‘Tanz, stop talking so fast, you’ll be sick.’ Sheila picks up her bag and pulls out a garden trowel.
I’m so shocked I inhale my wine and my laughter is peppered with throaty coughs, like an injured seal.
‘Stop laughing. You can’t come to a burial site and not bring a trowel. There might be evidence, a ring or something; I’m not proposing digging up a whole decomposing body with this, you nit. We could destroy evidence doing that. We’re not in Silent bloody Witness.’
Sheila is so cool. She believes in what we’re doing and she has no doubt that Mona is real and that she’s buried nearby. That is the confidence I haven’t quite developed yet. Now I’m beginning to understand that ‘development’ is also about learning to believe wholeheartedly in what you’re doing. Healthy doubt is always good, but not being a total doubting Thomasina like me. Part of me really wishes we’d called the police by now.
We look at each other. Next move: drink off our wine and visit the loo. It’s business time.
Darkness Descends
The strip of pavement on the side of the country lane that passes for the main road through Mersham is rather thin. I don’t like those little pavements. Even when the sign says thirty, in my experience, country people drive like they’re steering Learjets. They seem to have cars that don’t go slower than seventy. They are basically mad. That’s why I don’t live in the countryside: it sends people bonkers.
Just down from the pub, twenty feet after the end of the garden, we come across a small lay-by with a wooden turnstile that leads into Bluebell Wood.
‘Are we really going to do this, Sheils?’
‘Look, if we don’t, we are not going to shake off Mona. This way we can at least show her we’re trying to get to the bottom of this. If we don’t find anything, we don’t find anything. Anyway, wasn’t this your idea?’
I look at my phone. Virtually no reception. I reckon once we get under the trees there’ll be none at all. That’s B-movie stuff. Why don’t they build better phone masts around here, the total Neanderthals? Sheila uses the turnstile first, the damp wood offering a little resistance before it gives and allows her to pass. The accompanying creak would make Vincent Price proud. If he wasn’t dead. I am not liking the feeling that I’m currently the star of my own shit film.
Sheila stands a few feet along the path, where the canopy of trees has already made it darker and cooler. For all of her conviction, there’s a sheen of sweat on her top lip. She is obviously edgy and as I step up to join her the trepidation is hanging heavy on me, too. I’ve tried to speak to Frank a few times since we got to the pub and he’s not been more forthcoming than, ‘Be careful’. I don’t like him saying that; he should know I’m going to be fine, shouldn’t he? Isn’t that his ‘job’? I link arms with my scared mate as we begin to tread the foot-worn path.
‘Help me, please. Oh God, oh God. Why? Please, help me, someone.’
Change the record, Mona. I can’t see the sky now, just branches and leaves. I imagine the night it happened, being lugged into these woods like a sausage roll in a blood-stained carpet. I know it wasn’t just one person carrying that roll. I can hear the breathing, the footfalls. There were two of them, in the dark.
Sheila grips my arm harder.
Suddenly I can hear Jemimah, as calm and steady as always. ‘It’s to the left. Look for the hollowed-out trunk.’
‘Sheila, I think it’s through there.’
To the left there is a very faint, less-trodden path that seems to lead to nowhere but a thick bank of bushes and trees. Sheila takes a deep breath.
‘I can see her, love. Mona. Her face is… never mind. She is beckoning to us from that tree over there.’
Oohh. Now I feel faint. A ghost beckoning to us is just old-school Hammer Horror. I look towards the tree she’s pointing at, then approach it. It’s actually an optical illusion that the bushes and trees are impassable. Once you reach them there’s quite a gap between the first tree and the one behind it.
I slip through and am surprised to find another little path. Sheila steps in behind me. I don’t want to move. I can see a bit of sky and it’s greyer than it was. I pull my jacket around myself. I am now wishing I hadn’t come here. Mona’s crying has become a keening wail and I am overcome by the worst, most all-consuming sadness I’ve ever experienced. It is crushing. She is nearby, I know it, and my legs don’t want to take me there. Sheila holds my arm again and gives me a firm little tug.
‘We’ve come this far. Let’s just take a peek.’
There’s a clearing just through the trees ahead. I hold my breath, count to five, then walk towards it. In very few steps we are past the oaks and willows and there it is. A patch of bracken and earth. The clearing’s not that big, fifteen feet across maybe. It’s dominated by a large, hollowed out tree trunk lying on its side and has a small patch of bluebells growing on the periphery. I am no gardener, but even I know bluebells are spring flowers. There shouldn’t be bluebells growing wild in June. And yet here they are. That freaks me out as much as the hollowed out trunk that Jemimah told me to look for and that my little mam saw in her dream.
The energy here is horrendous.
Sheila has walked over to the trunk. All at once she squats down and starts pushing at it. What the bloody hell is she doing? It obviously isn’t embedded in the ground, as her shove rocks it. She motions me to join her. She whispers, even though there’s no one else around.
‘Look over there. That shape in the ground. It’s faint, but it looks pretty much the size of this trunk. I think this has been moved. I think it was embedded over there and then a while ago someone moved it a couple of feet.’
‘Kids?’
‘Maybe.’
Neither of us is convinced. There’s no litter or sign of human visitation and apart from distant birdsong this clearing is eerily quiet. All at once I’m dizzy.
‘Here! Here! I’m here, all on my own.’
I hear her. I drop to the ground again, by the trunk. Sheila joins me.
‘We have to move this.’
We both put our palms flat on the trunk and give it another shove. It moves without much complaint once I put my shoulder into it, uncovering a mass of fleeing woodlice, shrinking worms and agitated grubs, unappreciative of their sudden exposure to air and light. Then Sheila takes the trowel from her bag. I’m not laughing now. My heart is hammering. There is a pulsating, throbbing black hole in the middle of my forehead and my chest is constricted by the pressure of being in this place.
Sheila has arthritis in her hand. I hold out my own. ‘Here. I’ll do it.’
I dig a few inches down. It’s loose-ish soil. ‘How far should I dig?’
‘I don’t know, love. Mona’s here, pointing a few inches to your right there.’
I dig where I’m told. The smell of damp soil reminds me of being a child in Saltwell Park, when they’d dig up the large flower beds and overturn the soil, ready for the new spring planting. About a foot down I think, ‘maybe I should stop now’. A fresh pressure on my forehead tells me I shouldn’t. I take another large scoopful out and dig the trowel in again. I come against resistance. My heart stops hammering and skips.
‘Sheils, there’s something there.’
I put down the trowel and we pull more soil back with our hands. Carefully. It could be anything. I dig more and we clear more.
Then. Right in front of our eyes, in front of my sceptical, scathing, sarcastic subconscious, is the thing I never truly expected to find. The thing that I suspected to be true, but couldn’t quite believe.
There, becoming more and more uncovered as we clear away dirt with our hands and that tiny little spade, is the corner and side of a rolled-up carpet.
Fuck.
It’s all I can do not to burst into tears. The emotion (and fright) could be mine, or it might be Mona’s. It’s probably both. Sheila is suddenly a whitish-green colour and I hope she’s not about to puke; the smell from the carpet as a few more trowels of earth
are removed is already bad enough. We don’t need to dig any more or attempt to look inside the carpet as that stench tells us everything we need to know. There’s only one thing it can be. I step away from the hole. Sheila does the same.
We just stand there quietly for a bit.
‘Mona. You did very well. Now we know, love.’ Sheila takes my hand and instinctively we both close our eyes. We attempt a prayer each. Sheila starts.
‘Mona, I hope now that we have found you that you can find peace and remember the beauty in your life and not just the horrible ending.’
‘Mona, I’m sorry you suffered so badly, lass, but now I hope you can be the special person that you truly are and not dwell on the hurt that others caused you. Safe journey.’
This is truly emotional. I reckon she was released as soon as we found the edge of that carpet though, because the weeping in my head has stopped.
We both check our phones. No signal on either. My teeth are chattering.
‘Do we need to do anything else, Sheils?’
‘No. That’s enough. We can perform a little ceremony for her after she’s been given a proper burial if you fancy? Right now I’d like to get back to your car and call the police. I don’t like being here at all.’
No. The feeling of peace that descends after a spirit has been helped is being superseded by the unease at being in this place, on our own, with phones that don’t work.
I let Sheila walk ahead, as she’s slower than me and I don’t want her to feel left behind. In reality, I want to leg it out of here and all the way down the M1 back to London without stopping.
I’m just wondering how the hell we’ll explain this to the police when a hand, followed by a whole body, like a cheesy trailer for a slasher movie, shoots out from behind the tree ahead. My emotions are already heightened because of what we just found, but suddenly seeing Dan Beck in his casual jumper and slacks grabbing Sheila by the hair is enough for me to disbelieve my own lying eyes while simultaneously spasming like I’ve stuck my hand in a live electrical socket.
And worse than him grabbing her is the fact that the other arm, currently around her neck, has a sharp-looking blade in its hand. And when Sheila tries to struggle it is brought quickly under her chin and draws blood. She goes still as a statue and he looks straight at me.
‘I’d stay still and be quiet if I were you.’
That accent. Like being murderously threatened by one of the Wurzels. I look at the cut on Sheila’s neck and I want to chop his liver out. Fucking coward.
The House of Death
Before being in that situation where a crazy person might murder you in cold blood at any given moment, you think you’ll do certain things to save your own life. You think you’ll fight and scream and kick and tear. You think you’ll use your ingenuity and wiles; you won’t be a victim and you’ll definitely fling yourself out of a moving car rather than risk murder or rape or both.
But when a dangerous man puts his knife against my friend’s throat, most of my options are completely buggered; especially when he bundles us into the back of his blacked-out 4x4 and ties us together with a skipping rope from the boot. He could slit either or both of us from ear to ear in a few seconds, the mad twat. Plus, Sheila is not the kind of girl who leaps out of moving vehicles, not with her arthritis, and – seeing as she’s tied to me – if I jump, she jumps. So I’m staying put, because I can’t let Sheila be harmed today, not a flippin’ chance. It’s my fault she’s here and I’m getting her home safely, and that is that.
He only speaks once and it’s to me, just before he pulls away from the wood that he recently dragged us from.
‘That cut on her neck was a small warning. If I’d meant to cut her properly she’d be dead.’
I look at the back of his neck and wish I could give him a Vulcan death grip or kick him in it, so I damage his spinal cord and cripple him. That’s how pissed off I am. And that’s the problem with films and TV. They make us think we’re all Hong Kong Phooey. In my head I cry out to Frank.
‘Frank! What the FUCK do I do now?’
‘Keep calm.’
‘Is that it? Thanks for nothing, mate.’
We’ve only driven about four minutes when we reach security gates and find ourselves on the gravel frontage of what is presumably his home. And with iron gates closing behind us I have no idea what will happen next. It’s the most bizarrely menacing predicament to be in.
He stops and exits the car. As he walks round to let us out, Sheila whispers to me that we’re protected.
A tear rolls down her face. She’s obviously not feeling that protected.
‘I’m sorry, Sheils, for getting you in to this –’
Just then, Dan’s hand shoots in and drags us out into the daylight.
‘No conferring, ladies!’
He laughs a hyena laugh that gets right on my fucking nerve endings.
He bundles us clumsily through his front door into his hallway. This house has high, beamed ceilings. Mona’s dream home, the one she helped build, the wife he killed.
This line of thought is not helpful. He bolts the front door, then unties us and leads Sheila to another door. It is a big coat cupboard. It contains various bits and bobs, including a small wood and leather stool shoved in the corner with a Barbour coat hanging down behind it. He pushes Sheila onto the stool.
‘Sit down and behave yourself and life will be very easy for you. Make a fuss and you’ll have more than a little shaver’s cut to contend with. OK?’
Cool as a cucumber, he brandishes the knife again. She nods, not even looking at him, and sits on the stool. Her eyes lock on mine. If she can be that centred then so can I. He closes the posh, stripped wood door on her and puts down the wooden latch. There’s a lot of wood in here. It looks like they built a house from scratch and filled it with old, reclaimed stuff. Right now it’s difficult to appreciate its beauty, terrified as I am, but I can feel there was love in these walls and I draw whatever strength I can from that as he takes me by the elbow and leads me to another room.
It’s a television room, with large, comfy-looking (and expensive) sofas. The curtains are open, letting in huge amounts of light; the window looks out over fields and a rose garden with what looks like a stable to the side. There is a table in the corner with four chairs that I imagine to be the ‘dine while you watch TV’ part of the room.
On the dark wood coffee table in front of a sofa looks to be the remnants of last night’s dinner, an Indian take-away by the smell of it. And several empty cans. Carmen must be away, as there’s only one plate and I cannot for the life of me imagine a money-hound like her drinking tins of lager. He puts his arm around me and I try not to stiffen as he leads me to the table and sits me in one of the chairs.
‘Do I need to tie you up, or are you going to be a good girl? Maybe you like being tied up? Yeehahahah.’
Keep laughing, mate. Until I’m angry enough to smash a chair over your head. ‘No. I don’t like being tied up.’
‘Shame. Well, I’ll let you off for now. But one false move and I’ll gut your mate like a rabbit.’
To illustrate his point, he brings his face to the same level as mine and waggles the glinting knife. If he tries to kiss me, I will vomit. But he doesn’t. He just sniffs my hair like he’s trying to work out what shampoo I use, an action that freezes my blood, then sits down and stares at me.
‘How did you find out about Bluebell Wood? Did Carmen tell your friend out there?’
What do I say? What? I want to tell the truth, but how do you judge how to play it with someone like this? His hangdog eyes are pools of blankness. How do I work with that? But Frank is here. To my relief I hear him, bold as brass. ‘Be exactly like Jemimah. The truth, the literal truth. He’ll feel it.’
This is a film. This is a movie and I’m playing a massive, blue androgynous being called Jemimah. A blue being that has suddenly acquired a Geordie accent. I assume an absolute calm that I don’t feel.
‘You know s
he didn’t.’
He flinches slightly. ‘I didn’t think she would. Good at keeping secrets, Carmen. And anyway, if she had, you’d have called the police, wouldn’t you?’
‘Maybe. People who come for readings can be complete nutters, so she might have been lying.’
This catches him off guard and he laughs that high, inappropriate laugh.
‘I bet you do get some nutters! I expected everyone at that ridiculous shop to be cuckoo, but was pleasantly surprised. When your mate couldn’t tell Carmen anything, there was no charge. Instead of making something up she sent her away with her money in her hand. Why would a faker do that?’
‘Sheila is an amazing woman.’
‘She’s not the only one. You looked into my soul.’
I swallow hard. The words of a true mentalist. How am I supposed to respond to that?
‘You met my eye in that shop and for a second there I felt something I’d not felt in a while. I was scared.’
Talk about irony.
‘That’s a surprise.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m not usually classed as scary.’
‘You know things. Like my mother did. It was like my mother was looking straight through me. My mother wouldn’t be very pleased with me at the minute, I’m afraid.’ He rubs a hand over his perma-tanned face. If his eyes weren’t so weird he’d be a handsome bloke. I’m sure Carmen and her ilk think he’s gorgeous, this cologne-drenched creep with pots of money.
‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
He looks so troubled, it just slips out. I mean, Jemimah would ask, wouldn’t she? Anyway, I’m improvising.
‘You see, that’s what my mother would do. She’s dead now, but she would care about the other person. You ladies are up the creek without a paddle and you’re asking what’s wrong with me? Will you just tell me, be honest, how did you find that place in the woods? I need to know.’
Sex, Spooks and Sauvignon (Adventures of an Accidental Medium Book 1) Page 20