by Emmy Ellis
And remembered the voice as he’d fallen asleep last night.
“Oh God…” Had he really heard that man? Were those the last words he’d ever spoken or thought?
He opened his eyes and focused on Dane who was giving their names and address, pacing up and down. What he said meshed with Adam’s thoughts, creating a jumble of sound, overly loud clutter rattling inside his head that he didn’t think he could stand for much longer. Fear rose in him. Terror had visited them again, followed them from the city to Lower Repton as though Adam didn’t deserve a bit of fucking peace, like he hadn’t suffered enough.
Angry—more at himself for his failure to help the man last night than anything—he got up and faced the barn, resting his forearms on the wall. The knobbly surface dug into his skin through his jacket, and he welcomed the distraction. He stared at the ground, kicking at ratty grass, his boot toes striking the brick from time to time.
Dane was still talking, yes-and-no answers, and Adam guessed that, like in the mini-mart, the police were keeping him on the line until they arrived.
Adam pushed off the barn, sucking in air, eager to spot a police car flying along the bottom of the field on the country road. No white car with flashing lights came, but soon another did, unmarked, turning onto the track that led to the barn and speeding along at a clip.
“That was fucking quick,” Adam muttered, indicating to Dane that they should go around the back. Then a thought struck him. What if some men from last night were returning? What if that wasn’t the police? “Um, we need to get in the car quick. Lock ourselves in.”
Dane ended the call and handed Adam’s phone back. “No, we don’t. That car there apparently has detectives in it.”
“He’s dead…it’s…”
He couldn’t finish. He’d wanted to say it was his fault the man was dead, but that would mean bringing up the voice again, and he doubted Dane would be in the mood for that. Round the back, they waited for the car to be parked, Adam’s nerves jumping. The detectives got out and strolled over. One introduced himself as Langham, the other his associate, Oliver Banks. Langham was the bigger of the two, and Banks, a slight bloke who had an air of strangeness about him, appeared distant and somewhat agitated. He cocked his head, mumbled something Adam didn’t catch, and strode towards the lean-to. He talked to himself and narrowed his eyes as though trying to work something out.
“Don’t mind him,” Langham said. “Sounds mental, but he’s psychic. Talking to dead people makes him come off as weird, but I promise, he’s harmless. Now then.” He looked at Dane. “Did you call this in?”
“Yes.” Dane nodded.
Adam widened his eyes, Langham’s and Dane’s conversation fading. That Oliver bloke heard voices? Jesus. Was it worth mentioning to him that he’d heard a voice, too? He slowly walked over to him. Oliver mumbled and held his hand up. Adam stopped.
“Right,” Oliver said. “So these men here have nothing to do with it. Okay. Can you repeat that last bit?” He stared at the sky, frowning. “You asked for help, but they didn’t step in, is that it?” He pursed his lips. “I understand. Yes.”
Adam fought the instinct to blurt that yes, the bloke had asked for help, but he hadn’t asked out loud. If he had, though, would Adam have entered the barn and tried to intervene? With all those men there to overpower him? He wasn’t sure and felt sick about it, sick over knowing he probably would have just called the police instead and waited in the car until they arrived.
I should have called them anyway. Reported those arseholes for doing what they did.
Hindsight equalled arsehole.
Oliver lowered his hand. “Hello? Are you still there?” He shook his head, peered into the distance behind Adam, then moved to stand in front of him. “Before you say anything, I know.”
Adam’s heart picked up speed again, the pulse in his throat throbbing fast and furious. “You know what?”
“That you were here last night. That he spoke to you.”
“But he didn’t—”
“I know how he spoke to you, and I know how it feels to tell someone you hear voices and they don’t believe you. Me? I hear shit when they’re dead. Had the ability as far back as I can remember. Langham there”—he nodded towards the detective and Dane—“won’t think you’re a nutter or anything like that. Just tell him how it happened, all right? Come on. Over here with me.” Oliver tilted his head in Langham’s direction. “Tell him what you know.”
Adam trailed him back to the detective and Dane. He listened as Dane finished giving his version of events, then told his side of the story. Langham didn’t raise an eyebrow, and Adam wondered if it was because he’d given his first reaction to Dane already. Still, something about the man made Adam think he’d heard far worse in his lifetime, and that them watching naked men in a barn was a mild telling compared to others.
“Right,” Langham said. “I need to wait here for another detective to arrive, along with the other police officers, and then we can go to your house and discuss this in greater detail. I suggest, if you’re asked by officers what happened, you leave out the bit about hearing that voice. We can’t explain it, they’ll just think you’re on your way to the funny farm, and that solves nothing. So, what’s your address?”
Dane rattled it off, and Oliver sucked in a sharp breath. Langham looked at him, and something passed between them, an unspoken set of sentences only they heard.
“Well, instead, perhaps we’ll find a quiet corner in Pickett’s Inn, eh?” Langham said. “I doubt they have much trade going on in there. We shouldn’t be disturbed.”
“We know about the murder in our cottage,” Adam said.
Langham rolled his shoulders. “Do you two mind going inside the barn with us now so you can show us where the body is, or would you rather not?”
“I’d rather not go in there again,” Adam said. “Sorry.”
“Okay. Go and sit in your car then. Dane?”
“I’ll do it.” Dane nodded, staring at the ground.
“Good man,” Langham said, handing Dane a pair of white booties.
What was the point in Dane wearing them if he’d already been in there?
All three of them now had their feet covered, and Langham led the way towards the front of the barn, Oliver behind them.
Adam stood alone for a while after they’d disappeared around the corner, shivering at the turn his life had taken.
Chapter Eight
Pickett’s Inn was a quiet little place, its outside appearance shouting a big fat lie about how the interior would be. To all intents and purposes, people would be forgiven for thinking the building was on the verge of collapse, with its leaning outer walls and insanely dipping roof. The front door was in need of a fresh coat of wood stain, the old stuff peeling in places, showing a silver-grey beneath. Inside was a different matter. The owners, an elderly couple cheerily introducing themselves as Marge and Brian Dawson, had kept the look of days gone by, opting for barstools studded with fat-topped nails around the seat edges and dainty Elizabethan chairs. They had, they’d said, given in and placed two button-backed burgundy leather sofas against the longest wall, and Adam admired how comfortable they appeared. He didn’t hide his relief when Langham made a beeline for them, placing their tray of drinks on the table in front.
Adam and Langham flopped onto the sofa, but Oliver and Dane chose to sit opposite on the chairs. They went through their statements again, Langham writing them out on official police forms this time, checking his notes along the way.
“So, Dane, Adam asked you if you’d heard the voice, yes?” Langham took a sip of his Coke.
“Yes, but I didn’t. I thought he was pulling my leg. You know, fucking about because it was dark and he wanted to scare me.”
“I won’t be writing that bit down about the voice, by the way,” Langham said, giving Adam his attention, “but it’s interesting. I don’t understand how it works for Oliver, how it’s even possible to hear the voices of dead people
, but he does. It’s been proven time and again with the information he receives and the results it produces. But your case, hearing someone who’s alive? Christ…”
“It’s called telepathy,” Oliver supplied. “And in Adam’s situation, I think there’s a touch of empathy, as well as a sense of knowing something was wrong at their return to the barn today, even when the victim was dead. In some cases, empaths—also known as telempaths—can affect the minds of others. Some people are born with their abilities, like me, but others get it later on in life, after a trauma, either to their head or a life-changing, frightening experience. Maybe even a happy experience. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, just the basics, but it’s interesting stuff. You had anything like that happen, Adam?”
Adam glanced at Dane. “Yes, two things. Trauma to the head and a traumatic experience or two.”
“Oh?” Oliver took a deep pull on his drink then put the glass back on a beer mat. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”
“No, I don’t mind.” But he did. Reciting that attack always left him cold. Still, he gave them the brief details and suppressed a shudder, then added the short tale about the mini-mart.
“Fascinating,” Langham said, “although I can understand you might not see it that way. Going through what you did was terrible. But, hey, there’s a bright side. Hearing that man’s voice might just have been a one-off if you’re lucky.”
Adam laughed, even though he didn’t find it funny. It just seemed the right response, something you automatically did in situations like this. Laugh it off, everything’s a joke, except it wasn’t, was it? He was the one dealing with the fallout from that crap—him and Dane. He hadn’t considered being able to hear other people in the future, either, and the thought shit the life out of him.
“There’s a way to control it, you know,” Oliver said. “Exercises you can do to learn to channel them out. At least that’s the case with the dead. Just be thankful you only heard one voice, that you haven’t got several at once, all clamouring for your attention. Drives you bloody mad. Sometimes you want nothing more than to just hear your own thoughts.” He smiled. “Sorry, that’s not the kind of thing you want to be hearing, is it.”
Adam smiled, too, suddenly wanting out of there, back to their new life before all this crap had landed on their doorstep. Or at least for Oliver and Langham to leave them in peace. There was only so much Adam could handle, and he was on the verge of breaking down. It had all been too much. To think he’d thought they were safe. Jesus.
“Right.” Langham held the clipboard to his chest. “You’re free to go home, but be aware that either us or other police officers will want to speak to you again. Remember, keep the voice out of it. I shouldn’t be telling you that, but I know from Oliver here it really isn’t worth the hassle you’ll get. Besides, it isn’t relevant.” He cleared his throat. “What I must tell you, though, and I’d like you to keep this to yourselves, is we have a strong suspicion this case is linked to another. You heard about the bloke found at the warehouse a couple of months ago?”
Adam nodded. Dane winced.
“Well, it was a similar thing. Similar way of stringing the victim up, the bald men and what have you. Usually, we wouldn’t give you information like this, but these two cases may also—and I stress may—be linked to the Sugar Strands case.”
Adam gulped in a deep breath. Fuck. That had been huge, was still talked about, what with it happening so recently and involving Lower Repton. Drugs making people kill, kids going around murdering people. It was all mental. He didn’t understand how anyone could go about killing on purpose. Wanting to.
“Are we in danger?” he asked, stomach coiling into a hard knot—a knot he’d had inside him for such a long time. Yet he’d had a small respite from it, and now that it was back it seemed to hurt more than it had before. All his old fears came rushing back, of being involved in something he didn’t want to be in, worrying and looking over his shoulder all the time. Wondering if a knock on the door, even in daylight, would be someone coming to finish him off. If they didn’t, the bloody worry would. He wouldn’t be surprised if his blood pressure was fucked up.
Langham shook his head. “Your names won’t be mentioned in the press, although, with us being here with you today and the discovery only a couple of miles away, I imagine the folks around here will put two and two together. I’ll arrange for a police officer to stay outside your cottage until this is over or we find today’s discovery isn’t linked to Sugar Strands. Because of the way things worked with that case, we know that even though the main players were caught, some drugs may still be out there. Maybe some whacko found a stash of them, realised what they were, and decided to do a bit of experimenting. Or maybe it’s nothing like that at all and the latest two cases are linked to each other but not to Sugar Strands. While there’s a chance of a disturbed individual out there—or many disturbed individuals—it’s best to err on the side of caution.”
Langham shrugged. “Better to be safe than sorry, eh? There were no witnesses to the warehouse killing, so the perpetrators perhaps think they’ve got away with it. But you are our only hope of identifying the men responsible this time.” He shook his head again and lowered his clipboard to look at the statements. “About twenty of them, you said. Jesus.” He smiled brightly. “Anyway, this is as far as we can go with you for now. Oliver and I have things to do, obviously, and I’m sure”—he eyed the old-fashioned wooden cuckoo clock behind the bar—“you two are hungry and wouldn’t mind getting a good night’s sleep.”
Adam checked the time himself, surprised it was just past five o’clock and it was dark outside the netted windows. Those nets reminded him of his childhood home, when he’d stood at the window and peered through them, the smell of them dusty, that dust going up his nose and bringing on a sneeze. His stomach growled. They hadn’t eaten for a few hours, and despite the afternoon’s events, he could do with a bite. When they’d discovered the body, he’d thought he’d never want to eat again, but here he was, hungry.
After Langham and Oliver had given out business cards with instructions to call if they remembered anything new, they left.
Adam rose to get a menu and took it back to their table.
“I’m sorry,” Dane said.
“What for?” Adam frowned and sat on the chair Oliver had vacated.
“For not believing you. About the voice.” He shrugged.
“It’s all right. I wouldn’t have believed me either.” Adam gave what he hoped was a warm smile and held back memories of how he’d thought he was going mental last night. “It gives me the bloody creeps, the thought of it happening again.”
“I hope for your sake it doesn’t.”
As though wanting to erase the events of the day, they lapsed into silence, Adam leaning closer to Dane, opening the menu out so they could browse it together. The pictures of the food were appealing, but he’d bet the real thing didn’t look anything like it when it arrived. It never did.
A few more customers came in, and Adam glanced over his shoulder at them, wishing he was them, with nothing more pressing going on other than their recent choice of whether they should stay in or go out to the pub. But he wasn’t them, was he, and he’d just have to deal with this shit hour by hour and hope he came out on the other side with his sanity. For all he knew, they had shit of their own to deal with, and coming in here was their way of escaping their troubles for a couple of hours. You just didn’t know what trials and tribulations people carried around with them.
Once Dane had made his meal choice, Adam went up to the bar to place their order and get a couple more drinks in. This time he chose pints of lager—the alcohol would help steady his nerves and relax him a little—then returned to find Dane had moved over to the sofa. He looked knackered. Adam sat beside him, putting the pints on the table. The glasses were coated with condensation except for where his fingers and thumbs had been, and dribbles of fluid streaked down to the bases, pooling on the wood
.
“Want to talk about it?” Dane asked.
Adam shook his head. His throat was strained from so much chatting.
“Me neither.” Dane sighed.
“My throat’s dry as a nun’s chuff.”
Dane chuckled, and they sipped their lagers. Adam’s mind was surprisingly blank. He was numb and seemed unable to process anything, so he watched the other customers then took in the sight of horse brasses mounted on the wall in between pictures of what he could only assume was Lower Repton years ago. The same road with the same cottages, only the painting of Pickett’s Inn showed a considerably less decrepit building with a proud roof and walls that stood ramrod straight instead of the slouching ones of today.
Their meals arrived, simple fare of steak and kidney pie and chips, and Adam ate without tasting, without thinking of anything at all except jabbing his fork into the food and bringing it to his mouth.
Once full, they stood in unison then left the inn with a nod and a wave to the owners. Outside, the air had turned crisper than it had been when they’d arrived, and Adam hunched his shoulders, raising the collar of his jacket over his ears. It didn’t do much to ward off the chill, but it wasn’t like they had far to go before they were inside and warm again. They crossed the deserted road, the darkness behind their cottage creepy-looking, a vast expanse that seemingly never ended. Why hadn’t he noticed that when they’d come to view the cottage for the first time? He thought of the barn hidden in the distance and blocked it out, determined to get home and make a cup of tea, watch a bit of TV, curtains closed, the world shut out.