Read Online The Ghost House by Helen Phifer - Free Book Online Page A

smell of hay filled his nostrils and he had to lift a hand to his face to stifle a sneeze. He pulled a bale of hay from the stack and dragged it over to the tiny window that had a slight crack across the grimy glass: it gave a perfect view of the courtyard and the kitchen door. If he was lucky they would use this as the main way to go in and out. He was confident that whoever it was would have no reason to come in here at this time of night and if they did he would say he was homeless and just dossing down for the night.

Chapter 6
    Tesco was empty. Annie managed to do her shopping with no interruptions, which made a change. One of the things she disliked about her job was that everyone who lived in the town centre knew her both in and out of uniform. More often than not when she was doing her grocery shopping she would get stopped and told tales about what the next door neighbour was up to or asked if she could do something about the smackheads over the road.
    She filled the trolley with pizza, salad, pasta, chocolate and wine. She even picked up a packet of razors.
Time to shave those legs. You just never know
. She looked at her trolley, it was a lot different to shopping with Mike and she liked it.
    On the stand near to the checkout was a single battered copy of the local paper. The front page had a picture of the missing girl staring back at her. Shivering, Annie hoped the poor girl wasn’t lying dead somewhere near to the farmhouse.
    Her journey home was uneventful. She didn’t think twice about getting out of the car to unlock the gates. Usually she would feel a little scared because it was so lonely and dark at this time of night and there were far too many stories of ghostly monks who wandered the area. Tonight she was too busy thinking about Will. She should really phone Jake and discreetly try and find out if Will had said anything about her but he would second-guess what she was up to and then he’d tell Will: Jake could not keep his mouth shut.
    She parked up and grabbed the bags of shopping from the boot of the car; the wine bottles clashed together. Unlatching the gate a feeling of being watched settled over her and she felt uneasy again. Ever since she had gone into the mansion it had been there hovering at the back of her mind. She had never experienced anything like it. Going into the kitchen she locked the door and dumped the shopping bags onto the table, her hands were trembling.
    ‘I’m cracking up, Tess, and turning into an alcoholic but you don’t mind, do you? It will be our little secret.’
    She picked up the half full bottle of wine and her glass then went into the snug to watch the television: anything to keep her mind occupied. Something funny was what she needed. She searched through the channels until she found a repeat of
Only Fools and Horses
. There was nothing like the antics of Del Boy, Rodney and a box of blow-up dolls to put a smile on your face.
    Her back to the window she didn’t see the black figure sneak from the barn and skulk into the woods. Tess growled in the kitchen, she knew someone was out there.
    Will arrived back at the police station and this time it was full of people; completely different to this morning. Everything was the wrong way round today. Usually at this time of night it was quiet, a couple of officers and the odd PCSO around. Everyone else would be out on patrol, waiting for the endless jobs to come in. He often thought it was a shame how much the taxpayer didn’t know about the world of policing. Most calls to the police were absolute rubbish: reports of kids making a noise in the play park or for playing football in the street. It drove him nuts. The parade room was full; the nightshift officers hanging around for the nine o’clock briefing to begin. He walked on to the community office and looked in; nodding at the two PCSOs, Claire and Sally, who were in there,
    ‘Evening, ladies, anyone brewing up?’ He gave them his best smile and they grinned