‘Perfectly true,’ Alan agreed. ‘So I arranged some little experiments. I’d leave their booties untied; they’d somehow get tied.’
‘One day I left Vicky’s dummy on the dresser, and when I came back half an hour later, I found Vicky happily sucking on it,’ Janet added.
‘And every once in a while, late at night, I’d hear someone singing that lullaby again.’ Alan picked up a bowl of oven-roasted potatoes, spooned a couple on to his plate, then passed the bowl to me. ‘We came to the conclusion that our house was haunted, but it was such a gentle spirit that we started calling her the Child Minder.’
‘Runner beans?’ Janet asked, sending the vegetable bowl on a circuit around the table. ‘One afternoon I mentioned the Child Minder to a friend at St Saviour’s Church and right away, she introduced me to Susan.’
‘I was new to the community, then,’ Susan said, flushing modestly. ‘Word hadn’t gotten around about my special gift. Believe it or not, I’m really rather shy!’
‘No walking up to strangers in the street?’ I teased.
‘Exactly. That came later.’
‘Anyway,’ Janet continued, ‘this friend suggested that Susan might be able to communicate with our spirit, find out why she was hanging around the house. Our dream was to open a bed and breakfast, but we didn’t think a resident ghost would appeal to the kind of clientele we hoped to attract.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Paul commented. ‘Horn Hill House could be a stop on the Haunted Dartmouth Tour.’
Alan frowned, Paul’s lame joke falling flat. ‘We really didn’t think it would be good for business.’
At the other end of the table, Janet’s head bobbed emphatically. ‘So, to make a long story short, we invited Susan for tea without telling her anything about our “little problem”.’ She drew quote marks in the air. ‘We walked her all around the house. Ground floor, nothing. First floor – that’s where Alan and I had our bedroom at the time – nothing. But when she got to the nursery!’ Janet pressed a hand to her mouth, overcome with emotion, as if the day were happening all over again.
Susan laid a comforting hand on Janet’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take the story from here if you like.’
Janet nodded. I thought she was about to cry.
‘Almost immediately,’ Susan began, ‘I sensed a strong female presence in the nursery. So I sat down in the rocking chair and waited. Gradually, the presence revealed herself. I got the impression of someone white-haired and fragile. She told me her name was Eleanor, and that she was there to look after the babies.’
‘We knew the history of the house,’ Alan interrupted, ‘so I informed Susan that I was positive that in all its one hundred plus years, nobody by the name of Eleanor had ever lived here.’
Susan leaned forward. ‘And Eleanor must have been listening, because she spoke right up to explain. She told me that she came home from the hospital with the babies.’
Alison’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight. ‘How spooky!’
‘When I asked her why she wanted to stay with the babies,’ Susan continued, ‘Eleanor told me that she was a widow. Her only daughter had died childless so she never had any grandbabies. When Samantha and Victoria were born, she simply decided to go home with them.’
‘But this is fascinating, Janet,’ I said, turning to face our hostess. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Eleanor the other day when I told you about meeting Susan in Foss Street?’
Janet flushed. ‘I didn’t want to frighten you away, Hannah.’
‘Why would I have been frightened away?’
Janet stole a quick glance at her husband, then looked back to me. ‘Because the room that you and Paul are staying in used to be the nursery.’
I have to admit that I felt a shiver begin at the base of my spine, but another fortifying sip of wine kept it at bay. ‘Is she still there?’ I whispered.
‘Eleanor? No,’ Susan answered. ‘Eleanor explained that she worried when the mother – that would be you, Janet – let the poor babes go on crying for hours and hours.’
‘Two minutes!’ Janet sputtered. ‘Imagine being criticized by a ghost.’
Susan chuckled. ‘Spirits have their own timetables, dear. Anyway, after I explained that Janet was a good mother, and that recommended child-rearing techniques had changed a lot since her day, Eleanor agreed to go.’
‘Then Susan lit a candle, waved some rosemary about, and that was that,’ Alan added.
‘Woo-woo.’ Jon waggled his fingers.
Rather than take offense, Susan shot a benevolent smile in Jon’s direction. ‘I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I feel I’m in safe company. Lighting an aromatic candle and waving a bundle of herbs through the smoke doesn’t actually do anything, Jon, but it makes the client feel good because it’s something they can see. Mostly I simply reassure the spirit that all is well, pass on any messages the spirit may have for the living, and make sure they can both rest easy. Laying spirits to rest is one of the most popular segments of my television show.’
‘I just love your show,’ Alison gushed. ‘I’d love to attend some time.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ Susan said, reaching down for her handbag, ‘I’ll be taping a live broadcast at the Palace Theatre in Paignton on Wednesday night.’
‘Paignton! That’s just twenty miles from here!’
‘It’s sold out, I’m afraid, but if you call this number…’ She located her business cards and handed one across the table to Alison. ‘There’s always the possibility of a cancellation. Here’s a card for you, too, Hannah,’ Susan said, peeling another one from the pack.
The card was elegantly simple, printed on cream-colored stock: Dead Reckoning, website URL and telephone number, that’s all. No crystal ball graphics, no freephone numbers to psychic hotlines.
‘I’ll call first thing in the morning!’ Alison tucked the card into her pocket and patted it for security.
Paul leaned across the table. ‘Susan, I hope you don’t think I’m being impertinent, but do you mind if I ask you a question? Do you have a code word?’
Susan paused in the act of returning her business cards to her handbag. ‘Code word?’
‘Like Houdini. He promised his friends that when he died, he would try to communicate with them from the other side. I understand they had a prearranged code so that if a message came to them from the Great Beyond, they would know it was really Houdini speaking.’
Susan’s smiled seemed a tad forced. ‘The spirits I talk to don’t speak in code, Paul, but if I had to pick a word, it would be Basingstoke.’
‘Basingstoke!’ Alison clapped her hands. ‘How delightful!’
Jon was the only one around the table who looked confused.
‘It’s a town in Hampshire, darling. But that’s not the delightful part. Tell him, Susan.’
‘It’s from Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, Ruddigore,’ Susan explained. ‘Mad Margaret keeps lapsing into hysteria, so she and Sir Despard Murgatroyd hit upon using the word Basingstoke to calm her down whenever she goes off on a wild tangent.’
‘Poor child, she wanders,’ Paul quoted airily, having seen the production half a dozen times. ‘Margaret, if you don’t Basingstoke at once, I shall be seriously angry.’
I looked at my husband and grinned. ‘Basingstoke it is.’
‘How do you know Susan’s not making it all up?’ Paul asked Alan in an aside after Susan trailed off into the kitchen after Janet to help her get the dessert together – summer pudding with red fruits, as it would turn out. Paul wore skepticism on his face like a badge, but what Alan said next shut my husband’s I-told-you-so mouth right up.