The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine (books you have to read txt) 📕

but then he had said that he would have to refer her to a child psychiatrist who might want to do tests to see if she had some form of epilepsy. She had backed off immediately, telling him she’d made it all up. It was obvious from his expression that she’d just confirmed what he’d thought all along. She had made him promise not to say anything to her mother – and reminded him about patient confidentiality, but she wasn’t convinced he took any notice. She was probably in his eyes a child with an over-active imagination and no rights at all.

Tomorrow – no, today: she reached for her phone and found it was 2.33 a.m. – she would be meeting Bea again. They’d arranged to hook up at a coffee shop near the cathedral; not the one haunted by that dreadful spying woman, but one somewhere out in the town. Then Dad and Felix would head off to do their own blokey thing for the rest of the day while she and Bea returned to Marden Church. She shivered again. She was the one who had insisted that they go back, but now, in the darkness of her bedroom, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted a second chance to meet St Ethelbert, king and martyr.

She was tempted to get up and go downstairs. Her mother often walked about the house in the middle of the night and she always said a ‘nice cup of tea’ would relax her and send her back to bed sleepy. That sounded illogical to Emma – everyone knew that tea was a stimulant and full of caffeine, but there you are. Her gaze drifted towards the door. She could make some tea then take it outside to sit on the terrace looking up at those amazing stars, and have a ciggy. Felix, snoring on his camp bed, would never wake up and it would be beautiful out there.

But the voice was out there.

She lay back on her pillow and pulled the duvet up to her chin. Perhaps she would try and go back to sleep instead. After all, there were plenty of nights left now before they had to go home. She began to count. Before she had reached number five she was asleep. And the dream returned.

The dean would want her to be certain. Sandra studied the rota with care. It was fortuitous that she had a couple of days off now, before Easter week when the cathedral would be busy, as it meant she could turn her attention fully to the problem of Beatrice Dalloway. She had seldom taken such an instinctive dislike to anyone or felt such an overwhelming suspicion, but she was after all, uniquely qualified to deal with the delusions of a ghost hunter and she was beginning to feel sure that she had been sent by God to investigate the situation and rescue the dear canon from his wife and her accomplices. In the unlikely event it turned out she was wrong, then she would quietly back off and leave Bea alone.

It had been complete luck that she had seen Bea that morning, emerging from the alleyway in Church Street. And there she was, yet again joining the Armstrong family in a coffee shop. Not the cathedral café, she noted. Presumably she had decided that was too public a place to discuss her nefarious deeds. Sandra didn’t dare go in after them. Somehow she had to hang around long enough to follow them and see where they were going.

They were there for only about twenty minutes, then all four emerged into the narrow street and stood talking. Sandra moved closer. The narrow pedestrianised area was crowded. It was easy to blend in, and there were lots of little shops with interesting windows where she could hover amongst the crowds.

A group of students jostled past, enabling Sandra to move close enough to hear Bea’s next words: ‘… we’ll start at Marden, then we’ll probably come back here. We’ll see how it goes. Don’t worry. I’ll drop her back this afternoon.’ Then Bea and the girl set off in the direction of the cathedral while Simon and his son headed towards High Town. For a moment Sandra was left standing there. If either couple had looked back, they would have seen her, but they didn’t. She was smiling. So, they were still on the track of the martyr king. Turning away herself, she set off to collect her car.

Sandra pulled her car off onto the grass at the edge of the road and climbed out. She set off along the lane, passing empty barns and stock pens, on past the old vicarage and through weathered wrought-iron gates into the churchyard. The area immediately around the church was tarmacked, with newly mown grass bordering the graveyard itself. There was nowhere to hide. Although she hadn’t seen any other vehicles in the vicinity, she took the precaution of climbing the bank on the edge of the path until she was among the ancient graves, where clumps of trees gave her shelter and she could creep nearer to the church. There was a car there, round the back, parked facing the river. Cautiously she moved closer. The car was empty and she realised she didn’t know what kind of car Beatrice drove, but there was a good chance this was it. As anxious as she was to get inside the church, she could see no way of reaching the door without crossing the open expanse of the car park. She crouched there for several minutes, waiting and watching. The door was shut and all was silent. Taking a deep breath, she launched herself at last out of the bushes and across the tarmac at a run, opening the outer door as quietly as she could, then slipping silently inside the porch. She paused there in the darkness to get her breath back. There was an inner door and that too was shut.