Chapter 2

Ghost Hunters

Banana Tree Thai Restaurant.

Westbourne Grove.

London.

Gwen O'Toole and her "friend with benefits", Ben Marshall, were celebrating his birthday at a new Thai restaurant on Westbourne Grove. They shared a unique bond that blurred the lines between friendship and romance. They were deeply comfortable with each other, enjoying a range of activities together, from clubbing and drinking to watching movies and theatre performances. Their sexual relationship was equally fulfilling, adding another layer to their connection without the expectations of a typical romantic relationship. This arrangement allowed them to explore their desires and companionship without feeling trapped or obligated.

Lately though, Gwen had begun to wonder if Ben was still committed to their special relationship. He worked as a freelance graphic designer, which gave him a flexible lifestyle that complemented Gwen's dynamic social life. Occasionally, he would have a commission from an important client with a tight deadline, which would mean he wasn't as available as he usually was, but over the last few days, she felt he was being secretive and evasive. They had known each other since university, and she wondered if he was bored with her and their friendship.

'Do you ever wonder if we'll get tired of this?' she asked, as an opening gambit. She saw his confused expression. 'Not the curry. Y'know, the no-strings-attached thing? I mean, it's been twenty two years now.'

'What's brought this on?' he asked. 'We haven't so far . . .' He reached out and held her hand. 'And who knows what the future holds? But for now, it works. And if that changes, we'll deal with it then. No pressure, right?'

Gwen intertwined her fingers with his. 'Yeah. No pressure.' They started eating again. 'So what's the big job you've got?'

'Eh?' Ben replied.

'Your new commission . . . You said it was an important client.'

'Oh yeah. That new driverless taxi startup, AutoCab. Their business is really taking off now and they want me to do the promotional material.'

'That's great news,' Gwen told him, and then thought about it. 'Well, not so great for our social life.'

'Hey. I'll always make time for you, Gwen. Remember, I'm your gigolo . . .'

Gwen laughed. 'I know, and I'm your whore.'

Gwen had a brilliant, analytical mind, and was a mathematics genius. She enjoyed her time with Ben, but often struggled to understand her deeper feelings for him and she didn't know why, which is why their casual sexual relationship suited her so well.

Ben on the other hand, was easygoing, humorous, and creative. He enjoyed the spontaneity of his relationship with Gwen and appreciated the lack of pressure to conform to societal expectations. Well, it used to be like that. He had always been suspicious that Gwen had problems with expressing her emotions. and tried to communicate clearly and patiently, though he sometimes wished she could express her emotions more openly.

He still valued his freedom and enjoyed the uncomplicated nature of his friendship with Gwen. In the past, he had seen their arrangement as a way to maintain a close connection and enjoy life without the emotional complications of a traditional relationship. Lately though, they'd seen so many of their friends getting married and settling down, that he wondered what the future really did hold for them.

Rory Johnstone, his girlfriend Samantha Clark, her friend Kirsty Parker, and her brother, Darren approached the chained gates of the derelict building which was hiding behind the untended high hedge. Rory pulled one of the gates towards him and Darren pushed the other away until the chain was taught enough for them to squeeze through. Once through, they just stood there, looking up at the dark, foreboding and brooding house.

'C'mon, let's see if we can find a way in,' Rory said as he approached the front door. There was no handle or knob, just a Yale lock. He pushed on the door but it was firmly secured.

'I wonder if the back door is unlocked?' Samantha asked.

'We'll have a look,' Rory replied. 'And we can check the windows as well.'

'D'ya reckon we'll find anythin' tonight?' Darren asked.

'If we're lucky,' Rory replied with a grin.

They moved down the side of the house and Kirsty noticed a side window with a small pane of glass missing. 'Hey, look,' she called out. 'We can reach the latch and open this window.'

'Mind you don't cut yourself on the broken glass,' her brother cautioned.

'No, I'm okay.' She reached inside and lifted the latch. The window reluctantly opened on rusted hinges.

The boys helped the girls to climb through the window and then climbed in themselves to stand in the cold, damp, dark kitchen.

'Okay, let's tool up,' Rory instructed.

From their backpacks they took out night vision live stream cameras, an EMF meter, a digital thermometer, and a sensitive digital sound recorder. The only things they were missing were proton packs and a laser confinement trap. They were ghost hunters, and this old house would be their fourth investigation. After watching paranormal investigation shows on the TV, and searching the internet for video clips which purported to show ghosts and apparitions, they had become hooked.

They had started with a local graveyard, which was more of a dare from their social media group than anything else. But it had whetted their appetite for investigating the paranormal. A few days afterwards, they spoke to the priest of the church, and after getting assurances from their parents that they were genuine, he allowed them to spend the night in the old church with their mobile phones and an old night vision camcorder. After that, they used some of their savings to buy some equipment off an internet auction site and investigated the cellar of a local hotel.

'Okay. So we're inside the house . . . in the kitchen, and we're startin' our investigation,' Rory announced to the audience who were watching their live stream.

After looking around the dilapidated kitchen using the night vision displays on their cameras, they moved out into the hallway. As with any house, changes in temperature and humidity would cause wood to expand or contract, and this derelict building would also have small, resident squatters which would scurry about and create all sorts of strange sounds.

'What was that?!' Samantha whispered in alarm. They all looked at each other and looked up at the ceiling. A floorboard had creaked.

'Just a floorboard creaking,' the ever sensible Rory announced. 'Let's go check it out.' He led the way down the hallway to the foot of the stairs.

'Do you think these stairs are safe?' Kirsty wondered.

Rory gripped the handrail and tested how firm the banisters were. 'Seems solid enough. Keep to the edges though, just in case.'

They carefully made their way up the stairs, using the display on their night vision cameras to see where they were going. The top few steps turned to the left, and they were on a landing with doors to the left and the right.

'Let's each take a room and check it out,' Rory suggested.

'Yeah, it'll be more scary that way,' Darren whispered sarcastically.

'Tell you what then,' Kirsty whispered. 'You wait here on yer own while we go and check 'em out.'

Rory thought about that. 'Actually, that's not a bad idea. Then he can make sure nobody's messin' about and fakin' it.'

They spread out and took a door each. Darren stood on the landing and filmed them as they entered the rooms. He suddenly felt very alone and isolated, as though the doorways were portals to other dimensions and everyone had suddenly been spirited away.

'Dar-ren,' a whispering female voice sing-songed from behind a door at the end of the landing.

'Kirsty . . ? Is that you?'

'Dar-ren,' the voice called again. He thought there must have been a connecting door she had gone through to try and trick him.

'Kirsty! Stop messin' about!' He went along the landing and tried the round door knob. It turned with a squeak, and he pushed it open, expecting to see his sister's grinning face on his night vision display.

The room was empty.

He panned the camera around the room, and found there was no connecting door.

'Dar-ren.'

He spun quickly, pointing the camera in the direction of the voice, and saw an old wardrobe in the corner of the room. So that was it, she was hiding in the wardrobe. So convinced was he that his sister was playing another one of her pranks on him, that he forgot to question how she would have got past him on the landing and opened the door to the room without him noticing. He creeped across the room and slowly reached for the small catch on the wardrobe door.

A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder from behind and he let out a high pitched squeal.

'Whatcha doin' in here?' Rory asked with a wicked grin on his face. He knew Darren was easy to spook. 'I thought you were goin' to wait on the landing.'

'You git! You scared the life out of me then. I was,' he whispered, and then questioned himself. 'Why am I whisperin' . . ? I was goin' to stay on the landin', but then I heard Kirst . . .'

Kirsty and Samantha hurried into the room. 'Is everythin' alright? We heard a scream.'

'Yeah, that was Darren. I made him jump when I put my hand on his shoulder,' Rory explained.

'But if you lot were out there . . . then who's in the wardrobe?' Darren asked, turning to look at the now ominous, imposing piece of tall furniture.

'The wardrobe?' Samantha asked with a hint of fear in her voice.

'Yeah, someone was calling my name. That's why I came in here. I thought it was you Kirst, muckin' about,' Darren explained.

'This could be it,' Rory whispered excitedly. 'Actual, paranormal activity! Start takin' readings.' He held the EMF meter at arms length in front of him and approached the wardrobe. Through the night vision camera display, he saw the needle bouncing across the display. 'Look at that! There's an electrical field around the wardrobe. Sammy, what's the temperature doin'?'

Samantha held out the thermometer probe and looked at the dim LED display as she walked across the room. The display lit her face with an eerie, green glow. 'Oh my God! The temperature's droppin' as I get closer to the wardrobe.'

'Is the microphone pickin' up anythin'?' Rory asked Kisrty. 'Darren said he heard someone callin' his name.'

Kirsty looked at the graphic equaliser display, but all it seemed to be detecting was their own whispering voices, and the sounds they were making as they moved around the room. 'Nah, can't see anythin' unusual on the display. We'll probably have to play it back later.'

'Okay. Here, Darren. Hold the EMF meter. I'm goin' to open the door. Everybody keep monitorin' and recordin',' Rory instructed.

He carefully put his finger through the metal ring which was dangling from the latch and slowly turned it. He looked back at his fellow ghost hunters and mouthed, "one, two, THREE". He yanked open the door.

'We've lost the electrical field,' Darren said, tapping the side of the meter with his hand.

'And the temperature's climbin' back to normal,' Samantha reported.

'Is there anythin' in the wardrobe?' Kirsty asked.

Rory used his camera to examine the inside of the wardrobe. There were a few wire coat hangers swinging gently on the rail, but no clothes. 'Nah, it's empty,' he replied, but then noticed something at the bottom. 'Hang on, there's a box down here.' Rory crouched down and picked up the small wooden casket, which was roughly the size of a shoe box, but twice as tall.

'I wonder what's inside?' Samantha asked. 'What could produce an electrical field and reduce the temperature?'

'An air conditionin' unit,' Darren joked.

'Very funny,' Rory replied as he turned to face them. 'It hasn't got a plug on it, an' the electricity supply to the house has been cut off.'

'But somethin' in there was doin' all that,' Kirsty pointed out, 'so let's see what it is.'

The round lid of the casket had an ornate hasp, and staple on the side for a padlock, but there was only a wooden peg holding it closed. Rory held the chest against his body whilst Kirsty removed the peg, lifted the hasp, and opened the lid. Samantha was filming whilst Darren monitored the EMF and temperature.

'It's a crystal ball!' Kirsty exclaimed. She lifted it out of the casket and held it in front of her camera.

'Is that a reflection from one of the screens?' Darren asked as he peered into the orb. In the darkness, he couldn't be sure that it wasn't a residual image on his retina. 'I can see a kind of purpley blue glow inside it.'

'Dar-ren,' the voice called again.

Darren jumped back in alarm. 'Did you hear it? That was it! That woman's voice.'

Rory frowned. 'What voice? Did any of you hear a voice?'

'No. An' the display didn't register anythin',' Samantha told them.

Darren was getting freaked out now. 'But it called my name! Why me? Why is it pickin' on me?'

'Calm down, mate. It's only a voice,' Rory said. 'A voice can't hurt you.'

'There are some papers under the crystal ball,' Kirsty noticed.

'Oh, let's have a look at them,' Samantha said.

Kirsty reached in and removed the folded sheets of paper. They were stiff and seemed to be centuries old. She carefully unfolded the papers and they all saw the strange drawings, star charts, and weird script.

'Do y'think it's part of a spellbook?' Kirsty asked in wide eyed wonder.

Samantha looked over her shoulder and leafed through some of the pages. 'Professor Sprout's text book on herbology,' she joked, referring to the Harry Potter character. There were drawings of familiar weeds and herbs, and some which seemed familiar, but were unrecognisable.

'Looks more like an ancient book on astronomy,' Rory suggested, as he noticed the five pointed stars drawn on the pages.

'It looks like a medieval edition of Playboy to me,' Samantha said, looking at all the drawings of naked women.

Darren had been checking the live stream comments superimposed on his night vision display. 'Someone on the live feed, EgonSpengler285, says it looks like the missing pages of the Voynich manuscript.'

They all looked at each other. 'What the hell is the Voynich manuscript?'

Northumberland Place.

Notting Hill.

London.

Rose Smith finished her mug of tea, licked her lips, puckered up, and gave her husband, John a snog. 'See ya later, lover boy,' she said with her tongue through the teeth smile.

'Even if I see you first,' he replied, stroking her hips.

She reached her purse off the counter, and rummaged inside to find her lipstick and mirror. She applied her lippy, and pursed her lips together. 'Right, I'm ready. Be good kids and I'll see you this afternoon.'

'Bye Mum,' the kids called back as she left the kitchen and headed for the front door.'

She went down the few steps, along the path, passing their DeLorian car and stood on the pavement. This was the first time she hadn't travelled in to work with her friend, Alice DiMaggio, as they had decided to try a new method of transport which had recently become available in their area. She looked left and right along Northumberland Place, and to her right, towards Talbot Road, she saw the approaching autonomous electric vehicle she had booked on her phone.

It pulled up silently at the kerb, and the double doors popped outward slightly before sliding apart to reveal a spacious interior. There were two seats at the rear of the vehicle facing forwards, and another two at the front which faced backwards. Although forwards and backwards were arbitrary in this vehicle as it was symmetrical and was able travel in both directions.

She stepped inside, took a seat and fastened the seatbelt. Once safely buckled in, the autonomous taxi started to move forward. Rose looked up at the display screen, located between the glass roof and the windscreen, which had paired with her phone via Bluetooth. It displayed the route to Canary Wharf, with live traffic data, an estimated time of arrival, and where people in her contact list, who had also booked taxis, were currently located. One of those was fellow Blue Watch member, Gwen O'Toole, who lived six minutes away.

Before autonomous taxis had become commonplace, Alice used to drive from her cottage in the grounds of Tyler Mansion to Notting Hill to collect Rose, before driving on to Canary Wharf. This used to make Alice's morning commute nearly an hour, which she didn't mind, but Rose always felt it was an imposition. But then, level five autonomous driving became a reality when a positronic computer developed by Rose's husband, Doctor John Smith, which he'd fitted in their DeLorean and in all the Torchwood vehicles, became a Torchwood funding product sold through Cybus Industries.

There was scepticism at first that a car could drive itself through the middle of London, but ever the showman, Rose's father, Pete Tyler had given his roguish smile and thumbs up, saying, "trust me on this". He had then invited the Secretary of State for Transport to join him in the back of one of the Torchwood vehicles, with a driving examiner in the front passenger seat. The examiner put the car through a thorough driving test, and it passed with flying colours. The video was reported on all the news channels, and went viral on social media.

The legacy automakers were convinced it would never catch on and were reluctant to adopt the new technology. Entrepreneurs however, saw the potential, and a number of startups began to develop electric vehicles to put the positronic computer in. It took a few years, with many of the startups going into liquidation, but one of them got the business model just right and linked the booking app to social media platforms and made commuting a social event.

And just as the sales of smartphones had started slowly then suddenly exploded, so the idea of having use of a car without owning one had taken off. The word spread on social media, and the company, AutoCabs, stated that one of their vehicles would be outside your front door in the same time it would take you to grab your car keys, leave your house, sit in your car and start it up. They also pointed out that it was more convenient than public transport, cheaper than a taxi, and cheaper than owning, taxing, insuring, and maintaining your own car.

Rose had used an AutoCab previously, just to try it out, but this was the first time she'd used it to travel to work, and as she had to go past Craven Hill Gardens, she had arranged to share the car with Gwen. The car turned left off Leinster Gardens and drove past rows of Edwardian townhouses until there was a small park to her right, and a row of white buildings to her left. Black railings contrasted the white buildings, and the car pulled up at the entrance to one of the buildings, which had an arched door, framed by two Doric columns, topped with a balcony containing a potted tree. A young woman with short, red hair, stepped onto the pavement and moved towards the car as the door slid open.

'Mornin' Gwen,' Rose said in greeting.

'Hiya,' Gwen replied as she entered the car and buckled herself in. Gwen was wearing jeans, T-shirt, and a leather jacket, in contrast to Rose, who was wearing her Torchwood uniform,

'Did Ben have a good birthday yesterday?' Rose asked as the car moved off. 'You went to that new Thai restaurant on Westbourne Grove, didn't you? John's thinking about taking me there one of the days.'

'Yeah. It was alright,' she replied with a lack of enthusiasm or elaboration.

'Just alright?' Rose asked in surprise. 'I saw it had some great reviews.'

'Yeah. I suppose,' Gwen agreed.

Rose had noticed that Gwen had seemed a little preoccupied over the last few days, and wondered if there was a problem with her friend's relationship. Before she could pursue the matter and offer a shoulder to cry on, the car screen bonged, indicating they had an incoming call from Alice, who they could see was in Archway, travelling south along Archway Road.

'Accept call,' Rose said, and Alice's face appeared on the screen. 'Hi Alice. How's it goin'?'

['Hi you two,'] Alice replied. ['I can see you're heading towards Hyde Park already. Yeah, everything's going fine thanks. By the time I'd got to the front gates, the car was waiting for me.']

'When I got to the pavement, it was just coming down the road,' Rose told her.

'And my phone beeped to tell me Rose was coming down the street,' Gwen added.

'This is goin' to make our commute so much more relaxed from now on,' Rose said.

['Yeah, they've really made good on their promises about the service and it's ease of use,'] Alice agreed.

They chatted away as though they were in the same vehicle, and if Alice, as head of Psychology at Torchwood, noticed that Gwen was being less chatty than normal, she didn't comment on it.

Gwen just looked out of the large windows, watching the scenery go by.