The Hill - Carla’s Story (Book Two): A Paranormal Murder Mystery Thriller. (Book Two)

by Andrew M Stafford

  He had picked up a copy of yesterday’s Bristol Post which he’d found crumpled in the corner of the bus station when he stepped of the coach at Bristol. He ripped out page six and crammed it into the back pocket of the jeans he’d been wearing for the last three weeks.

  The long journey had tired him and he headed toward the Galleries Shopping Centre in search of strong coffee to help sharpen his mind and allow him to focus on what he’d come here to do. After his brief break in the café he intended to get the number forty two bus and head over to Greeny’s in the east of the city. As he sipped the bitter espresso, clarity suddenly gripped him. He pulled the creased newspaper page from his pocket, flattened it out on the table, avoiding the coffee which he’d spilt and read the story, the same story he’d seen on-line last night. Then it occurred to him where he should be heading, and it wasn’t to Paul Green’s house.

  The final paragraph of the story, the one just above the picture of the girl, told him where he should be going.

  DCI Garraway would like to speak to a girl who he believes can help the police with their enquiries. A drawing of the girl is shown below. If anyone knows the whereabouts of a girl matching the picture below, please contact DCI Garraway via Ian Lester at The Bristol Post. Anyone who contacts The Post will be dealt with in the strictest confidence.

  Boyd needed to be at the offices of The Bristol Post. He knew that the sneaky goody two shoes bitch would cave in under pressure and hand herself in to the police and that she would follow the instructions in the news story. He knew she would turn up at the newspaper’s offices in Temple Way and turn herself in. All he had to do was wait outside the offices and stop her.

  But what if she’d already handed herself over? What would he do then? It was a chance he had to take. He hadn’t seen the story on-line until yesterday evening and he was hoping that she wouldn’t have either. He trusted his instincts and that she wouldn’t have made an instant decision to go the paper. He was sure that she would have spent the night fretting over what she should do and then give herself up today.

  He downed the last of his coffee and headed out of the shopping mall, across Castle Park and took the ten minute walk to the office complex on Temple Way.

  By ten past eleven he was waiting by the side of the Stag and Hounds on the corner of Old Market Street and Temple Way, just fifty metres from the entrance to the offices. With his hoodie pulled over his head he stood menacingly in the shadow of the pub with a crystal clear view of everyone who went in and out of the building.

  Chapter one hundred and thirty six

  Temple Meads Railway Station car park

  11.11am

  Tuesday 19th June

  Richard Price locked his Renault Megane and checked that the windows had been wound up. What he’d remembered about the car parks in Bristol meant that he was taking no chances with opportunistic thieves.

  He held his daughter’s hand and started the five minute walk to the head office of The Bristol Post.

  Carla was shaking as she reluctantly made her way alongside Richard. She stopped in her tracks and turned to her father.

  “But what shall I say?”

  “Carla, we’ve discussed this over and over…….just tell them exactly what happened, tell them everything you told me last night.”

  At the age of just nineteen, Carla knew the life of freedom she’d become accustomed to was about to end, no matter how hard her father tried to convince her otherwise, she was certain she was going to prison.

  Then she remembered that strange and eerie dream she’d had just over a month ago, the one just before her exams. In the dream she’d been in a court room and it had been the trial of Daniel Boyd for the murder of Ben Walker. Boyd had turned to her and told her she was going to prison for a very long time. But his name was different. He wasn’t Daniel Boyd. She tried hard to remember what he said his name was. And then it came to her. He told her his name was Stanley, Stanley Jarrett.

  Then she remembered how Garraway had also been in the dream. He had turned to her and said something, something reassuring. It was something to prepare her for now. She began to feel calmer as the words he’d said in her dream echoed in her ears.

  “If you do as I say, there’ll be no prison for you Carla.”

  She quickened her pace and turned to her father.

  “Come on dad, let’s get this over and done with.”

  Together, hand in hand, Richard and Carla approached the office building and were twenty five metres from the main entrance when Carla was overcome with a tremendous feeling of fear. She wasn’t scared about what she was about to do, something else was scaring her. She felt an evil presence and whatever the presence was, it was very close, very close indeed.

  Along with the evil presence, she sensed something else, something real, something tangible, something perceptible. It was a smell. She could smell an odour and it was foul. It smelt musty and of sweat, cigarettes, alcohol and old clothes. She’d smelt it before and she knew exactly when and where. It was the stale smell of Daniel Boyd.

  “Dad, he’s nearby,” said Carla.

  “He’s nearby and he means me harm.”

  “Who is?”

  “Daniel Boyd, the one who killed Ben Walker, he’s coming to get me.”

  Richard tightened his grip on his daughter’s hand as they continued towards the entrance of the building.

  “Don’t worry,” said her father.

  “If he’s here I’ll look after you,” he added as the two of them tailgated a group of businessmen as they entered the offices of The Bristol Post.

  Chapter one hundred and thirty seven

  Outside the Stag and Hounds

  Temple Way, Bristol

  11.18am

  Tuesday 19th June

  Boyd walked away from the side of the pub. He needed to get closer to the entrance of the offices. If he was going to get a clear view of the girl, he needed to be nearer.

  He knew that when he saw her, he wouldn’t have much time. Temple Way was a busy part of Bristol on a dual carriageway which was one of the main arteries in and out of the city centre. He had one shot at getting things right. He would distract her, grab her and pull her around the back of the building where there was a quiet lane, in which he could make sure she wouldn’t repeat a word of what happened that night in Badock’s Wood.

  He edged closer to the offices, with his hood over his head. He had to be sure no one recognised him, as the description given by his murdered victim was spot on. It was so accurate that Boyd was nervous of anyone who glanced in his direction.

  As he got nearer to the offices he saw a group of suits. Five stereotypical business types, carrying briefcases and computer bags slung over their shoulders.

  Then he spotted the couple walking a few feet behind them.

  He stopped in his tracks.

  He was less that fifteen metres away and he recognised her in an instant. She looked exactly the same as she did the day he last saw her in the woods and she looked identical to the picture in the newspaper.

  Now was the time, the time to carry out his plan. But she was with someone. He strained his eyes to see who it could be. It couldn’t be a boyfriend, he looked far too old.

  “Shit, that must her father,” he said under his breath.

  There was no way he could carry out his plan, no way at all. He stopped feet away from the revolving doors as the suits entered the building, directly followed by Carla and her father.

  “Shit, fuck….shit, shit,” he cursed to himself. Everything had gone exactly to plan, until now. He couldn’t stick around. He had to get away. He needed a friend, someone who could keep him safe, someone who could hide him until things calmed down.

  He knew exactly where to go. He turned back towards the Stag and Hounds and ran awkwardly towards Old Market Street and a rank of bus stops.

  He didn’t have to wait long until the number forty nine pulled up. He jumped aboard, paid the fare and sat at the back of the bus.
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br />   He was heading to Jarrett’s Builders Merchants, the last place he’d worked before he’d upped sticks and disappeared to Cornwall. He desperately hoped that Stanley, the only man who ever seemed to care about him, still worked there.

  Chapter one hundred and thirty eight

  The Bristol Post reception

  11.23am

  Tuesday 19th June

  Carla and Richard had been patiently waiting whilst the flustered receptionist dealt with the short tempered business man who was clearly the man in charge of the other four men standing behind him.

  “The meeting was definitely arranged for eleven thirty,” argued the bald-headed fifty something man wearing a smart pinstriped suit.

  The receptionist dialled another number and looked perplexed.

  “We wouldn’t have taken the train all the way from London for the fun of it now, would we?”

  Richard felt sorry for the girl who was trying her best to help the man.

  Eventually she replaced the receiver.

  “Mr Dreyfuss is definitely not here sir, he’s in a meeting all day. He’s away in London.”

  “London…..London,” shouted the bald man, “….what the hell is he doing in London, when he is supposed to be meeting with us?”

  “I’ll find out for you sir.”

  The receptionist was back on the phone asking more questions.

  “He has a meeting with Lloyds Bank at eleven thirty…..sir,” the receptionist told him nervously.

  “Lloyds Bank……London?” the bald man was now shouting at the top of his voice and his angry words echoed around the marble walls of the reception area.

  He abruptly turned to one of his ‘yes’ men and demanded that he checked his diary.

  The ‘yes’ man pulled out his smart phone and started poking frantically at the screen. He looked red faced at the bald man and nervously spoke.

  “Your online diary says the meeting was booked to take place at Lloyds sir, Threadneedle Street, in your office….sir.”

  “You mean to say we’ve traipsed all the way to Bristol when the meeting was in London, in my bloody office?”

  The ‘yes’ man nodded nervously. The bald man looked embarrassed. The mix up had clearly been his fault.

  He looked at the girl, smiled and appeared humiliated at the same time.

  “Well I guess these things happen from time to time, we’d better be on our way.”

  The bald man scurried away along with his colleagues. The receptionist let out a sigh of relief as the last of the five men disappeared through the revolving doors and back towards the train station.

  “Can I help you?” asked the girl as she looked at Richard who had just stepped up to the desk.

  He was about to speak when the girl looked at Carla. The colour drained from her face when she saw his daughter standing alongside him.

  She seemed more flustered now than when she did with the angry bankers.

  Her voice was unsteady as she spoke.

  “You’ve come to see Ian Lester,” said the girl, not asking, but making a statement of fact.

  Both Richard and Carla nodded.

  Like the others who’d either read the story in the newspaper, or had viewed the video online, she’d seen the picture of Carla’s face. In her case she’d seen it only thirty minutes earlier when she had read the story in yesterday’s paper which had been lying around reception. She’d heard about the story the day before, but her computer went offline last night so she was unable to watch the clips. After seeing the report so recently the picture of the girl was fresh in her mind.

  She grappled with her phone and at the same time looked up Lester’s number on The Post’s internal directory.

  The receptionist turned away from Richard and Carla as she held her hand over the receiver and spoke quietly so as not to be heard. She replaced the phone and turned back to the father and daughter and told them to take a seat as Ian would be down shortly.

  Richard and Carla hardly had a chance to sit down before Ian Lester walked out of the lift and hurriedly made his way to where they were sitting.

  “Hi, I’m Ian Lester,” he said as he offered his hand, first to the man and then to the teenaged girl.

  When he looked at Carla it was as if he was seeing a ghost. She was the part of the puzzle which he’d been determined to help solve. He knew it was the same girl who’d been in the picture, the one that had mysteriously appeared in the back of Markland Garraway’s novel.

  Lester felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck as his hand made contact with the girl’s. He shuddered as they shook hands and she could sense his nervousness. He let go of her clammy hand.

  Ian Lester wasn’t usually a man who was lost for words, but this morning he was flustered and wasn’t sure what to say.

  It was Richard who spoke first.

  “We’ve travelled from Darlington, we left first thing, so on top of everything else, you can imagine my daughter and I are rather tired.”

  “Sorry, how rude of me, can I get you something, a coffee or a tea?”

  “A coffee would be great,” said Richard and Carla nodded.

  Lester jumped up and trotted over to the receptionist and asked her to organise some drinks for his guests.

  As Lester was organising refreshments Carla had an impulsive urge to run away.

  Lester returned and sat opposite them. He pulled a note pad and pen from his bag which was slung over his shoulder.

  “Can I take your names, please?”

  Richard and Carla told Lester who they were as he wrote down their names on his pad. He was trying to remain calm, but his shaking hand made his handwriting look like a spider had run across the page after dragging itself through a blot of wet ink.

  “You’ve driven down from Darlington?” asked Lester, as he tapped his pen against his chin.

  “Yes, we moved there a few years ago. My job required us to relocate,” replied Richard.

  “Just your job……..nothing else?” asked Lester.

  Richard shook his head.

  “OK, well first of all, thank you for contacting me, but as this is a police matter I need to let them know you are here. I will speak with Detective Matthews later, he’s the one heading the murder case, but first of all I would like you to speak with someone else.”

  There was an awkward silence as Lester made a phone call. He stood up and walked towards the revolving doors as he waited for his call to be answered.

  “Hi, it’s Lester……….yes. She’s here, the girl is here in reception with her father. He’s driven her down from Darlington……….yes that’s right Darlington. Her name is Carla Price……….and that’s all I’ve asked. When can you get here? ……….Oh, OK. Yes I can bring them to you. Where are you, at work or at home? ………..OK, we’ll be there soon.”

  Lester ended the call and walked back to the Carla and her father.

  “I’ve just spoken with DCI Garraway, I’m sure you know who he is. He would like to speak with you, he’d prefer to meet you here……….. but he’s unable to come to us, so I need to take you to him.”

  “To Markland Garraway?” asked Carla.

  “Yes, he would like to meet you here, but unfortunately……….”

  “Unfortunately he doesn’t walk well, he’s on crutches,” interrupted Carla.

  “Yes……….how do you know?”

  “I just do,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

  Carla recalled the vision of him. The one she’d seen in Darlington Railway Station earlier in the month.

  “If you’d both like to follow me, my car isn’t far away.”

  Carla and Richard stood up and followed Lester to his car.

  There was silence as the three of them made their way to the car park. Lester’s car was parked just feet away from Richard’s.

  Richard sat in the back, next to Carla as Ian drove to Markland Garraway’s home.

  Fifteen minutes later Lester was knocking on Garraway’s door.
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  Carla could see a man through the frosted glass of the front door, slowly making his way along the hall. The door opened and Garraway stood hunched in the doorway. Carla’s eyes met with his. Richard and Lester watched as tears welled in both the young girl’s and the detective’s eyes. Carla moved towards him and instinctively threw her arms around him and cried. Garraway winced with pain as the young girl held onto him. He patted her on the back in a reassuring manner. Carla stood back from Garraway and apologised.

  “Please come in,” said Garraway as he stood to one side to let the three of them into his house.

  The four of them sat in his lounge.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time to speak to you Carla,” said Garraway.

  “I know……….I should have come forward straight away……….but I was scared. You know, I should never have been there that night. I should have stayed at home.”

  “But if you did stay at home, that young woman would have probably died too……….it was you that saved her life.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know, because I saw what you did that night, how you stopped that fight……….and the good news is, Liz Mason woke up recently……….she’s out of the coma.”

  Carla began to cry. Her father put his arm around her, then looked at Garraway.

  “If you know so much about what happened that night, why haven’t you caught the killer?”

  “That’s a very good question Mr Price, and it’s something which is difficult to explain, but in a nutshell it all came to me in a dream.”

  Richard looked at him warily.

  “The same kind of dreams I imagine your daughter has been having,” he added.

  Carla looked at her father and feigned a smile.

  “Carla, I think you should tell me everything that’s happened. Everything from the very beginning until the moment Ben Walker died. And then, I need you to tell me what happened after that night. I’d like to know what happened to you……….I think we have a lot in common.”