The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

  Whatever had been inside Shelly Ardell for those few seconds knew his name, that of Scotty, and oh God it knew about his relationship with Tara, your whore, it had croaked mockingly.

  A gentle knock at the door had interrupted the start of True Lies, a Schwarzenegger classic from ninety-four, about an agent leading a double life, the definition of a take your brain out and enjoy film, and the bonus was Mike had not seen it for the best part of ten years. The last time he’d seen it had likely been with Claire, one of their movie nights before parenthood had blessed them. Mike didn’t want to remember fully so he didn’t search for the memory that hard.

  Leaving the film, he'd padded barefoot across the small Travel Lodge room and found Tara stood there, decked in a loose-fitting red Levi t-shirt and night briefs. As she’d entered the room, he’d taken her into his arms, they’d kissed urgently neither speaking a word. It was one of those times that needed no conversation, just contact. He’d led her to the bed where they’d made love, not as urgently as the first time, more sensual, both of them feeling the need to connect, to be with someone and not be alone that night.

  The day had seen the investigation take a turn that according to June, the lady Tara and Scotty had spoken to in Boscastle, spelled untold dangers and they each knew that if her warnings were true, and they followed this through then there was a risk that one might lose the other. Neither were strangers to personal loss or pain, and tragedy had visited them both in the past. Mike couldn’t even consider what it might do to him if he lost her now. They’d only been romantically involved the past two days, but he knew he loved her and had done for quite some time, there was no point trying to fool himself that it was anything less. Yet he knew that they couldn’t walk away, the police had taken the Harrisons in on suspicion of murder, Henry Harrison and his sister presumed dead on the discovery of that shoe. The information that Tara and Scotty had learned in Boscastle, information that would never be taken seriously by the authorities, said differently. It told him that both of those kids were still alive, for now anyway. The shoe no more than an act of clever and calculated misdirection.

  Mike pulled the covers back, got out of bed and walked the short distance to the bathroom where he clicked on the light. He grasped the cool white porcelain of the sink edge and looked at his sleep disturbed reflection in the mirror. His stomach dropped when he saw his neck, red marks ran around it and the skin looked inflamed and angry, yet there was no pain now. Instinctively he raised a hand and touched the blemished skin, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. It had been no more than a dream, one that had seen him have to raise through two layers of the nightmare to reach consciousness, but a dream, nonetheless. And yet there was something on his skin that told him differently, something that suggested that it had been more real than he’d thought. As he traced the marks gingerly with the tip of his forefinger they began to fade and within seconds they'd gone leaving him to wonder if he'd imagined them, if somehow a small bit of that nightmare had clung to him and made it through and out of dreamland. Mike shivered at the thought and took his eyes away from his reflection and ran the tap before palming cool water into his parched mouth. He used a crisp white towel to dry his hands and blot a few stray drops of water from his stubbled chin and then headed back to the bedroom. He left the bathroom light on.

  “Are you okay?” Tara asked as he entered the room. She was sat up in bed, resting back on the headboard, the white sheet pulled up around her waist. Her dark blonde hair looked sleep-tousled and untidy, yet she looked impossibly beautiful to him.

  “Fine,” he lied and climbed back between the sheets. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

  “I thought I heard you scream,” she said softly.

  “Just a bad dream.”

  “It was about that place wasn’t it?” her question had a certain knowing to it.

  "Not directly, no," Mike answered. He didn't want to relive the nightmare if that's what it had been, but he also didn't want to keep a single thing from Tara, so he told her, and she listened intently. Halfway through she took hold of his hand and the contact helped.

  “I had one too,” she said when he’d finished. “Not like that, I was inside it, The Old Chapel. I felt lost and couldn’t find you,” he saw her smile weakly at him. “It was getting darker and I had a feeling there was something in the shadows, something that wanted me.”

  “When was this?” Mike asked.

  "Earlier, when Scotty and I were driving out to Boscastle. I guess I dozed off for a bit in his van. I tend to do to that when I'm not driving, something about the motion of a moving vehicle always makes me sleepy." She looked at him sincerely and said, "It's inside our heads, Mike. I don't know how but I can feel it."

  It sounded crazy but at the same time didn’t, he wanted to deny it, tell her that it was impossible, but he couldn’t. “I think you’re right,” he conceded. There was no point fighting it now, the day had shown that there was more to this than any of them could understand. “I’m going out to the Horners’ place in the morning,” he told her.

  Mike felt her hand tighten on his, “Mike, no,” she said.

  He shook his head, "I have to. I need to. Besides, do you really think they will risk doing anything to me? This whole thing is a media storm right now and so far, they - and the rest of that village have pulled off a great act of misdirection. They won't jeopardise risking that for me. Once I’ve spoken to them myself, I’ll call and update Sue. She knows the Horners, I’m not quite sure how much I’m going to tell her yet, I’ll just make a judgment at the time.”

  “If you go, we all do,” Tara said defiantly.

  “I need you and Scotty to stay here.” Tara opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off. “If something does happen, which it won’t, but IF it does you are the only ones left who know the truth. And you know where I am, so if I don’t come back you have something to take to the police that they can’t ignore.”

  "You're right," she agreed reluctantly. "I don't like it, Scotty won't either, but you are right."

  “I don’t like it,” he chuckled. “What’s to like about this whole thing? Whilst I am gone, I need you to try and find out what room the Harrisons are in. I’m guessing that by this afternoon the police will cut them loose. Even if they head back to Reading, they will come by here first and we need to speak to them.”

  “Is that wise, Mike? What about Samuels?”

  “He can throw whatever toys out the pram he likes,” Mike replied. “I’m past caring who we upset now, there are bigger and more important things in play. The police have had the place since Saturday.” He looked at the clock, it was a little after three Am. “It’s Monday morning now, they will be releasing the keys back to the Reeds by tomorrow I’d imagine. There’s only so much of nothing the CSI teams can look at. When we go in, I want us to know all we can.”

  “I’m not totally sure I want to go in now,” Tara said with an uneasy laugh.

  Mike squeezed her hand, leant forward and kissed her forehead, "I'm not going to tell you not to, Tara," he said. "I respect you far too much to do that, but I will say that if you don't want to, if you want to walk away from this, I won’t stop you.” He knew she wouldn’t, but it made him feel better to give her the chance. He would give Scotty the same option, too. As with Tara, he knew there was no way Scotty would bug out on him, but he'd lay the offer down, nonetheless.

  “You’re not wrapping me up in cotton wool, Mike Cross,” she said sternly. “I survived that fucking twat-waffle, Jason. Taking on some cult, coven of witches, or whatever the bloody hell they are is going to be a piece of cake after him.”

  Mike smiled, he’d expected no less of an answer from her and he loved her for it. “In then?” he asked.

  She nodded with certainty, “In,” she agreed. “Now let’s try and get some sleep, or neither of us will be fit for anything in the morning.”

  Twenty miles away in Plymouth, Rob Harrison lay on his back on the thin, blue pl
astic covered mattress in his police cell. He’d not slept. The night light was on, casting the small magnolia painted room in a dim glow that would have been relaxing and homely in any other situation. This was anything but homely. In one corner of the cell was a brushed aluminium toilet and the water supply was piped in via a concealed tap in a hole in the wall. Somewhere in the cell block an angry drunk hammered away at his door, shouting obscenities and that when they opened the door he was going to, ‘KICK THE FUCK OFF SO YOU CUNTS BEST BE READY!’

  Rob tried to shut it out and gazed blankly at the ceiling above where a stencil had been sprayed in black for the benefit of any Islamic occupants. It showed which way the Ka’bah was in Mecca. Rob had been a semi-practicing Christian in his University days, but he'd long since abandoned his faith. The events of the last few days were just further proof to him that there was no God, for if there was then surely, he’d not let anything like this happen.

  Rob had never been one to cry, had always been good at holding his emotions in, not letting it out. Being what his father would have called a ‘strong man’, if not physically then emotionally. That had changed in the last twenty-four hours, his world had fallen apart and within him a chasm had opened, one so deep and wide that he knew it would never be filled again. To lose one child was an idea he found inconceivable, but two? How could he deal with that? How could anyone deal with it? The truth of the matter was you couldn’t.

  The sight of his son’s little size 5 Clarks trainer being held before him in an evidence bag had brought on the first proper tears he’d shed. Even being told that both Henry and Ellie were now presumed dead hadn’t done it, for just the words didn’t hit it home, didn’t seem real. Seeing that shoe was real, HH penned onto the inside of the tongue in black Sharpie pen, the initials written in his own hand. Yeah, that had brought it home with a smack in the face, and they’d had to stop the interview to let him get his shit back together. Remembering how that shoe looked in the evidence bag made a new tear roll from the corner of his eye, it raced down the side of his face and dripped over his ear to the blue plastic mattress below.

  He’d answered the polices’ questions, and there had been many. The interviewing detectives going around and around, over the same things again and again, hoping at some point no doubt he’d trip himself up and an inconsistency in his story would be exposed, one they could get into and work until it grew, the way a person might keep probing an ulcer on the inside of the cheek with their tongue. Or, hoping that he’d tell them something different to that of his wife. He doubted Carol had said anything at all, she seemed to have shut herself away in her own cell, one inside her mind. He didn’t hate them for their questions, in some way they were all on the same team and he knew that soon they'd have to let them go. In an odd way, the idea of getting out scared him, for in here, shut away from the world outside he didn’t have to face it, the whole thing was on hold, like someone had hit the pause button. But, when they got out he would have to face it, deal with it all and in truth, he wasn't sure if he could.

  He’d not seen Carol since they were taken away from the Travel Lodge back in Liskeard in separate cars. He could still see her face, pale and scared – eyes wide and filled with tears as she looked at him from the back of the unmarked police car that had been parked beside the one he’d been put in. He wanted to go to her, hold her and tell her that it would all be okay. It wouldn’t, but no one ever said that. In these situations, you lied, and the lie was for yourself as much as the other person, because if you said it enough, maybe, just maybe in the end it all would be.

  Forty miles away from her father and mother in Plymouth, Ellie lay in her own cell. Only this one was dark, cold and devoid of any of her rights. She too lay on her back, her right arm still thrumming in pain from how Seth Horner had twisted it around and thrown her into the room. Her left wrist ached from how it had broken her fall as she’d landed on the hard, dirt floor. The stench in the room had begun to get better, it wasn’t that they’d cleaned up or been kind enough to give the place a going over with Febreze. No – she’d grown used to it and she felt sure that soon she’d not notice it all. It wasn’t much of a positive, but you took what you got in situations like this. Ellie blinked her own tears out of her eyes and there was no real difference between when her eyes were open or closed, the darkness was the same.

  Her mind tumbled over things, what she’d seen in the vision. She’d gone beyond thinking of it as a dream, now she knew it had been more than that. It ran over why they’d wanted Henry as well as her, for in those visions she’d never seen a male child beyond those poor wretched babies. Infants that had been slain by the dagger that had gleamed so brightly in the candlelight during all those ceremonies. Questions she couldn’t answer no matter how hard she tried, yet ones she knew would be answered all too soon.

  All she could do was lay there and listen, listen to the deep endless silence, listen to the sound of her own heart as it beat a steady rhythm in her chest, and wait – for what she did not know.

  Chapter 34

  The shrill ringing of the phone on the bedside table awoke Mike. He reached sleepily for it and through bleary eyes saw it was Mark Samuels’ number on the screen, and that the time was a little after seven AM. Mike cleared his throat and swiped the screen to answer the call.

  “Mark,” he croaked. “What’s up?”

  “You were out at Derriford last night, weren’t you?” barked Samuels’ agitated voice down the line. “I thought I asked you to leave it alone, Mike.”

  Mike knew this call would be coming, he just hadn’t expected it quite so early. “Mark,” he began but Samuels cut him off.

  “She’s dead Mike.”

  "What?" Mike sat up in bed, the waking drowsiness gone in an instant, as if someone had just injected a triple espresso into his veins. "How?"

  “Bleed on the brain in the night, it was always a risk with the kind of injury she had, they’d hoped as she’d come around that the worst was over. What the fuck were you doing out there, Mike? John, her husband was going crazy after your visit, said she had some kind of episode while you were there.”

  "What was the time of death?" Mike asked. He had a horrible feeling he knew the answer. The call had also awoken Tara who was now rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and sitting herself up in the bed next to him. She adjusted the pillow and leaned back on the headboard and looked at him questioningly.

  “What the fuck difference does it make, Mike? I want to know what you were doing out there?” Samuels spat. Mike couldn’t think on the spot of a believable reason why he'd visited the now late Shelley Ardell that would placate him.

  “Mark,” Mike said calmly. “It matters, I’m not expecting you to understand my reasons, but it matters.”

  “I can’t see how it makes a blind fuck of difference Mark, but she died just after three AM this morning.”

  Just as he’d suspected the death had occurred right around the time of the dream, if that indeed was what it had been. Knowing it as fact sent a shiver through his body. “Mark, I’m sorry,” was all he could manage.

  “We go back a ways, Mike,” Samuels began. “So, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on this one; but hear this, if you tread on my toes, or stick your oar into this case again then you and your team will be coming in, do I make myself clear?”

  “Understood,” Mike said.

  "Go home, Mike. When the keys are released back to Mr. and Mrs. Reed they can call you and then you’re free to do your spook hunt.”

  “Understood,” Mike repeated. He wasn’t going to argue the toss, it was clear that his old colleague wasn’t in the mood to discuss the matter. Before he had a chance to ask if that was all the call was disconnected from the other end and Mike set the phone back on the bedside table.

  “What was all that about?” Tara asked.

  Mike smiled at her, “Just Mark Samuels throwing his weight around,” he said. “Shelly Ardell, the officer I went to see yesterday evening is dead.�
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  Tara’s face fixed him with a concerned look, “And I’m guessing from the one side I got of the convo that she died right about the time you had that dream?”

  Mike nodded, “Samuels was quite clear that if we, well more I, cross him again and stick our noses into the investigation then we are all getting nicked.”

  “We can’t just leave this now,” Tara said. “Not with what’s at stake.”

  Mike kissed her forehead, a big part of him wished she would leave it, in truth he didn’t want her to be any part of it, but he found her tenacity endearing. “He’s just flexing his muscles,” he said reassuringly. “We carry on as planned, no change.”

  “And you’re still going out to the Horners’ place today?”

  Mike got out of bed and crossed the short distance to the bathroom; the door was open and the light was still on. He started the shower and called back as the water began to run, “Of course, we need to do something. I want to meet them, get a feel for who they are.”

  By eleven AM and following a breakfast with Tara and Scotty in the hotel’s mediocre restaurant, Mike was in the jeep and pulling out of the Travel Lodge car park.

  The arrest of Carol and Rob Harrison had stayed as the lead story on both the local and national news that morning. There was little else happening worthy of reporting on and once the story of the Harrison kids’ disappearance had been gone over in detail the story switched to the upcoming Brexit negotiations. At that point Mike switched the radio off and enjoyed driving in silence with just his thoughts as company.