CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

 

The area behind the storehouses was flat concrete and scrubby tired grass, surrounded by wind-blasted shrubs, brambles and weeds. Even the old barn and the stores seemed lacking in character compared with the house, which although decrepit, still oozed aging architectural charm and shabby Gothic Victorian excess.

They had checked the whole place, as far as possible, and now all they could do was wait for their expert to arrive.

Jon sat on a low stone wall, a little way away from the others, and stared unblinking out across the wetlands. He found it hard to believe how different the place felt from when he was there as a young copper. There had always been spirits. It was a very old property; death had visited regularly over the years. And it had also been a hospital, and people died in hospitals. Jon had seen souls back then, and they were still there, but there was another feeling, like something dark and unwholesome draping itself over the old building and all the land around it.

A V-shaped formation of greylags flew across the marsh, curving effortlessly round and neatly landing on a lime-green patch of sedge close to the water. Their cackling honking calls sounded harsh and tuneless, and they made Jon think about the pure clear voice he had heard singing at the spot where Jamie Durham died. And he heard vestiges of it every time he thought about the tunnels

Jon felt the weight of his secret burden. He knew that he would have to tell the boss that he’d been back to the old boathouse, and that Jamie’s last words might not have the ramblings of dying brain tissue. But he didn’t want to cloud the issue. He’d tell her when other things came to light; things that would give his vision some credence.

A hand rested gently on his shoulder, and for a moment he hoped that it would stay there. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’ said Rosie softly.

‘Me too,’ added Gary. He sat down beside Jon on the wall and stared at the dust that clung to his polished black boots. ‘My sister hated this stretch of the marshes.’

Kate ambled over. ‘Did you come here a lot?’

‘Only when we were bringing one of the animals to see the vet.’ He pointed across to the other side of the Roman Bank to a small farmhouse nestling in a clump of trees. ‘Our vet lived over there. Used to use his front room as a consulting room. Still lives there, I believe, although he has a modern surgery now in Harlan Marsh town. Nice bloke, great with our dogs. Even so, Anne hated coming out here.’

Rosie tilted her head. ‘Why?’

Gary smiled rather sadly and took out his warrant card holder. From the back, he removed a small colour photo. ‘My sister, Anne.’ He offered it around.

The family likeness was indisputable, and Jon was forced to hide a smile. The woman was certainly no stranger to him. In fact, it was rare to see Gary without his grey-haired sibling close by.

‘From a little kid, she would do anything rather than go across Hobs End Marsh.’ Gary pointed to the area immediately in front of them. ‘That stretch over there. Years ago it was called Chapel Marsh, but it changed sometime around the war. It has always had an eerie reputation, and most of the old locals refuse go out there.’

Kate gave a little sigh, and Jon knew that for all her understanding about the spirit world, she had no time for superstition.

‘So what superstitious crap keeps them away?’ she asked. ‘This part of the coast is one of the richest areas for collecting samphire, it should be a little gold-mine; so what is it they are scared of? Jack O’Lantern’s, or boggarts, the green mist, or perhaps it’s the Black Dog?’

Gary smiled and raised his hands, palms facing the boss. ‘I know, if superstition is alive and well and living anywhere in England, it will be in Lincolnshire.’ He lowered his hands. ‘But even I don’t like this part, and I really don’t believe in boggarts.’

‘But your sister did?’ Rosie passed him back the photo.

‘Oh no. Anne didn’t believe in fanciful stuff, but she did have some sort of odd sensitivity to atmosphere. Difficult to explain, but there were certain places that upset her badly.’ He looked out over the sedge and reeds of the watery marsh. ‘And this was one of them.’

Jon regarded him silently. Anne stood close to his shoulder, and although Jon knew that the woman had already passed through the velvet curtain of the crematorium, to him she looked as real as Rosie or Kate.

Gary took the picture back, stared at it for a moment and then carefully returned it to his warrant card holder. ‘Frankly, although I believe everything Anne felt was true, there may have been other reasons for the locals keeping away.’ He gave a knowing wink. ‘They say that they’ve seen someone in dark clothes walking the danger areas at night. They say that only a devil would walk those paths in darkness.’ He grinned. ‘But I say that a smuggler would. This marsh meets the Wash, and the Wash meets the North Sea.’ He raised an eye-brow enquiringly.

‘And the North Sea meets boats stuffed with illegal incoming drugs.’ Kate nodded. ‘I see your point.’

‘We’ve got rid of most of the trade in this area, but you’ll never stamp it out,’ said Gary realistically. ‘There’s always some silly sod ready to take on the marsh and killer tides.’

‘So what was the original folklore story about this spot? And why was your sister so affected by it?’  Rosie leaned forward her elbows resting on her knees.

‘I forget the whole story, but it is documented to be one of those places where weird natural phenomenon occurs when the weather is just right. And you can imagine what the old web-foots make of them.’ He pulled a face. ‘Mind you, although all marshes have their ghost lights, it’s the sheer abundance and regularity of marsh lights that makes this place different. That, and the noises. A whole plethora of weird sounds come from Hobs End. My sister heard something one day when our Dad had taken us on a nature ramble to the Wash bank. I never heard it, neither did our father, but Anne said she heard whisperings, voices that were saying things that she didn’t want to know about. It scared her half to death.’ Gary shrugged. ‘Even a few years back, my old dog did a runner after coming out of the vet’s, and we came down here looking for him, Anne heard things then.’

‘The same sort of whisperings?’ asked Rosie, sounding remarkably like a school girl in the dorm at midnight.

‘No, she said it was more like music, singing..,’ he shrugged, ‘… it had her in pieces. She fair ran off the marsh, she did.’

Singing? Jon gritted his teeth together. What more proof did he need that they were in the right place?

‘Where the hell is our University geek?’ grumbled Kate. ‘We are sitting around telling bloody stories, when Emily could be breathing her last.’

‘I’ll go back to the house and look out for him, Guv.’ Rosie got up and brushed dried grass off her trousers.

‘I’ll go with you.’ said Kate.

Jon watched them walk away and then turned to look back over the lonely stretch of marsh. He wanted to be gone from here. He felt that he was being drained, as if something was sapping his soul. And it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

He rubbed the back of his neck, massaging the tight and stressed muscles, and realized that a headache had begun as they passed through Windrush’s iron gates. But considering the place was full of ghosts, it was hardly surprising. And then there was his confusing feelings about Rosie, and spirits were bombarding him, day and night, with information that he didn’t understand. Singing monsters and sinister tunnels, what the devil was that all about?

‘Sarge? You look worried. Anything I can do?’

Jon saw concern in Gary’s eyes. He took a deep breath. ‘I think there is something I should tell you. This may not be the right time, but sometimes there never is a right time.’

‘Sounds ominous. But spit it out, Sarge, I’m a big boy, I can take it.’

Jon smiled. ‘Actually, I think you can.’

It took ten minutes for Jon to explain about his gift, and about thirty seconds for Gary to say, ‘Well I’ll be damned! I knew there was something special about you guys! No-one could do that well, without some sort of divine intervention! Unless you were super-heroes, of course, and I haven’t noticed any of you wearing your underpants over your trousers.’ He had shaken his head and grinned from ear to ear. ‘That’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant! I suppose I’m now sworn to secrecy, am I?’

‘No-one knows, Gary. And no-one must ever find out, or we are all history. You do understand that, don’t you?’

His face became serious. ‘I’m only laughing because I don’t know what else to say, but believe me; I will take this to my grave. You can trust me.’ He pointed towards the drive. ‘But it looks like our man is here, Sarge. Shall we go?’

Jon stood up and felt as if a weight had been lifted. He clapped his hand on Gary’s shoulder. ‘Thanks, mate. I’m really glad you’re on the team.’

Gary grinned. ‘Not half as glad as me, Sarge. Believe me.’

 

A white van, dirty, dented and almost at the end of its life, groaned to a halt behind the police car, and the young man who got out had to be an archaeology student. His wavy hair touched his shoulders and he wore round and very un-cool wire-rimmed glasses, and a thoroughly home-spun, pot-pourri of mismatched clothing.

Kate greeted him and rushed him into the foyer, closely followed by the sergeant.

‘The Fire Chief sent you this little beauty, ma’am. Lovely bit of kit!’ The sergeant looked at the thermal imaging camera with undisguised longing before passing it to Kate. ‘I hope you know how it works?’

‘If you’re stuck, Chief Inspector, I do.’ Ted Watchman flashed a bright row of even white teeth at her. ‘Hey, that’s not your average hand-held job either! That’s a state of the art industrial model.’

‘As long as it works, I don’t care what it is.’ Kate mumbled something about boys and their toys, then added, ‘So where did the Fire Service acquired that from, if it’s not standard issue?’

‘The sergeant smiled grimly. ‘I’ve been told to tell you to guard it with your life. It’s on loan from a Search and Rescue Team and apparently it’s worth a couple of grand more than my car.’

On hearing that, Kate passed it quickly to Ted. ‘Then I’ll leave it to the expert, thank you. But before I let you out to play, Mr Watchman, we need your help.’

Gary handed Ted the geophysical surveys. ‘This is the area that interests us, sir.’ He circled his finger around the storerooms and the barn. ‘We are looking for anywhere that may conceal a missing girl.’ His voice was grave, ‘And time is of the essence.’

‘Call me, Ted,’ said the student, taking the plans and staring at them. ‘Hey! This was the Roman Villa Dig, wasn’t it?’

‘Apparently.’ Kate said, watching as he flopped down to the floor and spread the sheets around him.

‘I’ve seen some of these before. It was an absolute travesty that this dig was aborted. The University was certain that they could have made a monumental find here.’ He bent closer to the print-outs and let out a low whistle. ‘Whoa! There’s a lot going on here.’ He looked up at Kate. ‘Can I see the actual area, please? I need to tie these into the topography of the land.’

‘Sure. Come on.’

As Ted strode alongside the boss, he said, ‘I’ve got some equipment in my van. I brought everything I could think of that could be useful.’

‘Good, but I cannot stress enough how quickly we need to move.’ said Gary.

‘Okay, we’ll check out what we’ve got first, and then take it from there. That camera that you’ve borrowed could save us hours.’

Jon’s heart sank. ‘We don’t have hours, Ted. This is not like working with the historically long dead, if there’s a girl down there, it’s critical that we find her.’

For the next fifteen minutes, Ted paced, measured, consulted his surveys and talked to himself, then he began drawing in a large plain A4 notebook.

Jon and Kate were just about to take him by the throat and shake him, when he let out a long noisy breath. ‘Right, well, normally at this point I’d do checks of my own, use an EM conductivity instrument, maybe even run a ground penetrating radar check to confirm my initial interpretation of this, but if time really is so important..,’

‘Believe me, Ted, it is.’ Kate growled.

‘Then this is what I consider to be beneath this area, given all I have are old geophys surveys.’ He thrust the drawing at them. ‘There was another building here. Looks like a large, long structure. Its foundations are clearly seen and they extend beyond the present storerooms and the barn.’ He blinked at Kate and pushed a swathe of long hair from his eyes. ‘My guess is that it was a much earlier storehouse of some kind, with an extensive cellar system of its own. The upper part was demolished and the present barn, stores and yard erected over the top of it.’

Jon looked carefully at his sketch. ‘And these?’ He pointed to a network of double lines.

‘Tunnels, Detective Sergeant. Probably six or more. Some going under the main house, some extending towards the highway, and some, rather mysteriously, disappear right out onto Hobs End Marsh.’