THE SOUL FIXER (A psychological thriller)

by D. M. Mitchell

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘The storm will pass soon enough, if that’s what you think is stopping us.’

  ‘You’ll be dead before the storm is over if you don’t listen to me.’

  She froze, her mouth hanging open. ‘Is that a threat?’

  He raised his brows. ‘From me? No, of course not! I am here to help.’

  ‘Then you’ve a strange way of showing it,’ she said.

  ‘You saw a man yesterday, near the stone circle…’

  She moved away from the door. ‘That’s right. He ran off…’

  ‘He has the answer, Susan. This man has the answer.’

  ‘Who is he?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘The Digger Man.’

  ‘Sorry – digger who?’

  ‘Find him. Find him soon.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to be found. He made that clear.’

  ‘That’s because he is afraid. He knows the secret of Connalough Point, and so his life is in danger.’

  ‘And I take it you know the secret, too?’

  He motioned around the room. ‘I think that is obvious, don’t you?’

  ‘Then cut to the chase and tell me what you know. Forget the games.’

  Silas Blake shook his head sorrowfully. ‘The Digger Man will show you.’ He rose to his feet, turned away from her. ‘Please, Susan, I cannot say more. You will know why soon enough. But please trust me when I say I could not do what must be done without you. That is why you are here.’ He twisted round to stare her deep in the eyes. ‘There are many secrets to be unearthed, Susan. And unearthing those secrets will save your daughter’s soul. It will save you. Say nothing of this meeting, nothing of me, to your husband, to anyone. Find the Digger Man.’

  * * * *

  15

  Black Souls

  ‘What is it with you, Susan? Stop sounding so paranoid - of course I’m going.’

  ‘You can be so stubborn at times,’ she said.

  ‘Me?’ Paul Carmichael gave a short laugh. ‘Alex is coming in the trap to pick me up soon. I’m going over there and I’m going to see what it is that has you so spooked. Like I say, if it doesn’t feel in order then we’ll skip this place as soon as we can.’ He hobbled on his crutch to the coat stand and unhooked his waterproof.

  ‘Not tonight, that’s all I’m asking,’ she said.

  ‘And you know what Helen said; it might be a while before I get another chance. I’ve got to see this through, for my own sake now.’ He leant his crutch against the back of the sofa and threaded his arms into the coat. ‘I need to see our daughter, too, if it’s really her. It’s just something I have to do.’

  ‘I know that.’ She sat down, cradled her head in her hand.

  ‘You’re just letting your emotions take hold again. What you need to do is take it easy, read one of those books you brought along while I’m out.’

  ‘You think I’m going crazy, don’t you?’

  ‘I think your nerves got shredded and never got put back together again. We came here because it would help us, remember? OK, I’ve not exactly been receptive to this whole thing, but like you said we’ve got to give it a chance. What changed your mind so suddenly? Did someone say something?’

  She heard the sound of horse’s hooves thumping outside on the damp earth. She desperately needed to tell him about Silas Blake and what was said at the lighthouse, but managed to hold it back. ‘Forget it. It’s nothing. Like you say, I’m an emotional mess, especially since seeing Becky last night.’ The horse and trap pulled up outside the door. She smiled bleakly. ‘Your carriage awaits, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Saves the old pins,’ he said, going to the door just as a meaty knock pounded the other side. ‘Rather good of him to offer, I thought. Saved me walking to the house. Or hobbling, as the case would have been.’ He opened the door and Alex MacLeod stood dressed in dripping oilskins, beads of water hanging onto his eyebrows and stubble. The land behind him was dark and desolate. ‘Weather’s picked up, I see,’ said Paul lightly. Alex didn’t crack a smile. ‘I may be gone some time…’ Paul said to Susan, giving a dramatic salute and wave. ‘For England!’ he said.

  ‘Evening, Mrs Carmichael,’ said Alex, the sound appearing to come from deep in his throat. He didn’t look her in the eyes. ‘Enjoy your walk to the lighthouse this afternoon?’

  ‘You went to a lighthouse?’ said Paul. ‘You never told me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it in future,’ said Alex. ‘That place is falling down.’

  ‘Maybe you should put up another fence,’ Susan suggested.

  He eyed her. ‘Maybe we should. For safety’s sake. Anyhow, I’ve locked the door now. Can’t have you going in there; it’s dangerous.’

  ‘Did you happen to be shooting rabbits down at the lighthouse, too?’ she said. ‘That’s a coincidence.’

  Alex sighed. ‘Better get into the trap, Mr Carmichael; we’re letting the night cold and rain into the house.’ He motioned to Susan with an abbreviated nod. ‘Have a good evening, Mrs Carmichael. We’ll bring your husband back safe and sound very soon.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she said, watching Paul clamber up into the trap. The horse shone like wet leather in the rain, its flanks shivering, muscles rippling.

  She waited at the door as Alex climbed aboard, flapped the reins and got the beast moving, the large wooden wheels of the trap throwing up a fine spray of mud and water as the horse clattered down the track towards the distant lights of the house. She closed the door on the howling wind.

  She waited ten minutes or so and then put on her own waterproofs. Taking one of the small oil lamps and a box of matches she opened the cottage door and peered outside. There was no sign of anyone, no sound but the wind and rain. The land was a black, indistinct mass, the sky fractionally lighter. Thunder rolled faraway like the thumping of great drums. Putting up her hood, blinking away the rain, Susan hurried as fast as she could across the boggy grass and heather, careful not to lose her footing on the uneven ground. She knew on the other side of a small hillock stood two more cottages, both of them empty now. One of them had been used by the Donovans during their stay on Connalough Point, and it was towards this that she bent her head in determination.

  If anything, the cottage that the Donovans had stayed in was smaller than that given to Paul and Susan, built to the same rude but robust functional design, no frills, black and squat and looking like a sulking dog left out in the rain. She was betting the door didn’t have locks either and she was right. She turned the handle and pushed open the wooden door, the wind catching it and giving it a heavy shove that sent it crashing against the inside wall. She went inside, closed it.

  What made her come here? The thought struck her for the first time. Until then it hadn’t seemed odd at all. But now she was actually here, standing in the darkness of the empty cottage she felt slightly foolish. Something must have compelled her, but she was at a loss to describe what. It had almost been instinctive. And how did she know this was the cottage the Donovans used? She’d never been told which one they’d stayed in. Yet she was certain this was it.

  She shook her head of the thoughts and lit a match, the tiny flame throwing back the gloom. She went to the window, closed the curtains and then struck another match and lit a lamp.

  So what was she looking for exactly?

  She didn’t know. For a moment she stood there, confused, unsure what she should do next.

  The bedroom. She made for the door, careful to keep the lamp low so that limited light leaked out of the window to announce her presence. But when she entered the bedroom. Everything appeared to be in order. The bed was neatly made. Everything in its place. Nothing untoward. She placed the lamp on a chest of drawers and slid each open in turn. They were empty save for sheets of flowered paper lining the bottoms.

  She slumped onto the edge of the bed. So what was she hoping to find? Seriously, lady, if they caught you here they’d think you really were going crazy. Maybe you should just stop
listening to the ramblings of batty old men holed up in decrepit old lighthouses for a start.

  A draught coursed through the room, causing the curtains to tremble and the light in the lamp to falter on the brink of going out. She folded her arms against it, noticing how her breath came out in a light fog. God it was getting cold, she thought. Then the flame in the lamp grew brighter, as if a surge of oxygen had been blown down the glass funnel. It was as the flame was at its peak that she saw something glimmering on the floor, pushed under the chest of drawers.

  The lamplight subsided again and she grabbed the lamp by the brass base and brought it down to rest on the floor by the drawers. A gold chain. So far beneath that it was hardly visible. She put her hand under the gap and snagged the chain with her index finger, sliding it out into the light. A pendant bearing a green plastic stone was attached to the chain.

  She sat on the floor, held the piece of costume jewellery in the palm of her hand, putting the other hand to her mouth. This was the pendant that belonged to Iris, given to her by her daughter as a present. The pendant she said was so emotionally valuable to her since her daughter died that she would never let it leave her side.

  It was then Susan was quite sure Iris and Philip Donovan had never left Connalough Point.

  It was close to midnight when she was jolted awake by the sound of someone barking orders outside the door. She rubbed her eyes, staggered from the sofa to her feet just as the door opened and Alex came in supporting Paul, who leant heavily against him. Her husband’s face was deathly pale and he looked exhausted.

  ‘I think he’ll need a drink,’ said Alex.

  ‘What happened?’ she said, going over to Paul and helping him to a seat. He shrugged off his coat as if he were fighting an assailant.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said abruptly.

  Susan looked up at Alex. ‘Did he see her?’

  Alex nodded. ‘He’ll feel better once he’s slept it off,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it affects people like this. It’s like alcohol; some get happy, some get sad. He got sad.’

  She bent to him. ‘Are you OK, Paul?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone,’ said Alex.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked of him as he turned to leave. ‘Is something wrong?

  Alex shook his head, looked from her to Paul, then back to her again. He swallowed, cleared his throat as if dredging up words. ‘Nothing is wrong. Nothing at all.’ With a cursory glance back at Paul he said goodbye and got back onto the trap. He hesitated, the reins in his hand. She looked up at him. ‘You know, everyone has secrets.’ he said. ‘But some are darker than others.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She went outside, closed the door so that Paul couldn’t hear. ‘Something happened with Annabel didn’t it?’

  He peered through narrowed eyes at her. ‘You don’t like me, do you, Mrs Carmichael?’ he didn’t wait for a response. ‘I don’t blame you. I do not like who I am either. Sometimes a man can pray and hope for forgiveness and redemption. Pray till it hurts. But some men are beyond that. Some souls are just too blackened by their sins to ever get clean again. There are too many black souls on this island and I despair of it. Goodnight, Mrs Carmichael,’ he said, his voice grave. He cracked the reins down hard and clicked his tongue at the horse, snapping out a firecracker of an order, at which it galloped off.

  She stood by her husband’s side, looking down at him. He was fast asleep. So soundly it was almost as if he’d been drugged. She covered him with a blanket, stoked up the fire and lit another lamp to fight off the encroaching dark that appeared to intensify as the night progressed. She sat down beside the fire, and from the pocket of her jeans she took out the gold-plated pendant, let it swing gently, its curb links alive with sprinkles of firelight.

  * * * *

  16

  Family Ties

  Helen Blake and Douglas MacLeod sat silently before their own log fire, their serious, anaemic faces bathed in a devilish amber glow. The electric lights flickered uncertainly.

  ‘Hector, go out and see what you can do to fix that damn generator,’ said Douglas to his son. ‘I thought you’d sorted it this afternoon.’

  Hector regarded them both warily. ‘I did.’

  ‘Then do it fucking properly this time. What are you waiting for, you useless pile of gristle?’

  Hector dashed from the room, his head bent low, grabbing a bag of tools as he went. Douglas watched him. He looked like his mother, was a constant reminder of the fact that she’d dumped him. Or rather he forced her away. He’d served in the army in his younger days. Found himself shipped out to the Falklands in the 1980s, fighting a war over a tiny speck on the map in the South Atlantic that they called British soil; a place he’d never even heard of before Argentina invaded it. Turned out it looked just like Connalough Point. More sheep than people. At least they had sheep and people. The Argies could have kept it for all he cared. It was a tough time. Left its marks on him, marks that hadn’t fully healed and his wife had borne the brunt of it. She couldn’t take the black moods, the violence towards her, so she packed up after being married God knows how many years. Left him and the kid.

  ‘It’s too dark for him to see anything out there,’ said Helen quietly.

  ‘I don’t want him here when Alex gets back,’ he growled.

  Presently they heard the sound of the horse and trap outside, the crunch of boots on the gravel, and then the door opened. Alex MacLeod stepped inside, the wind tearing at his oilskins. He threw down his hood, his hair plastered down onto his head in wet, sticky strands.

  ‘No,’ he said when he read the clear signs in their determined expressions. ‘I will not allow it.’

  ‘It is not up to you,’ growled Douglas. ‘We have already decided what must be done.’

  ‘We have no choice,’ said Helen.

  ‘We are damned!’ said Alex, slamming the door and striding over to them.

  ‘So we are damned!’ echoed Douglas. ‘Now’s a fine time to get religious.’

  ‘You heard what he said…’ said Helen. ‘If we don’t do something then you know what will happen. Everything will come out. Everything. You can’t simply turn back now and wash your hands of it all. That can never happen so you had better get used to the idea. She has to die.’

  ‘No, there must be another way,’ said Alex.

  Helen rose, smoothed down her dress as if going through the motions of preparation. She went out of the room, saying, ‘I’ll make the call now.’

  ‘Douglas, this has to stop. This is getting out of hand. Don’t you see? We’re going to burn in hell for this!’

  ‘It’s far too late to worry about hell,’ said Douglas, facing up to his brother. ‘We were damned a long time ago. Best make the most of what we have here, eh, before we pass on?’ He grinned. ‘Stand up and be a man, stop behaving like a fucking coward.’

  Alex pushed by him and went after Helen. She had a phone at her ear. She was nodding, her jaw set. ‘That’s it,’ she said to someone on the other end of the line. ‘Yes, don’t waste any time.’ She stared hard at Alex.

  Alex grabbed the receiver, put it to his ear but the line was dead. ‘Ring him back now,’ he snarled. ‘Call it off.’

  ‘No,’ she said evenly.

  He cried out and yanked hard at the line, which ripped out of the wall. He threw the phone across the room and it smashed against the wall. ‘This has got to stop,’ he said. ‘It ends here!’ And with that he burst from the room and barged past his brother.

  ‘Where are you going?’ shouted Douglas.

  ‘I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago. You’ll harm no one else, as long as I have breath left in my body!’

  Douglas grunted and lifted down a shotgun from the wall over the fireplace.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Helen, her eyes suddenly afraid.

  ‘Never you mind,’ he said, chasing after Alex. He saw his brother’s back heading out across the yard. ‘Alex!’ he sh
outed. ‘Stop right there!’

  Hector poked his head from around the door of the shed. He saw his Uncle Alex striding out across the yard. Thunder crashed out overhead, lightning flickering over the mountains and highlighting their saw-tooth peaks. To his horror he saw his father raise the shotgun.

  ‘I mean it, Alex; don’t you go any further. You come back here at once.’

  The man stopped, faced his brother, his face shiny-wet, his coat flaps cracking in the wind. ‘We’re family, Douglas. I can’t believe you’re so lost you’ll forget that.’

  ‘Don’t make me do it, Alex.’ He cocked the shotgun, the barrels levelled at Alex’s chest.

  ‘You said there would be no more, Douglas. You both promised.’

  ‘So we let them go free, is that what you’re saying? They know, Alex. They know.’

  ‘We’ve been over this. How can they? We both know Anthony Collier can’t have contacted the woman – he’s dead. And neither of them confessed to knowing anything about us to Annabel during the sessions.’

  ‘So tell me how Susan found out about Connalough Point if Collier didn’t tell her?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘One of us has to have blabbed…’

  ‘I’ve had enough. We should never have brought them over.’

  ‘And risk everything? You know we couldn’t do that, Alex. Now come back inside, sit down, take it easy.’ The gun barrel wavered in the clutches of the wind.

  ‘Do as he says, Alex,’ said Helen at Douglas’s shoulder. The thunder cracked, all but drowning out her words. ‘We need a little more time with them, to make sure no one else knows about us. A few more sessions with Annabel.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Come inside, Alex,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You’re going to kill them anyway,’ he said, the muscles in his jaw twitching.

  ‘What other option is there?’ Douglas said. ‘And let’s face it, Susan was going to die anyway, sooner or later, and Paul doesn’t deserve to live. That much was made clear from the session with him tonight. We’re only moving things on a bit.’ He grinned impishly.