The Place That Never Existed Read online

  “This guy almost molested me, di’int ‘e?”

  “What!” Paul spat, almost dropping the cakes. He was almost glad to have his hands full or else the temptation to cuff the kid around the ears may’ve been too great.

  “What happened, pumpkin?”

  Paul cut in. “Look, I’m sorry, but your son ran into me and tripped. Then he started swearing at me.”

  “Giles?” his mother said, starting with a little edge but softening too quickly. “What happened?”

  “He walked straight inta me! Look at him. He must be some sorta paedo, or summat?”

  “Look, I’m sorry and all that, but I’m not hanging around with him talking like that.”

  “All right, all right, Giles does sometimes misread situations, you were probably smiling at him to be friendly, and—”

  Paul cut in. “I wasn’t smiling at him!”

  “So, what? Making eyes at him?”

  “I didn’t even see him until he fell on the floor!”

  “Ah-ha,” she responded. “Admission of guilt!” Insurance claim again.

  “Whatever!” Paul stormed off back to the car hoping they weren’t following him. That’s all he needed on his first day of honeymoon, being sued for some minor whiplash on a mouthy child, by some No-Win-No-Fee ambulance chasing company run by failed solicitors.

  Paul popped the takeaway cups of coffee into the holders and the cakes on the dashboard. He glanced at his phone and saw that he had a text message.

  It was from her.

  Congratulations, it read, followed by: I hope your honeymoon is more exotic than Taunton Deane service station. X

  Paul’s heart once again sunk into his trainers. His head whipped around, scanning the cars to see if he could see the white Ford Fiesta.

  He couldn’t.

  Within a few minutes, Debbie appeared, and whilst Paul was quick to retell the tale of the little shit, he thought it best to not let her know about the text message.

  And of course neither of them knew about the small black tracker box underneath the Jeep…

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Four

  2014 Huntswood Cove

  H enry Scales walked solemnly up the track away from the town. At fifteen, his legs were slightly longer than those of his friends, and he pumped them hard against the rough terrain only thinking about what, or rather who might lie ahead.

  He was meant to be home in an hour or so for supper. He’d been up early and out on his father’s fishing boat on the choppy seas at sunrise. The wind had done its best to push him overboard as he tugged in the lobster baskets one after the other. So by now, if he was honest, he was in need of a good rest and not out chasing some fantasy. After all, he had to do it all over again tomorrow. So much for the restful summer holidays.

  But he’d been sent a text message from Crystal, a year his senior and considered somewhat of a prize between the young males of the town. Not classically beautiful, she enhanced her plain face with makeup, had incredible long auburn hair, and perfected the ability of squeezing her ample breasts into tops that could barely contain them. Her legs looked longer in skirts that were shorter than those of her friends, and she had a way about her that suggested she was too good for a small Devon fishing town. She could well have been lost in the background, had she not made such an effort to grab all the attention she could.

  Crystal had invited Henry up to the old Dudley House deep within the wood. Henry wasn’t sure how she had got hold of his mobile number, but then this was Crystal. And what Crystal wants, Crystal gets! Only a fool would not take her up on the offer. Henry was certainly no fool.

  At best, it could be said Henry had a vague relationship with Crystal, which is to say he had stammered and stuttered a few words, and she’d been kind and sincere in her replies of “hello”, but that was just about all it amounted to. A teenage fantasy on the part of one, and a polite salutation on the part of the other. But teenage fantasies can take that small seed of truth, and with hope and desire, testosterone and a whole bunch of detachment from reality, can suddenly produce something spectacular in a paradoxical world that bears little to no resemblance to the one in which the rest of us live.

  Quite characteristically, the wind whipped off of the side of the cliffs as Henry got to the highest and most open part of the path, before it was being swallowed up by thickets of bushes and trees. He ignored the aches of his leg muscles and climbed over the fence, past the Private Property sign and deeper into the woods. He checked his watch again and, seeing as he was a few minutes early, decided to calm his nerves with a cigarette. He was not really a regular smoker, just when he met his mates at the local hangout near the church, peer-pressured to be part of the gang, but now he hoped that Crystal would catch a glimpse of him, puffing away like the bad boy from some movie. She might beckon him forward with a curled finger, and he would of course take a last long drag, and flick away the end of the cigarette through a cloud of smoke before following her to succinct well-played-out paradise.

  Henry had of course heard the stories, and these fed through his mind as he smoked, like film through a projector. He had heard and embellished himself those stories to tales that couldn’t possibly hold any truth. And it was such an ever-changing story that people soon forgot about what was the truth and which parts had been made up, and so this almost numbed the scary reality, taking away much of the fear.

  It was said that in 1969, Francis Dudley—of the old Dudley house Henry was meeting Crystal at— suspected his wife Pearl of adultery. The other man was a local fisherman, Harlon Brown. Given that Huntswood Cove was on the South Coast of Devon, fishing was one of the most common jobs.

  Dudley was a landowner and rented some of the fields out to surrounding farmers. Rumour also had it there was a secret mine on the land but no one knows for sure just what it held. Dudley came back early one day from his trip into Plymouth, to find Pearl and Harlon in a position a husband does not expect to find his wife in with another man. A fit of rage exploded from him, and he ended up killing not just his wife and her lover but, sadly, his two children too. In that short amount of time, the legend went that he no longer believed the children were his and so took away their lives without remorse.

  Some say he took off and was never found again, but others swear that he now spends his days in prison, and his house is an empty shell that bore witness to an act of violence that failed to be proven as a crime of passion enough to get him off.

  And it is at this point that stories are retold of screaming ladies, of dancing lights, unexplained mist, and ghoulish figures, but for the most part these are popular stereotypical ghost stories told to keep people out of the old Dudley House.

  Henry was not bothered by this, especially if Crystal was there waiting for him. The lust-filled teenage optimism laid out cold myths and unspoken unease. If he was to meet his demise on this fateful evening while indulging in the pleasures of the flesh with the desirable Crystal, then this would certainly be how God had planned it.

  He wandered closer to the house and noticed that the sun was beginning to drop in the sky. There was still a good hour of light left, but the house began to look a little more sinister at dusk. The trees creaked, and branches cracked above.

  A large-winged bird was startled into suddenly taking flight, and with the stillness in the air, the sound echoed loudly.

  Henry felt for his mobile phone and momentarily eased the tension through thoughts of perhaps getting a couple of pictures on his camera in order to show his mates, or more likely to relive later on.

  The front door was locked, this was a popular fact, and while Henry had never been this close before, he was not going to test it, proving just how seriously the stories were taken.

  “Crystal!” he called in a loud whisper—a pathetic act that only told anyone around that he was here, and the quiver in his voice also showed his nerves.

  Henry crept around the side of the house to where the back door
was slightly off of its hinges.

  The place looked untouched; slowly walking into the kitchen, Henry couldn’t be sure whether or not these things had been here since 1969.

  From on the side, he picked up a newspaper that was almost brittle to the touch, the material slowly dying from exposure to light and oxygen.

  The date was 4th July 1969. The day of the murders.

  Suddenly, a noise like a chair being knocked over onto a solid floor came from below him, and a tiny squeal involuntarily exited his throat.

  “Crystal?” he said a little louder, but his voice was audibly shaking. He walked almost in a daze deeper into the house. Its musty smell engulfed him, his throat felt slightly compressed, and he swallowed trying to wet his throat. A door going under the stairs gave the impression that this was a staircase going down to a cellar.

  A shuffling came from below.

  A padlock sat locked and strong.

  Henry looked around and suddenly saw a bunch of keys on a hook. A dozen of various sizes huddled together, ready to be thrust into a lock that may or may not liberate and free someone, or something.

  It took a couple of attempts before Henry picked the key that looked most likely to fit the lock.

  He hesitated slightly as the sound from below appeared to be walking up the staircase, step by step.

  “Crys-tal? Is that y-you?” he asked, his voice shrinking into a whisper by the final word.

  Once again he was torn. What if Crystal was being held here against her will? What if this isn’t Crystal?

  Somebody is locked in here, he thought. I have a moral duty to let them out.

  He slipped the key into the lock.

  As he did so, the image of Francis Dudley holding an axe, raised and dripping with blood, entered his head.

  And then he heard the voice from behind him say, “I wouldn’t do that if I was you!”

  The voice could’ve been from a small child. A girl, a goblin, a baritone male, or a dog. Henry couldn’t tell, because whoever it was hit him with all of their force in the head with a hammer.

  Henry would never smoke another cigarette again, go fishing out on the boat with his dad, see Crystal naked—or fully clothed—and nor would he ever see just what was in the cellar.

  Henry was dead before his broken lifeless body hit the ground. No one would ever see him again.

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Five

  2016 Honeymoon

  “Y our coffee okay?” Debbie asked as the M5 carried on passed Exeter. “You’ve not touched it.”

  Paul wasn’t sure what was the best thing to do here. He should really tell her about the text messages. They were married now, but he also knew how she would feel, and it wasn’t fair to make her feel that way on her honeymoon. On their honeymoon.

  “I was just thinking,” Paul said, buying some time. “And you know me, I like to guzzle it down, rather than sip.”

  “You thinking about that kid?”

  Paul grabbed his coffee and took a sip, nodding. He had perfected grabbing his coffee, whilst maintaining good visuals on the road—it was still not considered good driving in the eyes of the Highway Code, but it did fall into the grey area of not being entirely illegal either.

  “Sounds like he was just being a little shit. Parents are always going to be overprotective of their children. Even the little shits!”

  Paul nodded again. Somehow this didn’t seem as bad as outright lying. Anyway, it was probably just a lucky guess. If she had heard he was going down to Devon, then it wouldn’t take a detective to consider Taunton Deane as being a stop point. She had been with him before down this way, and he had mentioned how Exeter Services always seemed more of a faff to get to. Taunton Deane was one of the best placed, being one of the few service stations outside of Bristol that was on both sides of the motorway. It was just a little thing, but Paul had made this point a number of times, therefore again not a massive leap to assume that this would be his plan.

  Happily self-convinced, he felt the weight leave his shoulders. He pushed a couple of buttons on the screen of the car, and brought up the album of Langhorne Slim, smiled at Debbie, and they sang along to the heart-felt vocals and acoustic guitar strum of the pop/folk troubadour.

  “What was your favourite part of yesterday?” Debbie asked as the song, “Colette”, finished.

  Paul paused, took another swig of coffee then replied, “I can’t narrow it down from a handful.”

  “Okay. And they are?”

  “Well, let’s see. First one is you turning up for the wedding.”

  “That was never going to not happen!”

  “Well, it’s the obvious wedding day failure. Second was when you agreed to marry me.”

  “Again, no revelation there! Next?”

  “Either holding you close in the taxi as husband and wife on the way back to the hotel, or liberating you from your clothes later on and ravaging your naked body!”

  She grinned. “Yep, they were all good things.” Then she then fell silent with Paul realising this was the point where he should be asking her for her favourite part.

  “What about you? What was your favourite part?”

  She looked out of the side of the window at the other cars going off on trips, adventure, or just back home. Her hands held her coffee cup with comfort like she was looking after something precious. “I was just glad that I never saw her, Paul.”

  Paul knew this weighed heavy on her mind. How could it not. He reached out and rubbed her leg a couple of times. I show of comfort. “I know, Debs. I know.”

  When growing up, Paul spent many summers down in Devon and Cornwall. The journeys were made up of his parents’ music, and so these now played out like soundtracks to some holiday montage where either cassettes filled with sixties’ classics, or the odd Greatest Hits’ tape would be crackling out through old speakers. The Rolling Stones and The Ramones gave him his Rock grounding, while his mother’s influences were The Beach Boys and Elvis. Of course, later when Paul got his own car, he would spend hours putting together mix tapes of his contemporary rock tastes.

  Times had changed from having melted cassettes on the dashboard of your 1985 Ford Escort. Enduring aching arms on long journeys through a lack of power steering; pull out choke to start the car; wind down windows when you got hot, and air-con that blew hot dust in the summer and cold dust in the winter. And if―in this wet country―there was rain, then the battery was having none of it. You took the bus or walked.

  It amazed Paul how things had changed in a relatively short period of time. If he and Debbie had children now, then imagine what changes may well come in the future?

  “I love you, Paul,” Debbie said, breaking him out of his reverie. She had noticed he was thinking hard, as lines appeared just under his eyes. Not the laughing crow’s feet but around the luggage area where puffy bags also were known to appear when he’d been up all night working.

  Then things went a little crazy. Gangsta rap gatecrashed the moment, which might’ve been a shame had it not sprung Paul into life. He spat out the lyrics almost word for word and almost spilt his coffee as he threw up some weird hand signal, he believed to be connected with gang affinity in Long Beach, California, but could well be something offensive to a person with knowledge of sign language. But this did not stop him, and there was something sort of amusing to Debbie about her husband indulging in this charade. It was almost like her alpha-male father playing a pantomime dame. Funny and distressing all at the same time.

  “You, okay now, Dogg?” Debbie grinned when Paul had stopped swinging his hands around and talking about the importance of sipping on Gin & Juice with his homies.

  “Sometimes you just need that!”

  “Well, not to sound like a child, but are we nearly there yet?”

  “Honestly, it’s not easy to tell.” They had been on the A38 for a little while now, heading slowly nearer to the coast. “By my calculations, we should see a signpost for Dark Have
n.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Debbie added unconvincingly.

  “And by that, you mean Pagan and full of witchcraft.”

  “Yes, or they have a wonderfully constructed craft figure made from wicker that they want to invite us to take a closer look at…”

  “A warm welcome.”

  “Exactly. So…I thought it was near some cove?”

  “Oh, it is. Huntswood Cove. It can’t be far away from Dark Haven, as on the map, the road just stops there.”

  “So you’re telling me there’s no road to where we’re going?”

  “It sounds symbolic when you put it like that! Nah, I think there will be one of those gravel tracks that the locals are fond of constructing in Devon.”

  Ten minutes, and a sign declared that they were driving along the outskirts of a town called Dark Haven. At one point, the road would’ve taken you directly to the town centre, but this new road took you around it, making it seem a lot smaller than the town probably was.

  The road—that judging by the cracks, potholes, and faded colour—seemed old, even if the Sat Nav was blissfully unaware of it—gradually went downhill. Before them in the distance, the sea presented itself like some great reveal.

  “I see the sea!” Debbie almost squealed, the way she had done as a child. Of course it wasn’t the excitement of the sudden glimpse of watery expanse that had been the reason for her excitement, nor the hyperactive by-product of the sherbet lemons, but the realisation that soon the road would end and therefore the family must almost be there.

  “Yes, you do,” Paul agreed.

  Appearing ahead was a sprinkling of houses made from stone, and a couple of thatched cottages before a single high street offered them a pub, a post office, a local shop, a butcher’s, a baker’s—but no candlestick maker’s—, a craft shop, and a tea room. A small pond sat to the side on a well-kept green, and straight ahead, the harbour could be seen with many boats. Most looked old and weathered. It was almost like they had been transported back forty years.