FLINDER'S FIELD (a murder mystery and psychological thriller) (15 page)

‘That something had happened to
her was without doubt,’ said D. B. Forde. ‘She was deeply disturbed by her experiences. She was very emotional, very genuine.’

‘
But yet she did not quite convince you,’ said George.

‘All the familiar archetypes were there, with other elements
present that veered from the usual run-of-the-mill that I’ve heard over the years. She was far more convincing that most, I have to say. It was almost frightening to hear her recount the experience, I can tell you, and I have heard many similar tales in compiling my book. Either she was a very good liar or what she recounted actually happened. That was my conclusion. She was no liar, had no reason to lie. And yet…’

‘And yet?’ said George, leaning forward.

He shifted a shoulder. ‘I was utterly convinced at one point, and then on the final day, I interviewed her in the living room. That’s when I saw the paperbacks.’

George angled his head. ‘I don’t follow you. What paperbacks?’

‘Science fiction. Lots of cheap dog-eared science fiction thrillers. The sort with green, many-tentacled monsters from silver flying saucers, and racy blondes in plunging necklines running scared. You get the picture.’

George remembered Adam handing him the paperback from his father’s shelf. The time Sylvia Tredwin went crazy and locked them both under the stairs.

Forde continued. ‘I mentioned them to her. She said they belonged to her husband. When prompted as to whether she’d read any of them, she said no, she hated science fiction. But who takes them down and dusts them, I asked? Why I do, she said.’

‘So you think she saw one of the covers and made up a story
based on that?’

‘It’s not that simple. In such cases, the person is not aware of the fac
t that they are creating an imaginary world based on nothing more than the memory of a picture, or a movie. To the subject it is terrifyingly real. Take the case of the Hills, which I’ve spoken about. Some researchers believed their abduction was based on a film they’d seen called
‘Invaders from Mars’,
or some such thing. It was highly possible that Sylvia Tredwin had been subjected to a similar subconscious prompting. Which is why I had to be certain, and so I arranged for her to undergo hypnosis.’

‘She was hypnotised?’ said George, intrigued. ‘So what was the result?’

‘Nothing conclusive, according to the man I regularly employed, a respected psychologist and hypnotist called Arthur Talbot. Like me he was born in the South West and we shared a keen interest in the paranormal. But his sessions with her were inconclusive. They revealed nothing more than that on the notes I prepared for him. She did not admit to her experience as being subconscious imaginings, but nor did she admit that her abduction was real. In fact, he drew a blank on all fronts. Arthur told me he had never had a subject so resistant to hypnosis. It did not help her, I’m afraid, for both she and her husband had pinned their hopes on finding answers on the sessions. She came away more dispirited than ever.’

D. B. Forde shrugged heavily and released a tired sigh.

‘I take it other subjects have been more forthcoming under hypnosis.’

He nodded. ‘It usually gets to the bottom of things, one way or another. It is
the one tool at my disposal that provides a modicum of evidence that these abductions actually happened. It is hard to lie under hypnosis, though it is not without fallibility. With Sylvia Tredwin I could not provide that last shred of evidence, and therefore I could not stick my neck on the line to say yes, she was abducted. I referred to her in my book, but I do not say one way or the other that she was the subject of an extraterrestrial abduction.’

‘So, off the record, what do you really believe?’ pressed George.

Forde studied the man’s eager eyes. ‘In all the cases I have ever come across, I have never found one so honest, the experiences so vivid and so brutally real to the subject as that of Sylvia Tredwin. Mr Lee, I believe she was taken by extraterrestrials.’ He edged forward in his seat, locked George in a steely gaze. ‘We are being stalked by something malicious and malignant, Mr Lee, make no mistake about that. We are the animal specimens, they are the vivisectionists. We are decidedly uncomfortable with that arrangement, so we seek to denounce the abductions as myth, as the bleating of sick or sensationalist minds, and we relegate the stories to the stagnant and unimportant backwater of scientific research. But they are real. They do indeed come, Mr Lee, and have been coming for a long time. And I believe Sylvia Tredwin found that out to her cost.’ He sat back, flexing his shoulders as if he’d freed them of heavy clothing.

It came as a shock to hear the man come down so firmly on that side of the fence. ‘And the paperbacks?’

‘Coincidence. Science fiction was, and is, hard to ignore. There was a lot of it on TV and in cinemas at the time, the popularity of
Star Wars
proved that there was a huge appetite for it, and there were the almost continuous missions to the moon keeping space exploration in everyone’s mind. Every abductee I interviewed would have had plenty of access to science fiction narratives, in one form or another. It is an occupational hazard,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘She could quite easily have included other common elements of alien abduction, like Men in Black, but she didn’t.’

George smirked. ‘I’ve seen the movies…’

Forde’s face remained serious. ‘Yes, Hollywood provides another example of the trivialisation of the abduction narrative. And yet in many cases, particularly the earlier American ones, the interviewees spoke of men dressed in black and driving old-fashioned black cars, who visited the abductees and either threatened them to keep quiet or were somehow instrumental in getting the abductees to forget their experiences altogether, until hypnosis revealed all. They’ve been explained as government agents and the aliens themselves, but I wouldn’t dismiss them so readily, Mr Lee. Sylvia Tredwin’s story didn’t contain anything like that, but there again big black American cars in the UK were rather rarer back then and would have stood out a mile, eh?’ He allowed himself a thin smile. 

George Lee’s eyes narrowed in thought.
‘So would I be able to speak to this hypnotist Arthur Talbot?’

‘To discuss Sylvia’s sessions?’

‘I was hoping to.’

Forde smiled wryly. ‘Rather naïve of you, Mr Lee. For one thing there’s such a t
hing as patient confidentiality. For another it was so long ago that all records of the case – either tape or written – will have been destroyed. And lastly, Arthur Talbot is dead. He died three months or so after his interviews with Sylvia Tredwin, as it happens. So I’m afraid you cannot meet with Arthur unless you are adept at contacting the dead. If you are then please let me know, as that is another area of the paranormal that sparks my interest.’ He grinned and rose from his seat. ‘What I can do, however, is put you in contact with his son William.’ He went to a bureau and pulled down the lid, rummaging through a veritable snowstorm of paper that wanted to take the opportunity to escape confinement. He pushed it roughly back inside and came back to George, holding out an envelope. ‘Here you are. Two tickets to see his show.’

‘Show?’

‘William Talbot didn’t exactly follow in his father’s doctor footsteps, but instead took the less palatable vaudeville route. He is a stage hypnotist. His father would have been mortified, turning the profession into mere entertainment, but, as I said earlier, we all have to make a living. I’ve known William since he was a little boy, and every now and again he sends me a letter, or nowadays a text or an email, and very occasionally he sends me tickets to performances that I have yet to attend. You are more than welcome to have these tickets – he’s playing at some small-time venue in Weston-Super-Mare according to the ticket. I don’t know what good it will do you. You’re hardly likely to find out more about Sylvia Tredwin’s case than what I have already told you. The trip and the fresh seaside air might do you good, looking at your pasty complexion, Mr Lee.’

On that personal note, D.
B. Forde brought the meeting to a swift end, and George was left standing outside Forde’s house staring at the tickets in his hand. Well, he thought, it was worth a punt. And it had been ages since he’d been to Weston-Super-Mare in North Somerset.

That night, George Lee sat on the edge of the bed in his old bedroom and looked over the pieces of paper he had laid out before him. A collection of his father’s bank statements detailing monthly outgoings into a mysterious account, including the large payment from his matured insurance policy; a curious Birmingham address found with the statements, which, George thought, by their very proximity to the statements had to be linked to the payments in some way; a receipt for a nearly-new Ford
Fiesta his father bought from his brother-in-laws, and a receipt for the replacement of the car’s wing around the time Bruce Tredwin had been killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Not only did he have the mystery surrounding his father
’s secrets, but the gradual unfolding – or deepening, depending on which way you looked at it – of the Sylvia Tredwin case. The two, he felt, linked by Bruce Tredwin’s death.

If his father had been involved in that, of course. It was
indeed a large leap of the imagination to align the replacement of a corroded wing with the killing of Bruce Tredwin. Could it have been mere coincidence? How should he go about finding out, ask his mother? Ask Uncle Gary? He shook his head. He’d have to tread carefully – emotions were running high since his father had died, and he couldn’t go around accusing his uncle of covering up for a crime.

George’s sister, Amelia, was due to head on home in a day or two, thank goodness. At least with her out of the way there’d be less bitterness in the house.
He lay on the bed, the pieces of paper beside him, and put his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.

Christ, dad, what does all this mean?

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew he was being roused from a deep slumber by his sister barging into the bedroom.

‘George! Come quick!’ she yelled.

He rubbed his eyes of sleep, his mind refusing to let go of what was proving to be a very relaxing snooze. First he’d had in ages and she goes and interrupts it. Bitch.

‘What the hell do you want, barging in on a guy like that?’ he groused.

‘Your uncles’ garage is on fire! They think your Uncle Robert is trapped inside!’

He was dressed and downstairs in minutes, tucking a shirt into his trousers as he ran to his car, his mother and sister diving into it with him.

‘Hurry!’ said his mother.

‘Get your foot down, in heaven’s name!’ blasted Amelia into his ear.

By the time they pulled up near the garage the old wooden office was all but engulfed in fire, lighting up the surrounding fields. A good many villagers had come to try and help, but had been pushed back by firemen, who were pumping gallons of water onto the roof of the garage. They stood helpless and overawed by the intensity of the flames as George and his mother and sister joined them.

‘Where’s
Robert?’ his mother screamed. ‘Where’s Robert?’

Nobody was listening. She became hysterical and wanted to tear herself away from Amelia’s clutches to run to the flaming pyre.

‘I’m here, Cassie,’ said a frail, wavering voice from behind her. It was Robert Cowper, his frightened face blackened by smoke.

‘I thought you were dead!’ she said gratefully, and launched herself at her brother. He hugged her tightly.

‘Me, too, sis,’ he said.

‘What happened?’ said George. It looked like the firemen were quickly getting the blaze under control.

‘I was working late in the office…’ Robert began.

‘I’ve told you not to stay there late,’ chastised his sister, her relief quickly turning to anger. ‘
What were you doing there at that time of night? Can’t you leave that business alone, just for once? I told you that place would be the death of you!’

‘The next thing I know is I smell smoke, then
I see flames,’ Robert continued. ‘I was trapped for a while, but I managed to phone the fire brigade from the office. Then you…’ he added. He swallowed hard, rubbing his throat. ‘The smoke’s caused havoc with my breathing,’ he said. ‘I managed to bust out through the window, climb out. That’s when I cut my hand, on the glass.’ He signalled the damage by raising his fist. There was blood pouring from a cut. ‘They say they want me to go to hospital. An ambulance is on its way, but I’m OK, really I am.’

‘Oh,
Robert!’ said George’s mother, staring at the fire. ‘All your hard work…’ Then concern flared in her eyes. ‘Where’s Gary? Where’s Gary?’

‘At home,’ reassured
Robert. ‘You’ll never find him working late, you know that. He’s probably tucked up in bed.’

‘We ought to tell him,’ she said. ‘Who’s got a phone?’

Robert told her it was fine, to leave him be for a while. ‘The worrying thing is the firemen already think it’s deliberate. Arson.’