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

by Andrew M Stafford

  Whether he liked it or not, he was still embroiled in Ben’s murder and there was no escaping the fact.

  All of the strange things were happening for a reason. From the visions on the hill, to the suicide of Polly to be with her lover Sarah, to the chanting of the little boy and right up to the drawing of the girl he’d just found in the book.

  Ben’s murderer had to be found and he knew that Colin Matthews wouldn’t be revisiting the case anytime soon. It would be down to Markland Garraway to do what he did best.

  He picked up his phone and called Tom Judd.

  “Hi, Tom, it’s Markland. I’ve made up my mind…….count me in.”

  Chapter one hundred and thirteen

  The Fox and Goose

  Barrow Gurney, near Bristol

  12.15pm

  Thursday 31st May

  Don Hodges was at a window seat in the picturesque country pub waiting for Terry Mason who was at the bar ordering drinks.

  The well-built, middle aged man was a private investigator. He had worked for Mason once before back in two thousand and eight, when he had been employed to discretely investigate two of TM.IT’s employees who Carl Cooper and Mason had been certain were stealing customer account information and selling it to one of their main competitors in London. Their hunch had been right and the two employees were prosecuted and removed from their well-paid positions.

  Mason had been introduced to Hodges by a fellow member of the Bristol Masonic Society.

  Hodges watched Mason as he waited to be served and noticed how his appearance had changed since he’d last seen him. He needed a shave, his hair was a mess and his shirt was hanging out. Hodges remembered him as being an immaculately dressed man. Even when he was casually dressed he looked smart. Hodges was aware that there had been some dramatic changes in the man’s life which had affected him and assumed this was likely to be the cause of the change in his appearance.

  Mason’s hands were shaking as he put the two pints of bitter on the table and sat across from Hodges.

  They exchanged small talk for several minutes, but it became apparent to Hodges that he had no interest in talking and wanted to get down to business.

  Mason pulled two folders from his brown briefcase and slid them across the table to Hodges.

  Hodges opened the first folder which had several pages of notes, a printout from TM.IT’s personnel files and a black and white photograph of an attractive girl in her late twenties. He turned the folder over and looked at the name written on the front in bold black marker pen: ‘Naomi King’.

  He put the folder down and picked up the other one. He looked at the name on the folder, which was also written with a black marker pen and in the same handwriting as the other one: ‘Campbell Broderick’.

  “What is it you would like me to find out?” asked Hodges.

  Mason shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Whatever you can.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Mason looked awkward and perturbed.

  “Terry, why is it you need me to investigate these two, what have they done?”

  “It’s my daughter,” replied Mason.

  “What about your daughter?”

  “They’re both a threat to her and I need to stop them from whatever they’re planning on doing?”

  “What kind of threat? You need to tell me more if you want me to help.”

  Mason wasn’t making any sense and Hodges was becoming impatient. Although he knew Terry Mason could afford him, he needed more information and if Terry Mason wasn’t going to tell him what all this was about in the next few minutes Hodges would walk.

  “My daughter was attacked and left for dead a few years ago, and she’s been in a coma ever since.”

  Hodges looked up from his drink and saw a tear in Mason’s eye.

  “Do you think that these two were involved in the attack?”

  “I don’t know, I mean, I don’t think so. The police haven’t arrested anyone, they’ve given up. Her boyfriend was murdered in the attack.”

  “But do you think that these two were involved?”

  “No, I don’t think I do, but there is a connection between them and my daughter, especially between Broderick and my daughter.”

  “Sorry Terry, I know this must be difficult for you, but I really don’t understand what I am supposed to do for you.”

  “Don, do you ever get a gut feeling about something, do you ever work on a hunch, you know, like instinct?”

  “Of course I do, it’s a sixth sense we private investigators have, well, at least the good ones.”

  “Good, well then you’ll understand when I tell you what I have is a hunch…..a gut feeling…….instinct, it’s all of those things. I just know that something bad is going to happen to my daughter and that man and that woman have something to do with it.”

  Mason was trembling and Hodges knew he was sincere.

  “I do understand, but isn’t there anything else, anything at all that you can give me to go on? Have you heard these two talking, is there anything written down and why would they wish to harm your daughter, what’s in it for them?”

  “NO, I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING!” shouted Mason, he apologised, took a sip of bitter to calm his nerves and continued.

  “No, I don’t have anything written down but I did hear them discuss something. They talked about a video and I just know it’s something to do with my daughter. He gave her a USB stick which must have contained the video………..but this gut feeling I have, it’s been nagging me for a while………even before I heard them talking.”

  Hodges said nothing as an awkward moment prevailed.

  “I just know something bad will happen to my daughter and it has something to do with whatever is on that video.”

  “OK, now I have something to go on, you should have told me about the video in the beginning.”

  Mason shrugged his shoulders.

  “I still don’t have much, but it’s a start. I’ll get my hands on the video and we’ll take it from there.”

  Hodges stood up, swigged the last mouthful of bitter, put the files under his arm and turned to leave the building. Hodges stopped and turned back to Mason.

  “Look if there is something you’re hiding, something you’re not telling me……..anything at all, you really need to let on, it would make my job a hell of a lot easier you know.”

  Mason merely nodded.

  Hodges sighed and left the pub. He was sure Mason wasn’t telling him the whole story.

  Chapter one hundred and fourteen

  Markland Garraway’s house

  7.30pm

  Friday 1st June

  Garraway hadn’t witnessed this many people in his house for years. Maria, Claire and Esther were sitting next to each other on the settee. Tom Judd was standing by the window and Campbell was in the kitchen making coffee. The only one who wasn’t present was Samreen who was looking after Christopher.

  Garraway had phoned Tom Judd early on Wednesday morning and told him to call a meeting with everyone who had been there when Christopher had been hypnotised. He’d asked Judd to arrange the meeting to take place at his house.

  Garraway waited for Campbell to bring in the drinks before starting. He was nervous and the anxieties he’d experienced in the past had returned. He had to be strong and overcome his personal demons which were back and trying to break him down.

  Campbell handed out the coffees and Garraway cleared his throat and began.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet this evening and thank you also for agreeing to have the meeting at my house. As you can see, I don’t get around too well these days and it’s easier for me to speak to you all from here.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “As most of you may know by now, I was the original detective inspector, assigned to investigate the murder of Ben Walker. It is a case which, from the very beginning, has been strange.”

  He paused for reflection and then continued.

>   “Ben Walker was brutally murdered on the sixth of September two thousand and nine. His head was smashed in with a rock and his friend, Liz Mason, was left for dead. Ben’s body was found early the following morning. The person who’d discovered them thought Liz was also dead and it wasn’t until the emergency services had arrived that it was found she was alive, but only just, had she been found later she probably would also have died. Unfortunately she fell into a coma, from which, as far as I am aware, she has never woken.”

  Campbell was having difficulty appreciating that the girl was his boss’s daughter.

  “The murderer, or murderers, as we know there was more than one assailant, have never been caught. We have DNA on record, which we are certain is from the murderer, or someone who was there during the attack, but unfortunately the DNA doesn’t match anyone on the police database.”

  Garraway sat silently in an effort to compose himself for what he was about to say next.

  “From a personal perspective, this is the strangest inquiry I have ever encountered. It’s been a case which from the very beginning has been fraught with strange happenings and it has made me very ill. I could tell you all about the peculiar things that have happened to me during the investigation, but to be honest, at this particular time, I would prefer not to. However, suffice to say, it didn’t come as a great surprise when I heard from Mr Judd about Christopher and what’d happened to him whilst under hypnosis. So what I propose to do today is to discuss how to move forward, and how we can use anything Christopher can tell us about what happened to close the Ben Walker murder case.”

  “Don’t you mean use anything that Ben can tell us about what happened to close the Ben Walker murder case?” suggested Judd.

  Garraway nodded.

  “How would you go about doing that?” asked Maria, who was concerned that Christopher would have to undergo further hypnosis sessions, of which he was already becoming increasingly unhappy.

  “I suggest that we treat Ben as if he were any other witness…….”

  “Other than the fact that he’s not like any other witness,” interrupted Campbell.

  “This is true, but he could provide information detailing what happened that night….. perhaps a description, what his attackers looked like, what they were wearing, he may even remember how they sounded………if I’m really lucky, he could even give me some names.”

  “Should you tell Ben about the girl, Liz?” asked Esther.

  “I’m not certain about that, he’s bound to ask……..”

  “I think you need to tell him, you need to brutally honest with him about everything,” interrupted Esther.

  Garraway nodded.

  “What I would like is a description from Christopher, sorry, I mean Ben, of what Liz Mason looks like and perhaps if she has any identifying marks on her body that proves he knew her, or knows her even.”

  The strange scenario was causing Garraway to mix his tenses. It wasn’t every day he referred to a dead person in the present tense as if that person was still alive.

  “Why would you need to ask questions about Liz?” asked Judd.

  “With no disrespect to your good self Mr. Judd, and I don’t believe that any of what I’ve been told isn’t true, but it would satisfy me if I could ask a question or two of my own, just to convince myself that all of this is definitely happening.”

  Garraway asked Campbell, who was standing near the bookcase, if he could find a novel on the shelf by a writer called Dostoevsky. Campbell looked through the varied collection of books until he found ‘Notes from Under the Floorboards’.

  “Is this the one?” asked Campbell waving the paperback with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Yes it is. Please could you turn to the page on the back inside cover and show everyone in the room what you see.”

  Campbell did as Garraway asked and found the sketch of the girl. He held the book up and showed it around the room.

  “Who’s the girl?” asked Maria.

  “I don’t know her name, but I believe she was there at the time of the murder.”

  “How did you come by the picture?” asked Campbell.

  “I’ve absolutely no idea, it just appeared in the book.”

  “When?” asked Esther.

  “A couple of days ago.”

  Blank expressions filled the room. Campbell looked again at the sketch and saw the notes on the opposite page. He read the scribbled comments Garraway had made of his dream and also the description of the girl. Beneath the description was written a date. Sixth September two thousand and ten.

  “What’s this? It looks like a description of Ben’s murder, and the girl, you’ve written a description which matches her perfectly,” said Campbell.

  “I know, and if you look at the date, I wrote it a year to the day of the murder.”

  “It’s a pretty detailed description of what happened, like you were there at the time.”

  “It came to me in a dream, and I jotted it all down, and a description of the girl before my memory of the whole thing faded,” said Garraway.

  “And you’ve no idea who did the drawing?” said Esther.

  Garraway shook his head.

  “As I’ve said, I came downstairs and there it was, on the table ready for me to find.”

  Campbell passed the book around so everyone could read what he’d written and get a closer look at the sketch of the girl.

  “There is one thing of which I am certain,” added Garraway, “the girl in the picture is the person who can bring this whole thing together. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere and can tell me what happened and who was there on the night of the murder………..it’s all to do with the hill in Badock’s Wood, where Ben was murdered.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Esther.

  “There’s something about that hill, it’s a Bronze Age burial mound, and it reaches out and it gets to you, it gets to your very core…..it communicates with you.”

  Everything connected to the murder of Ben Walker was so surreal, that no one in the room questioned what Garraway had just said. It had almost become that ‘strange was the new normal’.

  “So what’s next, I hypnotise Christopher and you ask him a list of questions?” asked Judd.

  Garraway nodded.

  “Hold on, hold on just one second, aren’t you forgetting someone? Someone who is crucial to this whole thing and someone to whom none of you seem to have given a second thought,” said Maria.

  “If it wasn’t for my Christopher, none of you would be here today. But what if he doesn’t want to be hypnotised anymore? You can’t force him and between you and me, the bribes of toys and trips to Thomas Land are beginning to lose their appeal. I’m not sure whether he wants to be part of this anymore.”

  Maria was right. Everyone was assuming that Christopher could just be plonked in the chair and would happily slip into Ben’s character like a performing animal. Other than Maria, no one had given much thought to what Christopher felt about what was happening. He wasn’t even three years old and it was an awful lot to expect of the little boy. Even Campbell was getting so carried away with the whole thing that he was forgetting about Christopher.

  “Does he still bang his head and chant?” asked Judd.

  “He’s a little better, but he is still doing it,” replied Maria.

  “Until we satisfy Ben that we will catch his killer, I think your son will continue to keep you awake. Ben now knows about us, and he won’t let go until his killer is caught. It’s almost as if he wants to be part of the team, he wants to be involved as if he is working on the case.” said Judd.

  Suddenly a light bulb shone over Garraway’s head.

  “That’s it Tom, you’re right……it’s all making sense.”

  “Why, what is it?” asked Judd looking puzzled.

  “What you just said about Ben wanting to be involved in the case.”

  Garraway shuffled in his chair and was agitated with excitement.

 
“Ben Walker was a policeman, well he would have been if he’d lived another day. Had he not been murdered, he would have started his first day of work as a police officer on the 7th September. He had been a PCSO for a couple of years, and was about to become the real thing.”

  “What’s a PCSO?” asked Claire, speaking for the first time since the meeting had begun.

  “A Police Community Support Officer, he was like an unpaid policeman.”

  Claire nodded.

  “That’s correct, one thing I know about Ben is that he was obsessed with police work, and ultimately he wanted to be a detective. It must be hardwired into him to make sure his killer is caught.”

  “Or killers,” added Campbell.

  “So what you’re suggesting is that if we use Ben to catch his own killer, he will leave Christopher in peace and everyone will live happily ever after?” asked Maria.

  “Or die happily ever after,” suggested Judd.

  “Yes I do, I really do,” said Garraway excitedly.

  “But why do you think this is happening? There must have been lots of similar instances when police have been murdered, and you don’t hear of any others coming back from the afterlife to hunt down their murderer,” asked Esther.

  Garraway paused and looked at everyone who was in the room.

  “It’s because Ben was murdered at the hill, the hill in Badock’s Wood.”

  Chapter one hundred and fifteen

  Don Hodges’ office

  8.07pm

  Friday 1st June

  Hodges poured himself a beer and looked through the manila files Terry Mason had given him. It wasn’t his kind of thing. He specialised in industrial sabotage and had become a very wealthy man because of it.

  He was an American, born in New England. Hodges had worked for the FBI for many years before moving to Britain ten years ago. Disheartened by the direction the Bureau was taking, he quit his job and turned his back on his country.

  He didn’t want to take on Terry Mason’s case, but as he’d worked for him before, and they were both members of the Bristol Masonic Society, he was doing it as a favour. He had told himself that he wouldn’t get too involved, just find the video, get a copy of it to Mason and that would be it. Job done.