The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

  Mike gestured toward a glass of water with a straw that sat on the bedside cabinet, Samuels picked it up and held it to Mike’s lips while he drank, draining the glass in a few long pulls. The water was lukewarm and had a slightly metallic taste to it, but it still felt good on his parched mouth. When all the liquid was gone, and his throat didn’t feel quite as dry he said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth.”

  “Mike, yesterday morning at a little after half two a double crewed police unit found you and Tara in a crashed car with two missing persons who’d been presumed dead. You all looked like you’d escaped a fire but neither Tara, nor Elle would tell the officers what happened, I am not expecting a simple explanation.”

  Mike took a deep breath and coughed a little, his chest was still a bit rattily. He knew why they’d not said anything, they’d wanted to make sure the place burned. As it was the alarm had already been raised, but they’d been right to hold their silence. Mike tried to work the timing in his head, had they inexplicably lost an hour or more again while below ground? He wasn’t sure and trying to work it out just made his head pound, so he left it alone, it didn’t matter now. “Very well,” he conceded. “But off the record.”

  “Mike, something is going to have to go on the record, you know that as well as I do.”

  “I know, Mark, but not this. I’ll tell you, you take it away and have a sleepless night while you get it right in your head, because you will have a sleepless night, maybe more than one. Then work out a version that will appease the masses. Come back to me, we will go over it with Tara, Ellie and her father as well. When we are happy, we’ll call it good and I’ll sign whatever needs to be signed.”

  Samuels nodded his head slowly in consideration, “Okay, Mike, okay,” he finally said. There was no mocking tone as he spoke, not like there’d been before when they’d last chatted in the rear garden of The Old Chapel, now he was serious, so Mike began.

  It was just after a quarter past seven by the time Mike finished recounting what had happened, and as they both sat in silence for a few seconds Tara slipped into the room wearing a pair of red joggers and a yellow t-shirt. She had a light, duck egg blue hospital dressing gown over her shoulders, it was untied and hung loosely on her slender frame. Her hair looked freshly washed and still a little damp. Her face was reddened from the burns and there was a bruise on her left cheek, it ran up as far as her eye that looked slightly swollen, yet she still looked beautiful to him, and now maybe more so than ever, and in that evening light she’d never looked more alive.

  “I was waiting outside,” she said before crossing the room to Mike’s bed where she leant down and kissed him on the head and took hold of his left hand.

  “Is it true,” Samuels said. His voice was little hollow and his face was the pale of someone who'd just been delivered life-changing bad news.

  “Every word,” Tara confirmed. “Scott Hampton and June Rodgers,” she added.

  “I’m sorry?” Samuels said, looking at her with confusion.

  “Write those names down,” Tara said, nodding toward the notepad in his hand that he’d not opened since getting there. “Scott Hampton and June Rodgers. Whatever account goes out to the public make sure those names are in it. They died in that fucking place in the process of saving Ellie and Henry, and they need to be remembered for being the heroes they are. Tell the public what you want but they need to be remembered.”

  Samuels looked at her for a few seconds, then said, “Okay Tara, understood.” He got up from the seat and walked to the door, opened it, looked back and said, “Rest up Mike, I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 56

  Mike was released last of the four Trellen survivors on Wednesday, August the 1st. The name, Trellen Survivors, had been given to them by the media who’d received the official report around the finding of Ellie and Henry Harrison, as well as the fire in the village the day after Samuels had visited with Mike at Derriford Hospital.

  The official report was that Mike, Tara, and Scott, as well as their mutual friend, June Rodgers whom they’d met through work in the paranormal field, had been staying in The Old Chapel on a short break when fire caused by a number of lightning strikes from one of the worst electrical storms on record had taken hold of the forest that surrounded the village. In a heroic effort to save others the four of them had gone to a neighbouring house to try and alert the owners. Finding no one in and fearing them asleep they broke into the home of Seth and Lucinda Horner only to find the missing brother and sister being held in the cottage's basement. The four had then been attacked by both Seth and Lucinda Horner who'd been part of some unknown satanic cult. In the fight, Mike got shot in the leg and tragically both Scott Hampton and June Rodgers had died. Mike, Tara, and the Harrisons had then fled the burning village, only narrowly escaping the fire. As for Jason, well he’d been omitted from the account altogether.

  It was a half-truth laced with a good dose of semi-believable bullshit, and one played out on the news and written in the papers. As such it had been swallowed totally by most of the public who don’t think to question what the main news outlets tell them.

  The day of his release Tara met him at the hospital, she’d been released on the Monday and had been staying just down Derriford Road the past two nights in a hotel. In truth, she'd not been at the hotel much, save for showering and the evening meal. Choosing instead to sit and sleep on the visitor chair in Mike’s room, neither of them really wanting to be alone.

  From the hospital, they were taken back to Tara’s place in Dorset in a private hire taxi, booked and paid for by Mark Samuels with Mike promising to pay him back when he finally got home and was in a position to sort out a few personal affairs. Samuels had told him not to worry, that it was on him for bringing an end to the biggest case of the summer and as his way of apologising for not taking Mike or the team seriously. Mike didn't argue.

  He spent the first night out of the hospital at Tara's, he had no real yearning to go home to that empty house in Arundel with so many memories of his old life, one that seemed now to belong to a different version of him. He knew he'd have to at some point, if only to pick up a few bits and start sorting things out like the insurance claim for his Jeep. Maybe then he’d see about getting the place on the market, there was nothing for him there now but memories. It seemed like an age had passed since he’d left that house for the meeting at the SwitchBack TV offices in Manchester and his life had been a rollercoaster pretty much since then. Now he was off the ride it all seemed different, the events of the last few days had changed him, they'd changed Tara, too. He guessed it would get better with time, the trauma of what they'd been through would ease, but a small part of it, and the guilt at loss of Scotty would stay with him them forever, of that he had no doubt.

  Mike woke at seven on the Thursday morning and lay for a few moments in the dim light of the bedroom, the sun held at bay by Tara’s thick drapes. As she slept soundly, he got up and showered, then re-dressed the wound on his leg. It was healing but still pained him to stand on, it was getting easier with each passing day, though. In the kitchen, he wrote her a note to say he loved her and that he’d be back in the afternoon after he’d taken care of a few things.

  Tara's A2 had been left in her bay when they'd driven down to Cornwall in his Jeep and now between them, it was the only car they had. He found the keys in her handbag and took a drive, heading out of Shaftsbury and picking up the Salisbury Road.

  He pulled up outside of Sue and Tom Reed’s place a little after half nine that morning. The day was already uncomfortably warm as the great heatwave of 2018 continued to bake the country, and most of Europe, too.

  Sue Reed must have been in the kitchen and had to have seen him coming as he made his way up their long path, and between the two weeping willows that still hung their branches down to that perfectly cut lawn.

  By the time he reached the front door she was stood there with it open, “Mike,” she said with a melancholy smile as he
reached the door. “I was wondering when we would hear from you, come in.”

  “Things have been a little odd,” he said as she ushered him in. “Considering what happened I should have called sooner. I’m sorry.”

  Sue gave him a light hug, the contact surprised him a little, but it was also welcome. “Nonsense,” she said. “You should have called ahead and warned me you were coming though, Tom just left to head into town. Insurance stuff to sort at the bank.”

  “How is he?” Mike asked, going through to the lounge.

  “Not bad,” Sue answered, looking at him from the living room door as Mike took a seat on her floral-patterned sofa. “He says we are officially out of the rental business now, and that when the money comes through its going back in the bank and staying there.”

  Mike nodded, noticing one of those old family photo albums on the pine coffee table, the kind that looked like a thick book, the cover made of black laminated card and from a time where digital photography hadn’t even been a consideration.

  “I thought I should come and tell you what really happened," Mike said, taking his eyes away from the album. "The full story."

  “I did wonder if what the news reported was the full story,” and as she spoke, he saw tears well in her eyes. “When I heard that Lucinda had been involved, and that your friends had been killed, do you know how,” but she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Mike stood and went to her, put an arm around her and said, “No one could have known.” Then changing the subject, he said with a gesture toward the coffee table, "I've not seen a photo album like that for a good few years. Most people keep all their memories on their phones nowadays. My mum has a box full of them in her loft.”

  Sue wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, sniffed back a little and said with a forced smile, “Yes, silly really. I never mentioned it before, I was from Cornwall originally, moved across to Wiltshire when I was in my early twenties for work. A long time ago now,” she said as if reminiscing in her head. “That’s when I met Tom, at a concert.” Mike nodded, letting her talk had distracted her from the guilt and that was a good thing. “I had a sister,” she added. “Died when she was fifteen, drowned in Charlestown harbour. They never found her body, though. There's a grave for her, a little churchyard just outside of St Austell. They buried an empty casket. When they were still alive my parents went there regularly, put flowers on the headstone and that. I’ve not been there in years, I doubt anyone has been,” Sue said sounding guilty. “Thirty or more I’d say. I don’t think I could even find her grave now. When they thought that those poor Harrison kids had drowned there it brought back a few memories and I realised that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fully remember what she’d looked like. I tried to remember, but time had fogged it over.” She looked at Mike with sad tear-filled eyes. "That sounds bad, doesn't it? She was my sister, but I couldn’t remember her face?”

  “It was a long time ago now,” Mike said, not quite able to believe this was going where he thought it was going. “Practically a lifetime ago,” he added.

  “Yes,” Sue said a little distantly and Mike could see that her eyes were staring blankly at the album as she spoke. “I suppose it is. Would you like some tea?”

  “I’d love a cup,” Mike lied, not really wanting the tea, wanting instead a chance to look at the album that sat on the coffee table.

  “I’ll bring some through,” She smiled, and with that, she disappeared off into the kitchen.

  Mike went back to the sofa, sat and with shaky hands picked up the old photo album. The pages smelt musty as he turned them, the scent of something long stored and not often brought out. The first image was a black and white one of a baby in a christening robe, Sue aged six months, was written below in the kind of handwriting that people no longer used. The next image was of two old people stood on a promenade somewhere, the woman held one of those old-fashioned parasols and Mike put the picture somewhere around the early 1920s. He kept thumbing until he found what he knew he’d find, no matter how impossible it seemed.

  The picture was black and white, it was of two girls taken on holiday, both in bathing suits and stood on the beach clutching ice-creams. One of the girls was a young Sue Reed, only then Reed hadn’t been her last name. Her black hair stood out in the colourless photo, it was tied up in a bun, she had a broad smile on her face and her eyes seemed to sparkle with youth. She was maybe nineteen or twenty years old in the snap and it had likely been taken just a year or so before her move to Wiltshire. The girl beside her was younger, thirteen maybe fourteen years old. Her hair was lighter, and Mike didn’t need the benefit of colour to know that it was red. Freckles dressed the bridge of her nose and Mike knew that if the camera were a little closer, as it had been in the school picture used on her missing persons newspaper article, then he’d see that scar above her right eye. Below the image in that same neat calligraphy-like handwriting was printed, Lindie and Sue, Woolacombe Bay - Summer 1967.

  Mike gripped the album tightly in his hands and stared at it in utter disbelief and with a deep sadness until he heard Sue putting the tea makings on a tray, then he closed it and placed it carefully back on the table. Sue came through with the drinks, balancing them on a tray with a plate of Garibaldi biscuits, and in that instant, he knew he’d not tell her. She carried enough guilt about what had happened. Her sister was a distant memory, so distant that she’d had to dig out an old album to fully remember how she’d looked. What would he or she gain from the telling of that terrible truth? Telling her that Lindie had not drowned, that she’d been taken, beaten, raped and tortured, made to bear a child that had then been killed so that she could become. That she’d been the thing that was Lucinda Horner, and he felt sure that somewhere inside that woman a small piece of what had been Lindie had remained, imprisoned and in constant torture.

  Nothing.

  There would be nothing for Sue Reed, once Sue Parker, to gain from the knowledge other than more pain, and everyone had had enough of that, enough to last a few lifetimes over. So, as he sipped at his tea and the Garibaldi biscuits sat untouched on the plate, he ran through what had happened, but he left out the part about the Lindie and the other girls, meaning that only he, Tara, Ellie, Mark Samuels, and Ellie's parents knew the full truth of it. And was that such a bad thing? Some truths were so bad, so rotten that the fewer people burdened with them the better it was.

  When he’d finished and Sue had sat in stunned silence for a while, she looked at him with reddened eyes clutching a tissue and said, “What now, Mike? What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mike answered truthfully. “I think – I think maybe I’m just going to take a little time to heal.”

  Chapter 57

  The snow came in early February of 2019, plunging the whole UK under a frozen white blanket of ice that threw the country into public travel chaos. As Mike and Tara pulled off the M4 at the Reading exit, large flakes drove at the windscreen of his new Jeep like a myriad of tiny phantoms intent on breaking through, only to be thwarted away by the wipers.

  “Might get snowed in up here,” Tara said as she cranked up the heater. “Weather says it’s only going to get worse. Beast from the east two they’re calling it.”

  “We can get a room,” Mike said with a grin and she punched him playfully on the arm.

  The sat-nav took them from the motorway, around the town and past the Madejski Stadium, home to Reading FC, then out to one of the residential districts. The Harrison residence was a typical detached family home, built in the 1920s and as Mike pulled to a stop outside, the snow picked up its pace and began to wheel from the sky in flakes the size of twenty pence pieces.

  “This is it,” Mike said as he killed the engine. “I’ve not seen the Harrisons since Derriford.”

  “Six months ago,” Tara noted. “Time flies,” she said with a sigh before getting out of the car. “I’ve been in contact with Ellie on WhatsApp but it will be nice to see her again.”


  The house was on a slight hill and as Mike headed for the door a rear wheel drive BMW struggled by, the smell of its burning clutch filling the frozen air as the driver tried desperately to keep the car moving.

  Rob Harrison answered the door less than ten seconds after they’d knocked it. He wore thick, warm looking tartan lounge pants and a t-shirt that declared he was Number 1 Dad. He looked like a totally different man to the one they'd visited with at the Travel Lodge the day he'd been released from custody and had told Mike, Tara, and Scotty not to give him false hope. When they'd seen him at the hospital after his tearful reunion with Ellie and Henry, he’d looked better, but he’d still been broken at that point. Now he looked mended.

  “Mike,” he said with a wide grin, beckoning the pair in and taking his hand for an enthused shake. “How are the pair of you?” The smell of pizza wafted through from the kitchen and the house felt wonderfully homely and warm after the frigid air outside.