Unquiet Spirit

by Derek Wilson

Genres: Horror; Mystery

Synopsis

A haunting in St. Thomas's College, Cambridge bitterly divides the college, and the Cambridge branch of the Psychic Investigation Unit is invited to carry out an experiment to settle the unrest. But when the main opponent of the plan, Professor Hawkridge, insists on being present for the nocturnal investigation and suddenly drops dead that very night the press has a field day and the college needs answers Sir Joseph Zuylestein, the College Master, asks Dr. Nathaniel Gye if he can make some discreet enquiries with a view to closing the whole sorry business. But when they receive some disturbing anonymous letters that seem to prove the undergraduate, whose unquiet spirit supposedly haunts St.Thomas's, did not commit suicide ten years earlier, but was murdered, the case suddenly becomes altogether more serious...

Release date: November 30, 2012

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 182

Sample

It was the perfect night for a ghost hunt. So, at least, it might have seemed to devotees of old Hammer horror movies and the psycho-dramas of Hollywood. True, there was no thunder and lightning but rain fell in unremitting cascades from a hearse-black sky and a December wind thrashed it about Cambridge’s ancient courts and buildings. The last frenzied Christmas shoppers had long since deserted the neon-lit entreaties of Lion Yard and the Grafton Centre. Few vehicles roamed the streets of a city which found itself in that hiatus period when preparations for the mid-winter fest had not quite ended and the partying had not quite begun.

Midway along Jesus Lane the massive Gothic portal of St Thomas’s College was firmly shut. Inside, the lamp standards at each corner of Chapel Court illuminated the silver shoals of rain that plashed past almost horizontally. A few lighted windows indicated the presence of fellows and senior members in residence. Otherwise all was darkness.

There were no lights on F staircase but it was inhabited. Its cramped first-floor landing was occupied by three people who held torches and communicated in brief, hushed sentences. Andy Rowsell hunched over the equipment he had set up in the open doorway of the college servants’ room and muttered to himself as he scrutinized the array of computer screens.

‘Any readings yet, Andy?’ Cynthia – Little Cynth, as most people knew her – called out for the third time from where she sat, huddled inside her heavy topcoat, at the top of the staircase which curled down to the ground floor.

For the third time, Andy ignored the question.

The chilled silence returned, somehow intensified by the relentless pattering of rain on the college servants’ room window. Then, close by, the chapel clock chimed once.

‘Eleven thirty.’ Jenny Collard detached herself from the door against which she had been leaning, hands thrust deep into the pockets of her anorak. ‘Cynth, perhaps you’d like to take a look upstairs.’

Before the teenager could respond, Andy said, ‘No way! No bloody way! She’ll go blundering into my camera, recorders and sensors. It took me ages to get them set up in exactly the right places.’

Jenny shone her torch in Cynthia’s direction. With several hours’ vigil to go it was essential for the leader to assert her authority. ‘I’m sure she’ll be careful, won’t you, Cynth?’

By way of response Andy grunted, then added, ‘Well, you’d better go, too. Show her where everything is. Anyway, she’s probably too scared to go by herself up the haunted stairs. Whooo!’ He took two paces across the narrow landing, waving his hands at Cynthia, who jumped up and shrank back against the wall.

‘Andy, shut up!’ Jenny flashed her torch full in his face. ‘This is a serious experiment, not some adolescent lark!’

‘Ooh, sorry, Miss. Shall I go and stand in the corner?’ He turned back to his equipment.

Jenny shrugged and not for the first time wondered why Andy had volunteered his services to the Psychic Investigation Unit. Not that one could be choosy. The shoestring organization needed all the help it could get. The young PhD student was certainly an expert on the technical aspects of a vigil. Jenny glanced approvingly at the cables, neatly taped together, snaking their way up the staircase. It would just make life so much easier if he could avoid getting everyone’s back up. She tugged the woolly hat further down over her ears. ‘Come on, then, Cynth,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if we can see anything happening up there.’

She led the way into the blackness of the upper staircase. Cynthia followed very close behind, nervously watching where she put her feet.

A sudden crash shattered the silence.

Cynthia let out a squeak. She grabbed at Jenny’s coat to stop herself falling back.

For several seconds the three investigators froze. Then there came the sound of heavy footfalls on the lower staircase. Someone had come in from the courtyard, banging the door behind them.

The figure that emerged was a bulky man in his sixties holding before him a dripping umbrella which he proceeded to shake vigorously as he stepped on to the landing.

‘Aha,’ the newcomer announced peering through the gloom. ‘The witching hour approaches. Thought it was high time I showed up. Wouldn’t want to miss the fun when the spooks appear.’

Jenny hoped her involuntary grimace did not show. ‘Good evening, Professor. Good of you to join us. May I introduce my colleagues. This is I think you know, Cynthia Fell and Andrew Rowsell? This is Professor Hockridge, fellow of St Thomas’s. I mentioned that he’d probably be joining us.’

‘No “probably” about it, Miss Collard. I insisted. When my esteemed colleagues agreed to all this hocus-pocus,’ he waved a hand in the direction of Andy’s consoles, ‘I told them there would have to be an official college presence. I’m it.’

‘I take it you think this is all a waste of time,’ Andy responded. Jenny could sense his suppressed hostility.

The half-light sculpted the professor’s flaccid features into harsh lines and gave his superior smile the appearance of a melodramatic leer. ‘My dear young man, I’m sure you and your friends believe in what you’re doing. I’m equally sure that you mean well. But if ever I was persuaded to take this psychic stuff seriously – well, I’d have to unlearn over forty years of scientific training. We live in a physical universe and everything in it is governed by physical laws. The fact that we don’t yet understand how all those laws work is no reason to fill in the gaps with medieval superstition.’

Under his breath Andy muttered something that sounded to Jenny like ‘patronizing bastard’. Aloud he said, ‘Wouldn’t you agree that a scientist’s worst enemy is a closed mind?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Good, because what we’re engaged in here is a scientific experiment. We’ve got up-to-date equipment – surveillance cameras, digital still cameras, microphones, CD recording gear, passive infra-red detectors, thermometers and barometers, all linked into a computer. If anything happens up there,’ Andy nodded towards the staircase, ‘which can’t yet be explained by your physical laws, it’ll be recorded. We’ll have evidence – data we can analyse. Nothing very medieval about that.’

Hockridge gave a grunt by way of reply, then turned his back on Andy. ‘Well, let’s see if we can’t summon up this spectre of yours.’

He took a pace across the landing. Andy quickly followed and laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘For God’s sake watch where you’re going. All this stuff’s expensive.’

The professor did not turn. ‘I have my own torch here. You needn’t be worried that I’ll break your precious toys.’ He clicked on his torch and a powerful beam splashed the curving stairs with light. Purposefully he began to climb. Andy glared after him.

‘Sorry about this, Andy,’ Jenny said, following Hockridge’s progress up the stairs. ‘You know we had to agree to let the professor come. Hopefully he’ll have a nose round then leave us in …’

‘What the … Aagh!’

The scream came from the upper staircase.

The investigators stared at the bend of the stairs round which Hockridge had just disappeared.

They saw him fall back, arms flailing. They heard the bony crack as his head struck one of the stone steps. Then the heavy body half-rolled, half-slithered till it lay sprawled at their feet.

For a moment the three of them stared down at the motionless figure. It was Andy who recovered first. He knelt beside the recumbent form and flashed a torch in his face. ‘Out cold,’ he muttered. ‘See what you can do for him, Jenny. Cynth, you’d better come with me. Let’s find out what frightened our fat friend.’

He set off up the stairs with the visibly trembling Cynthia almost treading on his heels.

Jenny bent over the professor who had fallen, face upwards. Uncertain what to do, she tried shaking his shoulder. ‘Professor! Professor Hockridge! Are you OK?’ Then she noticed the blood forming a pool around his head. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ Desperately she tried to remember the elementary first aid she had once learned. What was she supposed to do? Loosen his clothing? She scrabbled at his tie and collar. ‘Come on! Wake up!’ she muttered. Then she brought her face close to the upturned face.

The rain had eased. The silence was intense.

After several seconds Jenny stood up. She felt for the wall and leaned against it for support. Words came eventually in short gasps. ‘Andy … I think … I think he isn’t … breathing.’

The Vice-Chancellor’s Christmas Eve parties are highlights of the Cambridge social calendar and invitations are greatly prized by members of town and gown. The office of Vice-Chancellor is held in rotation by heads of colleges, and this provides scope for a certain amount of individuality in the drawing up of guest lists but protocol dictates that the majority of invitees will be masters, faculty heads, civic dignitaries and their wives. Dr Nathaniel Gye, lecturer in parapsychology and fellow of Beaufort College, was therefore flattered and surprised to receive an invitation. He was also intrigued to know why the embossed, gilt-edged card had arrived only three days before the event.

‘I still reckon we were only invited to make up numbers,’ Kathryn Gye said as they walked the short distance along Trumpington Street from Beaufort to the Fitzwilliam Museum, the venue for this year’s event. Even after eight years of living in Britain her voice had not lost its soft, American drawl.

‘Very possibly,’ Nat shrugged, ‘but it’s not the sort of chance you turn down.’

‘Well, promise me we won’t stay too long. I’ve still got a hell of a lot of wrapping to do.’

‘You and me both,’ Nat agreed. ‘Still, your folks won’t be sorry if we don’t hurry back. They’ve been longing to spend some time alone with the boys ever since they flew in from Pittsburgh. Your mother’s eyes positively lit up when I said we’d leave them to put Ed and Jerry to bed.’

They climbed the steps to the Fitzwilliam’s Corinthian portico, deposited their topcoats and joined the queue moving up the staircase to be presented to their host and hostess.

‘Nine thirty,’ Kathryn whispered in her husband’s ear. ‘Not a minute longer.’

‘OK.’ Nat grinned and stooped forward to mutter conspiratorially, ‘Let’s synchronize watches.’

Kathryn grimaced. ‘I know you too well, Nat Gye. It’ll be, “Hang on a moment, Darling. There’s one more person I must have a word with,” and you’ll disappear back into the mêlée for half an hour.’

‘I promise. Nine thirty and we’re away.’

A couple of hours later, when Nat checked his watch he complimented himself for keeping his word. It was eighteen minutes past nine and he reckoned he had done his social duty. He had chatted with everyone he wanted to chat with and several that he did not particularly want to chat with. He had done the circuit of the first-floor galleries under the gaze of seventeenth and eighteenth-century portraits, drunk three glasses of a more-than-passable Chablis and eaten his quota of bouchées.

He was just about to go in search of Kathryn when someone behind him said, ‘Dr Gye, isn’t it?’

Nat turned and saw a small, rotund figure with silvery-grey hair brushed back from a lined forehead. Nat knew at once that he ought to be able to put a name to the face. The man, immaculate in hand-sewn, pinstriped worsted, had the air of someone who expected to be recognized. Nat cudgelled his memory as he shook the outstretched hand.

After a few embarrassed seconds, the stranger came to his rescue. ‘Joseph Zuylestein. How do you do, Dr Gye.’

‘Sir Joseph, delighted to meet you.’ Recollection at last kicked in: Sir Joseph Zuylestein, retired international banker, recently installed as the new Master of St Thomas’s. ‘Are you settling well in Cambridge?’

The little man made a non-committal noise and Nat noticed the anxiety in his eyes and the nervous flapping of his hands.

Zuylestein said, ‘Dr Gye, can you spare me a few minutes?’

Nat resisted the temptation to glance at his watch. ‘Of course, but …’

‘Good, good. Let’s … er … Please.’ He turned abruptly and weaved his way to a door in a corner of the gallery. He ushered Nat into what proved to be a small unoccupied office and closed the door behind him. ‘Won’t you, please …’ He motioned Nat to a chair but remained standing himself.

Several seconds of awkward silence followed before Zuylestein said, ‘I realize this must seem absurdly cloak and dagger but I’m afraid I’ve been guilty of a little deception. I persuaded the Vice-Chancellor to invite you because I wanted very much – very much indeed – to meet you confidentially.’

‘Surely, Sir Joseph, a simple telephone call …’

The other man shook his head energetically. ‘No, no, it isn’t possible to arrange things in the conventional way. Please, bear with me a moment and I’ll explain.’

‘Well, Sir Joseph, as it happens I am in something of a hurry. We have people staying for Christmas and my wife and I …’

‘Of course, of course. I mustn’t trespass on your family celebration.’ He drew a long white envelope from an inside pocket. ‘I’ve written down the salient facts and I’ll let you have this if you decide you can help us. First I had to meet you – away from the public gaze – to see if I could persuade you to at least consider coming to our aid.’

He paused and seemed again to be floundering for words. ‘You might already have guessed what this is about,’ he ventured eventually.

‘Professor Hockridge’s death? I was sorry to hear …’

‘Exactly so, Dr Gye, exactly so. “The St Thomas’s ghost strikes again.” The press have had a field day over this untimely accident. The college has been besieged … besieged. First it was just the Cambridge Evening Star. Then the television people turned up with their cameras bombarding the porters’ lodge. Now the national tabloids have got on the track of a supposedly sensational story. We’ve had media people all over the place. Perhaps you begin to understand the need for this somewhat theatrical tete-a-tete. If I’d been seen to be consulting Cambridge’s most celebrated expert on the … er … supernatural … Well, you can imagine tomorrow’s headlines: “TV ghost hunter to lay St Tom’s spook.”’

‘Having one’s face on television can certainly be a problem. But I can’t really see why you want to “consult” me, as you say. As I understand it, Professor Hockridge suffered a heart attack while assisting in an experiment being carried out by the Psychic Investigation Unit. The circumstances were certainly bizarre but wouldn’t the best policy be simply to ignore the media circus? By the time Christmas is over they’ll have moved on to pastures new. It’ll be a nine-days wonder.’

‘Would that that were true, Dr Gye. Would that that were true. Jeremy’s – Professor Hockridge’s – death is just the latest in a string of incidents stretching back long before I came to St Thomas’s. You doubtless know the bare details.’

Nat nodded. ‘One of the St Tom’s undergrads died of a drug overdose some ten years ago. A tragic business but sadly not all that uncommon. Since then there have been occasional unexplained disturbances in his rooms.’

‘Substantially correct. The boy’s name was Paul Sutton, a third-year student living in F5. After his death, the room wasn’t exactly popular with junior members. You know how superstitions can develop. There were supposed manifestations. Of course, . . .