Chapter 4
ALEX
‘I can’t believe you’ve inherited, like, a castle, Alex,’ Arnold said, amazement in his voice, made even stronger by his Californian Valley twang. ‘Like… like Downton Abbey!’
Alex glared at the little squares on the phone screen, each of her friends perfectly framed there with their stream-ready setup, and her own square showing the drawing room, the camera thankfully reversed so they didn’t see that the joke struck home and not in a good way.
‘It’s nothing like that,’ she muttered. ‘It’s…
’ How did she begin to describe Wildewood Hall to anyone?
Part Manderley, part Thornfield Hall, part Hill House.
None of that would help. And technically it was a castle.
Or had been once upon a time. Before her family had spent generations adding bits on and rebuilding and designing a great house in the middle of nowhere.
Disguising what it once was as if that was an embarrassment.
And when you were little better than robber barons to begin with, maybe it was.
‘You wanted to see it.’ She composed her features and flicked the camera setting around again, back to face her. ‘There, you’ve seen.’
‘Yeah, but we want to see more,’ Daphne crooned. ‘It’s so atmospheric. You can feel the weight of history there. How many spirits do you think—’
‘None,’ Alex replied, with all the firmness she could muster. ‘Absolutely none, Daph.’
‘Statistically, the chances of that—’ said Eduardo.
‘None. And don’t quote statistics at me about things that aren’t real.’
There were stories though. Any number of stories. She and Theo had delighted in them as kids and Gran was always more than happy to share them. Alex wasn’t going to tell them that.
She dropped back into the armchair facing the fire.
At least she was warming up at last. She had promised to contact Gabe the moment she arrived, and once she had sorted out her data, she’d video-called him because getting Gabe to just talk on a phone was an impossibility.
He’d linked the others in before she knew what was happening. She sensed a conspiracy.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Gabe said, his voice a soft purr, and she could already see the wheels turning in his mind. He was always looking for an angle. Of course he was. ‘We really should think about investigating—’
‘No, Gabe,’ she said again, with even more force. But he wasn’t listening. When was he ever listening?
‘Come on, an international show, a special. They’d lap it up. I can get the network on board like that with you already over there. And it’s not like we’d have to get anyone else’s permission.’
‘You’d need mine. I’m not on the show anymore.’
‘Yeah but… No one’s happy about that. The fans would go ballistic, Alex. Think about it. A grand comeback. And even the title… Lady de Wilde…’
She needed to shut this down fast. ‘I’m not a de Wilde. And there is no title. I told you. It’s extinct.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘No one actually cares about that, Alexandra. Our very own sceptic inherits a haunted house in Ireland. Think of the promo. It’s too good, babe.’
Ugh, even the way he said it: Eye-are-laaand. She wanted to slap him. He knew she hated that. She’d told him often enough so he had to be doing it on purpose. To wind her up. Like the way he used her full name. Because she hated that as well.
Well two could play at that game.
‘Oh yeah, Gabriel, the same fans who sent me the death threats? Those nutjobs? Should I send them change of address cards, do you think, or just mass invite them over to the isolated house in the middle of nowhere? How many bloody dahlias do you think they can get shipped here? Why not roll up with good ol’ Ted as well?
I’m sure they’d happily break him out of jail, don’t you think? No thank you.’
That sobered them all again. It was the primary reason she had left.
Ted Sanderson and his acolytes, whose intimidation had been even closer to home and not just online but in her face.
They had sent her flowers – black dahlias, of course, his favourite – with little notecards, all completely innocuous unless you knew the hidden meanings.
It had been relentless. She’d been so scared she stopped sleeping and she knew she would have had a breakdown if it hadn’t been for the others.
Gabe had insisted the cops were called, Daphne had stayed with her, Arnold and Eduardo had tracked several of them down. She would always owe them for that.
‘Yeah, well,’ Gabe said, chastened. ‘Not them, I guess.’
There was a long and awkward silence which, of course, she felt she had to be the one to break. As always.
‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m just tired. But I really need a vacation from it all. You know that. Until they forget about me. You’re already filming the next season, aren’t you? You all have commitments over there. And you have Bob McGarry now to do what I did. He’ll be great.’
Bob who was not on this call. Who they had deliberately left out. She tried to ignore how ominous that felt. But Bob was just a colleague and she was a friend. That was a difference. They had been through a lot together, the five of them.
‘Bob,’ Daphne growled, and the tone was all the indication Alex needed of what she thought of their new parapsychologist. He had rubbed her up the wrong way right from the beginning and Daphne was determined that Alex would come back.
She had seen it, apparently. The spirits had spoken.
Alex herself had no say in that. It was notable that the spirits often declared that things would happen which matched up exactly with whatever Daphne wanted to happen.
Or something that might make spectacular television and generate a host of clickbait headlines.
This was getting her nowhere. Alex shifted around in the chair to get more of the heat of the fire.
‘Look, I need to get myself sorted here. I’m going to work on the book, which is all part of the brand, isn’t it?
And I’ll run everything by you, I promise.
It’ll be a whole new publicity stream. Then we’ll see.
I’ll be in touch and I’m always on the end of the phone if you need me. Or an email. You know that, right?’
Her little posse of ghost hunters didn’t exactly look placated. As Alex tried to think of something else to say to them to put them at ease, or at least put them off, Daphne’s eyes widened. It was almost comical.
‘Alexandra darling?’ she asked in her most teasing tone. It was never a good sign when Daphne got in on that act. ‘Tell me, does your little corner of the Emerald Isle have a history of Sasquatch sightings?’
Sasquatch? As in Bigfoot? Alex was well aware that Daphne was a loveable loon but really? What on earth was she on about?
‘No, why?’
Gabe roared out a laugh and the others followed suit.
Alex stared at them, bewildered, and then she caught movement in the screen, in the right-hand corner, that window which showed her and the room in which she sat.
Someone stood behind her, in the doorway to the hall outside the drawing room, someone impossibly tall, long-haired, bearded…
The bastards!
She killed the call right away and turned around to face Nick, standing there with a tea tray, frowning at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said without sounding anything like it. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.’
‘You didn’t. Don’t worry. I was just—’ There was no way he couldn’t have heard that. Oh, damn it all. He had obviously heard Daphne, and the laughter. ‘I’m sorry. That was so rude of them.’
He set the tray down without acknowledging her apology. China clinked as he did, that expensive, delicate, fragile sound, and he straightened, handing her the thick fluffy towel he had draped over one arm. ‘I’m not exactly looking my best, I admit.’
Neither was she with her wet hair starting to frizz.
‘They probably thought I had headphones in. They were worried about me getting here, about me moving so far away. They’re my friends. And colleagues. I mean, they were my colleagues. Former colleagues.’
He nodded as if she had just explained everything rather than blurted out word salad, and took the knitted tea-cosy off the teapot, pouring the dark amber liquid into a cup for her. Only one cup, she noticed.
‘You’re not having any?’ she asked.
He shook his head a little too firmly. Well, why would he want to hang around after that? ‘I’ll take your bags upstairs for you.’
‘Oh, I can do that if you just show me where to go.’
‘It’s no trouble, Dr O’Neill,’ he rumbled, the tone saying different, and turned away.
And what could she say to that because she had no idea where her room was.
She was entirely relying on him to show her around the place.
As children Alex and Theo had been banished to the old nursery.
She sincerely hoped he wasn’t planning to put her up there.
Alex turned her attention to the tray. There were biscuits as well, home-made from the look of them, sitting on a small plate beside a bowl of sugar cubes, silver tongs, and the matching milk jug.
Her stomach gave a far too loud rumble. When had she last eaten?
She had stopped somewhere on the way, just off the motorway, and that had been a bland sandwich from a chain which she suspected had as much nutrition as the cardboard it had come in.
The biscuit was sweet and buttery, just the right level of crumb, and she had never tasted anything quite so perfect in her life. Her hand was already reaching for another before she thought about it. That didn’t stop her.
‘Where did you get these?’ she asked but he’d already gone.
Damn, he moved quietly for a big guy. More used to Gabe, who could make noise while sitting absolutely still, and the rest of them who were impossible to keep quiet even on an investigation, perhaps especially on an investigation.
She was surprised how unsettling she found it.
She towel-dried the excess water from her hair and checked the phone again as she drank her tea and finished the rest of the biscuits.
We’re here if you need us, Gabe’s message said. Even if it’s to ward off a Sasquatch. Hope he’s not too pissed with us. Sorry!
Alex shook her head. At least she had that support. Even if it was half the world away. And prone to insulting everyone around her, especially the one person she couldn’t afford to piss off right now.
Her gaze travelled around the room. It was a strange mixture of things, its grand fireplace dominating it, the oval mirror hanging above it, the tall windows almost lost in shadows at either end, draped in heavy brocade curtains of blue and gold.
There were ornaments set in an array on a console table, and scattered across the mantelpiece.
The fire was merry and warm and she suddenly felt like she could almost nod off sitting here, as if she was a child again listening to Gran spinning her stories about the forest, and the good folk, and changelings and the walker in the woods, hunter and guardian.
The firelight played on the stone surrounding it, that heavy grey stone with flickering bits of mica, seemed to hold shapes and patterns which couldn’t be there.
Old impressions of spirals and diamonds, faces made from the way light and shadow moved, eyes watching her…
From behind her, in the depths of the house, she thought she heard laughter, a high and girlish giggle. Overhead something creaked, floorboards maybe, under a heavy tread. And then something else, something far closer. So close it might have been in the room with her.
A whisper.
Her name.
Alex shot up to her feet and the cup flew out of her hands, smashing as it hit the edge of the fireplace.
The house was horribly quiet in the aftermath.
‘Shit!’
She dropped to her knees, pulling the towel off her head to mop up the tea before it got to the rug. The china was in pieces, and as she tried to gather it up, a sharp edge dug into her palm. She cursed again and threw the fragments onto the tray in frustration. No blood. At least there was that.
‘Are you all right?’
Nick was back in the doorway, frowning down at her in bemusement.
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I just… I dropped the cup and…’
Slowly, she stood up, feeling her face heating up. Tears stung her eyes. She was making a fool of herself and she hated that.
Nick looked at her, his gaze steady, his eyes almost unbearably severe. Judging her, like her grandfather used to.
‘You’ve had a long day,’ he said at length, as if talking to an overtired child. ‘I’ll show you your room. Get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow will be better. I’ll clean that up.’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed, defeated. Maybe she should just let him clean it up, and try again tomorrow. He was definitely judging her anyway, and when he found out why she was here, if he didn’t already know… well… ‘Bed would be good. Take me to bed.’
The words were out before she could stop them. They both stood there, staring at each other in abject horror, and Alex wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. To get it over with quickly for once.
Nick cleared his throat painfully and then stepped back, averting his gaze. ‘This way,’ he said, his voice a little too tight.
Oh God, Alex thought, face burning, barely here half an hour and already sexually harassing the staff. Generations of de Wildes would be so proud of me.