The Horror of the Crowford Empire Read online

  “Why didn't you pursue justice for me?” she asked, half turning but still not quite managing to look at him. “Everyone knew why that fire was started. Why did nobody speak up? Why didn't you speak up?”

  “Cowardice, I suppose,” he said with a sigh. “There are powerful people in this town, Winnie, and they're used to getting what they want.”

  “Even if that means murdering innocent women?”

  “You're right, we should have stood up for you. I should have stood up for you.” He paused, before stepping closer to her. “But you can't let your anger turn you into a monster.”

  Scrambling across the floor, Susan rolled Sam over and tried to search for a pulse. After a few frantic seconds, she began to realize that she was too late.

  “You killed him!” she shouted, turning to Winifred as tears began to run down her cheeks. “He did nothing wrong! He was just trying to help and you murdered him!”

  “You're all the same,” Winifred sneered, stepping toward her. “Everyone in Crowford shares responsibility for the horrors that happen here. For the lies, and the suffering, and the deaths, and the greed.” She leaned closer to Susan. “This town eats happiness,” she snarled, “and as long as that's the case, you all deserve to be punished equally.”

  Suddenly she turned and leaned toward Angie's unconscious body.

  “No!” Susan said, stepping in the way. “I won't let you!”

  “Then I'll start with you!” Winifred snapped angrily, reaching out and grabbing Susan's throat again.

  “Enough!” Harry shouted. “You're the ghost of Winifred Thorpe, are you not? But if you kill one more person, then you're not Winifred, not really, in which case you're nothing! I know the real Winnie is in there somewhere, and I'm begging her to take control!”

  “I managed it,” Susan gasped, barely able to get any words out as Winifred tightened her grip on her throat. “I managed to break free when you possessed me, Winifred. Now it's your turn to break free of the anger and hatred that's possessing you! Or are you too weak?”

  Winifred screamed and slammed her against the wall, almost knocking her out, but after a moment she let go of Susan's throat and pulled back. As Susan slithered to the floor, barely conscious, Winifred finally turned and looked back at Harry, who responded by reaching out to her with his right hand.

  “Let's go, old thing,” he told her, as the doors to the foyer swung open, revealing the moonlit sea beyond. Sirens could be heard approaching in the distance. “Being a ghost isn't really much of a life, is it?”

  “I only wanted them to pay for what they did to me,” Winifred sobbed.

  “And they did,” he replied. “The ones who hurt you. Now it's time for both of us to get out here. I've got a feeling, a hope, that things might be a little different in Crowford from now on.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I am,” he told her. “I thought I'd lost you for a moment, but you're still that same hot little thing I was courting all those years ago. Come on, Winnie, let's go and see what it's like out there.”

  Winifred hesitated, before finally taking his hand. As Harry led her outside, flashing blue lights began to illuminate the seawall opposite, and after a few seconds the two ghostly figures faded away into those lights, leaving Crowford forever.

  Startled, Susan watched Winifred and Harry fade away, and then she crawled over to check on Angie.

  “Wake up!” she shouted, shaking her shoulder.

  “What happened?” Angie groaned, barely able to open her eyes.

  “Help's coming,” Susan told her, before clambering past and racing back to Sam. “Come on, Sam,” she continued, shaking him harder than ever. “Please, you have to wake up. I'm begging you, I need you to hear my voice and I need you to promise that you won't let go. All you have to do is hang on for a few more seconds.”

  As the ambulance screeched to a halt outside, and as its flashing lights began to fill the foyer, Susan continued to shake Sam even though she knew that the task was hopeless. Even when two men from the ambulance tried to pull her away, she clung to him desperately, hoping for a miracle that – deep down – she knew would never come.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “It gives me great pleasure,” Vivian Grace said with a beaming smile, “to declare the fully refurbished and improved Crowford Empire open for business!”

  With that, she turned and cut the red ribbon, and a smattering of applause broke out across the crowd.

  “Now,” she continued, “I want to address one particularly ugly rumor that has been spreading through the town lately. Some people seem to be under the wholly mistaken impression that my sister and I wanted the cinema to close, and that we had plans to turn the building into some kind of bingo hall. I can assure you all that neither of us ever entertained such a possibility for a second. Our dear father established this cinema, and we're determined to invest in its future so that it has a future that's as long and happy as the future of Crowford itself!”

  More applause filled the air.

  “Look at her face,” Angie whispered. “She's lying through her teeth. I bet it physically hurts her that she's had to spend money on the cinema. She'd probably already planned how she was going to spend the cash she thought she'd make from turning the place into a bingo hall.”

  “She has to look after her reputation, I suppose,” Susan muttered, watching as Vivian shook hands with various dignitaries. “The police are still sniffing around the Roger Bell murder. Nothing'll come from that, of course, but it still suits the Grace family to keep their heads down. Some people are already suggesting that their grip on this town is fading. If you ask me, it'd be good for Crowford to break free.”

  “I still can't believe that it was my hand that plunged the knife into Roger Bell's chest,” Angie replied. “I don't remember that moment, but -”

  “It wasn't you,” Susan said firmly.

  “But -”

  “It was Winifred Thorpe,” she added, interrupting her again. “You have to remember that. Believe me, you're talking to the one person in this town who has a clue what it was like to have that woman's soul coursing through your veins.” She paused for a moment. “She's gone, you know. Sometimes I find myself just staring into the mirror, watching in case there's even the tiniest trace of her left, but she's really gone. The crazy thing is, she was part of me for ten years, and now I don't really know who I am.”

  “You'll find out quickly enough in London,” Angie pointed out.

  “Second time's the charm,” Susan said, before checking her watch. “Listen, I should get to the station. Do you still want to come and wave me off?”

  ***

  “And make sure you call us as soon as you get there,” Susan's mother said as they stood on the platform, waiting for the 14.57 to London. “We weren't joking when we told you to call us every single day, and that starts immediately!”

  “I'll call you,” Susan told her, “I promise. There's a phone in the house I'll be staying at, remember?”

  “And I want letters,” her mother continued. “At least once a month, I want a detailed report telling us how things are going. London's such a huge place and I see the most terrible stories on the news sometimes. If you ever feel as if you want to pack it in and come home, you mustn't hesitate, do you understand? There's no shame in admitting that things are starting to feel like they're too much for you.”

  “Any chance you might change your mind and stick around?” her father asked. “The house is going to be very empty without you.”

  “Somehow I think you and Mum'll find plenty of people to drag back there and fill it again,” Susan pointed out, before hearing a creaking door and turning to see a stationmaster stepping out onto the platform. “Mum, Dad, do you mind waiting here for a moment?” she added. “I just want to go and check something. I won't be long.”

  Making her way along the platform, she caught up to the stationmaster just as he was about to unlock a door.

  “I'
m sorry,” she said cautiously, “I just wondered if you could pass on a message to the other man who works here.”

  “What's that?” he replied, turning to her.

  “I was here about a year ago, really early in the morning, catching the first train to London. I talked to the other stationmaster and he said something that really stuck with me. I wanted to thank him.”

  “I'm the only stationmaster here,” the man told her.

  “Oh, okay,” she said cautiously, “then I suppose he must have retired.”

  “I've been the only stationmaster at Crowford for the past ten years,” he explained, “since old Len Hutton passed away.”

  “But -”

  “And anyway, there's no stationmaster around for the first train. The place is unmanned until the second train comes through.

  “Then who...”

  Her voice trailed off as she thought back to her encounter with the man. She knew he'd been wearing the appropriate uniform, and he'd even sold her the ticket she'd used to get to London. For a moment, she considered asking the stationmaster if he was really certain that he didn't have a colleague who occasionally covered for him, but at the last second she realized that she might end up sounding somewhat crazy.

  “Sorry for bothering you,” she muttered, before turning and heading back along the platform to join the others.

  “The train horn just sounded,” her father pointed out. “Looks like the bloody thing's on time for once.”

  Looking past him, Susan saw the train approaching. She felt a flicker of doubt in her chest, a fear that her second attempt to move to London might end just as badly as her first, but then she reached up and touched the ring that was hanging from a chain around her neck. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that she wasn't just going for herself, that she was going for Sam too and that she was at least going to take a part of him out there into the big wide world.

  “Let's get you onboard, then,” her father said as the train stopped and he opened one of its doors. “You don't want to miss this one, or you'll get to London too late to have your tea.”

  Climbing onto the train, Susan still felt a hint of fear, but she quickly reminded herself that she'd be back to visit Crowford again some day. She knew that if she stayed, she'd end up hating the place, and that she might even end up saying things like 'this town eats happiness'. She definitely didn't want to become so bitter and twisted, so she set her suitcase on the luggage rack and shut the door, and then she leaned out to give her parents' one more hug.

  “I'll see you soon, okay?” she told them.

  “You'd better,” her father said, before stepping back.

  “And I'll see you soon too,” she told Angie.

  “Hell, yeah,” Angie replied and she too had tears in her eyes. “I'm coming up for a shopping trip at least once a month, and you'd better meet me for a drink every single time. Don't even think about getting better friends while you're swanning around at that secretarial school, because I swear I'll track you down!”

  “You won't have to track me down.”

  “You'll do great,” Angie told her. “I can feel it in my bones!”

  Smiling, and just about managing to hold back tears, Susan took a seat as the train began to pull out of the station. She breathed deep and tried to calm her nerves, and then she reached up again and touched the ring hanging from the chain around her neck. She couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if Sam had survived; she'd come so close to a happy ending, only for everything to be snatched away at the last second by Winifred Thorpe's insatiable lust for vengeance. Somehow, it was almost as if the town itself had been unable to resist adding a little more sorrow to the tale.

  Still, she knew that she couldn't let herself become bitter, because that would only mean that she'd be at risk of turning into Winifred Thorpe herself. She'd had quite enough of Winifred's brand of anger for one lifetime.

  As the train trundled along on its way to London, Susan thought back once more to the old stationmaster's words. He'd told her that there was a right and a wrong way to leave a place. Last time she'd been leaving the wrong way, but this time she felt sure that she was doing things properly. As the countryside flashed past on the other side of the window, Susan Jones thought back to everything that had happened over the previous year – over the previous ten years, even – and she still, somehow, managed to allow herself a faint smile as the train carried her away into her future.

  Free at last of Winifred Thorpe's influence, she was going to find out who Susan Jones really was.

  Epilogue

  Almost fifty years later...

  An owl hooted in a nearby tree as footsteps crossed the dark cemetery. Picking her way between the gravestones, a figure made her way around the side of the church and finally stopped in front of one stone in particular. Having made the same journey once every year for almost half a century, she'd have been able to find her way to that exact stone even if she'd been wearing a blindfold.

  After wincing as she knelt on the grass, Susan Jones – having started using her maiden name again, following her divorce – looked for a moment at the gravestone's inscription:

  Samuel Matthew Gough

  1941 to 1966

  She paused for a few seconds, and then she set some flowers on the grave.

  “I don't know if you heard,” she said, her breath visible in the cold night air, “but the Grace sisters died last year. There was a fire on Nelson Street and... well, I'm not totally clear on the details, I think they're being kept pretty much under wraps. Now that I've retired from the paper, I've got more time to work on a story about Crowford, although I'm still at the early stages. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it in case you spot any familiar faces around the cemetery.”

  Getting to her feet, she stepped over to another grave and set down some more flowers, while glancing at the inscription:

  Harry Martin Gough

  1901 to 1965

  “Rest in peace, Harry,” she muttered, before looking back over at the first grave. “And you too, Sam. I guess I'll see you next year.”

  Reaching up, she touched the ring that still hung from a chain around her neck.

  She waited, listening to the sound of rustling trees, just in case there was any sign of a response. Every year, she took the train down to Crowford on the same date and made sure to visit the two graves; every year, she wondered whether she might see or hear some hint that Sam was still around. Although she was disappointed every year, she still kept the hope alive in her heart, and she knew that she'd make the same journey again the next year, and the next, for as long as she lived.

  “Better be going, then,” she said, forcing a smile. “I'm meeting Angie and Oliver in the pub. Now she's got that new hip, Angie's pretty much unstoppable.”

  She lingered for a few more seconds, ever hopeful, before turning and making her way back across the dark cemetery. As her footsteps disappeared into the distance, nearby trees rustled gently in the wind and another owl briefly hooted.

  “See you next year,” Sam's voice said suddenly, hanging in the air for a moment. “You've got better things to do than hang around with ghosts, Susie. We'll catch up again some day, but not just yet. Safe travels.”

  BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

  1. The Haunting of Nelson Street

  2. The Revenge of the Mercy Belle

  3. The Ghost of Crowford School

  4. The Portrait of Sister Elsa

  5. The Haunting of the Crowford Hoy

  6. The Horror of the Crowford Empire

  COMING SOON

  7. The Terror of Crowford Hospital

  Also available

  THE HAUNTING OF NELSON STREET

  Crowford, a sleepy coastal town in the south of England, might seem like an oasis of calm and tranquility. Beneath the surface, however, dark secrets are waiting to claim fresh victims, and ghostly figures plot revenge.

  Having finally decided to leave the hustle of London, Daisy and Richa
rd Johnson buy two houses on Nelson Street, a picturesque street in the center of Crowford. One house is perfect and ready to move into, while the other is a fire-ravaged wreck that needs a lot of work. They figure they have plenty of time to work on the damaged house while Daisy recovers from a traumatic event.

  Soon, they discover that the two houses share a common link to the past. Something awful once happened on Nelson Street, something that shook the town to its core. Before they can face Crowford's horrors, however, Daisy and Jonathan have to deal with the ghosts of their own recent history. What is Daisy hiding, and why does Jonathan feel strangely drawn to one of the town's most mysterious inhabitants?