Page 14 of Love at First Fright

Google Maps led us through villages that looked like they’d been preserved in aspic since the 1950s—stone cottages, thatched roofs, a pub called The Struggling Ploughman that probably served exactly two types of beer and disappointment.

Something grew inside me as we got closer. Not dread, exactly. More like… anticipation.

I’d spent last night falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about Grimthorne Manor. Built in 1747 by Lord Reginald Grimthorne, third Baron of something-or-other. Georgian architecture, symmetrical façade, all that neoclassical bollocks the aristocracy had been mad for. The Grimthorne family had owned most of the surrounding area back then—those landed gentry types who thought they had divine right to everything they could see from their windows.

But the manor’s real claim to fame came much later.

1959. Vivian Starling.

Even I knew that name, vaguely. She’d been massive in the fifties—proper Hollywood glamour transplanted to British cinema. Blonde hair in those perfect pin curls, crimson lipstick, curves poured into evening gowns. Every magazine cover, every gossip column. The face that launched a thousand perfume adverts.

She’d died at Grimthorne during some weekend party. The details got murky depending on which source you believed. The official inquest said she’d fallen out of an upper-floor window during a séance—because of course wealthy socialites in the fifties had nothing better to do than play at summoning spirits whilst drunk.

But the tabloids at the time had gone wild with speculation. Was she pushed by a jealous rival? A scorned lover? Had she jumped after some romantic tragedy? One particularly breathless account claimed they’d actually summoned something that night, something that had driven Vivian to her death.

The medium who’d conducted the séance vanished afterwards. Never heard from again. Two other guests had nervous breakdowns. One later swore in an interview that he’d felt “a presence” rush past him moments before Vivian fell.

Course, it was all rubbish. Attention-seeking from traumatised witnesses, newspapers selling copies with sensationalism. Someone had likely been shagging someone else’s spouse, there’d been a row, Vivian had got caught in the middle whilst absolutely pissed, and gravity had done the rest.

But the story stuck. Ghost hunters had been crawling over Grimthorne for decades. Every paranormal investigation show from the seventies onwards had done an episode there. Urban legend had it that people still saw a blonde woman in a grey dress wandering the gardens.

Absolute rubbish.

Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. Not about ghosts—about the building itself. About standing in a place where history had happened, however tragic. About seeing firsthand how Gerald’s scam worked, what props Brad would plant, what tricks he’d pull to convince the clients they’d got their money’s worth.

Maybe I’d finally have concrete proof of the con. Something I could take to… well, someone. Trading Standards? The police? Did fraud even cover fake ghost hunting?

The hedgerows gave way to open fields. A sign flashed past: Grimthorne, 2 miles.

My stomach did a strange little flip.

Not long after that, Brad’s phone chirped its final instruction, and we turned down a long, tree-lined drive.

And there it was.

Grimthorne Manor.

“Bloody hell,” I breathed.

It rose from the landscape like something out of a gothic novel, all symmetrical Georgian grandeur and looming presence. Three storeys of honey-coloured stone, darkened by age and weather to something closer to amber. Tall sash windows marched across the façade in perfect rows—or would have been perfect if several panes hadn’t been cracked or missing entirely. The roof sagged slightly in the middle, tiles slipping like loose teeth.

Two wings stretched out from the main building, enclosing a courtyard. Massive chimneys jutted up at intervals, dark against the grey sky. Ivy crawled up the walls, covering entire sections of stonework in thick green blankets and completely obscuring some windows on the ground floor.

It looked like a film set. Like someone had deliberately designed it to be as haunted as possible. All it needed was a crack of thunder and some dramatic lightning.

The only other thing missing from the full gothic experience was the gates magically swinging open to welcome us.

Instead, they remained firmly shut.

Massive black wrought-iron gates, at least twelve feet tall, with elaborate scrollwork forming patterns that were hard to distinguish with all the rust. A thick chain wrapped through the bars, secured with a padlock the size of my fist.

Brad pulled the Focus to a stop directly in front of them and sat there, engine idling.

We waited.

Nothing happened.

Brad leaned forward slightly, as if the gates might respond to his sheer willpower and swing open of their own accord.