The Place That Never Existed Read online

  “This place is beautiful, Paul,” Debbie said, opening her window and taking in the sea air.

  “This place is eerie! But hopefully where we are staying is just as nice. Less eerie, but nice nevertheless!”

  Paul slowed the car down finding it strange there didn’t seem to be any other cars in sight.

  Or people for that matter.

  “It feels slightly awkward parking the car anywhere,” Paul said. “It feels so out of place.”

  Paul pulled the Jeep into the car park of the pub, relieved to see a Land Rover. Although it appeared not to have a number plate, so it was hard to determine just how old it was. It was slightly battered and probably well loved. It may even have been forty years old.

  “Go into the post office. They’ll be able to give you directions, I’m sure,” Debbie suggested.

  Paul got out and scanned the car park. The fence around the edge looked tired, and parts of it were falling down, but there was some sort of charm that gave it a genuine shabby-chic look, rather than the false-aged look of the modern fashion.

  He started to walk out towards the post office but hesitated and looked back at Debbie. She smiled and waved him on encouragingly. He walked on.

  Of course as expected, a little bell rang as he opened and then closed the door. He stood there still, scanning the shelves that looked modern, reassuring himself that he hadn’t entered some episode of The Twilight Zone.

  The sound of boxes being stacked was replaced by the shuffling of feet, and out appeared a small black lady, a tabard hanging from her round body a little like an A-board. Her hair was tightly curled, and her glasses were almost cartoonish in the way that they were too big for her face. Her face appeared stern at first, but then exploded into a large smile.

  “Ahh, it’s you as rings my bell, is it m’dear?” she said in a strong West Country accent.

  “Good afternoon,” Paul replied politely. “How are you?”

  “Well now, that would depend on how much you ‘re going to spend in my shop now, don’t it?” She winked, but Paul was unclear as to whether or not she was serious. She had hard eyes. The large lenses only made them more prominent. A bug-eyed lady with an accent that didn’t match her look, but a smile as wide as her face.

  “Of course,” Paul felt the need to say, while scanning the shop for something of mild interest. “I’m also looking for directions to Lavender Cottage.”

  The lady looked up suddenly, as if the name had somehow sent a shock up her spine. “You a journalist?” she said accusingly.

  Paul shook his head. “No, I’m on honeymoon. We’re staying in Huntswood Lodge for the week.”

  “I see.”

  Just then the phone rang, making Paul jump. It was an old-fashioned sounding trill, designed to annoy you into answering the phone and to be heard half a mile away.

  “’Scuse me,” she said, holding up a finger and rushing towards it at the back of the shop.

  A radio filled with static played the nineties’ hit by Babylon Zoo, but he could just make out hushed voices. Paul stood there trying to eavesdrop, and he almost thought to seek out the radio to turn down the volume.

  And that’s when he saw him.

  A young lad was peering around the side of one of the shelves. It was more than likely he had been there all along. Paul raised a hand but the boy just stared.

  Paul looked away, not wanting to scare another child. It appeared to be a new skill he’d acquired.

  Then a sudden movement of scrambling feet made Paul turn to where the boy had moved past him and towards the door.

  The boy looked to be around ten, but it was never easy to tell these things. His skin was brown but not as dark as the lady’s, and his hair was cut short all over. He looked at Paul and then turned towards the window, slowly raising his left arm and pointing towards the sky.

  The back of the boy’s hand had been drawn on with pen. It looked like a tattoo, but on a child it seemed more out of place. Marker pen more than likely.

  Paul began to slowly move forward, when a voice from behind him stopped him in his tracks.

  “Benji, stop messing with this man!”

  Paul turned to look at the woman who was apparently done with her phone call.

  “No, it’s—”

  “Rude, is what it is! My apologies, my boy is a strange little feller, aren’t ya, Benji?”

  Benji stared back without expression then turned very slowly and very precisely to look up at the sky.

  “He’s messing with us. He’s a little slow, I’m afraid.”

  Paul smiled, unsure on how to respond to that. Were you meant to offer some sort of banal condolence or sympathetic line that didn’t end up coming out condescending? In the end, he nodded in acceptance.

  “Look, I’m meant to meet Ginny Kemp at Lavender Cottage, so we can get the keys to the lodge. Do I just carry on down the road?”

  “That you do. Sorry, we sometimes get people poking their noses into our business round here, and…well…we are simple, good-natured folk as just wants to be left alone. I apologise if I have come across as anything less than hospitable…” she seemed to be tripping over the words, but soon regained composure. “I know Ginny, she’ll see you right. Yes, young sir, take your fancy motor on down the road and take the next left. Ginny lives in the first cottage on the left with the red telephone box outside. Tell her Missy said hello, okay?”

  Paul nodded again. “Thank you, Missy. My name’s Paul by the way.”

  She nodded back. “I know,” she said with a smile.

  Paul almost jogged back to the Jeep. Again, there appeared to be no one around.

  “I was about to come looking for you!” Debbie grinned as he opened the door. “You making friends?”

  Paul almost snorted. “Not quite, but I did get directions. We basically follow that road—”

  “Track, you mean?”

  “Track then.”

  Paul started up the Jeep and pulled away towards where he’d been told to go.

  From behind them, Benji watched the Jeep start up and then looked up into the sky. He smiled broadly and giggled uncontrollably.

  “Welcome,” he muttered under his breath. The first words he had said in a very long time.

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Six

  G inny struggled to put into words the way she felt about this place. Huntswood Cove was her home and had been for a number of years, but things were not the way they should be. It was like she lived in another country, in another time, rather than Devon, a place not far from Plymouth.

  But where would she go?

  Twenty years in the police force had taken a heavy toll on her. She had come face-to-face with every scum of the earth there was in Plymouth—bullies and abusers thinking that they could use their weight to get exactly what they wanted. She had been hit in the face on Union Street, a notorious crime-ridden area that was full of clubs and night crawlers fueled with alcohol and missing common sense. The street was fairly non-threatening in the daytime, but when night fell, the lowlifes scuttled out to claim the night as their own.

  One night, she had rushed to the aid of a teenage prostitute and ended up with a black eye from a middle-aged guy who, through the scuffle, had also tried to stab her. Luckily, another unit was on hand to wrestle him into the van. He was declared completely sober but had managed to take a fall at some point between the police van and being booked in at the station. He had a dislocated shoulder, two broken ribs, and a broken nose by the time his holding-cell door had been successfully slammed shut. It’s funny how criminals that attack officers end up being so careless with their own health not long after.

  Another time in Devonport, she had found herself surrounded in a block of flats riddled with drugs and drug-users. It was the most terrified she’d ever been, as one after another like expectant rodents they scurried out into the open, baring their teeth, on edge and looking to attack. Again she ended up on her back, swinging her night
-stick out in defence when another unit arrived. Budget cuts meant even more near misses, until she was sat behind a desk, safe from attack but reading reports of the action she was missing, scared into hiding from the trauma of it all.

  Sometimes though, the horrors were not the personal attacks that she had received but those on others minding their own business—an old man being pushed downstairs in the town centre for the change in his pocket, schoolgirls set upon while walking home from school, and children’s nurseries closed in connection with pedophile rings. Most officers hardened up to these horrors, able to box up each incident like it was normality. The ability to compartmentalise became as natural as breathing, but for Ginny, she couldn’t ever do this, and things just got worse.

  The stats were no higher than any other city, and local poverty had always fueled unsavoury behaviour and a devil-may-care attitude, suggesting that life had forced them to live this way. But when you dealt so long with everything that was bad with a city, then living out in the middle of nowhere away from the drink and drugs was an attractive prospect.

  Ginny’s marriage broke down ten years ago when she’d refused to leave the force. Her ex-husband now lived in Manchester, with a new wife and a young child. At forty-one, she now lived in her cottage with her friend Sam and her dog called Bolan.

  The log cabin was a beautiful addition, but it was deep in the woods. As idyllic as it was, she just liked the comfort of neighbours next door and not a five-minute walk through the deserted woods away. She managed to rent it out a few times a year, which paid for its upkeep, but she couldn’t bring herself to sell it. She had another friend, Robin, who looked after the place. He was a handyman to a lot of the holiday homes or rented accommodation and was as trustworthy as they came.

  She glanced up at the clock and picked up her phone.

  “Hello?” said the voice on the other end.

  “Hi, Missy.”

  “Ginny? That you, girl?”

  “It is. Look I am waiting on some people to come to the cabin. You haven’t seen them, have you?”

  “I sure have. Got a handsome chap stood not but twenty feet away!” Her voice was noticeably hushed.

  “That right?” Ginny smiled.

  “Not your type at all, huh?”

  Ginny shrugged and smiled, then realised that Missy would be unable to see this so said, “Guess not. Although who can resist a handsome man?”

  Missy chuckled at that and then added, “I’ll send them down yonder soon enough.”

  “Thanks, Missy.”

  “Stay safe, Ginny.”

  Ginny sat in the armchair, the keys to the cabin clutched in her palm tightly. Her chair was more upright than she would’ve liked, with a little floral padding. It was not the chair of a forty-one-year-old but that of an old age pensioner. It had come with the cottage, and she had never had the heart to get rid of it. Someone had loved it deeply, so who was she to just toss it out?

  She glanced at the picture of her and Sam, smiling on a walking holiday in the Lake District—her wavy auburn hair and her fuller body, to Sam’s shorter brown hair with the floppy fringe, she loved to toss back regularly while talking, on top of a stick-thin body. They had been friends now for nearly five years, a relatively short period of time in Ginny’s life, although Sam was thirty, so Ginny wondered whether this would mean the friendship was more important to her.

  Sam was an archaeologist, having studied at Oxford, and had spent two years travelling to far off lands—namely Peru and Bolivia—but an incident had led her here where she had taken time out to do her second love which was looking after horses. She was tight-lipped on what had happened, and often preferred to drink copious amounts of alcohol and fall into the arms of whichever man paid her attention of a night.

  Ginny was thinking about the last one, once again pushing away the shame that Sam never appeared to have, when she heard a car pull up. She glanced out of the window seeing a large red Jeep. A guy, who was indeed handsome in a rough-around-the-edges way, and a very tall and beautiful blonde came together in a way only a couple on honeymoon could. She allowed herself a pang of jealously, and why not? She wished them nothing but happiness, but why was this not the picture she could be a part of?

  She opened the door to them just as they got there, realising a little too late it looked like she’d been sat waiting for them.

  “Hi. You must be Paul and Deborah!”

  Paul grinned, showing some good strong teeth, and he held out his hand for a shake.

  Very polite, she thought.

  His grip was firm but not overbearing, and she caught a glimpse of what might have been an eagle tattoo poking out of his T-shirt. She didn’t have tattoos herself, but Sam had a handful scattered over her body.

  Then his bride smiled and gave a weaker handshake with long fingers and wonderfully painted nails.

  “Let me see your ring!” she said, glancing at the other hand.

  Debbie blushed a little. This was something she would have to get used to. She turned her left hand over, showing off the white gold band. A simple design with a modest stone made more elegant by its symbolism.

  “Gorgeous,” Ginny replied. The romance of the occasion was almost overwhelming, and briefly, there was a silence as she thought back to her ex-husband and whether or not they’d ever had this aura of love glowing from them. She doubted it very much.

  “Ah,” Ginny suddenly said, remembering the keys in her hand. “Your keys!”

  Paul stepped forward to take them with a “Thanks.”

  “So, if you head back up the hill, take the track going off into the woods. Then bear left and go down a little deeper. Take a left at the sign for the cabin, and the road will take you directly there. You should have everything you need, but feel free to give me a ring if you need anything at all.”

  “Thank you,” Debbie said, still beaming a smile.

  “Oh, you’re more than welcome.…Oh, and another thing, your mobile phones will be useless. There’s no satellite signal down there at all. In fact, there’s barely any here! There is a landline there, though, should you need to make a call.”

  Paul shrugged. “It will be nice to be cut off from the world. This is our honeymoon, so there’s only one person that I want to be speaking to!” He slid an arm around Debbie’s waist affectionately.

  Debbie nodded. “Yep. I think social media will do okay without a few extra ‘Likes’ for a week! This is all-about-us time!”

  “Okay, well, like I say, if you need anything then please let me know.”

  “Thanks again!” And off they went to their car, and in less than a minute through the kicked-up dust and the ever-fading sound of a diesel engine, they were gone.

  Ginny sighed. Such a nice couple.

  She looked up at the crucifix on the wall. She had never grown up religious. For the most part she wasn’t now, but sometimes…just sometimes, you had to choose a side.

  Sometimes horrible things happened.

  THE PLACE THAT NEVER EXISTED

  Chapter Seven

  2014 Huntswood Cove

  A knock on the door startled Lessie Scales. She was once again staring off into another world. A world that her son, Henry, was once again a part of.

  Her hips had seen better days, and despite the pain, she pulled herself to her feet and shuffled quickly to the door full of hope.

  She was met with two stern-faced policemen, one who appeared no older than twenty, and the other one almost double that with beaten-down looks from late nights and hard work.

  A forced smile was followed by a deep baritone voice of the elder of the two. “Mrs. Lesley Scales?” She nodded while thinking that actually he knew this. They had not met for many years, but surely he had not forgotten her name?

  “Can we come in?” She nodded again and then stood to the side by way of an invitation. Antidepressants had become as regular as vitamins, and she now was an empty shell, vague and living her life through a dreamscape.

  “Have
you got any news?” she muttered, devoid of emotion as the three sat down. The younger officer looked even more uncomfortable than he had done on her doorstep.

  “Lessie,” the older one said. “You remember me, right?”

  “Of course I do, Don.”

  He wiped his hands slightly more nervously on his trousers. “Of course you do,” he sighed. He then remembered the other officer. “My apologies, Lessie. This is PC Bobby Ranford.”

  “Good morning,” he said and then looked like he’d said something out of turn, reddening instantly.

  “Hello,” Lessie said, wishing they would just get on with it.

  “We’re here about Henry.” Don took a noticeable deep breath. “I’m sorry, but we found his body this morning.”

  “Oh, my.” Lessie’s hands went straight to her throat, and her eyes darted to the picture of the young lad smiling. He was holding a large net of fish, windswept and cold but completely in his element.

  “It…er…appears that he’d fallen from the cliff.”

  “Oh, God…Can I see him?” she began to sob. “Can I see my baby boy?”

  Don looked at Bobby, who looked at Lessie, then quickly away. “I don’t think that would be advisable. It…er…it appears that he died quickly, but I’m afraid the waves and the rocks were not kind to his body.”

  Just then the door swung open, and a strong-looking man stormed in. He was dressed in clothes that screamed sea fisherman, and while at first it appeared quite stereotypical, it was actually clothes that screamed hard wearing, waterproof, and practical. But he was definitely, and without doubt, a fisherman.

  “Have you found him?” he boomed in a mixture of excitement, fear, and anger.

  Lessie shook her head. “Bill, he’s dead. Our baby boy is dead.”

  The man visibly had the life sucked out of him as he crumpled to his knees. “Noo!” he shouted.

  “I am so sorry, Bill,” Don said.

  “I just bet you are!” Bill shouted, noting the policeman holding the hand of his wife. The policemen quickly got up trying his best to defuse the situation.