It was a bright, sunny day. Not, you might have thought, the sort of day for hunting ghosts. Nor was the house the kind of house you might expect to be haunted. But then psychic phenomena pay scant attention to time, place, or weather.
It was a nice road, but ordinary, with that mid-morning, suburban quietness that areas only minutes away from high streets have. The houses themselves were an odd mixture of semis and detached buildings; bright new town houses sparkled at the far end, as yet undaunted by the daily grime.
I drove slowly down the road, looking for the right house, and drew into the kerb when I saw the sign. ‘Beechwood’. Unimpressive.
This was one of the detached buildings, tall, grey-bricked, Victorian. I took off my driving glasses and slipped them into the glove compartment; then I rubbed my eyes and settled back to study the house for a few moments.
The small area in front, which obviously had been a garden at one time, had been concreted over to provide an off-the-road parking space for cars; but there were no cars there. I had been told the house would be empty. The windows were opaque from the glare of the sun and for a brief, uneasy moment, it seemed the house itself was staring out at me through mirror sunglasses.
