another case he brought out a small, black-bound book, the pages of which were gilded about the edge, and he brandished it with great solemnity. ‘My Bible!’ he proclaimed. ‘That’s the first and most important safeguard. There’s no harm can come with this as protection.’
The evening was closing in. Darkness pressed against the blank windows of The Wyrd Museum and the old man moved through the rooms, measuring distances and drawing diagrams of the layout in his notebook.
‘Would your dad mind if I filled my thermos with hot water?’ he asked. ‘Three large mugs of strong black coffee should see me through and stave off the drowse.’
Neil thought that if his father was still in his relatively good humour then there was no harm in trying, and so he led the old man to their apartment.
Brian Chapman was sitting at the small table, surrounded by a sea of open newspapers. Josh had been put to bed and the caretaker scowled at the interruption when the door opened.
‘What is it?’ he snapped.
Neil guessed correctly that his father’s job hunting was proving more difficult than he had anticipated and was glad that he had not brought Quoth along also.
‘I said Mr Pickering could have some hot water for his flask.’
His father grunted and irritably flapped the paper he was reading. ‘You know where the kettle is.’
‘This way,’ the boy began.
Austen Pickering followed him inside the apartment, then drew a sharp, astonished breath. ‘Tremendous!’ he exclaimed, blowing upon his hands and shivering uncontrollably.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Brian asked.
‘Can’t you feel it?’ the old man cried.
Neil shook his head, but glanced warily at his father.
‘It’s freezing in here!’ the ghost hunter declared. ‘This room is a definite cold spot. Something quite dreadful must have happened here in the past. Let me get my thermometer – I must see if it registers.’
Brian Chapman rose from the chair and slammed the newspaper upon the table. ‘That’s it!’ he snapped. ‘You and your crackpot notions can get out of here. For God’s sake, I’ve got a four-year-old boy trying to sleep in the next room. I don’t want him scared by this mumbo-jumbo claptrap. Go on – I said leave!’
Still shivering, a crestfallen Austen Pickering looked away, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you,’ he uttered. ‘I sometimes get carried away. I’m sorry, I’ll get back to The Fossil Room. It doesn’t matter about the hot water.’
‘Oh well done, Dad,’ Neil shouted when the old man had departed. ‘There was no need to be so nasty. He isn’t doing any harm.’
The boy’s father sat down once more and rested his head in his hands. ‘I’ve had it up to here for today,’ he groaned. ‘On top of everything else, I don’t want a loser like him telling me that this flat is haunted.’
‘This place must be a magnet for losers, then,’ Neil snapped, heading for the door.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To apologise! Though I don’t see why I should – but I know you wouldn’t dream of it.’
Neil slammed the door behind him and, with a yell of frustration, Brian Chapman threw the newspapers across the room.
In The Fossil Room, Neil found Austen Pickering sorting through the many candles he had brought with him, whilst Quoth nibbled at the wax and pecked at the tantalising, worm-like wicks.
‘Sorry about Dad,’ Neil said. ‘He’s been a complete pain lately.’
The old man brushed the incident aside. ‘I told you some people don’t like what I do,’ he reminded the boy. ‘I’m used to it by now. A solitary vocation, that’s what this is.’
‘I could go back and fill your thermos for you.’
‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ Mr Pickering replied, walking over to where his mackintosh hung and pulling a silver hip flask from one of the pockets. ‘A nip of brandy will do just as well. I said I was prepared.’
Gathering up a handful of candles, he placed one in each corner of the room then threw Neil a cigarette lighter. ‘If you could set those going for me, I’ll just put two more in the centre here and jot down the direction of the draughts.’
In the bright glare of the electric lights, the candle flames looked cold and pale. Quoth amused himself by dancing around trying to blow them out – until Neil saw what he was doing and scolded him.
‘There.’ The ghost hunter finally nodded with satisfaction. ‘Now, if you could flick the switch, lad.’
Neil obeyed and the room was immediately engulfed in shadows which leaped about the walls. The huge black bones of the fossils appeared to twitch as great hollows of darkness yawned between the massive ribs, and prehistoric nightmares flew through the night above their heads.
Beneath them, however, the six cheery candle flames were reflected in the glass of the cabinets, and the cases which contained mineral samples glinted and winked as the faceted crystals and pyrites threw back the trembling fires.
‘Such glistering gaudery!’ Quoth cawed, hopping across to spread his wings and let the shimmering light play over his ragged feathers. ‘Fie, how this sorry vagabond doth put the lustrous Phoenix to shame.’
Neil grinned but Austen Pickering was already heading towards the next room. ‘Much more conducive,’ the ghost hunter remarked. ‘This kind of investigation always works better in the soft glow of candles. All to do with light waves and atmospheric vibrations – electricity is a terrible obstacle for some of the weaker souls of the departed, you know.’
The boy followed him and, dragging himself away from the sparkling cabinets, Quoth came waddling after.
‘Put the rest in the other galleries, I think,’ Mr Pickering decided, handing Neil a dozen more candles. ‘Then I’ll settle down and wait. I’ve got high hopes for this night. Once the usual noises of an old building settling on to its foundations have subsided, who knows? Perhaps there’ll even be a manifestation. I’ve never been so excited, not even in the Wigan case.’
‘What was that about?’ Neil asked.
The old man set another candle down and marked its position in his notebook. ‘Up till now it was my most rewarding investigation,’ he announced, ‘and an object lesson which proves that not all hauntings occur in churchyards or ancient buildings. Just an ordinary semi that a young family had moved into. Wasn’t long before they noticed strange things were happening – so I was called in.’
Wandering into another room he paused and lit another candle before continuing. ‘Five nights I was there till the poor soul made his appearance,’ he chuckled. ‘Except for the baby, we were all downstairs and I was beginning to wonder if the young couple had imagined it all. But sometimes the departed don’t want to let go of their ties with this world, and they can get a bit wily. That’s what was happening there. The old chap who’d lived there originally didn’t want to leave and was hiding from me. If it wasn’t for modern technology, I might still be there trying to find him.’
‘How do you mean?’ Neil broke in. ‘Did the ghost show up on one of your photographs?’
The old man laughed. ‘Nothing like that,’ he chuckled. ‘No, as I said, we were all downstairs when, over the baby monitor, comes a voice. He was up there in the nursery, talking to the littl’un in her cot!’
‘That’s well creepy.’
‘Oh, he didn’t want to hurt her,’ Mr Pickering asserted. ‘Just sad and lonely, that’s all. People don’t change just because they die, you know. He was a kindly soul, was old Cyril.’