"Murder raps on my door every night. When the sky is dark and hunter's moon hides behind the clouds, Murder sweeps up to this great manor house to kill my sleep and plunder my dreams with ghosts spat out by Hell and images of bloody and horrible death. Oh, yes, I hear them coming in the darkness outside as the wind rises to moan through the trees. I hear the clip-clop of spectral hooves on the pebble-strewn path in front of the manor door. I lie awake waiting for them and, at the first ghostly moon, I rise and stare through the mullioned glass at men and women from my past whose souls have long since slipped into the darkness of eternity.

They gather under my window like some ghastly chorus, grey shapes still displaying horrible wounds; the hideous faces of those I worked with, played with, wenched with, dined with - as well as those I have killed. (May I say, always in a fair fight.) The moon slips between the clouds and bathes their blue-white faces in a silver light. They stare up, black-mouthed and hollow-eyed, stridently baying at me, asking why I do not join them. I always smile and wave down at them so their howling increases. They slide through the walls and up the great, oak-panelled staircase along the wainscoted gallery and into my chamber to stand, an army of silent witnesses, around my bed. Hell has cast them out to bring me back. I just stare, each face a memory, a part of my life.

My chaplain, the vicar of the manor church, says I eat too much and drink too deeply of the rich claret but what does he know, the silly fart? I have seen them, he hasn't. "