The Revelation Room (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 1)

by Mark Tilbury

  ‘What the hell am I going to tell her, Tom? She’ll fall to bits.’

  ‘Then it’s your job to put her back together again.’

  Maddie offered Ben a bottle of water. ‘Dad’s right, Ben. You haven’t got any other option.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do this.’

  Tom removed his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘That’s what I said after Susan’s murder. People told me I would get through it. Told me to trust the Lord and look to the future. They meant well. They were only trying to help. But I rejected everything. I even lost my faith for a while. But guess what?’

  Ben shook his head, setting off firecrackers in his neck.

  ‘I got through it. I picked myself up. I had a two-year old little girl who needed me. Bit by bit, I put the jigsaw back together again. And you can do the same, son. You just need to trust the process of life.’

  ‘I’m not as strong as you, Tom.’

  Tom smiled. A tired smile, frayed around the edges. ‘Nonsense, lad. Life makes you strong. The tests that the Lord puts before us are all designed to make us stronger. After Susan died, I blamed God. Shoved the lot of it at His door. Why was I being punished? I was in Rwanda trying to help. Trying to make a difference. I’d offered my life up to teach the disadvantaged, to give hope to the poorest of the poor, so why did He take Susan? Why did she have to die? She wasn’t even thirty years old.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. The perpetrators of the genocide have an awful lot to answer for, but that’s God’s business, not mine. But I’ll tell you this for free; bitterness can eat you right up on the inside. It’s like rust around the heart.’

  Ben considered his own childhood. The humiliation. The kids who had mocked and abused him at school just because he’d been different to them. ‘I’m just not cut out to rescue people, Tom. I can barely rescue my hair in the morning.’

  ‘And I didn’t think I was cut out to raise a little girl on my own. I didn’t think I had the strength to come back to England and start again from scratch. We were all set to live our lives out in Rwanda. We had plans. Simple plans for a simple life. But the thing is, Ben, I found the strength, because God gave me the strength. Slowly but surely, my faith returned. I started teaching again. I raised Maddie as best as I could. I lived again. And you will find the strength, too.’

  ‘I can’t even brush my teeth without poking myself in the eye.’

  ‘The Lord trusts you, son. The Lord has faith in you. Susan’s death, as terrible as it was, as heart-breaking as it was, was God’s way of putting me to the test and giving me strength and courage to succeed.’

  ‘And what happens if I don’t want to accept the test?’

  ‘That’s your choice, son. It’s what we call freewill.’

  ‘Come on, Ben. You can do this,’ Maddie encouraged.

  Ben laughed. ‘He was originally going to train me to go out on operations. Everything was going so well until I got stuck in railings opposite a client’s house. The picture of the fire brigade cutting me free made the third or fourth page of The Feelham Gazette.’

  Maddie smiled. ‘Everyone has a mishap now and then. You have to focus on what’s happening now. Focus on being strong for your mum and your dad.’

  Ben looked into her beautiful green eyes. He wanted to thump his chest and declare himself ready for battle, but he wasn’t capable of finding sand in a desert, let alone a man being held captive by a cult. He still slept with the light on at twenty-two years of age, for God’s sake. And he was terrified of spiders.

  Tom wedged his hat back on his head. ‘Come on, son. Let’s get you and Old Joe home.’

  Ben stood up. He felt like a condemned man about to walk to the gallows. He picked up the canvas holdall. For once, Old Joe was quiet.

  Chapter three

  Ben stood on the front doorstep with Maddie and Pastor Tom and introduced them to his mother.

  Anne Whittle looked from one to the other like a dormouse contemplating cats. ‘Is something wrong?’

  Ben’s stomach churned like a cement mixer about to pour concrete all over his mother’s life. ‘We need to talk to you.’

  ‘Why? What is it?’

  ‘Let’s go inside.’

  They followed Anne along the hallway and into the front room. She muted the telly. ‘Well?’

  ‘Sit down, Mum.’

  Anne plucked at her blouse. ‘I’d rather stand if it’s all very well with you.’

  Ben looked at Pastor Tom.

  ‘It’s your husband,’ Tom said.

  ‘Geoff? What about him?’

  ‘We think something may have happened to him,’ Ben blurted.

  Anne frowned. ‘What in tuppence is that supposed to mean?’

  Pastor Tom removed his trilby. ‘We don’t really know, Mrs Whittle. He phoned Ben and asked him to help him.’

  Anne’s hands flitted around her face like nervous birds looking for somewhere to roost. ‘Help him? Why? Where is he?’

  ‘He may have been abducted,’ Tom said.

  ‘Abducted? Who the hell by?’

  ‘You know the missing girl he was looking for?’ Ben said. ‘The one that joined a cult?’

  Anne nodded.

  Ben took a deep breath. ‘We reckon the cult’s got him.’

  Anne looked at her son as if he’d just told her that his father had piloted a space shuttle to Mars. ‘I knew something was wrong. I told Aunt Mary that he hadn’t phoned all day. He always phones. Even when he’s busy. Aunt Mary joked that he was having an affair.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

  Anne walked over to a mahogany coffee table and picked up her mobile phone. ‘I knew something was wrong. We always get fish and chips on a Friday.’

  Ben watched her fiddle with the phone. ‘What are you doing?’

  Anne looked up from the screen. ‘We have to call the police.’

  ‘We can’t call the police.’

  ‘Why in heaven’s name not?’

  ‘Because Dad said not to. And he meant it.’

  Anne’s mouth opened and closed like a broken gate flapping in the wind.

  Ben walked over to her and took hold of her hands. ‘Sit down, Mum. It’s been a huge shock to all of us.’

  Anne sat down on the edge of the sofa. She plucked at her lips as if trying to pull a reason from her mouth. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Maddie offered to put the kettle on.

  ‘Good idea,’ Pastor Tom said.

  Anne stared at Ben. Her eyes looked glazed. ‘He always gets fish and chips on Friday…’

  Ben watched Maddie walk out of the room. She seemed to bounce as she walked.

  Anne’s lower lip trembled. ‘Can’t you just go and get him?’

  Ben wanted to hug her and promise her that everything would be just fine. But he couldn’t. Not when he didn’t believe it himself. ‘We don’t know where the cult is.’

  ‘So how are you going to help him if you don’t even know where he is?’

  Ben needed painkillers. His knee had joined the growing list of casualties demanding attention. The damned thing always flared up when he was exhausted. A constant reminder of his childhood humiliation and shame.

  A tear hatched from the corner of Anne’s left eye. ‘Well?’

  Ben remembered the awful noises accompanying his father’s call for help. ‘I don’t know yet, Mum. That’s what we need to figure out.’

  Anne smoothed out imaginary creases in her skirt. ‘And you think you’re going to figure it out, do you?’

  Ben sighed. ‘I’m going to try.’

  Pastor Tom looked at Anne. ‘Would you like something stronger than tea?’

  ‘I don’t drink alcohol.’

  Maddie called out and asked Ben where the teapot was. Ben went to the kitchen, grateful for the distraction. He took a teapot from a wall cabinet and handed it to her.

  ‘How do you like your tea?’ />
  Ben rubbed the back of his neck. ‘My head’s throbbing. I’ll just have a glass of water and some paracetamol.’

  ‘Your mum took the news quite well, considering.’

  Ben swallowed three painkillers. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’

  ‘I’ll stay over if you want,’ Maddie offered.

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘I want to. I could help your mum.’

  ‘She’ll be all right. She’s got sleeping tablets.’

  ‘I’m not doing much until Sunday service.’

  ‘I—’

  Maddie put the teapot on a tray. ‘I want to.’

  A hand squeezed Ben’s heart. ‘The milk’s in the fridge, and there’s a sugar bowl up in that cupboard.’

  Maddie cocked her head to one side. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘He’ll be fine. Perhaps we could do some brainstorming later? See if we can come up with a plan of action?’

  Ben didn’t feel he had much of a brain left to storm. ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t offer otherwise. You go on through. I’ll see to this.’

  They all sat around the dining table in silent contemplation. Pastor Tom sipped his tea and smiled at Anne. ‘You have a lovely home.’

  Anne ignored the compliment. ‘I always knew something like this would happen. I always said to Aunt Mary that he’d wind up getting hurt.’

  Ben thought that if you always erred on the side of pessimism, you were bound to be vindicated one day.

  Like you, a voice whispered in his head.

  Anne banged her teacup down on the saucer. ‘It’s beyond me why he always has to do dangerous jobs. First the police force, and now this stupid detective work. It’s just asking for trouble.’

  Ben massaged his temples. Why did painkillers take so long to get into the system? ‘I’m sure he’ll be all right.’

  ‘Do you remember that time he fell out of a tree?’

  Ben did. How could he forget? His father had spent a week in hospital with a broken ankle, and then three months recuperating at home with a foul temper to accompany his injuries.

  Anne kept looking out of the window as if her husband might pull up at any moment with a bag of fish and chips and a guilty grin.

  ‘He was trying to get pictures of some floozy in a bedroom, if I remember rightly.’

  Ben’s headache gnawed at his nerves. ‘It was a bloke, actually.’

  Maddie handed Anne a cup of tea. ‘If it’s all right with you, Mrs Whittle—’

  ‘Anne. Please call me Anne.’

  ‘Of course. Anne. If it’s all right with you, I could stop over for a while to help out.’

  Anne took a sip of tea and lowered the cup. ‘I think we should just call the police and let them deal with it.’

  Ben silently begged God for some of that strength Pastor Tom talked about. ‘I’ve already told you. Dad doesn’t want us to call the police. He wouldn’t say so without good reason.’

  ‘What if he’s fallen out of a tree again and banged his head?’

  ‘Would you like me to stay, Anne?’ Maddie asked again.

  ‘I’d like my husband to come home. That’s what I’d like.’

  Pastor Tom finished his tea and turned to Maddie. ‘It might be better to let these folks have some time on their own.’

  ‘I want Maddie to stay,’ Ben said.

  Pastor Tom didn’t look convinced. ‘Anne?’

  Tears spilled onto Anne’s cheeks. ‘It makes no difference to me whether or not she stays. I just want my husband home.’

  Pastor Tom stood up and put his hat back on. ‘I’ve got to make tracks. You call me tomorrow, Madeline.’

  Maddie nodded.

  ‘I want you back for Sunday service.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ben showed Pastor Tom out. ‘I really appreciate this, Tom.’

  ‘Take care of your mother, son. She’s in shock.’

  Ben didn’t have a clue how a gangling, useless geek like him was supposed to look after his mother and rescue his father. ‘We’re all in shock, Tom.’

  ‘God bless you, son. I shall pray for you.’

  Ben closed the door and returned to the front room. His head felt like a block of concrete. Someone was trying to dig up that concrete with a pneumatic drill. Maddie was sitting beside his mother on the sofa, comforting her.

  Ben sat down with them. ‘We’ll find him, Mum.’

  Anne stood up and walked over to the window. She looked left and right several times, putting Ben in mind of a dog waiting for its master to come home. She turned back to face Ben. ‘When did he phone you?’

  Ben looked at his watch. ‘About an hour ago.’

  ‘Have you tried to ring him back?’

  ‘Yes. There was no answer.’

  ‘Try him now.’

  Ben did. Same result. ‘He called on his watch-phone. The battery’s probably dead. He only uses it for emergencies.’

  ‘So what’s happened to his mobile?’

  Ben was about to say that someone in the cult must have taken the phone off him, but then thought better of it. ‘It’s probably run out of charge.’

  Anne plucked a tissue from a box of Kleenex on the coffee table and dabbed at her eyes. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Try and find him.’

  ‘And what if this cult thing gets hold of you as well? What then?’

  Ben shuddered. ‘I won’t let that happen.’

  Maddie walked over to Anne and grasped her hands. ‘Ben won’t do anything silly, Mrs Whittle.’

  ‘You don’t know my son as well as I do.’

  ‘I’ll help him.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a couple of sleeping tablets and get a good night’s rest, mum?’ Ben said.

  Anne nodded. ‘Yes, perhaps I will.’

  ‘Things will look a lot better in the morning,’ Maddie said.

  ‘You wake me up straight away if there’s any news.’

  Ben didn’t think there would be any need to wake her. Not unless Pastor Tom’s prayers summoned a miracle. ‘Of course.’

  Anne shuffled out of the dining room as if her mind and body were disconnected from one another.

  Ben closed the door behind her. ‘She’ll be out for the count in about half an hour.’

  ‘She’s lovely.’

  Ben could think of a few other words to describe his mother. ‘ Do you want a proper drink? There’s vodka in the cabinet.’

  ‘Not unless you want me dancing on the table and then sleeping under it.’

  Ben laughed. ‘I don’t mind. It might cheer the place up.’

  ‘I’ll stick to coffee. Do you want one?’

  ‘Yeah. Strong and black, please. Three sugars.’

  They sat at the dining table drinking coffee in silence for a while, and then Ben told Maddie how Pastor Tom had helped him after he’d fallen from a conker tree and fractured his knee. ‘I spent most of that summer with your dad. That’s when he introduced me to Old Joe.’

  Maddie looked surprised. ‘I don’t remember you.’

  ‘You were always out. Your dad reckoned you were a boy in disguise.’

  ‘I was a tomboy.’

  ‘Back then you wanted to be an explorer.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘And an astronaut.’

  ‘Funny what we want to do when we’re kids. All the silly little dreams and the great big expectations.’

  ‘I just wanted to be normal,’ Ben said. ‘Normal and left alone.’

  Maddie frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘I used to get picked on quite bad.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘Kids at school. I had a bad stammer. They used to call me “Stutter-buck”.’

  ‘Kids can be so cruel.’

  ‘It’s all in the past. It doesn’t matter now.’

  Ma
ddie sipped her coffee. ‘It does matter. Everyone ends up carrying around this great big bag of hurt because of others.’

  Ben looked away for a few seconds and then changed the subject. ‘Old Joe belonged to your granddad.’

  ‘Granddad John?’

  Ben nodded.

  Maddie took a sip of coffee. ‘Granddad John was great. We used to visit him in Sunnyside Nursing Home. He could still do these amazing card tricks. And, get this: he was pushing eighty and he had a girlfriend. Betsy. She had this great big puff of white hair and the kindest eyes you could ever imagine.’

  Ben smiled. ‘Cool.’

  ‘Granddad John died two years ago. Betsy went a few months after. It was so sad.’

  ‘They’re probably together again now.’

  ‘Nana June might have something to say about that! Anyway, why did dad give Old Joe to you?’

  ‘To help me overcome my stammer. At the time it was really bad, especially when I was under pressure. The more I tried, the worse it got. But your dad taught me the art of ventriloquism. How to control my thoughts. It was weird at first because it was like magic when I spoke through Old Joe. It didn’t take half an hour to say a simple sentence. Then, bit by bit, I spoke properly without using Old Joe.’

  Maddie grinned. ‘Wow! That’s fantastic.’

  Ben’s heart swelled. ‘Not that I’m much cop at it. Even Old Joe reckons I’m rubbish.’

  ‘Don’t put yourself down. You’re brilliant with him.’

  ‘It’s all down to your dad, Maddie. He’s a great man.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I can’t ever repay him.’

  ‘You already have.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘It’ll mean the world to him that you’ve turned out to be such a good person.’

  Ben blushed. ‘I wish.’

  ‘Don’t put yourself down. You’ve got a lot going for you.’

  ‘Like what? A missing father?’

  ‘So let’s get cracking and do something about it. You said there’s an appointments book?’

  Ben nodded. ‘In the office.’

  He led Maddie through the kitchen and into a small eight-feet-square room that had started life as a brick-built coal shed in the 1940s semi. He switched on the light. A shiny black desk with a computer and a printer dominated one wall. Next to this, a filing cabinet. Ben unlocked it and took out a black leather-bound book. He put the book down on the desk and leafed through it. He stopped about halfway through the book and tapped the page.