The Ghosts of Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 2 Read online

  “I have to pull myself together,” I said aloud and with feeling. “Gwyn’s right. I’m better than this.”

  I wound the windows down to get rid of Jed’s smell, and air the van out. Then reached across to the glove box to inspect the contents. Pens, chewing gum, loose change, some Lemsips and throat lozenges, numerous receipts, invoices and bills, and a single glove. The certification for the van was in there too, along with its service history, all stored together in a battered leather folder. I took the folder out to flip through it, and unbelievably found the spare key tucked away at the bottom.

  I hooked the key out and studied it. I’d taken driving lessons many years ago when I lived in Lewisham, and although I’d spectacularly failed my test the first time, and hadn’t continued with my instructor, I understood the mechanics of driving. I could at least drive the van around the side of the inn, out of my direct line of sight every time I peered from the inn’s front windows.

  Holding my breath, I inserted the key and twisted it. The van lurched forwards slightly, and I nearly smacked the dashboard. Jed had left it in gear. Like a small child exploring, I cast my mind back to what I had learned years before. I clicked the seatbelt into place, depressed the clutch and wiggled the gear stick into neutral then turned the key again. This time the engine turned but didn’t catch.

  I kept trying, until finally after four of five goes, the engine roared into life with a belch of smoke from the exhaust. I altered the seat so that I could reach the pedals a little easier, depressed the clutch once more and pushed the gear stick into first, releasing the clutch till it caught.

  I didn’t go anywhere.

  Then I remembered I still had the hand brake on. “Oh yes,” I whispered to myself, and with that we were off. We travelled approximately six feet before I stalled, but I repeated the process until I was able to get into second gear without incident and eventually I parked the van around the side of the inn. Ultimately, I needed to find a way to get rid of this final reminder of Jed altogether and that would be one less thing to worry about.

  It was with a new sense of accomplishment that I trotted into the inn. I’d solved an issue that had been bugging me for a while, and it had been surprisingly simple to do.

  With any luck the rest of my problems would just as easily be resolved.

  “You can drive?” Gwyn asked in surprise, when I found her in the office a little later. I’d been right earlier when I’d guessed she was watching out of the window.

  “Not legally,” I said, still feeling rather pleased with myself.

  “Legally?” Gwyn frowned.

  “As in, I haven’t passed my test. I’m not allowed to drive without a licence holder with me in the car.”

  “Test?” Gwyn repeated, looking stumped. “We didn’t have such things back in my day. If you wanted to drive you just jumped behind the wheel and away you went.”

  I grimaced at the thought of Gwyn driving. If she had driven the same way she spoke, thought and acted—sharply and without regard for her victims—then the roads must have been incredibly unsafe. “We don’t do that these days, Grandmama. There are all sorts of rules and regulations and tests and things. That’s probably all for the best, given how many millions of vehicles there are on the roads now.”

  “Millions?” Gwyn seemed taken aback by this and I nodded.

  “It’s better to be safe than sorry, I think.”

  “Well yes, that’s true. I do think you should ‘pass this test’ though. It would be useful to have a driver at the inn again.”

  “There’s always Zephaniah,” I said pointedly.

  “Ah yes, you spoke to him.”

  “I believe you actually appointed him to work for us, didn’t you, Grandmama?”

  “I did,” Gwyn looked smug.

  “You know, appointing people is my job.” It was hard not to be slightly disgruntled at the way Gwyn liked to take everything over from me.

  “But you’re not really doing your job, are you, Dear?”

  She was correct, and that annoyed me more than anything else. “Okay. But I’m back on it now, I promise. Besides, I think you were right about needing more staff, and this notion of putting the ghosts hanging around the inn to good use, is a great idea. I think I’ll do that. Create a team or a crew who can help me tackle the big jobs and then we can look at how quickly the inn can be open for business again.”

  Gwyn lifted her hands in mock shock. “Oh good heavens. My great granddaughter has admitted I was right about something.” She smiled, and this time there was no malice in her look. “Good for you, Dear. It’s nice to finally see you taking charge again. You don’t need anyone else. You can go it alone.”

  I knew she was referring to Jed, but I blithely moved on. “Well, whatever I do, I’m not alone when I have the weight of Alfhild Gwynfyre Daemonne and my Wonky Inn Clean-up Crew behind me,” I replied. “That’s what I’m going to call them. We’ll make a good team, Grandmama.”

  “Wonky Inn? That’s a strange name,” but Gwyn did look pleased, “And I’m glad you think so.”

  At that moment Florence walked past the open door, heading purposely down the corridor to one of the bedrooms with a feather duster and a dustpan and brush in hand.

  We watched her go.

  “She’s a good worker,” I mused.

  “She is,” Gwyn agreed. “But you can’t rely on her in the kitchen, Alfhild.”

  “Why not? She seems to like it in there.”

  “Of course she does. All the young housemaids and serving girls liked the kitchen. It was warm and there was always the opportunity to try out the cakes and puddings. No, my point is, Florence is perfectly capable of serving you up snacks and simple dinners, but once you have guests in the inn, who are paying for their hospitality, you can’t offer them those tinned beans from the local corner shop you’re so fond of, or thick cut bacon sandwiches first thing in the morning.”

  My mouth drooled at the idea of a bacon butty. Florence did make a mean breakfast sandwich. I cast a surreptitious glance at the clock. No wonder I was hungry, it was nearly lunch time.

  “I’d hate to lose Florence from the kitchen.” I pouted.

  “I’m sure she can help out from time to time,” Gwyn shot back, all matter of fact. “But I do insist you have a decent chef, my dear. I always had an excellent one during my tenure at the inn, even during the last war, when it was all ‘make do and mend’, and ‘grow your own’. All rather frightful really. I only ever employed the best. It’s important to keep your guests happy.”

  I grudgingly acknowledged the logic of this. I wanted Whittle Inn to be renowned for decent food and drink, especially given that our nearest competitor, The Hay Loft in the village, served bog-standard gammon and chips, pasta bakes, curries and steaks. No. It was important that Whittle Inn offered affordable but exciting fare, and I needed to turn my attention to that sort of detail.

  “Why don’t you let me find a chef for you?” Gwyn was asking. There she went again, trying to take control.

  “Certainly not, Grandmama. I’ve worked in hospitality for years. I know what I’m looking for and I have some great contacts in London. Just leave it to me.”

  Gwyn tutted loudly. “Well if you’re sure,” she said, and I could hear the hurt in her voice. I opened my mouth to apologise and try to take the sting out of my words, but she disappeared without so much as a by-your-leave.

  I stared at the space she had vacated, feeling bad. It wouldn’t hurt to take her advice. She had some useful ideas after all.

  I sighed.

  I’d also meant to ask her about the sobbing ghost, and now I’d lost my chance. Oh well. I’d do it the next time she visited me. She’d be back.

  Pulling my laptop towards me, I logged into a jobs website I had used on the many occasions I’d needed staff in the pubs and clubs I’d managed in London. Finding a live-in chef with a love of the countryside, who desired a change of scenery and was therefore happy to relocate to the depths of
East Devon would be a doddle.

  Wouldn’t it?

  The sobbing awoke me for a fourth time at around four a.m. On the first occasion I’d hauled myself out of bed and had a quick look around but when, as usual, I couldn’t locate any trace of the owner of the tears, I headed back to bed. When I was rudely awoken twice more after that, I simply rolled over and went back to sleep.

  The sleep deprivation was beginning to catch up with me.

  But now, roused once again from much-needed slumber, and feeling more than a little annoyed, I jumped out of bed and grabbed my robe. I made directly for the attic, where I knew a number of Whittle Inn’s ghosts liked to hang out.

  Bursting in on them, I found them engaged in a variety of activities. My flapper ghost, Amelia was painting at an easel. Albert, an eighteenth-century fop, Ned, a Victorian builder, and Luke Riley, a 1920’s sailor were huddled around a table playing cards, while Zephaniah smoked a pipe and watched them. Florence was sprawled across a mattress, smouldering quietly, while reading a leather-bound book. She dropped it in surprise as I crashed through the door.

  Of Grandmama, there was no sign.

  “Okay, guys,” I demanded. “This can’t go on. It might have escaped your notice but I’m sorely in need of a little beauty sleep. You have to help me.”

  “Help you?” Ned turned innocent eyes my way. “Of course we’ll help you. All we can.” He looked round at the assembled ghosts. “Won’t we chaps?” There must have been seven or eight of them. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know any of them particularly well. I hadn’t taken the time I should have done after the Battle for Speckled Wood to find out more about them, but I did at least recognise them all by sight.

  The ghosts nodded and murmured in agreement. All apart from Zephaniah, who looked away guiltily. I clocked him doing so, and I know he knew I had.

  “What can we help you with, Miss?” Florence asked earnestly.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Are your brains so addled by death you’ve no regard for anybody else’s wellbeing?” In frustration, I gesticulated dramatically back down the stairs. “That…that…noise! That crying! It’s driving me mad.”

  “Crying, my lady?” asked an elderly male ghost in plain monk’s robes.

  “Can’t you hear it?” I asked incredulously.

  Everyone without exception shook their heads or raised their eyebrows and indicated they couldn’t.

  I glanced at Florence. She made a great show of picking up her dropped book and smoothing the pages down.

  I frowned. Why were they all being so evasive? What on earth was going on?

  As if on cue, the crying started again. A man, sobbing his heart out, deeply miserable. In need of help.

  “You don’t hear that?” I asked them, my voice softer. “You don’t hear a person…or a ghost…in need of consolation? Or a shoulder to cry on?”

  I glared around at them all, and gazes dropped to the floor. A few of them, including Zephaniah, shuffled around uncomfortably, but nobody said anything.

  I took a sharp annoyed breath and walked out of the attic, slamming the door behind me. The heavy clunk reverberated through the inn, and the crying stopped again, as though it had been frightened into submission.

  Once down on the second floor I halted at the foot of the stairs, listening. I could rule out the ghost being in the attic, and on the ground floor. I had never heard him crying while I’d been hanging out in the kitchen or the bar area. So that left the first floor where my own quarters were, along with a number of the guest bedrooms, and the second floor, where the majority of the guest bedrooms were housed.

  Determined to track down the sad ghost once and for all, I figured I’d start right here on the second floor and work my way down, and then all the way back up if I had to. If at that stage I still had no joy, I’d be kicking ghostly butt and banishing a few miscreants.

  But I hadn’t even reached the first bedroom when Zephaniah appeared in front of me, scaring me half to death.

  “Crikey, Zephaniah! I wasn’t expecting you.” I clutched my chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  He put his finger to his lips and nodded towards the next flight of stairs. I followed him, as he floated down them ahead of me, along the landing and the hallway to the bedrooms furthest from mine.

  “What’s going on?” I hissed, as quietly as I could manage. “Why all the skulduggery and cloak and dagger stuff?”

  “Miss, I haven’t known you long.” Zephaniah spoke so quietly I struggled to hear him. “But you seem like a good sort. I’m sure you’ll be doing great things with the inn. And the other ghosts, they respect you too…”

  “So why…?”

  “It’s all about them protecting somebody.”

  “Protecting someone? Whom? Another ghost?”

  Zephaniah nodded, glancing nervously about. “I shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be telling you anything. It could backfire spectacularly.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would a ghost need protection? And from who?”

  A floorboard creaked from above our heads. I gasped and looked up, horrified at the idea someone might have been eavesdropping on us, when Zephaniah was obviously so worried about just that.

  “In there.” He indicated the room behind me. “I can’t say anything more.” Zephaniah melted into the darkness before I could ask anything else.

  Checking up and down the hall for other onlookers, I reached for the door handle and entered.

  It was the same bedroom I’d checked before. The one with the tiny wardrobe, wash stand and chest of drawers. The lack of curtains and other furnishings meant it was cold, not helped at all by the fact that the window needed replacing in here as it rattled in the wind.

  I entered into the darkness. There was no obvious sign of ghostly activity, and since the door slamming I’d done upstairs, the crying hadn’t started up again. I’d obviously done a good job of scaring the ghost half to death.

  I flicked on the lights. Nothing untoward. The room was clean and fresh. Florence had been in here dusting and wiping down surfaces. I glanced under the bed. No-one there. The room needed painting and a few rugs, maybe a vase of flowers and a picture on the wall, then it would be ready for guests in no time. There were even two pairs of brand new pillows on the bed.

  At a loss as to why Zephaniah had wanted me to look in the room, I shook my head, cross at having my night interrupted and my time wasted. I turned the lights off once more and trudged into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me.

  Then it struck me.

  The pillows generally lived in the wardrobe. Someone, presumably Florence, had removed them from the wardrobe and placed them on the bed.

  Why would they do that? Unless there was someone in the wardrobe.

  I whirled about and dashed back into the room, flinging open the wardrobe door, coming face to face with Luppitt Smeatharpe for the very first time.

  The ghost stared up at me in shock and fear.

  He cut a diminutive figure, fitting easily into the slim wardrobe despite the enormous Elizabethan ruff he sported around his neck. He reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Shakespeare, having a narrow face that descended into a sharp chin, with pointed beard, and longish dark hair slicked back away from his head. He was wearing a deep—but now faded—blue velvet tunic, cut open to display slashes of an equally faded, but once beautiful, blood-red silk shirt. Closely-fitting trousers of some kind, and wonderful pointy-toe boots in black with a wooden sole, completed the ensemble.

  I took in his red rimmed eyes, and the tear stains on his cheeks. He cowered into the very corner of the wardrobe, trying to get as far away from me as possible.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” were the first words he uttered, and my heart broke for him. He spoke well. I could hear a slight west country brogue underneath his well-mannered accent.

  “I won’t,” I replied gently, “I promise.” I held my hand out to him. “But, you can’t be comfortable in there. Please come out.�
�� I kept my words soft.

  “It is perfectly fine, my lady.” He looked around wildly, possibly for other dangers in the room.

  “I can’t talk to you in there,” I tried again. “Come out and sit on the bed, and I promise, once we’ve had a little chat, you can go back if you really want to.” I stepped back a few paces to give him the space he needed.

  With one final look about the room, he unfolded himself and clambered out of the wardrobe. I kept moving away from him as he walked towards the bed, holding my hands up so he could see he had nothing to fear from me. His eyes darted to the curtainless window, and I could tell he didn’t like it.

  “I don’t think anyone will be looking in from outside,” I offered, but of course, how could I be sure?

  He nodded but didn’t look convinced.

  “I’m Alf,” I said. “Alfhild Daemonne. I own the inn.”

  “Yes, I know. Florence has told me about you.” I pursed my lips. So the others had known all about this odd little fellow and had been harbouring him. Perhaps he was some sort of criminal?

  “You look very much like your father,” the ghost continued. “Just more…hair.” He indicated volume around his own head.

  “You’ve met my father?”

  “Oh, it was he who suggested I come here. He said I’d be safe.”

  I shook my head to indicate my confusion. “You need to start at the beginning. Tell me all about you.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, we’ve got all night.” That much was a lie. It was 4.30 already. “I’m all ears.” I settled down for the long haul.

  “My lady,” he said with a sniff. “My name is Luppitt Arthur Smeatharpe and I hail originally from a small village in mid-Devon by the name of Hemyock.

  “I was born the lowly third son of a grammar school teacher. The only thing I had going for me was that I was taught my letters. My father ensured I could read and write, and that I had a good grounding in arithmetic. Given that there would be nothing in the way of an inheritance for me when he passed away, when I made the grand age of fourteen, he apprenticed me to the lord of the manor of Norton Fitzwarren. I became a lowly clerk in the household of Baron Richard von Saxe-Krumpke.”