The Annals of Fear

The kitchen was bright and homely. It wasn\'t lost on any of them that they had retired to the room that appeared the most modern. The broad worktops might be Victorian, but they were hemmed in with electrical appliances that could be no more than ten years old. Moreover, both doors closed on the rest of the house, with its wide, open spaces and looming staircases. It felt like they had battened down the hatches. It felt safer. Their bags were piled up against one wall and the heavy table, in the centre of the room, was lined with laptops. All of Matt\'s, plus one each belonging to the other three. The archived paper documents were here too. Century was sifting through them with far more care.



The figurine of Mother Mary was back, standing in the centre of the table where they could all see it. Deontic was staring at it now. "Why have we got this anyway? Does it belong to the house?"



"It\'s mine." Mello\'s tone and gaze dared her to comment unfavourably about that. "I brought it from home."



"Why?"



Mello didn\'t reply. He just pulled more of the wrapper off his chocolate and nibbled on a corner. Matt watched him do it and mused on the fact that, if they were here many more days, Mello would emerge covered with as many crosses and Christian paraphernalia as he\'d worn in the Mafia. All this from a man who proclaimed to have turned his back on the Catholic Church. Matt wondered if either of the other two realised just how shaken and scared Mello was right now. They both seemed to have bought into his attitude of command. To Matt, it was probably more noticeable, as he had the comparison to how relaxed Mello had been of late. Unlike now, the blond had hardly been comfort eating at all. For the first time ever, they had not had to buy chocolate during their weekly shop, and that was because Mello hadn\'t devoured the previous week\'s provision. Matt found himself pondering whether he, himself, was afraid and concluded that he was. A third thought crept in, pointing out the fact that he was even considering all of this so dispassionately.



Century spoke up. "I\'ve found a reference to a ghost here. Servant hanged herself on the top floor in the 1920s. She is supposed to haunt this place."



Deontic huffed, "So what has she got against Mello\'s icon?"



"It doesn\'t say."



Mello sucked on a square of chocolate. "The band came here because of rumours of a ghost. That\'s why they were here and not in a proper recording studio."



Deontic glanced across every laptop, noting the feed from each room. "Where did they record it? There\'s no recording studio in this house."



"In there, I believe." Mello indicated the room in which they had been sitting originally. "Have you heard the album? The quality is horrible. We\'re not talking about a professionally mixed operation here. We\'re talking about five people setting up in a room and just playing. Ok, the equipment they recorded it on was reasonably good, but not the environment."



"Oh." Century started flicking quickly through most of the remainder of his pile of papers. They all looked at him. "This lot is just an inventory. A list of everything in here in," he checked the date, "1839."



"Useful?"



Century shrugged. "As primary evidence for a study of the domestic arrangements of early Victorian, Welsh manor houses? Yes, it\'s invaluable. For our purposes? No. Which means that I\'ve been through all of this. It\'s all very ordinary. Fascinating stuff in its own right, but nothing suggesting that we have Ceredigion\'s answer to the Amityville Horror."



Mello stared around the room at them all, his gaze calculating. "Does anyone here not believe that it\'s a ghost and it\'s fucking with us?"



"The statue has me convinced." Deontic replied. The pad in front of her was covered in Dyadic truth values. "In honesty, lots of things have me convinced, but that was a clincher. I was standing right there and there was no way it could have been placed."



"Matt?"



Matt took the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled. He was chainsmoking and the ashtray in front of him was already full. The room was increasingly becoming stuffy with it; the air laden with his smoke. No-one had asked him to stop. "If this is a human being doing it, then they\'ve owned me."



"Century?"



"There are things bothering me." Century pulled out his latest lollipop and held it in his hand. He used it to tap the points out in the fingers of his other hand. "That howling, I think that was foxes. However, I don\'t get why it was upstairs. Until then, it was 100% foxes. The footsteps we keep hearing, that could be someone in the house, but why are we not seeing them? The statue moving around, keep appearing and disappearing like that; that\'s just wrong. That\'s a ghost. I\'ll put my name to that bit. But..." He faltered.



Mello nodded. "Too coincidental? Us turning up and it all kicks off?"



Century shook his head. "No. The thing that\'s bothering me is there\'s no record. Activity this high and you\'d have people running for the hills, surely. But the archives are telling us that the same family have been in here since the 15th century. There\'s kudos in having your own gwrach. Shows you\'re pure Welsh stock. Cut above the rest, see? But the best that this lot can pull out of the hat is the occasional sighting of a suicide servant."



"Would they have bragged about something like that?" Mello puzzled.



"Hell yes." Century replied. "It would have been in every Cymric legends guidebook this side of Offa\'s Dyke. Old families have claimed their own on much more tenuous evidence than this. But they didn\'t have one. We know that because they\'re not screaming about it from the mynydd."



Matt shrugged. "Maybe they\'re not that old and didn\'t know to broadcast it."



Century snorted, "With a name like Prothero? That\'s a modernisation of a Welsh patronymic. Ap Rhydderc. That predates the Normans coming, that does. Old, old name, see?" He winked. "I know because I looked it up on the train down here, after I read it in the casefile." He laughed. "Anyway, they\'ve been in this house for six centuries. What more do you want?" No-one replied. There wasn\'t much to say to that. "But the main thing that\'s bothering me is that it\'s like someone\'s got a mix-match of legends. Bit of Welsh folklore, is it? Well, then, let\'s take the river of Gwrach-y-Rhibyn, the Cŵn Annwn entirely, then add a pinch of the maliciousness of Mallt-y-Nos, and bake for an hour within a wrapping of good old-fashioned poltergeist activity. It\'s not Welsh. It\'s Welsh flavouring."



Deontic looked at him sharply, "Or more than one phenomenon." She swallowed. "I\'m actually extremely interested in Mello\'s take on this. Don\'t get me wrong, this is interesting stuff, Century, but while we\'ve declared for the ghost, Mello hasn\'t."



A smile flickered across Mello\'s features. Matt muttered, "That\'s because Mello never says what he\'s thinking mid-case."



"I..." Mello started, then settled for wrinkling his nose at his husband. He evidently considered it, then raised his hand with three fingers aloft. "Two and a half theories so far. The first is that I\'m with you. There\'s too much going on for us not to be thinking of the supernatural. There is no-one on the roof or in the attic, yet I saw that shadow. However, there is a possibility that someone climbed down the side of the house, while I was still securing the door and before Century went up the mountain. Even up there, Century correct me if I\'m wrong, the river side of the house was obscured from your view, as it faced away from the mountain-side."



Deontic interjected, "Yes, but I was round there. As he climbed, I ran to the front of the house. Granted, two people, one of whom is climbing away from the building, could not watch all sides simultaneously, but I am confident about my two sides. I stood on the corner."



"Great." Mello flashed a smile. "But it\'s still possible. I could have done it. There were a couple of minutes at least where no-one was watching anything."



Matt indicated the camera feeds. "They would have had to climb down avoiding all windows or else we could have caught them passing one of them."



"Fine." Mello nodded. "Tricky, but still possible. We still haven\'t got every room covered and I personally would have used the drainpipe." He inspected his chocolate and licked it. "However, that doesn\'t explain the appearance of the statue of the Mother, which has Deontic so convinced that it\'s a ghost. I also struggle to explain that away, in this theory. Hence I am currently only 40% leaning towards it." For a Wammy\'s House student, declaring a 40% likelihood was tantamount to saying that it didn\'t happen. Those listening understood that. "Which leaves my other one and a half theories. The one is that it is a ghost. You have all argued my reasoning for this, therefore I won\'t repeat it." He paused for a bite from his chocolate bar. "Which leaves my half a theory. Only half, because it\'s linked to the first, which is that a human being is behind all of this."



Deontic glanced up, concerned indignation lining her features. "This is going to involve me, isn\'t it?"



Mello fixed her with a piercing gaze. "Why would you think that, Dee?"



"Because you have already accused me once."



Mello inclined his head, acknowledging the response. "Yes, I am accusing you again. You have been working with Hal, which is why you\'re here ostentatiously to ambush Century. Because you were with Hal, you knew that I wanted this house. The second Matt asked Watari to secure it for us, you were aware. It took a few days for us to get the key. You probably could have gained access before that. Even one day would have been enough. You could have lifted floorboards and added in speakers; as well as stationed them in the woodland around the perimeter of the premises. You could have pre-recorded the howling, foxes or whatever they were. You could also have pre-recorded footsteps. All it needed then was you to be here to activate the recordings and for us to hear them." He didn\'t blink in his surveillance of her. "You were in the building prior to us arriving back with Century, which gave you time to nip into our room and move the statue to the top of the stairs. It is also possible for you to have had the statue on you, when we were in the corridor above. It\'s not a large Madonna and you were keeping your cardigan very tightly wrapped around your body. Your left arm was constantly around your waist. It\'s not unfeasible that the statue was hidden under your cardigan and held in place by your arm."



Deontic\'s lips were pursed. "I was cold."



"Which leaves only the footage of the Madonna disappearing in our room. You have had training in camera manipulation. You could have sneaked up here, paused the camera, moved the Madonna, then started it again." There were cries of protest, but Mello gestured for silence. "Alternatively, while you were here earlier, you could have filmed that area without the Madonna, then replaced it until later. At the right moment, you just ensured that your footage was running on a loop instead of the live feed." He paused. "Now you can speak."



"Thank you for the permission." Deontic hissed. "One question, before these pair rip your paranoid theorising to shreds, what would be my motivation for this, in your fantasy world that is?"



Mello replied, unsmilingly, "Revenge for Lamond. It frightens me and incidentally sabotages my investigation. False data could lead to the wrong conclusions, which would diminish my reputation with Watari."



"Revenge for Lamond." Deontic repeated, dully. "Revenge?"



"Because you and Linda made it clear that you believed that her anorexia was a direct result of my treatment of her, when we were children."



Deontic stared back at him. "You need help."



Mello was not amused. "Tell me why I\'m wrong then."



Deontic sighed, "I can\'t, can I? Because all I can tell you is that I didn\'t do any of the things that you\'re accusing me of. Yes, I admit to knowing that you were taking this place. I knew yesterday, when Hal told me. However, the first time I was here was this evening and that was literally minutes before you arrived. I did not doctor any camera footage and..." She swooped to pick up the figurine, placing it under her cardigan. She tried several angles and it was still visible as a bulge beneath the wool. "I give up, tell me how I was supposed to have been holding this."



"Lie it flat behind your forearm."



Deontic tried. It was less visible, but forced her arm two inches away from her waist. "How fat do you think I am?"



Mello smirked. "But you could have held it at your side or behind your back. You spent a lot of time crouching down over the sensors. It was better to conceal it, but had you been spotted with it in your hand, you could have just said that you\'d seen it moved and had picked it up, so not to scare us."



Deontic sat back down, placing the Madonna back into the centre of the table. "Do you actually believe this, Mello? Or are you fishing to gage my reaction?" He didn\'t reply. She blinked back angry tears. "Matt, Century, help me out here."



Century was silent, considering it all. Matt was sitting back in his chair, behind a wall of smoke, looking from Mello to Deontic. He spoke up. "Just one point, Mell, about the cameras."



"Yes, Matt?"



"So after Deontic hacked my system..." He placed an emphasis on the \'my\' and let the sentiment hang. Mello looked sharply at him. Matt smiled. "That is what you\'re saying, isn\'t it? That she gained access to my computer in order to manipulate the feed onto looped footage of her own."



"Or she paused the camera itself."



Century shook his head. "I was with her constantly."



Mello grimaced. "She could have an accomplice. Where\'s Linda and Luigi?" All three stared pointedly at him. "Ok, I\'m milking it, but I wanted to follow it to its conclusion. Deontic, for the record, I don\'t believe this theory. Your reactions have confirmed it. You\'re not lying." He flashed her his most charming smile. "I\'m sorry."



"So my entire defence rests on the case that you do not think that I could hack Matt\'s computer system? And your arbitrary judgement that I\'m not lying? That is just so arrogant." Deontic wiped at her eyes and they all looked uncomfortable at that. She had never cried while at Wammy\'s House and a crying woman was not something any of them liked to encounter. "Mello, I have defended you. Against the others. I\'ve said that you might have been a horror as a child, but you\'ve grown up."



"Thank you." Mello opened another bar of chocolate. "I\'m sorry for making you cry."



"I\'m not crying!" Deontic snapped, against all of the evidence. "So your main theory is that it\'s a ghost."



"That\'s my baseline theory. There\'s more pieces of the jigsaw to fit on top." Mello wrinkled his nose. "However, if we do get attacked by a hideous woman and pull off her mask, I won\'t be surprised to find Mr Roberts underneath it going, \'I would have gotten away with it as well, if it wasn\'t for you pesky kids.\'"