Urban Myth (13 page)

I
started at the beginning and told them everything. How we found the dead snake in the bed. The open doors. The bad smell. The voices. The lights. The mess in the kitchen. The text message from Tina. The conversation with Nathan Slade. The fact that my daughter had somehow got out of the house even though the doors had remained locked on the inside.

It took about fifteen minutes, but putting into words everything that had happened served only to increase the sense of despair that was bearing down on me.

The two detectives listened attentively, but I sensed that DCI Temple remained unconvinced. It was the way he looked at me. And the way he asked his questions; his tone conveyed the scepticism he felt, I was sure of it. But the female detective appeared enthralled. She leaned across the table, her eyes dilated, hanging on to my every word.

‘That really is strange,’ she said. ‘I can understand why you’re so upset.’

I watched her boss sit back and clear his throat. I could tell from his eyes that he wasn’t so sympathetic.

‘I agree that what you’ve told us is very odd, Mr Keaton,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure there must be a rational explanation for what’s been happening. There always is.’

‘Don’t you think we’ve racked our brains trying to figure it out?’ I said sharply. ‘My wife and I have never believed in the paranormal. But how else can you explain the lights and the voices?’

Temple shrugged. ‘I can’t explain it, I’m afraid.’

‘Exactly. But what you
can
do is mount a search of the forest. We need to know what’s happened to Tina.’

‘Is it possible she’s still in the house somewhere?’ he asked. ‘You
said the doors and windows were all locked on the inside. Could she be hiding?’

I shook my head. ‘We’ve checked all over. Even the loft. But she’s gone. There’s no trace of her.’

‘Has she ever done this before back home in Texas?’

‘Never.’

‘Has she threatened to?’

I hesitated and he seized on it.

‘So she has threatened to,’ he said.

‘She’s like any teenager, Inspector,’ I said. ‘She can be moody. A couple of times she told us she was going to leave. But of course she never did.’

Temple paused before continuing and I could see that he was choosing his words carefully.

‘Very well, Mr Keaton,’ he said. ‘In view of your concern I’ll arrange for some officers to come and take a formal statement. They can then decide what action to take in respect of your daughter.’

I glared at him. ‘Are you serious? Isn’t that why you’re here?’

‘No it isn’t,’ Temple said. ‘We came to ask you about a separate matter. I did point that out to you when we arrived. But
understandably
you were anxious to tell us about Tina.’

Now I was even more confused. I drew in a sharp breath. ‘So what the hell did you come to see us about?’

Temple reached into his pocket for his notebook and placed it on the table in front of him. ‘We’d like you to tell us what you know about Genna Boyd,’ he said.

I gave him a blank stare.

‘Who is Genna Boyd?’ I asked.

‘Are you saying that you have never heard of her?’

‘Should I have?’

Nicole reached over and placed a hand on my arm.

‘Isn’t that the name of the girl found murdered on the moor?’ she said.

I felt a prickle of unease. I suddenly recalled seeing Temple on the TV news talking about the murder.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Her body was discovered not two miles from here.’

‘So what’s it got to do with us?’ I asked.

‘We believe Miss Boyd was murdered four days ago,’ he said. ‘Her mobile phone records reveal that the last call she made was to your home phone number in Houston.’

I stared at the detective, slack-jawed, unable to move.

You have to stay away from this place … Your family will not be safe here … Please cancel your plans and go on holiday somewhere else …

The girl’s voice boomed inside my head. I felt a sheen of sweat
accumulate
on my face.

‘Do either of you remember taking the call?’ Temple asked. ‘It was about midday Texas time. It lasted less than a minute.’

After several long beats I nodded slowly and felt Nicole’s gaze snap on to me.

‘I answered a call from a girl – or young woman,’ I said. ‘Nicole was out at the time. The girl didn’t give her name. The line was pretty bad so she said she would ring back and hung up. But she didn’t call back. I decided not to tell anyone because I thought it was probably a prank. So I pushed it from my mind.’

Temple scowled at me, his lips pursed together.

‘Did you not wonder how she knew you were coming here?’

‘A lot of people knew we were coming here,’ I said. ‘Colleagues at the office and our neighbours. It wasn’t a secret.’

‘So what did she want?’

I glanced at Nicole and a shudder of guilt ran through me.

‘She told me that we should cancel our holiday,’ I said. ‘She said we should stay away from this house. That if we came here my family would not be safe.’

Nicole’s head reared back. ‘My God, why didn’t you tell me? I don’t believe it. You were actually warned that something would happen if we came here?’

I blinked uncomfortably. ‘But I thought it was a practical joke. That maybe someone at the office was trying to be funny. The girl didn’t elaborate before hanging up and when she didn’t ring back I decided not to take it seriously.’

My wife’s body trembled, her eyes watered and she seemed poised to explode. I reached for her hand but she snatched it away from me.

‘You lied to me, Jack. Again. You said you’d told me everything.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought it would worry you unnecessarily.’

‘That’s a feeble excuse. I might have decided we should heed her warning, however vague it was. Then we wouldn’t have come here and been plunged into this awful fucking nightmare.’

I felt my heart slump, tried to hold down my emotions. She was right, of course, and the litany of guilt was gnawing at my gut. Tina was missing because of me. Our lives had been ravaged because I had made a terrible mistake. If only I had tried to find out who the caller was. If only I’d told Nicole. If, if, if …

‘I’d like to know exactly what Genna Boyd told you, Mr Keaton,’ Temple said. ‘I realize it was a brief conversation and so it’s important that you try to remember as much as possible.’

It was hard to concentrate. I closed my eyes, tried to empty my mind and focus on the call. But Tina’s face kept intruding, causing me to falter.

‘I asked her who she was and she told me that her name was not important,’ I said. ‘She then said I should take my family on holiday somewhere else. That it wouldn’t be safe in this house. She said I would regret it if I didn’t do it. But the signal was awful so she told me she would ring back. But I heard no more.’

‘This might sound like a silly question, but have you any idea what she meant?’ Temple asked.

‘Not at all. Like I said, I thought it was someone’s idea of a joke.’

‘It’s strange that her body was found not far from the house she warned you not to come to.’

I nodded. ‘And stranger still that she knew that bad things were going to happen to us.’

‘How much do you know about Miss Boyd?’

I shrugged. ‘Absolutely nothing – except what we heard on the news.’

‘So you weren’t aware that she appeared in pornographic films?’

‘Of course not,’ I said, shocked. ‘Why would I know something like that?’

‘Her films and photos are on the internet and we suspect they’ve been seen by millions of men around the world.’

‘And you think I’m one of them?’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course not. I haven’t looked at porn on the web since I was at college.’

Temple made a note. ‘So you have no idea why she called or even how she knew you were coming to this house on your holiday?’

‘I wish I did, but I don’t.’

Temple fell silent as he thought about everything I had told him, his face inscrutable.

I looked at Nicole. She was now standing over by the sink, her hip against the counter, watching me. I could tell she was still furious but she was managing to control it.

Temple then asked if they could look around the house. I escorted them. They checked all the exterior doors and windows. They found nothing untoward. I showed them the spare bedroom where we found the dead snake and the en-suite bathroom where I heard the toilet flush. Finally, back downstairs, Temple asked us some more general questions about ourselves and made notes. He wanted to know about Nicole’s life in the area before she moved to the States. He wanted details about my law firm and about Tina and Michael.

Temple then explained that they would talk to the uniform division about Tina. They would also be tracking down Nathan Slade and they agreed to keep us informed of any progress.

‘We will probably want to talk to you both again,’ Temple said. ‘If you decide to move to a hotel then contact me.’ He placed his card on the table.

The next thing that happened I didn’t see coming. As I walked towards the front door with the two detectives, my cell phone bleeped with an incoming message. I whipped it out of my pocket, looked at it, said, ‘Sweet Jesus. It’s from Tina.’

All four of us stood in a huddle in the hallway as I opened up the message. It read:

Don’t involve the friggin’ police, Pops. I’ll come back when I’m ready
.

T
emple studied the couple’s reaction to the text message. It seemed to him to be a mixture of relief and bewilderment.

‘I don’t get it,’ Keaton said, his brow knitted. ‘This is beyond weird.’

‘But at least we now know that she’s OK,’ his wife said. ‘Thank God.’

Keaton immediately tried to phone his daughter, but the call did not go through.

‘She’s already switched the damn phone off,’ he said.

Temple asked to look at the message so Keaton handed over his phone.

‘Is this the sort of language your daughter would use?’ Temple asked.

Keaton nodded. ‘She calls me Pops. And the word “friggin” has become part of her vocabulary this past year. We pick her up on it but she insists it’s not a swear word.’

‘Sounds to me like she’s in a huff. Are you sure she wasn’t upset over something?’

‘We’re positive,’ Keaton said. ‘She was fine when she went to bed. In fact we were all so tired I’m surprised she woke up at all during the night.’

Temple handed the phone back.

‘She might have gone outside to work off steam,’ he said. ‘In all probability she didn’t go far and is watching the house. Maybe from the woods at the back. That might be how she knows we’re here.’

Keaton did not seem convinced. ‘It doesn’t explain how she got out of the house when the doors were still locked.’

‘Well maybe there’s a hidden door or window somewhere.’

‘I don’t think so, Inspector. Even if there were I don’t see how Tina would have known about it.’

Temple glanced at his watch, said, ‘Look, the text you just received should ease your mind somewhat. Hopefully Tina will turn up soon and she’ll be able to explain how she got out and why she went.’

He made a note of their contact numbers and took the number Keaton had for Nathan Slade.

‘We’ll be in touch,’ he said. ‘And be sure to let us know when your daughter comes back.’

The two detectives then showed themselves out. They left the Keatons standing in the hallway looking tired and shell-shocked.

‘This is turning into one of the strangest cases I’ve ever worked on,’ Temple said when he and Angel were in the car and driving away from King’s Manor. They had sparked up cigarettes and were blowing smoke out of the open windows. ‘I mean, what are we supposed to make of all that?’

‘I know one thing,’ Angel said. ‘You couldn’t pay me to spend a night in that place. Not after hearing about all those eerie things that have happened.’

‘So you don’t think they’re making all or some of it up?’ Temple said.

‘No I don’t. Why would they?’

‘Who knows? But I do know we’ve spent nearly an hour inside and nothing seemed to be out of kilter. No doors flew open and the lights didn’t keep going on and off.’

Temple, who was driving, slowed the car to let a couple of New Forest ponies cross the track in front of them.

‘So what about Genna Boyd’s call to the Keatons in Texas?’ Angel asked.

‘Now that’s where it gets interesting. She knew the family were coming here on holiday, but why would she be privy to that
information
?’

‘Nathan Slade might have told her – assuming there’s a connection between them.’

‘So then we have to ask why she told Keaton to change his plans and go elsewhere. What exactly did she mean about it not being safe?’

‘There are a lot of unanswered questions,’ Angel said. ‘But for me the big one is whether the call and what’s been going on with the Keatons has anything to do with her murder.’

‘We need to talk to this Nathan Slade,’ Temple said. ‘Try calling his number now.’

Angel took out her phone, consulted her notebook, made the call.

‘It’s switched off,’ she said.

‘Then call the office and get them to check the number. And tell them to run a background on Slade.’

Angel rang the incident room and relayed Temple’s instructions. Then she asked if there had been any developments. There had been and she jotted down the details in her notebook.

When she came off the phone, she said, ‘They’ve traced Genna’s mother. She’s in Southampton General Hospital of all places –
apparently
she had an accident whilst drinking. She’s not serious, though, and has asked to talk to the police.’

‘In that case that’ll be our next port of call.’

A
fter the detectives left I stood in the hallway feeling dazed and disoriented. My heart drummed frantically and my thoughts sprang first one way and then the other.

Nicole had slumped into a sitting position on the stairs. She too was struggling to cope with what was happening. I watched her tugging nervously at her earlobe, saw a glimmer of tears in her eyes. We were both immensely relieved that Tina had sent another text, but the relief was tempered by confusion and uncertainty. A simmering unease eroded my optimism. Why would Tina go off for no reason? Why the indignant tone in her message? How did she know about the cops?

But there were other questions, other mysteries, all of them
seemingly
interlinked. I now knew that the girl who called me was Genna Boyd. The same girl who was found murdered on the moor. So how did she get our number? Why did she warn me not to come? Did she know there was something odd about King’s Manor; that we would become victims of something sinister? And, more worryingly, who had murdered her? Did her death have something to do with King’s Manor and Nathan Slade? And did it have anything to do with us? The
questions
were rolling around inside me, stuck in my head, not going away. I sagged against the doorway, closed my eyes, fought for clarity. But it was no use. Chaos reigned inside my mind.

‘Are you all right?’ Nicole’s voice sounded tired and strained. I looked at her. Her blue eyes gazed at me with intensity.

‘I want Tina back,’ I said. ‘And then I want to take you all away from here.’

The tension seemed to slide from her face. She came over to me. I swallowed a well of emotion as she slid her arms around my waist. I could feel her heartbeat, slow spasms in her chest.

‘Have faith, hon,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a feeling that Tina will walk through that door at any minute.’

I did not feel so confident. The creeping sense of terror and
helplessness
would not go away. Something far bigger than my own fear was at work here and I was powerless to do anything about it.

‘We have to stay strong and focused,’ Nicole said. ‘We’ve got to hold it together for the sake of our children.’

I swallowed, trying to moisten my throat. ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you about the call,’ I said. ‘I should have. It was unforgiveable.’

She tightened her grip on my waist.

‘Don’t beat yourself up over it, Jack. We can talk about it when this is over. We’ve got too much else to think about.’

My eyes welled and her words served to reinforce the guilt that weighed heavily on my mind.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some coffee. Maybe we should also have something to eat.’

She took my hand, led me into the kitchen. I sat at the table and rubbed a palm across my face. Nicole put on the kettle.

I dug out my cell and read Tina’s messages again. They caused the skin to tighten on the back of my neck. I switched the phone to the photo viewing mode – I was the only one in the family who did not have a separate camera. I scrolled through the most recent photos of my daughter, including those I took in and around Burley. She seemed relaxed and untroubled. In a few of the pictures she was smiling. In one she was posing with me close to a group of New Forest ponies. So what had happened during the night to upset her and make her run off? It was something I couldn’t fathom.

And this, along with all the other inexplicable events, was starting to distort my perception of reality.