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

by Andrew M Stafford

  Finding the video wouldn’t be a problem. He knew it had been on a USB memory stick which meant at some point the file had been, and probably still was, on Campbell Broderick’s and Naomi King’s computers. Child’s play for a man like Hodges, who’d spent years hacking into some of the most complex and secure systems in the world to locate files which had brought down industrial pirates whose intentions had been to get their hands on intellectual property and sell it to the highest bidder.

  And it was to be even easier than that. Mason had provided him with personnel files on the two, which included both their TM.IT company email addresses and their private ones. Knowing this information and by hacking into their email accounts Hodges would have access to the IP addresses of both King’s and Broderick’s computers. With this information, whilst in the comfort of his office, he could easily get into their computers, silently take over and control them and search for the most recently added mpeg or mp4 video files and copy them.

  For such an established and respected IT company, Hodges found it almost laughable how appallingly low TM.IT’s security was. Within minutes he was reading Naomi King’s emails. He had easily found his way into her account, n.king@tmit.co.uk. He didn’t want to spend too much time on this job as he had far too much other work to be getting on with. Now he was into her account he looked to see whether she’d emailed Broderick the video file. He scrolled through the emails she had sent since Tuesday, which was the day Mason told him she’d been given the memory stick. He couldn’t see any correspondence between her and Broderick. He pondered that perhaps they’d agreed not to communicate by email. Before he spent too much time breaking into her personal computer, he decided to get into Campbell’s account, c.broderick@tmit.co.uk, and check whether there were any clues.

  He pushed back his chair and with a smile on his smug face shouted ‘bingo’ when he saw an email had been sent to one Thomas Judd. The email had a video attachment and the subject of the email was the biggest give away, which was ‘Enhanced Video’.

  Hodges laughed as he downloaded the file. Although he considered this a favour to Terry Mason, he would still charge him for what had been less than twenty minutes work. He considered a figure of around two thousand pounds should be fair. Hodges had the business philosophy that every deal should stand on its own two feet and make a profit and this was exactly what he would do with Mason. He knew the man could afford it and had seemed so desperate to get the video he would probably pay twice that amount.

  When the video had finished downloading Hodges opened the file to see what the whole thing was about. He was sure that it had to be the video that Mason had become so paranoid over, and was curious to see what had been affecting the man so seriously.

  As the clip loaded, Hodges poured another drink.

  He took a slug of beer and grabbed a handful of Nachos as the video began to play.

  He saw a tall man talking to a little boy in a chair. The lighting was poor, but he could easily make out what was happening. He put down his drink and moved closer to the screen.

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

  “Hello Ben, its Tom, can you hear me?”

  “Hello Tom, yes I can and it’s good to hear you again”.

  “Ben, I hope you appreciate that this is a rather unusual situation and I guess this is just as strange for you as it is for me.”

  “It is strange, and you need to understand what it’s like from my point of view, you’re the only person I’ve spoken with since I was killed.”

  “I guess we’re both in the same position.”

  “I need to be completely honest with you Ben, and I hope you understand the situation from my perspective, I need to be sure that you are who you say you are and not a creation of Christopher’s subconscious mind.”

  “I have a few questions for you and if you answer them correctly I think we can agree that you are real and not a character made up by Christopher.”

  “I hope I pass the test, as I would hate to think I’m the figment of someone’s imagination……….by the way, can I ask, how old is Christopher?”

  “He’s just over two and half years old.”

  “OK Ben, here goes with the questions, I hope you’re good with mathematics because the first one is about multiplication. Ben, what is eight times twelve?”

  “You had to go and choose the twelves, I always struggled with the twelve times table…………………………. ninety six Tom, eight twelves are ninety six.”

  “OK, Ben, ninety six is correct, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Question number two, when was the Battle of Hastings?”

  “I’m sorry Tom, I can’t do dates, or times. It’s something I’ve lost all concept of. I can’t even tell you when I was born, the year I died or how old I was when I was killed, I’m going to have to pass, sorry.”

  “I may not be able remember the date, but history was one of my strong points.”

  “OK, what do you have for me?”

  “The battle was between Duke William of Normandy and King Harold’s Anglo Saxon army and the Duke’s guys won.”

  “OK Ben, I think that’s enough of the questions, we’re all convinced you’re real.”

  “We? Did you say we? There are others who are with you?”

  “Yes there are.”

  “Who are the others?”

  “OK Ben, in the room with me are Christopher’s mother and grandmother, Christopher’s mother’s fiancé, Christopher’s health visitor and a friend of the family, so as you can imagine, we’re all on the edges of our seats.”

  “OK Ben, we would like to know when you lived. We don’t know whether your death was in our time, or a long, long time ago, before anyone in this room was born.”

  “More questions? OK, fire away, but make sure it doesn’t take long, I don’t know how much longer I can keep going, I’m starting to ebb a little.”

  “Ben, when you were alive, did you like sport?”

  “I loved sport. I spend a lot of my time remembering the sport I played. Cricket was my speciality, I played for Horfield in Bristol, and I was also a keen rugby player.”

  “So not a football fan then?”

  “Football was my passion, I watched every City home game at Ashton Gate……… but I was a useless player, nobody would have me in their team.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Did you follow the World Cup?”

  “You bet, ever since I was a kid. I was never able to fill a complete sticker book though.”

  “What was the last World Cup you remember, who won?”

  “Italy beat France. The match finished one all and went to penalties.”

  “You seem extremely sure about that.”

  “I was there, I went with my father to Berlin. That year I was confident for England, but it never happened. My dad and I had a brilliant time, one of my favourite memories.”

  “Is this another memory you replay often?”

  “OK Ben, let’s find out more about you and something which everyone in this room wants to know……..how did you die?”

  “Ben, can you hear me, how did you die? ………………………….Ben, it’s Tom, I need to know how you died, where did it happen and who killed you? Concentrate please…….don’t fade on me now.”

  “Tom, sorry, I…… I …….. can’t quite find the……….”

  “Please Ben, try, please try your hardest.”

  “I’m trying………I was killed in……..I was killed in the ……..woods.”

  “Did you say you were killed in the woods?”

  “In the woods?”

  “Which woods, can you remember the name of the woods?”

  “Badock’s…………..”

  “Badock’s Wood, were you killed in Badock’s Wood?”

  “Ben, stay with me, please stay focused….just one more thing and then you can sleep.”

  “Ben, how did you die, what did the murderer do to kill you? Please Ben.”

 
; “He killed me with a rock.”

  “Ben, say that again, I didn’t hear you…..how were you killed?”

  “With a rock Tom, ………he killed me with a ………rock.”

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

  Don Hodges stared blankly at the screen, his hand gripping his glass of beer tightly.

  “What the fuck was that?” he said out loud.

  He replayed the clip. Watching it for the second time, it had lost none of its impact, in fact it was even creepier.

  He could hear the two sections of the clip which Naomi King had enhanced, and the way in which the boy’s voice suddenly increased and became clear made the whole clip sound surreal.

  It hadn’t taken Hodges long before he’d worked out that the little boy was under hypnosis and was speaking the voice of someone who was dead.

  “Reincarnation,” he whispered to himself.

  Hodges was wondering what the connection was between Mason’s daughter and the video. Then he remembered what the boy had said, he told the hypnotist Tom, that he’d been killed in Badock’s Wood.

  He brought up Google and feverishly typed ‘Liz Mason Badock’s Wood’.

  Up came the results. He clicked on the press conference link and saw Garraway heading up the conference, he sat in awe as Terry Mason made an appeal for anyone who could provide useful information to come forward to the police.

  Mason was right thought Hodges. He could see there was something on the video which affected his daughter. Whether it was a direct threat upon her life or not, he could not tell.

  He loaded the clip onto a memory stick and put it in an envelope.

  He picked up his phone and called Mason.

  “Terry, it’s Don………I have the video, meet me tonight. Come to the The Fox and Goose, be there by ten.”

  Chapter one hundred and sixteen

  Daniel Boyd’s bedsit

  Truro, Cornwall

  8.46pm

  Friday 1st June

  Boyd lay in bed. His painful ankle had kept him away from his cash in hand window cleaning job for the past two weeks. While Boyd wasn’t working he wasn’t getting any money and he was praying that his ankle would soon be well enough to allow him to work.

  He’d not seen a doctor about the injury. He hadn’t even registered with the local practice as he was worried that by giving either his real name, or his alias, it would allow the police in Bristol to trace him to Truro in Cornwall.

  During the past two weeks he’d spent a lot of time thinking about the person he saw looking at him through the window, the person who had frightened the life out of him and caused him to fall from the ladder. He’d also had time to consider how alone he was. He hadn’t received any calls or visitors. No one had contacted him to see how he was. He had left the house just twice in the last fortnight and that was to stock up on cigarettes, Special Brew and a few basics to keep in the fridge.

  Each day since falling from the ladder had been a miserable existence of moping around the flat, watching pornography on his second hand laptop, smoking, drinking and being kept awake for most of the night by the deafening music coming from his Neanderthal neighbour’s bedsit.

  Is that all there is to my life? Thought Boyd as he drew on a Benson’s and took another swig of Special Brew. He had purposely alienated himself from people since he’d murdered Ben Walker. He’d become paranoid about making friends on the off chance that he might say the wrong thing to the wrong person and end up raising suspicions which could ultimately lead to his arrest and conviction for the murder he’d committed over two years ago.

  On occasions like this, when he became very low, he often thought about handing himself over to the law. At least he could rest easily without spending the remainder of his futile existence looking over his shoulder.

  His mind wandered back to the person he’d seen in the window. Could that have really been Ben Walker? From what Boyd could remember, it certainly looked like him. He recalled the words the person had silently mouthed at him through the window.

  ‘I’ve got you now’

  It can’t have been Walker he thought. I killed him over two years ago.

  Boyd pondered. Possibly the person in the window just bore a striking resemblance to Walker and perhaps he hadn’t mouthed the words ‘I’ve got you now’, maybe it was something completely different. Boyd knew he had become paranoid and wondered if he’d twisted things in his mind. The memory of the strange person wouldn’t leave him and it was clear as the day he’d seen it two weeks earlier.

  Since he’d bought the second hand laptop three months ago, which was the first computer he had ever owned, he’d spent most of his time searching for pictures and videos of pornography. But he’d also found another use for it. He could use search engines to find almost anything he needed to know. He’d searched for Jarrett’s, the company where he used to work in Bristol and found a picture of Stanley, the man he’d enjoyed working with. The only person he had ever considered to be a real friend. It had been Stanley’s name he’d used as an alternative persona in Cornwall.

  He’d used the computer to find out what had happened to some of the kids from Whitcroft School and had found a number of pictures of the ones he used to beat up and terrorise. They seemed to be doing well in the world. Some of them had been to university and appeared to have well paid jobs. A few of them kept cropping up on something called LinkedIn, whatever that was.

  Then Boyd had an idea. Perhaps there was a picture on the internet of Ben Walker. His murder had made the headlines and was probably archived on a local news website.

  He got off the bed and hobbled over to the little table where his laptop was charging. The computer was so old that the battery would only hold about forty five minutes of life before Boyd had to plug it in to the mains.

  He lifted the lid and the clapped out machine slowly whirred into life.

  Boyd shuffled to the bathroom which was at the end of the corridor to relieve himself after drinking two cans of Special Brew. It took him a good couple of minutes to slowly limp back to the room, holding on to the wall for support and by the time he’d got back to his room the laptop had only just started to show signs of life. He lit another cigarette and waited impatiently. After another four or five minutes the half a dozen or so little desktop icons had appeared and the thing was ready for use.

  He fired up Google and typed ‘Ben Walker murder Badock’s Wood, Bristol’.

  Google returned result after result. There were links from many news websites, it was like Ben Walker had been some kind of national hero. There were images of him on nearly every website that carried a report of his murder.

  Boyd found one particularly good image, which was fairly large, as many of them weren’t much bigger than the size of a postage stamp.

  He looked at the picture of Walker and saw that the resemblance to the person he’d seen in the window was identical. It had to have been Walker……..but how?

  He sat down on his bed and finished the cigarette. Some of the links in his search were video clips. He hobbled back to the laptop and searched for a clip.

  He’d never given much thought to what had happened after Ben’s body had been found. It had never really occurred to him that there had been a murder investigation, or that devastated families and friends would have been affected by his actions that September evening in two thousand and nine. He’d never given any consideration to the poor woman who had stumbled across Ben Walker’s mutilated corpse the following morning. The woman who had found Ben and Liz had to attend counselling sessions to help her come to terms with what she’d discovered at the bottom of the hill in the woods. He’d not given a moment’s thought to the thousands of people that had been affected in some way or another by the murder and the viscous and brutal attack that had resulted in Liz Mason being in a coma. He’d spent the last two years and eight months in denial.

  He found the press conference and clicked play and watched the seven minute thirty e
ight second clip. He listened to the Scottish detective talk about how Ben had been found in the woods and how brutally he had been murdered. He listened to what was said about the girl who’d been left for dead. Boyd could barely remember the girl even being there. He had been so intent on revenge, he’d blinkered out what was going on around him.

  And then he watched the girl’s father stand up to speak and appeal to members of the public to come forward if they had any information……the same man to whom he’d delivered breeze blocks with Stanley back in October 2010.

  Boyd felt a tear well in his eye. He wiped his hand across his eye to stop the tear before it had a chance to properly form and roll down his cheek.

  He closed the lid on the computer, hopped back to the bed and lay there. He lit another cigarette and tried to block out the memory of the video he’d just watched.

  A shiver went down his body.

  He recalled the man in the window, the man who was definitely Ben Walker.

  Boyd had an unsettling feeling that his past was catching up with him, and it was catching up rather quickly.

  Chapter one hundred and seventeen

  The Fox and Goose

  10.07pm

  Friday 1st June

  Terry Mason sat alone in the pub with a soft drink. He was at the same table where he’d been the day before when he’d pleaded with Don Hodges to help him find something on Campbell Broderick and Naomi King. He needed something to confirm that they were a threat to his daughter. He wasn’t so sure about King, he didn’t have a strong feeling towards her and perhaps she was only involved by association. It was Broderick that concerned him the most. It was an odd gut feeling that came from nowhere and it had happened just over a week ago. In the short space of time the gut feeling had developed into something more. It had grown into an obsession that had taken control over Terry Mason’s life.