The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

  It was another sweltering hot late July day and the Cornish roads were already chocked with tourists moving from one scenic area or tourist attraction to another. Large family cars towing caravans kept traffic on the smaller roads to a slow and steady pace. Mike looked at the families who were enjoying the hottest summer in many years and envied their ignorance, the fact that they were happily going about their day and able to forget or just ignore the evils of the world. As June had told Tara and Scotty, there were things that once known could not be unknown. And whilst any of them could walk away from this at any point and no one would be any the wiser, they would know and Mike wasn't sure he could live with that, live with the knowledge that he - they, might have been able to do something to save those kids and yet didn't. Today's little outing to see the Horners was the first dip of the toe into the Hornets’ nest, and whilst he’d not admit it his nerves were on edge.

  Mike drove past The Old Chapel just before midday. He didn’t stop, nor did he slow down as he passed the police tape and the marked police transit van that still gated off the property. One lone TV truck was pulled into the verge toward the far end of the chapel’s boundary, the passenger side tucked in tightly against the old stone wall, leaning the BBC Cornwall van with its large dish and antenna on the top at an odd angle. Even with it pulled in as it was, Mike had to mount the verge to his offside to get past.

  A minute later he reached the drive to the Horners’ place and swung a tight left turn onto the drive without indicating.

  Lucinda’s white Range Rover Evoke was the only vehicle parked on what he found to be quite an expansive shingle forecourt. It wasn’t a typical country vehicle despite its off-road capabilities, it was more the kind of lavish and overly indulgent vehicle that graced the streets of Chelsea or certain areas of Essex.

  Mike span the Jeep around in one turn so the nose was facing back up the drive. An old habit from his days on the force, you’d always leave a car in a position suitable for a quick exit, and today he might actually need to make one. The midday sun was sweltering, the mercury was forecast to be topping out in the mid-thirties by the early afternoon. Not hot in comparison to some countries, but in the good old UK that was what the weather forecasters called a right scorcher.

  With the relentless sun cooking the exposed nape of his neck, Mike knocked on the door, as he did, he took a steadying breath and tried to tell himself that he wasn’t nervous, but he was. A feeling that he’d not felt since he’d pushed a panda car around and been first to a job whilst crewed in his own. It wasn’t the fear of what was inside, it was more the unknown, not knowing how it was going to play out. Nine times out of ten it was alright, but then there was always that one where the wheel came off and it went south on you.

  Mike heard footsteps from the inside on what sounded like hardwood flooring, they got louder then paused and the door swung open to reveal a tall man. He was maybe just a tad over six foot and had dark hair that was swept back on his head. He wasn’t well built but he had a certain athletic look, maybe that of a long-distance runner or cyclist. He looked at Mike with curiosity from behind dark-rimmed glasses, his right ear was covered in a white patch bandage held in place with beige colour medical tape. Small spots of browning blood had seeped into the dressing enough for it to start to show through. Mike had never met Seth Horner, but he took an educated guess that this was who now stood before him.

  “Mr. Horner?” he asked, and extended a hand.

  “The one and only," he said with a smile and took Mike’s offer of a handshake. "Look, I don't mean to be rude, but we have told the police all we can. We spoke to the DI in charge for quite some time on Saturday after we, and most of the village, helped to search the woods.”

  Mike smiled back, “I’m not police,” he said, taking his hand back.

  "If you're press, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. We've had them all here. TV, bloody papers, the lot. Out of respect for Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, none of us here in Trellen are going to entertain those bloodsuckers."

  “Not press either,” said Mike with a shake of his head.

  Seth Horner fixed him with a confused look, “If you’re not press or police do you mind if I ask what your business is?”

  Mike was finding it hard to get the measure of him, he looked like a pretty regular guy, not the kind who'd been party to the abduction of two people, not the kind to have a penchant for rape, murder, and human sacrifice. But then guys like that didn’t exactly wear it on a sign around their necks. “I guess profession-wise I’m closer to police, spent a good few years on the force. I won’t burden you for long, but I was wondering if I could come in and have a quick word.”

  “I really-“ Seth Horner began. His hand was on the door and Mike knew the sign of someone who wanted to shut it and see him gone.

  “Just a few quick questions,” Mike cut in, then added, “I’m here at the request of Sue and Tom Reed.”

  Seth’s confused look turned into a smile, “You should have said sooner,” he swung the door open wider and ushered Mike inside. “Although it’s my wife Lucinda who mainly deals with them, she’s upstairs at the moment fixing the guest rooms.”

  “Appreciated,” Mike said as he crossed the threshold. “That ear looks sore, how’d you manage that?”

  “Chopping wood down in the barn,” Seth Horner replied without missing a beat. “Swung the axe a tad too high and close, damn near took my ear off.”

  “Prepping for the winter already?” Mike asked as he followed Seth through their entrance hall. As he’d suspected it was hard floored with what looked like bamboo. The place had looked quaint and like a picture on a chocolate box, or jigsaw puzzle on the outside, yet inside it was modern, and in a way matched the personality and style of the owner of that Range Rover. Who lives in a house like this? Mike thought to himself. A witch, a mass murderer or a rapist, or all of the above?

  “It’s quite remote out here, mister…?” Seth Horner paused and allowed Mike to fill in the gap.

  “Cross,” Mike obliged. “Mike Cross.”

  Seth nodded as if Mike had confirmed a fact he already knew, “One thing we learned early on was that when it comes to wood for the fire, there’s no such thing as having too much.”

  They arrived in the lounge, the same flooring continued from the hall through this spacious room. It looked as if it had been laid throughout the entire ground floor, a costly investment but it looked good. The lounge ceiling was quite low, painted a brilliant white and crossed with dark stained beams, the beams seemed to portend that the cottage itself was in some kind of struggle to hold onto its heritage, a battle against the modern look that had taken hold. On the far wall a large and expensive looking TV hung on the wall, it had to be a good sixty or more inches. The black leather seating, consisting of a sofa and two power recliners that were positioned to afford everyone a view of whatever was on that mammoth screen. Behind the leather three-piece was an expensive looking dark oak hardboard that ran the width of the room. A large wall-hung mirror opposite the door greeted Mike with a full body reflection of himself, it likely belied the true size of the room making it seem larger than it actually was.

  Seth Horner paused by the sideboard, the top of his head almost brushing the bottom of one of the ceiling beams. “And I work away for a lot of the year, the place is job enough for Lucinda to keep up on her own, can’t expect her to chop firewood, too. And she has the Reeds’ place to caretake now. I told her not to take it on when they asked, but you know how women are, once they have an idea in their heads you try changing it.”

  Mike nodded his agreement, then asked, "What is it you do?” as his eyes covertly scanned the room, looking for anything out of place, just one thing that would confirm what Tara and Scotty had been told was both true and accurate.

  “Astroparticle research and Omniverse theoretical research studies,” he said, looking at Mike now, the top of his dark hair just brushing one of the beams. “I’m over in Genève, Switzerland for a good half
the year.”

  “Cern?" Mike said rhetorically managing to sound impressed. "You work on the collider, the one that the conspiracy nutjobs thought would cause the planet to suck itself into a black hole the first time it was fired up?"

  “They had a point,” Seth laughed, and Mike had a feeling he was loosening up a little. Mike even felt himself warming to the guy, despite what he might be he came across as likeable and pretty easy going. “None of us really knew what would happen.” Seth treated him to a wide mischievous grin.

  “I’d hate to have written the risk assessment for that bad boy,” Mike commented.

  “You and me both. Look, Mike – as I said it’s my good lady wife you need if this is to do with Sue and Tom, I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting them once or twice when we helped Tom out with the kitchen fitment. His fitter came down sick. A friend of mine who’d fitted our kitchen the year before was free, so I put them in touch. Let me go get her for you.”

  “Thanks,” Mike replied with a smile. “Listen I really appreciate it; I’ll be on my way before you know it.”

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I’m good, thanks. Just a few minutes of your wife’s time and I’m dust.”

  Seth nodded and disappeared out into the hall, automatically ducking a little as he went through the door. Mike waited until he heard Seth Horner's footsteps on the stairs before he got moving. First, he fished the small Sound Bug FM transmitter from the pocket of his trousers. He picked the double-sided tape off both the bug and the nine-volt battery that powered the device via a short red and black lead. The sound of Seth Horner and Lucinda’s muffled voices drifted down to him from the first floor. He had time, but not much. Mike powered the device on, each bug had a frequency range between 88-108mhz on the FM band. The device was set to 90mhz, a frequency which in this part of the country was free from licenced radio station broadcasts. The bug was set to high power for maximum range. It was what Mike called a burnable asset; once deployed it stayed there broadcasting whatever was said by the unsuspecting occupants for two hours, at which point it became a dead duck. You then just had to hope it stayed hidden and undiscovered by the subject until the job was done, after that it didn’t really matter. Mike’s plan was to fire enough direct questions at Lucinda and Seth to make them uncomfortable, it that were possible. Then he’d get the hell out of dodge, park up clear of the village and see what they had to say when they were alone. It was the kind of thing he’d always dreamed of doing when he was a police detective but never did due to the amount of red tape stopping him. Now as a PI he could do pretty much what the hell he liked, and no one gave a shit. Well that was true to an extent, but he certainly had much more freedom to just get on with the job.

  The large chrome framed glass mirror would do just fine. The frame was more like the kind you’d see on antique paintings in a manor house, only gilded in gold and surrounding some ten-foot painting of an old lord of the manor with a shotgun broken over his arm and a couple of pointers sat obediently at his feet. He ran his hand behind the mirror and pulled it gently forward. If he dislodged it off the wall, he would really be fucked - the thing probably weighed the best part of sixty kilos.

  As he suspected there was enough of a recess behind the mirror’s ample frame to hide the bug in. He palmed it to his left hand, so the double-sided tape faced out and slid it in behind the mirror. With his right hand, he pushed in the opposite direction on the frame, making sure the bug stuck. The double-sided tape was the strongest 3M made and it stuck like shit to a blanket, it grabbed instantly and by the time the sound of feet hit the stairs again he was back in the exact same spot that Seth Horner had left him in.

  Chapter 35

  Lucinda Horner was something else that Mike hadn’t expected. She was a strikingly beautiful woman in her early to mid-forties with clear pale skin, deep red hair and a shapely figure. The kind of woman who’d turn heads in the street, for one because of her beauty, and secondly because she had an air of a certain something about her. She wore loose-fitting white cotton trousers that were tied around the waist with what appeared to be a matching fabric belt and a pale green blouse that highlighted the deep colour of her hair and matched her eyes.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Cross?” She asked as she seemed to flow into the room behind her husband. Her voice was soft and melodic and there was no hint of a Cornish accent to it or any accent that Mike could pick up.

  “Could we, umm, take a seat,” Mike replied, feeling a little taken off guard by her. “I promise not to take up much of your time.”

  She gestured gracefully to the black leather three piece and Mike settled into one of the recliners. It was large and comfy and the kind of chair he could see himself settling into with a beer most evenings, then likely dozing off before whatever film he had on was finished.

  “I’m curious,” she began, sitting down with her husband on the matching sofa and flattening some non-existent creases out of her trousers with her palms, her nails were manicured perfectly and painted a bright red, “as to what Sue and Tom have got you here for?”

  Mike cleared his throat and said, "Well, strictly speaking, they haven't asked me to come over, it’s just more part of my enquiry you could say."

  “Into what, exactly?”

  “The Old Chapel,” he replied engaging her.

  “Is this to do with Ellie and Henry Harrison?” She asked with interest. “Because if it is all I can tell you is what I – we, told the police. The Harrisons were here on the Friday evening for my annual summer gathering.” She paused and smiled warmly at him. “We hold it once a year. And as they were staying at Sue and Tom’s I thought it fitting to invite them. They all left around eight PM and the next I saw any of them was when Rob Harrison came around here on the Saturday morning all of a fluster because the kids had gone.” Her face dropped and showed what looked to be genuine concern. “Seth, myself and most of the other villagers all split up and searched the woods, the most likely place I thought they’d be if you ask me, but not a sign. Now all this business with that shoe being found,” she grimaced, and her voice lowered. “Really sad. I saw on the news that they arrested the parents last night. They seemed like such nice people, but then you never can tell, can you?”

  Mike nodded in agreement, “No – you never can,” he replied solemnly. If Lucinda Horner was lying, she was good, very good in fact. He’d sat across the table in interviews with every kind of criminal from petty thieves to murderers and you always got a feel for someone spinning you a yarn, there were certain tells you got to know. For some, it was a twitch of the eye, or even something as small as a flex of the fingers, the most common was the look away, the person lying unable to remain in eye contact with you. Any of those little ticks and twitches were the body’s natural reaction to an untruth and they were essential if you wanted to read someone, find out where the lie was and start picking at it, the way someone might pick a scab until it comes off and exposes what’s underneath. Neither Lucinda, nor her husband Seth showed any signs, there were no tells. Both seemed sincere and both looked saddened by what had happened, but Mike wasn’t about to call it good on them already and declare all the evidence to the contrary as bullshit, not after what had happened out at Derriford the day before, and certainly not after that dream, if indeed that’s what it had been.

  “Do you mind me asking just what capacity you’re here under, Mr. Cross?” she questioned softly. “I’m a little confused.”

  “My apologies,” Mike said, bringing his eyes to hers again. They were a deep and slightly haunting green, like two emeralds on her pale skin. “I never fully explained myself, did I?” he continued without waiting for her to respond. “As I said to your husband, I was a police officer, over ten years’ service, but I left due to family circumstances and since then I have been working as a freelance investigator.”

  “A gumshoe?” she asked rhetorically, a smile forming on her lips. “Like in those old American detective movies? How exciting.
”

  "It's not quite that glamorous, trust me," he grinned. "My other field of work is a little more, well shall we say, specialist. I and my team of two others investigate hauntings,” he paused and waited for the reaction, it usually went one of two ways, people either laughed or were fascinated and wanted to know if he’d seen a ghost and they were always eager to tell him their experience. It always surprised Mike just how many people had experienced things, seven or eight times out of ten someone had a story to tell. Neither Lucinda nor Seth interrupted so he carried on. "I will add that now my main focus is on finding rational explanations and what we, in the field, call debunking. Originally, and for personal reasons, I was looking for evidence, trying to get an answer to that unanswerable question.”

  “You lost someone, didn’t you, Mr. Cross?” Lucinda asked perceptively, her face looking regretful.

  "It's not something I wish to discuss if I'm honest," Mike said truthfully. "But, yes – you're right. Anyway, that answer has eluded me for the past few years and I've now come to enjoy finding rational answers to reports of the paranormal. Although I’d still really like to find what I set out to find.”

  Lucinda’s face switched to an entertained smile, “Do Sue and Tom think that building is haunted?” she beamed, her green eyes sparkling. “How interesting.”

  “That was the main reason for their call to me on Friday just gone, yes. But since the Harrison kids vanished, I’ve become a little embroiled in that, too. I guess it’s hard to leave that old life behind fully.” She nodded in understanding. “Have you ever seen or experienced anything there?”