Watching the Ghosts by Kate Ellis Page A

same with her since he’d abandoned his vocation for Kaitlin, a woman his family considered alien because they came from different worlds. The days when they’d looked to him for some sort of guidance had long gone. He’d left the fold, taken a different path.
    He’d settled down to eat his microwaved spaghetti bolognese and switched the TV on, more for company than entertainment. There were times when he envied Emily her hectic family life and this was one of them. If Kaitlin had lived . . . if they’d had children . . . if Maddy hadn’t chosen to go to London . . . His life was full of ifs. He opened a bottle of Old Peculier to wash down his food and sat back listening to the forced laughter of the comedy show that had just replaced the news. It almost seemed as if they were laughing at him.
    The following morning he left the flat and went straight to Boothgate House to interview Lydia Brookes’s immediate neighbours in the hope that someone had seen something relevant at the time of the break in. The officers conducting the door-to-door enquiries hadn’t been able to get hold of them the previous night and he wondered whether they’d been trying to avoid the police for some reason. But his job had given him a suspicious mind.
    He’d already spoken to the man who’d been with Lydia when she’d discovered the break-in. He was an academic from the university, a researcher in paranormal phenomena, and Joe had found his presence there intriguing. From what he knew of Havenby Hall’s history, it was likely he’d find lots of material there: memories of grief and distress; agitated ghosts in mental pain. Some didn’t believe in such things but Joe kept an open mind. He knew the power of the unseen and unprovable. He was only too aware that he would have made a lousy priest but some things had never left him.
    His first port of call was Flat Two, which belonged to a Beverley Newson who, according to Lydia, lived there with her elderly mother. Beverley was a large, strongly built woman and most would have called her plain, but her greeting was almost gushing and he refused her offer of coffee as tactfully as he could, staying at the door, ready to make a quick exit. If he’d settled in Beverley’s living room with coffee and biscuits, he knew he’d find it hard to get away; he knew her type.
    She explained that she’d seen nothing yesterday because she’d been out taking Mother to the hospital for a routine appointment. They’d stopped for something to eat in a café on the way back and hadn’t arrived home till eight. The police had left by then but one of the other residents had told her what had happened. It was awful for poor Lydia, she said. Such a nice girl. Then she asked whether much had been taken.
    Joe gave non-committal answers and after five minutes he managed to make his escape. It looked as though the thief had only taken items of underwear and a ten-pound note that had been lying on the hall table and he suspected that the underwear had been important and the cash had just been a bonus. But it was that note that made him uneasy.
I’ll see you next time I call. Be ready.
This was a new departure. An escalation. He had seen the fear in Lydia’s eyes and he’d felt for her.
    In spite of her eagerness to help, Beverley hadn’t seen or heard anything. But there was another neighbour on the corridor and this one interested Joe far more. Flat One was occupied by an Alan Proud and, from the brief check he’d made when he returned to police headquarters the previous night, he knew that Proud had served six months for threatening behaviour when he’d stalked a former girlfriend. If they were looking for a stalker, this one was already there on the premises.
    Proud’s door was opened by a bleary-eyed man wearing a grubby towelling dressing gown. He was in his forties, Joe guessed, with thinning brown hair,