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‘Does anyone want a drink to settle their nerves?’ Martin said.

‘Yes, please,’ Mrs Littleslade said, despite still holding a decanter of brandy in one hand.

Kelly shook her head.

‘Only for Mrs Littleslade then,’ said Martin. ‘I’ll go and get the keys to the bar.’

‘I think I’d best go back to bed,’ Kelly said.

‘I’ll walk you back,’ Martin said. ‘Just to make sure there are no more bumps in the night.’

He took her back to her room and waited until she turned on the lights, resisting the urge to give him a dose of the scary face in the mirror. Right now, she really didn’t want to know if that face matched that of the horrifying ghostly woman she had seen downstairs.

She thanked him, and he bade her good night.

She lay down on her bed with the light still on, listening to the rain and the thunder and the lightning, trying to reason with herself that the figure she had seen had actually been a ghost of a long-dead, put-upon woman who had suffered in life and suffered in death, dying in tragedy, and not, as she was starting to believe now that her nerves were settling, an old man wearing a wedding dress with fairy lights hung across its frills, and with ghoulish makeup painted on his scowling face.

27

Suspicions and Auto Trouble

When Kelly woke the next morning, she had a bit of a sore head, but she didn’t think it was to do with Mrs Littleslade’s brandy so much as the poor night’s sleep that she’d had.

Sleeping with the light on, she’d woken up a couple of times to the sound of more thunder or bumping doors. And what she had believed the night before, she now felt less certain about.

What had she seen down there in the dining room?

Had it been a ghost or just someone mucking around in an elaborate Halloween costume?

The more she thought about it, the less she felt the person in question had been intentionally trying to scare her. In fact, she felt quite sure that the supposed ghost had been more alarmed at her presence than she had been at its.

Plus, it had been in the kitchen crashing around, not floating around in the halls as though attempting to scare her. Because after all, the pub was closed for the night, and there shouldn’t have been anyone downstairs, except maybe for Martin keeping an eye on things.

But if he had been attempting an elaborate ruse in order to scare some customers and perhaps enhance the legend of Howling Gail, he had not been particularly successful. And also, his sudden appearance in his black pyjamas made it unlikely that he could be the ghost, because how could he have changed so fast?

The sound of a car came from outside so Kelly headed downstairs just in time to see, through the windows of the main bar, Mr Littleslade getting out of the car and approaching the front entrance.

Another of her suspicions had been that the supposed ghost might well have been Mr Littleslade wearing his wife’s wedding dress. But if here he was just arriving, how could it possibly have been him downstairs last night?

Again, it just made no sense.

However, Kelly, being a reporter, as well as genuinely curious at the best of times, wasn’t about to give up her suspicions that easily, especially when she headed for the main bar only to hear voices in the kitchen.

Although the tables had been laid out for breakfast, it was still only quarter to seven in the morning, and the breakfast room didn’t open until seven. There should be no one else downstairs except the staff.

She crept into the main bar until she could overhear what was being said.

‘It makes no sense,’ came Martin’s voice. ‘No sense at all.’

‘They didn’t take any of the notes?’ came Miranda’s voice.

‘Nothing,’ said Martin. ‘All they took were the coins. Every last one. But they didn’t take a single note. Now why would anyone do that?’

‘Perhaps it really was Gail,’ Miranda said. ‘Perhaps she went out into the storm and threw the coins up into the air. It’s one of the stories that she went into the church, picked up the collection box, and threw it out into the graveyard.’

‘It’s just another story,’ Martin said. ‘It’s probably a load of rubbish, just like most of them. Anyway, I’ll have a look in the garden, but I highly doubt that I’m going to find coins scattered all over the place.’

Their voices went a little muffled, and Kelly crept closer, only for a floorboard to creak beneath her feet.