Simon Green - Spirits from Beyond

“You sit yourselves down, ghost hunters, and we’ll tell you all about it. I’ll start.”

JC and Happy and Melody pulled three chairs into position facing the crowd and sat down. There were definite signs of anticipation in the regulars’ faces now. They all wanted to tell their stories. They needed someone else to take the plunge first. They’d been hoping to do it for the television cameras; but really, any audience would do. Someone new to tell the old, old stories to. Brook shut off the bar’s piped background music, and a sudden hush fell across the bar. There was a pause, and Troughton leaned forward.

“I suppose one of the best-known ghost stories features the serving maid from the old Manor House. Must be over two hundred years old, this story, but everyone here knows it. She hanged herself, poor thing. Right here, in this pub, in one of the upstairs rooms. Because the Squire’s wicked son, he had his way with her, then wanted nothing to do with her once her belly began to swell. She went to the old Squire, told him what had happened, told him she was in the family way, by his son. He had her whipped for lying and thrown out. She was ashamed to tell her own family after that, so she did away with herself. Upstairs. . Some say she can still be seen, hanging, in the room where she did it. And even when you can’t see her, on some nights you can hear the quiet rasp of the noose creaking as she swings slowly back and forth. Forever. .”

Men and women were nodding in agreement all through the crowd. They’d all heard the story. And once Troughton had started the ball rolling, there was no stopping them. They all had tales to tell. An old woman in a long, grubby coat was next up.

“I am Mrs. Ida Waverly,” she said, in a surprisingly strong and steady voice. “And this story was told to me by my mother, who heard it from her mother. Who was a cleaner at this very inn, back in the day. There is a stain on the old stone path outside. The one that leads right across the car park though the path was there first. It’s an old blood-stain, been there for centuries. No-one knows why any more.

“Not even the most modern cleaning fluids can shift it, or make any impression on it. And they’ve tried everything; down the years. It’s not always there, mind; that’s how you know it’s a ghostly stain. But many have seen it, right enough. When it is there, the stain is always bright red, not dark. Because the blood never dries. And it is said. . some people, if they touch the old blood-stain, their fingers come away wet and dripping with fresh blood. And then it’s a sign. . that those people are not long for this world.”

More general nodding and murmuring in agreement. Names were quietly bandied back and forth in the bar, of people who’d seen the blood-stain and come to bad ends. Melody turned in her chair to look at the main entrance, clearly considering going outside for a look herself.

“I wouldn’t, me dear,” said Mrs. Waverly. “You couldn’t expect to see it in the dark and in the rain.”

Melody settled reluctantly back in her chair, and the stories continued.

“There’s this Grandfather Clock,” said a tall, thin, young man. His long hair hung down in carefully cultivated dreadlocks, his clothes were shabby but clean, and he looked very solemn. “That clock, that one over there in the corner, that’s been here in this pub for many a year. And I heard from my dad, as he heard it from his dad before him, of people who’ve been right here in this bar when that clock struck thirteen.”

Everyone looked at the Grandfather Clock. JC had to turn right around in his chair to get a good look at it. It was an old, perfectly ordinary-looking Grandfather Clock, in a polished wooden case, with a big glass panel in the front to show the heavy brass pendulum as it swung slowly back and forth. In the hush, they could all hear the slow, steady tick of the clock’s mechanism. It didn’t chime.

“I’ve never heard the clock chime thirteen myself,” said the shabby young man. He sounded a bit disappointed. “But my dad said, if it does, it’s a sign that someone present in the bar is about to die. .”

“And then there’s Johnny Lee,” said a smart, middle-aged lady in a tweed suit and pearls, with dark, lacquered hair. “My Uncle Jack said he saw him, right here in this very bar, right after the end of the war. Autumn of 1945, it was. No-one here had seen Johnny since he went off to fight, at the beginning of 1940. He walked in here, calm and easy as you please, nodded and smiled to one and all, and ordered a pint of bitter. Of course, everyone was pleased to see him back, especially as there’d been no word to expect him. But he said it was such a shame about his young niece Alice, losing her gold watch that her grandmother had left her. Meant the world to young Alice, did that watch. And Johnny said that if young Alice would look behind the old dresser, in the back bedroom, she’d find the watch, right enough. And then Johnny smiled and walked out, leaving his drink on the bar, untouched. And when the people went outside to look, there was no sign of him anywhere.

“Wasn’t till a fortnight later that his family got the telegram. Telling them that Johnny wouldn’t be coming home. But Alice found the watch, right where her Uncle Johnny said it would be.”

JC smiled and nodded, and the crowd made pleased noises; but JC knew better. He’d heard these stories before, or stories very like them. They were traditional ghost stories, of the kind told in pubs and local gatherings the world over. The names and the details changed, but the stories stayed the same. Which suggested that possibly the King’s Arms wasn’t actually haunted at all. By anything other than old stories, handed down from generation to generation. He leaned over to talk quietly with Brook.

“Did you see this Johnny Lee yourself, by any chance?”

“Long before my time,” said Brook. “And I have to say, if all the people who said they were there were actually there, the bar would have been packed from wall to wall and bursting at the seams.”

“I have a story,” said Cootes, his voice loud and defiant. “The story goes that this young woman was travelling late at night and had to stop unexpectedly because the weather was so bad. Much like tonight. Luckily, there was an inn nearby, off the beaten track. Even more luckily, they had one room left vacant. The young lady didn’t know the inn and thought it a rather rough-and-ready place, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. So she allowed the innkeeper to show her to her room. Once inside, she made a point of locking and bolting her door and even jamming a chair up against it. And that was when a voice behind her said, ‘Well, no-one’s going to disturb us now, are they?’”

There was general laughter. Cootes smiled happily about him. It was clearly as much a shaggy-dog tale as a ghost story, and no-one in the bar took it seriously. But JC saw something in Brook’s face, briefly, that made him think there might be something to this particular story, after all. He stood up, to draw everyone’s attention back to him.

“Tell me,” he said to the crowd. “Have there ever been any great tragedies here? Not in the pub but in the town, or even the general area? Any really bad accidents, or fires, any mass deaths? Anything like that?”

He hadn’t even finished his question before everyone started shaking their heads. Brook leaned forward, resting his forearms on the bar-counter.

“Nothing. Nothing at all like that. I did some digging in the local library; and Bishop’s Fording has been a quiet and peaceful place for generations.”

“Then why are there so many ghost stories associated with this inn?” said Melody.

Again, a great many heads were shaking. Brook shrugged, almost helplessly.