The Secret of Crickley Hall

  Warming to the subject – and to Mummy’s further chagrin – Dad had told her: ‘If your opponent is much bigger than you, or there’s more of ’em, never, but never, take it outside. In a room you got furniture to throw, chairs to use as a shield or to whack their heads with, walls to back up against, tables you can push ’em over, and even bits and pieces – say like vases or ornaments – you can throw at the other guy, make ’em back off.’

  Mummy realized Dad was half fooling around, but she was angry anyway. Violence could never be an answer, she’d said, and Dad had winked at Loren.

  As it happened, the bully girl in question was removed from the school after it was discovered that she was forcing girls even younger than Loren to hand over their dinner money and pocket money. Also, a supply teacher’s purse had gone missing from her handbag and the bully girl was discovered in the girls’ toilets counting out the change by another teacher. So, much to Loren’s relief (and her parents’), the problem was resolved. Whether or not she would have had the courage to ‘punch the bully’s lights out’, as Gabe would have it, was another matter entirely.

  But two years later, on a damp Monday afternoon in October, she had certainly used the tactic on Seraphina Blaney. To her dismay, Loren had found herself in the same class at Merrybridge Middle School as the girl she had met – acrimoniously – just before. She remembered her in the store at Hollow Bay, a big girl, stocky, with a face that might have been pretty had the jaw not been too heavy, the forehead too bulbous and the thin lips too scowling.

  The moment they set eyes on each other, which was when Loren was being introduced to the class by the teacher, Loren knew she was in for a hard time. Her eyes had locked with Seraphina’s, and Loren had recognized the girl who had stared at her with such spite on Saturday. Seraphina had whispered something to the girl sitting next to her and they had both sniggered into their hands. It had turned into a bad day.

  Loren had been subjected to mean stares and flicked elastic bands to the back of her neck throughout lessons. At lunchtime, Seraphina, seated at a table, had deliberately stuck out a foot as Loren passed by with her tray of food; Loren had stumbled, tipped the tray, and the full plate on it had skittered across the floor. Losing the macaroni with cheese and jacket potato wasn’t the worst part: it was the humiliation that turned her face beet-red in front of the school that Loren hated.

  It hadn’t ended there. Throughout the rest of the afternoon Loren had been subjected to hissed name-calling, masticated paper pellets aimed at her whenever the teacher’s back was turned and pathetic take-offs of her London accent. Fortunately, Seraphina appeared only to have a small coterie of friends to enjoy the tormenting; most of the other pupils were friendly and curious about her in a good way.

  She managed to make a friend of another girl from Hollow Bay, a shy little thing those name was Tessa Windle. They had connected when Tessa had helped Loren pick up the remains of her lunch after Seraphina had tripped her. She was the same age as Loren, but seemed a year younger; her Devonian accent was slight and her manner gentle. By the end of the school day, she and Loren had become firm friends.

  With an exaggerated flourish the driver drew back the blue people-carrier’s passenger door.

  ‘All aboard who’s goin’ aboard,’ he called out to the mass of blue-uniformed pupils spilling out of the school gates. Members of his boarding party broke off from the main crowd, skirting round waiting mothers and fathers, arriving at the minibus in groups of two and three, eight of them in all for the journey home to Hollow Bay. Loren, with her new friend Tessa, waited as three boys ahead of them climbed into the vehicle, while the driver looked her over with an unattractive grin. His teeth were yellow, each one isolated from its neighbour by a discernible gap that emphasized their crookedness. Long, lank hair fell to his narrow dandruffy shoulders and he scratched an unshaven chin as he appraised the unfamiliar passenger.

  ‘You’ll be the new ’un, will yer?’ He scrutinized Loren’s face as if suspecting her of carrying some contagious disease that might infect his regulars. ‘Laura Caleigh, ’ennit? I was told to expect an extra passenger this afternoon.’

  ‘Loren.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘My name’s Loren.’

  ‘Laura, Loren. Same thing.’

  She wanted to tell him it wasn’t – her name was Loren, not Laura; there was a difference, but she didn’t like the smell of his rank breath so didn’t want to open up a dialogue.

  She made to move past him but he said, ‘My name’s Frank. You can call me Mr Mulley, all right?’ Awroit. ‘In yer get then. No messin’ about when I’m drivin’, okay?’

  Loren was about to follow Tessa into the bus when a stocky arm blocked her way. Seraphina Blaney glared at her.

  ‘After me, grockle.’ She gave Loren a shove.

  Grockle, Loren knew, was a derogatory term for tourist or outsider. The girl with Seraphina gave a chortling snort, while Seraphina herself gave Loren a tight-lipped contemptuous smile. Loren chose not to respond and waited as the big girl and her friend climbed aboard. She followed them in, another breathless, older girl arriving and climbing in behind her.

  The minibus was not full: the three boys took up the back seats, an empty double-seat in front of them where the last girl to arrive sat; Seraphina and her friend occupied the next seats right behind Tessa. Loren took the seat next to her. Nobody, apparently, wanted the seat closest to the driver. Loren and Tessa balanced their school bags on their knees, Loren glad that the school day was over; it would almost be a relief to get back to Crickley Hall.

  Frank Mulley pushed the passenger door shut with a loud sliding thud, then walked round to the driver’s side and got in. Wrists resting over the top of the steering wheel, he craned his head round and silently counted off his passengers, lips mouthing each number. When his eyes met with Loren’s, he gave her a smirky wink and, although she shuddered inside, she returned a polite smile. He engaged gear and the people-carrier pulled away from the kerb and soon turned into the town’s main thoroughfare.

  ‘What yer sittin’ next to her for?’ Seraphina dug stiff fingers into Tessa’s shoulder. ‘She yer new best friend? Like grockles, do yer?’

  Tessa shrugged her shoulder away from the other girl’s touch as Loren glanced round.

  ‘What yer lookin’ at, skanky?’ This time the fingers jabbed at Loren’s shoulder. ‘Think yer better than us, do yer?’

  Tessa leaned into Loren and whispered, ‘Take no notice. She’s even worse when her brother’s with her. Quentin’s on suspension for two weeks for fighting. It’s usually Seraphina who gets him into trouble.’

  They both giggled together, more out of nervousness than pleasure.

  Seraphina wasn’t pleased about that. ‘You laughin’ at me?’ She dug into Tessa again, harder this time, using her knuckles.

  Tessa shrugged her shoulder away once more, but the girl behind persisted, this time punching Loren’s shoulder.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ Loren said, half afraid, half annoyed.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ Seraphina mimicked in a whining voice. ‘Why?’ Woy? ‘What yer gonna do about it?’ Her head did the Bombay shuffle, her neck flexing first to the right, then to the left and then to the right again, head held upright throughout.

  Loren turned her back on her and stared ahead. They were passing through the outskirts of the town now, leaving shops and offices behind, many of the dwellings on either side of the road made of flint or quarry stone. Loren feigned interest in the landscape, which was beginning to open up, fields of heather and bracken glimpsed between breaks in the high hedges, with low sullen hills and clouded skies brooding above it all. Raindrops spattered the windows, but there was not much force to them. Throughout the day the rain had seemed to tease, falling in thick flurries one minute, drizzling lightly the next. The gloom that came with the inclement weather somehow nurtured the despondency she felt. It had been a rotten day, even more rotten that she had expected it to be,
and it was Seraphina Blaney who had made it worse.

  Loren clutched her bag and tried to ignore her tormentor. Those in the bus were aware of what was going on – the taunting of this newcomer, an outsider, a grockle – and some, namely the boys on the back seat and the girl sitting alongside the bully, laughed along with Seraphina’s snide remarks; others, though – Tessa and the girl who had entered the minibus behind Loren – looked out of the windows and tried to ignore what was happening. As for Loren, she wanted to cry.

  She felt more nudging on her back, each nudge harder than the one before, but she refused to retaliate. She calmed herself with the thought that it was only a short journey, no more than fifteen minutes or so, and soon it would be over and she’d be back with her family . . . in Crickley Hall. The thought of the cold, shadowy house failed to elevate her mood: it depressed her even more. But she felt the mood turning to anger. The bully’s jibes were now including a fresh victim, Loren’s ‘spazzie’ little sister. Loren began to burn.

  But it was her new friend, Tessa, who snapped.

  ‘Just stop it, Seraphina Blaney. Leave Loren alone. She’s done nothing to you.’

  The boys on the back seat laughed aloud and for a moment the tormentor was stunned into silence. Then she rose from her seat, stretched herself over Tessa’s shoulder, grabbed Tessa’s school bag and emptied the contents into the bus’s narrow side aisle. The books spilled out onto the floor and under the seats, pages flapping and pens and pencils clattering, then rolling. Tessa was aghast – and frightened.

  And now it was Loren who snapped.

  There was no need to remind herself of her father’s advice regarding bullies – what took place seemed to happen naturally (and if she’d taken time to think, then probably it wouldn’t have happened at all).

  Seraphina was still standing between seats, a broad gloating grin on her face, her friend beside her snickering into her hand, the boys behind uncertain and quiet. Her head had just began to turn towards Loren, her small, deep-set eyes glittering with malice, when Loren’s balled fist, thumb on the outside, bent level with the knuckles, smashed into the pudgy part of Seraphina’s nose.

  Loren was disappointed, because she’d been aiming at the bridge of the big girl’s nose, right between the eyes as advised; nevertheless, the blow had more effect than she ever would have dreamed. Blood immediately spurted out of Seraphina’s nostrils, two bright red jets that splattered her mouth and jaw. Tears sprung into her eyes as she rocked back, the contact between the seat and the back of her knees forcing her legs to buckle so that she had no other choice but to sit. In shock, she stayed down, her fleshy hand cupping the blood that poured from her nose.

  The friend next to her stared in horrified awe. One of the boys on the back seat breathlessly said, ‘Wow.’ Apart from that, there was no other sound inside the minibus. Until the boys started to applaud.

  26: CONVERSATIONS

  ‘You did what?’ Gabe stared at Loren in disbelief and there was a hint of amusement in his open-mouthed gape.

  He had returned home from work and barely had time to discard his coat before Loren came into the hall from the kitchen, followed by Eve, who had told her what she had to do: own up to Dad.

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’ Loren shook her head as though her actions earlier on the school bus were a mystery even to herself. ‘It just happened.’

  ‘You whacked her?’ He was incredulous; he had never known his elder daughter to use violence before.

  ‘She knocked Tessa’s school bag to the floor.’

  ‘And Tessa is . . .?’

  ‘She’s my new friend at school. She lives in the village and we sat next to each other on the bus coming home. Seraphina deliberately tipped Tessa’s bag out so that everything fell on the floor.’

  Gabe looked over Loren’s shoulder at Eve, who stood grim-faced, arms folded, behind her. He thought he might find a suggestion of a smile, but Eve had no intention of encouraging him or Loren.

  ‘I couldn’t help it, Dad,’ Loren went on. ‘I just did what you taught me without thinking.’

  Eve gave a disapproving shake of her head, her eyes glaring at Gabe, as if it was entirely his fault that Loren had punched Seraphina Blaney on the nose.

  ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ he said indignantly, his blue eyes wide as he returned Eve’s accusatory glare. ‘You can’t pin this on me. Sounds to me if anyone’s to blame it’s this other kid, Seraphina.’ He remembered where he had first heard the unsuitable name. ‘Isn’t she the big girl who was in the store the other day with her brother?’

  Loren looked ashamedly down at the stone floor. She slowly nodded her head. ‘Tessa said Quentin’s been suspended for two weeks for fighting in school. Dad, Seraphina was picking on me all day.’

  ‘Then you did good.’

  ‘Gabe!’ Eve was in despair.

  ‘The other kid had it coming. Loren did right to defend herself and her friend.’

  ‘Violence is never an answer,’ Eve huffed.

  ‘No, you’re right,’ Gabe agreed sheepishly, at the same time giving Loren a surreptitious wink.

  Eve wasn’t fooled. ‘I saw that. I mean it. Punching someone – especially another girl – doesn’t solve anything. Loren will only have to deal with the situation again tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m guessing not,’ asserted Gabe. ‘Seraphina will have had enough.’

  ‘You don’t know that. Hitting her might only have made matters worse.’

  Gabe saw that it would be pointless to continue defending his daughter. And he certainly didn’t want it to sound like he was countenancing what she’d done (Eve would kill him if he did).

  ‘How’s your hand?’ he asked Loren.

  She held up her right hand so that he could see. ‘I thought I’d broken some bones, but it’s all right now, just a bit sore.’

  Gabe couldn’t help chuckling as he examined her knuckles. ‘That must’ve been some punch.’

  ‘I made her nose bleed.’

  ‘You kept your thumb on the outside like I told you? You didn’t tuck it inside your fist?’

  ‘Gabe, will you stop this.’ There was no humour whatsoever in Eve’s expression. ‘You shouldn’t be giving her boxing lessons.’

  ‘Hey, I’m making sure Loren doesn’t break any of her own bones.’

  ‘She’s a girl. She’s not supposed to fight. And if it comes to that, nor should boys. It’s uncivilized.’

  Gabe held up both hands in submission. ‘Okay, you win. It was a bad thing and Loren won’t do it again. Right, Slim?’

  Loren nodded her head and Eve softened. ‘But you’ll let us know if this girl tries to bully you again, you hear me?’

  Again, Loren nodded. ‘Yes, Mum,’ she said. But she and her father exchanged a secret smile.

  Gabe stamped his feet on the rough mat just inside the kitchen door, shedding wet mud from his boots. Loren, who had accompanied him in the search for Chester, was already hanging her coat on the rack by the door.

  Eve appraised Gabe anxiously and he shook his head. ‘No luck,’ he told her. ‘No sign of him anywhere.’

  Cally looked distraught and Loren went to Eve for a hug. Arms round Loren’s shoulders, Eve said: ‘What are we going to do?’

  Gabe slipped off his coat and hung it beside Loren’s. ‘He might turn up on his own, either tonight or some time tomorrow. I’ll make another search in the morning, a better one in the daylight.’

  ‘Our London telephone number is on his collar. If someone finds Chester they won’t be able to reach us.’

  ‘I’ll ring the local police if I don’t find him in the morning. And we’ll tell Percy to keep a lookout. I’m sure he’ll pass the word on to the locals, so there’ll be plenty keeping an eye out for the mutt. We’ll get Chester back, don’t you worry.’

  ‘What’s changed your mind?’ Gabe was bewildered. ‘A coupla days ago you didn’t like Crickley Hall, you couldn’t wait for us to pack our bags and leave.’

  Gabe and Eve were
in the sitting room. A fire blazed in the hearth, but Gabe had to lean forward in his armchair to catch any warmth. Eve sat opposite him on the couch and she, too, leaned forward, a mug of coffee in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. His coffee mug stood on a coaster close by his foot.

  She did not know how to respond to Gabe’s question. Blurting out that she’d seen ghosts here wouldn’t do at all, because he would demand some kind of evidence of their existence and how could you prove something that wasn’t real? He had not been witness to the dancing children; he had not felt Cam’s hand soothing his brow.

  ‘Come on, Eve, something must’ve changed your mind, so help me, tell me what it is.’ He couldn’t conceal his exasperation.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gabe. It’s difficult to explain.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I just feel we need time to get used to the place.’

  ‘That’s what I said the other day and you wouldn’t listen. It’s cold and it’s damp, and we keep hearing strange noises. And don’t forget Chester – something here scared the hell out of the poor mutt. We don’t need this kind of thing at this point in our lives. We got enough to worry about.’ His tone changed, dropped in pitch. ‘Look, I could see the agent tomorrow, see what else he’s got on his books. We could probably be out by the end of the week. What d’you say?’

  ‘Let’s give it more time.’ What she meant was give her more time, time to discover the meaning of the haunting, time to find out if it had anything to do with their missing son. She thought of a compromise. ‘Let’s wait just a few more days. If you still feel the same by then we’ll move.’

  ‘I can’t help thinking that it should be me arguing with you to stay. That’s how it was before. Why can’t you tell me what’s happened to change your mind?’