Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne Read Free Book Online Page B

he thought there was a flicker of movement, as if someone might have dodged back out of sight. He remembered the boxes were quite deep; it would be possible for one person—for two or three people—to stand up there unseen. But whatever the shadow had been, it had vanished.
    â€˜I’m sure there’s no one there,’ he said at last. ‘All the doors are locked, and we locked the stage door behind us when we came in—unless someone’s got another set of keys no one knows about?’
    â€˜I don’t think that’s very likely,’ said Hilary, looking round a bit uneasily. ‘I think we’d know if anyone was going in and out and we keep a careful record of anyone borrowing the keys. We do have quite a lot of freelancers who come and go all the time, and there’re three or four locals who come in to help with mailings and exhibitions and things like that—mostly retired people who want to earn a few pounds and enjoy the contact. But I don’t think any of them would be able to take the keys without it being noticed.’
    â€˜What about the owner?’
    â€˜Yes, the owner must have keys, but I can’t see him—or her—creeping round the place in the dark,’ said Hilary. ‘Other than that, there’s no way anyone could get in here.’
    But supposing someone was in here all along? Or supposing what we’ve just seen doesn’t need keys to get in? Stop it, thought Robert, angrily.
    â€˜I expect you’re right about it being an optical illusion,’ went on Hilary a bit shakily. She did not sound entirely convinced of this; she sounded more as if she was seizing gratefully on a just about credible explanation. ‘There’s also the point that this place reverberates like the inside of a drum which means we’d have heard doors opening or footsteps. I’m sorry I spooked you like that, Robert. It’ll teach me not to read melodramatic memoirs. I’ll bet he was a closet ghost-story writer, that old actor.’
    â€˜This place is enough to conjure up any amount of imaginary ghosts anyway,’ said Robert. ‘Hilary, I was thinking—if this place was really closed in 1914, are you sure it wasn’t simply because of the outbreak of war?’
    â€˜Not absolutely sure, but it’s not very likely,’ said Hilary. ‘People wanted the theatres to stay open, in fact the government took measures to keep them going as much as possible. It brought an air of normality to life and it was good for morale. Some of the theatres were turned into Red Cross centres or army clubs, but that was a good while after 1914. And quite a lot of the performers put on shows to encourage the young men to enlist. I’ve got a few recordings from that era—they’re on vinyl and dreadfully scratchy, but hearing them gives you the most marvellous feeling of touching the past.’
    Robert suddenly wanted very much to listen to these scratchy old recordings with Hilary. He said, cautiously, that he would like to hear them.
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ she said at once, sounding pleased. ‘Are those steps safe?’
    â€˜Yes, but they protest a bit.’
    â€˜I don’t know about protesting, they creak like the crack of doom,’ said Hilary, going cautiously up onto the stage and peering into the dark void of the auditorium. ‘I wish I could see it as it was a hundred years ago,’ she said. ‘Lit up and filled with people and music and noise. Is this the trap? Oh yes, I see. I suppose it is a trap, is it? It isn’t just a makeshift repair over a bit of damaged stage?’
    â€˜It’s a bit too contained for that,’ said Robert, following her onto the stage and putting the haversack down near the trap’s outline. ‘And there’s a pulley mechanism with a hand winch in the wings that I’m fairly sure would have operated it.’
    â€˜It’s bigger than I