Page 1 of The Haunting of William Thorn

Inspector Callum Dean found the telegram on the floor beneath the dead body.

It was left, face up, as the feet of its last reader swung like a pendulum above it.

Being a stickler for details, he knew how important evidence was – and this stank of importance.

Then again, anything could’ve been evidence that told the tragic tale of a young man’s death.

He picked it up, his calloused thumb caressing the frayed edge of the paper.

Reading the words was horrifying, but it was better than looking at the deceased man hanging in front of him.

His nails scratched over partially dried tear stains which marred the yellowed paper.

A terrible shiver raced down his spine at the understanding that those tears had been shed before the young man took his life.

As he began to read, Callum had a sinking feeling of knowing exactly what he was holding.

It was a notice of death.

Wind screamed beyond the window, and rain lashed down upon the glass.

Each droplet sounded more like the hammering of a fist as though someone – or something – demanded to be let into the Hanbury Manor’s attic.

If he believed in ghosts and ghouls, Callum might have thought it was the spirit of the deceased attempting to break free from the place of their death.

Youthful fancies, his father would have said. Ghosts weren’t real, only figments of fear. And as Stonewell’s youngest Inspector, he could not give into such fantasies and show just how deeply frightened he was.

Callum leaned to his side, catching the glow from the single bulb, which barely emitted enough light to read the telegram.

But it would do. Upon inspection, he recognised His Royal Majesty’s emblem across the letter’s header.

It flashed at him as a fork of lightning lit the night sky beyond the attic room, casting the ink in its silver glow.

“Find something, Inspector?” Sergeant Andrew Dean questioned.

It took a few seconds for him to realise that the Sergeant was talking to him. Usually, his father called him by his first name, but he supposed the environment and those surrounding them meant they were playing a game of pretend with one another.

Callum had not noticed at first, but his father had been watching him closely ever since he found the telegram, a strange expectation on his face.

“A notice of death,” he answered. “It was on the floor, just there.”

He pointed to the floor where only the distorted shadow of the hanging man’s feet was now cast.

“Good find,” Andrew said, tipping his head in Callum’s direction. “Evidence is going to help put this all together.”

Unlike Callum, his father hardly batted an eyelid to the deceased. Nor did his new colleagues. He supposed they had been around death many times before, whereas for Callum, this was his first.

Although his insides were on fire every time he looked at the corpse, he had to steel his face. The oppressive warmth on his skin meant all Callum could think about was opening a window before the dust-ridden air of the room swallowed him up.

“Do you want to see it, sir?” Callum asked the question, even though he felt reluctant to hand it over.

To his surprise, Andrew shook his head. “Keep it. When we get back to town we can add it to the file.”

So, Callum did just that. He clutched the telegram tight as he looked up to find his father studying him with a pale face, tired eyes overspilling with a mutual emotion that seemed odd when in the presence of death.

“How… how do you keep so–”

“Poised?” Andrew whispered the word, wrapping a caring arm around Callum’s shoulder. “When you have looked death in the face time and time again, you grow used to its presence. Don’t worry, son, give it time, you too will become numb to it.”

It did cross Callum’s mind as to why Andrew hadn’t found the telegram himself, considering he’d been the first person in this room. But when Callum looked back up to the swaying body before him, he supposed Andrew had more pressing issues than a bit of paper to worry about.

Swallowing the bile that had crept up the back of his throat, Callum regarded his father and snapped with as much authority as he could muster. “We should cut the poor boy down.”

Seemed odd reducing the corpse as a boy, when they were likely both the same age.

“You’re welcome to do so,” Andrew replied. “And whilst you do that, I will go and speak with the parents to understand this lad’s movements in the hours leading up to his suicide .”

“We have not determined that is the cause of death yet, sir.”

Andrew didn’t look too pleased with Callum’s response but did a good job fixing his expression.

“Between the rope, the burns on his neck and the chair knocked over beneath him, I think it’s pretty clear what happened here.

” He patted Callum on the back too hard for his liking.

“Do not be distracted, Callum. Sometimes stories are as simple as we first believe them to be.”

His response was no different to a verbal slapping on the back of the wrist.

With that, Sergeant Andrew Dean left Callum to do the dirty work. Unable to still his shaking hands, Callum pocketed the telegram. Without the distraction he couldn’t do anything but look at the deceased.

The deceased was young, no older than twenty-three at most. Simply looking at him was a punch to his gut.

A mirror. Two men who found themselves outside of the clutches of conscription, a life in which they both should’ve been safe from death.

And yet, the reaper had claimed this young man, or had he personally handed himself into the reaper’s greedy hands?

The floorboards and walls reverberated with the young man’s parents’ grief.

That was a sound Callum was familiar with.

He had heard the same keening screams from many families who had lost children, brothers or fathers to the war.

Right in that moment, his cousin was in some undisclosed trench, fighting for his life against enemies he couldn’t even name.

It had not been uncommon for Callum to search for a telegram in the post, just like the one warming his pocket.

Thank the Almighty that one had not arrived yet, but such terrible things could happen in a heartbeat.

War killed those you loved. And it was clear to Callum that the poor soul who hung from the middle beam in the attic of his family home too was a causality of war – or at least the heartbreak that war could gift a person.

Pushing all dark thoughts to the far reaches of his mind, Callum barked out orders to those milling around him. Anything to get this over with, so he no longer had to be in this room where death lurked.

He would never forget the sound of the rope being sliced through.

It was such a vicious sound that he felt it in his veins, as though they were being plucked like the strings of an instrument.

It taunted him to the point that made him want to shout at his colleague and demand they hurried up.

Perhaps it would have helped if he had assisted with the removal of the hanging boy, but his grandmother once warned him never to touch the dead.

Disturbing them would never lead to anything good.

Instead, he watched and contemplated what drove this young man to take his own life.

His Christian name was Robert, and his family name was Thomas. Mr and Mrs Thomas wailed like keening cats two floors below as his father interviewed them, attempting to ease answers out of their grief.

When did you find him? How was he behaving before he took his life? What do they think drove him to do it? Was he an unhappy boy?

It was clear from the banshee cries from Robert’s mother and the dead silence of her husband that answers were not so easy to achieve.

Regardless, deep down Callum knew the boy’s death was tied to the telegram and the aforementioned Edward Jones, whose name was imprinted in ink on the message.

No doubt his father would cross that line of questioning soon enough.

Another fork of lightning blessed the dark pit of the attic room in a flash of light.

It cast across Robert’s paling skin, making him look colourless and muted.

Much like the movie stars Callum would watch with his family on the small television box.

Robert could have been in his favourite movie, The Wizard of Oz , except Robert was not skipping down the yellow-brick road. He was dead.

Callum retrieved the small black pad and pencil from his pocket to begin writing down his findings. Keeping his hands busy would stop them from shaking. At least, that was his hope.

Neck snapped. Skin bruised and burned. Bone visible. Rope used. Chair tipped over on its right side. Telegram found beneath the deceased. Eyes are open. Blue, but the whites bled through with red.

Callum didn’t stop writing until all the details he could see were noted down.

Not that he could ever forget them. Each word he wrote got thicker than the next.

The pressure he held his pencil down with increased until the lead snapped.

By that time, Robert had been cut down from his hanging place and was laid out across the floor.

Lightning flashed again, followed quickly by the tremble of far-off thunder.

“Sir, what– what are we to do with the body now?”

There was no ignoring the discomfort on the older colleague’s face as he used such a title for a boy half of his age.

Unable to address it, Callum glanced down, against his better judgement, and found Robert’s glassy sky-blue eyes staring directly up at him.

There was sadness in those all-seeing eyes.

It was so potent that just looking down at Robert caused his own to sting with tears.

“Cover him up,” he croaked, waving his hand in dismissal. “Robert will need to rest here until the storm lifts enough for a medic vehicle to reach the manor.”