Ellen said, 'Of course! Danl It was saying Dan Your name! It's you, Dan, a part of you . . .'

  The words registered, but Brady could not respond to them.

  He was aware only of the darting presence of a ghost, a warm, breezy presence that swirled about the room and seemed to blow stale breath into his face. Ellen's earnest features became a pale moon, an intangible reflection of something light in the whirling darkness. The wind caught Brady's hair; it jostled him, ruffled his clothing, urged him back against the wall and seemed to blow straight at him, beginning to moan and whine like a storm-wind, twisting his head this way and that. He tried to speak, but as his mouth opened so the invisible fingers snagged his tongue, and the warm, stifling wind penetrated his throat and his lungs, making his chest swell up . . .

  I can't breathe, he thought through the confusion of darkness and the almost deafening wail of the storm . . .

  And he heard words, Ellen's words: Don't fight it, Dan. Let it come back to you . . .

  But I can't breathe, I can't breathe!

  The blood thumped through his vessels; the pain in his chest increased until he felt he would burst; the stink in his nostrils grew stronger until he was sure he would start to vomit.

  Out of the sensory storm, out of the darkness, the ghostly figure of a man appeared; it seemed to well up in front of him, and move towards him and into him, vanishing from sight. A face that he recognized well enough, a hollow, haunted face, certainly, with deep set, dark eyes, and the mouth open and drawn back into a corpse-like smile. And yet he recognized that face instantly.

  Himself!

  There were images: of his daughter, of Alison, of Rosemary, of dark figures, of burning. The images were brief, but clear and concise; they were as sharp as pictures on a screen, and they flashed chaotically before his mind's eye. His head hit the wall hard. His bursting lungs collapsed, and the breath fairly stormed from his body; he gasped for air, leaning forward, hands on his knees, and the room grew light again. He felt reassuring hands on his arms, and a woman's voice saying, 'Keep breathing, Dan. Keep leaning forward. Just breath, just take it easy.'

  And after a few moments he was able to straighten up again, and could see that everything in the room was calm, and bright. And without realizing that he was doing it he hugged Ellen Bancroft to his body, scarcely aware that she had responded in kind, just mercifully glad of this most human of physical contacts.

  10

  Ellen stared anxiously up at Brady. 'How do you feel?'

  'Bloody exhausted.' He was still shaking.

  'I'm not surprised. Sit down for a few minutes.'

  Brady collapsed into one of the armchairs, stretched out his legs and stared at the ceiling. Ellen walked quickly across to the phone and placed it back on the receiver. She stepped gingerly around the corpse of Jack Baron, staring down at it, perhaps in pity, perhaps concerned with the thought of the inevitable police investigation.

  Sitting down opposite Brady, she leaned forward on her knees, hands clasped. Her hair was disordered, her eyes wide and bright. She was excited, eager to convey to Brady what had occurred.

  'Amazing,' she said. 'Quite amazing.'

  'That I'm exhausted? It's been a long day, what d'you expect.'

  'I'd expect nothing else. It's certainly amazing that you're not unconscious. But I'm more impressed by your talent. You'll have to train that talent, Dan. It could be a precious asset to you.'

  'Talent? Asset?' Brady was wearily regarding the woman. 'That was me, right? That much I've got.' He frowned, then. He was recollecting that night, three months ago. 'I left my body,' he said slowly. I slipped out of my body. Christ almighty, it all comes back.' He straightened up in his chair. 'An OOB experience! I remember fighting the thing that was killing me. I wrestled with it. I was watching myself being strangled!'

  Ellen could hardly believe what she was hearing. And what she heard delighted her. She went to the drinks cabinet. 'Under the circumstances, Dan, I think you can

  risk a drink. You certainly need one. Gin? Scotch?'

  'Brandy. What circumstances, Ellen? I don't want to be like Michael . . .'

  'You're not like Michael,' she said quietly, not looking at him as she poured Courvoisier into a whisky glass. 'You're strong.' She brought the drink over and Brady accepted it gratefully. Strangely, as he sipped the brandy he found it less to his taste than he'd remembered. The alcohol stung; the taste was sour; the effect in his stomach was less than warming. He placed the glass down beside him.

  Ellen said, 'Right now, psychically you're as strong as an ox. If the thought-form appeared and attacked you, I do believe you could destroy it. You're strong, Dan. When it attacked you you recognized that the only way to defend was to attack it on a psychic level . . .'

  'I thought no such thing,' he cut in. 'I don't think I thought at all . . .'

  'Part of you did. A part of you with the talent. It saved your life. You saved your own life. You left the material, physical plane, and attacked the Stalker on its own terms. Part of you never returned.'

  Brady nodded his understanding. 'It stayed in the house. Trapped in the house ... it was me all along. Scaring Bill and Rosemary. The presence that even the police felt. Not the evil, not the Stalker. Me.'

  'Your brother thought he'd seen you when he came to the house that night. He saw your ghost. Quite literally. You disseminated almost immediately, into the stone. If only . . .' Ellen didn't complete her thoughtful sentence, but Brady prompted her. She said, 'If only you could do it to order.'

  'Wouldn't it diminish my spirit? Wouldn't it weaken me?'

  'Yes it would. You become very vulnerable. But it would strengthen the house. I'd wondered why my simple, almost token defences here were so effective. I'd felt quite safe. The Stalker, I'm sure, was in the area, targeted on me, but it didn't properly come into the house. You were defending it.'

  Brady turned to peer at the blackened body in the middle of the carpet. Baron's arms were outstretched, and the charred head was covered by a towel. Brady was glad of that. 'Obviously,' he said. 'And defending a little too effectively.'

  But Ellen shook her head. 'Certainly you attacked Baron. But there was a reason for it. You knew you were coming home . . .'

  Brady hesitated only briefly before he grasped her meaning. 'And I wanted to literally come home! To this!' He slapped his chest.

  Ellen agreed. 'You possessed Baron in the only way possible. It was necessary to destroy him first, and inhabit the corpse. It's horrible, but I've read of that before. I can only take an educated guess, but I'd say the attack was violent, because the energy of your ghost was violent energy: angry. It burned him. You manifested as fire, and scorched his body even as you entered it. It was then just a question of waiting until you returned and letting the energy flow from corpse to you.'

  Brady stared at the body.

  Ellen said, 'This house will become increasingly dangerous, now. In two or three days it will be totally unsafe. We have to make it safe. We're going to need help. Your brother, for a start.'

  'My brother-in-law,' Brady corrected, and added, 'I can't imagine him coming back here. He was very frightened.'

  'He'll have to. We need help to build the wall all round the house. We need certain things constructed out of wood and metal. If we're to defend this house properly, Dan, if we're to make it a haven for you, for me, for anyone who comes under attack, then there's got to be a lot of heavy work. It isn't all herbs and talismans, although we'll need those too. We have to locate the source of power in the garden. We have to make trap-zones, maze-zones and sites of reflection. When psychic attack is undertaken it can be in many forms. We have to protect this house against all possibilities. We'll need help . . .'

  'But Bill and Rosemary. I'm not sure . . .'

  'We need them. For the moment. And Andrew too. We can't trust anyone else, Dan. Believe me, I've been through this. I know what I'm talking about.'

  'All right. I'll speak to Bill. As soon as I've been to see Andrew.'

  He looked out into the garden, then laughed ironically.

  'What is it?'

  'I was just thinking about what you said - maze-zones, trap-zones . . . Dominick used to set traps for a Man-in-the-Oak, over there.' He glanced at Ellen and smiled. 'We called him Willie Crinkleleaf.'

  'What sort of traps?'

  'Herbs. Metal. Bits of mirror. Marianna used to give him hell if she caught him.'

  Ellen nodded thoughtfully, amused, yet also concerned for Brady. 'And where did he learn this occult practice? Not at Hillingvale . . .'

  'Probably at school. The library. He'd probably cope with this better than I can!'

  Ellen sighed, then stared across at the body of Jack Baron. 'We have a problem. We can't just leave him here.'

  Brady said quickly, 'I have the problem, Ellen. I don't see the point of your being involved in this.' He stooped and drew Baron's limbs into the body, straightening the corpse. Checking his hands he found that very little of the charred clothing had rubbed off onto his skin. 'Did you see a car outside?' he asked, and Ellen said, 'Yes. Tucked away into the trees, down the road a way. It had darkened windows.'

  'I saw it too. Baron's for sure, and with luck the police won't have noticed it yet. Baron was burned in this room, but he certainly came in again from outside, so let's get him back there. You take the legs.'

  Ellen bent to the task. Baron's corpse was heavy, and she staggered slightly as Brady backed towards the french windows. He led the way out across the lawns, to the hidden places beyond the elms. They placed the body in the wood and leaf-litter that the children had helped pile against the wall, the previous autumn.

  'In a day or so I'll get the police round.'

  'And tell them what?'

  'What's to tell? I came home. I found the burned patch but thought little of it. A day or so later I was checking round the garden and found the body.'

  They stood in the gloom below the trees, only just able to make out each other's features. It was cold, and Ellen shivered. She said, 'Baron was a street boy, from the East End. He was half bad himself and a gangland killing isn't beyond reason . . .'

  'Leaving the corpse at the site of his latest investigation? Yes, I can see a certain amount of like-thinking among the Thames police. The important thing is, I didn't do it, and I've been in hospital for months. The police might ask a lot of questions, but there's no need to tell them about re-animation, or possession . . . and there's no need for you to be involved at all.'

  'Thank you.'

  'For what?'

  'For considering me.'

  'I'm considering us both,' said Brady. 'The fewer complications that get in the way of what I have to do the better. Dumb is the best policy, and that's how I intend to play it. But if you - one of Baron's clients - just happened to be here when the body was discovered, then I can see a more rigorous and repetitive line of questioning coming our way. Go home, Ellen. For the moment.'

  They walked quickly back to the house and exchanged telephone numbers. Ellen said, 'This house will not be safe for long. And nor will you.'

  'I know. But we will make it safe.'

  Her stare was a searching one. 'Then you want me to come back?'

  Brady reached out and took her hand between his. He smiled as he said, 'With one exception I can't think of anything that I'd like more at the moment. If I'm as strong us you say, then that strength can work for the both of us. But I thank God for you, Ellen, for the hope you bring me.'

  She reached out and pinched his cheek. 'Stick with it, Dan,' she said, before walking briskly out of the house, heading for the station.

  11

  * * *

  It was Dan Brady who had answered the phone, Andrew Haddingham was sure of that. The voice had been subdued, yet unmistakably Dan. But that brief contact had been abruptly broken: Haddingham had heard a woman's voice, and a startled cry, and then the line had gone dead. When he had tried ringing back, the line had been engaged.

  He stood for several seconds staring at the black phone, thinking hard. The woman's voice, yes, he had recognized that too. Ellen Bancroft. She had made contact with Brady at last, then.

  But that cry. And the abrupt cutting off of the open line. Ellen had told him that he should never, under any circumstances, contact the police if he believed her to be in trouble. He was well used to Ellen's ghostly encounters, and the moments of intense fear that would continue to haunt her life for many months. What had happened at Brook's Corner he couldn't imagine - or rather, he could! He felt helpless, though. He would have to believe that whatever had startled the two of them could be controlled, or repelled.

  It was a belief not hard to accept. Ellen had proved adept at doing just that, over the past months.

  Haddingham tried the number once more. It was still engaged. Behind him, the door to his small office opened and George Campbell's florid face stared at him quizzically. 'Come on, Andrew. We're closing the meeting.'

  Haddingham picked up his red folder and followed the Director down the short corridor to the briefing room at the end.

  Every six months the teams from the Ennean Institute of Paranormal Research and Hillingvale met to share knowledge, findings and exchange ideas. This was the fourth and final session of the day.

  Campbell was in the chair, of course, his briar pipe placed carefully to his left, his folder opened in the middle, a green phone to his right. The younger team members had left earlier in the afternoon. Only Elizabeth Smallwood, the Ennean Institute's Director, was left.

  Professor Smallwood was a po-faced woman in her early fifties; but by tugging her grey hair back into a tight bun, and refusing all forms of make-up, dental care, or clothes consciousness, she had contrived to pass for sixty, and gave the impression of living in the nineteen-forties. Andrew Haddingham disliked her intensely, and found her hard to cope with, especially since Ellen Bancroft had left the team: Ellen had managed to mediate well between the two of them. Smallwood had an abrasive way of talking, and her steel-eyed gaze could fix on a body and remain there unwaveringly as she challenged, or cross-questioned, or criticized. Haddingham found her very threatening.

  She had done a considerable amount of all three today, as the weaknesses in the collaborative efforts between the two outposts of paranormal research became apparent. The stringent adherence of Hillingvale to the Official Secrets Act placed strictures upon the mutual workings of the two teams that were wholly unacceptable to Professor Small-wood, and she had complained bitterly all afternoon. It was not that work wasn't shared, nor that information did not pass from Hillingvale to the Ennean: it did, and in great abundance. But it was clear to Smallwood that the quality of that information differed according to the direction of flow. From the Ennean came the best, most pertinent, and astonishing results - apportation, ectoplasm, medium-contact with the dead. From Hillingvale came dull accounts of rodents reacting psychically to danger, came boring details of crystal lattice absorption of electromagnetic energy, tedious reports on the penetration of the human aura through a variety of different material barriers.

  Clearly, the Ministry of Defence was not playing fair, und was keeping back its most vital research conclusions, hidden beneath the bulk of the Official Secrets Act.

  As the meeting drew towards its close, that late afternoon, Haddingham finished his idle skim of the Ennean's research file while Campbell and Professor Smallwood talked about future meetings.

  A great deal of it, this time, concerned regression under deep hypnosis, and seance-contact. There were pages and pages of incoherent ramblings, accounts of past lives, and messages from the Otherworld. There were samples of psychic writing, two sheafs of psychic music, the inevitable telekinetic studies, and the Ennean's speciality: apportation. Haddingham scrutinized the photographs of three supposed Celtic figurines very carefully. The originals carried through time from some two thousand years before were being examined by the British Museum. The BM were sceptical, Haddingham knew, because he had spoken to them two weeks before. It amused him to note that no rccord of the Museum's negative findings appeared in the committee's report.

  But something in those reports had tickled Haddingham's curiosity, and set the wheels moving in his head. He couldn't pin it down exactly, but the nagging thought grew on him as he turned the pages, flipping back through the file, trying to identify what exactly it was that had registered on him subconsciously.

  It was as the meeting was finally declared closed (Professor Smallwood's abrasive tone stating, 'And a very unsatisfactory meeting, George. You really will have to understand that.') that Haddingham felt the blood drain from his face, and found his vision swimming slightly, the dizzying response to that minor shock that is sudden realization.

  It was not something he had read in this most recent set of reports that had been crying out for attention, it was a series of short work notes from the last meeting, and perhaps from the meetings before that!

  Campbell's voice broke through his thoughts. 'Are you all right, Andrew?'

  Haddingham glanced up. The Director was regarding him curiously, his pale eyes glittering. Professor Small-wood had left. Haddingham stood, closing the folder, and smiled. 'Yes. Why do you ask? I was just absorbed in all this nonsense. It does me good to be reminded that the lunatic fringe is still flourishing.'

  Campbell glanced through his own folder of copied sheets. 'Some very tedious reading here, I grant you. Can't say I read their last report through, not in its entirity.'

  'I did,' said Haddingham softly. 'Just once. And very quickly. But I read it through.'

  And thank God I did, he thought. Thank God I was conscientious. Otherwise I might have missed it. It might not have registered.

  He hastened to his small office, and went straight to the file marked "miscellaneous".

  There were three previous reports from the Ennean Institute, the earliest dated nearly eighteen months before, and quite thin. Haddingham could remember nothing about any of its contents as he quickly flipped through the closely typed pages.