Mystery City

by Alistair Lavers

  Gemma screamed, Bonnie jumped back, Dale fled and Matthew slammed the nose of his surfboard onto the carpet gripper at the bottom of Boldwood’s door, breaking off one of Boldwood’s claws. The werewolf roared again and slammed its considerable bulk against the old door, to little effect. Then Matthew withdrew from the second landing once he saw the two sisters disappear down the staircase.

  Dale ran to the payphone once they had reached the foyer and dialled 999.

  ‘Hello?’ said Dale, trying to steady his voice as his hands started to shake.

  ‘Operator – which service do you require?’

  ‘Ar-armed police… or the dog section?’ said Dale. ‘B-both I think.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can only connect you to the nearest police station, sir. They’ll assess your request and offer you the appropriate service. Can I have your name and address and a short summary of your circumstances?’

  ‘Dale Penny – The Shirestones Hotel in Cloughton. We’ve got a massive wolf in one of the bedrooms and the hotel’s full of Scots. We’ve got a band on too…’

  ‘Are you wanting the police for the dog, the Scots or the band sir?’

  ‘IT’S NOT A DOG – IT’S A WOLF!’

  ‘Please keep calm Mr Penny.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it really is a wolf.’

  ‘Hold the line sir… I’m connecting you to Whitborough Police now.’

  Boldwood jumped through the large glass pane of his bathroom window and crashed onto the decking below.

  ‘What was that Matt?’ asked Dale, while he waited to be connected to the police station by the operator. Matthew saw the retreating form of the werewolf through the half-panel door at the end of the through corridor and shut the door in the foyer as quietly as he could, ducking down under the bottom section to conceal himself.

  ‘You’re leaving girls,’ said Matthew. ‘When I’ve spoken to the cops, ring yer Dad and get ‘im down here to pick you up. Me an’ Dale will stick around with Thomas until the police get here then we’ll go too.’

  ‘Is it in the yard now?’ asked Gemma nervously. ‘Cos if it is we’re staying in here. I think we should all go into the main lounge and close all the doors and shutters until the police arrive.’

  ‘What about Lindsay? We can’t just run out on him and Thomas… and the guests…’

  Boldwood was ready to retrace his route to Kettleness and would be long gone before the police car arrived. It would be his most bloodthirsty night yet above Whitby and provoke a council of war amongst the farming community. But first, he had some unfinished business in Crescent Moon Kebabs on Pilger Street.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MI5 Safe House, Leeds LS2, Sunday Evening

  When Colin Crawford eventually regained consciousness, there was no doubt in his mind that he was now in very serious trouble. Restrained and gagged inside a featureless, windowless room in complete darkness – at least it was very dark, at the margins of his vision, because his head and shoulders were trapped in the glare of intense white light. His hands had been shackled and chained to the thick steel tubing of the ambulance-style trolley he was laid upon. And his feet were secured in a similar manner to the same rail which ran around the bottom of the trolley outside the plastic-coated mattress. A wide leather restraining belt ran over his thighs above his knees. He was vaguely aware of a man standing behind his right shoulder. There was a plain wooden table to his front covering his thighs and lower limbs, which ached and throbbed with the same uncomfortable tightness as the pain in his forehead. Beyond the light, on the other side of the empty table, sat another man, languidly smoking a cigarette, his outline and features hidden in the shadows behind the bleaching brightness of the lights blinding his vision.

  He had no idea how much time had passed since his loss of consciousness, caused by his self-inflicted injury, though it was beginning to dawn on him that he was now in the custody of people who were operating outside the law and the customs of his country and outside the rules of normal behaviour, so he decided to remain polite to avoid antagonising his captors. Somebody behind him began to unbuckle the bridle holding the leather block between his teeth.

  ‘Name!’

  ‘C…Crawford. Colin. I’m a jour…’

  ‘Are you a spy Mr Crawford?’

  ‘NO! No, I’m just a journalist. Can I have some water?’

  ‘That is your occupation,’ said the voice, disdainfully, ‘this is not of any interest to us Mr Crawford.’

  ‘Have you ever passed sensitive, confidential or secret information to representatives of a foreign power, for money or ideological reasons?’ Crawford suddenly realised he must be in the hands of the Security Service, which was an improvement on the alternative. But he realised he was still in a world of trouble. He was going to have to tread very carefully.

  ‘No, never. Can I have a drink please?’

  ‘Give him some water,’ said his interrogator, to the man behind him. ‘You are a member of the Communist Party… Mr Crawford.’

  ‘I was, but I had to leave,’ said Crawford, after accepting some water, spooned into his mouth by his other captor.

  ‘Don’t lie to us Mr Crawford. We are quite capable of checking the veracity of your statements.’

  ‘I had to leave. I didn’t have a choice – really…’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I shagged the party secretary and the treasurer,’ he said, insouciantly, with a markedly downbeat tone of voice.

  Crawford just caught the tiniest trace of a titter from the figure behind him but the man managed to cover it up by clearing his throat.

  ‘Your personal problems are not relevant to this discussion. What is the name of your handler, Mr Crawford?’

  ‘They’re certainly relevant to me. The bitch only reported me, because I fuc…’

  ‘We believe you are a Russian agent, Mr Crawford. If you co-operate with us, we will be able to help you. We can protect you and offer you a new identity and a new life. If you choose to mislead us, or frustrate our investigation, the consequences would be very serious. We will return in thirty minutes.’ His interviewer was not in fact leaving Crawford alone to increase his anxiety in order to exploit it, but because he couldn’t keep a straight face anymore and was afraid he might begin to laugh.

  ‘But…’

  ‘If you try to leave the room, you will be shot. If you attack the men guarding you, you will be shot.’ Crawford could not quite believe the stupidity of the anonymous speaker’s last warning, as he was clearly unable to move in any direction at all in his shackles. But he avoided pointing out the fact he was obviously helpless, in the vain hope it might shorten his incarceration. The agent continued…

  ‘If you mislead us, or give us false information, you will be shot. If you survive the interview process you will be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure– indefinitely. If you are lucky, you may be invited to take part in a prisoner exchange and spend the rest of your days experiencing all the advantages that a revolutionary socialist society can provide – a tiny apartment block in the Moscow suburbs, with a faltering electricity supply, no hot water and a broken lift, queues for non-existent food, public transport that stinks of…’

  ‘Please – can I have some more water, I really need to take a piss too…?’

  Mary and Ian were very tense and irritable by the time they had steered their animals through the green, tree-lined gardens and ornamental parkland between Oliver’s Mount and the lower slopes of the headland, where Mary had decided to part company with her reluctant charges. Pepper and Sweetie had become Grouch and Groan, though it was their human kidnappers who were entirely to blame. The donkeys marched on snacks, pats and daylight and they hadn’t had either since leaving their cosy stable. It didn’t help that Sweetie had kicked Ian in the shins for mishandling her bridle. Now even Mary had to admit de
feat.

  ‘No more Mary. No more,’ said Ian, at the end of his tether. ‘I’ve had enough walking and so has this bloody thing, sorry Pepp, but you’re an ass – a donkey I mean.’

  ’All right, we’ll release them here, said Mary. We’ve made our point.’

  ‘Made our point!’ You’re mad.’

  ‘I am not mad. I’m not mad. We’ve liberated them.’

  ‘No. We’ve stolen them, put ‘em at risk – and us I might add, and abandoned ‘em at night in a friggin’ park so you can boast that you’re an animal rights activist. You’re sick – and I’m sick of your bullshit. Here – take the bloody donkey and leave me alone!’ barked Ian, storming off into the darkness.

  ‘Ian! Come back… pleeease!’ cried Mary. But Ian had already disappeared into the black depths of the night. Mary sagged and started to weep, then Pepper brought her back down to earth by shoving her off the back rest of the park bench she was resting on. Sweetie took flight while Pepper stood over Mary and stuck his nose in her lap.

  ‘I hope you’re proud of that’… snapped Mary.

  Then Pepper started to relieve himself on Mary’s baseball boots.

  Sweetie, who had stopped further down the path, was observing a queue of other humans down below on Rope Walk, filing out of Mystery City with their tools and equipment trolleys to a line of vans on the pavements. The donkey, who was now hungry and tired, knew humans meant food, so she set off down the winding footpath towards the club, buoyed up by the smell of chips and seared onions drifting up from Ned’s takeaway food caravan on the empty pay and display car park nearby.

  Chapter Fifteen

  This Ol’House

  Seaforth House stood alone on the barren peak of Weare Topping, overlooking the northern tip of Kettleness. For eighty years it had weathered storms, sleet, snow and the occasional bleaching heats of summer, though during the last three decades it had barely been touched. Despite its neglected facade, it was endowed with all the characteristic emblems and motifs of the archetypal redbrick arts and crafts era mansion, with decorative stucco inset panels, framed in limed oak along the breadth of its upper floors, hand-carved wooden brackets, leadwork mirroring natural forms and stained glass inset panels in its windows. Seaforth also featured the largest stained glass window outside of a church in North Yorkshire which overlooked the main staircase. It was a house like no other in the region; and somewhat at odds with the huge rocks and boulder stones crowding the ground around its skirts, a testament to a forgotten era, marooned on the highest point of the North Sea coast.

  The main body of the house supported two pairs of bay windows that jutted out on its longest sides, like the inboard superstructure of a battleship. The rear pair overlooked the sea and were crowned with turrets set into roofline. The front bays, by contrast, looked back over the landscape, from the rocky stones and bluffs of its near aspect to the steep green hills beyond. In its bloom, Seaforth had been among the most admired new houses in England. But in the space of sixty years, its owners, the Benedict family, had frittered away their fortune and slipped into comparative poverty and ordinariness.

  To compound their misfortunes, a landslip had taken away the only access road to the old house, leaving them with no other way of reaching their family home, save a narrow gravel footpath which ran perilously close to the edge of the cliffs. Their last great asset was effectively cut off from the world. In the years since, the house had succumbed to the aggregations of time and climate, settling into a condition of romantic decay. It was now little more than a semi-derelict folly; a crumbling monument to the thwarted ambitions of a once-respected family.

  Meredith Benedict would be the last permanent living occupant of the once-great house. The youngest child of Anthony and Helen Benedict, she had always loved Seaforth, the remoteness of its location, the ever-changing canvas of sea and sky and the dramatic sunsets. Although she had little in the way of human contact, she felt grateful to be living in such a wild and beautiful place, despite the many deprivations – and had decided she would stay, eking out an existence on the monthly markets, selling her embroidery, knitwear and herbal remedies, with no one for company but her three feral cats. Occasionally pawning what remained of the family’s rare china, precious silverware and jewellery to pay for her coal and groceries meant she was comfortable. But there was little left to pay for anything other than essential repairs and so she restricted herself to one wing of the house, knitting during the evenings or reading books from the great library, in the fading grandeur of the dining room with only oil lamps and candles for light.

  As Meredith grew old in solitude, contemplating the seasons and the passage of time, she became a recluse, taking in the gifts of food and clothing donated by her close friends and neighbours. Her garden grew tangled and wild behind the boundary walls, until the front door and the path leading to it was entirely covered by brambles and ivy.

  The only way in or out that was left to her was a side door into the coal house, on the southern wing of the property. Eventually she stopped answering to callers, though her neighbours would sometimes see lights burning behind the shabby curtains, until the autumn of 1982 when the house remained cloaked in darkness for the whole winter.

  Now in the spring, the locals had begun to see lights inside again, though it was never usually more than the glow of a single bulb, which burned unblinkingly throughout the night. But unknown to them, Meredith had perished the previous year, trapped in a cave by the tide at dusk; succumbing to the numbing cold of the North Sea’s bitter winds. Who or what now occupied the empty rooms of the decaying old house was not yet a puzzle that required investigation. Her neighbours at High Topping Farm and Alcoves Dairy had more pressing matters to occupy their minds –the strange disappearance of several lambs and ewes, a ram, five cats, two pigs and a cockerel. High Topping Farm’s Collie, Ben, had found a blood trail leading to the sea, though the scent was lost after another storm and a heavy fall of rain. But the mystery took a more sinister turn after the disappearance of two day-trippers.

  On the second day of the Easter holiday, a married couple had vanished from their tent at the mouth of Ash Gill ravine during the night, leaving most of their possessions in front of the beach. It was assumed they had left on an impulse after an argument and returned home in the early hours. But against the background of the missing farm animals, their sudden absence only increased the sense of unease amongst the local population. There were tales of sink holes in the area, which were reputedly linked to caves inside the cliffs and used by smugglers hundreds of years before, though none had ever been found. If such places still existed, then no one had ever returned from them alive, and so Kettleness continued to keep its oldest secrets. After all the rumours and speculation, it took another missing cat to stir the police into action.

  Councillors Jim and Eileen Halshaw had reached a point in their relationship where any thoughts of passion or physical affection had long since evaporated. Theirs was a marriage of shared chores, books, comfortable domesticity and committees, punctuated by conversations which revolved around the common topics of family, friends and the toileting habits of their pets Bell, Gemma and Bonnie – their pedigree Boxers. They were, in their own words, experienced shitologists. Firm and odourless evacuations were related throughout the Halshaw house with great glee, but runny poos were pored over – in a manner of speaking – with great seriousness and interest. Mustard-coloured smoothies or ‘Mr Whippy’s’ were almost enough to ruin their day.

  Marmalade, their ginger Tom, was large and spoiled and very rarely left the comfort of his armchair. He could no longer force his girth past the frame of the cat flap with ease after growing heavy and voluptuous on a diet of Whitby smokies, creamed rice and Harpers cat biscuits poured from the constantly replenished cardboard boxes of treats which arrived almost daily from Woolworths. In between sleeps, he lolled or spread himself unselfishly over the expensi
ve furniture of his human carers; or in between the dogs.

  It was the smell of a half-eaten portion of battered haddock that drew him outside one night, to meet his nemesis, past the open door to their back yard, where his father was emptying the dust from their coal bucket. The portly cat tracked the scent of the abandoned fish supper along their garden path to the boundary hedge, ducking down and squeezing himself through a gap in the knotted web of its lowest branches and roots. It was on the other side that he met Mr Boldwood, lurking downwind in a rusting, perforated bathtub, which had once served as the drinking trough for the milking herd but now lay abandoned on a cracked, compacted ribbon of mud, fifty yards from their boundary fence.

  Marmalade’s last breaths were painful and short, swung violently from side to side, until he was decapitated, between the upper and lower jaws of a beast that had no business wandering the lanes and fields of rural North Yorkshire, or any other earthly place. Like Marmalade, Mr Boldwood’s first live prey – as a werewolf, had been his own pet cat Bagshott. Since when he had polished off a whole street’s worth of feline victims, before moving onto rams, ewes, saddleback pigs and the occasional human as a main, if the opportunity presented itself. But cats remained his favourite starter, though the human side of him had not yet come to terms with the giant hairballs in the toilet bowl the following afternoon.

  The same evening, Boldwood had slaughtered the three Turkish kitchen staff at Crescent Moon on Pilger Street in his native Cloughton. But he had not been able to repeat the carnage in the front of the takeaway, thanks to the quick thinking of the owner; who had thrown a catering size HP Sauce bottle into his jaws in panic. Once his fangs had torn open the plastic squeezy bottle and the contents had filled his mouth, Boldwood couldn’t get back to the river fast enough. Something furry and light, with small crunchy bones was just the tonic he needed to dislodge the dreadful memory of the hot brown sauce. Although Marmalade was a little bigger than his usual entrées, he was at least very furry.