Flashes: Part Three

by Tim O'Rourke

  ‘Could you take me to Oakgrove Road, please,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you directions from there.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to go right the way out there?’ the driver asked me, turning out of my street.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s just it’s fairly remote . . . and on a night like this . . .’

  ‘Just take me there, please,’ I said. I turned to look out of the window.

  ‘Okeydokey,’ the driver said.

  The silence made me feel uncomfortable, but we were soon heading out of town and working our way down the narrow roads that led in the direction of the derelict house. The snow didn’t seem to want to let up and on several occasions the driver had to slow the vehicle to a near crawl to navigate his way around the twisting bends.

  Through the window I saw wide open fields, now covered in white. I looked at the digital thermometer on the dashboard and it read minus two degrees. The taxi driver was right, I must be mad to make this journey on such a cold and bleak night. But he wasn’t any better, risking bringing his cab all the way out here. With the snow falling as fast as it was now, he might never get back to town himself.

  I peered through the darkness as we reached a junction. The driver turned right onto Oakgrove Road. I looked from left to right but with the snow coming down it was hard to see anything clearly. Then, just as he was about to drive past it, I saw the tiny road to my left.

  ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘This is the road.’

  The cabbie slowed the car and peered at the narrow lane I’d pointed to. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I’m not risking taking my car up there. Not in this weather, I’ll never get out again. I must have been mad to bring you this far.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘I can walk the rest of the way. How much do I owe you?’

  The driver checked the meter. ‘Eight-forty.’

  I dug around in my coat pocket and pulled out the twenty-pound note. ‘Take ten.’ I felt grateful to him for driving me out so far.

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart.’ He took the money and handed me my change. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s brought you out to such a god-forsaken place like this, and I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t mind waiting.’

  ‘How long have you got?’ I asked him, grateful for his offer.

  The cabbie wound down his window and looked up at the snow-laden sky. ‘About five minutes, ten at the most. After that, those roads back to town will be treacherous.’

  ‘You’d better get back,’ I said. ‘I have no idea how long I’m going to be.’

  ‘Meeting someone are you?’ he asked, winding up his window to stop the snow blowing in.

  ‘Something like that,’ I said, reaching for the door handle.

  ‘Boy trouble?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a daughter about the same age as you. I understand.’

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ I said, pushing open the door.

  ‘I wouldn’t want my Casey coming out here alone on a night like . . .’ he started.

  ‘My boyfriend is a policeman, so if I can’t get back, I can always call him,’ I said. Tom wasn’t technically my boyfriend of course, but I hoped that might change one day. ‘I’m sure he’ll be able to come out and pick me up.’

  ‘Okeydokey,’ he sighed. ‘As long as you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I told him and closed the door.

  I stood with the snow falling all around me and watched the cabbie drive away. Once the taillights of his car had disappeared around a bend in the road, I turned and faced the narrow entrance to the dirt track.

  Torch in hand, I started off up the narrow road towards the house. I shone the torch from side to side, its narrow beam reflecting off the snow that covered the ground. Plumes of breath puffed from my mouth and nose. The world seemed deathly quiet; the only sounds were my beating heart and the powdery snow crunching with every step I took.

  I’d trudged about halfway up the lane and had hoped I would have seen those lights again to show me the way. Everything looked different now it was covered in snow, and I couldn’t be sure where to leave the lane and find the path that led to the house. I shielded my eyes and looked back, wondering if I had passed it already. I didn’t know. I kept moving, the taxi driver’s words now ringing in my ears, ‘Are you sure you want to go right the way out there?’

  Now I was here, alone and in the dark, I wasn’t so sure, and I began to regret telling the cabbie not to wait for me. This had all seemed like a good idea back at home in the warmth and safety of my bedroom. I had been angry and confused. I’d wanted to prove to Dad I could use the flashes to help people and that he couldn’t hold me prisoner.

  But more than that, I wanted to prove to him that Tom wasn’t using me. In my heart, though, I knew it was me I was trying to prove it to. Those years of taunts, the teasing, the bullying on Facebook about my flashes had hurt me more than I dared to admit. I was tired of being known as some kind of daydreamer, fantasist, witch – freak! I knew the images I saw in my flashes were real, a window to events that had happened. I knew the phone call from Kerry was real. I had heard her gasping for breath.

  So if I could come away from the old house tonight with the name of the man who had killed Kerry, Alice and my friend Natalie, if I could identify the killer for the police, no one would ever be able to doubt me again. I would have proved to everyone that what I saw was real. I could help people and my flashes would be a gift and not a curse.

  With my head bent low, I pushed forward through the driving snow. I’d walked another twenty yards or so when I saw a patch in the bushes where the brambles had been snapped and broken. At once I recognised it as the place where Tom and I had gone the night before. I made my way towards it. Holding the torch in one hand, I used the other to push apart the bushes. I stepped through and in the torchlight I saw the tiny winding path leading up to the house.

  I was surprised not to see the lights Kerry had promised, but maybe they would appear once I was at the house. A thought occurred to me. Would Kerry appear too? And if she did, would she look nightmarish, as if she had just crawled out from beneath that train? Had she dragged herself back up the hill to the house, her broken and twisted body snaking behind her, leaving a crimson trail of blood and mud in the snow? I shuddered at the thought.

  In the distance, through the trees, I could see that broken chimney pot and I pushed those images of Kerry from my mind. I made my way towards the house. It stood before me, leaning to one side like it had spent too many nights standing in the cold and the wind. The snow-covered ground before it was fresh and untouched. There were no other footprints than my own.

  The wind blew hard through the nearby trees and the branches creaked like the bones of the elderly. I started to feel spooked, but it wasn’t just the sound of the wind in the trees – I felt as if someone was watching me. The lights had yet to appear, so I made my way inside.

  The smell of stale beer, pot and urine wafted into my nose again, just like it had before. In the silence, I could hear the sound of water dripping down the moss-covered walls. There was a noise, a scratching sound, in the far corner. I spun around to see a pair of orange eyes peering out of the darkness at me. I gasped and dropped my torch. It rolled away, and in the light that it cast across the house, I saw a fox go tearing past me and out into the night. Then the torch went out. I looked back to see the fox’s tail swish around the doorway and a shadow fall across the snow outside.

  The shadow was far too big to have belonged to the fox and it was moving towards the house, not away from it. Somebody was coming.

  ‘Kerry, is that you?’ I called out, frantically searching the floor for my torch.

  From outside I could hear the sound of approaching footsteps in the snow.

  ‘Hello?’ I called out again, my fingers at last brushing over my torch, which had rolled away into the corner. I snatched it up and switched it on. Nothing. The bulb had broken.

  The sound of the footsteps outside stopped. With my heart racing
in my chest, I looked up to see the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway of the shack. I stumbled backwards in fright.

  ‘Hello, Charley,’ he whispered.

  CHAPTER 32

  Tom – Wednesday: 23:22 Hrs.

  Harker was sitting in his office. I knocked once on the door and entered without giving him the chance to answer. I put the logbook on his desk. He looked at it, then up at me.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, raising one of his eyebrows. ‘Did you find the phantom scratches?’

  ‘They’re not phantom,’ I told him. ‘And no, I haven’t found them – not yet anyway.’

  ‘So what’s with the logbook?’ he asked.

  ‘Jackson did sign out a marked police car on Sunday night. He took Romeo Two-One.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘As you can see, he signed it out just two minutes after turning up for his night shift,’ I said.

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ Harker asked me, picking up the logbook and studying it.

  ‘Does a CID officer usually take a marked vehicle out on patrol?’ I asked. ‘And why the rush? He had only been in the station two minutes, not even long enough for him to book on duty with the control room.’

  ‘Maybe he had an urgent statement booked that he needed to get out and take?’ Harker said thoughtfully.

  ‘What, at that time on a Sunday night?’ I cried. ‘Not likely. Anyway, how do you account for the car smelling of women’s perfume?’

  ‘What?’ Harker said.

  ‘As you can see, the vehicle was next booked out by PC Jones at a quarter past seven on the Monday morning. No one had used it since Jackson,’ I explained. ‘I’ve just spoken to Sarah Jones and she says she remembers getting in the car the next morning and that it stank of perfume. Now why would that be, I wonder?’

  ‘Do we know what perfume the Underwood girl wore, if any?’ Harker asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But I’m about to check with . . .’

  ‘And even if she did, what does that prove?’ Harker cut in. ‘Half the women in town probably wear it.’ Harker snapped the logbook closed. ‘Where’s Jackson now?’

  ‘He’s gone out to collect some CCTV . . .’ I started.

  Then, from behind me someone said, ‘No, I’m right here.’

  Jackson stood in the doorway. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve got a bloody good mind to ask you the same question,’ Harker barked at him. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘To collect some CCTV, for the Underwood job,’ he said waving a silver disc in the air. ‘Look, what’s this all about?’

  Harker stood up and came from the other side of his desk. ‘Did you take a marked police vehicle out on patrol on Sunday night?’

  ‘No,’ Jackson said, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at me. Then, as if sensing that everything wasn’t quite right, he said, ‘I can’t remember. You know what it’s like, all the days just seem to roll into one.’

  ‘Then let me refresh your memory,’ Harker yelled, snatching up the logbook and throwing it at Jackson. ‘Don’t you lie to me. I want the truth or I’ll come down on you so hard, so help me God.’

  Jackson opened the logbook and flicked through the pages. I could see he wasn’t really reading the pages; he knew his name was going to be in the book. ‘Oh, that’s right, I remember now. I took a marked vehicle as someone hadn’t put the keys for the CID cars back on the hook.’

  ‘Why were you so keen to get out that night?’ Harker shot back, and all the while I kept watching Jackson. His face had gone white and that air of cockiness had melted away.

  ‘I had a job I had to attend to,’ Jackson said.

  ‘What job?’ Harker snapped.

  ‘Erm,’ Jackson mumbled.

  ‘I want the truth!’ Harker roared, just inches from Jackson’s face. I saw Jackson flinch away. ‘Why did that police car stink of perfume? Who did you have in that car? Was it the Underwood girl?’

  Jackson’s eyes bulged in their sockets. ‘What?’ he gasped. ‘Is this some sort of joke?’ Then, looking at me he said, ‘This is your doing, Henson. It’s you who’s put these doubts about me in the Guv’s head. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. I’ve met smarmy little pricks like you before. You’re just trying to make a name for yourself. Well don’t think you’re going to get away with it.’

  ‘Did you have a girl in that car?’ Harker roared again, and just for a moment Harker seemed so angry, I thought he was going to throttle a confession out of Jackson.

  Lois appeared in the doorway of Harker’s office. ‘What’s all the shouting about?’

  ‘It’s that shithead over there,’ Jackson yelled, hooking his thumb in my direction. ‘He’s been filling the Guv’s head with all kinds of crap.’

  Then, stepping toe to toe with Jackson, Harker breathed into his face and said, ‘You tell me exactly what went on in that car on Sunday night, or I’m straight on the phone to Complaints and Discipline. This is your last chance, Jackson.’

  Jackson took a step back from Harker, then throwing me a quick glance, he said, ‘Okay, so I did have a woman in the car on Sunday night, but it’s not what you think. It has nothing to do with the Underwood girl.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Lois asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  ‘I’ve been seeing this girl, Michelle, for the last couple of months,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing serious, just a bit of fun. Anyway, she travelled up from Penzance on Sunday and we spent the day together. I took her for a meal in town. But when I got in the car to give her a lift back to the train station, the bloody thing wouldn’t start. It was pissing down with rain as you know, and there weren’t any cabs about. I couldn’t let the poor cow walk back to the railway station could I? I was trying to make a good impression. So I told her to wait in a shop doorway, while I ran up the road to the nick. I was in a rush, so I just snatched the first set of keys I came across, signed the book and went back to fetch her. She got in the car and I drove her to the station.’

  ‘What’s this woman’s full name and address?’ Harker asked.

  ‘Oh, come on boss,’ Jackson groaned. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘Name and address.’

  ‘She’s married, Guv,’ Jackson said. ‘It could cause her all sorts of problems. She told her old man that she was visiting her sisters that day.’

  ‘Tough,’ Harker snapped.

  ‘I can make some discreet enquiries,’ Lois said.

  ‘And what about the perfume?’ Harker asked him.

  ‘On the way back to the station, she takes a bottle of the stuff from her bag,’ Jackson said. ‘I told her not to use it in the car, but she was worried. You know, we had been together all afternoon and I guess she just wanted to hide the smell of me and . . .’

  ‘You’re so gross,’ Lois sighed.

  ‘Anyway, I dropped her off at the railway station and I was on my way back to the nick when the call came in for the Underwood girl. I went straight there. That’s why I was first on-scene. That’s the truth, Guv,’ Jackson said. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to get the Underwood job wrapped up that night.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, stepping from the corner of the room.

  ‘When the Guv started asking for the CCTV from the railway station, I knew I would be seen dropping Michelle off,’ he said. ‘And then I would’ve been in the shit for using a job car in job time for my own personal use. But the funny thing is that CCTV will now save my arse.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, you seemed to have it all figured out that I’m implicated in the death of Kerry Underwood,’ he smiled. ‘But I have an alibi for the time of her death and it’s all captured on CCTV.’

  ‘You’re not out of the shit yet,’ Harker said. ‘If you’ve got nothing else to say, then get out of my sight. I’m sick of looking at you.’

  Jackson shot me one last look, and then left the office. Once he’d gone, Harker turned to Lois
. ‘Speak to this Michelle – but on the QT. Then, check out the CCTV from the railway station.’

  ‘Yes, Boss,’ she said and left the office.

  Harker slumped into his chair. He looked at me. ‘I should never have listened to you in the first place.’

  ‘But . . .’ I started.

  ‘No buts, Henson,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know who or what to believe any more. Now go on, get out.’

  I shut Harker’s office door behind me, and turned to see Jackson sitting at his desk staring at me.

  ‘Happy now?’ he sneered.

  ‘Happy about what?’ I asked him, going to my desk.

  ‘That you’ve got me in the shit?’

  ‘Shut it,’ Lois snapped at him. ‘You got yourself in the shit, no one else. Why don’t you do something useful and make me a cup of coffee.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. Anything you say, Sergeant,’ Jackson said, getting up from his desk and striding towards the coffee maker.

  I looked over my shoulder at Lois. She gave me one of her smiles and winked. ‘He’ll get over it,’ she whispered, but I doubted he would.

  CHAPTER 33

  Charley – Wednesday: 23:48 Hrs.

  ‘Dad, what are you doing here?’ I gasped. ‘I could ask you the same thing, Charley,’ he said, stepping in out of the snow. ‘I locked you in your room for a reason.’

  ‘How did you know I was going to be here?’ I asked.

  ‘Your taxi driver used to be a mate of mine. Barry recognised you. He was worried so he called me up and told me where he’d dropped you off. So, what’s going on? Is this another one of Tom’s stupid ideas?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Tom,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t even know I’m here.’

  ‘What about that other copper? The one with the eyebrows?’ he asked me, sounding bitter.

  ‘No one knows I’m here, apart from you,’ I told him, as the wind began to howl outside.

  ‘So what’s going on?’ Dad asked, taking a step closer.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me, Dad, even if I told you,’ I said, half of me resenting the fact he had followed me up here, but another part pleased I wasn’t alone.