The Secret of Crickley Hall

'You're kidding, right?'

'I can assure you I'm not. People who cause trouble should expect trouble back.'

Gabe felt himself beginning to burn.

'So long, Mrs Trevellick,' he said evenly, keeping his temper in check. 'Go ride your broomstick someplace else.' He forced the door shut, his last sight of the irate woman at least satisfying: she stood as stiff as a rod, her mouth agape, her eyes wide with shock. If he'd given her the chance, he was sure she would have poked him with the sharp end of the umbrella.

He turned to see Eve by the kitchen door, obviously reluctant to have become involved in the altercation. Realizing he still had the newspaper in his hand, he offered it up to her.

'Page five, great picture,' he said.

Eve took it from him and quickly leafed through to the relevant feature.

'Oh God,' she said when she saw the photographs and read the headline. She went through the story, shaking her head at parts of it. 'The reporter makes it sound like I gave a full interview and that I knew Crickley Hall was haunted. I swear, Gabe, I said none of this.'

'Okay, hon, I know.' He shrugged as if to dismiss the article.

'I refused to speak to him. And the photographer took the picture before I could close the door.'

'Don't worry. It couldn't be helped. They just run stories to fill up space.'

'So this is why Mrs Trevellick was so cross?'

'Uh-huh. You heard?'

'Most of it.'

'You did the right thing, not getting involved. She's nuts.'

They went back into the kitchen together, Eve still reading the piece.

'Seems like Seraphina and her brother enjoyed the attention,' she commented, looking up from the newspaper. 'Probably disappointed they didn't get to have a picture too.'

Percy regarded Gabe and Eve curiously. 'Sounded like the vicar's wife out there.'

'That's who it was, Percy,' said Gabe. 'Celia Trevellick. Can't get my head round why she was so mad. Said something about dredging up old rumours. Damage to the community, apparently.'

'I heard her from here. Little un was anxious like.' The gardener smiled at Cally, who was watching her parents.

'S'll right, Sparky,' Gabe told her. 'The angry lady's gone now.'

With that reassurance, Cally went back to her colouring, the tip of her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth as she drew a tree behind the purple and yellow horse.

Gabe waved a hand at the newspaper that Eve still held open. 'I don't get it. We should be the ones to get upset. Using a picture of Eve without her permission, showing everyone the house.'

'And virtually giving out the address,' Eve put in. 'I just hope we don't start getting daytrippers and loonies looking us up. I can't understand why Mrs Trevellick got so upset though.'

Percy's jaw jutted as he scratched his neck. 'The vicar's wife is an important person in Hollow Bay. She's on the parish council an' the church committee, as well as bein' in charge of the Women's Guild hereabouts. An' her family goes way back, it's part of local history.'

'Oh yeah?' said Gabe, still baffled as to why the newspaper story had rattled her cage.

Percy nodded. 'Expects her husband to be bishop one day, so her reputation is important to her.'

'But what's that got to do with this?' Gabe indicated the journal, which Eve had closed and left on the table.

'Scandals never really fade away in these parts. Rumours don't ever die, an' reputations go back generations.'

Gabe shrugged again. 'I still don't get it.'

'Her grandpa were Hollow Bay's vicar durin' the war an' long afore.'

'So?'

'He were a great chum of Augustus Cribben. Stood by the man, admired Cribben for his pious ways an' discipline. It were the vicar, Rossbridger, who recommended Augustus Cribben for the post of guardian in the first place. Knew him of old, y'see. Not exactly pals, but they both had respect for one another.'

Eve was dismayed. 'But Cribben treated the evacuees appallingly. You told us that yourself and it's all there in the book Gabe found.'

'Yers, but nobody knew that at the time. Nobody 'cept Nancy, of course, an' she weren't able to do anythin' 'bout it in the end.'

Gabe sat back down at the table, giving Cally a faint smile when she peeked up at him. To Percy, he said: 'Why should any of this matter to Rossbridger's granddaughter after all these years?'

'Like I says, it's a dark part of her family history. She don't want it dug up again—might tarnish her an' the vicar's good name.'

'That's ridiculous. How could it matter now? It's in the past.'

'An' as I says, family history is important in these parts, 'specially when yer be fine upstandin' members of the community like the Trevellicks an' yer expects yer husband to become bishop.'

Gabe was confounded, Eve dismayed.

'Old Rossbridger, he were right behind Cribben in those days an' it were him that persuaded the authorities not to look too fer into what went on in Crickley Hall. Seems like they agreed to that—bad fer the morale of the country in time of war an' all that. 'Cause more an' more parents was refusin' to send their young uns away to strange parts. Didn't trust the authorities, an' in some cases they was right not to.'

Wait a minute.' Something had occurred to Gabe. 'Mrs Trevellick said something about an old lady being tracked down by the press. Who did she mean?'

Percy avoided Gabe's questioning gaze for a moment, tilting his head downwards, then bringing it up again.

'No, I didn't tell yer, did I?' he said. 'Didn't think it were important no more.'

Gabe and Eve glanced at each other before Percy went on.

'She's still alive, y'see. Old, in her nineties, but still alive.'

'Who is, Percy?' Eve asked patiently.

'Augustus Cribben's sister,' he told them. 'Magda.'

46: MAGDA CRIBBEN

Gabe wrinkled his nose as he followed the plump blue-uniformed nurse down the long corridor. The nursing home smelt of boiled cabbage, detergent and stale pee, all underlined by the more subtle odour of human decay, the slow rotting of living flesh.

'She doesn't get any visitors at all,' the nurse said, glancing back over her shoulder at the engineer, 'so it'll be a nice surprise for her. We thought all her relatives must be deceased by now—that is, if she had any.'

'My folks are distant cousins living in the States,' he lied easily. 'I promised 'em I'd try and look her up while I was on my tour of Europe.' It was the same story he'd given to the receptionist when he'd first arrived at the old people's nursing home. Percy had told him the location of the Denesdown Nursing Home for the Elderly and Eve had begged Gabe to look in on Magda Cribben on his way to Seapower's Ilfracombe office—the home was on the outskirts of the large sprawling seaside town. He had resisted the idea at first. What good could it do? They had both assumed that Magda was long gone by now and if she was still alive she'd be somewhere in her nineties. Percy had repeated to Gabe how the woman had been hospitalized after being found on a station platform in a catatonic state and suffering apparent amnesia. From there she'd been transferred to a mental asylum where countless psychiatrists had endeavoured to unlock her mind over the years, none of them having any success. In her seventies, and regarded as a lost cause, she had been moved to this nursing home and here she remained, speechless and without memory. She was no danger to anyone, not even to herself, and she showed no interest in the world around her. The last Percy had heard, Magda Críbben sat silently in her room every day, unwilling, despite the gentle coaxing of nurses and staff, to join other elderly residents in the common room where they watched television, played board and card games, and conversed about distant times.