The Haunting of Pear Tree Cottage

Mum was lounging on the settee, both hands wrapped around my “Best Girlfriend in the World” mug that Stuart had bought me many moons ago, and wearing her usual attire of skinny jeans and a tight top, when at last I arrived home after a couple of hours of questioning at the station. I noticed she was wearing a full face of makeup, and big sparkly earrings drooped from her ears. I knew I would have plenty to think about later, but for now I would have to deal with any questions Mum might have about where I’d been for most of the day. I needn’t have worried.

“Hello, Chrissie love. Had a good walk?”

I think Mum had failed to notice it was pitch black outside now, but I replied, “Lovely, thanks Mum. You okay?”

“Couldn’t be better, I’m off out in a bit.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, shrugging off my coat and hanging it on one of the pegs by the front door. “Where you going?”

She giggled and blushed a bit, and said, “Well, Pete—you know, Pete Horner?”

“Yes, I know who Pete Horner—round the corner—is Mum,” I said as I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

Quick as a flash she sprang up from the settee and trailed after me. “Well, he texted me earlier and asked if I wanted to go out for a beer tonight. So, why not, I thought!”

“Yeah, why not, Mum,” I replied.

She put the “girlfriend” mug, pink lipstick marks around its edge, on the worktop. “You all right with that?”

The kettle, which was still hot from Mum’s drink, bubbled ferociously to the boil. I poured the water onto a spoonful of coffee and stirred thoughtfully before saying, “Mum, you’re old enough to make up your own mind, aren’t you? Especially about men.”

I don’t know why I hadn’t just said, “Yeah, okay Mum. You go out, have a good time.” Why was I being so off with her? Maybe because she was going out on a date without a care in the world, and here I was in a predicament—witnessing murders that happened hundreds of years ago, and being questioned by the police (who just happened to be in the same café at the table next to me—what are the odds on that?). And because of that, my blossoming relationship with Rick, my lovely boss, might be over before it had even started. Yeah, perhaps that was why.

“Ooh, bit snotty, aren’t you?” She giggled and nudged me hard in the ribs.

I laughed and nudged her back. “No I’m not!”

“Yes you are!”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are!” She nudged me again, hard.

“Ow! Mum, don’t be so childish.”

She stood there, a tiny little girl like figure, her hands on her hips, head thrust forward, and said, “Never mind, Mum, you can call me Zandra from now on.”

“No way,” I replied, picking up my mug and padding into the sitting room, then lowering myself gratefully onto the settee.

“Why not?” she said, trailing after me like a bad smell.

“You’re my mum,” I said. “That’s why I call you Mum. Never mind Zandra anyway. You’re Doreen!”

“How dare you?” she said, her face beet red and angry. “That’s not true. Doreen is dead and gone. I’m Zandra now. A different person altogether. “

“RIP Doreen,” I said sarcastically. I took a sip from my mug. It was really hot, and I winced as it burnt my tongue, which served me right.

Zipping up her boots and throwing on her little furry jacket, she grabbed her bag and said, “Just to think, before you came home, I was going to ask you to come out with us. Maybe you could hook up with that good looking boss of yours. Make up a foursome.” She glanced in the mirror and pouted her lips, turned her head this way and that, and fluffed up her hair. I hoped to God she didn’t see any eerie black shapes hovering about beneath the glass. That would scare her out of the house in ten seconds flat.

“I’d rather stick pins in my eyes,” I told her.

“Oh, you are a funny one,” she spat back at me, before going out of the door and slamming it behind her.

My stomach clenched and I felt bad then, and wanted to call her back. Maybe I should confess all to her. That would explain why I’d been so awful tonight. Mind you, some of it was her fault. I mean, fancy asking her own daughter to call her by her first name. And it would have to be Zandra. I mean, Zandra. Couldn’t she have picked something else? I could see her point about a name change. After all, the name Doreen wasn’t exactly the sort of image that Mum wanted to project. It was not a sexy, hot babe sort of name. I could see that. But Zandra?

Anyway, I had more pressing things to think about. The two hours I’d just spent at the police station being questioned by Detective Inspector Charlie Lawson were weighing heavily on my mind, and even now I felt stupid and foolish as I recalled the look on his face when I told him my story. I was afraid he now suspected I was either a drug addict or had serious mental health issues. Even Rick was looked on with suspicion because of his habit of wearing a Stetson hat.

“Anybody who looks and dresses just that little bit different, could be suspected of being up to no good,” said the detective inspector as he nodded his head sagely. “It’s the same as all those Goth type people you see hanging around the pubs in town. Up to no good!”

He had gazed at us both with eyes as dark as two blackberries set deep into his pale pinched face. The hair definitely didn’t help. I desperately wanted to be silly and make comments about knotty ash and tickling sticks. I didn’t know why, but great surges of laughter kept bubbling up inside me. Was I going mad? After all, my situation at the moment definitely didn’t go well with laughter in any way, shape, or form. A young police woman who had been called in to the interview frantically took notes, the jottings on the pristine white pages of her notebook as black and rambling as the wandering long legs of a spider.

Interview room three was small and airless, with only one tiny window smeared with what looked like seagull droppings high up on one of the white painted walls. A large old-fashioned radiator in a putrid pale yellow clanked and hissed in the corner. A jug of water and four glasses stood on the table, and Rick, giving me one of his sexy winks, poured some for me. The detective inspector pulled a dangling cord and a strip light buzzed on, making us all blink.

“So, just to be clear,” said the detective inspector. “And to sum up. You two are boss and personal assistant, and have just started working together at Wigglesworth & Horner, Solicitors in the center of town.”

We both nodded in assent.

“You,” he nodded towards Rick, “Are Mr Richard Curtis, just flown over from Arizona to take up your new post. Oh, and because you hail all the way from Arizona, you have decided it’s okay to wear a Stetson hat all the time in Whitby.”

“Hey,” interrupted Rick. “There’s no law against it, is there?”

“Hmm. No, no law against it, but combine Stetson hats with witnessing a murder and it becomes suspicious.”

“I have witnessed nothing,” exclaimed Rick. “And I really don’t think my Stetson hat has anything to do with being involved in a murder!”

Ignoring that, the detective inspector carried on. “You have only been working together for a couple of weeks, but you, Chrissie Lewis,” he nodded towards me, “Have already confided in your boss about strange ghostly sightings in your house?”

“Yes, I have,” I told him. “I needed somebody to confide in. I was scared, and talking about it with Mr. Curtis helped me a lot.”

“I was pleased to be helping Miss Lewis when she was afraid in her own home,” pointed out Rick. “And I told her spooky stories about Arizona to help her put things into perspective.”

“Hmm. You seem to have a very ‘confiding’ relationship together,” said the inspector darkly, “For people that have only been acquainted for a couple of weeks.”

I went to open my mouth and speak up again, but suddenly thought, What’s the point? He thinks everything we say is a lie. I let him ramble on.

He nodded his head towards me again. “Chrissie Lewis, today, 19 October, witnessed a murder on the beach of a lady called Morgan Bloom. She was tried as a witch by an unruly mob of villagers and drowned in the sea. You have also seen this lady in your house, as she broke in the other night, as a phantom (and here he put up two fingers on each hand around the word ‘phantom’) and stole your black cat, Moses. You have also seen her and her brother, Seth Bloom, arguing in your cellar.”

His voice rising higher and higher, he suddenly stopped and sat forward, his elbows on the table in front of us. The young police woman stopped writing for a second, and stared at her notes as if she couldn’t quite make out what she’d just written.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but—”

“But?” he said, as he got to his feet and began to restlessly pace the room. “Oh, yes, the thing I didn’t mention just then is that, according to your research, Morgan Bloom existed in the seventeenth century and has, obviously, been dead for many, many years!”

Rick turned to me and said with a cheeky grin, “You saw her in your sitting room mirror too, didn’t you, Chrissie?”

I gave a small smile and said weakly, “Yes. Well, I think it was her.”

“Oh!” The detective inspector gave a great huffing sigh. “You only thought it was her that time? What was different about that time?”

I could tell now that he was getting extremely agitated, and was very likely to simply explode and blow the proverbial gasket.

“Have you seen any of these people?” he asked, turning his attention to Rick.

Rick shook his head and said, “No, but I saw Chrissie—I mean Miss Lewis—on the beach just after she’d witnessed the murder. She was very upset and assumed I’d seen it too, as it was so real. I took her to the café for a warm drink. Thought it might help to calm her down, you know?”

“Do you know?” he said, suddenly thumping his fist down onto the table making us all jump. I noticed that the poor police woman’s pen skittered across the page, leaving shorthand type marks all over it. Hastily she put her notebook up in front of her like a shield. “I could have you two for wasting police time!”

“Hey, whoa, whoa,” said Rick, putting his hands up in front of him. “Calm down, Detective Inspector. After all, it was you who asked us in here to speak with you.”

“Only because I thought you had information about a real murder,” he replied. “Not an imagined one. Not one made up in your good lady’s mind!”

“Hey, she knows what she saw,” said Rick forcefully.

“Do some research, Inspector,” I said tearfully. “Google Morgan Bloom and you’ll see I’m right. She was tried as a witch back in the 1700s, and was drowned by an unruly mob of villagers.”

A black glowering look was all I got for that comment.

He had to let us go—he had nothing to keep us there for. I slumped forward on the settee, my head in my hands as I recalled the walk back home, Rick strolling along beside me, thoughtful and quiet, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. My heart ached as I looked at his handsome profile, which seemed so stern and forbidding. He hugged me close at the garden gate, so close that I could smell his musky aftershave, which I breathed in expansively.

He spoke quietly, his American accent sexy, his breath hissing in my ear. “Hey Chrissie, stay safe and don’t worry. Any problems, give me a ring. You’ve got my mobile number. If not, I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

He walked away then, a dark shape fading into the gloom, the notorious Stetson hat firmly on his head, leaving me feeling just a little bit lost and alone. Monday morning seemed a long way away. I felt slightly reassured by his parting words that I could give him a ring if needed, and that he would see me at work. Although, thinking about it, he probably felt he had to say that, and really was sick to the back teeth of me and my unbelievable stories. If only they really were just stories.

With a sinking heart I realized he may not want to associate with me now. After all, he had a reputation as a solicitor to consider, and would no way want people to know his personal assistant was a story teller—a liar. Or worse than that, somebody who maybe toyed with illegal substances and suffered from delusions, and had been questioned by the police. I couldn’t blame him if he fled back to Arizona and insisted that Mr. Wigglesworth return to Whitby.

With all these awful thoughts running through my head, I finally went into the house, afraid of any questions that Mum—or Zandra, as she now wanted me to call her—might ask. But I was alone, yet pretty sure I’d have some apologies to make when Mum came back.

The fire had died down since I’d been sitting stock still thinking, so, taking the poker, I stirred it up a bit until red hot sparks began to fly. Then, mesmerized, I knelt on the hearth rug and stared into its depths, watching the flames twist together like gyrating dancers, and feeling the heat grow more and more intense on my face.

I wondered where Mum and Pete Horner were now. Probably braying with laughter in a bar somewhere. They certainly seemed to go well together, if only for the sense of humor. Was this a match made in heaven? If so, who would have thought it? It would hopefully be a far better match than that guy called Rolph, who she’d met on the “Plenty of Fish” dating site! Now he had been a strange one, and I was sure that if he saw him, the detective inspector would suspect he owned a Stetson hat and wore it all the time for casual walks around Leeming reservoir.

Wandering into the kitchen I poured myself a glass of wine, from which I took a deep glug, rolling the liquid around in my mouth, savoring it and enjoying the way it made me feel so relaxed after such a trying day. I noticed that the contents of the bottle seemed to have depleted at an alarming rate, and the name “Mum” (“Zandra?)” came to mind straightaway as the culprit. Opening the pantry door, I poked my head in, scanning the shelves for ideas on what I could eat for a very late tea when I heard a tiny little squeaking sound. A mouse, was my first panicked thought, and I quickly shut the door and backed away, almost spilling my wine in haste.

“Meow,” This time it was high pitched and shrilling, and a meow not a squeak.

I circled around, gazing at the walls and the doors, wondering where it was coming from. It’s not a mouse, I thought with excitement. It’s a cat!

“Moses,” I called. “Moses, where are you?”

“Meeeeoooowwww”

I flung the cellar door open and a black shape shot out, fluffy fur standing on end and shrieking like a banshee. Bending down, I stopped the crazy black thing in its tracks and scooped Moses up into my arms. “Where have you been?” I asked as I nestled my face into him.

His soft fluffy fur smelt like flowers, and not of grey ash from the fire as I had imagined it would. Had he been in the cellar the whole time? Had I imagined Morgan taking him away with her into the fire? If I’d imagined that, had I also imagined the drowning on the beach? Tears both of joy and frustration rolled down my face, wetting Moses’s fur, making him struggle and jump from my embrace. He leapt up onto the settee and began turning around and around in a circle before settling down and casually beginning to clean himself, his tongue very pink against his black fur. Gazing at him fondly, I poured another glass of wine to celebrate his return, and then opened the pantry door again in search of food—for both of us this time.