Since the story about his VC had been published in the News, people on the estate had begun to give him a little more respect. Some of them had even begun to look up to him, maybe expecting or looking for some guidance or help from the 'bravest man in Scotland', as one of the newspaper articles had hailed him.
Another youth outside shouted something, and Neil recognised the voice. Wee Eck. One of the 'crew' of young bastards that used to hang around with Big Wee Rab.
Now Rab was gone, they had all joined the Porty Crew, or Team or Gang, or whatever it was they called themselves. They were worse now, having 'evolved' into bigger shites and bigger bastards than any scum that Neil had ever encountered before.
A sudden thought occurred to Neil: what happened to the promise that he had made himself when the reporter from the News had been bulldozed off the street and almost killed? Did he not promise himself that he would not report anything to the police because he was going to do something about it himself?
And what had he done?
Nowt.
Nothing.
And instead of standing up for himself and taking positive action, it was Big Wee Rab that had gone on the offensive and stolen his VC, the last thing of any value that Neil Wallace had left in his pathetic little world.
Another voice from the street outside, this time shouting some abuse at Mrs Craig, one of his neighbours who had opened a window and told the kids to shut up and go elsewhere.
A second later he heard a window smash, and the kids were laughing again.
Neil swore.
"For fuck's sake. Enough is enough!"
Deep inside his mind, something snapped.
The news today had not been good. Neil Wallace was going to die. There was nothing he could do to avoid it.
But he was not going to die a coward.
Once upon a time, a long ago, in a land far, far away, he had risked his life to save his comrades, simply because someone had to do something about it, and he had known instinctively, that it was down to him.
Facing death at any second, he had picked himself up, taken the fight to the enemy, and killed them all.
He had saved the lives of his friends and almost died trying.
For the second time in his life, Neil Wallace realised that it was now once again down to him. It was time to take action.
If no one else was going to help stop the bastards who were slowly killing the estate and his comrades who lived here, it was time for him to go on the offensive. And soon...while he still could!
This was not a foreign land. This was not far, far away.
This was their home turf. This was where they lived!
And enough was enough.
.
Mr Wallace blinked. The room was completely dark. He must have been sitting there for hours without realising it.
Reaching across to the lamp beside his chair, he switched it on.
He stood up, walked through to his bedroom, pushed the bed to one side with some effort, knelt down on the floor and pulled back the carpet.
Taking his penknife from his pocket he prized up a couple of nails with the blade of the knife, and lifted up one of the floorboards.
Underneath there was a blue plastic bag: it contained fifteen thousand pounds in fifty pound notes. Money that he had never ever touched since his life assurance policy had paid out a few years ago, it was the sum total of Neil Wallace's existence. Until now he had been keeping it for the future. Now that future would not exist, and the money would be wasted.
Beside the bag was a sturdy, brown wooden box.
He lifted it out, flicked a brass catch on the front, and opened the lid.
.
Mr Wallace took out the contents, held it in his hand, and smiled.
Chapter Fifty Two
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Ironbridge
May 1st
9 p.m.
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Peter relaxed in his large warm bath, drinking the hot cup of tea that he had just poured himself from the tea-making machine provided in the hotel room.
Finding a room had been quite easy. The summer season hadn't yet begun and it was the middle of the week.
Kayleigh, the wife of his new best friend, the local constable, had made a quick call to her friend who ran the guesthouse just opposite the entrance to the bridge on the other side of the gorge. A few minutes later, Peter had been given a large room, front of house on the second floor overlooking the gorge.
From his window he could see the iron bridge in all its glory, the hill and the house at the top which he had visited earlier, and the forest behind.
As he lay in the bath, letting the stress of the day and the journey fade away, he thought about his conversation earlier with Kayleigh and her husband. It had been both interesting and quite scary.
The conversation had started with pleasantries. He had thanked her again for coming to help him when he had fainted on the bridge, and they had welcomed him to the gorge.
They had lived here now for about ten years, choosing to move here from louder and dirtier Birmingham. Kayleigh had met Alex whilst working as a nurse, hence her caring nature, in the City Hospital in Birmingham. One night he had accompanied a young man to hospital who'd been arrested but needed some medical attention...and 'ever since then he's accompanied me...' Kayleigh smiled.
Peter had looked across at Alex, and he had nodded and laughed.
"So, what brings a reporter from the Edinburgh Evening News down to this part of the world?" Alex had asked, as Peter knew he would.
"It's a rather interesting and slightly incredible and unbelievable story...but one which has really caught my interest, and I want to find out if there is any truth to it all,...although I already think there might be." Peter had begun to explain the cover story he had made up for what he was going to do. "I can't tell you too much about it because I have only just started my investigations, but...Perhaps I should ask first of all, if either of you believe in clairvoyance?"
Alex had looked at his wife, and then back at Peter.
"Actually, no. I don't," the policeman had replied. "...But Kayleigh does. She's right into that sort of stuff. Bugs the hell out of me though."
"Well, basically I am checking out the dreams or visions, whatever you might want to call them...of a clairvoyant. She claims to have seen a series of murders take place in her mind, that no one else seems to know anything about. I am trying to find out if there is any truth to what she claims to have seen. If I find there is, I will hopefully get the biggest story of my career so far. It's that simple, and that daft, really."
"So, you've come all the way down here to check out a dream?"
"Dreams. There's more than one."
"Well, good luck to you, son. Sorry, Peter, I'm just about to be late for my shift, and this is more Kayleigh's scene than mine, so I think I will leave you two alone."
"Okay," Peter said, starting to rise politely as the policeman moved towards the door. "...But before you go, can I ask if there have been any recent murders or people reported missing in Ironbridge in the past few years...I can't tell when it happened, but I'm very interested in the cottages at the top of the hill. In fact, No. 8 in the last row at the top of the hill...?"
The policeman stopped in the doorway, turned and looked straight at Peter.
"No. 8?"
"Yes...that's the one...I'm sorry, I don't know the street name yet."
The policeman and his wife exchanged glances, and Alex took a step back into the room, waving his large hand at Peter's chair and indicating for him to sit back down again.
"No. 8? Interesting. So, Peter..." the police constable said as he sat down beside Peter and opposite his wife at the kitchen table. "…Just what did this clairvoyant of yours tell you had happened?"
"Why?" Peter asked, noticing the change of atmosphere in the room, and the sudden interest of the local police constable. "Has something happened there?"
"I think
perhaps, you should tell me first, what your clairvoyant claims might have happened there?"
Peter looked at Kayleigh, then back at Alex. Both were now very serious. The humour had gone out of the conversation. Peter was thinking rapidly. What should he tell them? What could he tell them?
"I can't tell you everything...reporter confidentiality and all that, and I don't want to leak or give away the story if there could be some truth to it at all. But basically, my clairvoyant friend seems to think that a murder may have taken place there. A young woman. Her throat slashed. Rather violently whilst having sex..."
The constable stood up, took his jacket off and walked over to the kettle.
"Anything else?" he asked, starting to make himself a coffee.
"No. That's all I've got for now...the next step is to see if there is any truth to it. Is there? Do you know of anything...I mean, from the way you are both reacting to what I have just said, it looks like that I've hit a rather raw nerve, or at least got something right."
The policeman stirred the coffee, added some sugar and returned to the table.
"Perhaps you have ...And you say that this clairvoyant thinks that there might have been other murders too?"
"Yes."
"Such as..."
"I don't have any details on those yet. This is the first one that I'm investigating. I want to see if there is any truth to this one first before I ...listen, please, tell me. What's up? Did something happen at No. 8?"
The police officer sat down opposite him.
"This is part of an ongoing investigation. All I can tell you for now is that something did happen at No. 8. But we don't yet know exactly what."
"Did they find a body?"
"No. There was no body."
"Then how do you know that something happened there?"
"I can't tell you. It's part of an ongoing..."
"Oh, come on, Alex. Just tell the man. If you don't, anyone in the White Hart Inn or the Malthouse will, or for that matter, anyone from any of the pubs in the Gorge will tell him. It's common knowledge now."
"You tell him then," Alex replied, waving his hand at his wife and offering her the opportunity to speak.
"Okay, fine...actually the dreams your clairvoyant had are not so daft after all. About nine months ago Mrs Quince, the landlady who owns the flat at No. 8, came back from France where she lives, to tidy up the upstairs flat after a summer rental and get it ready for another tenant. She owns the flat downstairs next door too. Anyway, what she found when she returned was pretty shocking. When she went upstairs to the bedroom, she opened the door, and found that the wall above the bed and the ceiling were completely splattered with dried red blood. Tons of it. It was everywhere." She paused, looking at Peter to see his reaction. "The rest of the flat was spotless. The place had been meticulously cleaned. Except for the blood. Whoever had done it, deliberately left it there as some sort of statement."
"And a body?" Peter asked.
"Nothing."
"Anyone reported missing?"
"Not from around here," Alex interjected.
"Fingerprints?" Peter asked.
"The place had been swept clean. Almost nothing. Not a trace. It seemed impossible that there was not a single print to be found anywhere... so we were determined to find something. Anything. But there was practically nothing. Whoever had done it, must have spent days cleaning the place afterwards?"
"You said, 'almost nothing' and 'practically'...that implies something was found...?" Peter asked, taking a notebook out of his rucksack and beginning to make some notes. "What about on the wall, where the blood was? That was obviously not cleaned..."
"Good question. Two discernible fingerprints were found. On the wall. And a thumbprint on the outside of a window which we later found belonged to Mrs Quince...but we have had no luck trying to match the fingerprints on the wall."
"Was the blood tested?"
"Yes...and before you ask, it was human. A+. We got DNA from it too, but we can't yet trace anyone from it."
Peter was silent, thinking.
"Who was the tenant? How long was he living there?"
"About five months, over the summer. I think I saw him once. Tall guy, broad shouldered. Quiet handsome." Kayleigh volunteered. "But he kept himself to himself, never went to the pub, and no one hereabouts knew anything about him at all. He came and went, leaving no signs or clues as to who he was."
"...And before you ask, when we checked the identify and references he had given to Mrs Quince, they proved to be false. The guy is a ghost."
"How do we know that a murder actually took place?" Peter asked.
"We don't. All we have is lots of blood."
"Are you still looking?" Peter asked Alex.
"For what? A body? The tenant? More clues? ...Yes to all of the above, but we've got no resources down here, so for now, it's mostly all on hold. We've alerted all the other forces in England, and we just have to wait and see what turns up."
"Did you search the forest on the other side of the road?"
"Have you seen the size of it?"
"No, but did you look?"
"A little. For two days. With dogs. Nothing found. It was probably too late for the dogs to pick up anything, even if there was something there in the first place. The forensics team think the blood was about two months old. The flat could have been empty for all that time."
Peter whistled, scribbling frantically.
"One more question...were there no reports of missing women around that time?"
"Like I said, not from round here. But there have been lots of reports of missing women in England and Wales and Scotland. People go missing all the time. It could be anyone."
"If I can give you a description of her, can you try to see if there was anyone like that reported missing since or around the time the blood was found?"
Alex leant forward in his chair.
"Yes. I can do that. But now it's your turn. Please tell us what the clairvoyant told you. But first, can you show me some identification?" Alex asked, suddenly sounding very official.
"Sure, no problem..." Peter replied, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket, opening it up and pushing it over to Alex. "That's my card from the Evening News on the front."
Alex picked it up and gave it some serious scrutiny. Peter also noticed him scanning his name on the credit cards in the wallet. He passed the wallet back.
"Thanks."
"There's not much to tell really. The clairvoyant said there was a murder in the house. Just like I said. Her throat was slashed while having sex. Up until now, I have been really sceptical about it all. But now..."
"You should still be a little sceptical," Alex suggested. "Where does this 'clairvoyant' come from? Ironbridge? Has she visited any of the pubs round here for a drink? Met any of the locals who could spin her that same yarn? Had she read 'Fifty Shades of Grey' or something, and then just embellished it a little to make it more interesting? Most murders have some sex or love angle associated with them."
"True. Very true. She could be a charlatan, but she could be genuine."
"Most likely a charlatan. There's no way she could know something like that unless she had heard it elsewhere."
"Not true Alex. I think there could be more to it than that. You know that I..."
"Kayleigh...I would love to believe you are right, but I've never seen any evidence that backs up the ridiculous claims of any so called clairvoyant. These people should all be charged with fraud. They steal money from decent folk that are just lonely and very vulnerable..."
"She is not asking for any money..." Peter interrupted. "Listen, would there be any possibility of taking a look inside the property, so that I can see this all for myself?"
Alex hesitated.
"Possibly. We have the keys at the station. I would need to think about it."
"It would be great if I could."
"Is there anything else you can say to persuade me that I should let you see the flat? Anyt
hing else that you are not saying?"
Peter opened up his notebook at a blank page and ripped it out. Sitting forward in his chair, he closed his eyes, recalling the scene in his head, and began to draw a sketch.
"This is roughly what the clairvoyant said she saw," Peter began to explain. "...The bed faced this direction...there was a bathroom over to the right...a bedside table here and here...a window here, looking down towards the gorge and the bridge..." Peter looked up. "By the way, the clairvoyant never said it was here in Ironbridge. She just described the bridge and the view from the window. Myself and a colleague at the News then searched the internet until we found a picture of the bridge that matched the vision, and bingo, here we are. The rest was down to us. We found the house. She didn't tell us where it was."
Alex looked at Peter, studying his face. He didn't speak. Kayleigh whistled, obviously to emphasise the spooky aspect of it all and maybe to annoy her husband a little more.
Peter closed his eyes again. There was something else. Another vision was forming in his mind. Another sequence of pictures starting to run through his mind. It only lasted a few seconds but it was enough.
"At the top of the stairs there is a small hallway, on the wall in front of the main bedroom at the back of the house there is a photograph of a flower. Flowers. Purple. Rows of them. Lots of them. It's lavender..."
Peter opened his eyes. The policeman was staring at him.
"I'm curious, Peter, as to the identity of this so called clairvoyant of yours...This layout is very accurate. But you could have got this off a house-plan from the estate agent on the internet. Anyone could. However, there is a picture on the wall, just as you say. It's a photograph of France. The owner told me that it is near where she lives."
"...which I could also have seen on a photograph of the hallway from an estate agent, maybe. But the fact is, I didn't. And, please trust me on this one, I actually think that the clairvoyant could be genuine. Otherwise, there would be no way I would be down here just now chasing shadows. Can you get me in to see the flat?"
"I'll think about it, and I will have to check with the Senior Investigating Officer who is heading up the investigation to see what he thinks. Here's my card...Call me tomorrow morning, and please, if you can, try and get me a description of the woman who was murdered. Of course, you will need to speak with your clairvoyant first..."
BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS Page 25
