the gardens and woods a monotone grey that if stared at too long would induce all kinds of immobile images to the over-imaginative. But he wouldn’t allow mental vagaries to take hold, wouldn’t let his own fears govern his thoughts. He would come to this situation as he had others in the past: his professionalism would dictate his actions, former events of a similar nature wouldn’t be allowed to feed his fear.