The Hill - Carla’s Story (Book Two): A Paranormal Murder Mystery Thriller. (Book Two)
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Mason’s head throbbed as he tried to take on board what Maria had just told him.
“But what about the video, explain to me what’s going on?”
Campbell sighed. He’d been through this before and he really wasn’t in the mood for going over it again.
“Don’t worry, I’ll explain,” said Maria.
She pulled up a chair and sat alongside him and explained the entire thing from the very beginning until the present day. Terry Mason listened as she told him about the time her son was born which was the exact moment Ben Walker’s life had ended. She told him about her son’s RMD and how it had developed into chanting, which was Ben Walker pleading to be heard. She went into detail about the hypnotherapy sessions with Tom Judd.
“So you see Mr. Mason, neither Campbell nor any of us have any harmful intentions towards your daughter.”
“But I don’t understand, there is definitely something to do with your son and Ben Walker which will affect my daughter, and not in a good way.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but I don’t see how.”
“Do you remember Markland Garraway?” asked Campbell.
Mason nodded.
“He was the detective who was in charge of the murder enquiry,” said Mason.
“That’s right, he was in charge, but he’s no longer fit for duty, the hill got to him too. The poor man had a breakdown over the whole thing.”
“I’d heard something about that.”
“Well, he’s back on the case now, in an unofficial kind of way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tomorrow, Tom Judd is going to hypnotise Christopher again, hopefully for the final time, and Garraway will be there to ask Ben Walker what really happened.”
“Like Ben will be a witness to his own death, and give evidence.”
“Exactly, and hopefully he can tell Garraway something which will lead the police to Ben’s killer and also to whoever attacked your daughter.”
Maria and Campbell let Terry Mason take on board everything he’d just been told.
“Can’t you see how the hill works? It finds people and it brings them together. The hill is powerful, but it’s also benign,” said Maria.
“It brought Campbell and me together, it brought Campbell to you, it brought Tom Judd to us and most importantly it’s brought Markland Garraway to all of us. It can’t all be coincidence.”
For the first time in weeks Terry Mason felt relaxed. It did make sense and he believed everything he’d just been told. It was hard to comprehend, but he did believe.
“I owe you both an apology,” said Terry Mason.
Campbell believed him when he said he was sorry.
“OK Terry, I think I trust you. I am going to untie you, but any stupid moves and that vase will be crashing down on your head again.”
Campbell untied the knots and unbuckled the belt. Mason slowly stood up and rubbed his hands, then felt the bump on the back of his head.
“Can I ask you something, and I won’t be surprised if your answer’s no?” said Mason.
Campbell and Maria looked at him without speaking.
“Tomorrow, you said Tom Judd is going to hypnotise your son and let Ben Walker speak with Markland Garraway?”
Maria and Campbell nodded.
“With your permission, I’d like to be there.”
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After Terry Mason had left the flat, Maria and Campbell’s day continued with no further events. The cut to Campbell’s arm was nothing more than a flesh wound, albeit a painful one. Maria eventually met up with her mother and laid flowers at her father’s grave followed by a late lunch at the Talbot Inn with family and friends.
Maria put Christopher to bed early that evening. Tomorrow was to be a busy day and the evening would be spent at Tom Judd’s for what Maria hoped would be the last time.
Christopher hadn’t chanted since the night Ben repeatedly called ‘Maria I need to speak to Tom’. Since then Christopher had occasionally banged his head against his pillow or rocked from side to side, but there was no more disturbing chanting. Ben had kept his promise.
As Christopher slept, he gently rocked from side to side.
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Ben was awake. He no longer needed to shout to be heard because he knew Tom Judd was out there and was on his side. Ben had faith in Tom and was certain that somehow he would find a way to help him.
Ben was wallowing in memories, both good and bad. Memories of his childhood, memories of his family and friends but most of all memories of his beloved Liz. He wondered what she was doing now. It was something he thought about and it was something he intended to ask Tom the next time they spoke.
He thought about Christopher, the little boy whose nocturnal life he’d taken over and how much stress and anxiety must have been inflicted upon his parents.
His memories returned to those of Liz, his beautiful Liz. If only that night in the woods had ended differently then perhaps they would have ended up together, perhaps they would have married and started a family. That’s what Ben would have wished for.
He longed to see her again. Just to hear her voice would be something.
And then something happened.
Ben was distracted from his memories and thoughts, by a voice. A voice he knew well.
“Ben, when it’s time, meet me at the hill………..and don’t be late”
It was Liz, Liz had spoken. He instinctively called her name, but she didn’t answer.
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No one in the flat heard Christopher as he lifted his head and called Liz’s name. His head dropped back down on his pillow and he slept soundly until the morning came.
Chapter one hundred and nineteen
Thomas Judd’s Hypnotherapy Practice
The Quiet Area
4.50pm
Sunday 3rd June
The entourage which had gathered to watch Christopher as Tom Judd hypnotised him had grown. The small room which Judd referred to as the Quiet Area, where he would relax his clients and hypnotise them, was barely large enough to fit everyone. All who were there were talking in hushed tones, but together the hushed tones amounted to what sounded like a monosyllabic din.
Maria, Claire and Esther were squished together on the little settee which had been designed to fit two people. Campbell stood alongside Markland Garraway and Terry Mason with their backs pressed against the wall. Samreen was in the corner kneeling down with Christopher and Tom Judd was preparing his camera to make sure whatever happened was captured on video.
It had taken Garraway ten painful minutes to edge cautiously down the staircase and into the basement of Tom Judd’s house. Tom had considered carrying out the evening’s session upstairs in his lounge as it would have made things easier for Garraway, but had decided against it as he didn’t want to break the routine to which Christopher had become used to. He knew that Christopher was becoming weary of being hypnotised and all the attention he was getting, so Judd didn’t want to risk things going wrong.
Christopher had learnt to play a game with the adults. If he didn’t get something out of being hypnotised, he wouldn’t be climbing up onto Tom’s big chair. So far he’d got a remote control car, a toy fire engine and a trip to Thomas Land. This time he’d planned to ask for something really big.
After Tom had set the camera he raised his hands in the air and asked for silence. The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed.
If things went well and if Markland Garraway asked the right questions, then hopefully the name of the person who had slammed the rock into Ben’s head would be revealed.
Samreen lifted Christopher onto the chair and stroked his cheek.
“But I don’t want to do it, I’m tired, tell mummy I’m tired,” said Christopher as he wriggled to get down from the big chair.
“Come on sweetie, do this for your mummy and daddy.”
&n
bsp; “But I don’t want to.”
Christopher knew what was coming next.
“Listen, if you do this, just one more time, you’ll get another nice treat.”
Christopher sat still in the chair and thought.
“Can I have………can I have……..can I have………”
He looked at Samreen, with a finger in his mouth and a cheeky grin across his face, “I want a ride in a real steam train.”
Samreen looked around the room and everyone nodded.
“OK Christopher, we’ll get you a ride on a real steam train.”
Tom found it particularly easy to hypnotise Christopher. The first time it had taken him two or three minutes to run through the routine, but since then he could hypnotise him in under a minute. He wished that some of his other clients would be as easy as Christopher.
Christopher concentrated on the train on the wall and in no time at all he’d been hypnotised. Tom Judd beckoned to Garraway to come over and stand beside him.
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Ben could see the familiar vision of misty swirling light and knew that the next thing he would hear would be Tom Judd’s voice. This time Ben decided to make the first move.
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“Hello Tom, how are you?”
Although he had watched the video of Christopher under hypnosis, seeing and hearing it first-hand took Markland Garraway’s breath away.
He watched in amazement as the voice he recognised as Ben Walker’s was coming out of the little boy’s mouth. It wasn’t exactly the same as Ben’s due to Christopher’s undeveloped vocal cords, but he immediately recognised Ben’s intonation and accent. Garraway had heard Ben’s voice before when he was actively on the case as he’d watched family videos which may have provided information which could help find his murderer.
“Hi Ben, I’m fine, thanks for asking,” replied Judd.
“Ben, today is an important day and I know you can get tired and so time is of the essence. So I would like to get going straight away and introduce you to a man who was the Detective Chief Inspector in charge of your murder case.”
“Wow, are you kidding me?”
“No, I wouldn’t joke, especially not today, we don’t have that kind of time. Standing to my left is DCI Markland Garraway. He will be asking some questions and hopefully the answers you give will lead to the arrest of your killer. There is a chance that when he talks you may not hear his voice, and if that happens, I will ask the questions on his behalf.”
Garraway moved forward and took a pad and pen from his pocket. Nervously he started to speak.
“Hello Ben, this is Markland, can you hear my voice?”
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As Ben concentrated on the swirling misty vision of light Garraway’s Scottish accent came through loud and clear.
“Hello Ben, this is Markland, can you hear my voice?”
Ben was surprised how clear Garraway’s voice sounded.
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Christopher moved his head in the direction of Garraway as Ben replied.
“Yes, I can hear you, I can hear you very well.”
Garraway was tense. It had been a long time since he’d interviewed a witness to a murder, and this was the first time he, or probably anyone else, had interviewed a witness to their own killing.
“OK Ben, I need to satisfy myself that what I am seeing and hearing today is real, so I want to ask you something which will remove any doubt in my mind that you are who you say you are.”
Christopher nodded his head.
“Ben Walker was not alone the night he was murdered. If you are Ben Walker you should be able to tell me the name of the person you were with that night.”
“That would be Liz Mason, the most wonderful human being I’d ever known.”
Terry Mason gasped. He felt he should say something and went to move forward. Campbell held his arm to stop him.
“Can you identify Liz? I need a description of what she looks like”.
“She’s around five foot seven, the last time I was with her she wore her brunette hair in a bob.”
“OK, good, but is there anything else, anything that would really prove you knew her well?”
Ben shuffled through the most recent memories of Liz, right up to the evening he was killed.
“There are a couple of things. Her upper lip, she has a tiny scar on her top lip, which I always thought was cute, and the other thing is something I noticed the day I died, she has a little tattoo on her back.”
“A tattoo of what?”
“A butterfly, a little blue butterfly.”
Terry Mason stood routed to the spot, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Garraway looked in his direction for confirmation of Ben’s description.
Mason nodded.
This made Garraway’s job a little easier. Had Terry Mason not been present to confirm what Ben was saying was true, then Garraway would have had to access the case files of Ben’s murder and check whether the description of Liz matched what Ben had just told him.
“Thank you Ben, I think I can safely say that I’m convinced.”
All the extraordinary things that had happened to him since he’d taken on Ben’s murder case were making sense. The supernatural power of the hill had chosen him to be the one in charge of the case. It should had been Detective Inspector Tom Strawbridge’s case, but he was mysteriously taken ill just after Ben had been killed. Whatever, or whoever was controlling the hill knew that Garraway was the man for the job and had cast a spell to make sure no one else would be in charge.
But there had been so many things getting in the way. Sergeant Colin Matthews for one was a major obstacle, Garraway’s mental breakdown and his crippling arthritis were another two reasons why he could have given up, but hadn’t. Deep down he knew the case was his to solve and always would be.
He considered that the hill must have a darker side, an evil side which was hell bent on stopping him.
“Ben, I’m going to cut straight to the chase………….do you know who killed you……..what was the name of your murderer?”
Christopher paused for a few seconds and the atmosphere in the room was electric. Then he spoke.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know his name……….I knew him from somewhere,…….but from where, I cannot remember.”
Garraway’s heart sank. He had hoped it would have been as easy as that. If Ben could have named the person who had killed him, Garraway could have fabricated a reason to bring him in and once a DNA sample had been taken and matched against the blood found on the rock that was used to murder Ben, then it would have been all done and dusted.
“OK Ben, so let’s go back a little, what happened before you died, tell me about the time leading up to the attack.”
Ben had been through these memories over and over time and time again and was able to recall them step by step.
“Liz and I were walking in the woods. We were fooling around and I chased her up the hill. She tripped, fell back and landed on me.”
Christopher paused and Garraway worried that he was losing Ben.
“What happened next?”
“What happened next was probably the best thing ever to happen to me……..we kissed…….we lay at the bottom of the hill and we kissed.”
Terry Mason wiped his eyes. The room was silent as everyone waited to hear what was to come next.
Judd glanced at the camera to check the red recording light was definitely on.
“And then the moment was shattered, my beautiful moment with Liz was over. It was like from one extreme to another.”
“Is that when you were murdered, just after you kissed Liz?”
“No, that happened later. The person who murdered me started off by wanting to fight, I didn’t want to, I had no reason. By now Liz and I were standing up. The next thing that happened was that he hit Liz�
�for no reason he just punched her………but Liz threw him to the ground……….she was an amazing martial arts expert……my murderer wouldn’t have known this and it took him completely by surprise.”
“So was there just the one person in the woods? because the evidence suggests that there were a number of people present when you were murdered,” asked Garraway.
“That’s right, and I’ll come to that next. I jumped on him and pinned him to the ground…….but he called for help and before I knew what was happening I was being attacked by three or four youths, young boys. I didn’t know who any of them were.”
Garraway was feverishly taking notes. His pen began to dry up and he hurriedly searched his pockets for another, ignoring the agonising pain in his hand.
Ben continued.
“The next thing I remember was one boy, all on his own, as if he was separate to the others, and he was kicking Liz. He was just kicking her over and over and over again and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help. I was weak, I should have been there for her…….but I couldn’t.”
Garraway saw a tear form in Christopher’s eye. It rolled down his cheek.
“Then I remember seeing a rock held above me, and it came crashing down. The first time, I managed to block it with my arm. My killer picked the rock up and he slammed it down on me a second time……….and that was the last thing I remember.”
Garraway looked around the room, Maria, Esther and Claire were holding back tears, whilst Terry Mason was letting his flow.
“Ben, I know this must be difficult for you, but you must try your best to remember. Can you tell me what your killer looked like?”
“He was a vile looking bastard. You know, the look of someone who is undernourished, drinks too much and doesn’t look after himself?”
Garraway took down a detailed description of Daniel Boyd, from the clothes he wore, to his ghostlike pallor, to his greasy hair. Ben had even described the way the killer had smelt. Cigarettes and sweat, he told Garraway.