The Lost Village

by Neil Spring

  Hartwell started at the mention of his boy.

  Price’s face was now a study in barely contained anger. He took a step towards Hartwell. ‘You and Sidewinder convinced the army they were operating in this village at the mercy of ghosts. You used drugs to terrify Sergeant Edwards – so badly that he set himself ablaze! Probably you used drugs on your wife, yes? Addled her mind. You did all this – and more – to preserve the male line in your great and noble family. To restrict inheritance rights to your male heirs. So surely, Oscar, surely you want to know about the boy you used and cheated to accomplish your goal. Surely you want to know everything about him.’

  ‘I know everything about my son.’

  ‘Ah – not true.’

  ‘He’s in London.’

  ‘Wrong again,’ said Price, shaking his head defiantly. ‘We found him, Oscar. And guess what? He’s safe. Right now, your precious son is in the one place you’ve always wanted him. He’s home. Pierre is right here, in Imber. Under army protection.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ said Hartwell – but his voice wavered.

  Price squinted, considering this. ‘Well, I might be lying. You’ll have to make up your own mind, I can’t do it for you.’

  Price’s voice was cutting, every word a knife against this monster. ‘But what I can do, Oscar, is make you a solemn promise. They’re coming for you – the protesters, the former residents of this village you’ve whipped into a fury – and when they hear of this chamber of horrors, when they see what you have done to these poor children, I promise you, they will want vengeance.’

  Hartwell was shaking his head.

  Price advanced on him slowly, anger blazing out of him. ‘There are no ghosts in Imber, there never were. You’re going to be arrested. You’ll be thrown in prison, and then . . . then you will be hanged.’

  ‘My son will lie for me. He’ll pro—’

  ‘Protect you?’ Price’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. Because I know something else about your son. Something that will haunt you for the rest of your miserable days.’

  ‘I know everything about him,’ Hartwell retorted furiously – desperately. ‘He is my son!’

  Price had white fire in his eyes. ‘Is he?’

  Hartwell froze. Stared at Price. ‘Of course he’s mine.’

  ‘Wrong.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Don’t I?’ Price was vengeance personified, shoulders squared, his face thrust close to Hartwell’s. ‘Then why do you look as though the Devil has reached into your chest and tightened his dirty claws around your heart? Pierre’s true father is someone whose life you ruined – the man you left for dead in the woods. And if you’re not afraid, you should be, because when he learns the truth . . .’ He clamped a hand on Hartwell’s shoulder and smiled coldly. ‘Sergeant Gregory Edwards is a man trained to fire on the enemy.’

  I had felt for a time the commander was concealing a secret, hadn’t I? This surely was it. Edwards’ affair with Marie had produced a child.

  ‘It’s not true,’ said Hartwell, breaking free of Price’s grip. ‘How can it be true?’ He staggered back against the wall. His face crumpled.

  ‘Tell us where she’s buried,’ Price demanded.

  I stared at him, confused.

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘There’s one more, Sarah. One more little girl, who should have lived.’

  What was this? Hartwell only had three girls, didn’t he? Didn’t he?

  Hartwell’s silence said it all: there was a final horror here, waiting to be unearthed.

  Price rounded on him. ‘WHERE IS SHE?’

  ‘Stop, stop, stop,’ Hartwell said, wary and furious.

  ‘Well, perhaps I can help you remember,’ Price replied, undeterred. Urgently, he rounded on me, snapping his fingers. ‘Sarah, the lantern slide.’

  I was looking at him, mystified.

  ‘Give it to me!’

  I did, and he stooped to slot it into the magic lantern. The image that flickered out onto the wall was almost life-size. A projected image of two children: a dark-haired boy in a suit standing primly next to a girl with crystalline blue eyes, hair curling around her ears.

  Hartwell gave a strangled cry, jumping back in surprise, and as he did so a bolt of what I can only describe as psychic power smacked through me, so powerfully that for a moment I struggled to breathe.

  It’s Hartwell, a voice in my head said. The boy on the lantern slide, the boy in the suit, is a young Oscar Hartwell.

  And the girl standing next to him?

  ‘Confess!’ Price raged. ‘Tell us where to find her!’

  Hartwell was in motion, backing towards the bed, towards the soft toys scattered there, reaching for something in his jacket pocket. As he tore it out, it glinted silver.

  A nickel-plated silver cigarette lighter.

  ‘We lived to die in this village, my wife and I,’ he said calmly, words I recognised. He looked crafty, ready to end this, one way or another. ‘To be buried here, with our children.’

  ‘You don’t need to do this,’ Price implored, holding out one hand.

  Hartwell struck the lighter and a yellow flame bloomed.

  Whoosh! The scatter of soft toys ignited in flame.

  At the side of the bed, Price wrestled the lighter from Hartwell’s grasp, but it was too late. The soft toys had caught quickly. So had the sheets. And, I saw with mounting horror, so had the ruffled white dresses worn by the corpses of his little girls.

  ‘I’m not leaving, Mr Price,’ Hartwell coughed, sliding down the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest.

  I glanced at the flickering image on the wall: the younger Hartwell, nine or ten, and the girl, slightly older. I bolted to the shattered desk, suddenly sure of what I would find.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Sarah? We have to get out!’

  A blinding rush, and the bed, along with its tragic occupants, went up in flames.

  Tongues of fire darted up the moth-eaten curtains and licked at the carpet. Price jumped to his feet as I yanked open the desk drawer.

  There they were, as somehow I had known they would be.

  Scrolls of drawing paper. Marie Hartwell’s spirit drawings.

  Price erupted into action, grabbing my wrist, but I kept good hold of the drawings. The room was seething with heat and smoke. I strained to look at the bed and those three little girls, at the floor, Sidewinder’s body in a pool of blood, and at Hartwell, who was huddled on the floor against the wall.

  Finally, I glanced at the flickering image thrown by the magic lantern. It had followed me to this moment, all the way from Brixton Picture Palace.

  ‘Who is she?’ I demanded. ‘Who’s the girl in the picture?’

  Hartwell shook his head contemptuously, as the flames from the bed began licking at the sleeve of his jacket.

  Price had my hand, was dragging me out of the room.

  When I looked back, I saw, for the last time, the ghostly projection: the young Hartwell and the older girl with the blue eyes, flickering spectres in the black smoke.

  Then came the scream, and I saw that Hartwell was alight, thrashing wildly.

  The two of us tore headlong out of the nursery and down the corridor, stumbling in the dark. With flames raging behind us, we careened down the staircase, lurching across the pitch-black hallway to the main door, only to find it barred.

  Hartwell must have locked it.

  Shaking, I banged desperately on the door.

  Price cast a panicked at the top of the stairs. ‘We can’t go back up there.’ He nodded towards the nearest corridor – a stretching tunnel of darkness. ‘We’ll try the back of the house.’

  It’s not safe out there. The commander warned us . . .

  With the torchlight bouncing off the walls
, we tore to the back of the house, passing room after gloomy room, every window boarded up. Again, the noise of the protesters – drums, horns, whistles – carried through the rain to the mansion. ‘Imber forever,’ I heard them chant. ‘Imber will live.’

  Bursting into what had once been the kitchen, both of us began coughing harshly, the acrid smoke seeping down through the floorboards above us. We must have been right underneath the blazing nursery. It was harder to draw breath now – much harder.

  Price started to the exit, another steel door.

  ‘Sarah – help me!’

  We pushed it, battered on it, but the door didn’t give.

  ‘It’s bolted from the other side!’ I realised.

  ‘Have to get out,’ Price croaked. More smoke was seething through the ceiling, thick and hot. I closed my eyes, weakening.

  Please, don’t let this be the end.

  In desperation, I slammed on the door with all my strength and there was a chink as the bolt on the other side snapped. It must have been old, rusted. Price threw his body at the door. Once. Twice.

  It swung open. Coughing and choking, we ran out into a hellish landscape of fog, rain and barbed wire.

  ‘Who was the girl on the lantern slide?’ I shouted at Price.

  He let go of my hand, shaking his head in defiance, then nodded towards the centre of the village, beyond the stream and the belt of elm trees, to the crowd of men, women and children who were openly ignoring the soldiers’ warnings of mines and the signs that were planted everywhere.

  TO LEAVE THE ROADS IS DANGEROUS.

  THERE ARE MISSILES THAT CAN KILL!

  Whistles shrieking and banners raised high, hundreds of people swarmed towards the ancient cottages that we had never dared enter.

  ‘Stop!’ I yelled. ‘For God’s sake, it’s NOT SAFE!’

  Behind us, black smoke was pouring from Imber Court. The heat from the blaze was at our backs, the rough terrain glowing orange in the light of the flames. Price was beckoning me to follow him.

  ‘Come on, Sarah, run!’

  We bolted for the road, splashing through muddy craters, until Price skidded to a halt, one hand raised.

  ‘Freeze!’

  We became statues.

  Price was staring down in horror.

  Now, just a few centimetres from Price’s muddied boot, I saw it, protruding from the mud – a dark-green land mine. One wrong move and we’d be blown to smithereens.

  There was a long moment of hopeless silence, broken finally by Price. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah,’ he said in a defeated voice. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘What for?’ I asked. His maddening secretiveness, his refusal to tell me everything he knew about this village and my connection to it?

  ‘I should never have brought you here,’ was all he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded. ‘I brought you here.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah, I am. But I needed to know if it was true.’

  ‘What? If what was true? Harry?’

  ‘I needed to know they weren’t delusions, Sarah. I needed to know if the memories were—’

  Suddenly, a massive explosion detonated, reverberating through the ground, through my every bone. I screamed, looking wildly about me. Only Price’s hand clamped on my sleeve kept me from moving. He tilted his face, squinting into the sky.

  Another explosion; a flash of white lightning.

  Relief surged through me. It wasn’t mines we could hear exploding around us, but thunder. I stood rooted to the spot. Then an awful cracking made me glance back at Imber Court, just as its roof collapsed, devoured by the leaping flames. I tried picturing the chaos inside – the floorboards, the great wooden staircase, surrendering to the raging blaze – but all I saw was the nursery, the children. Oh God, those poor children.

  Quickly, tightly, Price clasped my arm. His face was pained, pleading with me. ‘Swear to me, Sarah, never to tell. Of what has happened here. Of my fleeting belief in the spirit child. Promise me you will say nothing of my foolish mistake, not to anyone. Not ever.’

  I nodded my answer: I promise.

  Then, urgently, I said: ‘We have to get back to the road.’

  He nodded but he was looking down at our feet, at the land mine almost touching his boot. ‘We can’t move,’ he said hopelessly. ‘There’s bound to be more.’

  That was when I felt it, with shocking suddenness – a hand closed around my wrist.

  A hand?

  I looked all around, but I saw no one.

  But there was someone, wasn’t there? I could feel that hand tugging my wrist, firm yet freezing cold. I knew instinctively it was the hand of someone dead.

  ‘Sarah, what’s wrong?’

  Another sharp tug. This felt like a man’s hand. It seemed to be signalling, Come now, follow me.

  The Devil’s Snare again? Another hallucination?

  Price looked terror-stricken. Was I really going to allow this invisible hand, which he couldn’t feel, to lead us to the road?

  Then, beyond the stream, the bells of St Giles’ Church started tolling.

  I drew a breath, so scared. The dead man’s hand tugged urgently.

  A flash of memory:

  ‘Sarah, my angel, if ever we are parted, if you should find yourself alone, then close your eyes and remember this place. I’ll always be here.’

  I held Price’s gaze a moment longer. Then, swallowing a gulp, I stepped into no man’s land.

  ‘Sarah, what the hell are you—’

  ‘It’s all right, Harry,’ I said, with a new and unexpected confidence. ‘Trust me now.’

  The sky flashed white again, and now more bells were tolling at their loudest, as if warning of the direst emergency.

  I closed my eyes and focused, my head down. Still clutching Marie’s drawings, I put one foot forward . . .

  PART FOUR

  OLD SOULS

  For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old?

  CHARLES DICKENS, Master Humphrey’s Clock

  – 37 –

  THE REVENANT (II)

  October 1978

  All that happened forty-six years ago.

  Forty-six years . . .

  It feels longer, and I don’t think that’s just because I’m slipping ever deeper into old age: seventy-four now. The village itself couldn’t harm me, only the memories of what happened there. And those memories took their toll.

  So, I pushed them down, held my silence as I had promised. I moved on, but what had happened behind those barbed-wire fences and Keep Out signs was almost impossible to leave behind.

  And like I said, reality has a way of intruding. Recent events have forced me to look back. One week ago, I saw the spectre of Harry Price reflected in my kitchen window, whispering a name to me, and pleading with me never to tell what happened in Imber. And despite my almost crippling arthritis, I have not stopped writing since.

  The words have come in a flood.

  Now, as I wait for dawn, I look back through these memoirs, feeling pensive and drained. Consumed with sadness. There’s a part of me that doesn’t feel able to finish this story, but finish I must. Because of the story in the news.

  The news I never wanted to hear again.

  Perhaps you remember? It was reported on the radio and in all the newspapers. The army had made a gruesome discovery in Imber: skeletal remains.

  The remains of a child.

  Nothing could have prepared me for the sadness, the sheer disbelief and anger
that rose in me when I heard that on the radio. Scant information was given – no cause of death, no estimation of how long the remains had been in the earth. But a policewoman interviewed by the BBC did say the discovery was being treated as suspicious.

  Hearing that made me remember my promise to Price never to tell about his fleeting belief in the spirit child. And it taught me an all too painful lesson: some promises should not be honoured.

  The military conducted their own internal investigation, but so much was suppressed that Hartwell’s deeds remained secret from the public.

  Now I have to tell the police what I know. There was foul play in Imber. I know that as surely as I know it was the spirit of my father who had piloted Price and me through the land mines to the road.

  Can I prove it? No. But a secret, strange knowledge tells me I don’t need to; and the same knowledge tells me the skeletal remains unearthed in Imber belong to a member of the Hartwell family: a little girl, just twelve years old.

  And yes, I think I also know how precisely that little girl met her demise.

  Because some stories are never finished, are they? Some voices insist on being heard, even after death, and who are we to ignore them? Now, as I prepare to put down my pen with shaking hands that are spotted with age, I feel afraid and old and alone; but I know what I must do.

  I need closure. Never more so than now. The police need information, and I can help with that. But I would like something in return. There is someone I would like to meet. And I’m hopeful the police can help make that happen.

  *

  Still curious, Sarah . . .

  Before returning to Imber, I have Vernon drive me to West Sussex, to a place I’ve managed to spend my whole life avoiding.

  St Mary’s graveyard, Pulborough.

  I want to pay my respects to the man I am about to betray.

  Looming before me, in the black shadow of an elm tree, is a cross-shaped headstone, choked by ivy.

  ‘Hello, old friend.’

  I kneel beside it and put my hand gently on the rough weathered stone. Just visible through the spotted moss is the inscription.

  IN LOVING MEMORY OF