FLINDER'S FIELD (a murder mystery and psychological thriller)

by D. M. Mitchell

  FLINDER’S FIELD

  ____________________

  A novel by D. M. Mitchell

  FLINDER’S FIELD

  Copyright © D. M. Mitchell 2013

  The right of Daniel M. Mitchell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, organisations, businesses, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Agamemnon Independent Publishing

  By D. M. Mitchell

  Max

  Silent

  Mouse

  Blackdown

  The Soul Fixer

  Flinder’s Field

  The Domino Boys

  The King of Terrors

  The House of the Wicked

  The Woman from the Blue Lias

  Pressure Cooker

  The First D. M. Mitchell Thriller Omnibus

  The Second D. M. Mitchell Thriller Omnibus

  The D.M. Mitchell Supernatural Double Bill

  Please check the D.M. Mitchell Author Page at Amazon for details of all his latest releases

  CHAPTERS

  1: Flinder’s Field

  2: Forty-Four Years Later

  3: A Dismal Old Place

  4: An Indescribable Urge

  5: Poor Sylvia Tredwin

  6: The Measure of Success

  7: A Small Place

  8: An Old Friend

  9: An Angry Voice

  10: The Ballad of Sylvia Tredwin

  11: Hands from the Sky

  12: No Secrets

  13: A Dog with a Scent

  14: Bad Dreams

  15: Bad Egg

  16: Connections

  17: Swallowing Pride

  18: The Disappearance

  19: Stone-Cold Dead

  20: Pacific-Wide, Pacific-Deep

  21: Crosses

  22: Two of a Kind

  23: Imagined

  24: The Stinging of the Wind

  25: A Bright Blaze of Colour

  26: Disappear Forever

  27: A Mumbled Jumble of Voices

  28: Mad, Bad and Dangerous

  1

  1974

  Flinder’s Field

  He was going mad with worry. Going mad without her. He simply couldn’t take the anguish anymore.

  Bruce Tredwin grabbed his scruffy old waxed jacket from the hook by the door. It was still dripping wet from his morning excursion in the fields. He never even noticed the damp feeling on his arms as he threaded them automatically through the muddied sleeves.

  ‘Bruce, please…’ said his mother, her face anxious and pale.

  ‘I’ve got to find her,’ he said determinedly, his own face drawn, almost skeletal, like the life had been sucked out of it. His once attractive features had now assumed the grey bloom of unremitting stress, and his skin seemed to hang loose on his high cheekbones, as if it had lost the will to cling on.

  ‘You’ve been out already for three hours this morning,’ she pleaded. ‘Leave it to the police.’

  ‘The police!’ he snorted, zipping up the coat with a vigour born of frustration. ‘Sure, like what good have they been this past fortnight? She’s missing, mum. My wife is missing and what are they doing about it? Well she ain’t run off with a travelling salesman, that’s for sure, but that’s what they’d like to believe. She’s in trouble, I can feel it.’ He stomped to the door and she followed him.

  ‘You don’t know that, Bruce,’ she said. ‘We’ve searched every inch for miles around and she’s not been found. Almost the entire village has been out.’

  ‘And even they’ve given in,’ he retorted. ‘Well I can’t, I have to find Sylvia. My life might as well be over without her.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Bruce!’ Her eyes sorrowful, hands clasped at her waist.

  ‘Well it’s the damn truth. She’s all I ever wanted, and now she’s gone and I want her back.’

  ‘Maybe she did leave you…’

  He stuck out a warning index finger that hovered a few inches from his mother’s ashen face. ‘You watch what you say, mother!’

  ‘You know what she’s like…’

  ‘She’s been different since we got married. Sylvia loves me. She’d never leave me for anyone else, she said so and I believe her. You’re no better than the rest of the fools in Petheram if you believe everything you’ve heard.’

  ‘But you’re wearing yourself to a frazzle with all this worry. I’m concerned about your health. Going out in the rain like this will only make you ill. Leave it until morning at least.’

  He lowered his head, let out a painful breath. ‘What else am I to do? She’s gone missing. She didn’t take anything, not a single piece of clothing, no suitcase, nothing. Went for a walk and never came back. I know she’s out there somewhere, and I know she needs me. I won’t rest till I’ve found out what’s become of her.’ His eyes screwed up in misery. ‘Christ, if anything has happened to her…’ And with that he slammed the door shut on his mother and stepped outside into the driving wind and rain.

  He pulled the lapels of his coat tight to his neck, but his dark hair was soaked in seconds. Their cottage was surrounded by high trees of hazel and ash, and the wind whipped their naked boughs into a frenzy, the sound not unlike the pounding of the sea raging upon some jagged, forbidding shoreline. They appeared to mirror his inner turmoil, the savage sounds giving voice to his tormented soul. His Wellington boots splashed in the mud of the lane that ran from their house to the main road, the main thoroughfare that cut like a scar through the small Somerset village of Petheram. But while others on this wintry day sought the cosiness of their inner sanctums he could not ever think of comfort, not without Sylvia, not while she might be lying wounded in a ditch somewhere, in pain, desperate for his help. Nor could he think about eating, or sleeping. He was as a man barely alive. A wandering spirit, a shadow of his former self.

  Bruce Tredwin searched the high hedgerows meticulously, though he had done so on several occasions, but he was worried he might have missed something. A tiny detail that pointed in her direction. The police made a pretence of searching for her, but leant towards believing the tales of Sylvia’s supposed latent promiscuity, her proclivity for chasing young men. Sure, she had a few boyfriends, and his friends had warned him off her, but he wasn’t going to listen to lurid tales born of jealousy, because in the end beautiful Sylvia had chosen him above all others to be her husband, to have and to hold forever. Even on his stag night he got into a fight with one of his so-called mates when the drink-fuelled banter got around to Sylvia being the village bicycle. Bruce punched the guy’s lights out and they never spoke again after that.

  Sylvia and he had been happy for two years. Blissfully so. They bought old Hoskins’ place that had stood empty for ages, and were in the throes of doing the cottage up. They’d even managed to get the living room sorted and had chosen a brand new settee two days before she went missing. Why would she leave him after buying a new settee? She loved it when she saw it in the shop in Exeter and tried it out; couldn’t wait to pay for it and get it home. On the way back she even talked about having a baby, painting up one of the rooms as a nursery. Was that the talk of someone about to leave him for another guy? Was that the Sylvia of old, the young, headstrong, passionate, footloose, flighty Sylvia?

  No, there was something dreadfully wrong here and the more he dwelt on
it the more his gut screwed itself up into a taut, painful ball.

  He measured time only by the dimming of the light as dusk began to creep over the storm-racked land. He must have been out about two hours, he estimated dismally. Damn the light fading like this. He should have brought a torch.

  He was up on the expanse of ground known as Flinder’s Field, a large open field system on the high, wooded hills overlooking Petheram. The field was dominated on all sides by palisades of dense woodland, towering firs that appeared to scratch the sky with their spiky boughs. The place was sinking into shadow as the bruised clouds overhead continued to mass into a single, dark, boiling ceiling that appeared to press down on him, to crush his hopes out of existence.

  ‘They’ve always suffered emotionally,’ said Bruce’s mother of Sylvia’s family, when the young couple were first going out with each other. ‘Look at Sylvia’s mother – locked away in an asylum or something. That has to mean something.’ Bruce told her straight that Sylvia’s mother wasn’t in an asylum. Unwell, yes, but not a nutter. He took the comment as being born of the archetypal reaction of a clinging mother afraid of losing her son to an attractive younger woman. But he had heard the tales. He’d have had to be deaf otherwise. Small communities like Petheram’s always had their fair share of spiteful tall tales and malicious myths that circulate like bad smells in the small village confines, finding no way out and getting worse.

  ‘Did you know Sylvia’s father once had to go into hospital, too?’ she continued. ‘Problems up here,’ she said, tapping her temple. ‘They say it runs deep in the family. Think on what that would mean if you were ever to have children…’

  ‘Her father had a nervous breakdown down due to stress at work, and the fact he was a Japanese prisoner of war doesn’t help. A few months off work to recover. Nothing sinister. Give the man a break!’ he fired bluntly. ‘It can happen to anyone!’

  Except he had to admit that Sylvia could be a highly-strung wreck sometimes, a little irrational. Even a bit vacant and otherworldly at times. But she was young, they both were. She was twenty when they started going out. He was twenty-two. The young can be forgiven for being vacant, irrational and highly strung. Look at him now; strong, dependable, no-nonsense Bruce Tredwin as everyone thought – how highly strung can you get? And irrational… He was searching a spot he’d searched only the day before. How irrational is that?

  But something kept drawing him back to Flinder’s Field…

  He looked at the blackening sky and spat out a glob of rainwater that had seeped from his wringing hair into his mouth. Perhaps, in his mind, even spitting at God for visiting this unwarranted distress on him.

  ‘Sylvia!’ he screamed, the word stretched out long and aching so that it sounded more like the pitiful howl of a tormented dog.

  Then he saw her.

  A ghostly figure, like a smudged splash of muted grey paint against the canvas of growing stygian gloom. Silent and ethereal. Staggering over the muddy field, the thrashing trees as her shivering backdrop.

  ‘Sylvia?’ he said, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. He moved swiftly over the boggy ground towards her. ‘Sylvia!’ he yelled as the thought struck home that it wasn’t some kind of stress-induced mirage.

  It was only then that he saw she was totally naked.

  She looked up in his direction but appeared not to see him. Her eyes vacant. Traumatised. Her pale, almost bloodless cold body was covered in splashes of mud, her lower legs and feet torn and bleeding with bramble cuts. Her long black hair was plastered down with the wet onto her forehead, and sat on her bare shoulders like glossy coiled serpents.

  Bruce Tredwin grabbed his wife in a tight hug. ‘Sylvia! Sylvia!’ he sobbed, kissing her forehead and wiping away the hair from her bloodshot eyes. ‘My God, what has happened to you?’ he said, slipping off his sodden coat and wrapping it around her shivering shoulders. ‘Where have you been?’

  At last her eyes registered recognition, but it was as if she regarded him through a gauzy curtain. ‘Bruce?’ she gasped. ‘Is it you, Bruce?’

  ‘It’s me, it’s me!’ he said, crushing his cheek against her cold, wet forehead, afraid she might disappear again. ‘Where have you been? Where are your clothes?’ He saw bruises on her slender wrists. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘They came and took me,’ she said drowsily.

  ‘Who took you?’

  ‘They came down and took me.’

  ‘Down?’ he said, frowning. ‘Down from where?’

  She looked up meaningfully to the storm-tossed clouds, rain dripping off her upturned chin and dribbling in rivulets down the wet channel formed by her naked breasts. He followed her rapt gaze heavenwards.

  ‘They came down from the sky and took me.’

  Then she screamed hysterically, fighting off the coat as if it were a clammy beast clinging to her shoulders. He tried to control her, but she broke free and ran across the field, yelling at the top of her voice, but it was swallowed by the melancholy sound of the thrashing trees. He gave chase, desperately calling after her.

  And high above, the ominous dark clouds churned.

  2

  Forty-Four Years Later

  ‘Tell me about Sylvia Tredwin, George.’

  His attention wasn’t on the smart young man sitting before him and asking questions, his hair cut with expensive precision, the faint smell of musky aftershave sending out its tendrils of fragrance to irritate his nose, a fancy gold watch sitting just proud of an immaculate white shirt cuff. No, George Lee had been more interested in the results of the room’s redecoration.

  ‘There used to be an awful picture hanging over that cabinet,’ he said absently, his thoughts given voice. ‘Pink flowers in a vase. The type of painting that makes you feel nauseous just by looking at it. You know the kind; they usually put them up in old folks’ homes in an effort to sweeten things up. Like lacing foul-tasting medicine with sugar.’

  His quick, darting eyes swung to examine the young man. How old was he? Still in his twenties? Early thirties? Whatever the case, he looked like a babe in arms. Soft skin, large eyes that had been trained to be endearing, empathetic or indecipherable, depending upon the mood of the meeting.

  ‘Did you hear me, George?’ the man said evenly, unhurriedly, but with purpose. ‘Do you mind me calling you George?’

  ‘Of course I heard you. I’m not deaf.’ He sniffed. ‘Sure, you can call me George. Mind if I call you David?’

  The man’s posture stiffened, but you had to be looking very carefully to notice it, George thought.

  ‘You know my name already?’

  ‘David Massey, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. You can call me by my first name, if that makes you feel more comfortable.’

  ‘Or is it Dave, or Davey?’

  ‘David will do fine. You didn’t appear to hear me. Your attention appeared to be elsewhere.’

  ‘They’ve done the old place up,’ George Lee said. ‘Since the last time I was in here.’ He looked over the man’s shoulders to the large window behind him. An expanse of green lawn stretched away to a high brick wall lined with mature trees. He was reminded of thick-set security guards manning a perimeter fence. ‘I heard you clear. You want to know about Sylvia Tredwin.’

  ‘That’s right. Tell me about her.’

  George Lee shuffled uncomfortably in his padded leather chair. ‘This chair new, too?’

  ‘Are you avoiding the question, George?’

  ‘I know what you want,’ George said.

  ‘Is that so? What do I want, George?’

  God, he hated this kind of conversation. He’d heard them so many times before over the years. Their words like vile worms insinuating themselves inside your skull, probing about, looking to feed off the contents.

  George said, ‘What happened to old man Ferguson?’

  ‘He retired.’

  ‘He didn’t look old enough. What was he – fifty, fifty-five? Lucky bastard to have such a go
od pension these days. Most people have to work until they’re touching seventy.’

  ‘Is that you being evasive again?’ he asked with an oh-so-faint smile. ‘Let me ask you a question: do you know where you are, George?’

  ‘Christ, of course I know where I am – David.’ He shrugged back his shoulders. ‘Don’t treat me like I’m mindless shit.’

  ‘I would never do that, George. But you know why I’m here.’

  ‘Sure I know.’

  Silence, filled by the chirruping of sparrows outside.

  ‘You’ve been here a long time, George. Do you know how long?’

  ‘Another test? Four years. That’s how long.’

  ‘Five,’ David returned, scratching his lower chin. George wondered if the action held deeper meaning.

  ‘Five, huh? Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?’

  ‘The sooner you tell me what happened to Sylvia Tredwin, George, the sooner we can both get out of here.’

  George sighed, rather theatrically. ‘You gonna write this down?’

  ‘There’s no need, George. I’m going to record our conversation, if that’s OK with you?’

  George smirked at the irony of what the smug man had said. ‘Go ahead, record away.’ He sat back in his chair, his eyes again wandering to look at the lawn. ‘Where’d you want me to start?’

  ‘How about when you first went back home to Petheram, to attend your father’s funeral?’

  The branches in the trees by the wall were shifting in the breeze. George couldn’t hear the wind rustling the leaves, but he thought he could. As he could almost smell the tang of their summer-kissed foliage.

  The imagined smells un-tethered the memories of five years ago with disturbing ease and clarity. Did he really want to dredge them up to the surface yet again? He glanced over at the young man’s eager eyes; the man was desperately trying not to give his excitement away. But it leaked out in the spark of light that sat on his wide, wet orbs.