The Ghosts of Blackbottle Rock Page 8

  ‘I’ve seen some of them when I was taking pictures for you at Lanteglos church!’ Charlie told her.

  ‘He must have used the money from his new business to pay for everything,’ Dad suggested, but Sue shook her head.

  ‘He hadn’t even set off for London again when he paid for the headstones and started the charity – yet he was supposed to have lost everything even before the boat sank.’

  Charlie searched the faces of Isaac Trewin and his son.

  I’m glad you survived and did well – but where did you get the money from? What really happened at Blackbottle Rock?

  A sleepover. That was how Charlie managed to wangle it. And it wasn’t even a lie – just not the whole truth. He was going to stay the night with Mohan and Wei-Li at her house, it was just that there was the small matter of a ghost watch at Rosebud Cottage on the way. He didn’t feel proud of himself for deceiving them, but Charlie felt this was something that had to be done and it was the only way. If anything went wrong he was literally seconds away from Dad and Sue.

  They met at the appointed time on the quay. It was dark, but not that late and people were still using the ferry to go over to Fowey where there were more pubs and eating-places. Thankfully, the rest of Polruan was quiet, as it usually was in the evening, though as they made their way to East Street Charlie noticed a light on in the flat above the Beachcomber. There were a couple of smokers sitting cradling their pints and chatting outside Polruan’s other pub, the Martin’s Arms, but there was a kink in the claustrophobically narrow street which hid Rosebud Cottage from their view.

  As soon as they were outside the place, Ken rummaged in his pockets. ‘Turn round,’ he ordered them.

  ‘What?’ said Charlie, annoyed at being told what to do by this chav.

  ‘It’s better that we don’t see what he does,’ Wei-Li whispered.

  He felt like a lemon, but they all dutifully faced the opposite side of the street and waited. Charlie heard some clicking and scraping, and a couple of grunts of effort and concentration from Kev – then the turning of a handle. They all wheeled round, and the door of Rosebud Cottage was gaping open to reveal a black, uninviting void.

  ‘That’s me done,’ muttered Kev, pulling his baseball cap lower over his eyes and sauntering off in the direction of the harbour.

  ‘Quickly,’ Wei-Li urged Charlie, taking him by the arm.

  He took one last glance up at the attic window, then set off with her, feeling just a little weak at the knees… He was pleased to see that whatever Kev had been up to, Rosebud’s lock and door unlike the one in the vestry in Lanteglos church, were completely unmarked and intact.

  ‘You say the attic, Charlie?’ Mohan asked, directing his torch beam around the living room while they got their bearings.

  ‘Yes.’

  He removed a heavy bag that was slung over his shoulder and started to delve inside. ‘Okay, but I’m going to set a camera up here. It will pick up any phenomena, and I’ll angle it so we can keep an eye on the door in case anyone comes.’

  ‘We’re not going to have a light on are we?’

  ‘Not needed,’ said Wei-Li. ‘We use night vision equipment.’

  ‘Sounds expensive…’

  He could just make out her grin in the low light. ‘Having a rich dad does have its benefits!’

  They left Mohan getting the camera ready, and went in search of the stairs. Charlie pulled his own torch out, but Wei-Li, who was guiding them with her own, cautioned him not to switch it on just yet.

  ‘We don’t want more light showing at the windows than necessary.’

  They crept up to the next floor as quietly as they could on the bare wooden floorboards. The house was nearly empty, but Wei-Li’s roving torch beam lit up a few items that had been left behind: a chair here, a little table with an empty plant pot on it there. But in the attic, the picture was very different.

  To reach it, Charlie led Wei-Li up a very narrow, rickety staircase to a small door with an old-fashioned round metal knob. At first, when he tried to turn it the knob didn’t yield and he thought it was locked. But when he tried again with a bit more effort the stiffness was overcome and it turned all the way. He switched his own torch on and scanned the attic room from the open doorway. To Charlie’s surprise, this place was carpeted and furnished. It was as if the Victorian occupants had just popped out for a moment.

  He was twitchy enough as it was, and the play of shadows as his beam probed the room gave the impression of something flitting about, hiding from the light. At least, he hoped that was the explanation. Unnerved, he switched the torch off almost without intending to.

  ‘Anything wrong?’ Wei-Li whispered.

  He took a deep breath. ‘No. I thought I saw something, but it must have been my torch.’

  ‘Hadn’t we better go in then?’

  ‘Er, yes…’

  Turning his torch back on, he felt his way into the attic as cautiously as if the floorboards beneath his feet were rotten. He could see now that it was quite a big room, running from the front of the house to the back. It felt colder in here, and there was a musty, mildewy smell in the air. There was an ancient mirror with mottled glass and a carved wooden frame on the wall to his right. A spectral cobweb formed a silky bridge between a battered armchair and a heavy wooden dining table. On the wall opposite the door was some sort of dresser. It was at least two metres high; the bottom half was a chest of drawers with candlesticks at either end, along with a few other ornaments and trinkets. The top half of was a series of shelves bearing plates, cups and more little knick-knacks, together with three framed photographs. Silvery spiders’ webs draped everything, and particles of dust floated through the torch beam like miniature ice crystals on a frosty day.

  And it did feel frosty. Charlie shivered, and pulled down the rolled-up sleeves of the top he was wearing.

  Wei-Li came alongside him. ‘A drop in temperature is a classic sign of…a presence.’

  Charlie didn’t even dare reply, as if his voice might alert the ‘presence’ to his intrusion.

  Wei-Li risked switching her own torch on now.

  ‘It’s as if someone only moved out yesterday…’

  She directed her beam towards the photographs on the middle shelf of the dresser. A large, rectangular one in the centre was flanked by two smaller square ones – and the one on the left looked familiar to Charlie. He forced himself to go deeper into the room, playing his own torchlight on it. It was a smaller version of the one in the Schooner pub, but without the writing beneath it.

  ‘It’s the man and boy who Cornelius Penhale saved.’

  Wei-Li came to join him just as Mohan arrived and started unpacking his bag, plucking out a laptop, another camera, and some gadgets Charlie didn’t recognise.

  ‘But who are these?’ she asked. Illuminated by her torch like actors in a theatre spotlight, the larger middle photograph showed a group of people packed together closely for the camera, but their images were so small it was almost impossible to make out individual faces. ‘It looks like Polruan quay, but years and years ago…’

  Charlie peered closer. ‘You’re right.’ And he had an idea as to who the people were. ‘Eight, nine, ten. Ten children and seven adults including the two crewmen. Wei-Li, these are the people who drowned – plus Isaac Trewin and William.’

  Wei-Li gazed at the rows of blurred faces and sighed sadly. ‘They must have been excited. The day before they were going to start new lives. Some of those kids are tiny…’

  ‘But what’s this?’ Charlie had moved on to the third photograph. It was a solitary man from around the same period judging from his clothes – but his face had been blotted out by ink or something similar. Charlie suddenly felt unaccountably on edge, as if someone had crept up behind him, and had to turn away from the dresser. As he did so, his face became entangled in a cobweb, some strands clinging to the moistness of his open mouth. He let out a cry, spluttering and spitting.

  ‘You will let the whole
street know we’re here!’ Mohan hissed. He was studying the glowing screen of his laptop; the picture was split into four, showing different scenes, the view from the infrared cameras making each one look eerie. ‘This is the first camera, in the living room facing the front door. Then we’ve got one in an empty room on the next floor, another on the landing facing the stairs, and finally I’ve put one in the corner of this room looking towards the window. All four are being recorded.’

  ‘Do you want to try the EMF meter, Charlie?’ Wei-Li asked.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Mohan handed him a device like a big old-fashioned mobile phone, but with a row of coloured lights near the top. ‘It’s normally used by electricians to diagnose problems with wiring, but it’s been discovered that they are sensitive to the presence of ghosts – and can even be used to communicate with them.’

  Charlie took it from him with great reluctance, fearing it would start bleeping and flashing as soon as he touched it. But the black plastic object lay cold and inert in his hand.

  ‘Look!’ said Wei-Li, who had gone exploring further into the attic. Her torch was pointing at the floor.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Exactly.’ She moved her torch around as if tracing out the four sides of a large rectangle. ‘Look how light the carpet is in the middle of the room compared to the outer edges.’

  ‘Something was there for a long time,’ Mohan said.

  ‘A rug!’ Charlie cried. ‘It’s got to be the one Henry Penhale took into his storeroom!’

  Just as he leaned forwards to examine the floor, the EMF meter in his hand suddenly blinked into life. He dropped it as if it had given him an electric shock, and in the same instant there was a violent crash at the far end of the attic. He spun round just in time to see something bouncing off the wall near the door, and then a different dark shape sprang from the top of dresser, aiming right for him. Mohan shrieked, and Charlie dived to one side as the black thing hurtled silently over the carpet. Charlie curled up in a ball, waiting to be hit, possessed – he didn’t know what.

  But nothing happened.

  He heard Mohan whimpering, and then Wei-Li’s cool voice.

  ‘It’s a cat.’

  It should have been funny, but no one was laughing. Charlie sat up and saw, illuminated in Wei-Li’s torch beam, two striking green eyes a couple of metres away, staring right at him. He let out a long, grateful breath.

  ‘Thank God! I thought it was…I don’t know what I thought it was – but nothing good! It must have knocked something off the dresser.’

  Wei-Li had gone to investigate, and was holding the picture that had the blacked-out face. ‘This was on the floor – it’s what made the first noise. The cat could have knocked it off…’

  ‘But it flew across the room and hit the wall!’ said Charlie.

  ‘And how could a cat get in here anyway?’ Mohan added. ‘I made sure the front and back doors were shut before I came upstairs.’

  ‘It was perhaps already locked in,’ Charlie suggested.

  The pair of emerald eyes stared unblinkingly, defiantly at them.

  Mohan tutted. ‘I also checked every room.’

  ‘Plus,’ added Wei-Li, ‘if it had been locked it would have been without food and water for who knows how long. It doesn’t look starving to me.’

  ‘Oh, no…’ Mohan gasped, gazing at his laptop. Charlie could see the light from the screen – the only other illumination in the room besides their torches – rapidly dimming. ‘Battery drain – but I fully charged it before we set off and it should last eight hours!’

  Charlie felt even colder air on his face now, as if someone had opened a freezer door.

  ‘Temperature drop,’ Mohan cried, a hint of fear in his voice now. ‘Something’s going to happen.’

  At the same time, the EMF meter lying on the floor began to blink again – the red, orange and green lights flashing on and off rapidly, crazily.

  ‘The cat!’ said Wei-Li.

  Charlie pulled his eyes away from the meter, and now the cat was at the other end of the room. Its eyes were fixed on a particular spot, it’s back arched, fur raised. But when Charlie aimed his torch into that area there was nothing but the mirror on the wall reflecting his beam, and the cat hadn’t been looking towards the mirror. There was a piercing yowl. He twitched his torch back to the cat and the beam mingled with Wei-Li’s. It was spitting and hissing like some sort of demon, and seemed about ready to attack some unseen enemy.

  Wei-Li screamed.

  She shone her torch beam back on the mirror now – revealing a face.

  It was a shimmering, contorted, malevolent face that Charlie recognised instantly. He let out a cry and instinctively grabbed Wei-Li’s arm, seeing as he did so the madly dancing lights from the EMF meter reflected in her white sleeve.

  Without warning the mirror jumped from the wall, shattering on the floor below even though it was thickly carpeted.

  Mohan’s laptop was dead. The EMF meter went blank. The cat let out another unearthly howl and sprang past them into the darkness as if on the attack. Charlie and Wei-Li instinctively swung their torches round to pick it out – but the second they did so, both their batteries failed. They were all in total darkness, listening to the furious hissing and yowling. Charlie could sense something despite his blindness. It was like the feeling in the air before a thunderstorm, an ominous sense of something about to happen, something powerful, something beyond human control or understanding.

  And it was building rapidly.

  He knew the others were aware of it too.

  ‘This is bad!’ cried Mohan. ‘Very bad – grab everything and get out NOW!’

  twelve

  Charlie cowered in East Street watching strange lights flashing and flickering in the attic window as if there was some sort of otherworldly disco going on. The sounds of crashing and banging seemed to make the whole house shake, and he couldn’t believe it hadn’t woken the whole village, yet no curtain twitched, no other lights came on.

  What had they done? It felt like the end of the world. His legs buckled and he sank to the floor…

  He sat upright, breathing hard and fast, heart pounding, barely aware of time passing. Then he became aware of early morning sunlight, softly diffused by pastel blue cotton curtains, bathing his face.

  It took Charlie a few minutes to figure out where he was, what had been real and what had been a nightmare. Then he remembered that he had spent the night in one of Treffry House’s numerous bedrooms. The décor was mostly a tranquil, pale blue, and a serene Buddha sat on top of a bookcase facing his bed. It was all very peaceful and pleasant – but when he noticed a small mirror above a dressing table, it brought the events of the previous night crashing back into his consciousness.

  Why had he even gone there? What were they really hoping to achieve?

  Whatever it was, all they seemed to have done was stir something up, something dark and dangerous that was better left alone.

  He threw back the duvet and traipsed to the window. It overlooked the courtyard, and there was Wei-Li, practising her Tai Chi again with the grace of a ballet dancer, her black hair in a ponytail and the blue and gold silk costume glistening as if made of liquid. She looked so calm, controlled yet relaxed, yet he knew that even she had been scared last night.

  He met up with Wei-Li and Mohan at breakfast in a spacious kitchen that had every modern appliance and gadget imaginable, mostly of shiny silver. It was like a space station. They had been perched on stools around a big central breakfast bar by Nina, the cook and cleaner. Wei-Li’s father had left early, and she was busy making them a cooked breakfast. The mood was subdued, and there was little conversation at first. But Charlie needed at least a little reassurance.

  ‘Surely it’s not always like that when you carry out your investigations? If it is, I wish someone would have warned me…’

  ‘Well,’ Mohan mused, ‘there was the time in Lostwithiel when we saw t
he shadow figure move across the landing and got an EVP saying “Get out!”.’ As usual, he was glued to the screen of his beloved laptop.

  ‘What’s an EVP?’

  ‘Electronic Voice Phenomenon. You can often catch paranormal voices on digital recorders that can’t be heard by the human ear.’

  ‘But, Mohan, that wasn’t on the same scale as last night,’ said Wei-Li.

  He looked up from his computer and nudged his glasses up his nose with a spindly middle finger. Charlie thought even he, the one who thought it was all explainable by science, still looked somewhat traumatised by what had happened to them.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, it wasn’t on the same scale at all…’

  Wei-Li took a sip of orange juice. ‘Someone tried to get through to me.’

  ‘You mean like, psychically?’ Charlie asked.

  She nodded. ‘But it was blocked by the anger of the man in the mirror, whoever he was. I don’t think he meant to; it was just that his emotions were so strong it overpowered almost everything else. But I did hear—’

  She stopped while Nina came over with their breakfasts, waiting until she went off to do some cleaning.

  ‘I did hear…something. Like voices, especially children…but distant, and drowned out by the rage of the man in the mirror.’

  Charlie felt his skin tingle. ‘I thought I heard something like that when we took the boat out to Blackbottle Rock.’

  Clouds swallowed the sun, casting Wei-Li’s face into shadow. He noticed her eyes moistening.

  ‘So sad… I couldn’t hear the words but I picked up such terrible, terrible despair…’

  ‘But what can we do? Why do you investigate cases like this unless you can do something?’

  ‘They need to be released. They either don’t realise they’re dead and stay in the places they used to know, or they do realise but are trapped because of something unfinished, something that needs to be put right.’

  ‘Or,’ said Mohan, eyes glued to his laptop, ‘they are actually it. Trapped, yes – but negative energy that needs to be released from the surroundings.’