by Wes Markin
‘Yes. The same CCTV camera that caught the grandfather leaving, caught him arriving at 1.30 p.m. Alone.’
‘Were there any more CCTV cameras in the carpark so we can identify the vehicle this man was in?’
‘No.’
‘And what time did Samuel actually go into the maze?’
‘As soon as his mother, Holly, contacted him by radio. So, around 2.47 p.m.’
‘What about other people in the maze? What did they see?’
Gardner shook her head. ‘We’ve exhausted that avenue. People saw Samuel working his way into the maze, asking if anyone had seen a young boy called Jordan but no one had. Closing time for the farm is 3 p.m. so the maze was quiet at this point – as was most of the farm.’
‘So, Samuel could have come back out of the maze?’
‘Well, his father, Ryan, denies this happened. He was standing at the entrance to the maze.’
Jake jumped in. ‘And there was definitely no other way in and out.’
‘Thanks, Jake. I get how a maze works,’ Yorke said.
‘And all the times tally up?’ Yorke said. ‘The father was witnessed standing outside the entrance around 2.48 p.m. after his son had gone into the maze?’
‘Yes,’ Gardner said. ‘By other workers on site. Plus, a small crowd of visitors, who gathered to see if they could help. We have had the Search Advisors and their dogs in the maze, as well as on the fields and in the wooded area immediately behind it. No sign. Helicopters have also scoured the same area. Again, nothing. Samuel Mitchell went in, and never came out.’
‘It’s not possible,’ Yorke said. ‘Unless he’s still in there and I’m sure the Alsatians would have recovered the body if that had been the case.’
Yorke was still holding the photograph of the maze. He ran his finger around the outside rectangular bush. ‘How well has this perimeter been checked?’
‘What do you mean?’ Gardner said.
‘I mean that Samuel Mitchell must have gone over, through or under this outer bush.’
‘Well, PolSA checked it over, but there was no damage to the bushes, and certainly no holes dug underneath it!’
‘Which means he went over it …’
‘But why would he go over it, sir?’ Jake said.
Yorke paused to think. ‘Well, he was in there to rescue a missing boy. What if the missing boy was on the other side of that bush?’
‘We don’t think there was a missing boy, Mike,’ Gardner said.
‘Neither do I, but Samuel did. I want to go out to the farm now and I’d love it if you two came with me. By the way, where is Mark?’
Gardner and Jake exchanged glances.
‘Bloody hell,’ Yorke said, ‘I’ve only been back five minutes and the secrets have already started.’
‘It’s not that, Mike,’ Gardner said. ‘I just think it’s best if we explain on the way to the farm.’
It was the middle of April, so it was reasonably warm out in the open. The problem was when you strayed into the shade or the occasional blast of wind punctured your comfort with a shiver. The three detectives buttoned up their jackets and headed to the farm entrance.
Relatives were currently running the farmyard while the owners, Holly and Ryan Mitchell, desperately suffered at home. Family Liaison Officer Bryan Kelly was offering them a shoulder to cry on. He was good at playing the sympathetic ear. Less effective at being vigilant. However, Gardner had assured Yorke that he had learned from previous mistakes.
These relatives welcomed Gardner and her team, and they offered to clear the site of customers.
Yorke held his palm out. ‘That won’t be necessary, ma’am. We just want to look at the maze.’
Inside the farmyard, Yorke gazed around at the manufactured rural playground. The children’s park sported large, tunnel slides and a range of climbing frames modelled on dinosaurs. The café they bypassed wasn’t just a café; it was a two-story arena of activity. There was a colourful soft-play area on the ground-floor and a restaurant on the top floor. There was also a menagerie of insects and reptiles housed in a series of aquariums.
The thought of sharing his lunch with bird-eating tarantulas sent a shudder down Yorke’s spine. His adopted son, Ewan, would enjoy it though. He had a thing for snakes and had lost his own pet corn snake at roughly the same time he’d tragically lost his parents.
As they approached the entrance to the maze, Gardner pointed out the petting zoo, where children could hold gerbils and rabbits. There was also a small enclosure for meerkats.
‘Over there, they do sheep racing,’ Gardner said.
‘You can actually bet on a winner.’ Jake grinned.
Yorke rolled his eyes. ‘Get out of here!’
Gardner laughed. ‘Not money, Mike. You can choose a sheep, grab a raffle ticket for free, and if yours comes in, you are entered for a prize draw to win some more tickets to come back again.’
Yorke shook his head. ‘Farms were never like this when I was younger.’
Mind you, Yorke thought, no one ever took me to one, so they might have been for all I know.
His mind conducted a familiar rotation around a mother who couldn’t care less about anything but men and drugs, and a sister who desperately tried to bring him up – and had no time for recreational visits to a farm.
They stood at the entrance to the maze. An elderly couple emerged. The man winked and said, ‘I’d draw yourself a map if I were you! Getting in is the easy part.’
‘I might just do that sir,’ Yorke said, nodding his greeting.
‘What are you looking for anyway?’ Jake said.
‘I’ll let you know when I find it.’
Yorke pointed out that the sides of maze appeared to be connected to the sheep-racing course, and the children’s park, and then said, ‘So, if Samuel climbed over either of these sides, he would still be within the farm?’
‘Yes,’ Gardner said. ‘At the time he disappeared, there were still some families left in the children’s park. In the sheep-racing course, several farmers were tidying the site, and feeding the sheep. We spoke to everyone. No one saw Samuel coming over the bush walls. And they would have noticed, I’m sure.’
‘So, it’s as I said. He’s gone over the outer wall into no-man’s land,’ Yorke said. ‘Come on.’
They ventured into the maze. Out of his pocket, Yorke retrieved a copy of the aerial photo he’d looked at earlier. He’d already taken the liberty of drawing the route on the copy, so he didn’t waste any time with dead-ends or doubling back on himself.
‘Good thinking, sir,’ Jake said.
Eventually, they hit the outer wall.
Yorke pushed his hand through the bush and rapped on the wooden fence behind it. ‘That’s what made it easy to climb over. Notice how thin the bush is here?’
He noticed Jake and Gardner looking at each other.
The fence was just over six-feet high. Yorke knelt, jumped and reached over the bush. He missed on his first attempt. He tried again and managed to grab the top of the fence. He levered himself up and used his feet to scramble up the bush wall.
He swung a leg over the top, looked down at Gardner and Jake, and said, ‘Not bad for an old man.’ He dropped down.
Being tall and muscular, Jake was able to give Gardner a leg up. She landed by Yorke with a thud and a grunt. Fortunately, she stayed upright.
Jake joined them, noiselessly.
‘What did you do, step over it?’ Gardner said.
Yorke ignored them and moved forward.
He looked out over the small patch of woodland and the acres upon acres of barren farmland stretching into the distance. ‘So, after you climbed this wall, Samuel Mitchell, where did you go?’ He took a deep breath. ‘And who were you with?’
Paul Ray welcomed his freedom.
He knew it was a dream, but that did not deter him from enjoying it.
All around him was emptiness, ending only in blackness. It wasn’t unlike the Ray pig farm; the insidious dom
ain he’d vandalised earlier. Overgrown fields ringed by knotted trees, decrepit barns, and a farmhouse being consumed by the nature around it.
Yet, for all the loneliness, he was free, and it felt like a relief. Why that would be the case, he couldn’t say. Strange how he knew that this wasn’t real, and yet he had no idea what was happening back in reality.
As he walked towards the decrepit farmhouse, feeling the wind but, peculiarly, not feeling any cold, his father, Joe, joined him.
He looked across at his father who, surprisingly, looked full of life, despite being dead. He was also astonished by the fact that they were now both the same size. Last time, he’d seen him, he’d only come up to his shoulders.
‘But the wild boars? He threw you in with them …’ Paul said, taking his father’s hand.
‘Yes, so I believe.’
‘I’ve missed you, Dad.’
‘I’ve missed you more than you could ever know, Paul. And your mother too. Has she moved on?’
‘She’s happier now.’
‘Good. And you?’
‘Not really, Dad. I keep dreaming.’
‘About what?’
‘About—’
‘Paul, look!’
Paul looked ahead and saw a bulky man with long, straggly hair standing at the front door of the farmhouse. It was Lewis Ray. The man who had kidnapped him all those years ago and had murdered his father.
Paul and Joe approached and stood before him, looking up at his face. The cold-hearted killer stared off into the emptiness.
‘You’re dead too,’ Paul said, ‘my auntie, Lacey, killed you.’
Lewis continued his stare but offered a brief nod.
‘And I’m glad,’ Paul said, ‘you are evil.’
‘I am. We are.’
He noticed that his father was no longer standing next to him.
‘You can’t hurt me anymore,’ Paul said.
‘I can’t, but others can.’
‘Who?’
‘Others like us, Paul.’
‘I am not like you. I will never be like you.’
‘Look behind you Paul.’
Paul turned.
The man in the white overalls with the loose white sack over his face was standing there. Paul could see the eyes moving behind the holes cut into the material. Paul looked down for the mallet which this man had hit him with earlier.
It wasn’t there. Instead, he held another loose white sack.
The man offered. Paul shook his head, and then felt his arms being seized from behind.
He felt the white sack being forced over his head …
… he coughed and snatched the sack off his head. He was awake and his mouth felt like it was full of chalk. His eyes darted around for the candle that allowed him to see earlier. It had gone. He’d been left to the darkness, and his dreams.
His eyes started to adjust, and he could see: the outline of the candelabra; the shape of the grandfather clock; and the shape of the mutilated boy opposite him.
It was silent. Wasn’t the young man moaning before? Was he now sleeping?
As his vision began to claim more clarity, memories started to swirl in. He remembered the old man earlier, introducing himself as Reginald Ray, and then sliding over to where he was chained to a chair. He remembered Reginald holding a piece of sliced meat to his mouth, asking him to eat. He’d turned away from it, keeping his mouth tightly closed. Reginald had threatened to force it in, but Paul’s tears and desperation to avoid the meat, which may or may not have been cut from the young man opposite, eventually deterred him.
‘You will accept who you are without being forced,’ Reginald had said.
A chemical-drenched rag had been forced over his mouth, and the dreams had begun.
Realising that everything was clearer now, Paul scanned the table, and saw the assortment of food was still present. When he lifted his eyes, he was relieved to see that Reginald was not here right now. But, when his eyes fell to the other captive, his breath caught in his throat.
The young man’s head was no longer circular. It looked as if it had been flattened at the top. Smashed in perhaps.
He tasted bile in his mouth.
He stood up and felt the chains rattle against the chair legs. He vowed to get out of here even if he took the chair with him.
The door opened, throwing spears of light into the room. He pinched his eyes against the sudden sharp pain.
This time, when he opened his eyes, they adjusted quickly. The old man with the diseased face was standing in the doorway. Paul looked again at the young man with the misshapen head and put his hand on his mouth to keep the sick in.
Just above the young man’s wide-open eyes, the top of his head was missing. A bloody saw lay on the table beside his dinner plate.
Reginald came into the room. ‘Ready to eat, young man?’
3
IN AWE, GARDNER watched her former boss work. Not only because the officer she respected above all others was back, but because he was already making discoveries they had missed.
She had no right to be above him in the chain of command, but the fact that he’d accepted it so graciously, was further testament to the type of man he was.
Jake and Gardner stood back and watched Yorke move back and forth along the fence, stopping occasionally to prod it and, if something interested him, examine it further.
Eventually, he wandered back over to Gardner and Jake.
Jake raised an eyebrow. ‘No, secret exit then, sir?’
‘What was the weather like the day Samuel disappeared? Preferably, at the exact time?’
‘Easy,’ Gardner said, ‘it was pissing it down all day.’
Yorke turned to face the fence again and instructed Jake and Gardner to do the same. ‘Okay, imagine you were waiting at this fence for someone in the rain, where would you stand?’
‘Also, easy,’ Gardner said, pointing at a cluster of trees near the end of the fence. ‘Shelter.’
‘Yes,’ Yorke said, ‘follow me.’
Underneath the trees, Yorke pointed up. ‘Lots of coverage here.’
The trees were old, and thick, and the overhanging foliage offered an umbrella over the position they stood in and stretched partway over the interior of the maze.
‘Okay, humour me,’ Yorke said.
‘We are well-practised at that, sir,’ Jake said.
Yorke flashed him a sardonic grin. ‘Imagine if you are Samuel Mitchell on the other side of that fence calling out for this mythical seven-year-old boy, Jordan.’
Gardner’s eyes widened. She’d received Yorke’s hypothesis loud and clear. ‘And then the abductor shouts ‘I’m here’ from this side of the fence.’
‘Precisely,’ Yorke said. ‘And what’s the first thing you would do?’
‘Climb over to rescue the boy,’ Gardner said.
‘Hang on …’ Jake said. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. A little boy is reported missing, not a fully-grown man or woman. Are you telling me this abductor was mimicking a child’s voice?’
Yorke shrugged. ‘Maybe. And remember, Samuel Mitchell is of way-below-average intelligence. It was also raining heavily. Even if the imitation was poor, it could still have been enough to fool him.’ Yorke looked around underneath the trees. ‘So, what if he stood here? Sheltering in the rain?’
They scoured the floor for a time but turned up nothing. Eventually, Yorke finished up at a cavity in a tree. He pulled out his mobile phone, switched the light on and shone it inside. ‘Emma!’
She came over and looked in. ‘Yes, I see it.’ She pulled some plastic gloves from her backpack and put them on. She reached into the cavity with a gloved hand and extracted a half-empty plastic water bottle. She held it up in front of Yorke.
Yorke smiled. ‘The label looks as good as new, which means it hasn’t been here long … how many people do you think stray into this area around the back of the farm?’ He glanced around at the empty woodland and fields. ‘Not many. Ho
w much do you want to bet that this bottle belonged to our abductor?’
Gardner smiled. She loved having her former boss back.
The room throbbed as the candleflame flickered.
Paul kept his head lowered and stared at the pool of vomit at his feet. He may have no choice but to listen to Reginald’s chewing and slurping but he wasn’t about to watch it too.
And there was another reason for keeping his eyes lowered. The poor young man opposite him.
A thin trail of blood had wound its way out from the teeth of the saw and across the table. It dripped steadily onto Paul’s knee. He couldn’t hear it dripping over the old man gnawing beside him but he felt it.
Every drop.
It felt warm, but that could have just been his imagination. The young man could have been dead hours for all he knew and his blood already cold.
‘Cutting your nose off to spite your face, Paul,’ Reginald said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with what has been laid in front of you. I still remember reading The New York Times in 1931. In the interests of research, a man called Seabrook cooked and ate human flesh. Do you want to know what he said?’
Paul shook his head to indicate that he didn’t want to know. He couldn’t voice his refusal though. He feared if he did so, he would either burst into tears, or vomit again.
‘Let me educate you, Paul. He began by saying that it was like no other meat he’d ever tasted! Now, if that doesn’t pique your curiosity nothing will.’
A spoon hovered in front of Paul. It was heaped with a pinkish meat that resembled raw mince.
‘Still not convinced, eh? How about this then - “it was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal.” I assume, Paul, that you have an ordinary palate. Therefore, what have you to fear?’
A plate was pushed towards him. It was heaped with a charred meat.
Paul gagged but nothing came out this time. His stomach was already empty.
‘And yet, Paul, you are a Ray. Your blood is our blood … my blood. So, what repels you? In some tribal societies, deceased relatives are eaten to guide their souls into their living descendants. Have you ever heard of anything so beautiful?’
