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All the way up to the cottage, Harry chattered about ghosts and zombies and werewolves, but once they got there he was suddenly quiet as they looked at the initials carved in the lintel stone above the door — exactly as Mrs. Thompson had said, J E and then T.
‘You don’t think it is cursed, do you?’ he said as Amy struggled with the stiff, old padlock.
‘Of course not! I don’t think there are any such things as ghosts, either. Would you rather stay outside in the garden while I go and look for the car key?’
‘On my own? No way!’ He followed her closely, almost, but not quite, holding her hand.
She crossed straight to the little oak cupboard, looking again at the proudly carved initials with the interlacing pattern around them. No good getting sentimental about people who had died more than three hundred years ago, she told herself, pulling open the door to see if she could find the key. It wasn’t there.
Damn. They had to be there. That was where she’d last used the little torch, she was sure of it. Removing the old visitors’ book and photograph album, she put them down on the windowsill in case she’d knocked the key to the back of the little wood-lined alcove. Gingerly she felt inside but she found nothing — no spiders and no key.
‘Let’s see Granny in the bikini again!’ Harry declared.
‘Go on then. Find me the picture.’ Amy continued her search. If she hadn’t put the key down in the cupboard when she’d been using the torch, it must be somewhere else in the cottage. It hadn’t fallen on the floor, and she hadn’t put it on the mantlepiece or on top of the harmonium, which was the only piece of furniture left in the room.
‘Where is it, Mam?’
‘I don’t know. I thought I’d left it in the cupboard. I’ll have a quick look in the kitchen. We went in there too.’
‘No, I don’t mean the key. The photo of Granny Jen.’
‘It’s near the back of the book, isn’t it?’ she said as she went through the door into the dark internal hallway and through to the kitchen. There was the key, in the middle of the kitchen table. She was sure that wasn’t where she had left it.
‘That picture’s gone. Somebody’s taken it out.’ Harry had followed her into the kitchen, the old album in his hand.
‘Are you sure it was there in the first place? It wasn’t that photo there of the tarn with the sheep in the front?’
‘No! There was a photo of Granny Jen in a red bikini. It was here, look, you can see where it was!’ He held open the album where, sure enough, there was a white rectangular mark where a photograph had been. ‘See?’
‘Harry, I’m sure it wasn’t Granny Jen. I can’t imagine she ever wore a red bikini — and what would a photo of her be doing here? I’m sorry, but I think you’ve imagined it.’ She knew how much he wanted it to be her, but it couldn’t be.
‘It was the ghost,’ he said. ‘The ghost’s taken it.’
‘Harry, don’t be silly. There aren’t any ghosts.’
‘There are. Mrs. Thompson said the cottage was cursed. And you said there were ghosts in the lake. What if they’ve come here?’
‘What on earth would a ghost want with a photograph of a woman in a bikini?’ Amy said practically, once again hearing her mother’s most sensible tone issuing from her own mouth.
‘Oh. I suppose.’
‘Come on, put the pictures back and let’s go back to the tent.’
* * *
‘Did you find what you wanted?’
It was Peter who answered the door when they returned the keys to the farmhouse.
‘Yes. I got my torch, thank you,’ she said with a friendly smile.
He took the keys and, with no further conversation, shut the door in her face.
* * *
She took Harry up to brush his teeth later on, only to find that while she was in the ladies’ washrooms, Oliver had joined Harry in the gents’ with a toothbrush. It would take Harry a while, even if he wasn’t chatting to Oliver, so she left him to it, and took the opportunity to go back and sort out their beds for the night, taking the long way around the edge of the field to avoid Matt — she didn’t want to have to go through all that confusion again tonight. She’d only got half-way down the field towards the campervan when there was a commotion, and the boys came tumbling back down the campsite again.
