Ghost Hunters

By ID Goodyear

A young Australian tourist is brutally murdered and dismembered in the grounds of a historic British manor house. A man is convicted of her murder on the flimsiest of evidence, and the distraught owner sells the house. The new owners – keen to profit from the gruesome history – open the house up for ghost hunts, and it is on one Halloween night when a group of people searching for paranormal activity come face to face with the building’s past. What starts out as a night of fun, evolves into a battle of survival as one by one the hunters become the hunted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398438583

ID Goodyear

Born in Guildford, England in 1963, ID Goodyear is a lifelong supporter of Reading Football Club and a self-confessed technophobe. A qualified engineer who grew up in the south of England, he nowadays lives in Southeast London with his partner and can often be found walking along the banks of the River Thames with their English springer spaniel.

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About the Author

Born in Guildford, England in 1963, ID Goodyear is a lifelong supporter of Reading Football Club and a self-confessed technophobe. A qualified engineer who grew up in the south of England, he nowadays lives in Southeast London with his partner and can often be found walking along the banks of the River Thames with their English springer spaniel.

Dedication

For Ellie, who made writing this possible.

Copyright Information ©

ID Goodyear 2022

The right of ID Goodyear to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398438576 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398438583 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Canary Wharf

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E14 5AA

Chapter 1

Angela Rafferty was a pretty 27-year-old outgoing Australian girl from Sydney who, having recently qualified at a dental college, was taking time out to travel some places around the world before settling down into a career at a practice in her hometown.

Her dark, shoulder-length curly locks only proceeded to emphasise her permanent beaming smile, and she always had the sort of presence that lightened up a room when she entered into it. Her tactile manner and pleasant personality came across to a few, that did not know her, as flirtatious but to the majority of people she came across as a friendly, good-natured individual who would do anything for anyone.

So did Charles Allan, a man with a very low IQ and a learning disability, who had befriended Angela, really have killed her and then dismembered her body by chopping her up with a saw? Certainly, all the evidence pointed to him.

Angela had a close itinerary and was staying in England for six months. Her money was not going quite as well as expected, and the money she had inherited from her grandmother in Australia was not going to last her till she returned home. She still wanted to travel to America next, starting off at New York, travelling down the East Coast to Florida, then an internal flight to California via Chicago and Las Vegas, before returning home. England was going to be the stop where she was going to try and find work.

She saw an advertised vacancy as a seasonal customer service attendant at Dunstans Hall, a fourteenth century manor house in the Norfolkshire countryside, a couple of hours away from the outskirts of London. It was a live-in post, and the accommodation that to-date had drained her budget was included so this was an ideal opportunity for Angela to live in and to save money both at the same time. The curator and manager onsite—himself part-Australian—and Angela hit it off straight away and she started the job the following week.

Angela proved to be very popular. Her smile and good nature and can-do attitude won the hearts of everyone who met her, both staff and the customers. Keen to learn, she soon memorised the history of the building and was able to answer any questions asked of her by the customers.

She took a particular shine to the gardener. Charles Allan was of low IQ, had a serious learning disability and very limited vocabulary, and was also autistic but an extremely thorough and efficient gardener. She would go up to Charles and give him a hug and pat his head and he, in return, would give her flowers from bushes or shrubs that he had cut back.

In addition to Charles, Stephen Chesham also became good friends with Angela. A troubled lad, he dabbled in drugs and alcohol, but he had been into rehab and was dry, and any concerns about his work ethic were quickly removed. Always punctual, and reliable, and as the maintenance man, always keen to help around the site. Stephen jokingly called Angela his girlfriend but she was quick to point out that she did not want any romance to form as she was going away at the end of the season, but this did not stop Stephen from trying on numerous occasions to make the two of them a couple. She did, however, continue to help and support him and keep him drug-free.

Angela had about two weeks remaining of her visit to England when she was brutally murdered. Stephen found Charles stooped over her lifeless torso, arms and legs missing and he was cuddling her severed head, crying, and a big felling saw by his side. He called the police immediately and Charles Allan was arrested on suspicion of Angela’s murder. It was a fairly easy case for the police. They had a witness in Stephen who had seen Charles with the saw, and Charles’ fingerprints were all over it, and the jury were able to convict him quickly on the grounds that Charles, with his low IQ, had become infatuated by Angela and did not want her to leave. He did, however, continue to plead his innocence and when asked why his fingerprints were on the saw, just repeatedly said time and time again, It my saw, it my saw, it my saw.

He was found guilty and sentenced to life in a secure institution, where he stayed for just seven months before tying his bed sheets to the bathroom taps and around his neck and turning them on. He was found by the staff the following morning, who were unable to revive him.

Stephen remained local for a while afterwards but then disappeared from the area.

Chapter 2

Dunstans Hall was located in a beautiful location. Built over 600 years before, previously it had four wings surrounding a courtyard but one wing collapsed and was demolished in the nineteenth century and another was being refurbished in the 1960s, when a blowtorch set fire to some paper and the resulting fire quickly took hold and caused major damage. This wing, too, subsequently was later pulled down. The grounds were quite extensive, containing stables, now being used as maintenance areas and tool sheds, and several outbuildings. Most had fallen into disrepair. There was a lake in the grounds with a boat house, with a river leading to and from it.

Dunstans Hall had a colourful history. There was a history of smuggling when renovations in the 1960s revealed a tunnel to the nearby river village, and its pub the Roxburgh Arms, through which contraband was brought in and out of the pub. The entrances at both ends had been bricked up but tourists to the Hall could see where the entrance was. A number of priest hiding holes had also been found, and there had also been a well-documented visit to the Hall by Oliver Cromwell for a few nights as the guest of the homeowner, Lord Dunstan. The house and grounds made an interesting day-out for schools and families wanting to know all about British history and there was never a shortage of visitors. A little shop was quite lucrative in bringing in cash for over-priced souvenirs and a small café catered for lunches and cream teas at a good profit.

The house had stayed in the Dunstan family for quite a few generations, but the current owner—unable to father any heirs—was set to be the last Dunstan of the direct line. In order to make it as profitable as possible, he had been responsible for setting up the guided tours and the installation of the café and shop, as he wanted to make it a good business prospect for when he sold it in a few years’ time. The 74-year-old current Lord Dunstan had managed to remarry a third time, but to a lady thirty-five years his junior, and his aim was to move away from England to warmer climes and enjoy his last years in permanent sunshine with his new wife when the time was right.

He had employed a good team of staff, some locals and some seasonal labour, all of whom were well aware of his intention to sell the property in the future. Jason McTaggart, part-Irish and part-Australian, was employed as the curator and he was to be responsible for the recruitment and well-being of his staff as well as the overall running of the site.

It went well until he employed Angela, as her murder at the end of her employment fell badly for Jason. He took it personally, and got upset