The Truth Healer: A Riveting Spiritual Psychic Thriller

by J Gabriel-Smith

  ‘Quick Tom, let’s follow him!’ Lucy directed impatiently.

  ‘But we do not know for sure that is Laurenz Felbiger…it could be a friend or acquaintance.’

  ‘Just follow him anyway!…if he has anything to do with Laurenz Felbiger, it could lead us somewhere significant. Nothing else is happening at the house at the moment.’

  ‘Ok ok, but I need to stay back a bit so he doesn’t see us.’ Tom conceded, starting the ignition.

  They followed him to a supermarket and watched him get out of his car.

  ‘Shall we follow him?’ Tom asked, starting to fluster.

  ‘Yes quick.’ Lucy urged, already starting to get out of the car.

  They weaved in and out of the aisles, watching the man buying food provisions, disposable bbq trays, six bottles of water, a kettle, and plastic cups and plates.

  ‘He must be going on some sort of picnic or holiday.’ Lucy whispered.

  ‘Quick, let’s get back to the car as he’s going to pay now.’ Tom urged, grabbing Lucy’s arm.

  They watched as the man went to the cash point, before getting back into his car. They again followed closely behind as he approached, what looked like, some large lock up garages.

  ‘Tom, drive over there, we can peek through that gap.’ Lucy instructed, gesturing to a slat that had been removed from a solid grey metal fence.

  They both got out and Tom peered through. ‘Can you see anything?’ Lucy asked eagerly.

  ‘Yes ….he is opening up one of the garages….there appears to be a campervan inside.’

  ‘Is he getting in it?’

  ‘No, he’s just unloading the provisions into it…..Oh hang on, wait, he’s shutting the garage again and walking back to his car.’

  ‘Quick, get back in the car then….we can’t lose him.’ Lucy panicked.

  Tom jumped back in the car, with both of them putting their heads down as the man’s car passed them. After a few seconds, they started to follow him again.

  ‘Where’s he going now?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘He seems to be heading back to where we came from.’

  They followed the man’s car until they were back at his house again, and watched him go back inside. Tom parked up again opposite and turned off the ignition. ‘I’m not sure what we can do now with him inside the house.’

  ‘Let’s wait, as if he was putting food in the campervan, he may be going on holiday today….the food would go off otherwise.’ Lucy remarked.

  ‘That’s what I love about you…always the pragmatist! Let’s hope you are right.’

  They waited a further thirty minutes outside his house until the man reappeared carrying a large holdall. This time, however, he was with a teenage boy. The man muttered something to the boy, before they both got into the car and drove off.

  ‘They must be going away….why would he have that large bag otherwise?’ Lucy observed.

  ‘It looks like it. So what should we do now?’ Tom asked, fearful of her suggestion.

  ‘I think we are going to have to try and get in the house. There could be evidence in there. Names of people, places or even photos incriminating him.’ Lucy replied, her inner voice convincing her that she had to do it.

  ‘I don’t know Lucy…. it is a big risk. What if he comes back?’

  ‘Well it looked like he was going away, so I think we will be safe. We have each other so one of us can act as a look out?’

  ‘Ok…. it doesn’t look like I am going to talk you out of it.’ Tom replied relenting.

  ‘Here you go?’ Lucy said, pulling out some gloves from the glove compartment.

  ‘What are these for?’ Tom asked bewildered.

  ‘We can’t risk leaving any finger prints in there.’

  ‘What?!….Oh come on Luce, we’re not going to be on a most wanted list!’

  ‘You never know what’s going to happen, and I’d don’t want him having any trace of us in his house.’

  ‘Ok…give them here.’

  They slowly got out of the car, carefully looking around to check that no neighbours were peering out of their windows. After casually sauntering up to the front door, they took one last glance around, before quickly walking to the side gate and letting themselves in around the back. They first tried the back door and then the side door, but they were both locked.

  ‘Damn, what shall we do now?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Here what’s this?’ Tom said, pointing to a wooden hatch door in the ground, that had a bin over the top of it. ‘Quick, help me move this.’ he said, pushing his foot and hip against it.

  Once it was out of the way, Tom pulled the hatch handle and it opened up to find some kind of cellar.

  Lucy grimaced. ‘It looks dark and grim down there…do you think it leads up into the house?’

  ‘I don’t know, but there is only one way to find out.’ Tom replied, making his way down the cobwebby dark concrete steps.

  ‘Be careful Tom…call back to me if you can get in the house.’ Lucy whispered.

  After a few seconds Lucy heard Tom’s voice ‘It’s ok…I’ve got in.’

  ‘Ok, I’m coming.’ Lucy called through, before carefully making her way down the steps and following him into the house.

  As Lucy appeared in the lounge, Tom reappeared from one of the bedrooms. ‘There’s nothing in there….only clothes and what you’d expect.’

  ‘Have you looked around the lounge yet?’ Lucy asked, walking over to a mahogany cabinet.

  ‘No, I thought I’d start in the other rooms first…you stay in here, and I’ll search the rest.’

  Lucy started rummaging through drawers and cupboards, before working her away around the coffee table and under the sofas. ‘Sshh Tom, I can hear something.’

  Tom came rushing back through from the bathroom. ‘What is it?’

  Lucy put her finger to her lips to hush him. ‘I heard a bang…I think it came from through there.’

  Tom gulped nervously. ‘I’ve just been in there…it was ok then.’ He slowly made his way to the door and poked his head into the kitchen, before letting out a sigh. ‘Phew!…it’s ok, an empty bottle has just fallen on to the floor. The window has been left open, so a blust of wind must have knocked it over.’

  Lucy clutched her chest. ‘Thank goodness for that…I nearly had a heart attack!’

  ‘So did I!…..have you found anything in here?’

  ‘No, nothing…how about you?’

  ‘No, nothing untoward.’ Tom replied, shaking his head.

  ‘There must be something.’ Lucy said desperately.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like we have anything, but maybe he wouldn’t have any evidence out on display in his main house. Maybe it is at the lock up garage we followed him to.’ Tom suggested, carefully straightening up a photo frame that Lucy had knocked.’

  ‘Yes maybe…..come on, let’s get out of here quickly.’

  As they made their way back down into the cellar, Lucy used the torch on her phone to guide the way. The torch shone on various gardening equipment, cardboard boxes filled with old toys, and some bikes which weren’t a lot of interest, but just as she was about to climb the steps out of the house, she noticed a cardboard box filled with some clothes. It caught her eye, as a colourful spotted garment was sitting on the top of it. As she delved deeper into the box, she could see various children’s clothes, and mainly all younger girls clothes.

  ‘Tom look at this.’ Lucy said, handing him a little pink t-shirt with love heart prints on it. Her hand was now shaking. The house had no sign of family pictures with little girls in, and there was no sign of a little girl’s bedroom, so why else would he have these clothes here? Maybe they had just found what they were looking for, and what they had suspected they would find in this house.

  The realisation set in that the item of clothing could belong to a child that had been taken. They both stared at each other knowing that this was a significant find, and their responsibility to follow this through, had just grown t
enfold.

  ‘See if there is…….’ Tom broke off, as he couldn’t bring himself to say the words

  Lucy knew what he was going to ask. She turned and hesitated before leaning in further to see if the outfit Rosie was wearing when she went missing was in the box, but she couldn’t see it. She wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

  ‘No, I can’t see it…but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t here.’ Lucy said.

  ‘No, I know. Right, let’s get out of here now…. it’s making me feel sick in here with it’s damp sordidness.’

  ‘Hang on Tom, let me have a quick look around over there.’ Lucy stalled, looking up from the box.

  Lucy shone her torch around the rest of the cellar and spotted a workbench area in the corner. There were open boxes filled with various tools and screws, old cd’s, dvd’s and books. She looked behind the box of books that were under the bench, and behind it was a black box file.

  ‘Wait, what’s this?’ she said, pulling it out and trying to open it.‘Oh bloody hell!…it’s locked…quick, see if you can see a key up there.’

  Tom scoured around the dusty shelves. ‘No, there is nothing up here…come on leave it Luce, I’m feeling very uneasy in here now.’

  ‘I have to see what is in .…’ Lucy suddenly stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh no…what’s that noise?’

  ‘It sounded like a car horn.’ Tom replied, panicking.

  ‘Quick Tom, go back and look out of the lounge window!’

  Tom sped up the stairs to the house, and crouched down as he peered out of the front window.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’

  He ran back downstairs to Lucy… ‘Quick quick, the guy has come back…we have to go now!’ he shouted, pulling at Lucy’s arm.

  Lucy scrambled to her feet ‘I’m going to take this with us.’

  ‘We can’t Luce…. are you mad!….what if he catches us, or sees it is missing, he will know someone is onto him.’

  ‘I don’t care, I have to see what’s inside it. We can always sneak it back in if we have a chance, hopefully he has just nipped back as he’s forgotten something,’

  ‘Come on then give it here,’ Tom demanded, shoving it under his arm.

  Both Tom and Lucy crept up the stairs, carefully shutting the hatch door behind them and placing the bin back on top of it. They tiptoed around to the side gate and hid behind a bush, while they watched the man walk up to the front door. As soon as they heard it bang shut, they ran as fast as they could to their car, threw the box file onto the back seat and sped off.

  ‘Thank God we made it out of there in one piece!… I’ve never been so frightened in my life!’ Tom exclaimed, looking back in his rear view mirror to check no-one was following.

  ‘I know it was terrifying…but we did it!.. and look what we have found! It definitely was not right to have all of those little girls clothes in that cellar. Why would he have them?…it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to get back to our hotel now.’

  ‘Me too…but we did it Tom, we did it!’ Lucy rejoiced, grabbing his hand.

  As soon as they were safely back in their room, Lucy sat on the floor trying to break open the file.

  ‘Hang on, we don’t want to break it if we can, especially if we need to put it back,’ Tom said, ever the voice of reason. ‘Here, pass it here and I’ll try with your nail file.’

  Tom tried for over twenty minutes until finally it popped open. Lucy locked eyes with Tom and took a deep breath. ‘I’m scared to look inside now.’

  ‘Do you want me to look?’ Tom asked.

  ‘No, it’s ok, I’ll look.’ Lucy replied, pushing up the lid.

  The box was full of dividers with lots of papers behind each one. She carefully flicked through each one until she reached the back of the box.

  ‘Oh no, it just looks like bills. I can’t believe we went to all that trouble.’ Lucy groaned. She pulled out bill after bill, and threw them on the floor until the file was empty. ‘Great, so we have nothing further to go on.’ she declared defeated, slumping back against the bed.

  Tom put his arm around her, ruffling her hair and kissing her forehead. ‘It’s ok baby, we will keep searching.’.

  As he did, his eyes homed in, on what looked like, a corner of a picture. He leant forward, still holding Lucy, and pulled the bill that was covering it to one side, to reveal the full image.

  ‘Luce….. look at this.’ he said slowly, picking up the photo.

  ‘Look at wha….’ she broke off as she looked at the picture Tom had revealed underneath. It was a picture of a little girl…one that Lucy recognised.

  ‘Oh Tom, no!’ Lucy blurted out, tears welling up in her eyes …‘ I, I know who that little girl is.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Tom asked, dreading what she was going to say.

  ‘It’s….it’s is Anna Gerber….the girl I told you about that went missing six years ago from the campsite in France. The same campsite where I think Rosie was taken from.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes completely. I have seen lots of pictures of her on the internet….and……’ Lucy let out a gasp.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look.’ Lucy said, pointing at the photo.

  ‘What?’ he asked, trying to absorb every detail of the photo.

  ‘Look……look at the top she has on in the photo.’

  Tom studied the top and slowly mouthed ….‘A pink top with hearts on it.’

  ‘Like the one we found in the cellar.’ they both said in unison.

  ‘What should we do now Tom?…. this is so bad…maybe we should go to the police now….the evidence is here.’

  ‘I know we should, but I’m worried that if the police start coming in at this point, word will spread around, and the gang may go further underground. In particular, the one where Rosie is being held. By doing it our way, we may find more leads for them to be caught more easily.’

  ‘I feel bad though that we have found evidence that Anna Gerber was taken by these people, and we are not telling the Swedish authorities.’

  ‘I know, but we will do very soon…once we have further proof.’ Tom said, clutching Lucy’s hand.

  ‘Is there anything on the back of the photo?’ Lucy asked, looking back at it.

  Tom turned it over and felt his mouth go dry. ‘It says ….Swedish, aged seven, July 2009.’

  Lucy’s eyes started to well up as she felt every cell of her body recoil in disgust. ‘It makes them sound like cattle. So that is all they care about….kidnapping them to order no doubt.’

  ‘It looks that way.’ Tom replied quietly.

  ‘Is there anything else in there?’ Lucy asked, half reluctant to look.

  ‘I’ll have a look.’ Tom said, emptying the box out onto the floor.

  They both carefully looked in between each one, both frightened of seeing Rosie’s face staring back at them.

  ‘There are so many of them.’ Lucy said despondently, looking at the numerous pictures of little girls laid out in front of them. Each photo was labelled with their nationalities, ages and a date on them.

  Tom sat with his head in his hands. ‘These bastards!…these filthy predatory bastards!’

  ‘I know Tom….how are there people like this out there?…I just don’t understand.’

  ‘These photos date back over the last ten years….and they are from all over the world. To think of how many children they have taken is terrifying.’

  ‘There are no photos of any English young girls are there?…. maybe that is why the police didn’t find more evidence linking here with Rosie’s kidnapping. So does this then mean that Laurenz Felbiger isn’t linked to Rosie’s abduction?’ Lucy said, her hope of finding a trail slowly diminishing.

  ‘Not necessarily. He is obviously linked to Anna Gerber’s abduction and these other poor innocent girls in these photos, so he may still be involved.’

  ‘What’s that photo there?’ Lucy asked, pointing at a picture of three men hold
ing a glass in the air. They immediately recognised the one in the middle, with his heavily stubbled face.

  ‘So do we assume that is Laurenz Felbiger as he was the man coming out of the house?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Well are any names written on the back?’

  ‘Yes…..there are the names Emil, Me, Jozsef written down with 2013 afterwards.’ Tom replied, turning it over.

  ‘Let’s check the bills and see whose name is on them, then I think it is fair to assume this is his box, and he is ‘me’ in the photo.

  Tom looked through all of the headers on top of the bills and letters. ‘Yes look …his name is on all of these documents so I think we can presume he is Laurenz Felbiger.’

  ‘Ok…so the man on the left is someone called Emil.’ Lucy stated, studying the dark haired older man with a slightly greying moustache. He was dressed casually in an embroidered looking kaftan with loose trousers.

  ‘Yes correct, and the one on the right is Jozsef.’ Tom added, looking at the slightly younger man in his early fifties with sweeping back black hair. He was smarter, wearing a roll neck, blazer jacket and trousers.

  Lucy stayed transfixed on the right face. ‘So this is Jozsef.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Tom looked over to Lucy.

  ‘Jozsef….Jozsef Halasz…..it has to be him.’ Lucy said.

  Tom gazed back at the photo ‘I guess it could be him.’

  Lucy paused. ‘I know it is him…call it women’s intuition. We were led to Laurenz’s house from the facts we gathered, and we know Jozsef Halasz is a key suspect in this whole operation. It has to be him.’

  Tom nodded ‘Yes, you are right…..so we also need to find out who this Emil is.’

  Lucy scanned the paperwork on the floor, ‘Hang on, what about these phone bills…. there maybe a number linked to him?’

  Tom leant over Lucy‘s shoulder while she ran her finger down the numerous numbers. ‘Here …he seems to have rung these three numbers a lot.’ Lucy said, gesturing for Tom to find a pen. ‘Let’s write them down and maybe Marianne can help us, as she will be able to speak their language.’