Never Forgotten

by G H Mockford

  ‘Okay. At least let me walk you back to The Manor.’

  ‘Of course. I almost forgot my bike was there. I’d really like that.’ She downed her coffee and put the mug down. ‘Sorry, but I’ve really got to go.’

  ‘Just give me five minutes to freshen up.’

  Bryonny nodded.

  When Stephen came back down, she was gone except for her private phone number and a kiss on a scrap of paper.

  Sixty-Four

  At first Stephan was filled with disappointment, but then the x at the end of the note filled him with some hope that he’d not completely blown it.

  He looked at the number on the paper. Such neat, controlled handwriting. Precise. He slipped the paper into his pocket and cast aside any thoughts he had about sending her a message.

  Stephen was ravenous. The remains of a box of cornflakes went into a bowl along with the last of the milk and a liberal scattering of sugar.

  The air was cool and refreshing as Stephen peddled through the streets of Manor Park, Hockley and then into the heart of the city.

  Half an hour later, Stephen stood at the end of his mother’s street. He didn’t even know if she was in. He hadn’t called ahead. Stephen turned and began to make his way to the local supermarket but decided that a bunch of flowers from Asda might not be the best idea. Was it a bribe? A gift to ease his guilt at making his mother bring it all up – again.

  Stephen checked the clock on his phone. It was lunchtime. It would be rude to turn up now.

  Or was he just procrastinating?

  He decided to walk past the house in case she was out in the garden.

  She wasn’t.

  He was about to walk away when he saw his mother standing at the window. The net curtain twitched and then she was gone.

  Stephen swung his leg over the crossbar of his bike and braced a foot against the peddle, ready to leave. He shouldn’t have returned so soon. Stephen pushed off and started to ride away when he heard the front door open.

  ‘I knew you’d be back,’ his mother called. Stephen put both his feet on the tarmac and turned to look at her. She stood at the garden gate. ‘You never could let things go.’

  ‘I’m sorry for upsetting you yesterday.’

  ‘I know. You wouldn’t hurt a fly, not deliberately.

  Stephen smiled. Over the course of the last week, he’d been involved in how many fights? Three?

  ‘Are you going to come in? I assume that’s why you’ve ridden all the way across the city.’ She opened the gate and stumbled as she stepped back onto the beautifully manicured lawn.

  Stephen dropped his bike and rushed towards her, but she waved him off with one hand while the other, knuckles white, gripped the top of the gate. ‘See? Always wanting to help others. It’s a quality to be admired. Come in and I’ll help you.’

  *

  Stephen sat in the living room, two steaming coffees on the table, beside his mother. The bike, undamaged from the fall, rested against the wall in the hallway.

  ‘There’s no need to beat around the bush, Stephen. Just ask me whatever you want. I can feel Jesus lending me his strength today. He came to me while I was at prayer. He told me you will find Felicity, but only with my help.’

  Stephen nodded not quite sure what to say. He’d not believed since he was eight or nine. Despite her own beliefs, his mother never forced him to go to church. She would always say, ‘God will come for you again one day, and when he does, you will hear his call.’

  ‘Have you thought of something you can add to what you told me yesterday?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Stephen quietly sighed. He’d hoped she’d had some kind of revelation. ‘Okay. I was thinking…’

  ‘Go on, ask.’

  ‘The home they grew up in…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is it still there?’

  ‘I suppose so. Why?’

  ‘I thought I’d go and visit.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I had a thought.’ Stephen paused for a moment, took a sip from his cup of coffee. ‘If Felicity and Felix were so attached to each other, even if it wasn’t very healthy, maybe they were also attached to the building.’

  ‘I can see where you’re coming from,’ his mother said. ‘Now that I think about it, the police did check the place when Felicity ran away.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t know, Stephen. I don’t think they found anything. Your father dealt with all that. He was much stronger than me.’

  ‘Didn’t you say the house was in Papplewick?’

  ‘Yes. Well, close by. Out in the countryside. Quite a large farm house. Some parts dating from the sixteen hundreds. The parents – if you can call them that – were very well off. I remember being told there were six bedrooms. They needed them for their…parties. It had a music room and a library. There was a large pond too. How the other half live, eh? They might’ve had all they wanted, but they had no soul. No sense of right and wrong.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. All I found out was from fractured conversations with or between various professionals. I was never told any of this first hand. My job was to give Felicity a new start, and the less I knew about some details, the better.’

  ‘Might Dad know?’ After yesterday, Stephen wasn’t sure he should bring her name up.

  ‘He might, I suppose, but I doubt it. All I meant was that he liaised with the police.

  Stephen nodded and stared into his coffee. How hard could it be to find a large house just outside the village of Papplewick? Although the village was just outside the town of Hucknall, it was surround by farmland. He’d even driven through it with his father a few days ago.

  ‘I might see if I can find it on Google Earth or something. Do you know of any distinguishing features?’

  ‘The pond, I suppose. I can’t tell you anything else. Sorry.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about. I’m sorry for br–’

  ‘I told you – Christ is on your side.’

  Stephen nodded and then felt condescending. ‘I’ll be off, then.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I could make you an omelette or something? You mentioned Google Earth. I have a computer upstairs. It’s a bit old and slow like me, but…’

  ‘I’d like that, Mum. Be nice to think about something else for a while. Why don’t we nip across to Asda and get a nice pudding too?’

  ‘You always did know how to get around me, didn’t you, Stephen?’

  The walk did them good, if only because it gave them the chance to talk about other things. Stephen told his mother about his friends who won the lottery. He’d been sworn to secrecy, but he figured it was unlikely she would tell anyone.

  His mother, on the other hand, explained how she worked in the library and that he was lucky she’d been at home today.

  On returning to her house, they shared the meal, and Stephen decided it was a good time to leave. Google Earth could wait, rebuilding his relationship with his mother could not.

  Sixty-Five

  With a stomach fuller than he could ever remember, Stephen left his mother’s and started the thirty-minute ride across town. He had just enough time to go to the library before reporting for work.

  Stephen smiled sweetly at the librarian as he entered. She nodded. The library was deserted aside from a noisy group of primary school children, and a stressed out teacher, his teaching assistant and some bored looking parents.

  All the computers were free, as usual. The one he chose didn’t have Google Earth, so Stephen settled for a satellite image on Google maps.

  His finger rolled back and forth on the mouse as he tried to find the right level of magnification. Too close and it would take an age to search, too far out, and he could easily miss what he was looking for. An old farmhouse with six bedrooms would be some size, and presumably come with outbuildings, not to mention the pond.

  With these assumpti
ons in mind, Stephen went to work. He found several large farm estates, but they were not remote enough, except for one. When he zoomed in with the mouse, it soon revealed that it was clearly a working farm. That, of course, didn’t mean it wasn’t the place, Stephen realized, but his mother called it a house, not a farm. There was a big difference.

  Stephen began to widen his search. It had to be close to Papplewick. Too far north and Stephen was sure his mum would have described it as being near the village of Ravenshead. Too far west and it would be Newstead. Stephen went east. There was nothing but fields and the A60.

  He rolled the computer chair back and stood up. His eyes were hurting from peering at the screen for so long. And for what? The children who were here with their teacher had gone and he’d not even noticed. How long had he been going at it?

  Stephen hadn’t timed himself, but he had to be near his time limit. He rubbed his eyes and returned to the workstation, nudging the mouse as he did so.

  The image on the screen was pixelated as the slow broadband connection downloaded the image. It was a wood, probably a large copse.

  Stephen moved closer to the screen.

  As the image became clearer, Stephen thought he could glimpse buildings through the trees. It was no wonder he hadn’t spotted it before. It was like the area had been reclaimed by nature.

  There was a pond.

  If the building had remained empty for eleven years, would that be long enough for nature to retake what man had stolen from it? Stephen zoomed in. If he looked carefully, he could pick out a driveway right up to the front of the house. It was blocked in several places by a chicane of concrete blocks.

  It was in a beautiful location, so why was it left to go to rack and ruin? Simple. It looked like the place had a horrific past. Perhaps it was hoped that if it was abandoned, forgotten, the evil that had tainted it would leave now that it had nothing to feed off and one day people could live there once again.

  Stephen zoomed out and memorized the location.

  That was the place.

  It had to be.

  Sixty-Six

  Stephen arrived at The Manor to find Bryonny Chambers waiting for him, and an amused Cliff behind the bar. Bryonny looked anything but.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘They’ve suspended me,’ Bryonny said.

  ‘Suspended?’

  Bryonny nodded her head. It turned into a shake. ‘I was told to take a holiday. I’m too close to the case, apparently.’

  Stephen stood next to her. He wanted to reach out and take her in his arms, but was too worried it was the wrong thing to do in public. To his surprise, Bryonny made the decision and hugged him instead. She didn’t cry.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m making a fool of myself,’ the detective said as she stepped away. ‘I’m sorry about this morning too. I had a call requesting my presence at the office. That’s when Abbott and Hamilton did the dirty deed.’

  ‘Did Rees try and argue your case?’

  ‘He wasn’t there. I was called over to the station in St Ann’s. I expect it was deliberate. On their part, I mean. There’s a past between those guys and Alun, and I sided with Alun.’

  Stephen didn’t pry. ‘So what are you going to do with all your spare time?’ Stephen said, trying to make light of the situation. ‘Catch up on some reading? Watch that boxed set you’ve had since Christmas?’

  ‘Very funny. Just have a normal life. Relax I guess. Spend time with people I’ve been neglecting.’

  ‘I bet you don’t even know what relaxing is.’

  ‘True,’ she said, and for the first time Bryonny smiled. ‘I should go. I don’t even know why I came here. I would have called, but I didn’t know your number.’

  Stephen held up his finger and took out his phone and the slip of paper she’d left that morning. For a brief moment he felt embarrassed by the trusty old mobile as he typed in the number on the piece of paper.

  Bryonny’s phone rang with a simple telephone bell. She cancelled the call and smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Suddenly I wish I didn’t work in the evenings.’

  ‘At least I always know where to find you. Going out with a police officer is difficult. Shifts. Unpredictable hours.’

  Stephen smiled. ‘Are we going out, then?’

  Chambers looked at him, her eyelids fluttering briefly. ‘I believe I did just let that slip, didn’t I?’

  ‘You don’t hang about, do you?’

  ‘Don’t see the point. If you know what you want and how to get it, why wait?’

  ‘Take a seat in my favorite booth and I’ll be right back,’ Stephen said. Bryonny nodded and walked across the carpet, which Stephen suddenly noticed had been laid over the polished floorboards.

  Stephen followed the bar round until he found Cliff.

  ‘Don’t even bother to ask,’ the old Jamaican said. ‘Save your energy, I think you’re going to need it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Look around you. We’re hardly bursting at the seams. I want you to have a life, Stephen.’ The publican put a vodka and a lemonade on the bar. ‘It’s funny how things work out. Your life is about to get a whole lot more interesting. I can feel it.’

  Stephen didn’t reply. He picked up the glasses, raised them with a smile at the landlord, and walked back to Bryonny.

  ‘Now that’s what I call service,’ she said as Stephen placed the glasses on the table.

  ‘I’m all yours for the evening, and can give you any service you need. Cliff’s given me the night off.’

  ‘He’s a great boss. Shame they’re not all like him. Have I told you Hamilton’s a prick?’

  ‘Oh yes. And you told him too.’

  They laughed and Bryonny followed it with a sip of her vodka.

  ‘But he is. He wouldn’t know how to investigate his own–’ She stopped. Stephen suspected she was going to say something very unladylike. ‘Why don’t you tell me about your day?’

  ‘Bloody hell. We sound like a married couple.’

  Bryonny nearly spat out her vodka. ‘Now look who’s not hanging around.’

  ‘Don’t panic, I’m not asking you to marry me.’

  ‘Good, and don’t. Been there, done that, got the child.’

  That answered some of Stephen’s questions from that morning. ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘We’re meant to be talking about you,’ Bryonny said, redirecting the conversation with a playful smile.

  ‘I’ve been doing some investigations of my own.’

  ‘Into the car you saw? Good luck. If we can’t trace it, you must be the luckiest man alive.’

  Stephen bit back the cheesy response that sprang to mind, and quickly explained about the house, including all the back story about Georgia.

  ‘Bloody hell, Stephen. You were right not to tell us. I didn’t officially say that, of course.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why don’t we take a look at it?’

  ‘What? Now? It’ll be dark soon.’

  ‘When better to check out an abandoned house?’

  Sixty-Seven

  Stephen had never been on the back of a motorcycle.

  The spare helmet Bryonny kept in her top box was a little tight, but that was better than it being too loose.

  ‘If we come off, at least your head won’t bounce around like an egg in a bowl,’ Bryonny explained.

  ‘Comforting.’

  Stephen stood next to the large, black machine and watched as Bryonny swung her long leg over the saddle, stood the bike upright and started the engine.

  ‘Get on,’ she called.

  Stephen was glad he was tall. Getting onto the back wasn’t easy. The bike was enormous, but then Bryonny wasn’t exactly a small, wilting flower herself.

  ‘It’s just like your pushbike. Lean into the corners. You can hold the handles behind you or onto me. Most importantly, don’t wriggle around, especially when we’re leaning over. Okay?’

  Stephen barely had time
to mumble a ‘yes’ when the gearbox clunked and the bike rolled forward.

  ‘Hold on,’ Bryonny called. Stephen was sure he caught a hint of mischief in her voice as she slammed down her visor and pulled out onto the road.

  The machine accelerated away. Stephen swayed backwards as they picked up speed. When the bike slowed to take a left turn, he was pitched forward, and his helmet clacked into the back of Bryonny’s before he could stop it. He made a mental note to anticipate it in future.

  Then they were off again. Through Sneinton and onto the B686, before cutting through St Ann’s and onto The Wells Road.

  Chambers was making the most of the engine’s power, but never exceeded the speed limit. Much. She demonstrated experience and skill, and Stephen had to admit he was impressed with the smooth ride, even if he was a little afraid.

  They left Mapperley behind and hit the B684. Chambers opened up the throttle and the beast below them surged forward, leaving the suburbs behind and entering the country.

  When they were forced to stop at a crossroads, Stephen unpeeled his hands from the grab rails and put them around Bryonny’s waist instead.

  ‘Hold on,’ she called as she put the bike in first gear. They were off before the lights had finished changing.

  Stephen’s stomach flipped as they raced down an undulating hill and then slowed to take a wide path around the corner at the bottom, before stopping at lights once again.

  ‘You ever been on the back?’ Stephen shouted.

  ‘Are you kidding? I like to be in control.’

  The witty reply Stephen made was drowned out as the engine roared to life. Swinging around a roundabout, Bryonny raced through the gears gathering speed as soon as they joined the A60. They rushed through the same lights his father had a few days earlier and took the next left to Papplewick Village.

  ‘Where now?’ Bryonny said though her open visor.

  ‘Turn right at the crossroads and then look for a farm on the left. Turn and I’ll direct you from there.’

  Bryonny nodded and followed the instructions.