The Hill - Carla’s Story (Book Two): A Paranormal Murder Mystery Thriller. (Book Two)

by Andrew M Stafford

Garraway interrupted him.

  “No, no tell me what the boy said, when he chanted.”

  “Please hear my voice……..why, does that mean something to you?”

  “Maybe, maybe not, ……..carry on.”

  This meant an awful lot to Garraway, it was the four words that came to him when he had been alone on the hill way back in October 2009. The first contact Ben had made with the world of the living.

  Judd continued.

  “There is a common theme, the chanting is always about wanting to be heard, to be set free from some kind of prison, it’s all very distressing.”

  Garraway nodded.

  “It does sounds distressing.”

  Judd continued.

  “They brought him to me to see whether I could use hypnosis to stop the sleep talking and chanting. It should have been a fairly easy thing to do, I’ve done it before, not with children as young this little boy, but it was something which I should not have had a problem with.”

  Judd paused and Garraway waited silently for him to continue.

  “But this is when it began to get peculiar.”

  Garraway shuffled uncomfortably in his seat as his arthritis made him wince.

  “Are you OK Markland, do you want me to continue?”

  Garraway nodded his head.

  “As I said, this is when it gets strange. When the boy was hypnotised, it should have been a straightforward enough process for me to place a suggestion in his subconscious which should have stopped the chanting, but instead……but instead…..”

  Judd hesitated before continuing, and was interrupted by Garraway.

  “But instead you woke the sleeping ghost of Ben Walker.”

  “Look Markland, I’m serious about this, but yes, that’s pretty much what I did.”

  “I don’t disbelieve you, carry on.”

  Judd retraced his thoughts to where Garraway had interrupted him and then continued.

  “As I said, please hear me out. But yes, instead of talking to the young boy, whose name is Christopher, I was having a conversation with a person calling himself Ben.”

  “How did you know it was Ben Walker?”

  “I didn’t, not at first. The first time I spoke with Ben it was very fleeting, a very short conversation which lasted no more than a minute. At this point I wigged out a bit and ended the hypnosis.”

  Garraway could sense Judd’s nervousness. He was good at reading body language and could tell by the way he was behaving, and by the beads of perspiration forming on his brow that he was not making this up.

  “I presume you were able to hypnotise Christopher again?”

  “Yes, a week or so later, and this time I recorded it. I was worried about what might happen, so I videoed the whole thing.”

  Garraway’s expression changed when he heard that it had it had been recorded.

  “The second time, I was able to quickly hypnotise Christopher and speak with Ben. This was when he told me his full name, and this was the time he told me that he’d been murdered.”

  “Did you believe he’d been murdered?” asked Garraway.

  “To be honest I didn’t know what to believe, I wasn’t sure, you see I needed more proof. It wasn’t until the third time I hypnotised Christopher and spoke with Ben that things really began to heat up.”

  Garraway was doing his best to remain calm, but could feel twinges of anxiety returning as the conversation continued.

  “Was the third time you hypnotised the boy the last time you spoke with Ben?”

  “Yes, and it was on Saturday. This time he told me he was murdered in Badock’s wood and that he’s been killed with a rock.”

  “But, with no disrespect Mr. Judd, all of this information about how and where Ben Walker was murdered is common knowledge. It was all over the papers and on the television. How do I know any of this is true?”

  Judd pulled a USB memory stick from his pocket and on it was the video clip that Campbell had sent him the evening before from his TM.IT email address. Judd had added the first video clip, the one which had captured the second time Judd had spoken with Ben.

  He waived the USB in Garraway’s face.

  “See for yourself, it’s all on here.”

  He passed the memory stick to Garraway who held it in his twisted hand.

  “Play it, play it now,” said Judd pointing to Garraway’s laptop, which was in a case beside him on the floor.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather watch it when I’m alone.”

  “Please Markland, I need you to see it, and I want to be with you when you do.”

  Garraway looked at the memory stick as he held it between his fingers and, as he did, a familiar wave of nausea washed over him.

  Chapter one hundred and nine

  TM.IT

  12.27pm

  Terry Mason had been watching Campbell Broderick and Naomi King in the car park for over twenty minutes. From the window of his third floor office he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he knew that they were talking about him and his daughter Liz.

  The once rational and composed man was becoming paranoid and suspicious. Carl Cooper, TM.IT’s sales director, and Mason’s right hand man, had noticed a dramatic change in him over the last week and was concerned about his wellbeing. Carl had seen Terry make some unusual business decisions recently and was keeping a close eye on him.

  Terry’s phone rang, which snapped him out of his dreamlike state. It was Anne, his wife.

  “Terry, you need to come home, Liz isn’t well. Chloe has called the doctor and he’s on his way.”

  “What’s the matter, what’s wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s her breathing, it’s all wrong.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Mason put the phone in his pocket, grabbed his keys and quickly left his office. He hurried past Sally, his secretary, without saying a word and slammed the office door behind him.

  Within fifteen minutes he was at his daughter’s bedside. The doctor was examining her.

  “We need to get her to hospital, it looks like Liz has developed pneumonia.”

  Chapter one hundred and ten

  Kenneth Steele House

  Meeting room seven

  12.52pm

  Wednesday 30th May

  Garraway finished watching both video clips and had heard the voice pertaining to be Ben Walker saying he’d been killed by a rock in Badock’s Wood.

  He took a moment to think about what he’d just seen and what Tom Judd had been telling him.

  “I understand what you’re proposing,” said Garraway.

  Judd looked at him with an inquisitive glance.

  “You’re hoping to hypnotise Christopher and get Ben to name his killer.”

  “I know it’s something that wouldn’t stand up in court on its own, it could never be used as evidence.”

  “You’re right, but perhaps Ben could tell us something that we don’t already know, something which could give us a helping hand.”

  Judd nodded enthusiastically.

  “The problem is, and we’ve already discussed this, but it isn’t my case anymore, it belongs to Collin Matthews and he won’t touch any of this with a barge pole, it’s just not his thing.”

  “Ben Walker is bound to have more to tell, I think I should hypnotise Christopher again and I think you should be there.”

  All of this was making Garraway feel very uneasy. The ghosts of the past couple of years were beginning to reappear.

  “You may or may not know, but Ben Walker’s murder case made me very ill, it virtually ruined my life. Even now I sometimes lie in bed and think about the case, and I don’t sleep because of it. I won’t bore you with what happened, but the whole thing had a profound effect upon me.”

  “I’d heard something about that,” said Judd.

  “I expect you did. I have somewhat of a reputation around here of being a bit, well let’s just say, a bit different.”

  Judd nodded.

/>   “However, as much as I agree that useful information could be garnered by speaking with Ben through Christopher, I need to think about whether I should be involved. It’s taken me a long time to recover and get to where I am today, and I wouldn’t want to be back to square one,…… to where I was a couple of years ago.”

  Judd looked at him and saw a tired and tense man. He looked different to the person he was talking to twenty minutes earlier. He noticed how Garraway had not baulked when he had told him about the hypnosis of Christopher. It was almost as if he accepted it as something which was quite normal.

  “Can I keep this?” asked Garraway as he motioned towards the memory stick.

  Judd nodded.

  Garraway took the little grey USB stick and slipped it in his pocket.

  “Give me some time to think and I’ll get back to you.”

  Chapter one hundred and eleven

  Southmead Hospital

  8.48pm

  Wednesday 30th May

  Liz Mason lay in a hospital bed, only a few wards away from where she had been when admitted to intensive care back in September 2009.

  Her parents were by her bed. Terry hated hospitals and was longing for his daughter to come home. She’d not even been in hospital for twelve hours.

  Her symptoms were too severe for her to be treated at home and the added complications due to her being in a coma had meant that hospital was the best place for her. Antibiotics and fluids were given to her intravenously and she had an oxygen mask covering her face to help with her breathing.

  Anne held Liz’s hand and was fighting back tears. She had not spoken to her daughter for over two and half years and to all intents and purposes Liz may as well be dead, other than for the desperate hope that sometime soon she would awake from her coma and talk to her parents again.

  That day would happen, and was about to happen very soon.

  Chapter one hundred and twelve

  Markland Garraway’s home

  9.15pm

  Wednesday 30th May

  Markland Garraway was tired. Just leaving his house, going to the office and coming home had exhausted him. But the meeting he had with Tom Judd had taken the wind out of his sails. The thought that Ben Walker was still in his life scared him, but he also had a need to be involved. He had a gut feeling that if the killer was caught and brought to justice then he would find some kind of peace in his life.

  Supporting himself with his crutches, he slowly made his way to the bottom of the stairs. He rested the crutches against the wall and climbed aboard the stair lift. He strapped himself in, held his laptop close to his chest and pressed the switch and ascended the stairs. It took another five minutes to get off the stair lift and walk to his bedroom using another pair of crutches he kept on the landing. He collapsed on his bed and sighed.

  Rolling over onto his left hand side he switched on his laptop and loaded the two videos that Judd had given to him earlier. He watched them several times and was convinced they were genuine. Unless the video clips had been tampered with, how else could the young boy’s voice have sounded so mature? Garraway was astounded by the way the boy spoke, the tone of his voice and the way he confidently interacted with Tom Judd.

  And what about those four words that Judd said Christopher had spoken. The first four words he’d chanted during his sleep. The same four words that Garraway had heard the time he was alone on the hill.

  PLEASE – HEAR – MY – VOICE.

  After playing both clips another five or six times he lay on the bed and looked through the open window. He watched as a gentle wind blew the nets and the soft breeze wafted over his face. The cooling effect of the lightly moving air was relaxing and soon it had coaxed him into a deep sleep.

  While deep in slumber, in the depths of sleep where most people are beyond dreaming, the hill was reaching out to him and it was planting a seed which would flourish into a vision. A vision which would influence his decision to help Ben Walker.

  As he lay on his bed and slept, he dreamt of a girl. It was the same girl he had dreamt of once before on the anniversary of Ben Walker’s brutal murder. The last time she’d appeared in his dream he knew she had been in the woods when Ben had been murdered. He’d never seen or met her before, but he knew she was the link. She was the missing link in the chain to put an end to all of this turmoil and sadness.

  The hill had sent him an ember of a thought that burned and glowed brightly into a clear and distinct image. The image hung lifelessly, as if it were in suspended animation.

  The image was of Carla’s face. It was motionless yet full of life, like a photograph imprinted in his subconscious.

  While in a state of deep, deep sleep he climbed out of his bed and stood tall. None of the symptoms of his crippling illness were affecting him as he confidently walked out of his bedroom and down stairs towards the lounge. His eyes were tightly shut during his somnambulistic journey, and the vision of Carla was clear in his mind’s eye.

  He opened the door to his lounge and walked to the book shelf and laid his hand on a paperback copy of ‘Notes from Under the Floorboards’ by Dostoevsky, the same book he’d fallen asleep with in his hand the first time he’d dreamt of Carla. The same book he’d used to write down the description of the girl in his dream and the attack in the woods.

  He opened a drawer and picked up a pen and on the page opposite to the notes he’d made of the girl’s appearance, he sketched a detailed and perfect image of her. Garraway wasn’t an artist, he could just about draw a stick man, but in his sleep the hill had guided him to produce a perfect likeness of the girl. He finished the sketch and placed the book face down and open on the table with the picture of Carla Price ready for him to find in the morning. He put the pen back in the draw and climbed the stairs back to his bedroom. The image of Carla faded from a dream he would never remember and for the rest of the night he enjoyed the longest uninterrupted and dreamless sleep he’d had in a long time.

  ------------------------------------------

  Garraway was woken by the eight o’clock alarm. It took him a few minutes to come around as his eyes became accustomed to the sunlight pouring in through the open window. His laptop was next to him and he was disgusted to find he’d slept through the whole night wearing the clothes he had been wearing the day before. Even his tie was loosely and sloppily hanging around his neck.

  He didn’t have to be in work until ten, but he needed two full hours to get himself washed, dressed, fed and watered. Working the part-time reduced hours that had been written into his contract since he’d returned to work afforded him the luxury of time he required to be in work by ten ‘o’ clock.

  For the first time in a long time he felt refreshed after his long and uninterrupted sleep. His body still hurt, but his mind was clearer than it had been in months. He swivelled his body around and hung his legs over the edge of his bed and with one great heave he pulled himself up. Reaching for the crutches he kept by the side of his bed he slowly made his way to the stair lift. He glanced at the bathroom and considered having a wash before breakfast, but decided against it. This morning he was starving and had made up his mind to eat first and spruce himself up later.

  He strapped himself into the stair lift, pressed the button and the lift quietly creaked and whirred as it slowly descended.

  He stepped down from the stair lift and, supporting himself on the banister, he reached for the crutches and made his way to the kitchen. After making coffee he walked to the lounge, trying his best not to spill the hot drink.

  He saw a book on the table and eyed it suspiciously. He couldn’t remember seeing it there the night before. It was a book he’d finished reading over a year ago. It had been a struggle for him to read, but he’d been determined to see it through to the end, after it had been recommended to him by a friend.

  But how did it get there? Nothing else in the house appeared to have been disturbed, the doors were all locked and he hadn’t heard any noises during the night.

/>   He moved towards the table and set the coffee down on a coaster. The book had been placed in the middle of the table and he struggled to reach it as the pain in his arm was close to being unbearable.

  He used one of his crutches to reach the book and slide it nearer to him over the surface of the wooden table. His clumsy and crippled hand awkwardly pulled the book too far and it fell to the floor by his feet.

  He sat on a chair and leaned forward. He could just about reach it. He picked it up and placed it in front of him on the table.

  Thumbing through the book he wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but was hoping to find a reason why the thing had appeared on the table. He thumbed to last page of the story and was about to put it down when he remembered the notes he had made at the back of the book describing the attack in the woods and the girl he’d dreamt about on the first anniversary of Ben Walker’s death.

  He turned the page to his notes and on the opposite side he saw a drawing. It was a pen sketch of a young girl and it was a very good one. The girl looked familiar. His eyes danced between the sketch and the description of the girl in his dream until he realised that they were one and the same.

  He laid the book on the table and looked at the girl.

  What on earth, who could have done this? He thought.

  The girl’s youthful appearance was tarnished by a look of sadness. She had an expression which made him think she had a secret to tell.

  He sat back in his chair and tried to think if he’d let anyone borrow the book. He was certain he hadn’t and was sure the thing had never left his house.

  He didn’t get very many visitors these days, and certainly none that he knew were talented enough to draw as well as this.

  He looked at the girl and reread his description and, as he did, he was overcome by the familiar feeling of nausea that he’d come to expect when dealing with the events which had happened on the hill. The bitter taste of bile rose in his throat. He reached for his coffee and slurped a mouthful and burnt his tongue. The feeling of sickness soon went, but was replaced by the pain left behind by the scolding hot coffee.