‘No, it’s cool,’ Jane said. ‘Really.’
‘It’s bloody freezing, Jane. I keep on at Ben to check out this damp patch under the stairs, and he avoids it. He thinks burst pipes mystically seal themselves. This makes it four leaks we’ve had since the autumn. Does that augur well?’
Jane looked up through the window, moving to her right so that one of the ridges of Stanner Rocks came into view. It was a proven scientific fact that Stanner Rocks were strange, because of the Standing Wave that altered the climate, the comparative darkness of the rock itself, holding the heat, and the thin soil where plants grew that you couldn’t find anywhere else in Britain. Jane felt that, in ancient times, Stanner Rocks would have been sacred, like some gloomy, miniature form of Ayer’s Rock in Australia.
‘I mean, until you live in a place like this you never realize what plumbing’s about,’ Amber wailed. ‘There’s miles of pipe – miles.’
‘I mean there’s an energy here,’ Jane said. ‘And it’s right on the Border. On the edge.’
‘We’re all on the edge,’ Amber said bitterly.
Ben, however, when he strode into the kitchen, seemed to have recovered – now apparently relishing the adversity, refocused.
‘I think... we’ll put Antony in the tower room.’
‘You couldn’t stop him?’ Amber said in dismay.
‘I stopped trying.’ Ben, in tight black jeans and a white shirt, was swaying like a tightrope walker re-establishing his balance. ‘The more I think about it, we don’t need the bloody Baker Street League. What we have is strong enough.’
‘Oh God,’ Amber said.
‘You don’t mind going back to your old room for a couple of nights, do you, Jane?’
‘She already has,’ Amber said. ‘Why do you want to put Antony Largo in the tower room?’
‘More of an atmosphere.’ Ben smiled at Jane. ‘Don’t you think?’
Jane must have blushed or something, because Ben smirked and said, ‘Nip up and open the windows, Jane, would you, and give the bedding a shake.’
‘Right.’
Oh well... Up the steps into the lobby, which now merged with the hall. Up the baronial stairs...
And when you got to the top of the first flight and turned right, through the fire doors, into the ill-lit passage towards the west, it was clear why this part of the house – although it probably had the best rooms – had been set aside by the Foleys as staff quarters.
The problem was, it had been dragged into the 1960s or 1970s and left there. The walls were lined with woodchip, probably to hide the damp, and it was dim and dusty, a languid light drifting from a tall, narrow window at the bottom of the passage. This area of the house needed a lot of money spending on it. Money they probably thought they’d have to spare, but now it had gone, on the basics: keeping the damp out and the heat in. Or trying to.
The first room, convenient for the stairs, was Ben and Amber’s own. What must it have been like when they first arrived here, and they were the only people sleeping in this huge house? This was Mum’s problem with Ledwardine Vicarage magnified about four times. A lot of the time, even now, Ben and Amber would be alone here during the week. Most of the part-time staff – cleaners and waiters – came in daily during the summer, or when there were guests.
‘Jane!’ The fire doors clicking together. It was Ben. ‘Forgot to give you the key.’
He strode ahead of her down the passage, near to the end, unlocking the last door on the right. Actually, she was quite glad to have him here with her. Stupid, huh?
Inside the door, there were steps up into the actual tower, and then another door. When Jane had first started work here, she’d been flattered and excited to be given the room under the witch’s-hat tower. OK, it was big, cold, needed redecorating, but it was, like, you know... the room under the witch’s-hat tower.
Ben put on the light. The room had gloomy maroon flock wallpaper, pretty old, and less than half as much furniture as a space this size needed to look vaguely comfortable – the three-quarter divan, the wooden stool serving as a bedside table, the mahogany wardrobe with the cracked mirror.
The aim, apparently, was to create an en-suite bathroom at one end, and this was actually essential before you could legitimately charge anyone for spending a night here and experiencing those incredible views across Hergest Ridge into Wales.
With the light on, all you could see through the triple windows now was a thin slash of electric mauve low in the sky, like the light under a door. Ben stood in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands.
‘Couldn’t take it, then, Jane?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You wanted out.’
‘Well, you know... look at it. It’s like sleeping in... in somewhere too big.’
‘That’s all?’
‘All?’
‘No other reason?’
‘Should there be?’ Sod this; she was giving nothing away – she was going to make him say it.
Ben leaned over his folded arms, rocking slightly. ‘So you had a perfectly untroubled night’s sleep.’
‘Don’t people usually?’
‘One of the builders – when we were having the partition wall taken down, between the hall and lobby – he stayed in here, and he didn’t want to spend a second night.’
‘Oh?’
‘He thought it was haunted.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh... noises, he reckoned. Breathing. And he said he thought he saw a woman’s shape outlined against the window. Next morning, he was not a happy man. Said he thought we’d set him up.’
Jane struggled to bring up a smile. ‘Did you set me up?’
‘I thought... well, you’re quite interested in this sort of thing, aren’t you? Weird stuff.’
‘So-so. Ghosts are a bit... I mean, they’re usually just imprints, aren’t they? Emotional responses trapped in the atmosphere. Nothing to worry about.’ She was furious – the bastard. ‘I mean, I wish you’d told me...’
‘You’d have been expecting something then. Pointless exercise. So you wouldn’t mind moving back sometime, if necessary?’
‘Look, Ben, I wouldn’t mind spending a night in a sleeping bag on a station platform, but I’d rather have an ordinary-sized room, thanks.’
Ben grinned. ‘Ah, Jane.’
‘What?’
‘I should’ve realized the most important thing for you would be retaining your cool.’
‘Look, my mother’s—’
He lifted an eyebrow. Did he know? She thought not.
‘My mother’s a vicar. They’re not bothered by this sort of... you know.’
‘Right,’ Ben said.
That was close. She didn’t want Mum involved in anything here. This was her separate thing.
‘So you’re going to try this guy, erm... in here.’
‘Antony Largo. If you think you’re cool...’
‘I don’t!’ Jane said, smarting, going to turn down the bed clothes.
Ben smiled and shook his head and wandered out.
Left alone, Jane shook out the duvet, remembering how, when she’d come up here to dump her case that first night last weekend, and then gone down to get something to eat, she’d returned at bedtime to find the duvet had been roughly thrown back, as if someone had started to make the bed and then abandoned it.
That could’ve been Ben, couldn’t it? Setting her up.
Otherwise, just an imprint. Just an emotional response trapped in the atmosphere.
Jane sorted the bed and didn’t hang around.