by S. T. Boston
“Do you think they’re alive still, Inspector?” Rob Harrison asked flatly. “In your professional opinion.”
"We can't draw any conclusions at this point," he replied, hating himself for answering like a politician. In truth he wasn't sure, probably sixty-forty to the bad, but every hour that ticked by without a sighting or them being found, the forty to the good would diminish. “Our family liaison will be with you very soon.” He nodded a goodbye at them both, Carol Harrison didn’t see it, her vacant eyes were locked on the silent episode of Diagnosis Murder. Dick Van Dyke was decked out in a too- white looking lab coat and chatting excitedly to his son and co-actor, Barry Van Dyke over the cadaver of a young blonde woman who was obviously the focus of this episode’s murder mystery. No doubt by the time the hour-long show ended they’d have it wrapped up and the bad guy would be in jail. If only it were that simple in real life, he thought as he turned and headed out of the room.
In the hall he took a deep breath, enjoying the chilled air-conditioned air that wasn't laced with the smell of sweat and anxiety. He wasn't sure if you could actually smell the latter, but there had been something there, something behind the usual odour of shut-in. Reaching the end of the corridor on the first floor he descended the stairs two at a time and at the bottom pressed the security button, the one that kept unwanted guests out of the communal halls and kept them in the lobby. As he passed the reception desk, he happened a quick look at the small restaurant come coffee shop where a few hours earlier a not so tasty buffet style breakfast would have no doubt been on offer, where eggs that were past being dippy would have been congealing on a hotplate. As he did, he done a double take, the man sat at a table facing the window he knew, the attractive blonde with him he recognised, as he did the younger well-built guy with him, but only because he'd seen them both on the TV. With a shake of his head in disbelief, he took a left at the main doors and went into the café.
Part 3
Cornwall
Chapter 23
"Well fuck my old boots," Mike heard a familiar voice say. He looked up to see who'd spoken, but he hadn't really needed to, there was only one person he knew or had known in his previous life that used that phrase. The last few years hadn't changed him much; the beard was a new addition to what had just been designer stubble back in the day, but it was undoubtedly Mark Samuels. "Mike Cross, how the devil are you?”
Mike stood and with a genuine smile extended his hand, “Mark,” he said as his old colleague took his hand with a firm grip and pumped it up and down enthusiastically. “How long has it been?”
“Too bloody long,” Samuels replied, patting his old friend on the forearm with his spare hand. “In all the places in all the world,” Samuels grinned. “I never for one second thought I’d bump into you like this. A Travel Lodge, not quite the kind of place I’d have expected to see a big TV star. May I?” He gestured to the chair next to Tara.
“Of course,” Mike responded instantly. “Coffee?”
“Love some, it’s been a bitch of a day.”
Mike poured a cup from the pot they’d been brought not ten minutes before. The steaming hot, dark brown liquid flowed freely into the white china mug.
“This is Mark Samuels,” Mike introduced as he set the pot down and left his old friend to take care of the milk and sugar. “Mark was a DS on one of the general CID teams back in Sussex, we worked a few cases together back in the day.”
"DI now," Samuels added, giving a firm handshake to Scotty and another to Tara. “But now down here, transferred a few years ago.”
“DI,” Mike said with a nod of the head, “I’d have been calling you Gov’ then if I still carried a badge. As the yanks like to say.”
“Bollocks,” he replied. “You’d have made the grade long before me, what’s it been since you left, five years, six?”
“Closer to seven,” Mike answered before taking a sip of his brew.
"I know a few of the guys we worked with back in Sussex watch your show, Mike," Samuels said, blowing a cooling breath over his own mug. "I've seen a few episodes too, not really my sorta thing if I'm totally honest. How the hell did you get into that?"
“Long story,” Mike replied with a wan smile. “I’ll fill you in on it over a beer at some point.”
"Sounds good. So, I see all your team are here, if I were a man of deduction, I'd say you were filming in the area. Am I right?"
And this is where it gets awkward, Mike thought to himself. It was sure a coincidence that Mark Samuels had transferred down here to Cornwall and bumped into him this way, a massive one. But, it was certainly no coincidence that he was here, at the same hotel that also housed Carol and Rob Harrison, and he’d likely just come straight from their room. Mike knew there’d be a police presence here, both uniform and CID, he’d just not banked on one of the lead investigators being someone he’d known. He thought quickly, not wanting to lie to an old colleague who he’d genuinely liked, but also not wanting to play his whole hand just yet as if done right it could work on their side to have Mark’s help, he’d just have to play it slow. “More location research,” Mike said. “We’ve not set our venues out fully yet for the next series.” It was a lie, well a half lie. There was no second series, well certainly not with Switch-Back TV, but there was still Scotty’s Youtube idea and the very slim chance that their agents would be able to jump the show to another channel. “Are you working this missing person case?” Mike asked, not wanting to reveal that he knew the Harissons were in the same hotel and the very reason he’d booked them in.
He and Tara had arrived late on in the evening, he’d booked them two separate rooms to avoid having to tackle the whole relationship thing with Scotty. There was no issue, and he’d very likely just say, Thank god, it's about time you two booked a room! But there were more pressing issues at hand. Last night the room he’d booked for her had stayed empty. Scotty hadn’t called on his arrival, but Mike had awoken at six AM, as he did most mornings, and seen a text from him timed at just after one AM. So far the day had rated zero on the productivity scale. They’d had a light breakfast and a brief meeting where Scotty had been brought up to speed in much more detail on the meeting with the Reeds. His face was awash with disbelief and excitement as they’d recounted how the original owner had perished in a fire, how the second owner had fallen to his death whilst fixing the place up, and at the tragic story of the young estate agent, whom hours after selling The Old Chapel to Tom and Sue Reed had met his demise in a horrific crash on the outskirts of the village, then the three further suicides and infant murder.
Samuels looked from Mike to Tara and then to Scotty, his right hand ran over the neatly trimmed hair of his beard. "It's an odd one, Mike," he said in a low voice as he leaned in over the table. "I don't want to talk too loud; the fucking press are all over this like flies on shit and I don't want an overheard quote from me going in the local rag, the DCI would have my balls." Instinctively, Mike leaned in too, as did Tara and Scotty, making it appear they were all co-conspirators in some big secret.
“How do you mean?” Mike asked. “Teen girl and her young brother. I saw the news. My guess is she’s abducted him, run off with him as payback for some reason or another. Could be she had a sudden mental breakdown, rare I know but it happens. Probably has no idea of the world of shit she’s created for herself.”
"Normally I'd be with you on that, it was certainly my first thought and that of the PC who took the initial missing persons report. But I'm not so sure."
Samuels paused, there was a pensive silence that Mike let ride out, he knew that if he said nothing then, in the end, his old colleague would feel compelled to say something, as no one liked a silence.
“Neither I, nor anyone else who has been there, can figure out just how the hell those kids got out,” he finally said.
“What do you mean?” Tara asked, and Mike was glad to see she was in on the game. Mark Samuels turned his attention to her, and Mike had enough confidence in her to let her r
un with it for now.
“The place was locked and deadbolted from the inside, both doors, front and back. The keys that could have let them out were still hung up on the hook by the front door, all the windows were secured from the inside.” Samuels leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his face.
“You think the parents are involved?” Mike cut back in with a low voice, unable to help himself. There was a fair bit of background noise and the clinks of crockery coming from the kitchen area helped to mask their voices, but he knew you had to be careful when it came to the media. Some would use sonic ear amplifiers, a lot like the ones they used to hear real-time EVP, they could be sneaky bastards. The press, however, were fishing for a different catch, they wanted that golden nugget of information carelessly spilled by loose lips. Loose lips sink ships, one of his aunts used to say. And as much as he wanted the information that Mark Samuels had, he didn’t want to land him in the shit.
“I can’t say too much, Mike, you know that. But, no – I honestly don’t. I’ve spoken to them twice now, this morning and yesterday. You know what I mean when I say, you get a feel for people, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I don’t think they had a thing to do with it. I might be proven wrong, but I don’t think so. The mother is one stage off catatonic.”
“And the father?” Scotty asked, adding to the conversation for the first time.
“With it,” Samuels said. “Far from okay but he’s the one holding them together at the moment.” Samuels turned his attention back to Mike and said, “The powers that be will want them spoken to officially at some point if those two don’t turn up soon, as you know.”
“Right,” Mike agreed
“I’m just hoping I can hold that particular wolf from the door for as long as possible, I think it will be a waste of resources and time, time that could be focused on finding out exactly what happened?”
“And what do you think happened?” Mike asked, then followed it up with, “Have you been out to the place?”
Samuels frowned, “You seem mighty interested in all of this,” he said.
Mike cursed himself inwardly, had he pushed it too far? He didn't think so, but then he'd worked with Samuels a few times, he always did have good foresight, went with his hunches and from what he could remember they normally played out, it was one thing that made him a good detective. "Just reliving old times through you," he replied with a false smile. He hated the lie, but here and now was not the place to go into exactly why he and his team were in Liskeard.
Samuels regarded him for a few brief seconds, smiled and said, “Honestly, I don’t have a fucking clue, Mike. And that’s what’s bugging the hell of me. Normally, even if I don’t have the evidence to hand I have a feeling, know what road to go down to get that evidence. This time, nothing. Just lots of questions and no answers.” Samuels checked his watch, Mike knew this was the precursor to him making an excuse to leave. “Are you in the area long?”
“Few days,” Mike lied again. “Week at the most, why?”
“Well you never did tell me just what locations you’re looking at, and we have half a decade to catch up on, maybe we could grab a beer one evening. I’d love to hear all about how you got where you are now.” Samuels drained the last of his coffee and placed the mug on the table before pushing it to the middle and standing up.
“A beer sounds good.”
He fished his wallet from the pocket of his grey trousers, produced a card and handed it to Mike. It bore the Devon and Cornwall force logo in the top left corner and written on it in bold were the words, Detective Inspector Mark Samuels, Public Protection Unit. Mike read it and placed it by his own mug, then said, “Sounds like a plan to me, I will give you a call.”
“Make sure you do,” He nodded a goodbye to both Scotty and Tara and added, "It was nice to meet you both, but I need to head out, it's going to be a busy day and I have a feeling the press are going to be like a pack of hungry wolves if this shit storm doesn't resolve itself."
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Mike said, giving his old colleague a parting handshake, and with that Samuels was gone. Mike remained stood and watched him head out to the lobby and through the doors. His eyes followed him to the car park where he got into a grey Vauxhall Astra, the kind that screamed CID car to those that knew. As the reversing lights came on Mike sat back down.
“You think he knew?” Scotty asked.
“No,” Mike replied. “But he’s no slouch, we almost pushed it too far. Soon he will talk to Sue and Tom, of that I have no doubt, then the cat might come leaping out of the bag and I need to get to him before that happens. I respect Mark, we trust, well used to trust each other. I don’t want to jeopardise that. But here, now and with God knows who earwigging us it is not the time.”
“So, you’re going to bring him in on why we are here?” Tara asked, her hands were clasped in front of her on the table. Mike wanted badly to reach out and take them into his and feel the softness of her skin, but he needed to tell Scotty first.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Mike replied, concern on his face. “You heard him, though. Seen the show but not really my sort of thing. He may not be open to listening, but it might just buy us a visit to that chapel.”
“You’re actually considering the fantastic here, aren’t you?” Scotty asked his eyes bright again with excitement. “Thinking that that building could have something to do with what happened to those kids? Maybe it had a hand in all those deaths, too.”
"Yes and no," Mike replied slowly. He picked the card up that his old friend and colleague had given him, looked at it absently then began to turn it end over end in his fingers. "Do I think it could be linked, yes – I think there is a chance. But, I think there is also a rational explanation behind it, too. If we can bring him round to consider the impossible to reach the possible then we might just crack this thing."
Chapter 24
Mike knew he had to make the call, he didn’t want to but sooner or later Mark would speak to the Reeds, maybe Tom, maybe Sue, likely both, and when he did it might slip out that they’d asked him to look at their holiday home. He wasn’t sure Tom would be so fast to lay the blame of the Harrison kids’ disappearance on the building, but he thought, no – knew, that Sue would, no matter how improbable it might seem. After all, she'd literally told him that much during their phone conversation the day before.
“What are you going to tell him?” Scotty asked, looking back from the laptop he sat working at. Since the chance meeting with Mark Samuels a few hours ago Mike and Scotty had been going back over what Tara had found during her research, that had only been the day before yesterday, it felt as if a week or more had passed. Tara, herself was out, out somewhere following up on something that had gotten her all excited about an hour ago. She wouldn’t let on what it was, Mike knew her well enough to know that was how she worked. If she thought she had a lead she’d have as much information to hand as she could before she came to him with it. He failed to see what it was she could have found, and how it might help, he was intrigued, nonetheless.
With his phone in one hand and Mark Samuels’ card in the other, he looked at Scotty from the foot of the bed where he was sat and said, "The truth. That the owners asked us to stay in the building and get a feel for it, to try and debunk some of the reports made by previous guests.” He began punching the mobile number in, he knew Mark would be out and about, maybe even out at the scene. He’d never been one for wallowing in the office and when a case was running, he liked, as much as possible, to be on the ground where you could get a real feel for what was happening, speaking to people face-to-face and not over the phone or via a memo or statement passed back to you from the attending officer. “He’s probably going to laugh me off,” Mike added, the number now complete and staring back at him from his phone screen. “But if he finds out what we are doing here before I tell him,” he shook his head slowly, “that will chip away at the trust we built up when we worked
together.” He hit the call icon on the digital screen, exhaled a long steady breath and said, “Here goes nothing.”
The phone began to ring at the other end of the line, it rang, rang some more and just as Mike began to hope that the answering machine would pick up the call, and he could have a valid reason to put this off for a while longer, it was answered.
“Mark Samuels,” the voice on the other end of the line said.
“Mark, it’s Mike Cross.”
"Mike, good to hear from you again buddy," his voice sounded genuinely pleased. "Look I'm as keen to arrange a few beers as well, but right now…"
“Mark,” he cut in, “that’s not the reason for my call.” Mike stood from the end of the bed and began pacing around the small room.
There was a drawn-out silence from the other end, finally his old friend and colleague said slowly, "Go on."
“It’s not a coincidence that you bumped into us today, well I mean it is, but not totally. Let’s say we have a common interest in The Old Chapel.”
“Common?” Samuels said sounding puzzled.
"Well yes, and no," Mike knew he was beating around the bush, this was not a conversation he wanted to have on the phone, he wanted to speak to Mark face-to-face and he had a flash of an idea. "When you asked if we were location reaching and I said we were, it was a half lie, and I'm sorry, I just didn't know how to play it. We are down here in your neck of the woods for that place.”