Undiscovered Showcase Entry #10 – A Ghost of a Chance by Cressida McLaughlin

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

The tenth entry of our Top 20 Undiscovered Shortlist is A Ghost of a Chance by Cressida McLaughlin.

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Over to Cressida McLaughlin…

A GHOST OF A CHANCE (BLURB)

 

Bridget Aldworth is a ghost hunter. Faced with unexplained footsteps or a spooky face at the window, she’s fearless. She’s searching for the truth. She believes. 

 

 

 

A Ghost of a Chance by Cressida McLaughlin

Chapter 1

Bridget Aldworth wasn’t afraid of the dark.

    Her breathing was quiet and steady, her senses on high alert. Her palms didn’t sweat and her feet were still. Five foot six, mousey hair scraped back into a utilitarian ponytail, she was a picture of composure. Her eyes searched the gloom, waiting for a slip of movement amongst the familiar household shapes, her ears pricked for a steady knocking or soft footsteps treading across the carpet. In the dark, nobody could scrutinise her appearance or try and guess what she was thinking. She could do what she did best. She could be herself. She wanted to share the darkness with something that wasn’t supposed to be there. She wanted to seek it out, to capture evidence, to prove its existence.

    The case was a quiet terraced house on the outskirts of Norwich, 1930s, flat-fronted, Fuchsias creeping along the low front wall. Not a typical haunted house. It had been brought to her by a work colleague who knew what she did ‘for fun’  - the words he had used as he passed over the client’s details. ‘Not fun,’ Bridget had clarified. ‘We provide a service.’ ‘Who you gonna call?’ Bridget had ignored the jokes – she was used to them – and taken the post-it note. Miss Davies, whispering and moving objects, South Norwich followed by a number.

    She had called the number that evening, spoken to a woman in her early thirties whose voice rose and became breathy as she told Bridget about the threatening words and flying crockery that was turning her life upside down, and Bridget had agreed to assemble her team that weekend.

    Now, in this cramped bedroom decorated with cartoon posters and cuddly toys, she felt nothing. No drop in temperature or tingling on the back of her neck, no invisible hands brushing hers. It felt like a happy, safe child’s bedroom. But she knew they couldn’t be sure until they had investigated every room, recorded video and audio evidence and been through it with a sensory tooth-comb.

    Bridget settled her thoughts and closed her eyes, as if shutting out the darkness would give her an extra layer of concentration. She dropped her shoulders. Sometimes, it was just a sensation, a feeling of not being alone, as if eyes were burning into her back or the space alongside her had been filled by something solid. Sometimes it was rustling or banging, footsteps of someone in the room with her who couldn’t be there. Occasionally it was visible, a dark shape, a strange fog or, more often, a glimmer out of the corner of her eye, forcing her to snap her head round then taunting her with nothing.

    None of that was happening here.

    She could feel the press of the worn mattress, but that was all. She leaned forward and clasped her hands in front of her, elbows on her knees. The digital voice-recorded winked at her from the bedside table, assuring her it was recording, perhaps picking up sounds that Bridget wasn’t able to hear.  

    Suddenly her ears and her heart were assaulted by a shriek that shattered the quiet, sending her stomach into her throat and pricking her body with anticipation. She sat bolt upright, eyes searching the empty room. Then an endless second passed and she determined the voice was female, definitely not otherworldly and coming from the main bedroom down the corridor. Her shoulders slumped and her stomach dropped back into place.

    'OH MY GOD!' the voice squealed.

    Poppy. The newest addition to their group, an addition Adrian had forced on her and which she knew, from the moment she had been introduced to the glossy red-head, would be a bad idea. She hadn’t know Poppy for long enough to actively dislike her, this was only the second time they had met, but there were certain things, an intuition Bridget had, that they weren’t going to get along. And paranormal investigators relied heavily on intuition. She stood, unlatched the door and made her way down the corridor.

    Pushing open the bedroom door she had to shield her eyes from the glare of the overhead light. Poppy stood with her hands on her cheeks, a beautified version of The Scream in her white jeans and floral halter-neck. Adrian looked up but refused to meet her gaze. His tall frame took up the space between the double bed and the fitted wardrobe, his sandy hair flopping apologetically over his brow.

    Poppy moved her whole body round to face Bridget, hands still framing her lip-glossed ‘O’ of a mouth, like a mime artist impersonating a wind-up doll.

    'Bridge’' Adrian began.

    'Was it good activity?' Bridget cut in, 'because it sounded like it must have been good activity, seeing as your reaction sent shockwaves through the whole house.'

    Tariq appeared behind her, his usually passive face alive with excitement. 'What was it?' he gasped.

    'It was huge,' Poppy said, 'on my shoulder. I felt it and I-'

    'It was a spider.' Adrian conceded.

    Bridget narrowed her eyes. 'A spider?'

    'It brushed her shoulder,' he continued. 'It could have been something paranormal. She couldn’t see it at first, so you can’t really blame her reaction.'

    Oh but she could. 'Poppy?'

    Poppy’s hands dropped to her side. She smiled. 'It was pretty terrifying,' she admitted, oblivious to her faux pas.

    'A spider?' Tariq murmured. He didn’t do cross, but Bridget could hear disgust at the edge of his voice. 'Crap,' he murmured. He turned and retreated down the stairs, to the small conservatory where their monitors were collecting live images from the cameras they had dotted around the house.

    'Poppy,' Bridget repeated, more firmly this time. 'We try and exercise a bit of discretion during our investigations, I thought Adrian explained that to you.'

    'Oh he did,' Poppy nodded, flashing a grin at Adrian which raised Bridget’s level of irritation even further. ‘He explained everything. I’m just not a fan of spiders and this one was huge.' Her eyes widened, perhaps demonstrating the size of the arachnid.

    'We don’t scream,' Bridget said. 'Not for spiders, or voices, footsteps, moving objects, cold spots, shadow figures, breathing in our ear, full apparitions or groaning.'

    Poppy frowned. 'But how can you not? Don’t you get scared? Don’t you just react?'

    Bridget tried to communicate with Adrian but he was gazing at the floor. 'No,' she said. 'We’re here to investigate them. To disprove any banging that turns out to be a loose window or a clunky pipe, or to get evidence of anything genuinely paranormal. If we scream or go into a panic we’ll miss the activity, and we’ll scare away any ghosts.' She indicated the room.

    Poppy glanced round the room. 'Oh.'

    Bridget crossed her arms. 'Yup.'

    'Oh,' Poppy said again. 'So I’ve scared them away?' She looked horrified, her hands going to the top of her head. Adrian gave Bridget a disapproving look.

    Bridget sighed. 'If there was anything here in the first place,' she admitted. ‘I’ve felt nothing all night, not even a breeze under the door.'

    Adrian stood in-between them, suddenly an active participant. 'This woman’s kid is two, right? If any age group is adept at chucking things around, making strange noises, then it’s a two-year-old. And she’s often alone in the house, TVs in every room, two year old loves pressing buttons . . .' He let his words drift off.

    'It’s three am. We’ve done enough,' Bridget said, despite her inclination to throw Poppy on the bed and shut her in with the spider. 'We’ll reserve judgement until we’ve reviewed the footage, but let’s start packing up.’

    'Good call B.' Adrian reached out and touched her arm, sending sparks through her body. She held her composure and nodded at him, lips pressed together.

    'So,' Poppy cut in, 'you really don’t get scared?'

    Bridget tore her eyes away. 'No. The idea that ghosts exist doesn’t scare me, it intrigues me – that’s why I do this – so it wouldn’t follow that I’d be scared of coming across any.' She shrugged, could feel Adrian’s eyes burning into her, stronger than any invisible presence.

    'You’re very brave,’ Poppy said, and Bridget could tell she was being honest. If Poppy had been a ghost, she would have been close to transparent.

    'I’ve done this for a while, and this is your first investigation. It’s going to take time.'

    Poppy’s face lit up. 'So I can come again?'

    Bridget bit her lip. Poppy wasn’t ghost-hunting material. She had painted nails and wedged-heels, dark eyeliner framing her blue eyes and the highest giggle Bridget had ever heard. But Bridget prided herself on her fairness, and one investigation didn’t count as a proper trial. She glanced at Adrian, could see he was as eager to know her answer as Poppy was, and felt a twinge of despair. But she was professional and she wanted her organisation to succeed, which it wouldn’t do if she allowed personal feelings to come into it.

    'Of course you can come again,' she said. Poppy’s beam increased by 70 watts. 'As long as you work on your composure.'

    'That comes with practice,' Adrian reassured her. 'Poppy’s going to be brilliant at this.'

    Bridget gave a tight smile, her confidence not so overwhelming. Still, Poppy would have a chance to redeem herself, and four investigators were better than three.

    'Better get this stuff put away.’ Adrian took down a camera mounted on a bookcase, slapped Bridget on the back and left the room.

    'You’re really not scared?' Poppy asked again. 'Of anything?'

    'Not really,' Bridget said again.

    ‘Wow.’ Poppy shook her head and followed Adrian, her admiration wafting towards Bridget in scented waves.

    Alone in the bedroom, Bridget’s eyes fell on a house spider that was scuttling across the carpet towards the sanctity of the bed. It was definitely not big enough to have warranted such a vocal outcry. Bridget shook her head and left the room, keeping her eyes averted from the mirror on the last door of the fitted wardrobe. She hurried down the stairs thinking – as she often did – how there were some things it was better not to admit to.


The Paranormal Encounter Research Team
We believe in the possibility of ghosts. We use scientific methods and technical expertise to determine the most likely cause of your unexplained experiences, including:

• Sounds or voices with no logical cause
• Movement or displacement of objects
• Inexplicable changes in temperature, atmosphere and lighting
• The appearance of shadows or figures without explanation or understanding.

We will provide a full report documenting any evidence following our investigation. At present we charge no fee, but simply ask for free reign of the affected area for a 24-hour period and that we are left to investigate alone. We do not deal with graveyards or wide open spaces in isolation, however we will consider properties with gardens that need attention. Our conclusions are based in fact. Please phone 05136 78924 or email enquiries@pert.org.uk with your concerns, and we will get back to you within three working days.


The advertisement was squashed into the bottom corner of page 46 of the Norfolk Dispatch, next to a grainy photo of a second-hand motorbike and below the death notices. It didn’t jump out of the page and it didn’t fade into nothing. The ink hadn’t smudged. It was professional and straightforward, it said all it needed to. There was no hint of romance or mystery, despite the service it advertised. It was Bridget’s concept, Bridget’s wording and Bridget’s initiative that had got it there.

    The name had been the hardest part. They had toyed with many over the months, every synonym of ‘paranormal’, ‘encounter’, ‘research’ and ‘team’. They would not use the word ‘spooks’,  and there was no way they were a crew or a squad. This one, the one they all agreed sounded the best, was Adrian’s idea. Now, looking at the bold title letters of their new, fixed-in-stone, once-it’s-on-the-advert-it’s-too-late-to-change-it name, Bridget could see why he had chosen it. And she wanted to throttle him.

    The Paranormal Encounter Research Team. The brainchild of Bridget and Adrian, who had met in the local pub when he spilled his beer on her bag and discovered they had more in common than a love of traditional watering holes. They had carried out eight investigations in nearly two years. At first it had just been the two of them, gaining clients through colleagues or family friends, taking a video camera, a voice recorder and an electromagnetic field reader to overnight vigils. They had discovered some strange noises, debunked several ghosts as gusts of wind and faulty door latches, and realised they needed to up their game.

    Then Tariq, who Adrian played squash with on a Tuesday evening, had agreed to loan out his night-vision cameras if he could accompany them to a haunted location. One night was all it took to prove to them that with his technical knowledge, unflappable demeanour and endless enthusiasm, Tariq was indispensable.

    The advertisement, the email domain, the naming of their group – a name that might still need a rethink – were the next steps to becoming professional. Bridget closed the paper, wondering whether it would get noticed, wondering whether it would generate any calls to the mobile phone nestled in the pocket of her tatty jeans.

    She needn’t have worried.



Chapter 2

The cat was looking at her again.

    As Bridget turned onto Patterson Avenue, the rolled-up newspaper sticking out of the top of her rucksack, she found herself smiling at it. A nervous, hurried smile as if it was a man she didn’t want to give the wrong impression to. But this was a dainty tortoiseshell cat, sitting on the wall of number two. Again. Its front paws were placed together, the red collar dangling a small plastic bell that she hadn’t once heard ring. Bridget quickened her pace and smoothed a hand over her shoulder-length hair, feeling the heat of the sun on it.

    The cat was always there, in the same position, unmoving except for the occasional flick of its tail and the way its eyes followed Bridget down the street. She could sense it. She glanced behind her a final time, hoisting her rucksack higher on her shoulder. The cat licked its lips and went back to staring her down.

    She passed the turquoise window-frames of number 33, the immaculate rose flowerbed of 35 and the polished MG Midget at number 37. Then the landscape changed. Number 39, where her grandmother Hilary and – for the last six months – she had lived looked, quite fittingly, like something out of a horror film. The front garden was raised above the pavement, four cracked stone steps leading up to the pathway. Small lawns on either side were surrounded by a tangle of unruly pyracantha, secluding the house from the road and casting shadows that, depending on the time of day, stretched out to passers-by like tendrils.

    The house was slate-coloured stone with a green front door and white window-frames. Much of the front was obscured by a wisteria that her grandmother tended to lovingly and which gripped the cladding like a crustacean.

    Bridget smiled as she recalled the last time she had passed one of the neighbours’ comments on to Hilary, the hearty laugh that shook her small, fleece-clad frame, the way her white eyebrows had lifted in mischievous approval of the reactions she was getting: It’s almost spring, isn’t it about time she did some pruning? It must be awfully dark in the living room with all that overhang; Your gran would have a much better chance of seeing what’s happening at number 42 with those ridiculous bushes gone. They were always directed at Bridget, as if the neighbours were afraid her grandmother might actually be a witch.They couldn’t be further from the truth. They should take a look at the cat.

    Bridget climbed the sloping steps, feeling a chill on her arms as she stepped out of the low summer sun and into the shade of the pyracantha. As she reached into her rucksack for her keys, her mobile buzzed and the Ghostbusters theme filled the early evening.

    Her scowl was directed at Adrian who must have changed her settings the previous evening and who, by a not great coincidence, was now the one phoning her. She pressed the ‘answer’ button and cradled the phone between her chin and shoulder while she continued the key hunt.

    'What if I was meeting a client?' she said before Adrian had a chance to say hello. 'It’s not very professional is it?'

    'Well at least they’d know you were the real deal,' replied the laid-back, well spoken voice with a chuckle.

    'Or think I was taking the piss. I’m trying to make this work Adrian.' She turned the key in the door.

    'I know.’ Bashful. 'But when’s your next client meet? I didn’t think it was until Thursday. I knew someone would call you before then so you’d be able to change it.'   

    'You knew you’d call,' Bridget corrected. She stepped into the hallway and dumped her bag on the floor. The smell of baking filtered down the corridor from the kitchen. She breathed it in.

    'Exactly,' Adrian continued. 'I would always call, you know that. Do you really think I’d let you humiliate yourself?' His voice was almost serious now, and she imagined him stretching his long arms up above his head, leaning precariously back on his leather office chair, size 10 feet crossed on the desk.

    'Not with the clients, no.' She grinned, knowing the dig would affront him, and kicked off her trainers.