Read Online Hiding From the Light by Barbara Erskine - Free Book Online

by the window, gazing out into the street. The empty shop across the road where she had passed her unexpected coffee break that morning was deserted, the front door padlocked. She turned back to Will. ‘Ring them. Now. Check they’ll accept it.’ Her knuckles were white on the edge of his desk. ‘And a deposit. They’ll want a deposit –’
    ‘Not before Monday, Miss Dickson.’ Will found himself seriously worried now. ‘Honestly. If you want it, it’s yours.’ He reached into the file to find the phone number. Glancing up, he indicated the chair. ‘Please, sit down again while I phone them.’ He smiled at her. ‘Relax. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.’

8
     
Saturday lunchtime
     
     
    ‘I suggest we do the interviews upstairs.’ Colin, having taken the tray back to the coffee shop, was adjusting the lens on his camera. ‘The wall up there would be a good background. The herringbone brickwork or whatever it is.’
    Joe Thomson, their sound man, had joined them at lunchtime with his daughter Alice who was going to act as production assistant. Joe at forty-two was balding, very tall and thin. His daughter had inherited his height and build. At eighteen she was already as tall as her father. With short cropped hair and studs in eyebrows and nose she appeared far more confident and outgoing than in fact she was. This was her first assignment – a gap job before going up to university. Half of her was determined she would not blow it. The other half was scared stiff.
    Colin and Mark had been in Manningtree for two days now, staying at a bed and breakfast in Brook Street, and Joe and Alice had joined them after driving down from London. The first day had been wasted for Colin and Mark when the expected key had not been forthcoming and Stan Barker, the owner, had proved extraordinarily elusive. They had only run him to earth that first evening at the pub, so their first visit to the shop had been perhaps appropriately after dark. The atmosphere had been suitably sinister.
    After the visit Mark had slept uneasily and woken early. The second night he had been shocked awake by the sound of someone screaming. Splashing his face in cold water he had stood for several minutes in the bathroom of the bed and breakfast, staring into the mirror before he had tiptoed back to his bedroom. The sound had been part of his dream, he knew that. And yet, somehow it had come from outside him. He climbed back into bed and sat there, with the table light on, huddled beneath the bedcovers fighting sleep. When at last he had dozed off he dreamed he was running down a dark road and there were people chasing him. He could hear them shouting, baying like hounds and growing closer all the time. He was still running, out of breath and drenched in sweat, when his alarm clock woke him.
    Mark glanced up at the others from the clipboard. ‘I’m going to want the interviews in different settings. Perhaps some outside by the river, or some of the other places associated with Hopkins. Unless the ghosts appear there’s basically not much to see here. An empty shop. An empty upstairs. But I’d like to get some shots of that staircase if we can light it properly. I’ve got three interviews set up for this afternoon, Joe. Barker first. I’m easy where he goes, wherever he feels most comfortable, then we can fit the others round him.’
    ‘You don’t think he’ll back out at the last moment?’ Colin hefted the camera up onto the counter.
    ‘He seemed quite keen.’ Mark flipped over the page and made a quick pencil note on his schedule. ‘I had a moment of inspiration and told him programmes like this lead to dozens of people trying to buy a property after it’s appeared on TV.’
    ‘Not necessarily after a programme like this one!’ Colin commented dryly.
    ‘No, well you never know!’ Mark glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s go up and see where it would be best to put him.’
    He led the way up the creaking staircase. At the top