A Cry From Beyond (26 page)

We’d just
reached the end of the drive that led onto the main road when
Lennon suddenly strained at his leash and began barking.

“What is
it, boy?” I said, glancing back over my shoulder. I was just in
time to see the figure of a man dart into the bushes.

Who the
hell...

I
immediately went in pursuit, having to constantly bring Lennon to
heel, but we were too late. The stranger was gone. I recalled my
watcher in the woods and wondered if they were one and the same?
With no idea who my stalker was, or what he wanted, I tried to put
him out of my mind. After all, I had enough to deal with, without
worrying about someone who was either too shy, or too afraid to
approach me directly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The
following Thursday Norris turned up at the appointed time, bringing
with him a photographer called Russ. I told Russ, who was tall and
gangly, that he was to wait outside until his boss and I had had a
chance to chat.

“He’s not
my boss,” Russ said haughtily, “he’s just a reporter.”

“Whatever,” I said, “you don’t come in until he and I have
talked.”

With that
I shut the door in his face.

“Not
exactly sociable are you?” Norris said as we entered the living
room.

“Don’t
push it,” I said, pointing a finger.

The
reporter smirked.

“I mean
it Mr Norris. You’re skating on thin ice as it is. Don’t give me
cause to throw you out.” I took a deep breath in an attempt to rein
in my temper. “Now do we understand each other, or do I show you
the door?”

“We
understand each other,” he said raising a placating
hand.

I
motioned for him to take a seat by the window.

“You’ve
got company,” he said, gazing out through the glass.

A bird
was perched on the outside sill. As we watched, it started to tap
its beak against the windowpane. When I banged on the glass, it
flew off only to return moments later to repeat the
action.

“Why the
hell do birds do that?” I said more to myself.

Norris
gave a disinterested shrug. “I haven’t got a clue, Mr O’Shea,
speaking of which, O’Shea isn’t your real name is it?”

I smiled
a little, unfazed by the question. “It’s no secret that I took it
as my stage name. Johnny O’Shea sounds a little more original and
exciting than plain old John Smith. What’s your point
anyway?”

“Aren’t
you going to offer me a drink?” he asked, with that ever present
smug look on his face. Grudgingly I asked him for his choice of
poison. He chose lager.

“I’ll get
Russ to drive back,” he said grinning. I fetched him his drink and
then sat down at the dining table. He continued to grin inanely.
“Not having one yourself Mr O’Shea, or should that be,
Smith?”

“O’Shea
is fine,” I said, “Now will you please get to the
point.”

“All in
good time,” he replied and sipped lager from the glass. “First I
require the interview.”

“What
makes you think you can dictate terms?”

“I have
information that you will be very interested to hear,” he said. “I
might not be a lot of things Mr O’Shea but I am a good reporter,
even though I say so myself. And if you truly believe you have no
previous association with this area, and in particular this
cottage, you must be suffering from a severe case of
amnesia.”

I did my
best not to react, but it was difficult to control my emotions. His
remarks made me fearful and uncertain. I had no idea what he was
talking about, yet I sensed strongly that he wasn’t bluffing. He
had me right where he wanted me and he bloody well knew
it.

So I gave
him the exclusive he demanded. I told him about the highs and lows
of my career, the drug problem that had plagued me and the
rehabilitation I was presently undergoing, or attempting to
undergo. I told him about my plans for the future and gave him the
low down on the song writing I’d been doing since arriving at High
Bank. Yet he remained unsatisfied and pressed me for details
surrounding the disappearances of Mary-Louise, Terry and Des. He
didn’t ask about Coogan because no one outside of those present at
the séance knew about him. I gave him the basics, no more and no
less. I allowed Russ in to take his snap shots. He shot film of me
in the attic room, posing with my guitar and on the keyboards, and
insisted on getting a couple of me standing outside the cottage
looking mean and moody.

While we
were out there, two police vans were seen to enter the grounds of
Manor Farm. Uniformed police emptied from the vehicles, along with
sniffer dogs, and began making yet another search of the area
surrounding the Farm and High Bank.

Yesterday
they’d concentrated their efforts on the crofter’s cottage across
the road. Now it was the turn of the abandoned farm house. High
Bank itself had been the focus of a search twice, once with dogs,
with the cellar coming under closest scrutiny. And then of course
there was the structural engineer who’d visited on two separate
occasions to examine the cellar, with a view to
excavating.

Last
night Mrs Corbett phoned to voice her concern regarding the
situation, adding that she hoped I was coping and that the stress
wouldn’t force me to cut short my stay. I assured her I had no
intention of leaving High Bank, as I considered it to be my home.
In a sense that much was true. However, the real reasons I remained
were far more complex. Well before Norris informed me I had a long
standing connection with the cottage, I myself had sensed it was
the case. Combine that with the disappearances and the fact that
the police were now showing more than a passing interest in me
personally, it would be virtually impossible to leave. Besides,
where would I go? I had little money and Mike aside, (staying with
my mother was out of the question); I had no one I could turn to.
Then of course, there was Madam Lee’s insistent notion that I would
be forced to return to High Bank, no matter how determined I was to
leave permanently.

Once the
photographic session with Russ had finished, we returned inside the
cottage. Now it was my turn to gather information.

“I’ve
kept to my side of the bargain,” I told Norris, who by this time
was on his third lager, “now, what do you have to tell
me?”

The
reporter glanced at his photographer, who was poised to take more
shots, I might not have been a part of the media fraternity, but I
wasn’t stupid. Norris was hoping to get a strong reaction captured
on film.

He put
down his glass, placed his elbows on the arms of the chair and
steepled his fingers. He offered a faint smile, which I took to be
more of a self satisfied grin and proceeded to inform me that my
first contact with the area of Ashley on the Hill had been in the
early eighties during which time I’d settled here as an infant with
my parents. We’d moved here from Bristol so my father could take up
the offer of a job, selling farm machinery. We lived in Ashley for
two years said Norris, before moving away in the wake of the
disappearances of the “Ashley three” as the three missing girls
became known in the Press. I was completely thrown by the
revelations, and when I spoke, my voice was unsteady.

“How did
you come by this information?”

At that
point Russ sneaked a shot of me. I raised a hand instructing him to
stop.

Norris
said, “It’s a reporter’s job to uncover facts. I’m only too
surprised that the police haven’t yet made a connection between you
and the cottage.”

“Why
should they?” I asked.

“If
nothing else, it’s a lead,” Norris casually replied.

“But it
doesn’t have any bearing on what’s happening now,” I
said.

Norris
raised his eyebrows and glanced at Russ. To me he said, “You’re
still not getting the picture are you? You are still unable to
remember.”

I was
starting to feel increasingly angry and frustrated. He was toying
with me. “Remember what exactly, Mr. Norris?”

“In the
summer of nineteen eighty four you and your parents holidayed here
at High Bank.”

“You’re
wrong,” I snapped, “I would’ve been five or six years old. I would
remember.”

Russ took
another photograph.

“Stop
it,” I told him, “once more and you leave.”

He
reluctantly lowered the camera.

Norris
said, “You and your family stayed three weeks in this
cottage.”

“How do
you know? How do you know any of this?”

“Electoral records show you were resident here in Ashley at
the turn of the decade and the owner of the cottage has reservation
records going back to when she first rented the property out as a
holiday home. Your family name is recorded in it at the relevant
time.”

“I still
don’t see why you’re trying to make a connection between my family
and the disappearances, then or now,” I said.

Norris
was matter of fact in his response. “You arrive here and people
disappear... As a consequence I begin to wonder if there is a
connection between those disappearances, any connection at all, and
with the ones in the eighties. Strangely enough there is one and it
is you. You, Mr. O’Shea are the common denominator in all of
this.”

I stared
incredulously. “Are you trying to say that I’m responsible in some
way for all the disappearances that occurred here in the
eighties?!”

Norris
chuckled to himself. “Of course not: that would be ridiculous. But
you have to admit it’s a helluva coincidence.” The reporter settled
back in his seat, contemplative. And then: “Do you see much of your
father nowadays, Mr O’Shea?”

“He’s
dead,” I said automatically. “What the hell are you suggesting now?
That he’s responsible for all the disappearances, past and
present?” If you are, you must be crazier than you look! My father
disappeared over twenty years ago: he was terminally ill at the
time.”

Norris
was impassive. “Where’s the actual proof you father is dead, Mr
O’Shea?”

I
frowned, hard. It was a searching question. Truth was; I didn’t
have any. I simply took my mother’s word for it that he’d been
terminally ill, and came to the conclusion that he must have died
soon afterwards. But why on earth would my mother lie about him
being terminally ill? Was it really possible that my father was a
killer; my mother his willing accomplice? I found the idea
ludicrous. Even if he was still alive and responsible for the past
disappearances, how could he be responsible for the present ones,
which, when it came right down to it, defied all things
natural?

Norris
straightened up, glanced at his photographer and then stood to
go.

“Is that
it?” I asked feeling cheated. Sure, Norris had kept his promise and
given me information about my past that was lost to me, but I had
expected closure. Instead, the information was frustratingly
inconclusive and raised questions that may prove impossible to
answer.

2.

Norris
wasted no time in going to print with his exclusive on me. David
phoned with the unwelcome news the following week.

“Have you
seen the local paper John?”

When I
told him I hadn’t, he said, “Then I think perhaps you should.
There’s a feature in there about you.”

“What
does it say?”

“Maybe
you should read it yourself.”

“Give me
the gist.”

“Very
well: the title reads, “Pop Star with a Dark Secret.” Underneath is
a photo of you standing outside High Bank looking as miserable as
sin; like you may indeed harbour a dark secret.”

I
inwardly groaned, already sensing Norris had done a number on
me.

“They
told me to look mean and moody,” I said referring to my dour
photographic pose. “Tell me Dave, what exactly does the article
say?”

He read
it out to me. Norris had incorporated the exclusive interview I’d
given him into a sensationalized story about the recent
disappearances. He’d cleverly tied my past associations with High
Bank in with my present visit, intimating that a member of my
family may have involvement in the previous disappearances and that
I had returned to continue the tradition. It wasn’t quite libel,
but it was close.

Of
course, I viewed the article as pure fantasy and only hoped the
newspaper’s readership would too, However, I’m a realist and accept
people tend to believe what they want to believe. Norris had
written a very entertaining story based on that old journalistic
principle of not letting the true facts stand in the way of a good
story, a story which concluded by once again suggesting that a
member of my family may have been responsible for the original
disappearances. My mother, the axe murderer! I almost laughed at
the notion and told myself to get serious. But the dream I’d had
about the axe and the association I made between it and my mother
bothered me greatly.

As soon
as the conversation with David ended, I got on the phone to my
beloved mother, determined to confront her with the information
Norris had made available to me.