The Truth Healer: A Riveting Spiritual Psychic Thriller

by J Gabriel-Smith

  ‘Yes, well apart from the students, it is hard to find workers to do the whole season here from The Isle of Wight, so we do get some international workers looking for employment.’

  ‘I noticed some darker haired looking men working the bumper cars, do you know where they are from and how long they have been here?’

  ‘I would have to check that too…why what are you thinking?’ Brenda inquired, finishing up and moving her plate to one side.

  ‘Oh I don’t know…I’m just clutching at straws probably, but I noticed they didn’t seem to be very over friendly with the children and it didn’t seem the sort of place they should be working….I suppose I am saying they didn’t seem like they should be working with children.’

  ‘Ok….. so where are you going with this? Brenda queried hesitatingly.

  ‘Well I don’t know really, but maybe Rosie got distracted by the clown and they might have had something to do with her going missing.’

  ‘But the police questioned all of the workers and I am sure they would have interrogated them if their stories were suspicious. They also checked all of the cctv footage, and as far as I am aware all of the workers were at their workstations at the time Rosie went missing’

  ‘Oh were they?….and I suppose the cctv would have picked up footage of the girls talking to the clown if they had been.’ Lucy asked, her glimmer of a breakthrough, now turning to deflation.

  ‘Yes it probably would have…..unless….’

  ‘Unless what?’ Lucy responded, latching on to Brenda’s possible offer of hope.

  ‘Unless they were out of view of the cctv….you see, not every corner of the park is covered.’

  ‘So you think the abductors may have worked out where these areas were?

  ‘Well they could have done…..the only problem I have with this is, is the fact that the tv monitors are in the back office, and the workers do not have access to these.’

  ‘But surely they could have broken in one evening?’

  ‘Not really, as the office is staffed until midnight, and then we have security manning the office from midnight until 6am, in case we have any emergencies with the campers.’

  ‘So there isn’t anyway they could have checked the camera positioning then?’ Lucy sighed defeatedly.

  ‘Not really…..although…..wait a minute.’

  ‘What….what is it?’

  ‘Now….hang on…let me think….it was so long ago…but I’m sure…’

  ‘What is it Brenda?’ Lucy implored.

  ‘I am sure Lindsey was sweet on one of the workers at one point.’

  ‘On who….and who is Lindsey?’

  ‘Lindsey was a member of my admin staff…..it was so long ago, I can’t really remember who exactly, but I remember him being a dark haired lad.’

  ‘So….so…..what are you saying?’ Lucy asked, trying desperately to keep a lid on her impatience.

  ‘Well I remember this lad coming to visit her at the reception desk a lot. It just seemed like flirting to me, but what do I know? I had to tell her to get back to work a couple of times as he was distracting her with compliments.’

  ‘So do you think he ever went into the back office?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, but it could have happened on my day off.’

  ‘Brenda it is vital we find out….you said she was one of you staff members…does that mean she has left Bernie’s?’

  ‘Yes, she left about 18 months ago…I can try and ring her though.’

  ‘That would be great if you could…..do you think you could try and dig out the cctv footage again, from the day Rosie went missing, and see if you can pick up the clown? Lucy pleaded, reaching out to hold Brenda’s hand.

  ‘Yes of course dear.’ Brenda replied, placing her hand on top of Lucy’s.

  ‘And, one last thing, could you look up the details of the dark haired men on the bumper cars as well for me?’

  ‘Yes will do….come back to the office with me and we can go through the files.’

  ‘Thank you so much Brenda.’

  ‘No problem…I want to help as much as I can.’

  Lucy sat in the office watching Brenda sift through the workers’ files from two years ago.

  ‘Ah here we are….now lets first look at who was employed as the clown.’

  Brenda pulled out two profiles.

  ‘That’s right, I remember now…how could I have forgotten Eric. He worked here as the clown for five years but left a couple of months before Rosie went missing due to illness. We have another profile of a Hungarian gentlemen, Andras Fejes, that filled in as the clown for a couple of months while we found another suitable candidate. He didn’t fit the traditional profile as he wasn’t the best at the tricks, but we couldn’t find anyone else at the time.’

  ‘So does he still work here, on one of the rides maybe?’ Lucy asked, reading through his profile.

  ‘No sorry, he only worked here for a couple of months.’

  ‘Well doesn’t that seem suspicious that he left just after Rosie went missing? What date did he leave?’

  ‘Well yes I suppose it does. Here we are….oh that’s odd, he was due to leave at the end of July, but he never formally had his exit interview.’ Brenda said, slightly bewildered.

  ‘Surely that raises a few red flags doesn’t it?’

  ‘But I am sure the police would have questioned him.’

  ‘Did the police ask for all of the staff files then?’

  ‘Yes they did, but I suppose there is the chance that the temporary staff files were missed, as they are kept in a different location.’

  ‘Brenda this could be vital!’ Lucy exclaimed, writing down the Hungarian man’s details.

  ‘Yes it certainly looks like it could be.’ Brenda agreed, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘I need more though….can you let me know about the workers on the bumper cars?’

  ‘Right, here we are…. their names are Sandor Halasz and Marton Kovac.’ Brenda paused ‘…and they are also Hungarian.’

  ‘See there is a link already…..did they work here when Lucy went missing?’

  Brenda glanced at the dates. ‘Yes it does appear so, but we’ve got to be careful we are not barking up the wrong tree here…..we can maybe do a bit of detective work ourselves though.’ she said, closing the files and putting them safely back in the drawer.

  ‘Thank you Brenda…for being on my side.’

  ‘That’s ok sweetheart, I want to catch those evil tyrants too…come on let’s go over to the fairground and see if we can find anymore out.’

  Lucy picked up her bag and both she and Brenda walked over to the coffee area opposite the bumper cars.

  ‘Look Brenda, can you see how those two are not very smiley with the children…if anything they are looking at them with irritation!’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean…I don’t think we should ask them anything directly though, just in case they had any involvement. We don’t want them to get suspicious and we may be getting out of our depth.’

  ‘So what should we do?’ Lucy asked, looking at her desperately.

  ‘Well, I know Oskar over there…he is Polish and very friendly so he might know something. He has worked here for three years now so he was here at that time.’ Brenda advised, pointing at a man in a navy blue cap. A few strands of dark blond hair were poking out of the sides, framing his big smile as he joked around with the children.

  ‘Ok great.’ Lucy replied, encouraged that he may be able to help.

  ‘It might be best if I go over to him on my own…we don’t want to arouse suspicion and he may feel uncomfortable speaking in front of you.’

  ‘Ok, if you feel that is best…I’ll wait here.’ Lucy said, sitting back down on the bench.

  Lucy watched as Brenda chatted to Oskar. He didn’t shake his head straight away which looked promising. They chatted for a few minutes and Lucy saw him glance over to her with a concerned look, and then back at Brenda. Brenda then touched his arm and walked slowly
back towards her.

  ‘Well, did he know anything?’ Lucy asked, as Brenda approached her.

  ‘He said he was questioned by the police at the time, but unfortunately he was not working the day Rosie went missing.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lucy replied despondently. ‘…did he say anything else?’

  ‘He didn’t at first, but when I asked if he knew the two Hungarian workers well, he said he didn’t, and that they tended to keep themselves to themselves.’

  ‘So he couldn’t tell you anything?’ Lucy asked, searching for any other morsel of information to help.

  ‘He hesitated for a while, but then he did say that one day he had overheard them saying that something ‘paid good money’, and that ‘it was easy to do here’, but when he entered the room they abruptly stopped talking.’

  ‘So what did he think that meant?’

  ‘He thought they were up to some sort of thieving scam….he didn’t report it as he only heard it the once, and nothing seemed to get stolen so he thought he had come to the wrong conclusion.’

  ‘So did he say he thought there could be a link between them and Rosie?’

  ‘He didn’t want to say, but he just indicated that he thought they were not the nicest of people working here.’

  Lucy stared back over to the Hungarian men with increasing disdain. ‘They definitely had something to do with Rosie, I can feel it inside.’

  ‘So what do you plan to do now…go to the police?’ Brenda suggested, encouraging her to do the right thing.

  ‘Not yet……I want to go to the port and see what type of boats are docked there and how easy it would be to smuggle someone onto one.’ Lucy replied standing up, her eyes still locked on the bumper car attendants.

  ‘Ok, I’ll come with you?’ Brenda declared, hurriedly following her.

  ‘Are you sure, can you get away from work?’ Lucy asked, concerned that Brenda had helped her enough already.

  ‘I’m in charge so I can make the rules’ Brenda smiled. ‘Which port?’

  ‘I was thinking Cowes…I’ve realised it was the Regatta week when we were here with Rosie, so it would have been the perfect opportunity to get Rosie off of the Island without being noticed.’

  ‘Oh yes so it was……good thinking. I’ll take my car so you can go straight to the ferry afterwards.’

  They both headed to Cowes, where there were lots of boats moored, and got out of their cars to look around.

  ‘They could have easily smuggled Rosie onto one of them.’ Lucy said, pointing at the busy harbour. ‘….and there would have been so many other spectator boats around at the time watching the race boats go by.’ Lucy observed.

  ‘Yes that’s true……do you think they sailed to France then?’

  ‘Well, that is the obvious, but she could have been taken onto anywhere. From my research there are trafficking groups throughout the whole of Europe.’ Lucy added, feeling slightly deflated again at the vastness of the investigation.

  ‘Come on, don’t get downhearted…you have found out a lot already.’ Brenda responded, putting her arm around Lucy.

  ‘I know, but it makes me realise we are still going to be looking for a needle in a haystack.’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘But at least you are trying sweetheart. Anyway, I suppose you ought to be heading back home now before it gets too late.’

  ‘Oh yes, look at the time!’ Lucy panicked, looking at her watch.

  ‘I need to get back to Tom and Sam. My ferry leaves in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Ok, well you have a safe trip back. I’ll ring you with anything I find from the cctv and hopefully with some positive information after speaking with Lindsey.’ Brenda offered reassuringly.

  ‘Thank you Brenda, it means so much, I will definitely be in contact and no doubt be back here again soon. I need to decide whether to discuss this with Tom yet or wait until I have found out more.’

  Lucy gave Brenda a hug and got into her car. The journey back was a lonely one, but she felt she had something to go on now, and she was not going to let it go. She couldn’t. She had to find her little girl.

  Chapter 12

  Chloe sat watching Lucy drinking coffee from a bench near the crazy golf. Tatiana had advised that she would need to get Lucy to return to The Isle of Wight for the next stage of her mission, and back to the holiday camp where Rosie was last seen.

  She had felt terrible posting the fake letter from Bernie’s through Lucy’s letterbox, but it had achieved what Chloe had meant it to. It had fuelled Lucy’s desire to find out answers. Answers to the questions she had started to ask after her trip to Cornwall. She had managed to successfully fake The Isle of Wight postmark and Tatiana had advised her to be ready to follow Lucy that day.

  Josh was working away up in Leeds again for the next two days, so she was relieved she could at least get away with a few white lies. He needn’t know she was away. As far as he was concerned, she would be spending the night at home with a bottle of wine.

  ‘Tatiana, it’s Chloe.’ she announced, calling her for an update.

  ‘Oh hi Chloe, how are you?…did you manage to get there ok?’

  ‘Yes fine, I managed to follow Lucy to the hotel ok, but had to get up at the crack of dawn to make sure I didn’t miss her this morning!’

  ‘So are you at Bernie’s now?

  ‘Yes, I am now sitting watching Lucy in the fairground area. So what now? How can I help her here?’

  ‘Ok, so I need you to listen carefully…you will need to make sure Lucy is alerted to the fairground clown.’

  ‘The fairground clown!?’ Chloe asked, with slight amusement.

  ‘Yes he was integral to Rosie’s disappearance.’

  ‘How exactly?’

  ‘Rosie and Katrina caught sight of the clown juggling outside the arcade. Katrina led them both outside to watch him, after the clown beckoned them over. He then asked them to follow him to the far end of the fairground where he had some free tickets to a circus he was in. Unfortunately, Rosie immediately got overly excited and didn’t hesitate in going with him.’

  Chloe’s heart was pounding as truth of the story was starting to unravel. A wave of incredible sadness came over her. She couldn’t bear the thought of these two innocent girls being taken advantage of in such a manipulative way. ‘So what happened then?’ she asked reluctantly.

  ‘The girls never got the tickets, but were instead bundled into a car and driven to a boat that was waiting for them at Cowes harbour.’

  ‘Oh no Tatiana!… those poor poor girls. They must have been terrified!’

  ‘I know Chloe, it is torturous to hear, but at least we are able to do something about it now.’

  ‘But the clown could not have been working alone…who else was involved?’

  ‘Two Hungarian workers instigated the kidnap after spotting several young girls playing around the fairground each evening...often away from their parents. They had spent months planning an abduction during Regatta week, as they knew the port would be packed with boats and people, allowing them to blend in with the crowds. They had set up the operation in conjunction with a child trafficking group in Hungary, who arranged for a boat to be sent over to collect the abducted child.’

  ‘God, it makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. So is that all I need to do…get Lucy to notice the clown?’

  ‘Well yes, for now…..she also needs to work out their possible escape route via Cowes, but you can wait to see if she works that out for herself first.’

  ‘Ok…leave it with me then, and I will ring you with any developments.’

  ‘Ok good luck.’

  Chloe ended the call and looked over at Lucy. She felt distraught seeing how lost she looked. The neat and tidy persona that was displayed in the photos before Rosie went missing, was replaced by a slightly dishevelled and down trodden version. She still looked very presentable but the preciseness had been chiselled away. Instead, she now had a section of hair tucked behind her ear where it had
fallen down from her pony tail, her pristine navy capri pants now had a slight crease down one side, her usual crisp blouse had been replaced by a plain ecru t-shirt, and her once bold green jacket looked slightly more faded.

  Chloe could see she was desperately looking around for clues. Lucy had been sitting at the coffee bar for over an hour, when Chloe watched her get up and slowly walk around the fairground. Chloe needed to intervene as Lucy didn’t seem to be latching onto anything. She knew Lucy needed to have some sort of interaction with the clown, so she stood up on the bench to see if she could see him. In the distance she could see a strip of red unruly hair and some juggling balls flying up in the air. Making sure she didn’t lose sight of Lucy, she leapt down and made her way over to him quickly.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Chloe said, interrupting him juggling.

  ‘Yes missy what can I do for you?’ he answered, catching the last ball and putting it in his bag.

  ‘I was wondering if you could do me a favour?’

  ‘I’ll try if I can….did you want a photo?’ he asked smiling.

  ‘Oh no sorry, it’s actually for that lady over there with the green jacket on?’ Chloe replied, pointing over at Lucy.

  ‘The lady over there by the bumper cars?’ he asked, acknowledging Lucy.

  ‘Yes that’s the one, well she is a friend of mine and has had some bad news lately so needs cheering up. Could you go up to her and make her smile? Please do not say I sent you over though as she will be annoyed with me.’

  ‘Ok will do, that’s my job after all.’ the clown responded, winking and making his way over to Lucy.

  ‘Great thank you, I would really appreciate it.’

  Chloe watched as he approached Lucy. She seemed to startle when he said hello, but a smile came over her face as he presented her with a pink plastic flower. Chloe was hopeful that a seed had now been planted and she would just have to wait and see if any shoots of connection would start to appear.

  As Chloe headed to get herself a coffee, she noticed Lucy look back at the clown after initially walking away. She then started to run back towards him, pushing past the people in front of her, with an extreme sense of urgency. As she caught up with him, he looked around surprised to see her again, but then after a short conversation, Lucy looked like she was showing him a photograph. Chloe noticed how Lucy’s hopeful look turned into one of dismay as she thanked him and wandered back to the coffee bar she had been sitting at previously.