The Place That Never Existed Page 20

  A few quiet words had rung around the walls of the station the next day, and it was agreed that the vacant position in Huntswood Cove would be a wonderful opportunity for him to train and learn the ropes. Of what, he was still undecided.

  Don had taken him under his wing and more than likely saw in him a pliable and naïve officer he could coerce into keeping things ticking over, while he got on with whatever shady dealings it was that he did. Just as long as the bottles of gin were kept far away from him, that is.

  Having spoken to Ginny earlier, he knew he had to get to the bottom of things. Hush money may be nice, but it was just that, and it was tainted with blood.

  First, he was caught by Deidre, looking through Don’s filing cabinet and struggling to come up with a logical answer, and mentioned that he thought something wasn’t quite right. Deidre confessed to having seen and heard a few things, and they were discussing this over tea and Hob-Nobs when Don burst in and declared they would be joining him tonight in a last-minute meeting. They’d exchanged looks that were anything but full of joy.

  Here, he was once again ruing the day he made a pass at the attractive woman at the bar. He looked over at Don, who at first looked serious but then catching his eye, he sneered at him. It might’ve been a grin, but it seemed more menacing than amused, and Bobby wondered whether a contemporary version of walking the plank might be coming their way before the end of the night.

  First, the fit looking woman with the floppy brown hair and plentiful breasts was singled out and sent to her impending doom in the cellar. Then a little later there was the pantomime of the weird guy who resembled a make-up-less Marilyn Manson in everyday clothes, who appeared from nowhere talking about cake. He was quickly ushered into the cellar never to be seen again.

  Then Deirdre started to cry. Small sobs at first, but these built up and up until she almost exploded and ran from the room.

  Bobby got up, just as he saw the Cockney yob get interested in beating up an older woman.

  “I’ll get her back,” he said, his hands raised in innocence.

  Alfred looked deadly serious when he said, “You had fucking better. Tonight we see who is with us and who is against us!”

  “Okay, loud and clear.” Bobby jogged after her.

  Out of the door and clear of the house, Bobby had an overwhelming desire to just get in his car and drive away. In those few seconds, he had already decided to cut his losses and not even go home to pack a few things. That was the point in movies when the tension built as the window of opportunity to escape closed. There was nothing of any value back at his house that he couldn’t buy again later.

  But Deirdre was a different matter. It was not her fault that she was caught up in all of this. She was a woman who should’ve retired by now and by the grace of God came into work to help out on a minimum wage. She got no kickbacks or bonuses, and other than a nice Christmas hamper, had not benefited at all from the shady dealings going on around her. A woman of her strong morals would not have stood for it, and would’ve left long ago, so to force her here to stand accountable was completely unfair.

  “Deirdre!” he called, seeing her sobbing in the front seat of her Toyota Prius. The woman cared so much that she drove that awful thing on the pretence that she was befriending environmentalists, and singlehandedly saving the ozone layer. He ran over, and for a second, she looked up with puffy red eyes, her face almost breaking his heart with the sadness that he struggled to remember ever having seen before with such sincerity.

  “It’s okay, Deirdre.”

  “What is in the cellar, Bobby? Tell me that? Are they going to be all right?”

  Bobby rested his arm on the open door of her car and ran the other hand through his hair. “That, Deirdre, I cannot tell you.” He looked up at the house, the way it stood imposing on the beautiful countryside around it. Even with the sea peeking out in the distance, it was a scene more sinister than picturesque.

  And then he saw a woman’s head behind the wall.

  Ignoring it at first, he carried on his talk with the distressed old woman. “I have only heard about this whole thing today. I mean, I confess that I knew something was happening, and I also figured out it had something to do with this place, but I have never been here. Never had the cause to, if I’m honest. I don’t listen to stories and tales, and for all I knew, those people that have disappeared over the past year or so could easily have gone by the way of an accident…”

  “But now?” Deirdre asked.

  He nodded. “But now it looks a little less like an accident and a little more like premeditation. I mean, they weren’t hunted down. Although, I have no proof either way, but I get the feeling that each stumbled onto something they shouldn’t’ve, and they ended up dead.”

  “D’you think that will be us too?” she said, rather more clearly than someone questioning their own fate would be expected to sound.

  “I don’t know. I still wonder whether or not we should just run away from it all.”

  “What, leave the town?” This to her seemed even more of a terrifying prospect. “Without this town, I have nothing.”

  “If you’re dead then it won’t have been much use to you.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  The head popped up again above the wall and looked directly at them.

  “Start the car, Deirdre, and get the hell out of here. Drive to the services at Exeter and get a room at the hotel there. I’ll meet you there at some point when this is over.”

  “Are you going back in?”

  “I don’t know, but I do want to understand exactly what’s going on around here.”

  Deirdre started her car with its quiet engine, and this made Bobby smile. The strange fact was for all that he had thought about this silly little car, the electric motor had saved her. No one in the house would hear her leave. He waved as she escaped. He didn’t know whether or not he would ever see her again.

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Forty-Five

  D ebbie ran into the woods and collapsed in a heap against the stump of a tree. Her whole world was crashing down. It wasn’t that Paul had lied, she could see now the reasons behind that, and she believed he had not done anything with her, but she couldn’t understand what possessed someone to do what she had done.

  Not happy with trying to seduce Paul, she’d driven almost three hours to turn up on their honeymoon, with her child.…The bottom fell out of her world. She almost threw up.

  The child.

  That was the drive that she claimed was behind this. How adamant she was that the child was Paul’s. How unfair would it be if the only eternal connection with the two of them was the one thing that Paul and she did not have?

  She couldn’t believe it. She counted back the months in a rough calculation, hoping it was before they had met, but she honestly couldn’t be sure. If the child had been conceived when she and Paul had been together, then that changed everything. She had never encouraged talk about his relationship with Christina, but he would mention the odd thing, conscious that his new love could only handle small bites of information. He had been cut up and cringing. She had even heard him confess to having been devastated when he found out she had fooled around behind his back. So if he had gone back to her after all of that, even when they were now together, then that said as much about Paul’s feelings towards both women as she needed to know.

  He still loved her and would never let her go. If there was a connection, how long would it be before he granted her full forgiveness and they became the happy family they both wanted?

  She sobbed and then almost wailed when she thought about the wedding. It is hard to describe eternal pain. Technically it is psychosomatic, the brain and heart at odds with each other, the mind conjuring up visions that her feelings suddenly cannot handle. She was Linda Blair in The Exorcist possessed by heartache, rather than the devil. Two days they had been married. Suddenly embarrassment was unleashed into the deadly emotional co
cktail. She was going to be an amusing anecdote told to friends and family in a sympathetic tone, but each one secretly knowing she could never compare to the beautiful Christina—her Mediterranean good looks and her perfect skin with a body to die for.

  “Debs,” Paul tentatively said from afar, walking towards her. “You know that she’s lying, right?”

  She felt herself nod but felt no better inside. She felt physically sick and unwell. “She’s gorgeous, Paul. I wonder sometimes what you see in me when she wants you so bad.”

  He lowered himself next to her. He looked out, seeing the abandoned house in the distance, but not fully registering it. “It’s not like that, Debs. You don’t see how pretty you are, do you?” She let him slip an arm around her. “It’s not about you verses her. It never has been, and it never will be. It’s about me wanting you. I do not compare you to anyone, because no one else has ever made me feel the way you do.”

  “Yeah, but you and—”

  He kissed her, smothering the words. She kissed him back. “The truth is that back when I was with her, I thought I was in love. To a point, I probably was. But that had grown out of the years we had been together. I honestly thought it was enough, and d’you know what? Had she not done what she did, we may well still be together, and I may’ve thought I was happy.” He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes, almost into her mind. “But then I met you. I found someone that excited me. You were, and still are, someone I want to rush home to and tell about my day. I was so nervous on our wedding day that you might come to your senses and not marry me that I was almost sick! You are everything to me, Debs.”

  She smiled, and a giggle escaped. “I thought you would call it off,” she said. “I checked my phone right up to the point of leaving the car at the church. I expected a text or a call to say something like, ‘I’m sorry. It’s not you, but me blah, blah, blah’. That would’ve killed me!”

  The darkness had fallen as night crept up on them.

  “I think we now know what Jez was trying to get hold of you about!”

  “Why do I get the feeling he had something to do with it too?”

  Paul laughed. “Your brother has a good heart, but his brain sometimes stutters a bit.”

  “Paul,” Debbie said seriously. “Do you think the child is yours?”

  Paul slowly shook his head, with little or no conviction. “I don’t see how it could be. It’s just…the way she said it, she seemed so adamant.”

  “But the timings? I don’t really want to know the details, but when was the last time, you know?”

  Paul was biting the inside of his mouth. “See, that is definitely too far away in the past to be possible…but…” He wasn’t making himself clear.

  “Shit, Paul, are you saying you’ve done other things?!” She turned, shocked.

  “No, no!” He held up his hand in defence. “I just have this feeling that the way she is, she could’ve done something. Like freeze my sperm.”

  “Really? You think she’d have done that?”

  “Maybe. I wouldn’t’ve put it passed her. I could imagine her taking a condom full or spitting into something.”

  “Ugh! Too much info!”

  “I’m just saying, if she wanted it that bad, she would’ve found a way. She probably has locks of my hair.”

  They held hands and smiled; unaware this was the calm before the storm.

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Forty-Six

  J ez walked down the stairs quickly, wanting to get a large slice of chocolate cake. He wouldn’t mind something savoury to start with, but he would settle for cake. The décor down there was appalling. He knew that wasn’t the “be all and end all” as they say, but it was dusty and dirty and made no sense whatsoever to have food down here. It was a strange decision to have the food so far away from the kitchen.

  He got to the bottom and turned to look behind him. All he saw were rows and rows of bagged up white powder.

  “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, not sure what was the right response to seeing more drugs than he’d ever seen in his life. He wondered whether he should be going over, making a small incision, and then pulling out a bit to rub on his gums. They did this all the time in the movies. But he had no idea what it would taste like and whether he would know the difference between cocaine, heroin, talcum powder, or bicarbonate of soda.

  It was at that point he heard a noise behind him.

  “Debs!” he said, turning around.

  But what he saw was definitely not his sister. Not unless marriage was not looking good on her. His jaw dropped open, and his eyes got as wide as saucers.

  He tried to grab words that now swam around his head, but he felt helpless. His mind was drifting, and he suddenly couldn’t think straight.

  What am I down here for? he thought almost in a trance. Everything was becoming dark. He felt so tired.

  A whistle brought him around slightly. He looked over and saw a small dark-skinned boy ushering him over. This was something of a bizarre dream he was having. The last vivid one he’d had featured a Russian midget, Britney Spears, and the illusive Shergar racehorse. The details were sketchy, but it was both exciting and scary in equal parts. Each time he’d heard “Oops, I Did It Again”, he was taken back to the dream and concluded he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have done that again…

  His legs were heavy, like they were being held. He then saw that an attractive brunette girl stood behind the boy, and this motivated him a bit more.

  Suddenly he was being pulled into a corridor that led out into darkness.

  “What the fuck?” was Jez’s way of an introduction.

  “Who are you?” the woman asked, looking at him in an odd fashion. He was used to this.

  “Jez. Who are you?”

  “Sam.”

  “And your son?”

  She turned to him as they followed the boy towards the furnace. “Does he look like my son?”

  “Well then it begs the question what you and a young lad were doing in the shadows of this odd house, doesn’t it? Where’s the chocolate cake?”

  “You’re a fine one to talk about odd. I assume you know what a mirror is? And cake? What the hell are talking about?”

  “I was told there were refreshments down here, specifically chocolate cake.”

  “Oh, cake!” she said with a grin like she’d just remembered. “Yes, it’s over there, between the unicorn and the Tooth Fairy.”

  Jez turned, and then stopped in his tracks. He looked back at her. “You’re joking, right?”

  She frowned at him and shook her head. He thought at that point just how attractive she was. Her hair was short up the back, but flopped long over her ears and face causing her to keep flipping it. “You seriously thought there was chocolate cake down here?”

  Jez nodded.

  “What an idiot.” She huffed and turned around.

  “Hey, sonny? Where are we going then?” Jez said, unperturbed by the woman’s complete disregard for his feelings.

  The boy turned round and smiled. They stopped. He opened the bag he’d left there earlier, and started to take out more of the tubes.

  “He doesn’t speak,” Sam said. “His name is Benji, but I’ve never heard him say a word.”

  “What, some sort of retard?” Jez said before realising exactly what he’d just uttered out loud.

  “I’m not sure there’s any need for that,” Sam said. “If you ask me, he’s gifted.”

  Benji had one hand firmly in the furnace and was slowly adding more tube sections to the bottom of the ones deep inside.

  “Gifted?” Jez snorted. “What the hell is he doing now?”

  “I have no idea,” Sam replied.

  “Light.” Benji uttered, not stopping what he was doing.

  “You said he couldn’t speak,” Jez pointed out.

  “I never said he couldn’t, I merely said he doesn’t speak.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Not really.�
�

  “So we stand here while he plays with his poles?”

  Sam huffed. “Look, all I know is I’m not going back up those stairs with those people up there.” She gestured towards Benji. “He called me and got me away from whatever it is that was in that room, so if he needs to do something before getting us out of here, then so be it.”

  “Okay,” Jez conceded. He turned his attention to Benji. “Whatcha doin’ there, little man?”

  “You don’t have children, do you?” Sam said.

  “Nope.”

  “Completely obvious. He’s not simple. I think we’d already established that!”

  Then Benji put in place the last tube, connected a box, and clicked a button. Nothing seemed to happen. He got up, gave a thumbs-up, and laughed, “Light! We have light! Come. Follow me!”

  “What the fuck is that?” Jez said as a body came into view.

  “Is he okay?”

  The boy looked at them and shook his head. “Come!” he said loudly.

  So off they went, following a boy through a maze of tunnels, unsure exactly where they were going or who they were trusting.

  Jez could’ve been at home trying to cook himself a meal whilst his wife was away. Not trusting himself with the cooker, it may’ve been an episode of Casualty waiting to happen. If nothing else, this little adventure might be a more exciting way of ending up in hospital.

  He looked the woman up and down. He couldn’t help it. He was observant.

  But just where the hell was that midget taking them?

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  B obby curved his walk out down the road and around the back of where he’d seen the woman. He would love to say it was a maneuver learnt from his police training, but it wasn’t. He’d learnt how to take down an offender by their pressure points, had been sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray—by far the worst experience of his life—and been tasered by a colleague (the second worst experience of his life). This just seemed to be common sense.