"Your average 'ghost'," said DI Richard Poole, crooking his fingers in the air to illustrate his contempt for the word, "is actually the product of ancient Sumerian superstition."
DS Camille Bordey sighed, internally. They had been told, in the course of a murder investigation at a rum distillery, that there was one part of the estate no one ever went near; an old barrel storage shed, rumored to be haunted. When he was a young boy, the new owner of the operation had seen a ghost there, that of a woman who had vanished a hundred years and more ago – murdered, so the story went. And yet Will, the foreman of the distillery, was frequently seen entering the place, so the senior officers of the Honoré police, in their relentless pursuit of the truth, were now at the old barrel store, torches in hand.
But DI Poole wasn't yet finished. "The Sumerians were the first ones we know of who recorded what we would consider today to be 'ghost stories', as well as formulating rites of exorcism. In those times, 'ghosts' were seen as part of life, part of the continuing community of family and the rituals attendant thereto." He paused long enough to winch open the door to the old shed where the alleged encounter had occurred and, with a grand sweep of his arm, to motion his sergeant through.
Camille tamped down her irritation at her boss's pedantry, activated her torch, and stepped inside. He followed, clicking on his own torch as he did so. The two beams together hardly penetrated the gloom of the old store. At this time of day, the sun was so positioned that no light shone more than two feet beyond the threshold of the open door. There was only just enough shine reflecting from the floor to silver the mass of dust-laden sacking hanging from the ceiling. It was no wonder that Daniel, the boy who came here out of curiosity long ago, had been so traumatized by what he saw, Camille thought; the place was a ghost story waiting to happen.
"That is Phase One of the rationalizing process by which mankind learned to deal with his irrational fears," Poole was going on, even as he made his way into the darkness. "Or her irrational fears, of course. Before then we assume, based on archaeological evidence, that the supposed 'return' of the departed was dreaded, since a survey of the inclusions in prehistoric graves seem to be intended to placate – ow!" He had caught his shin on the corner of the last rack of musty, aging barrels.
Camille t'sked and stepped lightly past the racks to slip ahead to the cellar, where the spot of light from her torch meandered over a century of junk brought in from the old mansion: crates of files and books, lumber, neglected furniture and the occasional object intended to be art. Meanwhile, Poole rubbed at his shin, cursing under his breath. It took him a moment to gather both his composure and his thoughts enough to continue.
"In Phase Two, of course, this simple belief was overlaid first by religious, then philosophical and then scientific thinking, each of which in turn tended to expose the subject of 'ghosts' to incredulity and ridicule. However –"
He had gained the cellar area and had to pause as a soft, slithery sound to his right made him switch his torch beam that way, playing over the huddled debris. Rats? Probably. Camille's light was some way ahead, resting briefly on first this, then on that indeterminate shape of household rejects. Poole took enough time to make sure nothing was about to scurry out in front of him, then moved forward, his voice somewhat lower than when he had first begun his discourse.
"Um . . . this – overlying veneer of skepticism has done nothing, of course, to dislodge the deep-seated hold, no doubt psychological, which such primordial fears have on the modern, er, mind-set . . . Camille?"
He had heard a shuffle from ahead, to his left this time, and a bit nearer than the sound to his right had been. Was something moving around him in the darkness . . .?
No. Stop it, Poole. Here you've just been reading your partner a lecture on the folly of superstition and now you're imagining things yourself. There's nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light, after all.
A comforting thought, when you're in the light.
Richard Poole swung the torch about in a slow survey of the floor, just as a precaution, then moved on, more attentively. His spot of torchlight was trailing up over this sheeted thing and that cobwebbed one, their silence at his scrutiny seemingly resentful – of being abandoned? Of being disturbed? It was hard to say.
The quiet must be getting to him, that was it. "Camille?" he called.
No answer, except the darkness and the stillness seemed to loom nearer to him, closing him in. Poole took in a breath and huffed it out defiantly. Nonsense. There is nothing to be frightened of. He peered ahead, at the far wall of the cellar, oddly clear of clutter, and now close enough for him to see it was mottled with damp and crumbling plaster. He took a step toward it . . .
Something was behind him. The feeling came up his back and under his collar and scurried right up to the crown of his head: that awareness that something had come up behind him. He knew it even before he realized his heart was pounding, before he even heard the sound of a footstep on the cement flooring approaching from the barrel stacks, that of a large, soft, probably decomposing foot.
Poole froze. His breathing died away. His mind shot back seven thousand years of human history, screaming all the way, from Phase Two through Phase One right back into pre-Sumerian times. He was terrified.
I will be calm, I will be calm, I will not be –
A black shape suddenly rose up in front of the faint wall in front of him and a luminous mouth with white, predatory teeth gaped in the middle of it. His yell masked out any sound it may have made and he swung his torch blindly, hitting nothing, but the torch itself went flying off in some direction or other and hit something with a loud BONNNG!
Poole staggered to one side, grabbing at the nearest upright thing, clutching his heart. "Richard!" Camille's voice came to him, her hand catching his arm in a frantic grip. "Are you all right?"
It had been Camille, of course. There was nothing behind him now and there never had been; it was only the effect of his own heightened nerves. In a moment he let go of the upright thing and gasped out "I'm – all right. I, I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"Non, non. I am sorry," she murmured. "It's just that . . ."
"I was chuntering on again, wasn't I?" he finished. "Using all the three-dollar words?"
"Well . . . yes," she admitted ruefully.
"Sorry." Poole adjusted his jacket, breathed in, and looked from the slim shadow that was his sergeant to the wall behind her. "Tell you what – from now on I'll leave all the ghosts and such to you and your mum and I'll concentrate on . . ." he glanced down to where the stray shine from her torch showed many large, dusty treads. "Footprints."
Camille glanced down. "Will, the foreman. He has been in here!"
Richard Poole crouched down and put a fingertip to the newest marks. It came away coated in fresh dirt. "Quite recently, too." But there were many other treads, old and white as if made of . . .
Poole looked up at the wall. "Why is it plastered?"
Camille was gently stirring the contents of an open box she'd found at the wall's base. "Rum." She held up a bottle to her torchlight, searching for the label. "And it's unmarked."
"The outside of the barrel store is clapboard, this cellar bit is concrete," Poole was going on. "Why is just this wall plastered?"
"Sir?" Camille swung the bottle in front of him. "Stolen rum? Daniel said someone had been stealing from the company."
"Right. Yes." Poole stood up, still staring at the wall. "Let's go talk to William Lee, then."
"What about your torch?" Camille asked, arching one eyebrow and trying not to smile. "Should you go look for –?"
"Ah, no. No, that's all right, it – was, uh, nearly dead anyway."
They retreated, the DI and his sergeant, Poole pausing once more to look back and tell himself there was something suspicious about that wall. The silence in the building closed in after them, crowding up to the now shut door, then sinking back into solitude and stillness, save for what might have been the sporadic rustle of rats . . .
Or it might have been soft, uncertain footsteps, pacing in front of an oddly plastered wall.
...
NOTES: The statements Richard spouts about ghosts are from the book The First Ghosts by Irving Finkle. Its copyright is 2019, a bit later than the 2015 Camille-scares-Humphrey scene in S04E01, on which this fic is based. Please consider the time-slip effect as part of the eeriness.
You might need to see the episode to know why just one wall was plastered.
Also, for those looking for a good read this Hallowe'en, consider William Hope Hodgson's 'Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder' stories.
