The Secret of Crickley Hall (2 page)

'Good thing you decided to come along then,' Gabe responded with only mild teasing.

Thank you,' he added seriously, looking directly into his eldest daughter's eyes, and she knew he was thanking her for more than just watching over Chester.

'Okay, Dad.'

He realized at that moment that he missed the extra 'd' and the 'y' at the end of 'Dad' and wondered when it had started happening. Was Loren, his princess, growing up so fast that he hadn't noticed? With a jab of melancholy that perhaps only fathers of growing daughters can know (sons were way different, except to doting mothers), he swung back in his seat, glancing at Eve as he did so. There was a moistness to her gaze as she studied the big house on the other side of the bridge.

'You'll like it more when the sun comes out,' he promised her softly.

'Daddy, can we get out?' came Cally's pleading voice again. Cally was seven years junior to Loren and now the same age as Cameron when he'd disappeared almost a year ago. Five. They'd lost their son when he was only five years old.

'Put your hats on first. It might pour again.' Eve was instructing them all, Gabe included. He reached into the glove compartment for his woollen beanie, pulling it down half over his ears against the chill he knew waited beyond the cosy warmth of the Range Rover. Eve checked their daughters were following suit before pulling the hood of her rainproof jacket over her own dark hair.

Beneath her untidy fringe lay deep-brown eyes that until a year ago had reflected warmth and a sly humour; but now grief had shadowed them and dulled their vibrancy so that feelings were no longer exposed, were curtained by perdurable sorrow. As the girls obeyed hat orders and reached for door latches, Chester standing on the seat and pawing at Cally's shoulder to get past her, Eve stepped out of the SUV and surveyed Crickley Hall once more.

She heard Chester's yelp and Cally's whoop as they tumbled out of the other side of the vehicle and something bit into her heart as child and pet headed straight for the wet bridge.

'Gabe,' she said apprehensively, drawing in a sharp breath.

'S'okay.' Louder, at Cally: 'Hey, rein in, Scout. Wait for us.'

Cally skidded to a halt on the wet planks of the short bridge, but Chester continued, yapping with pleasure at the sudden release, only pausing when he was halfway across the lawn. The child's swing close by stirred in the slight breeze. The dog looked back over his shoulder uncertainly.

Eve eyed the rough latticework of the bridge, then the beleaguered riverbanks. They would all have to keep a watch on Cally: the diamond-shaped openings between the diagonal struts were wide enough for a child to slip through on the deck made greasy by rain and spray, and the riverbanks were not fenced, their edges unstable. Cally would have to be warned never to use the bridge or go near the water on her own. They could not lose another child. Dear God, they mustn't lose another child. Eve raised a hand to her mouth as a latent sob caught in her throat.

Gabe hunkered down in his black reefer jacket, collar turned up round his ears, which were mostly covered by the beanie, and hurried towards their youngest daughter, while Loren followed just behind. Cally waited midway across the bridge, unsure whether she'd been silly or naughty. She looked questioningly at her approaching father and smiled when she saw him grinning. He scooped her up in his arms and together, Loren pausing to wait for Eve, they left the bridge and walked towards the tall grey house.

The building was constructed of simple dull-grey granite blocks, even the quoins at each corner and the windowsills of the same drab shade. Most of the other old and largish residences they passed in the last half hour or so of their journey had been built with limestone or sandstone, even flint: none had been as plain, nor as dour, as this place. The only embellishment, such as it was, seemed to be the shallow pilasters on either side of the huge nail-studded door, these bridged by an equally plain stone lintel which offered precious little cover for any visitor waiting in the rain on the two meagre cracked steps that led up to the entrance.

There were four sizeable windows to the ground floor, with six smaller windows along the upper storey, and four more even smaller dormer windows jutting from the slope of the slate roof, the slope itself quickly squaring off to accommodate four brick chimney stacks.

Eve frowned. Crickley Hall's architect either had a limited imagination or was hindered by budgetary constraints.

A rough-edged, sparsely gravelled pathway angled from the end of the bridge towards the house's main entrance, joining with a perimeter walkway which was also a mixture of mud and thinly layered stones. The sheer gorge wall of lush vegetation that towered over the grey building somehow should have cowed it, yet failed to do so: Crickley Hall's brooding presence was unequivocal.

Eve kept the thought to herself: this place was not just grim—it was ugly.

A little way off to the right, with bushes and tree branches on the gorge wall louring over its flat roof, stood a small garden shed whose weather-worn planking was turned dark by the rain.

'Come on, Mummy!' Cally and Gabe were almost at the front door to the house and Cally had called over her shoulder. The two of them waited for Eve and Loren to catch up.

Chester, who was still poised by the gently swaying swing, lingered until they drew level, then trotted alongside.

'Have you got the key ready?' Eve called out to Gabe, a drop of rain spatting against her cheek.

'The key will be in the door. The estate manager had cleaners in this morning to make sure the place is bright and sparkling.'

As they stood together on the two long but low steps, Eve realized that the broad, nail-studded, worn oak door seemed to be from a different era than that of the plain building and she wondered if the wider than usual portal had been designed to accommodate it; the door might well have been reclaimed from some ancient demolished manor house or monastery, with its almost gothic leopard-head iron door knocker. She watched as Gabe made great ceremony of pressing the big china-white doorbell that was surrounded by a ring of discoloured brass between the wall and right-hand pilaster. They all heard a rusty electric brurrr from inside.

'What are you doing?' she asked.

'Just letting the ghosts know we're here, hon.'

'Dad, there's no such thing,' chided Loren, indignant again.

'Sure of that?'

Eve was impatient. 'Come on, Gabe, open up.' She wondered if the inside was as austere as the exterior.

Gabe pushed at the huge central doorknob with his right hand and, without a single creak, the heavy door swung open.

2: CRICKLEY HALL

'Cooool.'

It was a drawn-out sound of awe from Loren.

Gabe smiled at Eve. 'Not too shabby, huh?' he asked, giving her a moment or so to be impressed.

'I never expected…' she began. 'It's…' She faltered again.

'Something, right?' Gabe said.

'From the outside I thought it'd be a mean interior. Roomy, but, you know… kind of skimpy.'

'Yeah, doesn't figure at all, does it?'

No, it didn't figure at all, thought Eve. The entrance had opened onto a vast galleried hall that rose beyond the first floor, which itself was marked by a balustraded landing running round two sides of the room.

'It must take up half the house,' she said, eyes raised to the beamed ceiling high above and the cast-iron chandelier that hung from its centre. The chandelier resembled a black upturned claw.

'The rest of the place isn't as fancy,' Gabe told her. 'To your left there's the kitchen and sitting room; those double doors directly ahead lead to a long drawing room.' He gestured upwards with his chin. 'Bedrooms are off the balcony, left and centre. There's plenty to choose from.'

She pointed to a ground-floor door he had missed. It stood near the kitchen door, an old-fashioned chiffonier between them, and it was slightly ajar. She could see only a thick blackness beyond. 'You didn't say what's through there.'

For some reason—for safety probably, because there was a steep descending staircase just inside—this door opened into the hall, unlike the other doors, and Gabe strode over to it and firmly pushed it shut. 'Leads to the cellar,' he said over his shoulder. 'Cally, you keep away from this door, okay?'

Their daughter stopped swirling round for a moment, her eyes fixed on the chandelier. 'Okay, Daddy,' she said distractedly.

'I mean it. You don't go down there without one of us with you, y'hear?'

'Yes, Daddy.' She swirled on, trying to make herself dizzy, and Eve wondered why Gabe's instruction was so stern.

She ventured further into the hall, Loren following, leaving Cally behind by the open entrance door, now swaying unsteadily. To the right a broad wooden staircase led up to the gallery landing, its lower section turning at right angles towards the hall's centre. From the turn that formed a small square lower landing, there towered an almost ceiling-high drapeless window through which poor daylight entered. Dull though the light was, it nevertheless brightened much of the hall's oak-panelled walls and flagstone floor. Eve allowed her gaze to wander.

A few uninteresting and time-grimed landscape paintings were hung round the room and two carved oak chairs with burgundy upholstery stood on either side of the double doors to the drawing room. Apart from these, though, there was precious little other furniture in evidence—a narrow console table against the wall between the doors to the cellar and the sitting room, a dark-wood sideboard beneath the stairs, a circular torchère with an empty vase on top in the corner of the carpetless lower landing, and that appeared to be it. Oh, and an umbrella stand by the front door.

There was, however, a wide and deep open fireplace, its iron grate filled with dry logs, set into the wall beside the staircase and Eve hoped it would bring some much needed cheer—not to mention warmth—to the huge room when lit. She gave an involuntary shiver and folded her arms across her midriff, hands hugging in her elbows.

Because of the building's unambiguously plain exterior, the hall seemed almost incongruous. It was as if Crickley Hall had had two architects, one for exterior, the other for interior: the architectural dichotomy was puzzling.

Gabe joined her at the centre of the hall. 'I don't want to disappoint you, but it's like I said: the rest isn't so fancy. The drawing room's pretty bleak—it takes up the whole rear part of the ground floor—and it's empty, no furniture at all. The kitchen's no more'n functional, and everything else is just okay. Oh, the sitting room's not too bad.'

'Good. I was worried I'd be overwhelmed by it all. So long as the other rooms are comfortable.' She peered up at the galleried landing. 'You mentioned the bedrooms…'

'We can take our pick. I figure the one directly opposite the stairway will suit us—it's a fair size and there's a big four-poster bed that goes with it. No canopy, but it's kinda quaint—you'll love it. The room next door'll be fine for the girls. Close to us and with their own beds from home. But there's other rooms to choose from.' He indicated more doors that were visible through the balustrade on the left-hand side of the landing. 'We can jostle beds around, see what suits.' He raised his eyebrows at her. 'So what d'you think? It'll do?'

She settled his apprehension with a smile; Gabe was trying
too
hard these days. 'I'm sure it's going to be okay for a short while, Gabe. Thank you for finding the place.'

He took her in his arms and brushed her cheek with his lips. 'It'll give us a chance, Eve. Y'know?'

A chance to forget? No, nothing will ever do that. She remained silent and held on to him. Then she shivered again and pulled away.

He looked at her questioningly. 'You all right?'

It wasn't the chill in the air, she told herself. It was the pressure of all these past months. Too much trying to live a normal life, not for her own sake, but for the girls, for Gabe. Relentless grief and… and guilt. It was those spiteful shards that caused her to shiver, spiking her whenever she forgot for a moment.

'I just felt a draught,' she lied.

Unconvinced—it was plain in his expression—Gabe left her to go to the open front door.

'Hey,' she heard him say behind her. 'What's up, fella?' Eve turned to see him squatting down in front of a shivering Chester. The dog stood in the open doorway, his rear legs still on the outside step.

'Come on, Chester, get in here,' Gabe coaxed easily. 'Your butt is gonna get soaked.' It had begun to rain in earnest again.

Cally trotted over to the dog and patted his head. 'You'll catch a cold,' she told Chester, who shuffled his front paws and gave a little whine.

Gabe lifted him gently and stroked the back of his neck. The puling began again but Gabe carried Chester across the threshold and used a foot to nudge the door shut behind them. The trembling dog began to struggle.

'Easy, Chester,' Gabe soothed. 'You gotta get used to the place.'

Chester disagreed. He tried to get free, squirming his wiry body in Gabe's arms, so that Gabe was forced to put him back on the floor. The dog scuttled back to the front door and began to scrabble at it with his paws.

'Hey, quit it.' Gabe pulled him away from the door but did not attempt to pick him up again. Cally and Loren looked on with concern.

'Chester doesn't like it here,' Loren said anxiously.

Eve slipped an arm round her daughter's shoulder. 'It's just a bit strange to him, that's all,' she said. 'You wait, by tonight he'll be treating Crickley Hall like he's lived here all his life.'

Loren looked up at her mother. 'He's afraid of this place,' she announced gravely.

'Oh, Loren, that's nonsense. Chester's always been skittish about new things. He'll soon get used to it.' Eve smiled, but it was forced. Maybe Chester sensed something that she, herself, had sensed the moment she'd set foot inside. The
something
that had made her shiver a few moments ago.

There was something not quite right about Crickley Hall.