The Ghost House (15 page)

How I longed to be a housemaid again. I used to think that I would never finish my chores and that I was so badly done to. Ha! How little did I know? Carrying heavy buckets of soapy water to scrub the stairs and spending all day on my hands and knees polishing floors until they sparkled, the thought of that life appeals to me so much more than being the beaten wife of the master of the house.

Edward got up this morning and never spoke a word to me: no apologies for his behaviour this time. Harold loaded the horse and carriage and I watched from the schoolroom window as Edward climbed in and did not even turn around to see if I was there.

I still catch my breath when I look at him for he is such a handsome man. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure that my life is real. I think back to last year when everything was so perfect and he knew nothing but passion for me: I miss it so much. Deep down in my heart I know that I love him even though at the moment I am also terrified of him. I understand that he may still be grieving and things are difficult for him. Despite everything that he keeps doing to me I still feel a sense of duty towards him for he is my husband.

I went downstairs to the kitchen knowing that it would be safe for me to do so now he had left. As I reached the door I overheard Cook gossiping to Alfie about things not being so perfect for the housekeeper’s daughter now. I bowed my head and walked away not wanting to hear any more of her spiteful gossip. I did not want to see the pity or even scorn on Alfie’s face and I did not want to hear them say what they were all thinking: ‘Who did you think you were, Alice Hughes?’

I have no idea what I am to do about my predicament and have no one that I can turn to. I just hope and pray that once Edward has time to think things over in London that he will calm down and call me to beg my forgiveness.

I would give anything to confide in Alfie like I used to but he makes himself busy when I enter the room. Cook informed me he is returning to the army tomorrow.

Last night I dreamed about a life with Alfie. I know that he loves children because he talks about his sisters with great fondness. I am trapped in this most beautiful house with a man who does not love me and, in fact, I fear he loathes me more than anything else. I can only be thankful that Edward spends so much of his time in London for I dread to think what kind of life I should lead if he lived here all the time.

I could stand it no longer and went to find Alfie. He was outside in the greenhouse tending to the plants for Thomas the gardener. He looked at me for the first time in days and I could see the shock register on his face. I had not realised until this point exactly how dreadful I looked. He asked me what I was doing talking to him when it was obvious Edward – he almost spat the word out – had told me I was not allowed to. There was so much I wanted to say to him but instead I began to cry like a pitiful little girl. Alfie put down the watering can and walked over towards me. He paused, unsure what to do but then he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. I felt foolish but I could not stop myself. Everything I had bottled up seemed to come out in those tears. I rested my head on his chest.

After a while he led me to our broken bench and once again we sat down on it and I poured out my heart to him. I told him of the beatings which Edward gave to me; he made me roll up my sleeves to look at the bruises on my arms. He was so angry at Edward but still his eyes stayed the calmest of blue. He kissed my bruised arms tenderly and my eyes filled with tears once more. I told him that I was with a child that Edward did not want and I told him of my longing to be in servitude once more. This made Alfie laugh and he told me that I was never cut out to be a servant in the first place. He told me how beautiful I was and how he had loved me from the very first day I had walked into the house when I was nine years old and he had been twelve. He said I had hid behind my mother’s long skirts and had tears falling down my cheeks that day because I had fallen over onto the gravel drive and cut my knee. The long forgotten memories rushed back and we sat there for hours talking until we were both ravenous and had to go back inside. Alfie told me that he had to go back to the army but when he was next home he would help me pack up my belongings and move away with him, somewhere as far away from Abbey Wood as possible. He told me he would love the child as if it were his own because it was part of me. We would tell the people where we moved that we were married and that no one would have to know any different because it was our secret.

For the first time in months I felt as if my life could have a happy ending, just like in the fairytale books I used to read. Alfie pulled me from the bench and kissed me. It was wonderful and it felt as if our lips were meant to be together, like two pieces of a puzzle. Horse’s hooves in the distance made us pull apart and I feared that Edward had returned. I ran from the greenhouse back to the house, my stomach a tight knot. I waited in the library, watching to see who it was. Much to my relief it was the grocer making his weekly delivery for Cook. Much later on I found Alfie and made him promise never to speak of our plans to anyone for I know that if Edward were to find out he would kill the both of us, of this I have no doubt. Alfie took my hand and lifted it to his lips. Kissing it tenderly he promised it would be our secret until the day we left and never came back.

As I write this, my heart feels so much lighter. Now that I have unburdened my soul, I know that Alfie will take care of us both and I will not have to fear for my unborn baby’s life with him. I am making plans and for the first time I feel that there is hope. I will gather only the important things that I need and store them in my mother’s old trunk in my attic room. I will have to ask Mr Ernest how I withdraw the money that was left to me but I will not do this until I know the date that Alfie is coming home to fetch me in case he alerts Edward, although I feel I will be able to buy his silence for he is a strange little man.

Alfie left this morning and with him he took all of my heart, not just the small piece that has always belonged to him. I watched him from the schoolroom window as I did not want Cook to see me waving him goodbye for she cannot help herself from making idle gossip. How ironic this was the parting that should have been between Edward and myself yesterday. Instead there had only been relief that I would suffer no more pain until his next visit home.

As the carriage moved away Alfie turned to look up at the window. He blew me a kiss which I caught and blew straight back. He gave me that boyish grin that I love so much, and my heart filled with joy. I am so fortunate that he is still willing to love me even though I let Edward into my life when all along it should have been him. I am so thankful that he has found it in his heart to forgive me. I will make him the happiest man on earth and take care of him like he deserves. I have not once seen Alfie’s eyes turn black with anger and hatred. They always remain the purest of blue; so still and gentle like the calmest sea.

Derek drove into town to the police station with butterflies in his stomach. He parked in the public car park opposite and fed his money into the machine for a ticket. It could be a while before he got to speak to someone. He walked to the main entrance and plucked up the courage to go inside the building. There was a row of bright blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor. Sitting on them were two young girls who were bickering over a lost phone. He stepped close to the glass counter and pressed the bell. A woman came through immediately with a smile on her face, her name badge said ‘Lena’. Derek smiled back.

‘Hello, my dear, I wonder if I could speak to a police officer in private please. I’m very sorry I can’t disclose what the matter is to you.’

She nodded. ‘That’s fine, don’t worry about that, can I take your name and I’ll get someone to come and speak to you.’ He told her his name and she asked him to take a seat. He sat down as far away from the two girls as possible: they were still arguing. After only ten minutes a young woman opened the heavy wooden door next to him and said his name. Derek stood up and smiled at her, then followed her through the door into a small interview room with a table, four chairs and a tiny window.

‘Mr Edmondson my name is Sally. I’m a community support officer. Would you like to tell me what the problem is?’

‘Well, this is going to sound as if I’m mad and believe me I’m embarrassed to have to come here and say it but I am not mad and I really need to tell someone about it and you, my dear, have drawn the short straw. There is a woman I met who needs help and I don’t know anything about her except her name is probably Annie. You see I’m a psychic medium and she came to a meeting at a spiritualist church last week. I got a message from my spirit guide about her and it was a serious one.’

Sally wrote it all down on a scrap of paper. ‘Go on, Mr Edmondson, I’m listening.’

‘Well, I can’t get her out of my mind and I know something terrible is going to happen. I need to find her so I can help her. I think I have her car registration or something similar. If I gave it to you would you be able to trace her and check that she is alright and pass a message on from me? I understand I’m asking a lot but I can’t stress how important this is, her life may be in danger.’

‘I can do a check on the registration which will give me her name and address but I’m afraid I can’t give that information out to you, sir, it’s confidential. But I can ask the area officer to call and pass your contact details onto her. Would that be OK? I’m sorry but it’s the best I can do.’

The tightness that had been gripping his chest the last few days subsided a little. ‘She drives a red mini with a black soft top, it has two racing stripes on the bonnet and the registration is similar to ANN 1E.’

The officer stood abruptly. ‘If you could just bear with me, sir, I’ll go and make some enquiries. It won’t take long.’

Sally left the interview room and ran straight around to the CID office, bursting through the door with such force it nearly knocked Will, who was standing on the other side, off his feet.

‘Jesus, Sal, what are you trying to do? Finish me off.’

‘Sorry, Will, there’s a strange guy in interview A. He came in to ask us to trace a woman from a spiritualist church he met last week, reckons she’s in grave danger.’

‘Bollocks, it sounds like just the job for you, Sal. I’m up to my neck in it with missing and dead girls and all that.’

She cut him off. ‘Will, he just gave me a description of Annie Graham’s car and number plate, it’s a private one she bought herself last year.’

Will felt the pie and chips he’d eaten earlier try to force their way back up. He pushed past Sally and dashed around to the interview room: it was empty. He went out into the front office. There were two girls sitting glaring at each other but no one else. He went out onto the front street to look around but it was mid-afternoon and it was busy plus he didn’t have a clue what the man looked like.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Both girls looked his way and grinned. Sally was holding the internal door open for Will to get back in.

‘I only left him for a minute, he can’t have got far.’

‘I need you to get the CCTV from the front office and get CSI to print the pictures out; this could be our guy. We need to identify him and fast. It’s a bit of a coincidence we have one missing girl, one dead girl and he comes in to find out where one of our officers lives.’

‘Will, he said he feared for her safety, that she was in grave danger. He seemed like a decent guy, just a bit strange.’

‘Yeah, well, so did Ted Bundy and he killed at least twenty-eight women.’

They both walked around to the front office where Lena had rewound the CCTV footage of the man sitting on the chairs. She paused it and Will screwed up his eyes.

‘Nope, never seen him before in my life. But we need to find him and quick.’ He began dialling Annie’s number but it went straight to voicemail again and he had to stop himself from throwing his phone at the wall and smashing it into pieces: it was bloody useless.

Derek was back at his car. As soon as the officer had left the room his phone had began to vibrate in his pocket and he knew it was Annie. Not wanting to waste any more of the nice police woman’s time he had left the station and walked back to the car park, oblivious to the world around him he listened to the voicemail. Her voice was so quiet he had to concentrate to hear what she said. A chill went through his body. Whatever it was had started.

Alice knew the house from the outside was a decaying wreck. The exterior looked unloved, making the house look sad. Inside, however, was a different story. There was an atmosphere building more and more each day. It was as if an unseen electrical charge was running throughout it. The shadows that walked the house were getting blacker, denser. Noises could be heard, if you had the inclination, and they came from the cellar.

Upstairs Alice’s solitary white mist wandered the corridors, trying her best to console the recently departed soul of the girl who had been taken from her life so abruptly and without reason. Alice had to make Annie see what was going on in here. When she had first come into the house Alice had felt such a strong connection to her. She had tried her best to show her how the house used to be: in the schoolroom she had placed her diary which had been hidden for over a hundred years in plain view. Alice wasn’t strong enough to stop the monster a second time around and it tormented her that evil was so much stronger than good. All Alice had ever wanted from her life was to be happy and to help others. Instead she had married a maniac, a killer. When she had found the strength to put an end to his murderous ways it had plagued her mind for the rest of her life and she had never truly found the happiness she deserved.

Deep inside, Alice had known from the very beginning that there had been something wrong with Edward. She had loved him so completely but it hadn’t been enough for him. She knew that he had planned everything to within an inch of his life. In the days after his death things had become much clearer to her. The dawning realisation that he had used her because she had been left half of the estate caused her great pain. Instead of turning against her he had fooled her for his gain. She realised that Lady Hannah had not fallen but that her loving son Edward had pushed her to her death. He had engineered the downfall of everyone. Alice had nothing but regrets for her lifetime but hopefully she would be able to change things this time. There was no way she would let Edward loose to torment and kill again and again; he had to be stopped.

Annie was so much like Alice but she had no idea what was at stake. It would be her that would put an end to it all for good. Alice felt herself draining. It was strange, she had never thought about ghosts when she was alive but here she was trapped in the house where she had died for ever with Edward’s evil spirit always lurking around. He kept to the cellar, in the shadows, rarely summoning up the courage to come upstairs into the light. He liked to dwell in the dark, reliving his evil deeds. Alice wasn’t afraid of him anymore but he made her uncomfortable and she would disappear as far as possible when she sensed him nearby. He had a thing for the woman as well: he lurked and watched her. She supposed that if she felt connected to her then he was bound to feel threatened by her. Alice had managed to stop him from doing any real harm to her but it was exhausting and she needed help. She needed someone to come and banish Edward for good and send his soul to hell where he belonged. He should not be roaming around causing heartache and havoc. If her connection to Edward was finally severed maybe she would be reunited with Alfie. Alice sighed and her image faded as a whisper of air rippled through the house.