He wasn’t sure how to answer her. Was she right?

‘We have to do something, Jason. We can’t live here like this. We’ve seen one bloody ghost, you’ve met a phantom vicar promising to arrange an exorcism and you’ve seen someone crushed to death out of your window. What have we moved into?’

‘Want to move out? We could go and stay in a hotel until we find something else?’

‘No. I love this house. There’s something very wrong, but are we going to let it drive us out?’

‘What does Louise say?’

‘That the house needs spiritual cleansing, that’s all. We’re on a historic site where there’ve been some tragic deaths. I don’t know – she says maybe there’s some old souls wandering around, spirits who don’t realize their bodies are dead. She’s going to talk to someone she knows who specializes in that stuff.’

‘Like, in asking ghosts to take their shoes off before they go clumping around in the middle of the night?’

She looked at him levelly and smiled. ‘We’ll get through this. We’ll get it sorted.’

‘We will.’

55

Wednesday 19 December

‘Where are you going, darling?’ Emily asked, as, shortly after 9 a.m., Jason hurtled downstairs like a whirlwind, bunged an instant porridge in the microwave, then sat at the kitchen table and began skimming through the Argus. His ritual at breakfast was to read the local paper, then the Guardian.

He raised a finger to his lips. ‘Ssshhhh, I’m on a mission to find us a Ghostbuster and then running some errands for Santa!’

‘Oh?’

‘Santa says there’s a rather lovely lady who has moved into 47 Lakeview Drive, who is going to be in need of a lot of presents on Christmas morning.’

‘Really?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And he’s appointed you his Little Helper?’

‘I think he might have done.’

She gave him a wan smile. ‘Don’t forget the framer!’

‘Dunno if there’s going to be enough room for the pictures in my car, with all the presents I’ll have for you.’

‘So, take the van…’

‘I’ll make room, somehow.’

‘Seriously, the framer is number-one priority. And ride your sleigh carefully!’

‘David Graham – number-one priority!’

‘Then Mr Ghostbuster?’

‘He’ll be in Santa’s sack. Any more footsteps, yell at them to take their shoes off.’

‘I’ll stick a sign outside the front door. All ghosts: barefoot only in this house.’

‘Their eyesight might be a bit crap, you know; some of them are probably pretty ancient.’

‘Fine, I’ll leave a pair of reading glasses out for them.’

‘Maybe some garlic and a mirror, too.’

‘That’s for vampires, isn’t it?’

‘Might as well take a belt-and-braces approach!’

56

Wednesday 19 December

Fifteen minutes after leaving home, Jason steered the BMW up a residential street with substantial houses set well back from the road, all displaying festive lights in their windows or porches. Then he reached the contrasting stark, forbidding Victorian walls of Lewes prison, before entering the narrow high street of the county town of East Sussex.