The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

He took the kettle and went out to the tap at the back of the hut. Wedged behind the standpipe was a long thin metal object. He pulled it out and shone his torch on it. It seemed to be the nozzle of a spray-gun. Well, that didn’t help much. The workmen had probably used it to spray paint on to the lorries.

Rollo sighed. If only he could find some real evidence – something to prove that the cattle had been here – but there was nothing.

He picked up the kettle and went back into the hut.

Sir George had been in bed for an hour when he heard a knock, and Rollo, in his pyjamas, put his head round the door.

‘I have to speak to you,’ he said.

‘Good heavens, boy, it’s the middle of the night!’

‘Yes, I know. But it’s terribly important.’

Sir George put on his bedside lamp. He had indigestion after his dinner party, and a headache from the wine.

‘Well, come on then. What is it?’

Rollo came and stood by the bed. ‘We went to say goodbye to the cows,’ he said, ‘and they aren’t there.’

Sir George roused himself. ‘You did what?’

So Rollo told him about the visit to the gravel pit.

‘But Sunita couldn’t get in touch with the spirits of the cows, and the banshees couldn’t wail and that means that the cows aren’t buried in the pit.’

Sir George looked at Rollo. The boy’s face was lit up and excited, and he hated throwing cold water on his hopes.

‘Look, Rollo, I have every respect for the ghosts. Ghosts are important and venerable. But they’re ghosts. And banshees are banshees. They don’t belong to the real world. The world where animals are infected and have to be buried safely and put away.’

‘Sunita knows about the cattle. She knows. We have to find out what happened to them and where they are.’

Sir George sighed.

‘Rollo, when we want something very much we will believe all sorts of things. You want to believe that the cattle are still alive and so do I, but—’

‘They are alive. I know they are. They’ve been stolen and taken somewhere. I know. You should see my zoo magazine … animals are always being stolen.’

Sir George shook his head. ‘What would be the point of stealing them? No one could get money for them – they’re the only herd of white cattle in the country. They’d be recognized at once.’

But after he had sent Rollo back to bed he lay awake, turning over what the boy had said. It was nonsense – of course it was nonsense. It was wishful thinking. Propped up on his pillows, Sir George remembered the D-Day landing. His best friend had been shot and fell beside him. Later, when there was a lull in the fighting, he went to the field station to see him and the doctor told him there was no hope, but George couldn’t believe it.

‘He’s going to get better,’ he kept saying. ‘He’s got a good colour.’

But the doctor was right. His comrade had died that night.

All the same, thought Sir George now, perhaps he would get in touch with the ministry and ask them to confirm the identity of the vets. And it might be a good idea to have a word with Lord Trembellow.

Rollo had gone to bed at last; all the children slept; the castle was silent.

But the ghosts were not asleep. As the clock struck midnight they glided one by one out of the nursery windows and set off along the road which led through the village.

No one saw them – they moved invisibly, and fast. At the first crossroads they separated. Ranulf and his rat went west, towards the hills and farms of the Lake District. Brenda took the road to the east, which led to the villages and resorts of the coast. Sunita and Mr Smith glided on till the road divided once again. Then Sunita and The Feet made their way southwards, heading for the big towns. Mr Smith went north.

They had said nothing to the children. A Ghost Search is best carried out silently and without witnesses – for the people that must be sought out and questioned are often shy of the undead; they will only help or speak to others of their own kind. And it was from phantoms like themselves that the ghosts of Clawstone hoped to discover what had happened to the cattle.

Ranulf’s ancestors had come from the Lake District; the de Torquevilles had owned big tracts of land there; the wicked brother who had imprisoned Ranulf had been Sheriff of Westmorland. The roads that carried the traffic now were built on the tracks and lanes that Ranulf had known as a boy, and many of them were still steep and narrow. If a truck big enough to take a load of cattle wanted to get through, it would have to take the big motorway to Keswick.

‘Oh, do be quiet,’ said Ranulf to the rat.

But the rodent sensed that they were returning to his home ground. He had been a lakeside rat, one of six who had moved to the ancestral home of the de Torquevilles, and he swooped up and down Ranulf’s chest as if he was on a skating rink.