CHAPTER 7 SHAKING

 

In 1987 it was decided that during the six week holiday from July through to the end of August that the corridors including the Link Corridor would be repainted by a firm of decorators under contract to Newham Council.  During this time the cleaning and caretaking staffs were on site to oversee the cleaning and repairs needed in the building and the hours worked were between 8am and 5pm.  The night cleaners were not required and were on a retainer for the period.

Three painters arrived the first day.  One was assigned the link Corridor which was over 50ft long and had a double wooden door with clear glass panels at each end. The two other corridors were in the new school and over 120ft in length each.  My first thought was that they were intent in making the job last. 

The cleaners very quickly covered their areas and all the offices in the new building as well as the old were pristine.  During the holiday period, the cleaners worked in a pack, all 10 of them so the chances of hearing or seeing anything untoward were minimised, though during term time they were separated into their own areas.  After a fortnight there was no need for them to keep coming in so they were allocated the remainder of the holiday period off.  It just left the caretaking staff and the painters.

It was really a case of being there in case of deliveries and to let the painters in and out.  Their vans were parked in the front of the school and the caretaker office was next to the entrance so, all exterior doors were closed.  There was only one way in and out.

Two days after the painters began I took two days off as I had secured a training session for a timeshare company in Gants Hill, around 5 miles away.

The original caretaker, Jim had, by this time, died and I had been assigned as the Caretaker but I had a deputy caretaker and he was in charge for the next three days.  After a full day of training on the final day in Gants Hill I got home around 8pm and found a message on my answering machine from John, the Deputy.  He had left the message at 4 pm asking me to call him as soon as I got in. This was 1987 so unless you wanted to carry a very expensive house brick around with you or a small briefcase that looked like a phone the army would use on manoeuvres, a land line was what we used if a phone box wasn’t available or had been smashed up..

I started to make a cup of tea when I called him.  John told me that the painter in the Link Corridor had seen something. 

‘Can you be a little more specific?’  I laughed.

‘A girl.’

I stopped what I was doing and sat down as the kettle clicked off.

I cannot remember the conversation in detail.  What I can remember is that the painter saw a girl, around twelve years old, standing on the other side of the locked link corridor door at the bottom of the stairs where my incident had been.  I remember John saying that he had left and wouldn’t be back.  One thing I do remember as clear as day is what he said next.

 ‘He didn’t even stay to put the lids on the paint or take his brushes or anything. Not even his flask and radio.  It’s all still there.’

This was the same as the Electrician who fell off the ladder before. Even with a fractured ankle, he had left immediately.

‘What time are they coming in tomorrow?’

John told me the two painters would come back at ten in the morning so I asked John to meet me there at 930 and we would take a look at the work in the Link Corridor.  The teaching staff were due back in ten days. 

John was already there when I got there next day.  We walked along the corridor to the Link corridor and looked down it.  I know he had some reticence like I did as we always expected to see something since my incident with all the taps. I don’t know what we expected to see but the mind plays tricks and all manner of horrible things can be conjured up in the imagination.   It was only natural.  It was overcast outside but we didn’t need to put the lights on.  One whole side of the corridor was clear windows from four feet height to ceiling. He had done an excellent job on the one side that had the door into the Washroom where the taps had been turned on, but the half height wall with windows hadn’t been touched, the ceiling had been painted first.

On the floor were sheets and down the corridor were four cans of paint, some paint trays and some rollers.  There was a flask, a radio, paint lids and a baseball cap.

I suddenly heard a noise behind us and there were voices getting nearer.  The two painters had arrived earlier than expected, and called out to us.  We shouted out to them telling them where we were and they stepped into the corridor with a quick ‘hello’ and a nervous glance around.  They told us that another painter would arrive tomorrow and that they wanted to get on with painting the two corridors in the new school.  This was what I expected.  I asked them what the painter had told them and they just said ‘not much’ or something like that.  They walked off and I could hear them making a noise setting up a short distance away but out of our site.  I got the feeling it wasn’t that they didn’t want to tell us what they knew, but more likely they didn’t know what to believe.

I asked John if he had ever had any weird experiences recently in the school and he said he had but nothing major.  He hadn’t mentioned them because he couldn’t say anything for definite.  He always thought he was being watched in the evenings when sitting there in the office waiting for some keep fit class or a meeting to finish so he could go home. He started to tell me about his wife who was really into the occult and how they had had a séance in their house and used a Ouija board but it was fun and nothing happened.

I think I heard it first.

It was he was talking to me but eventually he heard it too.  It was a rattling noise, like something being shaken.  Not all the time, just every few seconds or so.  Not too loud, just lust loud enough to be heard.  I stepped around the corner and looked at the two painters.  They were minding their own business and seemed to be miles away stirring paint.  I looked back at John who was watching me intently.  The rattling noise had stopped.  My mind went back to the night cleaners first night and how the doors had rattled.

John laughed and as he did so the shaking sound happened again.  This time there was no mistake.  John turned around and followed my gaze down the Link Corridor.  The locked double doors at the far end were being shaken as if to see if they would open.

This one event, in itself, easy to explain away at any other time with just the basic facts, could not be explained away easily to us, there in the moment.  For one thing there were no windows open anywhere and no doors unlocked anywhere so it wasn’t a draft or the wind.  It was evident to us that there was a major problem in this school and professional help was required.

Our conclusion was based simply on the fact that even if there was any wind, it wouldn’t normally make the handles of the doors turn downwards.