5 The Witches of East Malling

by steve higgs

  ‘No.’ she wailed again, her voice wobbling with emotion. ‘I’m at the hospital.’

  Dammit had he had a heart attack? I hoped it wasn’t a stroke. Please don’t let it be a stroke.

  ‘They got him.’ she said.

  What? ‘Who got who, mother?'

  She sniffed deeply, I imagined her usually stern face crinkled and snotty at the other end of the phone. ‘At the dockyard. He kept going on about strange goings-on. Noises being heard by the night security guys, echoes of voices during the day coming from the rope room but no one there when they went to investigate.'

  She fell silent. ‘Go on.’ I prompted. I was already out of my chair and moving toward the stairs. I was wearing slobby grey flannel gym gear which I had put on after a bath an hour ago following a session at the gym before that.

  ‘He didn't come home on time this evening, which I thought was unusual but figured that maybe he had stayed to have a rum with one of the guys. Then I got a phone call from the police because he was found unconscious by a cleaner as they emptied the bins. They whacked him on the head and threw him in the trash!' She cried.

  ‘You are in the Medway?’

  ‘Yes.’ Medway hospital was a twenty-minute drive from my house.

  I promised to be there as soon as I could, disconnected and made the journey in under fifteen minutes by not bothering to stop at red lights or slow down for corners. Not a practice I would endorse but I felt motivated to arrive at my destination.

  I wrapped mum into a big hug and held onto her for a few minutes, kissing the top of her head and reassuring her. We were by his bed in A&E where there were doctors and nurses bustling about but no one currently attending to him.

  There wasn't much they could do other than monitor him. He was still unconscious, but his vitals were all normal. He would most likely be transferred to a special care ward and tended to until he came around. An event that could not occur soon enough.

  Sat by the bed was a man I didn’t know. He looked to be slightly older than my father, his white hair little more than wisps on his nearly bald skull. As I let go of my mother I moved to shake his hand.

  ‘Tempest Michaels.’ I introduced myself.

  ‘Alan Page.' He replied, shaking my hand with a firm grip. ‘I worked with your father at the dockyard. I need to speak with you. In private, like.' He had an odd accent to complement an usual pattern of speech. He had to be ex-Navy like my father, so chances were his original accent, from whatever region of England he had been born in, was long forgotten, washed away by leaving the area and the constant bombardment of other accents one gets in the forces.

  I indicated with my head and we moved to one side as my mother went to the head of the bed and held my father’s hand.

  Out of earshot, Alan still felt the need to check all around for anyone that might eavesdrop. When satisfied that we could talk, he turned his attention to me. ‘There's rum goings-on at the yard, son. Your father and I were looking into it, but this has gotten a bit much for me now I don't mind saying.'

  ‘What kind of goings-on?’ I asked, using the same unusual word.

  ‘Whispers in the rigging room.’ He said the words with an ominous tone.

  The End