Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

7.32 p.m. Second Bedroom.

S eventeen minutes behind schedule.

I paused to make some notes while Gaz and the others marched on ahead. Going to the first bedroom before the cellar, as well as Michael’s unexpected arrival, had thrown off my plan for the evening. Still, we were getting back on track and could make the time up easily enough, barring any more unexpected delays.

Wide enough for two people, the main staircase of the lighthouse ran along the inside wall of the tower. The inner rail was the same olive green we’d seen used throughout the lighthouse, but the outer rail was brass. I explained to everyone how keepers would avoid touching the brass rail as they were required to clean it every day. Cleanliness was a vital part of a keeper’s duties. They had to keep the lenses spotless so it made sense to drill the importance of tidiness into them at every turn.

“Yeah,” Dawn said, “that’s what you say, but I bet the bosses realised pretty quickly that having three men living together for months at a time was a recipe for squalor. I bet at the beginning the place would get really manky, really quickly, so they had to come up with something to keep it clean.”

It was a fair point, I thought. The second of the keepers’ rooms was more or less identical to the first. Painted a sickly mustard colour to about halfway up, then white to the ceiling, its exhibits were mainly different photos of the lighthouse, from its construction in 1799 to its automation in 1983. All very interesting, I’m sure, but not what we came to see.

The room also doubled as a sort of library. A thick bookshelf crammed with vintage hardbacks hugged one wall. Dawn eyed the books with a faint air of disdain, as if they were a gang of youths shouting abuse at her, or trying to steal her phone. Shelf after shelf held books on maritime history, lighthouses, seafaring, and even some on fishing.

“It was a popular hobby among keepers. And of course the keepers here would have had a little boat to use for supply runs and the like.” I flicked through the pages of one book detailing the varieties of fish one might expect to catch in that part of the world.

“You know a lot about this stuff.” Michael arched an eyebrow as he spoke.

“Oh, sorry.” My face turned red. “I didn’t mean to step on your toes. You’re the expert, please.” I gestured as if there were a stage for him to take.

He held up his hands. “God, no, no, I don’t know a damn thing about lighthouses. I’ve only been here a handful of times. I don’t care for the sea. The Trust hired me because of my success in fundraising for other charities.”

“Well, this isn’t my first lighthouse ghost hunt.” I clamped the book shut. The thump echoed in the silence of the lighthouse. “I’ve done half a dozen. Just not here. These places are like lightning rods for ghosts. They’ve all got a story or two to tell.”

Gaz nodded towards Michael. “You’re a believer, are you? Have you ever seen anything here? Anything spooky, I mean?”

Michael smiled — he had a lovely smile, did Michael — and shrugged. “Everyone who’s spent any time here has. We’ve all heard footsteps on the stairs or caught something out of the corner of our eye. A few people have heard whistling coming from the lamp room when there was no one else about.”

“I can’t wait to get up there.” Nikesh craned his head as thought he could see through the ceiling and up through the tower to the spinning light above.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Michael said, “but you won’t be getting into the lamp. This is a working lighthouse. All automated nowadays, of course, but it’s off-limits to non-personnel.”

Nikesh’s shoulders slumped. “But it’s a lighthouse. What’s the point of coming to a lighthouse if you can’t see the light?”

Gaz wasn’t letting up. “And do you think all these things have a supernatural cause?”

Michael tilted his head and glanced at me. “Of course. Don’t you?”

Gaz licked his own lip. “I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

Michael stalked about the room like a lion around his pride. “I would have thought having a sceptic on the tour would make things more difficult for Rhys.”

Gaz bristled and widened his stance. What was up with those two? They’d sparked off one another from the moment they met. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think— Ah! God, I can be proper slow on the uptake sometimes. They fancied each other! It was so obvious now.

Michael gestured towards me. “Last night, over dinner, didn’t you say really good hauntings are dependent on the right mood? On willing participants?”

“I did but it’s not a hard and fast rule. And it’s not as if Gaz is pooh-poohing everything.”

“But he is questioning everything. That can’t be helping much.”

Gaz balled his fists. “It’s better than chalking every creak and draught up to the actions of invisible phantoms.”

“There’s nothing wrong with examining things from all angles,” I said. “It doesn’t do a ghosthunter’s credibility any good to declare something haunted when really it’s just mice in the walls, or whatever. And as long as Gaz is receptive to there being a supernatural force at work, we’re all good! Aren’t we?”

Gaz and Michael stared at each other. Ooh, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife!

At the end of the bed stood a wicker basket with a pair of black leather shoes set neatly on top. On the bed, a pair of men’s pyjamas — blue and white — lay on the single pillow.

“Can you imagine slipping into those PJs, and under that heavy blanket, while the wind and rain lashed the tall window?” I put my best tour guide voice on. “Knowing that the only living souls for miles around were toiling away above your head. Maybe as you drift off, you hear footsteps on the stairs. But is it the other keepers? Or is something else?”

Nikesh stood closer to Dawn, his eyes darting.

“I don’t normally wear anything to bed,” Gaz said. “But I suppose that wasn’t the done thing back in the heyday of the lighthouse. Or maybe it was. Maybe this is all just set dressing — a nice, family-friendly, sanitised version of the past. I imagine the reality of three men cooped up together for months on end was a good deal fruitier.”

“You sleep in the nude?” Dawn suppressed a giggle at the thought. “What if someone breaks in? Or there’s a fire?”

“Then either the burglar or firefighter is going to get a nice eyeful.” He wiggled his trimmed eyebrows, making her giggle again and filling my head with all sorts of lovely images.

I bet Michael enjoyed it, too, though he pretended he didn’t. He took a square of black cloth from his pocket. “I found a lovely pair of Tom Ford pyjama bottoms in Harrods a couple of months ago. Silk. They feel like air.” He removed his glasses and cleaned them with the cloth. “A tad more sanitary than sleeping with nothing on.”

Gaz’s eyes turned harder. Maybe he was picturing Michael in his PJs. Maybe he was picturing Michael out of his PJs.

“You know these investigations you do, Rhys?” Dawn kept her hands in her pockets. She was working up the courage to ask me something. “What’s the worst thing you’ve had to deal with?” She tried to keep her voice breezy. “Like, the most, you know, ghostly thing?”

I flicked through another book, not that I could see a whole lot in the lantern light. “There was this one time, in Birmingham, not that long ago actually.”

Nikesh’s shoulders tensed and I thought twice about telling them.

“No, go on.” Dawn’s hands remained hidden. “Tell us.”

I cleared my throat and left the book open on the wicker basket. “I was contacted by this woman, Rebecca. She said she’d seen and heard some things in her new pottery studio and asked me to come and have a look. When I got there, I knew right away something wasn’t right. Some places have a sort of thickness to them, right? Like there’s more air, or, like, older air. It’s hard to explain. Her studio was on the top floor of this old factory — huge place, it was. She’d been working there for a couple of weeks. She had a big kiln at one end and a smaller one next to it.”

Nikesh put his hand up. “A what?”

“A kiln,” Gaz said. “It’s a special oven potters use to fire their wet clay.”

I pointed to him. “Right. Well, the big one was about the size of a fridge freezer. She told me she’d been locking up one night and was scooping up all the disused bit of wet clay. Except one of them had been moved.”

“Moved?” Dawn’s voice was higher than ever.

“Moved,” Rhys said. “It wasn’t in her throwing area, by the wheel, it was on her desk, next to her computer. And it had a handprint in it.”

“Hers?” Nikesh had started to hug the weight tube in the middle of the room.

I shook my head. “Far bigger than hers. A man’s handprint, she said. She thought it was a joke but she’d had no visitors to the studio that day. Still, it wasn’t impossible that someone could have come in and touched the clay so she thought no more about it. Until the following week.

“Her kiln, the big one, had been acting up. It wasn’t heating at all, no matter what she did. She had the door open and was trying to figure out what the problem was when she felt hands on her back, shoving her forward. She fell face-front into the kiln and the door swung over behind her, hitting her on the back of the legs.”

I know it was wrong of me but I couldn’t help but smile a little when I told them this. It wasn’t malice, just excitement to see them react. “Rebecca got out of the cold kiln immediately, no harm done, but she was alone in the studio. She checked the whole place, the doors, she even checked the security camera footage of the stairs. Nothing. That upset her. She kept wondering what would have happened if the kiln had been on. She could have been badly burnt.”

“What did you do to help?” Gaz’s voice was harsher than it had been all evening. His mouth hung open, just a little, almost like he was getting ready to bare his teeth.

“I did a little invocation and I spoke to the spirit of the place. I told it to leave her alone, that it was her place of business now. Afterwards, the air felt lighter, cleaner, and she told me she felt better. She didn’t have any more trouble after that.”

Nikesh shivered. “I would never go back to that place in a million years. A ghost trying to cook me alive? Nah, mate.”

I held my lantern high. “I don’t think the ghost meant any real harm. I think he was just lashing out at this newcomer invading his space.”

Dawn rubbed the back of her neck. “I suppose ghosts don’t know they’re ghosts. They exist in a sort of dream state, going through the same actions over and over again. When someone comes along and disrupts that routine, they react instinctively.”

I nodded along with her. “Exactly.”

“What happens when that ghost’s instinct is violent, though?”

I didn’t have an answer for her, and we left the bedroom in silence. On the way out, I noticed the book on top of the wicker basket was closed.