Urban Myth (18 page)

I
was slow in coming round. It was like crawling out of a dense, cloying fog.

The pain hit me the moment my senses started to kick in. My head throbbed with an intensity I had never experienced.

I was lying on my side, my left cheek pressed into the floor. I saw the blood as soon as my eyes flickered open; the stain on the carpet was so red it was almost black. I could even taste it, like molten metal on my tongue.

I rolled onto my back. The ceiling light stabbed at my eyes, forcing me to shut them again. I groaned loudly and reached up with both hands to cover my face. My fingers made contact with a lump the size of a golf ball. This time I shrieked in agony. I felt myself being yanked back into the blackness. It was hard to resist. I took a couple of deep, ragged breaths and somehow found the strength to haul myself into a sitting position.

The living room spun. A wave of nausea swept through me. But after a few seconds the spinning stopped and the room came into focus. That’s when I realized I was alone. Nicole was no longer in the room.

Suddenly oblivious to the pain, I tried to think back to what had happened. For a second or two my mind was a blank. But then it came to me, an abrupt recognition of events and circumstances. The vision of Tina and Michael on the TV raged in my head. I remembered the lights going out, the dark figure emerging from the shadows. Nicole screaming just as I took a blow to the head.

So how long had I been unconscious? Where was my wife? Who had attacked me? As I struggled to my feet, the silence of the house closed in on me. I called out for Nicole. She didn’t respond. A ball of
nerves bounced in my gut as I stumbled across the living room and into the hallway.

Empty.

Then into the dining room.

Empty.

The kitchen.

Empty.

My eyes were drawn to the microwave, which was lying upside down on the floor. Its door was hanging off and the glass window cracked. Hadn’t we heard a loud smash in the kitchen seconds before the figure appeared? Someone must have hurled it onto the floor. Probably in order to scare us. I was in no condition to wonder who or why.

As I pulled myself up the stairs the pain returned with a vengeance. It made me feel sick and dizzy and confused. I was glad all the lights were on because I would have struggled to find the switches. I reached the landing. It appeared to stretch forever. Lots of doors, all of them closed. Christ knows how long it took me to look into every room. But when I finally found myself in the master bedroom I knew the house was empty. Nicole was gone, along with Tina and Michael.

A sense of unreality consumed me. Surely this wasn’t happening. How could it be?

I was standing next to the bed I’d shared with my wife. In front of me was one of the wardrobes with the mirrored doors. The shock of seeing my own reflection struck me like a jolt of electricity. Blood covered my face. It soaked the front of my shirt and streaked down over my jeans. It had congealed around the huge swelling on my
forehead
where the skin had been torn apart by whatever weapon had been used on me. I looked like a fucking zombie. And the longer I stared at myself the harder it became to stay awake. I could feel myself letting go, my mind retreating in desperation from the onslaught of pain and terror.

My vision went first. Then my legs. Finally, I blacked out just before I hit the floor.

T
emple cursed out loud when he realized he was on the wrong road. This one did not lead to King’s Manor, he was sure of it. He must have missed a turn as he came out of Burley.

But it was no great surprise. Driving at night in the New Forest is notoriously difficult, sometimes even dangerous. There are no lights and very few signs. The roads twist and turn capriciously. It’s hard to concentrate on where you’re going because you’re constantly worried about running down a pony or deer.

But Temple knew the house was around here somewhere. There were woods on his right and he had an idea he should have been on the other side of them.

His headlights picked out a Forestry Commission car park up ahead. Rather than drive around aimlessly he decided to pull over and check the Ordnance Survey map in the glove compartment. It was 10 p.m. when he turned into the gravel parking area, one of many dotted about the forest. The Forestry Commission sign identified the location as Conifer Wood.

Temple stopped the car, turned on the overhead light, opened the glove compartment. From a selection of maps, he took out the one he wanted. He unfolded it across the steering wheel and located Burley with his finger, then the track leading from the road to King’s Manor. Conifer Wood was directly behind where the house would have been if it had been shown on the map. He spotted the car park and worked out that all he had to do was drive on for another half a mile, take a right turn and follow a winding lane into the valley beyond the woods. Piece of cake.

He put the map back in the glove compartment, switched off the overhead light and started to execute a three-point turn. The
headlights
swept over the wall of trees and, to Temple’s surprise, revealed a vehicle on the other side of the car park.

He hadn’t noticed it before because it was shielded from the road by a grassy bank. It was a white Citroën. He couldn’t see anyone inside and there was nobody wandering around. He grabbed the torch he kept in the door pocket, switched off the engine and got out. The night closed in around him, dark and foreboding.

He switched on the torch, which cast a pale yellow light on the ground. He took out his phone. He was relieved to find that he had a signal, albeit a weak one. He noted the vehicle registration and called it in. He said he wanted to know who it belonged to and asked for a call back asap. Then he walked across the car park. He shone the torch inside the Citroen. It was empty; no personal items lying on the seats. He tried the front door. Locked.

Temple was puzzled and a little curious. This was unusual. People rarely left cars unattended in the forest at night. He looked around and spotted a well-trodden path going from the car park into the woods.

Just then his phone buzzed. He flipped the cover and answered it.

The result of the vehicle check sent his pulse racing. The owner of the Citroën was none other than Nathan Slade.

Temple speed-dialled Angel. The call went to her voicemail. He left a message asking her to ring him back as a matter of urgency.

He thought about the Citroën. Slade must have left it here for a reason. So where was he? What was he doing here this late at night?

Temple experienced a flutter of excitement. This was an unexpected turn of events. A lucky coincidence that might well lead to something significant. But why should he be surprised? Serendipity had always played a part in his investigations.

He looked again at the path and realized that it probably cut through the woods to King’s Manor. He walked over to it and shone his torch into the trees. Then he came to a decision and started following the path. Without the torch it would have been virtually impossible.

Trees crowded in on either side of him. During the day it would have been a picturesque trail through lush vegetation, but right now it
was eerie and claustrophobic. Temple tried to ignore the chatter of forest creatures and focus on what might lie ahead.

If Nathan Slade had dropped in on the Keatons then why hadn’t he driven up the track and parked on the driveway? Was it because he didn’t want them to know he was here? Was that why he had left the Citroën in the car park beyond the woods?

Temple decided to call for some backup now, rather than wait for Angel to ring him back. She was probably tied up viewing Genna Boyd’s DVDs.

He fished out his mobile, only to find that he no longer had a signal. But he’d come too far into the woods to turn back. So he continued onwards, and kept checking his phone.

A light breeze wrestled in the branches above him. The chilly air was thick with the scent of pine needles. He walked doggedly along the path, which in places narrowed to the point where branches whipped at his hands and face and snagged at his suit jacket.

He thought it would be a long haul so he was surprised when the trees petered out and the path came to an abrupt end. Ahead of him stretched a black mass of heathland. Above it a silver moon peered through a crack in the clouds. King’s Manor was over to the left about fifty yards away. There were lights on inside.

Temple checked his phone. Still no signal. Before returning it to his pocket he switched it to vibrate. He thought briefly about playing safe and retreating to the car park, but decided it was out of the question: he wanted to find out what was going on and he needed to make sure that the Keaton family were not at risk from the man who might have murdered Genna Boyd.

He stomped across a stretch of grass towards the house. He knew the layout from his previous visit. As he approached, he thought he saw something behind the garage. A spark of light – like the glowing tip of a cigarette. He switched off the torch and stopped walking, but it didn’t happen again and nothing was moving ahead of him so he carried on. In less than a minute he reached the rear of the garage where he saw that the back door was open. Then he noticed that the lock was broken and the wood splintered. Had someone forced it open?

What Miss Wilkinson told him about the garage leapt into his mind. The roof space was where her sick-in-the-head husband had his office.
And from there he used to monitor the hidden cameras he’d installed in the house.

Temple could feel the adrenaline gushing through him. He could also smell smoke. Someone had been here seconds ago enjoying a
cigarette
. So he hadn’t imagined it.

He peered inside the garage. A dull light was coming from
somewhere
. It enabled him to make out piles of storage boxes and crates. Holding his breath, he ventured inside, trying not to make a sound.

He noticed that the light was coming from an opening in the ceiling over by the wall to his right. It illuminated the retractable staircase that Miss Wilkinson had told him about. Someone had obviously pulled it down.

There was no time to wait around for backup. If Nathan Slade was up in his office spying on the Keaton family, then Temple could think of nothing better than to catch the perverted voyeur in the act.

He trod carefully across the garage, weaving between the storage boxes and other junk. Faint sounds drifted down from the loft but he wasn’t able to identify them.

An image of Nathan Slade having rough sex with Genna Boyd on the DVD flashed in his mind. The lecherous grin, those absurd grey dreadlocks, the pale, flabby body that reminded him of a gargoyle.

There was every reason to suspect that the bastard was now
satisfying
some warped sexual appetite by violating the privacy of the Keaton family. He had probably been doing it since they arrived at King’s Manor. Temple wondered if that was why Genna had phoned Jack Keaton to warn him not to come to the house. She’d found out about the cameras and felt compelled to do something about it.

He reached the staircase. Through the open loft hatch the light
flickered
and, looking up, Temple could see the sloping underside of the garage roof. But that was all.

He stood stock still and listened. All was quiet now, except for the beating of his own heart.

He took a deep breath and started up the stairs, pausing after each step to listen out and look around. He was half way up when his phone started to vibrate. He ignored it. He had no choice if he wanted to surprise Slade.

Five more steps to go. His nerves jangled and his chest heaved. At
the top of the stairs he slowly raised his head through the hatch, not knowing what to expect. It was reckless, even downright dangerous, but he was fully committed by now to getting to the bottom of what was going on.

The first thing he saw was the source of the light. It was coming from two large monitors on a desk against the far wall. There were two chairs in front of the desk but no one in them. Temple was close enough to make out the images on the screens. What he saw caused his jaw to drop. This was far worse than he could ever have imagined. He wasn’t prepared for it and the shock almost made him lose his balance. He had to grip the sides of the hatch to steady himself.

Then he started to turn around to take in the rest of the loft and to assess the level of threat. That’s when he felt cold metal press against the side of his face and a voice say, ‘If you move I’ll blow your fucking head off.’

W
hen I came awake my head was smouldering with a deep, hot pain.

I remembered fainting in front of the mirror, overcome by the sight of my own blood-drenched reflection, but I had no idea how long I’d been out.

Once again, getting up was an ordeal. And once again the terrifying reality of what confronted me was almost paralyzing. That image of Tina and Michael on the TV seared at my retinas.

As I stood up my chest tightened with panic. I forced myself to look in the wardrobe mirror, and this time I managed to hold it together. I looked like a dead man walking. But I wasn’t dead. I was alive. And despite the pain and the blood I was still able to function, which meant that all was not lost.

I refused to believe that my family were dead. They were close by. I could sense their presence, feel them watching me. It gave me strength, made me determined to hold back the emotion and focus on finding them, wherever they were.

Whoever had attacked me had taken Nicole. That much was obvious now. And the same person must have abducted our children. The text messages had almost certainly been a cruel ruse to stop the police from getting involved. As long as the cops thought Tina was planning to come back there was no need to take her disappearance seriously, or mount a search. But why were they taken and where were they now? These questions shuddered through me.

I stomped into the bathroom and doused cold water on my face. It revived me somewhat but did nothing to alleviate the crippling pain in my head. I was aware that I might have been concussed and if so my condition might quickly deteriorate.

As I walked out of the bedroom onto the landing I clenched my teeth and tried desperately to think what to do next. The answer didn’t come until I was back downstairs. In the living room I went straight over to the TV. Earlier I’d discovered a cable going from the back of the set into the wall. What purpose it served was not evident. I knelt down and examined it, but still I couldn’t work out why it was there.

It was a partition wall and beyond it was the dining room. I hurried in there and saw that the cable did not come out the other side. So it must have been routed elsewhere within the cavity. To me it was an important discovery – and a relief – because it explained how the image of Tina and Michael could have been relayed to the TV from a remote location. Rather than being some paranormal phenomenon the image was almost certainly transmitted through a basic cable or
wireless
connection.

But the intention had been to put the fear of God in us; to make us think it was coming from beyond the grave. And Nicole, bless her, had fallen for it. But then I couldn’t blame her for that. After all, I’d been sucked into the whole supernatural thing since we arrived. But not any more. Whatever sick game Nathan Slade was playing it was coming to an end.

I went into the hall, intent on going outside to search the grounds. But as I approached the front door, a high-pitched scream came from upstairs. Every muscle in my body froze. It was Nicole. She must have found her way upstairs when I was unconscious.

The shock hit me like a falling wall and for several seconds I couldn’t move. But then something snapped into place inside my head and I whirled around and bounded up the stairs.