by WR Armstrong
Madam Lee side stepped the question. “I’m afraid the crystal is not clear enough to be able to tell my dear,” was all she would say on the subject. She hurriedly concluded the sitting by telling Jenny that she would be blessed with good health, before moving on to David, tentatively taking his hand in hers. As she studied his open palm in conjunction with the crystal, she appeared to momentarily stiffen in her seat. In a voice that faltered almost imperceptibly, she announced that unfortunately the spirits had moved on, thereby preventing her from continuing. She brought the reading to a premature end, whilst coincidentally, the crystal mysteriously clouded and faded to black.
David and Jenny managed to hide their disappointment and thanked Madam Lee for her time. David pressed more money into the clairvoyant’s hand and received a faint smile for his trouble.
“You must visit again,” she said, cordially. Jenny promised that they would. “And we’ll bring along baby Sarah,” she said, having decided in her own mind that the life change Madam Lee had foreseen meant the arrival of off spring. Suddenly all eyes were on me.
“You next,” David said as he and Jenny left the table and joined me at the entrance to the tent. I reluctantly stepped into the hot seat and followed David’s example, by crossing the gypsy’s palm with silver and then waited for her to speak.
“Put aside your scepticism,” she said intuitively, though not unkindly, “or my success in seeing your future will be limited.”
I tried my best to keep an open mind.
“That’s better,” she said, as if, I thought, to create the impression she’d read my thoughts. She took my hand in hers, just as she’d done with David and made a brief study of my palm, tracing my heart and lifeline with the tip of her forefinger; tickling my skin faintly with her delicate touch. All part of the act, I told myself, just like the moody stares, the colourful garb, and the gold earrings. Even the low lighting supplied by an ornamental oil lamp was, I thought, perfectly in keeping with what amounted to an intense theatrical occasion.
The clairvoyant closed her eyes and fell into a trancelike state, where she remained for what seemed like a long time, but was in fact only a few short seconds. Sound drifted in from outside. The excited cries of children mixed with noisy adult banter. Somewhere in the distance the sound of Elvis singing “Hound Dog” boomed out of the fairground P.A system.
You ain’t nothing but a---
Fake, I thought of Madam Lee. Suddenly her eyes snapped open and she stared at me so disparagingly, I felt as if I must’ve spoken the word aloud. She continued to stare intently, as if attempting to bore into my mind in order to seek out my innermost thoughts and forgotten memories. The room was uncomfortably warm. I was developing a headache. I began to lose focus. Madam Lee’s face swam before me like thick oily liquid. Pressure bore down into my skull and intensified. The headache worsened imperceptibly. Curiously, I was gripped by a mental image of fingers probing around inside my brain, displacing my thoughts, delving deep in search of those buried memories, intent on plucking them from my subconscious.
And then, quite suddenly, they were revealed and laid bare, but I was too afraid to look. Instead I threw up a mental barrier in order to block them. And as I resisted, the sense that my mind was being explored, left me.
I felt Madam Lee’s hand slowly release mine. With the break in physical contact, came relief from the pressure and discomfort I’d experienced during the “psychical” process. My focus returned and I could again see clearly. Madam Lee sat before me looking pale and drawn. She was not play acting, I was sure. The past few minutes had taken its toll on her. She was plainly distressed, although she tried her best not to show it.
I was curious to know what it was she thought she’d seen. I expected her to dream up a dramatic reading of some kind, but instead she disappointed, refusing to say what she had, or had not discovered from the process. I glanced over at David and Jenny, who sat by the tent flap. David shrugged, while Jenny offered a slightly embarrassed half smile. I decided to give it one more shot by asking the clairvoyant to elaborate on what she’d said.
“The spirits refuse to cooperate,” she explained flatly, careful to avoid my gaze. The comment lacked true conviction. I studied her face closely and received the distinct impression she was holding something back. Then she surprised me by returning the money I’d given her, whilst apologising for her poor showing.
“Perhaps I am getting too old for this game,” she reasoned. “Forcing my mind into the mind of others, pushing it into the unknown, eventually takes its toll. The gift I have can be very demanding. Some see it as a curse. It destroyed my mother,” she added with apparent candour, “and it will probably destroy me.”
“Then why do you do it?” I asked, trying to ignore my natural scepticism.
“Because I can; and because it can help people.”
“But if it harms you, what’s the point?”
“It gives me satisfaction and, dare I say it, a certain pleasure,” she explained. “Besides, we are all born to die, so why be afraid. Death is our destiny, although there are those who fight it.”
“How, and in what way?”
“You really want to know gorgio?”
I nodded my head, intrigued to learn more, despite myself.
“There are those who refuse to accept their fate. Others are ignorant of what has happened to them. As a consequence they are unable to leave this world and enter the next. For some, life is prolonged interminably.”
“Ghosts,” I said. “Are you talking about ghosts?”
“They say there are two certainties in life,” she said, avoiding the question, “one being death; the other taxes. But there is a third.”
“Which is?”
“That whatever is written on your forehead when you are born, will come to pass.”
I frowned in ignorance. She elaborated for my benefit. “Some are born to be haunted. It is because they are receptive.”
I suddenly realised what she was hinting at.
“You saw something, didn’t you?”
The terrier awoke and moved to the foot of her seat. The two exchanged a glance, very much like I imagined a witch and its familiar would do. An unspoken communication seemed to pass between them.
“I’m afraid I must ask you to leave,” said Madam Lee politely but firmly.
Reluctantly I did as she asked and left the tent, accompanied by David and Jenny who, it turned out, were as troubled as I by the readings given.
“I didn’t enjoy that one little bit,” David said uneasily.
“She wasn’t being honest with any of us,” I couldn’t help saying.
Jenny frowned thoughtfully, but failed to pass comment.
Behind us Madam Lee emerged from the tent accompanied by her dog and wandered off before disappearing into the crowd.
“Bloody poor value for money,” David grumbled as he watched her go.
“Both she and Irish referred to me as “gorgio,” I said.
“It means stranger or non gypsy” Jenny explained.
“Fancy a go on the Big Wheel anybody?” David asked, changing the subject.
Jenny glanced at her wristwatch and suggested we head back for the meal she had prepared, a spicy chicken casserole.
“Good idea,” David said.
By now it was completely dark. The bright neon lights of the fairground shone with cheap and cheerful brilliance. We headed off. Ten minutes later we were stepping through the front door of David and Jenny’s house, which was filled with the pleasing aroma of home cooking.
“If Madam Lee is right and I get a better paid job, we’ll be living in a big detached this time next year,” Jenny said optimistically.
“And I’ll swap the Astra for a Porsche,” David said playing along.
Jenny laughed. “In your dreams, mister,” and bundled him into the living room, at which point she disappeared into the kitchen.
Following the meal we sat and talked. Alcohol and conversation flowed freely
. Inevitably we got onto the subject of the disappearances that dogged High Bank, but were unable to come up with any fresh ideas to explain the mystery.
“It’s a creepy business, that’s for sure,” David remarked, to which Jenny, slipping a McFly CD into the player, voiced disappointment, saying, “I secretly hoped Madam Lee would throw some light on events.”
“I still don’t think she was being entirely straight with us,” I said, unable to help myself.
David glanced at me, mildly surprised. “Care to elaborate?”
“Like I said before, I got the impression she was keeping something back.”
“And you, the non-believer,” Jenny observed.
“That’s irrelevant the way I see it. My point is, Madam Lee undoubtedly thought she saw something and for reasons best known to her, decided against sharing the information with us.”
We lapsed into silence. Jenny went through to the kitchen to refill her glass. During her absence I mentioned my dream to David, the one in which I’d visited the old farmhouse. It’d been bugging me. I felt the need to discuss it with someone who would offer an impartial point of view.
“Wow,” he said when I’d finished. “If you want my opinion, I’d go with the sleepwalking explanation. Jenny on the other hand might opt for the “walking in the presence of ghosts” scenario.”
“What’s the story behind the farm’s fall from grace?” I asked. “My landlady said it’s going through a protracted probate, but didn’t really go into any great detail.”
“Like High Bank,” David said, “Manor Farm, as the place is commonly known, has a tragic history. When Frederick Grimshaw’s daughter ran off taking his granddaughter with her, he lost the will to go on and the farm gradually went to seed. Grimshaw himself grew increasingly eccentric. His relatives soon converged and tried to get him sectioned under the mental health act in order to get their hands on the estate, but Grimshaw beat them to it by hanging himself.”
“That’s awful,” I said. David nodded agreement. “And is it true that no one ever saw his daughter or granddaughter again?”
“That’s correct. Rumours abound that Martin Willis might have been behind their disappearance, but it’s doubtful anything will ever be proved at this late stage.”
“Sounds like Willis could have been a serial killer,” I said, recalling Gentleshaw’s remarks about him being a suspect in the case of the original “missing three”.
David frowned in apparent ignorance.
“The girls that disappeared when you were a kid,” I said, trying to jog his memory regarding his comments the night Terry disappeared. “Apparently Willis was right in the frame, but nothing was ever pinned on him.”
Jenny re-entered the room. She was carrying a tray containing two bowls of peanuts and fresh beers for David and I.
“Cheers m’ dears,” she said, plonking herself down onto the couch, careful not to spill red wine from her replenished glass.
“What’s new?” she asked, looking at David and me in turn.
“Not a lot,” David said glancing my way, offering a kind of “your secret’s safe with me” look. “We were hoping you’d brighten up the conversation with your humorous rhetoric.”
“In case you’d forgotten, I’m a teacher,” she replied. “Teacher’s don’t do humorous.”
The conversation moved away from talk of murder and the occult, and for me it didn’t come a moment too soon.
CHAPTER TEN
The cops continued to investigate the disappearances of Terry and Mary Louise with grim and unrelenting determination. As a result, I was questioned for a third time. On this occasion it was down at the local nick, where an official statement was taken. I offered up my original story because it happened to be the truth. Whilst there, I discovered that Terry and Mary Louise had been officially registered as missing persons on the police computer database.
“Rest assured, we’ll do everything in our power to trace them,” an investigating detective assured as I prepared to leave.
“That’s good to know,” I said.
“And please keep us informed of your whereabouts, should you decide to leave the area,” he added pointedly. “We may need to speak to you again.”
“I don’t see what else I can add.”
“Something might jog your memory. It happens. The mind works in mysterious ways.” He grinned and tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger.
I left the station feeling like a prime suspect.
Norris proved true to his word, having penned a sensationalist piece that appeared in the local rag, in which he compared High Bank Cottage to The Bermuda Triangle and the Marie Celeste. He claimed to have been granted an exclusive interview, in which I’d openly admitted that both abductees were taken by the ghost of the suicide victim, Martin Willis. No doubt he’d talked to Sandy Mercer, who had recounted his dream, the one in which someone or something had abducted Mary Louise. For the sake of a good story, the reporter had stretched it to include Terry.
The area’s dubious history was given a brief mention in the article, as were those females who had disappeared during the eighties and early nineties. Moreover, Norris had strived to create the impression that I was a reclusive “has been” living in a haunted house, where the dead had a habit of stealing the living. Curiously, I must admit to having seen a strange element of truth in those claims. And that, I guess, was the scariest part. Norris had openly reported what I’d been thinking, but was too afraid to say.
Mike visited again, this time to discuss my future career, which I thought was a somewhat optimistic stance to take, as I’d had no career to speak of for quite a while, with only session work to sustain me. Mike wanted better for me. He thought I had more potential than any one either inside or outside the music business believed was possible. He was also under the misguided impression I was cured of my love of the good life. Who was I to disillusion him? Besides, I needed all the help I could get.
He arrived loaded down with an overnight bag, a briefcase, a new contract, and a heap of good will. Neither of us knew it at the time but it was to be his second and final visit to High Bank. He’d seen Norris’s story and quizzed me about it. I told him what I had told the cops, what else was there to say?
“There has to be a logical explanation for what’s happened,” I concluded. “All we have got to do is find it.”
But I didn’t really believe that. There was nothing logical about what had been happening. Even then I knew that Norris, with his semi fictional account of recent events at High Bank, was closer to the truth than anyone would ever have imagined. Mike passed on Michelle’s best to me. I thanked him.
“How is she, Mike?”
“She misses you more than she lets on.”
“Misses me like a hole in the head, more like.”
“Less of the flippant remarks, “Mike cautioned, “Like the song says, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.”
Noticing Lennon lay out in the hallway by the cellar door, Mike inquired if the problem in the cellar was cured. The question got me thinking about the beetles, (“Sexton beetles”, Brian, the pest control man called them), that had invaded the cottage and whose presence Brian had seemingly eradicated.
It was Brian’s professional opinion that the little critters had originated from beneath the building, with the cellar providing them with an ideal breeding ground. Consequently, the subterranean room was sprayed rigorously, which unfortunately made it smell worse than ever. I let Mike get settled in before suggesting he listen to a couple of tunes I’d composed since his last visit. Having heard them, he expressed cautious optimism.
“On a scale of one to ten I’d give them a seven,” he said, sounding like an X Factor judge.
“In other words, you’re unimpressed?”
”I didn’t say that. What I mean is, they’re easy to listen to and very commercial, but you have to admit, neither of ‘em could hold a candle to Bohemian Rhapsody.”
�
��I never aspired to be Freddie Mercury, Mike.”
“Good job,” he said, “you don’t have the legs; nor do you have the teeth for that matter.”
I chose to ignore the comment. “Fancy a drink?”
“Why not; I’ll take coffee, white with two sugars.”
“I was thinking of something a little stronger.”
“Yeah, I know. You always are. I suggest we both abstain on this occasion. We’ve got work to do.” He delved into his briefcase, produced a sheath of papers and waved them at me. “Important shit,” he said. “Best we both keep a clear head. Maybe we can have a friendly tipple afterwards, but for now, let’s keep it a sober affair. Now go make the coffees.”
I went into the kitchen to prepare them. To Mike’s I added two sugars, as requested. Mine I sweetened with a generous shot of scotch.
The rest of the evening was spent discussing the finer points of the contract that my new record company wanted me to sign. It was around midnight when we hit the sack.
The dream woke me. In retrospect I think it was lucky for Mike that it did. It went like this: I was trying to escape from some kind of tunnel. It was dark. I sensed I wasn’t alone, that someone or something was following me. All of a sudden a hand brushed mine. It belonged to a child, yet it felt wrong in a way I couldn’t explain. Its touch made my skin crawl, and when it clutched at me I instinctively broke away and ran, but I had nowhere to go. I came to a dead end. I turned, searching the darkness for my pursuer, but I was blind. And then I heard whatever it was coming along the tunnel towards me, dragging its feet, breathing air that I somehow knew it no longer required.
I woke abruptly knowing it’d been the child, Kayla, stalking me: knowing also that she’d been dead, and that the sight of what she carried in her arms would be enough to send a person insane. I lay perfectly still, calming myself whilst trying to gather my thoughts and that was when I sensed Mike was in deep trouble.
I hurriedly pulled on my jeans and rushed to his room. Throwing open the door I flicked on the light. And there he was, as large as life and twice as ugly, sitting bolt upright in bed in his blue striped pyjamas, eyes wide open and bulging; a look of stark terror on his big round face. He was a large man with a macho presence, but on this occasion he looked as defenceless as a small child.