The Lake House (9 page)

‘They say that they don’t exist but my uncle knew they did. A shaman told him all about them. He said they would sit around the campfire telling tales of horror and cannibalism. These things dwell in caves and like the dark. The tribesmen had a name for it; they called it the “evil that devours”.’

‘Well, that’s all very well and good, but if I’m to buy this thing from you I need to see it, please, so that I can make all the necessary arrangements to ship it back to the fairground.’

The man studied James then nodded. ‘Very well. I’m fed up of taking care of it. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’

He stepped forward and began to unlock the padlocks keeping the case secure. James had never felt a greater fear yet he stepped towards the crate, eager to see whatever it was inside. Finally the man pulled the lid back and it swung open, revealing the most revolting thing James had ever seen. His instinct was to back away at the smell of burning flesh that emanated from the box and he cupped a hand over his mouth.

‘The only way to kill them is to burn them and that doesn’t always work.’

He said it matter of factly, like it was no more difficult than swatting a fly.

James stared at the thing in the crate. It looked like nothing he’d ever come across. It had a gaunt, skeletal body that was covered in some kind of grey skin. The head was larger than the average man’s, although a similar shape, but it was the teeth that made his breath catch. They were long, sharp and pointed and would look more at home on a sabre-toothed tiger. James looked at the man, who shrugged.

‘It’s an ugly bugger, all right.’

It was then that James looked down to the thing’s hands. Only they weren’t hands – instead of fingers there were long, sharp, black claws. The man stepped forward. After slamming the door shut, he began to padlock it once more.

‘Sorry, that’s about as long as I can stand to look at that thing. It scares me.’

So many thoughts were running through James’s head that he had difficulty processing them all into the right order. The one that was at the forefront was the one that kept screaming at him that he simply had to have that thing, no matter what the cost. Even if it turned out to be a complete fake it would draw the crowds from miles around to the amusement park. The crowds would flock to see it. This was the thing he had been waiting for. It could turn the park’s fortunes around for good.

‘I’ll take it.’

Those three words echoed in his mind. And where was it now? It had been the only thing from his freak show to survive the great fire that burnt down the fairground in 1919. It had been relatively unscathed apart from the blackened and cracked glass that surrounded it. He had stayed all night fighting the fire and by the morning he had been exhausted, but the whole time he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Eleanor Sloane who lived at 3 Park Place.

Once he’d got cleaned up and smelt a little better he had gone straight round to find her house. He had to see her again to see if she still had the same effect on him as she’d had last night. The tree-lined street was very different to the life he was used to. The houses were so big he thought he could probably fit half of his fairground friends into one of them and they still wouldn’t be falling over each other. He found number three and stood outside staring up at the whitewashed town house, trying to pluck up the courage to go and knock on her door. As if she’d be interested in him. Her parents would be mortified to have someone who was from the fairground knocking on their door in broad daylight. He remembered how his shoulders had slumped and his heart had broken in two as he turned and began to walk away. He had no business knocking on that door because he had nothing that he could offer Eleanor. What he had owned was now a blackened, charred mess. A motor car pulled up and a man who looked very well to do got out of it. James carried on walking and was shocked to feel a hand on his shoulder.

‘Can I help you, sir? Is there a reason you were standing staring at my house?’

James paused and wondered if he should lie, but then he had never been a very good liar and he wouldn’t live with himself if he didn’t at least speak some truth.

‘Sorry. I’m James Beckett, sir. I met your daughters at the fairground last night and I was wondering how they both were?’

‘Are you the young man who saved their lives?’

James nodded. He hadn’t thought of it that way but, yes, he supposed that he was.

‘Well, then, why don’t you come inside and see for yourself? It’s the least I can do. You have no idea how much my girls mean to me and I am for ever in your debt, young man.’

He turned and began striding towards his house, and James grinned and rushed after him. He had been expecting a telling-off, not a thank you. The man pushed the doorbell and immediately a young housemaid opened the door. James followed Mr Sloane inside and found himself staring around at the grand surroundings.

‘You wait in the library while I go and find my wife and daughters. I know that my wife would very much like to thank you in person. Would you like a drink, something to eat?’

James shook his head, not sure what to say even though his stomach was rumbling and his throat was parched from the smoke he’d inhaled all night long.

Before long the man came back in with the very beautiful Mrs Sloane, who rushed over and hugged him.

‘Thank you so much; Eleanor told us how brave and kind you were to both her and Agnes. We can never repay your kindness. Did you stay on to fight the fire all night?’

‘I did. I had to. You see that fairground was half mine and now there’s nothing left but a couple of exhibition pieces.’

‘Oh how dreadful. You must be exhausted and in shock. Do you have anywhere to stay?’

He shook his head. ‘Not at the moment – everything I had is gone.’

She looked at her husband who nodded his head as if he knew what she was about to say.

‘Well, then you must stay here with us as our guest until you sort something out. I won’t hear of you saying no. It’s the least we can do. I’ll get Bertha to show you to the guest room where you can have a hot bath and then something to eat. Isn’t that right, Harold?’

‘It is indeed. I wouldn’t bother arguing with her about it because you’ll never win. Just accept and it will be much easier for the pair of us.’

‘Thank you; I don’t know what to say. That’s very kind of you both.’

He saw Eleanor come down the stairs and then start running towards him.

‘Oh I’m so glad that you’re here. I’ve been awake all night thinking about you.’

He felt his cheeks burn but he also felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of this beautiful young woman who was so relieved that he was still alive.

James knew that he had been very lucky because he had soon forged a strong friendship with Harold and the rest of Eleanor’s family. When he had told her father his plans to open up a permanent fairground on some land in Manchester he had managed to secure through a private deal, he had thought it was a splendid idea and wanted to know everything about it.

James brought himself back to reality and looked around. Now here he was, eleven years later – a partner in a very successful amusement park, married to the woman he loved and with two beautiful children. God could take it all back this very moment in time if he returned Joe to them safe and sound. He could take back the money, the house, everything – he just wanted his son safe in his arms.

They had checked every inch of the room while James had been in a daydream, but there was still no sign of Joe. The men went over to the drain and lifted the cover off, then leant over to look inside with the lamp, but there was nothing down there except the smell of something gone bad. James looked around at them all.

‘There is no way on God’s earth that Joseph would have been able to lift this cover off, climb down there and pull it back over. Davey and I can only just move it and we’re both grown men. I don’t understand it. Where is he?’

Davey shrugged. ‘Why don’t we start at the top of the house again and go from room to room, leaving no cupboard or trunk unturned. If he’s nowhere to be found then we need to get the police, Mr Beckett, because I don’t know where he can be and boys can’t just disappear into thin air.’

Mrs Beckett nodded her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak because she was on the verge of crying, and if she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t stop. Where was her son whom she had kissed not thirty minutes ago? He would not be so foolish as to hide for this long when everyone was shouting his name and looking for him. All three of them went back upstairs and Davey shut the cellar door.

Everyone shouted Joe’s name and the noise was so loud that Martha had to put her hands over her ears. She knew that he wasn’t coming back or he would have answered by now. He would not disrespect their father by staying silent all for the sake of winning a game of hide-and-seek. Hot, salty tears began to roll down her cheeks for the brother she had loved with all her heart and would not see again. Somehow he had been taken from that cellar, she didn’t know how or why, but she knew that whatever was responsible lived down there, in the dark. Like some monster out of the fairy tales she loved, the Giant in
Jack and the Beanstalk
or the Troll under the bridge in the
Three Billy Goats Gruff
, she knew that whatever it was liked little boys and girls. It probably liked men and women as well, but children always tasted much better in the fairy tales her mother read to them before bed each night, so why wouldn’t they taste much better in real life as well?

Chapter Five

Will and Stu had attended the shortest post-mortem ever. Watching Beth O’Connor’s husband identify her head had been terrible and left Will feeling drained. He had sobbed and sobbed, wanting to know where the rest of her body was, and Will wished to God he could tell him, but they didn’t have a clue. She had gone missing from a function she’d been attending at the Town Hall, probably around the same time that Annie and Will had been performing their first dance for everyone on their wedding night.

Will left the hospital and went straight back to the station, needing to read the missing person’s report through from start to finish again. After an argument at home her husband had refused to go to the black-tie evening reception held every year for newly elected councillors at the Town Hall, leaving Beth to go on her own. She had gone because she was a very popular woman and had known there would be no shortage of male companions to talk to or buy her drinks all night.

All the witness statements said that she had been having a great evening and hadn’t looked upset. Everyone at the reception knew Beth because she worked in the Town Hall and was popular. Three men who Will had spoken to personally had given statements to say they had gone outside with her for a cigarette, but it was literally a quick smoke and then back inside until one of the women noticed her going outside on her own for a smoke and arguing with someone on the phone, which her husband had confirmed. She’d rung him up after a few too many glasses of wine to have another go at him, he said, and the phone records proved that this was the truth.

It was after that phone call that she disappeared. She never came back into the reception. She didn’t go home, and none of the taxi drivers had picked her up; all the bus drivers had been spoken to and the CCTV checked and there was no sign of her. The town CCTV cameras hadn’t picked her up walking away from the Town Hall. She’d literally disappeared into thin air. After a couple of days a search team and a dog handler had gone into the Town Hall, a massive building, and they had searched it from top to bottom, even going up into the clock tower and attics and down into the basements. The dog had at least picked up her scent outside the rear doors where she’d been in and out to have cigarettes, but it didn’t go any further. All the bins, flower beds and drains around the area had been checked and still there was no sign of Beth O’Connor until you fast forwarded to two days ago when Jake found her well-preserved head all the way over at Bowness.

Will rubbed his forehead. He had to be honest. He didn’t have a clue where her body was or who had taken and killed her. All he could say for sure was that someone had, because it was pretty impossible to cut your own head off and then drive twenty miles to dump it under a boathouse. It was certainly a mystery. Her husband had been questioned several times but, around the time of the last phone call to him, he had had a pizza delivered and the delivery man had given him a watertight alibi. Will had told Stu to make some inquiries to see if they were friends, but the answer was negative. It was the first time he’d ever ordered pizza from this takeaway and had no connection to it whatsoever.

He phoned Annie to see what she was doing. As soon as the job had come in he had asked Cathy, her inspector, not to let her get involved, and she’d laughed so loud at him over the phone he’d had to hold it away from his ear.

‘Will, my friend, do you honestly think I’m going to let her anywhere near this? It’s bad enough I have a severed head right in the middle of the tourist season. The last thing I want is Annie getting involved in this up to her neck – no pun intended – because you and I both know it has the possibility of going horribly wrong if she’s anywhere near.’

He hated it when Annie didn’t answer on the first couple of rings but he knew there was a perfectly good reason when she was working. She couldn’t stop mid arrest or as she was driving to answer her phone. Stu put a mug of coffee down on the desk in front of Will and he gave him a thumb ups while leaving Annie a voicemail to ring him back. He put the phone down.

‘What’s the plan of action for today, boss?’

‘I think we need to speak to someone in Lancashire and ask how they are getting on with locating Henry Smith. Asking them why the bloody hell they haven’t found him yet would be a good start. It’s a huge coincidence that our very own Barrovian born and bred serial killer has escaped and now we have a severed head, but it doesn’t really fit right with his modus operandi, does it? He likes to slit throats, although I suppose severing a head would be the next step up for him. Shit, this could well be him and if it is we have a major problem on our hands because his behaviour is escalating.’