Tanners Dell: Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror

by Sarah England

  The doctor shrugged. “Honestly? We don’t know. Keep talking to him…there’s nothing physiologically wrong that we can identify so hopefully it won’t be long before he does.”

  “Right, well I’ll be back as soon as I can – later this afternoon.”

  Before leaving, Becky had a word with Anna. “You will ring me if there is any further deterioration in his condition, won’t you? I won’t be long. I really do have to go out for a few hours. I don’t want to but there’s no choice.”

  Anna nodded, permitting her face to relax into the tiniest reassuring smile. “Try not to worry, Becky. I will take good care of him.”

  Becky nodded. “Thank you.” Frankly, there was so much that had to be done today she was going to have to trust the woman. And instinct told her she could.

  Right, the to-do list as quickly as possible, then. First there were her belongings to collect from home: Mark was staying on and buying her out of the mortgage. He’d messaged to say he was going to change the locks later today and the deadline was lunchtime to collect her stuff. After that the finances would be left to solicitors. She could do without this right now, she really could, but it was best to get it done, and anyway, a person could only survive for so long with one overnight bag.

  Once at the terrace she and Mark had once shared, Becky methodically packed her clothes, CDs, books and personal possessions. It filled just two suitcases. Two suitcases for fifteen years of marriage – was that really it? She clicked them shut and lugged them downstairs before, with one last sweeping glance, saying a silent goodbye into the dark hallway and closing the door behind her.

  Half an hour later she was standing in Noel’s light and airy loft apartment in Leeds Docklands. It had been unbelievably kind of him to let her have the spare room for as long as she needed it. She wouldn’t push it, though – Noel was a lovely person but he was also an essentially private man and she would find a rented flat just as soon as she could. Whatever would she have done without him, she thought, dragging her suitcases into the spare room?

  God, she was knackered! A tidal wave of fatigue washed over her and she sank onto the bed. Oh for just a couple of minutes couldn’t she rest? A ray of sunshine spread across the soft, white duvet and she flopped back. What harm would it do to just lie here for a few precious minutes? Every muscle ached, her whole body heavy, eyelids dropping…Then she’d ring Drummersgate and then Toby to find out if he’d tracked down Jes and then Celeste’s husband to see if he needed any help…. And anyway, it was just for a few minutes…

  When she woke up again the light had gone and she was stiff with cold.

  Oh no! Oh hell! What time was it?

  On the bedside cabinet where she’d left it several hours ago, her mobile lay silently. Puzzled, she grabbed it, realising with a stab of dismay that it was turned off. How odd! She switched it back on and listened to the long list of messages while frantically rushing around drawing curtains and switching on lights. The first was from Toby Harbour. Would she be free to go to Woodsend with him to doorstep Cora Dean tomorrow afternoon?

  “Count me in!” she said into the messaging service. “I’ve just got to sort out some leave for the next few days. Where do we meet? Please call me back as soon as you can.”

  The next was from Noel. She called back straight away but there was no answer and was just about to try again when he rang. Appalled, she listened to the description of Michael who, only a few weeks before had been her salvation. Yes, of course she would phone Nora as soon as possible. Tomorrow night wouldn’t be a moment too soon. She had important news for him too…

  “Later,” said Noel. “Let’s sort this out first.”

  Next she dialled the DRI. Anna had gone off duty now but the nurse in charge assured her Callum was responding to the new antibiotics and his temperature had come down.

  “Oh thank God. Look I’ll be there in less than an hour. I’ve got a few important calls to make first; then I’ll have a quick shower and get a taxi – I won’t be long.”

  Grabbing some clean clothes out of a suitcase she dived into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day. Good, at last there was progress.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bridesmoor Village

  Wednesday afternoon, 29th December 2015

  Cora Dean peeked through the kitchen blinds at the couple walking up her driveway and scowled. Oh no! And just when she was in her dressing gown with a TV dinner in the microwave!

  When the sharp rap echoed around her hallway she shouted crossly, “Hold on - I shan’t be a minute.” Whoever could it be at this hour when it was going dark? Fancy having to go upstairs and get dressed again now; and the dinner spoiled.

  After five full minutes she opened the door, making sure to keep them on the porch. “Yes?”

  “Have we got the right address for Cora Dean?” said the woman. Pleasant enough face, early forties, needed her roots doing.

  “Who wants ’er?”

  “DCI Harbour,” said the young man, stepping forwards a little too presumptuously for her liking.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Cora, this is a friendly visit concerning a little girl who’s missing in the area,” said the woman. “Her mother’s in hospital and I’m her nurse. I said I’d try to find her daughter for her and I asked Detective Harbour here to help me.”

  Cora narrowed her eyes. The man’s foot was partially in the open doorway and while she was being distracted by the woman’s nice talk, he was ready to push himself into the house. This was about something else – something they weren’t saying yet.

  She thought quickly – Rick had only just left for the pub and wouldn’t be back ’til late; Paul and Ida would be at home at this time, as would Derek and Kath. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to find out what these people wanted? Information was power, after all. Reluctantly she stepped back and let them in. “Only for a few minutes, mind. I’ve got me tea on.”

  She showed them into her front room and switched on a bar of the electric fire. “Now then, what’s this about? I doubt as I can ’elp you.”

  The young man perched on the edge of a chair while the woman, who introduced herself as Becky, told her a story, which she could not have articulated more accurately herself. That her granddaughter, Ruby, was the issue of her own son and daughter she knew. That Ruby had been ritually abused she also knew, although she was careful not to react to or endorse the allegations. What was news though, was that Ruby had given birth to Alice. She’d thought the child was the result of yet another unfortunate dalliance of Paul’s with some tart from the village. Averting her gaze, she did a brief mental calculation …Ruby could have been no more than fourteen, then.

  Nor did she know about Ruby’s mental health – only that she’d attacked Paul with a knife a couple of years ago and been ‘banged up’. The DID diagnosis, and how she’d used it to protect herself, was a revelation. And a shock. Did that mean she might recover memories and spill them out to those in authority?

  Behind a mask of indifference Cora’s mind worked swiftly: if anyone believed the girl now that she was receiving expert medical treatment, they might come investigating and the family could be exposed. And when they knew their backs were against the wall, they would call on Ida to stop it. And Ida would know it was Cora who had stabbed them in the back. A familiar, old fear flickered inside her: she couldn’t go through that kind of madness and terror again, not ever.

  “What a load of baloney your mad client’s told you,” she said. “You’ve no evidence for any of it. Now if you don’t mind…”

  Becky raised an eyebrow. “Actually there’s quite a bit of evidence.”

  “Ruby’s a certified lunatic – in the nick for attempted murder.”

  “Is this your granddaughter you’re talking about? Not to mention another granddaughter, Bella – no doubt also a certified lunatic?”

  “Ruby tried to kill my son and she’s been sectioned.
That’s it.”

  “Is it?” Becky listed all the incidents which formed the basis for circumstantial evidence, and then began to describe what Ruby went through on a daily basis – her hundreds of alter personalities, the drugs, the memories of ritual abuse that were so bad her own mind could not face up to them. And now Alice would be going through the same thing. She listed all the people who had died or become diseased, and how a lady doctor lay critically ill as they spoke – everyone in fact, who had come anywhere near this beleaguered village. On top of that she added a bluff – the photographs on the detective’s mobile phone – the detective who was already telling his story as he lay recovering in hospital.

  Cora’s face registered no emotion; while the clock ticked solidly on the mantelpiece amid her miniature ornaments.

  “I can’t help you.”

  “You did the right thing once, remember?” said Toby. “You helped a young gypsy girl escape from your late husband’s satanic cult.”

  Cora put a hand to her throat. A weak link, a weak moment, she should have let her die. “How did you…?”

  “Never mind how I know. I’m giving you the chance to save Alice from a horrific fate and redeem yourself into the bargain. We will out this sect and I am sure you would rather be on the right side of the law, so I suggest you save us all a lot of time and tell us what you know. We have photographs, Cora, and we have a police officer’s testimony.”

  She shook her head. Terror had knotted her stomach into a tight ball. If she said a single word…

  “There’s nothing,” she said firmly. “Now if you don’t mind?” She went to stand by the door, her mind and mouth closed. As the couple passed she averted her gaze and silently let them out into an evening already glinting with frost.

  With the door closed behind them, she walked back into the living room in a daze and sat down. Think, think, think…They had nothing. They were bluffing. And Alice would be fine. No one in this village would talk to those two do-gooders, anyway. This secret had been locked in for the best part of fifty years and would die with her boys: anyone who divulged even a fragment of gossip or innuendo regretted it for the rest of their life.

  And yet Ruby had escaped and so had Rosella. Rosella – was she still alive and had she come back to point the finger? Surely not or the whole lot of those gypsies would suffer. They’d had warning enough last time. Ruby though – poor, dear damaged Ruby – did the darkness not attack her? Why was she able to talk to the medical staff? How the hell had she survived when no one else had?

  And all those babies – never knowing whose they were or how Lucas acquired them – and Paul taking over so the whole nasty business carried on; the coven now protected by people in high places and something even more powerful than the lot of them put together – something that was so frightening she couldn’t face it again. Ever. She had seen Ida once – really seen her. The day after Rosella escaped from Tanners Dell, Ida had paid her a visit; and after that the creeping darkness had never left, appearing to know her every move. There was no way out of this…

  Alice! What about Alice, though? Was she Paul and Ruby’s like these people said? Her stomach curled with revulsion. Curse the day she’d ever met Lucas Dean.

  Silent fury began to bubble and pop in her veins as she sat brooding, stone still, while the clock ticked on and on and on… Her whole life she’d kept her tongue…

  Suddenly the blind rage she’d tamped down for the best part of fifty years erupted. Cora bolted upstairs so fast she almost tripped onto the landing, tore into the spare bedroom and flung back the doors to the girls’ old wardrobe. There, right at the back in a box of toys was a stuffed rabbit with grimy fur and knots of cotton where its eyes should be. With wildly trembling fingers she ripped open the carefully sewn up pocket at the back and pulled out a key, before flying downstairs and out into the night air.

  The couple she’d ejected from her home just minutes before, were still parked up and she waved at them frantically as she ran down the drive, still in her slippers.

  Becky buzzed down the window, her eyebrows somewhere in her hair line.

  “This Friday, New Year’s Day, there’ll be a black mass,” she blurted out, handing them an intricately engraved key. “Underneath Tanners Dell Mill. They start at three in t’ morning – you might catch ’em at it if you’re clever and keep quiet. And you,” here she glared at Toby, “for God’s sake don’t tell Ernest Scutts or you won’t know what’s ’it you. Watch your backs. You don’t know what you’re dealing with – you really don’t.”

  “Thank you,” said Becky, taking the key. “Anyone know you’ve got this?”

  She shook her head, already backing up the drive. “I’ve had it forty-three years and he never found it, though he took a hammer to the place looking. There were two – ancient contraptions they are – but this is the one they haven’t got.”

  She turned and ran back into the house, locking and bolting the door behind her. Maybe this one last act would save her soul? But before the darkness came for her, which it undoubtedly would, it might be best not to leave that to chance.

  There was a drawer full of Tramadol, Dothiepin and Paracetamol upstairs, that she’d kept for just such an emergency. Hopefully God would forgive her.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  For a moment Becky and Toby sat in the car staring at the tarmac. Did that really just happen?

  To their right stood a small, stone church, its graveyard somewhat neglected, with overgrown grass and wind-beaten headstones devoid of flowers. There were no posters or service announcements on the noticeboard and weeds sprouted through the cracked path.

  “Doesn’t look particularly well attended, does it?” Toby observed.

  Becky squinted up at the spire. “It’s quite old – Norman, I’d say with that square tower.”

  “I don’t know much about churches to be honest.”

  “I’ve started to find them fascinating. Oh look…there’s a boy standing there.”

  They both looked over to where a young boy had appeared among the older graves towards the back. “He doesn’t look more than about eight or nine,” said Becky. “Bit too young to be wandering around on his own, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I think there’s something wrong with his eyes.”

  He’d started to walk towards them and they both realised at the same time that he was blind, as he tap-tap-tapped his way down the church path, through the lych-gate and out onto the lane.

  “I wonder why Cora changed her mind like that?” Toby said, after the child had disappeared from view.

  “Very peculiar,” Becky agreed. “She was shit-scared though, wasn’t she? Do you reckon she’s terrified of her own son?”

  “I’d say that’s highly likely.”

  Becky turned the key over and over in her hands. “And that’s what’s kept her silent all these years, I suppose. I’m guessing this spare key was her insurance policy.”

  “She should’ve legged it and taken her kids.”

  “I agree. But then there’s the black witchcraft, Toby. You haven’t come across it yet, have you?”

  “That’s what Jes were telling me about last night. I’m still having difficulty with it… I mean, I think Jes must’ve been poisoned or drugged or summat -–there’s an explanation for everything in the end.”

  Becky smiled sadly. “I wish there was. Anyway – big brave soldier – you go to that black mass at 3am on your own then, because you might be alright with it but I’m telling you it scares the crap out of me.”

  Toby sighed heavily. “Trouble is, all our evidence put together is only hearsay unless Callum wakes up and testifies; and even that’s tenuous if the Deans employ a good lawyer. They’ve got three professionals already to discredit everything we say; and that’s if it ever got as far as court, which I doubt because I’m guessing this village is in lockdown – they’re all petrified of the Deans.”

  “There’s no choice but to catch them in the a
ct, then, is there? Do you think you could trust Sid Hall with this?”

  “Possibly.” He looked thoughtful before adding, “And a few others.”

  “Oh? You’ll have to be one hundred percent on that.”

  He smiled tightly. “I am.”

  “Okay, well…3am on New Year’s Day it is, then. How shall we play it? There’s isn’t a lot of time.”

  “That’s probably for the best. Let me ring you when I’ve thought it through. Meanwhile, it’d be an idea to find out exactly where this mill is. You up for a quick scout round?”

  “Okay.” She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “I’ll have to get back to the DRI soon, though – would you give me a lift please or I’ll be really late?”

  “Aye, course I will.” He started up the engine and began to turn the car round. “Best we park out of sight – bit further down under the trees.”

  ***

  The River Whisper gurgled softly, lapping and swilling at the bank where debris and branches caught and snagged its flow.

  They tramped along the path in silence.

  After about ten minutes, Becky said, “There should be a track up towards the mill soon. Up through the woods?”

  “I haven’t seen one - it’s just solid thicket. Let’s keep walking.”

  Eventually the unmistakeable roar of fresh water bounding over rocks could be heard. “Is that a waterfall?” Becky asked.

  “Sound like it. Let’s keep going ’til we get to it and work upstream from there.”

  “Okay, it’s odd there hasn’t been a track up from here, though. We’ll have to find another way in from the village end, I suppose.”

  “Yes, we need more than one exit, for sure.”

  “It’s bloody freezing. I wish I’d brought gloves.”

  Then all at once a weir was in front of them, with hundreds of gallons of fresh water racing into the river below; the bank alongside steep, muddy and covered in dead bracken and brambles.