Ghost Song Read online

  ‘In that car park just off Burbage Street.’

  ‘Oh, quite near,’ said Hilary innocently.

  ‘All right, we’ll get them,’ said Robert, with the feeling of throwing discretion and sanity to the winds. ‘Let’s do it now before I change my mind.’

  It was raining when they got outside. The lights from the cars, shop windows and bars were reflected in the shiny pavements, and London was just crossing over the line that separated its daylight identity from the dark, sometimes sinister, face it wore at night. Robert had worked in London for three years now, but he still found it fascinating to see the change from the hurrying, business-suited persona of the city to the night-time mood. He liked seeing the way that people dressed and talked and even moved differently.

  Hilary had jammed a twenties-style velour hat over her bright hair. Robert wondered whether he should say it suited her, and then thought he had better not in case she misinterpreted it. She was not wearing any kind of ring but that did not mean a thing.

  They collected the small haversack Robert used to tote the impedimenta of his trade, and went along to the Harlequin’s offices. The building was in darkness except for a couple of dim security lights. ‘I won’t put the main lights on,’ said Hilary as they went up to the first floor. ‘They might be seen from the street. We share a security man with about a dozen other buildings in the row and if he sees lights he might come up to check. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be here but I’d rather not have to explain. I’d certainly rather Shona didn’t find out.’

  ‘I feel like a house-breaker,’ said Robert as she switched on a shaded desk light.

  ‘Yes, it’s odd, isn’t it, how places change their personalities when they’re deserted and it’s dark? I sometimes think London itself does that as well.’

  ‘I always think it.’

  The dim green light fell across some of the hand-written labels inside the key cupboard. Empire Halls and Palace Theatres and Apollos and Playhouses and Theatre Royals. At the sight of them Robert felt the memories stirring again, as he had in the Tarleton. All of these places were empty or had been turned into bingo halls or cinemas or clubs, but all of them had once been rich with gilt and hung with red velvet, their cornices and caryatids bathed in the incandescent glow of gaslight, if not limelight… What would the ghosts think of strobe lighting and computerized number-calling, or the dazzling effects of the cinema-makers? Were they still even around, those ghosts? All those bewhiskered gentlemen, thumbs hooked in waistcoat pockets as they told slightly risqué jokes… All those girls with parasols and sweet voices singing about the boy they loved being up in the gallery… Older ladies with the formidable S-shaped silhouette of the Edwardian matron, thrusting bust and jutting bustle, majestically singing patriotic songs about Britannia… Acrobats and strong-men in leotards and tap-dancers with long shoes, and cheerful Cockney chars who stopped off on the way to have the old half quartern and could not find their way home…

  With the idea of keeping a hold on the practical world, he said, ‘Exactly how far-reaching is the Harlequin’s authority? Are you just agents for theatre owners or do you get a kind of power of attorney as well?’

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t really have anything to do with the legal side of things—I’m a researcher. But we do look after a number of theatres—most of them belong to big conglomerates. Faceless companies with so many subdivisions they hardly know what they do own. That’s why the buildings stand empty for years.’

  ‘No privately owned theatres?’

  ‘I doubt if many theatres are privately owned these days,’ said Hilary. ‘Not in London anyway. I do know the Harlequin’s got a few with long-running legal wrangles over lawful ownership—freehold and leasehold all mixed up together, and people denying ownership or trying to claim ownership. Or cases where title deeds were lost in the Blitz and nobody can trace the real owner. With those, the solicitors hand the caretaking to us while it’s being sorted out, although it often takes years. These are the keys.’ She dropped them in her jacket pocket and switched off the desk light. ‘Ready?’

  ‘No,’ said Robert, ‘but let’s do it anyway.’

  He followed her down the stairs, waited for her to lock the street door, and then said, ‘I don’t think we’d better use the main entrance, it fronts onto quite a busy part of the street and it’s a bit noticeable. There’s an alley along the side of the building, leading to the old stage door.’

  ‘Platt’s Alley,’ said Hilary. ‘Yes, I know it.’

  ‘I think it would be better to use that. It’s narrow, and it’s likely to be dark and a bit unsavoury, but—’

  ‘Unsavoury I can cope with,’ said Hilary. ‘And we’ve got a torch for the dark. Lead the way.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AT THIS TIME OF evening Platt’s Alley was dark and very unwelcoming indeed. The rain lay in oily puddles everywhere, and little heaps of sodden rubbish lay in corners.

  ‘It isn’t anywhere near as unsavoury as I thought it would be,’ said Hilary, shining the torch.

  ‘It’d be very unsavoury if we were caught trespassing,’ said Robert.

  ‘We aren’t trespassing. This is a public thoroughfare and we’ve got the keys to the building.’

  ‘Good. Remember that argument when we’re in Bow Street, will you? The stage door’s at the far end.’

  ‘Yes, I see it.’ Hilary shone the torch. ‘There’s something carved into the stone over the door—can you see what it says?’

  ‘It says, “Please one and please all, be they great, be they small”.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Hilary approvingly. ‘I wonder where it’s from and who put it there.’

  ‘Your ghost, perhaps.’

  ‘Somehow I think it’s older than the ghost. Or are ghosts ageless?’

  ‘Whatever they are, let’s hope we don’t meet any tonight.’

  ‘What’s beyond the alley?’

  ‘A ten-foot-high wall. It separates this plot from Candle Square and all those little streets leading off.’

  As Robert opened the stage door, Hilary did not exactly shiver, but as they stepped inside she hunched her shoulders as if suddenly cold, and dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket. He locked the door, and shone the torch into the swirling darkness. ‘The room on the right would have been for a porter or a doorman, I think,’ he said.

  ‘It was a doorman who told the ghost story to the old actor,’ said Hilary. ‘Bob Shilling. He said he wouldn’t come in here by night for a hundred pounds.’

  ‘I’d rather you hadn’t reminded me of that. Further along this corridor there’s a side passage with stone steps leading down to the cellars.’

  ‘Which is where the mysterious wall is?’

  ‘Yes. I’m assuming you don’t actually want to see it tonight?’

  ‘Well, perhaps we could do that in daylight,’ said Hilary, glancing to where the steps went down into a well of blackness.

  ‘We can get through to the foyer this way,’ said Robert. ‘It takes us along past cloakrooms and the old Oyster Bar.’

  ‘That’s evocative, isn’t it? Oyster Bar. Gentlemen in evening dress wolfing down oysters, and making a play for chorus girls. Very 1890s.’

  If the Tarleton’s ghosts had been mildly inquisitive when Robert carried out his survey, on a dark rainy night with only a couple of torches for light and semi-stolen keys for access, they were very nearly aggressive. They’re not liking this, he thought as they walked along, their footsteps echoing. They’re used to people coming in occasionally in daylight, but if they’re disturbed when night falls they close ranks because of guarding the secrets…

  ‘I thought the foyer would be bigger,’ said Hilary as they went through a heavy swing door, the torch creating a triangle of light. ‘But then Drury Lane’s foyer isn’t very big, so if it’s good enough for— What’s up there?’

  ‘Stairs to the dress circle. Over there, on the left, is the equivalent of the box office, and the door
to the main auditorium’s straight ahead. Sorry if I’m starting to sound like a coach-tour operator.’

  Robert pushed the auditorium door open; it was on a swing mechanism which protested a bit but opened reasonably easily. Hilary went through, then stopped just inside, staring at the rows of tip-up seats still in place and at the faded gilt paintwork.

  ‘Is it as you imagined it?’ said Robert after a moment.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t really know what I expected—well, other than finding the Glamis monster or Bluebeard’s murder chamber.’ This was said with a fair attempt at flippancy. ‘But that’s Shona’s fault, of course. “You can go anywhere you like in the castle, but whatever you do, don’t open the seventh door…” And so you instantly want to open that door more than anything.’

  ‘Or in this case demolish a wall.’

  ‘We aren’t going to do that, are we?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Robert.

  ‘I hope that’s a joke.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘But now I’m here,’ said Hilary, still staring about her, ‘I don’t think the Tarleton’s got a monster to its name.’

  ‘No monsters at all,’ said Robert, and then, to see how she would respond, said, ‘There are maybe a few ghosts,’ and was absurdly pleased when she said, ‘Yes, the ghosts are definitely here, aren’t they? All those singers and musicians and dancers and backstage people…’ She glanced at Robert. ‘And the man who prowled the streets and hid inside the old London fog. Whoever he was, I have a feeling he’s still here sometimes.’ She frowned. ‘Can we get onto the stage from here?’

  ‘Yes, there are steps on the right. You’d better have the spare torch.’

  Hilary took the torch and walked down the centre aisle, occasionally reaching out to touch the worn surface of a chair. Halfway down she looked up at the boxes at the side of the stage, and stopped abruptly. Robert saw her expression alter, and said, ‘Hilary? Is something wrong?’

  Hilary was shining the torch onto the box. For a moment she did not speak, and then, in a low voice, she said, ‘I think there’s someone up there.’

  Robert’s heart skipped several beats and although he was not aware of having moved, he discovered he was standing next to her, holding her arm protectively. ‘There’s no one there,’ he said, peering into the shadows. ‘The place is empty.’

  ‘There is someone there.’ She moved the torch. ‘He’s stepped back, but he’s still there. He’s watching us.’

  Robert shone his own torch onto the box and for the fraction of a second thought he saw the shadowy figure of a man wearing a long coat and a deep-brimmed hat pulled well down to hide his face…

  He moved the torch again and then, with a gasp of relief, said, ‘It’s all right—it’s just the fall of the curtains inside the box. Can you see how they sort of bunch together on the right? It does look like a man’s figure. That’s what you saw.’

  They were not exactly whispering, but they were speaking in low voices as if afraid of being overheard. Robert was aware of a stir of unease, because when he left the theatre after his survey, those curtains had been pushed so far back against the wall they had been barely visible. He had noticed it particularly, because he had gone into the box to inspect the timberwork. But now those same curtains were in a different position: three quarters drawn and hiding most of the box’s interior. Had someone been in since the survey and moved them? But Hilary said no one ever had the keys.

  To say any of this would only frighten her, so in an ordinary voice, he said, ‘It’s an optical illusion. Like when you see faces in cloud formations or cracks in a ceiling that look like a map of the world.’

  Hilary said, in a very soft whisper, ‘But what about the shadow?’

  The shadow. Robert saw it then: a blurred outline fell on the wall of the box nearest the stage and was unmistakably man-shaped. Exactly as if someone really was standing there, looking down at them. And curtains, surely, did not cast shadows…

  To dispel the sudden apprehension, in a challenging voice he called out, ‘Hello? Is someone there?’

  The echoes picked up his voice and bounced it round the empty auditorium, and Robert waited, his eyes still on the box, but nothing stirred. It was impossible to see more than a small portion of the interior, but when he shone the torch again he thought there was a flicker of movement, as if someone might have dodged back out of sight. He remembered the boxes were quite deep; it would be possible for one person—for two or three people—to stand up there unseen. But whatever the shadow had been, it had vanished.

  ‘I’m sure there’s no one there,’ he said at last. ‘All the doors are locked, and we locked the stage door behind us when we came in—unless someone’s got another set of keys no one knows about?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ said Hilary, looking round a bit uneasily. ‘I think we’d know if anyone was going in and out and we keep a careful record of anyone borrowing the keys. We do have quite a lot of freelancers who come and go all the time, and there’re three or four locals who come in to help with mailings and exhibitions and things like that—mostly retired people who want to earn a few pounds and enjoy the contact. But I don’t think any of them would be able to take the keys without it being noticed.’

  ‘What about the owner?’

  ‘Yes, the owner must have keys, but I can’t see him—or her—creeping round the place in the dark,’ said Hilary. ‘Other than that, there’s no way anyone could get in here.’

  But supposing someone was in here all along? Or supposing what we’ve just seen doesn’t need keys to get in? Stop it, thought Robert, angrily.

  ‘I expect you’re right about it being an optical illusion,’ went on Hilary a bit shakily. She did not sound entirely convinced of this; she sounded more as if she was seizing gratefully on a just about credible explanation. ‘There’s also the point that this place reverberates like the inside of a drum which means we’d have heard doors opening or footsteps. I’m sorry I spooked you like that, Robert. It’ll teach me not to read melodramatic memoirs. I’ll bet he was a closet ghost-story writer, that old actor.’

  ‘This place is enough to conjure up any amount of imaginary ghosts anyway,’ said Robert. ‘Hilary, I was thinking—if this place was really closed in 1914, are you sure it wasn’t simply because of the outbreak of war?’

  ‘Not absolutely sure, but it’s not very likely,’ said Hilary. ‘People wanted the theatres to stay open, in fact the government took measures to keep them going as much as possible. It brought an air of normality to life and it was good for morale. Some of the theatres were turned into Red Cross centres or army clubs, but that was a good while after 1914. And quite a lot of the performers put on shows to encourage the young men to enlist. I’ve got a few recordings from that era—they’re on vinyl and dreadfully scratchy, but hearing them gives you the most marvellous feeling of touching the past.’

  Robert suddenly wanted very much to listen to these scratchy old recordings with Hilary. He said, cautiously, that he would like to hear them.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said at once, sounding pleased. ‘Are those steps safe?’

  ‘Yes, but they protest a bit.’

  ‘I don’t know about protesting, they creak like the crack of doom,’ said Hilary, going cautiously up onto the stage and peering into the dark void of the auditorium. ‘I wish I could see it as it was a hundred years ago,’ she said. ‘Lit up and filled with people and music and noise. Is this the trap? Oh yes, I see. I suppose it is a trap, is it? It isn’t just a makeshift repair over a bit of damaged stage?’

  ‘It’s a bit too contained for that,’ said Robert, following her onto the stage and putting the haversack down near the trap’s outline. ‘And there’s a pulley mechanism with a hand winch in the wings that I’m fairly sure would have operated it.’

  ‘It’s bigger than I was visualizing,’ said Hilary, still studying the outline at her feet. ‘But the name’s the clue, of course. Anyone being tak
en down by it would be lying prone. How are we going to get it open?’

  ‘It’ll just be a question of getting the nails out and then lifting it clear,’ he said. ‘Could you hold my torch as well as your own? Just shine both beams straight onto the section of wood.’

  He was aware of a mounting apprehension, but he laid out chisels and hammers and, without looking over his shoulder, applied himself to levering out the nails. It was more difficult than he had expected and it took longer than he had bargained for. The nails had rusted into place and several of them broke and had to be dug out with pliers. Robert swore several times and each time he did so the old building picked up his voice and bounced the words back at him as if mischievously enjoying them. He found himself wanting to look back into the box—they were much nearer to it here, of course—but when he did so there were only shadows and an old chair no one had bothered to tidy away. And the curtains, he said to himself. The curtains that somebody’s moved since I was here two days ago and cast that man-shaped shadow.

  In the end, he managed to get enough nails free to force the section of timber partly up and slide the chisel into place to form a lever. He was not sure he could have done all this on his own; the sound of the pliers scraping on the old timbers echoed eerily through the auditorium and several times Hilary glanced nervously into the darkness of the theatre. The ghosts really don’t like what we’re doing, he thought. If it comes to that, I don’t like what we’re doing.

  The wood came away suddenly, splintering slightly as it did so, showering fragments everywhere, and Hilary, who had been kneeling on the stage, holding the torches, crawled nearer to have a better look.

  For a moment neither of them spoke, and then Hilary said, ‘That’s not quite what we were expecting, is it?’

  ‘No,’ said Robert, staring down.

  Directly beneath the rectangle of wood was a heavy steel plate, almost flush with the stage’s surface. Robert tapped the steel with the chisel and the sound reverberated dully but the steel plate did not move.

  He said, ‘I thought we’d see a sort of wide shaft going all the way down below the stage.’