Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [22]
Trix smiled. ‘What was it? The ghost detector, I mean.’
‘Just an oscilloscope and a couple of switches and lights he’d nicked from a toy light sabre. He only let me in on this a few years later, of course!’ James paused, stubbing out the cigarette. ‘It’s funny that you’re asking me this after all these years. Dad used to say that my great grandfather had worked here, back at the turn of the century when it was a “mad house”. I used to badger him all the time in case he’d heard some stories. Dad only knew that it had burnt down at some point, that they did some quick repairs on it during the Second World War – used it as a base for the Home Guard or something, but they didn’t like the atmosphere and soon moved out. Someone had tried to buy it in the sixties, turn it into some flats, but. . . It never happened. After that the only people interested in it were local arsonists.’
Trix nodded – clearly what James was saying was confirming what she already knew.
‘I was always asking him about the ghosts, of course. He said his granddad had never said anything about the place being haunted – but all the kids at school reckoned it was. You know how it is, an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. It gets the imagination going.’
‘Did you ever see a ghost?’ Trix asked the question as lightly as if she had asked for the time.
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James shook his head. ‘No. Richard was always larking about, but. . . We never saw anything.’
He glanced at Trix – her lips were pursed, as if she were disappointed to hear that. Disappointed, but not surprised.
‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘we did have one strange night up here.’
Trix angled her face back towards him, eyes suddenly wide. ‘Go on.’
‘It wasn’t Hallowe’en or anything,’ James stressed firmly. ‘Just another one of our ghost-hunting expeditions. We told each of our parents that we were going around the other’s house – that was our usual trick. Richard really wanted to come up here again – I was a bit bored of it, though to be honest my real reason was I didn’t like the place. It always gave me the creeps –
much more so than the graveyard, which was our other haunt!’ He looked about him, trying to strip back the veneer of progress to reveal the Victorian shell beneath. ‘Sometimes it catches me out and I find myself thinking, “What the hell am I doing working here?” It’s like some sort of sick joke. I mean, I don’t mind the patients and all that – but, you know, because this place has always scared me, I sometimes get a shiver down my spine when I’m working.
If I’m on my own, or it’s dark outside. . .
‘Anyway, we came up here, and Richard went through the ritual of turning on his “ghost detector”. A right old song and dance he made of it, I can tell you.’
‘What happened?’ asked Trix.
James paused, milking the moment.
‘Nothing. Just a straight line on the oscilloscope. Richard suggested going down into the basement – we hadn’t been there before. We made our way to a door. . . Do you know, when I came home for an interview here, I was still hoping to find this particular door? I was happy enough with the job I had in Bristol, but I was curious about working at the Retreat. I got offered the job, I came back to live with my parents for a few weeks. . . Two months later and I still haven’t found that door! I suppose things have changed a lot since the eighties, when I stood there with Richard, trying to summon up enough bravery to go down to the cellars. The moment I gripped the handle –
I always had to go first, you see, Richard was all mouth and no trousers –
the oscilloscope started playing up. It made this clicking noise, like a Geiger counter or something,