The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

  Chapter 43

  Mike yawned, took a swig of the semi-cold instant coffee and grimaced at how bad it tasted. He needed the caffeine, though. The footage on the screen from the lower lobby, the one from the camera pointing down the central passage showed them heading into it, toward the kitchen. As Tara had remembered, Scotty had been behind her, his hand on her shoulder. The brightness of the lights got to the point that it whited out the camera and the screen became bleached in white triggering a contrast warning in the recording. As it whited out the recording suddenly stopped, the point where the breaker had tripped. Mike ran it back and played it through again at half speed and dropped the brightness to its lowest setting, hoping to find something, anything at all in the last few seconds before the power went, but there was nothing. He’d also checked the Go-pro which Scotty had been carrying, yet that had failed to yield any results. It appeared from the footage he had managed to download from the SD card that the battery had suddenly and inexplicably died at the point where the lights had reached their brightest.

  It was almost nine AM now and he’d been trawling through every camera going over and back over those last few minutes before the darkness came and stole Scotty and an hour and a half’s worth of time from them.

  He drained the last of the foul coffee and set the mug on the trestle table. Behind him on the sofa Tara slept, her ash blonde hair had fallen over her face. Mike left the screens and went to her and brushed it back off her face, enjoying the warmth of her skin on his fingertips. She murmured something and stirred so he left her, not wanting to wake her yet. She’d laid down just after they’d come in from the garden, she’d protested that there was no way she could rest, not when Scotty was missing. Yet within ten minutes she’d been snoring lightly and as yet hadn’t woken, but that was okay because while she was asleep, she wouldn’t be blaming herself. There was no way any blame could be apportioned for what had happened, but the mind is a funny thing and has a way of torturing you. Mike knew that only too well. And he knew that she’d be going over those last few moments in her mind, as he had on the screen, breaking them down and looking for something she could have done differently to bring about a different outcome.

  Mike was about to check the audio through again when there was a purposeful knock at the front door that made him jump. He didn't rush to the lobby to answer it; instead, he crossed to the balcony over the lobby and placed his hands on the balustrade and looked down at the door, almost as if he could see through it to who was on the other side. The knocking came again, louder a bit more of a thump, and Tara who’d been woken by it rushed past Mike and began down the stairs.

  “It might be him,” she said hopefully.

  Mike went after her and caught her arm as she reached for the keys, “And it might not be,” he said warily. Mike turned to the door. “Who’s there?” he called.

  "Mike," came a voice he knew. "It's Mark Samuels, we need a chat." Mike removed the deadbolts and unlocked the door. Samuels was dressed for work in smart grey trousers, shiny flat-soled shoes, and a white short sleeve shirt. There was no tie, not yet, and his top two buttons were undone. He looked pissed and as soon as the door was fully open, he thrust a copy of the Daily Mail into Mike's hand. "Front page!" he said sternly. "Front fucking page, Mike. How the fuck did that happen? You tell me.”

  Mike didn’t need to look at the front page, nor did he need to read the story, he knew what would be on there. He looked anyway and read the headline to himself silently.

  SPOOK HUNTERS AID POLICE IN INVESTIGATION FOR MISSING BROTHER AND SISTER

  It was printed in bold black headline text across the top of the page. Below it was an image of himself with Tara and Scotty to his side, taken by that cocky reporter the day before.

  “Look, Mark,” Mike began, but he cut him off.

  “Read it!” he prompted.

  Yesterday afternoon the Daily Mail learned that Mike Cross, Tara Gibb, and Scott Hampton became the new tenants of The Old Chapel in Trellen, Cornwall, where last Saturday morning parents of Ellie Harrison (18) and Henry Harrison (5) found them missing from the room they'd been sharing. The missing person enquiry became a murder hunt when one of Henry Harrison’s shoes was found by a dog walker on the beach at Charlestown. A shoe belonging to Ellie Harrison was recovered by police divers from the harbour Wednesday lunchtime. Both parents were questioned by police but later released without charge. In the latest twist of this strange case, our reporter photographed the team of SwitchBack TV's Unexplained UK unloading flight cases at the building on Wednesday evening, only hours after the police stood it down from being a crime scene. Mike Cross, a former Detective Sergeant with Sussex Police, became well known for his work as a private and paranormal investigator when he exposed a fake haunting in Sleaford, Lincolnshire back in 2016. Off the back of that case Cross became the lead investigator for the TV show, aided by his researcher, Tara Gibb and tech specialist Scott Hampton. None of the team offered comment on what they were doing at the scene of the summer’s biggest crime story but with the amount of equipment being unloaded, it doesn't look like they’re on their summer holidays. Story continues page 8 –

  Mike didn’t bother to head to page 8, he lowered the paper and looked first to Tara who’d been reading over his shoulder.

  “I said I didn’t want this becoming a circus and now look at it, Mike. It’s a fucking mess.”

  Mike was tired, more than a little stressed out and his nerves were frayed like old rope. It was all he could do to stop himself either just closing the door on Samuels and hoping it would all just go away, or punching him on the nose. He held back both temptations, sighed and said, “That prick of a reporter was waiting out here yesterday, probably had been all day, hoping to see who turned up. And guess what, it paid off, he got lucky. None of us asked for this.”

  “I told him I was going to ram that camera so far up his ass he could taste it,” Tara said dryly. “So don’t blame Mike for this. The only thing to blame is the freedom of the press in this county to make life hell for whomever they choose.”

  Samuels stood there for a few moments but the pissed off look refused to budge. “You both look like shit,” he finally said. “The spooks been keeping you up all night?”

  “I don’t have time for this Mark,” Mike said firmly. “Did you come round here for anything else, or just to have a go at us for something we had no way of avoiding?”

  “If you insist on being here,” he replied curtly. “Try and stay out of trouble.” Mike handed him back the paper. “Keep it,” he said, turning and heading for his Vauxhall. Before Mike could offer any further comment, he was in the car and had it started. Samuels gunned the engine and the wheels spat shingle before he disappeared, firing up a rooster tail of dust behind him.

  “Were you that much of an a-hole when you were a copper?” Tara asked. “Or is it just him?”

  Mike closed the door and leant his back against the sun-warmed timber. “He’s under a tonne of pressure, he’s a good guy really.”

  Tara took the paper from him and gazed at the photo, taken not twenty-four hours ago when they’d all been together. He could see the pain in her eyes and knew they were focused on the part of the picture that showed Scotty stood by one of his flight cases. They’d all become close friends over the last few years, and he knew she thought of Scotty as the little brother she’d never had. “How are we going to find him, Mike?” she asked, her eyes not moving from the front page. “How are we going to find any of them when this place can just swallow you up like some fucking monster?”

  Mike smiled at her weakly. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know.”

  Chapter 44

  Jason Paxman clutched the copy of The Daily Mail in both hands, his fingers gradually tightening in anger until the pages began to crease.

  “This is not a library,” the voice of the shop assistant said in a heavy Indian accent. “If you want to read it, you buy it.”

  Jason ignored him. Th
e image of the guy who’d broken his nose was staring back at him from the front page. Beneath the white strapping holding it back in place, the sight of him made his busted nose throb. Just to the side of him was Tara, the fucking bitch, and another guy who over the last few days he’d seen on the show she’d been involved with. It had aired whilst he’d been locked up in The Verne, but catchup TV had allowed him to watch the entire run of shows in one long marathon. It was utter shite but he’d watched it nonetheless, enjoying the anger that brewed within at seeing her actually making something of her worthless life while his was being wrecked. He’d known she was into that load of hokum, but he’d never envisaged she’d get to where she had. Had she not ratted him out after he’d been good enough to leave her a phone, so she could call an ambulance after dishing her a beating she well deserved for fucking up a six-hundred-pound rug, things would be different. He’d have put a stop to that team of idiots she’d started hanging around with. He’d dealt her a few beatings about it back when all the nonsense had started but he’d not had the time to knock it out of her properly.

  “You want the paper or not?” the assistant said.

  “Fucking idiot,” Jason mumbled under his breath, but loud enough for the assistant to hear. Of course, he wanted the fucking paper. He’d been round to Tara’s twice since he’d fallen foul to Mike Cross, hoping to catch the little bitch on her own and deal her his own special Jason Paxman brand of justice, but the bitch had seemingly been gone for the last few days. Now he knew just where she was. Some piss-pot village in Cornwall doing fuck knows what at the place those kids had gone missing from. Jason was vaguely aware of the news story; it had been on the TV enough over the last five days and even when pissed it was hard to ignore. His alcohol-fuelled mind couldn't quite grasp why Tara was there though, and judging by the report in the paper, neither did the reporter who’d snapped the shot.

  Jason bent and picked up the twelve pack of Stella that he’d actually come in for, placed the paper on top and set both on the counter. “I’ll take a bottle of Jack, too,” he said. “Not the small one, the litre one.”

  The assistant ran the three items through, and Jason could see how he looked at him with disgust. It was a little after eleven in the morning and it was obvious from his appearance that this little party pack of booze was for one, and due to be consumed not long after getting home. It didn’t matter, it was always noon and drinking time somewhere in the word. His old man had been partial to getting on the sauce and that’s what he’d always said, ‘Grab me a beer, son, it’s after twelve somewhere!’ And often after he’d had enough he’d find some reason for Jason to feel the bony side of his hand, or if he was really sauced, his fist.

  “Thirty-seven fifty,” the clerk said with a noticeable hint of disdain in his voice bringing him back from the memory. Jason handed him two crumpled up twenties that had been stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. He snatched the change from the clerk's hand without talking and headed out to his Audi, where he tossed the purchases onto the passenger seat.

  He’d been drinking a lot since getting out, drinking every day if he was honest with himself, it should have mattered to him, but it didn’t. The sauce had been pretty widely available inside, as well as a few other tastier drugs that really blocked out the monotony of prison life. He didn’t care for the harder shit that much, but what had been mild alcoholism before his incarceration, was now a much more deeply rooted addiction. One he relied upon to numb the pain of all he’d lost and fuel the anger that burned inside him.

  That bitch had cost him close to three years of his freedom, and his business, which thanks to his absence had gone to shit. All he had now was his car, the flat which thankfully he’d managed to pay off in full by the time he was thirty-four, and twenty grand in savings. Ten grand of that he’d taken out of the bank and put in a safe back at his flat in Blandford. It was enough for him to live on for a few months, enough to keep him inebriated and the world shut out. When it was gone, he still had another ten left, then there was the car, that had to be worth another fifteen still. Then when the time came there was the flat. Yeah, he was good for a while, the slope to oblivion was long and the fact that at some point he’d likely piss the lot up the wall didn’t matter a jot to him.

  He drove the short distance from the twenty-four-hour garage and convenience store back to his flat just outside of the town centre. All the way he kept eyeing the picture on the front of the paper that lay on the passenger seat and as he glanced at it his eyes kept falling on the building behind Tara and that prick, Cross. Jason knew he shouldn’t be driving, that he was still way over the limit from yesterday and as he pulled to a stop outside of his flat his hand shook setting the parking brake. He’d woken up on the sofa at a little after ten in a dry house and his body was aching badly for more sweet liquid poison.

  He fumbled the key into the lock of the communal door then managed the stairs to the second floor. One more tricky keyhole later and he was in. The place stank. He’d not really noticed it on waking but having come in from the outside it hit his nose and for the briefest of moments, he felt disgusted at himself. Stale beer, sweat, and dishes left piled up on the drainer, many still containing the remnants of takeaways. Some of which had been there long enough to start growing a thin layer of mould on that a few small flies now buzzed and circled over. He’d run out of crockery a few days ago and the more recent meals lay in messy remains in their styrofoam containers.

  In his previous life, before that fucking bitch had taken it away, just walking into such a shithole would have made his skin crawl. Now it didn’t matter to him, nothing did, except maybe for the booze, that mattered because it made everything else not matter. Well, there was one thing that sure as shit did matter and that was dealing a little payback for what she'd done to him, but apart from that he didn’t really give a flying fuck about anything.

  In the kitchen he dumped the goods on the breakfast bar, reached into the thin, blue plastic bag and took the bottle of Jack out, cracking the top off and taking a deep pull, all in one needy movement. The hot liquid felt like pure relief as it burned his throat and after two or three deep swallows, he set it down on the worktop with a bang and let out a sigh of relief. Craving quenched, for now, he took out the paper and stared at the photo again. That cock sucker, Cross had to have been fucking her, why else would he have been at her flat in the middle of the night? Or if he wasn’t fucking her, he was trying to. No guy would stick up for a worthless little slut like her unless he was tapping her, or trying to, that was just the way of the world. From Mike, Tara and the other guy with them, who he seemed to recall from watching the show was called Scotty, his eyes fell on the building again. The Old Chapel it was called according to the paper, and the more he looked at it the more he couldn’t look away.

  Aside from the booze, getting even with Tara had been the only thing on his mind since getting out, and now by some twist of fate he had the chance to not only settle that little score but at the same time he could dish a little payback to the Cross guy, too. And as he looked at the photo a voice inside of him agreed. It whispered dark things to him that both terrified and excited him, and as it whispered like a vile worm inside of his head, Jason listened. By the time he finally managed to take his eyes away from the paper he knew what he had to do. If he got caught for it there would be no short stay in prison, no this would be a long stretch. It should have mattered to him, but it didn’t, and the voices had agreed, nothing mattered now apart from the sweet feeling of revenge.

  Jason picked up the bottle of Jack, took another long drink from it and carried it, and the paper through to the lounge where he set both on the coffee table that was still littered with the remnants of last night’s binge, and the day before, and the day before that. He rooted around the piles of crap in a frustration that only fuelled his anger until he found his phone.

  Tommy Wojcik had been his cellmate for the first six months in The Verne. Tommy was a badass fucker from Poland who’
d been on the back end of a five stretch for an armed robbery in Bournemouth. He’d fallen foul of some ballsy little fuck of a cash in transit driver who instead of handing over the money had swung the metal armoured case at his head and got lucky, knocking him clean out. The two other goons with him hadn’t had the chance to sort the prick out as some other do-gooder had called the police as soon as shit had started to go down. The sound of approaching sirens had likely saved the driver’s life. Tommy was a good guy, not the kind he’d have mixed with in his old life, but then prison was apt to change a man, and often not for the better. Tommy never ratted out the other two in his gang and had taken the time on the chin; in much the same way he’d taken that cash in transit box on the chin. Tommy had proven that there was honour among thieves after all. By the time Tommy got out they’d become close friends. More than once Jason, or the Pacman, as Tommy called him, had needed to have his back when it got nasty, as it often did inside. Tommy had not been coy about his connections with the criminal underworld outside and had been keen to let Jason know that if he ever needed anything when he finally got out, then just to call and he'd sort it. For a price of course, nothing was free in this life.

  Jason drank from the bottle of Jack as he scanned the phone. He found Tommy’s number and hit call, the warm feeling of the booze settling into his belly, mixed with the notion of how that bitch’s face would look when he showed up. As the phone rang his eyes fell on the picture again and the building.

  “Pacman,” came Tommy’s heavily accented voice after only three rings. “Is good to hear from you, my friend. I heard you were out and was hoping you'd call, how are you?"

  "Things have been better," Jason said, and wasn’t that the fucking God’s honest. He set the bottle on the table and ran a hand through his hair, it felt greasy and in need of a wash.