The Haunting of Flat 12
Lisa Stone

Colleen Randal leads an ordinary life, working as an assistant in an estate agent, but at night she leaves her body and practices astral projection. She finds herself in the flat directly above hers and her story begins. This is Lisa Stones tenth thriller with a difference, a fast-paced narrative that is 74,000.

At night Colleen travels to flat 12 immediately above hers with little knowledge of how she got there. A small distant voice calls out to her and she assumes it’s a dream.

The dreams she thought she had quickly turn into a living nightmare as night after night she is transported to flat 12 with no control over where she is going. During one visit she sees a dead body lying on a bed and contacts the police. DC Beth Mayes interviews her and isn’t sure what to believe.

Colleen video-calls Skylark, her mentor in astral projection, and asks him what he thinks of her travels. He is skeptical as she’s only been practicing for a year. He asks her if there is any chance she could have visited the flat and seen the body before she thought she went there while asleep, but there isn’t.

Colleen eventually discloses to John, her boss, what has been happening to her and he laughs and ridicules her, and tells her to get on with her work.

Mandy Dickson’s dead body is discovered under the floorboards in the living room of flat 12. She’s been there for some years. Colleen is relieved she has been found and assumes that will be the end of her haunting now. However, she begins to dream about Mandy and eventually she is told about Jack Bates who used to live in flat 12 and is a work-shy drunk.

DC Beth Mayes is having a relationship with DC Matt Davis, begun in the previous book. He is highly skeptical of Colleen’s claim to have seen Mandy Dickson, a dead girl. Beth keeps an open mind.

Colleen visits the police station a number of times and Beth notes what she says but retains some skepticism. Beth visits flat 12 and experiences an unsettling coldness. 

Colleen agrees to meet Jack Bates for drink in The Moon in Coleshaw and he admits to killing Mandy but there is no evidence to connect him to the crime. He also claims he is being haunted by Mandy. Colleen spots he is wearing a silver necklace which once belonged to Mandy. She informs the police.

Matt and Beth visit Jack in Conway House where he rents a bedsit for the homeless. They discover more of Mandy’s possessions in his room and Beth leaves the room to call her DS when she hears a loud bang. She rushes into the room and finds Matt lying on the floor with a bullet wound in his forehead. He is dead by the time he arrives at hospital.

Colleen receives a letter from Jack who is serving a life sentence. He wants her to visit him. With some hesitation she goes. He is very agitated and unstable and claims he is being haunted by Mandy Dickson, whether he is or not is left for the reader to decide.