Echoes of the Past (20 page)

Feeling
once again dismissed Jess didn’t answer. She lay back down and pulled Topaz closer.

“Hey,
I think Aunt Lee left a cheese cake in the fridge, how about we share that?” Still Jess didn’t reply. Tom stroked her hair one more time. He was feeling incompetent as a parent. A renewed sense of loss washed over him as he wished Sara were here. He kissed Jess on the head and stood to leave.

“Don’t
close the door.”

Tom
sighed. “Sure, honey.”

*****

Jill Patterson dug her nails in to the dirty wooden arms of the chair. She couldn’t understand why he was doing this.

“Believe
me, Jill; you will serve as a good warning. Now smile for the camera.” Her whole face was throbbing from the pain of the beating he had given her. The camera flashed incessantly in her eyes, causing her to feel even more nauseous. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear him.

Click,
click, went the camera. It hurt to breathe; her ribs were so badly bruised, even if she weren’t cuffed to the chair she probably wouldn’t be able to move anyway. She tried to look around her to get some sense of where he had taken her. It felt damp …

*****

Lee woke the next morning with a pounding headache. The disjointed images of a dream that eluded her began almost instantly to float from her mind’s grasp leaving only an impression, a heaviness in her. She groaned and got out of bed. Her clock read 11.30am. She never slept that late. Slowly she padded to the bathroom and then downstairs to make coffee.

It
had become almost part of her routine now to drink her coffee with the back door open. The cool spring air rushed in filling every crevice of the kitchen. The chill always took away the feeling of nausea and the headache, which more often than not she seemed to wake with when she slept at her own house. She sat for a long time with her elbows bent and her head resting in her limp wrists. Wracking her brain to find the dreams that seem to leave her feeling ill. She could only remember the dank dirt floor. A very large man, with huge hands. And sometimes, the fiery red hair of a young woman.

After
a time she collected her thoughts. Today was laundry, Internet banking and a visit to see her Dad again. She stood and climbed upstairs to shower and dress.

The
hot water felt good against her skin. She stood allowing it to rain down her back and neck. A scurrying sound came from the hallway. Lee turned of the shower and listened intently. Again came the sound. She hurriedly wrapped a towel around her and stepped out of the shower. She opened the bathroom door and looked down the long narrow hall in front of her.

“Hello?”
No reply.

I
hate old houses. She thought as she closed the bathroom door. She wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror.

The
shock of red hair reflected back. A broken and bloody face. A tall slender woman.

Lee
applied her moisturiser and began to get ready. A sense of uneasiness had settled in the room. She glanced around her. No one there. She quickly pulled on her jeans and her top and opened the door. Cool air filled the room mixing with the steam. She lifted her hair clip from her bedroom and walked down the stairs.

Silently
the red haired woman followed. Her stare almost penetrating the back of Lee’s head.

Lee
stopped and looked around her. She looked back up the stairs she had just descended.

The
woman circled her like a mist. Staring close in to Lee’s eyes.

Blind
but not oblivious to the presence Lee went back to the living room and turned the television on. The volume filled the room. She pulled open the curtains to allow the spring sun to cleanse the room. More coffee. Put on the washing machine, and then do the banking. She thought as she walked back into the kitchen.

Ten
minutes later, she was sitting in front of her computer. Painfully slow, it began to log her on to the banking web site. Then blank. Then the bank home page flickered on to the screen.

Damn
it
, she thought as she input her details and passwords again. Again, the screen went blank.

“Screw
it; I’d be as well just going down there,” she said aloud. Another flickering on the screen and then writing began to appear before her eyes.

Susannasusanna susannasusanna. Find me find me find me find me.

The words filled the screen in front of her. Lee let out a scream and pushed the lap top closed, jumping up she knocked the chair over behind her. A pale white light seeped out from the edges of the closed computer. Hurriedly Lee grabbed her bag and headed out the door without looking back.

*****

“Sorry I’m late,” Tom said as he walked in to the police station. “Jess forgot her change of clothes for after school, she goes up to the stables with Gemma every day now.”

Danny
looked round from his computer. “Isn’t Matt away on business this week?”

“No,
it’s just an overnight he’s on. The girls look after the horses for him. I don’t think he so much needs them to do as much as they like to. Anyway, have you got anything?”

“I
think I have a contact number for Eva Brook. She doesn’t have a record or anything.” Danny handed him a piece of paper with the details on it and stretched his legs and leaned back in his chair. “You know, Tom, I was thinking last night. That story Eva wrote, do you think it was purely imaginative?”

Tom
sat in the chair opposite him. “Not for a second, Danny. I think Eva witnessed the murder of Susanna Wheeling when she was six years old. When her flat mate went missing sixteen years later, I think it brought it all back to her. I would like to know why it took her twenty years to seek therapy though, what happened that drove her to see Sara?”

“Don’t
you think it’s a big coincidence that she witnessed a murder as a child and then years later her friend is murdered? The majority of people are never connected to a murder investigation in their lives; this woman has a connection to two.”

Tom
thought about it. “Maybe it’s not a coincidence, maybe her flat mate’s disappearance was a warning to her. Anyway, I think if we can find out who her cousin was we will be a whole lot closer to finding our killer. He must have lived or worked on the cousin’s property.”

Danny
cleared his throat. “Tom, don’t you think that Sara would have recognized Coppersfield in the story?”

Tom
swallowed hard. “Yes, I think that may have been why she was trying to get hold of me the day she died. She wouldn’t have known anything about Susanna Wheeling, but she was most likely wanting me to check it out to find out if the story was simply part of her imagination.”

Danny
straightened in his chair. “Well, I tried to check to see if she had family in Coppersfield, but I can’t find anything.”

Tom
walked over to the computer. “Nothing at all.”

“No,
it’s always difficult when you’re dealing with female members of a family, if they marry they change their name and if the relative is on their mother’s side, it can be another surname again. You would be better speaking to her. See if she will give it up. Don’t tell her what your investigating, just ask if she has family up this way.”

Tom
looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Thanks for the heads up, I wouldn’t have wanted to make any mistake with this.”

Danny
flashed a cheeky smile at him.

Tom
pulled his mobile from his pocket and dialled the number Danny had given him for Eva. A woman’s voice answered at the other end.

“Hello,
Miss Brook. I’m DS Hunter; I understand you have some relatives in the village of Coppersfield?” Tom raised an eyebrow at Danny.

“I’m
sorry, no. I’ve never even been to Coppersfield. What is this about?”

“I’m
looking into the disappearance of Jill Paterson back in 1984. I understand you were friends.” This time it was a statement not a question.

“She
was my flat mate.”

“I
have a few questions for you, Miss Brook.”

The voice at the other end of the phone paused. “It was a long time ago; I don’t think I can help you.”

“You
may be surprised at what you can tell me when you start thinking back.”

“I’m
sorry; I have to start work in an hour I have to go.”

“When
would be a better time to speak with you?” Tom persisted.

“I
really don’t think I can be of any help to you, Officer.”

“Miss
Brook, one way or another I will have to speak to you. Now when would be the best time? Would it be easier if I come down to Edinburgh?”

The
woman paused again. “What did you say your name was?”

“Detective
Sergeant Tom Hunter.”

“Are
you any relation to Doctor Sara …?”

“She
was my wife.” There was a sharpness to his tone he had not intended.

There
was a long silence. “All right, it’s the least I can do. I can meet you on Saturday, I don’t work weekends.”

“Thank
you.” Tom took down the details and said good-bye. He looked puzzled as he hung up the phone.

“What’s
the problem?” asked Danny.

“She
said it was the least she could do, after she realized I was married to Sara.”

Danny
shrugged. “Maybe she meant that Sara had helped her, so she should pay it forward.”

“No,
I don’t think so. Anyway, she denies ever being in Coppersfield.”

“Take
that story with you, there’s no way anyone could write such detail without ever stepping foot in the village.”

Tom
put the phone back in his trouser pocket and sat down, the phone call had left him ill at ease, but he did not quite know why.

*****

Lee sat at a table in the café still shaking. Elsie brought her a cup of coffee.

“I
tell you Elsie, if anyone had told me what I just witnessed, I simply wouldn’t believe them.”

“That’s
because you’re a bit of a sceptic.”

“No,
I do believe in the afterlife, I do think sometimes they visit us and watch over us. But I don’t believe that they can mess with our heads and …”

“I
must let you meet my mother one day.”

“Seriously,
Elsie, this thing is disturbing my sleep, it makes me feel ill, and it is scaring the hell out of me, I live alone, Elsie and I don’t want to go home. It is putting things on my computer; it is interacting on a physical level.”

Elsie
shook her head. “Considering that you are a bit of a sceptic, it must take a tremendous amount of energy for this poor soul to get your attention, either that or you are, as I said before, a little sensitive.”

Lee
shook her head, exasperated. “I don’t care what it is. How the hell do I get it to stop. I can’t keep staying at Tom’s.”

“No,
you’ll get all the tongues wagging if you do that. I think you have to ask it what it wants.”

“I
know what it wants; it wants me to find it. Well, I tell you I am not going to go looking for no ghost. You know I keep telling Jess it’s all in her imagination and deep down I know it’s not.”

“You
know you shouldn’t do that to Jess. Sometimes all you need is to know that someone else believes in you, to know that there is someone to talk to.”

Lee
knew what Elsie was saying was true and she felt more than a little guilty that she had been telling Jess it was all in her imagination.

“Look,
you’re going to see that medium tonight. May be she can give you some clue as how to move it on, she may even offer to do a cleansing for you, Lee. We’ll see how good she is; if she can pickup on it.” Elsie threw her a wicked smile. “And another thing, I told you before, don’t keep dismissing Jess or she won’t tell you what she is seeing. She must have someone to talk to Lee.” Elsie could not understand Lee’s fear anymore than Lee could understand Elsie’s comfort with these things.

Lee
finished her coffee and went back to running her errands. The thought of going home filled her with dread, the longer she was out of the house the more surreal her experience seemed. After spending an hour with her Dad, she had just about built up the courage to return to the empty house.

*****

Jess returned from the horses around 6pm. The lamps were on; the heating was on. Overall, it felt rather welcoming to her, it only usually felt this way if Aunt Lee was home. Tom was waiting for her in the kitchen.

“Chinese,
butter popcorn and a DVD,” he said holding the items up in both hands. “But first you and I are going to talk.”