Ghosts of Mayfield Court Read Online Free Page B

air like an eager hound. He suddenly plunged through the choking wall of rhododendrons to his left, and did not appear again for ten minutes.
    When he came back from wherever he had been there was a jauntiness in his step that intrigued me. Indeed, everything that this burly man did intrigued me, perhaps because I have always been attracted to the unpredictable. At last I saw him kneel down beside the breach in the old ruined wall. He remained motionless for so long that I wondered whether he was not, in fact, kneeling in prayer. He made no effort to remove the pathetic bones of the dead child, but after what seemed an age he rose slowly to his feet.
    Seating himself on part of the ruined wall, he rummaged in his pocket and produced what looked like a half-smoked cheroot. Retrieving a box of wax vestas from the same pocket, he lit the cheroot, and puffed away delicately for a while. When he had finished smoking, he dropped the butt into the grass, and ground it vigorously with his heel. He stood up, glanced briefly back at the house, and then disappeared once more into the bank of overgrown and rank rhododendrons.
    I remained looking out on to the quiet, sunlit garden, where I had encountered the child-spirit known only as Helen. I felt mesmerized by the scene, the lack of animation, the illusion that no sound emanated from any kind of woodland life in that tangled wilderness. It was a strange, darkly enchanted place, a place where this world and the hidden world of the afterlife met and acknowledged each other.
    After what seemed an age, Sergeant Bottomley reappeared, and to my heightened imagination he seemed to be a denizen of that enchanted garden. And then my heart gave a leap of fear and disbelief as I saw that the burly police sergeant was not alone.
    The spirit-child Helen walked beside him,
and she was holding his hand
.

    â€˜This little girl, Miss Catherine,’ said Herbert Bottomley, ‘is Hannah Price, and she is a Romany child.’
    When Mr Bottomley came back into the house, he sat down on an upright chair near the table in the living room. Of Uncle there was no sign. The little girl stood beside the sergeant, leaning rather timorously against his right arm. I could see by her stance that Hannah Price knew instinctively, as children often do, that this was a man whom she could trust.
    â€˜I’m not one to belittle belief in spirits, Miss Catherine,’ Mr Bottomley continued, ‘but as a local man I knew about this tumbledown old house, and how easy it was for curious folk to gain entrance. When you showed me that little bedroom, I saw that there was a cavity in the far wall, which someone had tried to cover up with some old drawers. Well, I could see quite clearly that if you crawled through that hole you’d come out on to a stone staircase, leading down to the kitchen yard. That’s how little Hannah got into the house and out again.’
    â€˜But why should she come here?’ I asked. ‘She knew where that poor skeleton had been concealed, and she knew that the littleroom on the first floor was where Helen had been lodged. She flitted about like a ghost, talking silently—’
    â€˜Yes, miss, and that’s when I suspected that an afflicted child had been wandering about here. When I asked you how she laid her finger on her lips, and you told me, I was almost certain. She’d been told always to do that in order to let people know that she couldn’t speak.’
    Bottomley suddenly encircled the child with his arm, hugging her towards him. He looked at her with a kind of grave compassion .
    â€˜How old are you, Hannah?’ he asked.
    The girl spoke, and I saw her lips form the word ‘ten’, though no sound came from her mouth. Immediately, she placed the front of a finger against her lips.
    â€˜You see, miss?’ said Mr Bottomley gently. ‘Hannah’s telling you that she’s dumb. She’s also something else, Miss Catherine. I