‘Don’t you think it’s just crazy that we had a séance and it led us to Crown Passage, and then we found out what Spireclaw means? Don’t you think that’s just plain bonkers?’

It was the following Tuesday, and Ashley had arrived at Kieran's flat in a taxi with the video camera, housed in a battered metal case. Gandalf was pleased to see her, he kept milling around her legs, almost tripping her up a number of times.

‘Yes,’ said Kieran in reply. ‘It is most definitely bonkers. But it’s good. It means we’re getting closer to a fundamental truth about the whole thing. It means we’re making some damn progress.’

Kieran carried all the equipment into his bedroom. The case, a tripod and a bag of cables. Then he made Ashley a cup of tea while she unpacked it all and started to set it up. He didn't even bother trying to help; he didn't have the mind for that sort of thing.

When he brought in her mug she was just finishing. She screwed the tripod clip onto the base of the camera. Then she snapped the clip and camera into its housing on top of the tripod.

'There. I've set the timer to come on at Eleven pm. Hopefully you'll be asleep by then. It's a three hour tape, but if I set it to Long Play you'll get six hours out of it, which is most of the night.'

'Thank you Ashley. I really do appreciate this.'

'Not a problem. Don't forget to leave the light on or you won't see any of the footage when you watch it back. Now, do you want me to stay tonight?'

Kieran was shaking his head. 'I think it would be better if you left, y'know, for the experiment. I might be more relaxed.'

She regarded him for a moment, and he realised how that must have sounded.

'Why? Do I make you... not relaxed?'

'No, it's not that. No, that's not what I meant. Sorry. Forget I mentioned it.'

She nodded, and she was smiling. 'Don't worry. I think you're right anyway.'

 

~

 

Ashley left at about nine, and Kieran watched some television before going to bed. It took him a long time to get to sleep. He had to try very hard to forget that the camera would be watching him sleep. The idea made him feel quite self-conscious.

Eventually the balance tipped the other way as the weight of sleep made him less self-consciousness, and eventually he wasn't aware of anything.

 

~

 

Kieran's eyes flickered open. He was slightly startled to see the lights still on in his room. He wiped some sleep dust from the corner of his eyes.

A thin man in a long white coat was standing at the end of his bed. The man was looking at him. His hair was brown, poking out from beneath a small cap. He had sharp features, but nonetheless was quite attractive.

Kieran sat up abruptly, his nerves a pile of hot ashes. ‘Who the hell are you?’

The man was touching the end of Kieran's bed lightly with his fingers. In the other hand he was holding out a ring, pinched between his thumb and index finger.

For a brief moment Kieran thought he'd seen the man before. He was momentarily convinced that he knew who the man was. But right now the figure didn't really seem there enough.

'What are you doing in my room?' whispered Kieran.

The man started to turn away, and faded into nothing as he did so.

Kieran watched the man disappear. His heart was thumping.

Had he just seen a ghost?

He took a couple of long, slow, deep breaths and looked around the room, then returned his gaze to the place where the man had been.

He rubbed his eyes. 'Jeeesus. What's wrong with me?'

He thought about the tape, still turning in the camera.

 

~

 

Kieran pressed the Eject button on the video camera and took out the little VHS-C tape. Then he placed it into the converter that Ashley had given him the night before. The converter allowed him to slot the tape into his own video recorder.

Kieran switched on the television, sat back on the sofa and pressed Play on the remote control.

And there he was, already sleeping, framed perfectly in the centre of the screen by Ashley’s cinematographic prowess.

Kieran smiled. The sleeping TV version of him was snoring heavily. His mouth was open, dribbling pathetically onto the pillow. He thought he looked like a stupid old man.

Kieran fast-forwarded the tape. It was rather comical watching himself flipping over quickly in the bed like a sausage being cooked on all sides.

Kieran looked at the timer on the video recorder. He’d forwarded approximately an hour into the tape.

He looked back at the screen.

The bed was empty.

Kieran nearly jumped out of his skin. ‘Eh?'

He pressed the Pause button, then Rewind. A few moments later the TV version of Kieran walked backwards into the frame and climbed backwards into bed.

Kieran pressed the Play button.

 

The TV Kieran is asleep. He opens his eyes abruptly and stares at the ceiling. He lifts the duvet aside and swings his legs out of bed. His body has a rigidity that's normally missing from his posture. He stands up and walks out of frame.

He is gone for three minutes.

When he returns, he perches on the end of the bed. His posture is slightly pathetic; like that of a small child who has been told to go to his room.

Now he is pretending to hold something in his left hand. Something small and fiddly. With his right hand he is doing something to the imaginary thing in his left. Occasionally he shakes his right hand, as if it is cold and he is trying to warm it.

A minute or so later he stops abruptly. He looks up, in the direction of the wardrobe, but his eyes are blank. He doesn't seem to see anything in the room. He seems to see beyond its walls. He looks afraid.

A few moments later he climbs back into bed, pulls the covers over him and finds enough comfort to continue sleeping.

 

Kieran wound the tape forward to the end of the recording, thinking that the strange man in white might have been caught on tape.

At the point in the tape where Kieran sits up abruptly in his bed having just woken up and seen the strange figure, he is staring off camera at the end of the bed, at an unseen part of the room that was never meant to be captured by the lens.

Kieran pressed Stop on the tape. The TV flipped back to BBC1; some home improvement programme. The volume was too high and it jolted Kieran out of his trance. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. They felt like alien appendages. New limbs, capable of activities he couldn't understand. He stood up and walked out to the kitchen, poured himself a stiff Jack Daniels, and knocked it back in one. Then he lit a cigarette.

The clock on the wall said 3:18am.

 

~

 

The following morning Kieran telephoned Mr Cray at the office and informed him that he wouldn't be able to make it into work today because he had a doctor's appointment. It was a little white lie as he had not made any such appointment but Mr Cray was okay with it and that was all that mattered.

Kieran hung up the phone and looked out of the window. The morning outside was heavily overcast and cold, and rainstorms waited menacingly on the horizon to wash the streets of London. Kieran stood in his dressing gown in the kitchen on the phone to the doctor's surgery. Gandalf milled around his legs, and his little warm cat body was comforting.

The lady at the surgery told him he could go down there straight away and wait to be seen.

He showered away his tiredness, got dressed into a pair of jeans and pulled on a white t-shirt. Then he ate a bowl of muesli as quickly as he could and bolted out the door. He was in the waiting room at the surgery by nine, surrounded by young mothers reading old copies of Hello and children playing with colourful toys on the heavily worn carpet.

He hated the synthetic medicinal smell. He felt ill just being there. He looked at the two receptionists. Do they smell of surgeries when they go home? The same way a person who works on a fish and chip shop always smells of day-old grease?

After twenty minutes of waiting, picking nervously at the skin around his fingernails, wondering what he was going to say, his name was called and he found himself walking down a thin corridor to a tiny doctors office.

Dr Thrower was very tall, and thin like the corridor to his office. He couldn't have been a day over thirty. He had the most infectious wide smile Kieran had ever seen on an NHS doctor. He had been Kieran's GP for as long as Kieran had been living in Northfields, which was about four years. Right now Kieran was glad he was speaking to a doctor who knew him, and although he had been lucky enough over those years not to have suffered from anything more severe than conjunctivitis two years ago and a minor ear infection last year, at least he and Dr Thrower were not complete strangers.

'Right. What seems to be the problem?'

'I think I'm... performing activities in my sleep.'

'Do you mean sleepwalking?'

'And then some,' Kieran smiled.

'Do you have any examples?'

'Making phone calls to people I don't know. Writing letters. Last night I videotaped myself sitting at the end of my bed doing something with my hands.’ He imitated the motion with his hands to show the doctor. ‘I even thought I saw someone standing in my room.'

'Okay,' said Dr Thrower, nodding slowly.

'Frankly I'm pretty afraid that I might do something dangerous in my sleep.'

'Fine. Well, this isn't uncommon. There have been more cases of this sort of thing lately. Do you work long hours?’

‘Yes, I work in a post room.’

‘Stress and anxiety can be the main causes or sleep activity.'

Kieran nodded. 'I've had my fair share of that lately.'

'In what way?'

'My best friend. He committed suicide about three weeks ago.'

'I'm sorry to hear that. Was it after your friend died that you noticed that you were having trouble with your sleep?'

'No, I was doing it before. I called this guy, and sent him a cheque about two weeks before Phillip died.'

‘You sent him a cheque?’

‘It’s a long story. I’m just wondering if there’s any way I can control it.’

'Okay. Sleep activity is usually harmless. Like dreams it's just the subconscious mind trying to resolve little conundrums in your head. I'm going to prescribe you some short-acting tranquilizers to help prevent sleepwalking. You need to take one every night before you go to bed. Does your house have stairs?'

'No I live in a ground floor flat.'

Dr Thrower began to write out a prescription on his notepad. 'Good. Make sure you lock your front door at night. That will minimize the risk of you causing yourself an injury.’ Dr Thrower smiled. ‘And hide your chequebook.'

'Thank you. Are you sure these tranquilizers will help. I think I can be pretty resourceful when I'm asleep.'

Dr Thrower shook his head and continued to write. 'I think these will help a lot.'