by Mark White
‘Of course I’m sure!’ insisted Cara. ‘It sounds like you’re just getting to the interesting part. What else did he get up to?’
Jennings laughed and winked at Cara, appreciating the feeling that comes when someone is genuinely interested in what you have to say. ‘Alright, keep your hair on! I was only asking. The problem was, and I’m afraid this doesn’t make for easy listening, is that Lord Byrne wasn’t happy just beating up the young lads who worked for him. He was known to take a fancy to many of them; especially the younger ones. He was married of course – etiquette demanded it of the wealthy classes in those days - but it was well known that his marriage was one of convenience. They slept in separate rooms; hardly ever saw each other, apart from formal gatherings and attending public functions. Never had any children of their own. Apparently, Edmond took great pleasure in inviting young lads in his employment up to the Hall for ‘educational lessons.’ Parents were told that their kids were being specifically selected because of their hard work; their reward being an afternoon off where they could play in the gardens and have lessons from Lord Byrne himself in how to become young gentlemen. Three or four of them would go up at a time. Little did they know what would await them when they arrived. Their excited little faces would light up when they were greeted with ice-cream and chocolates, and for a while at least, they would run around the grounds and play all manner of games that had been laid out for them. But the fun would be short lived; the prize not worth the price they would have to pay later in the day.’
Cara’s face no longer appeared so eager to hear the rest of what Jennings had to say, her mind having already made its decision as to the probable outcome of the story. But the curiosity that defined her profession stopped her short of asking him to change the subject. She sat silently, staring out of the window as the car drove closer to Shepherd’s Cross.
‘After a couple of hours playing, the children would be invited into the Hall for afternoon tea. Lord Byrne would join them and ask them questions, finding out more about each of them; getting to know them better. They’d be invited upstairs to his billiard room. But it wouldn’t be long before he’d ask one of them to join him for some ‘private tuition.’ The poor bairns; they wouldn’t have stood a chance against him. Not one of them would have been a day over twelve years old. They were like lambs to the slaughter. Sometimes he’d only choose one, sometimes he’d want to see them all in turn. The bastard did whatever he wanted to. And once he’d had his fun, he’d order them away as if they were just shit on the sole of his boot. They’d be bundled into the back of a horse and cart and taken back home to their unsuspecting parents; the abominable events of the afternoon indelibly scarred forever on their memories. As for Lord Byrne, well, he’d just move on to the next victim. They say he employed a couple of foremen to work in the mines who would handpick the kids for him. Save him the job of getting his hands dirty, so to speak.’
‘But what about the parents? Surely they would have found out what had happened when their child returned home in tears? Even a hundred years ago, people wouldn’t have put up with that kind of behaviour.’
‘You’d be surprised. Anyway, he had it all worked out. The kids were well and truly warned to hold their tongues. It was easy, really, like taking candy from a kid. Either keep your mouth shut, or both you and your feckless father would be looking for work elsewhere. And there was no work to be had elsewhere. So, what other option did they have? Bite your tongue or condemn your family to the workhouse. They’d be sent home, probably using the journey to ready themselves for lying about how much they’d enjoyed the day; how lucky they were to have been chosen out of all the other boys.’
‘I just can’t understand people like him,’ said Cara. ‘How can people be so depraved to abuse innocent children like that?’
‘I don’t know. But time hasn’t necessarily changed things for the better – the perverts are still amongst us - only the methods of grooming their victims have moved on.’
‘So what happened to Byrne? Judging by the state of Fellside Hall, I’m guessing he got his comeuppance eventually. Is there a happy end to all this?’
‘Yes and no. The abuse went on for many years; getting worse as time went by. Edmond had got himself involved with some kind of devil worship. He became fascinated by the occult; devouring any book on the subject that he could get his hands on and inviting all manner of supposed experts into his house. Even Aleister Crowley is rumoured to have paid Byrne a visit at some point. He genuinely believed that it gave him some kind of extraordinary power; an invincibility. Rumour has it that it all started off innocently enough; a few harmless gatherings with chanting and moonlight nonsense. Unfortunately, however, it didn’t take long for Edmond and the small group of followers he’d assembled to start pushing the boundaries that little bit too far. Animal sacrifices, bestiality, fornication – you name it. The peak of it seemed to coincide with the demise of the mining industry in these parts.’
Jennings continued: ‘You can’t see it from the outside, but in the middle of Fellside Hall is a small room with a round floor and tall, curved walls, cylindrical in shape. The room has only one door, and apart from a glass dome roof which covers the whole of the room, there are no windows. The first Lord Byrne, Edmond’s grandfather, had been a keen astronomer and had built the room to use as an observatory, housing within it his telescope and various pieces of stargazing equipment. Upon his death in 1870, Edmond’s father had left the Round Room, as it was aptly called, almost untouched. Like I said, he had precious little interest for anything bar women and wine. When Edmond took control of the Estate, he knew exactly what he would do with the room. He thought it would make a perfect setting to indulge his supernatural activities, free from the prying eyes of servants and outsiders.’
‘Was that where he took the boys to?’ asked Cara.
‘I’m not sure. But what I can say for certain is it was here that it all ended for him, when Byrne and his merry men took things a step too far one night. One of his scouts had brought an orphan boy from the mine up to the Hall. Edmond was particularly fond of the orphans, I guess because there was no one to watch over them. He’d warmed to the lad, as much as an animal like him could warm to anyone, and instead of sending him back to the mine after he’d had his way, he decided instead to set him to work as one of the groundsmen on the Estate. Day and night, the boy worked harder than anyone else, men included. He must have really hated it in the mines, and took on any job that was thrown at him to avoid going back there, no matter how menial it may have been. Edmond initially enjoyed the boy’s company, but as time passed by he inevitably grew bored of his puppy-like willingness to please. He would dish out the most severe of beatings, thrashing him until he was black and blue. His hate for the boy grew to such an extent that there was not a day that went by without some measure of pain being inflicted upon him.
‘And then came that fateful night in December, 1932. By that time, the demand for lead from the Pennines had all but dried up and moved away. The local economy was suffering, and the Byrne dictatorship was limping to its end. Edmond increasingly took refuge in his black magic, participating in almost nightly services in the Round Room, their duration becoming longer and longer. There were no witnesses to confirm what happened in that room, but there are reports passed down the years of servants hearing unnatural sounds lasting long into the night. You have to remember, of course, that people were far more superstitious in those days, so you have to take what you hear with a considerable pinch of salt. But the story seems clear in one regard – on one stormy December night, several of the servants witnessed the young lad whom Edmond so despised being dragged by a hooded figure into the Round Room; the door being locked behind him. Reports of what followed suggest that the next hour was filled with the most horrific screaming, as if someone was being tortured; pleading for the pain to stop. The screaming was followed by the sound of a deep voice cursing and laughing. And then silence. Complete silence.’
Their car pulled up alongside the curb in front of the Police Station. Jennings turned the key and switched off the engine. ‘And?’ asked Cara. ‘What happened to the boy?’
‘Nobody knows,’ replied Jennings. ‘There wasn’t another sound all night, but the servants were too frightened to knock in case they incurred Edmond’s wrath, should the silence be part of his mysterious activities. Eventually, when morning came and with it no further sound, the head butler and a couple of his staff decided to force the door open.
‘What did they find?’ urged Cara, her curiosity needing to be satisfied more than her grumbling stomach, which was making her acutely aware that it was approaching lunchtime.
‘They found Edmond hanging from a beam above the fire, his neck snapped and his head lying flat against his shoulder. The poker had been forced up his backside and protruded from his chest, having passed straight through his heart.’
‘Bloody hell! It’s hard to have sympathy for him but even so…What about the others? The boy?’
‘That’s the strange thing. They found no trace of anybody else in the room. The dome had been smashed, but there was no way anyone could have climbed up that high. Everything else was there; robes, various implements and books, the five pointed star, goats’ skulls…everything. But no sign of any of the others, or the boy. And apparently they were never seen again. Bizarre, isn’t it?’
Cara looked straight at Jennings and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I’ve spent the last half hour listening to that cock and bull story. You can’t half spin a yarn, Sarge!’
Jennings smiled. ‘Believe what you want, my most able deputy. And you’re right, I bet there’s been some bending of the facts down the years. But you speak with anyone who has lived here for a long time and they’ll tell you more or less the same story. And whatever you choose to believe, there’s no denying that Fellside Hall has been empty and rotting away ever since that day. The mines closed, the workers tried their luck elsewhere, and every one of Byrne’s staff left the Hall within a month. Records document Edmond as having died from hanging – suicide. There was no heir; the remaining dregs of his possessions were bound up in a set of deeds that are held at Ted Wilson’s land agency. Which is why I think we need to see him to find out what the hell is going on up there?’
‘Understood, Sarge. But can we have some lunch first? I’m starving.’
‘Of course, we need to make sure our priorities are right,’ laughed Jennings. ‘Let’s go inside and put the kettle on.’ His smile quickly faded as he followed Cara along the path to the Station entrance. The precise details surrounding the story of Fellside Hall may have been embellished down the generations, but the final horrific scene met by the servants who broke down the door of the Round Room was always the same no matter who was telling the tale.
Knowing the people around here as well as he did, Jennings was prepared to bet his pension that the relighting of the Hall’s fires after all this time would come as a major concern to anyone who’d grown up listening to the macabre story of Fellside Hall.
Chapter 5
12.00pm: Reverend Jackson reached into the left pocket of his jacket and pulled out the large black key that opened the door to All Saints’ Church. Inserting it into the lock, he cursed to himself as he struggled to force it to turn, pressing his shoulder up against the door to weaken the lock’s resistance as it eventually gave way. Six months earlier, there had been no need to bolt the door; parishioners had been free to enter and worship as they pleased. In an ideal world, there would not have been any requirement to keep people out; especially considering how difficult it was to entice people to come in at all these days.
Unfortunately, a recent night of mindless vandalism had broken the trust that had allowed for an open-door policy since the church’s construction over eight hundred years ago. Nobody knew for sure who had done it - there’d been no convictions due to lack of evidence - but several locals, including Reverend Jackson, were inclined to point the finger towards the Carter boys up at Moorland Farm. There were three of them, Jed, Aidan and Lee; a feral, unruly mob who wreaked more havoc around the area than the rest of The Cross’s kids put together. The apple rarely falls far from the tree; a saying never truer than in the case of the Carters, whose poor excuse for a father, Mick, was undeniably rotten to the core. A long record of minor convictions only seemed to encourage worse behaviour, as if each crime was a new badge of honour to celebrate. Top of the list were fighting and drunken behaviour, closely followed by petty theft. But the list went on and included some weird and wonderful activities; Fred Watson, the area’s postman, had been out on his rounds one day and had caught Jed holding down a litter of kittens in a bucket of water, his boot crushing them as they drowned. When Fred had confronted Jed’s father about his son’s cruelty, Mick had laughed in his face before chasing him off his farm. ‘The lad’s only making sailors out of them,’ he’d joked. ‘Now piss off before I take my stick to you!’ It was a while before the Carters received any more post.
Whether or not the Carters were responsible for the vandalism of All Saints’ Church, the damage had nevertheless been serious. It was the warden, Bill Thompson, who had been first at the scene. As with every Sunday morning, he’d walked into the church around nine o’clock to give the place a quick spruce up before morning service. Instead of being greeted by the usual serene, orderly atmosphere, he’d been confronted by upturned pews and chairs, broken flower vases and candelabra, and general chaos. Worst of all, however, was the red graffiti that had been sprayed across the stone altar in the chancel - BURN IN HELL FUCKERS, it had read. This had infuriated Jackson; after all, the altar had survived Scottish Raids and the ravages of the Black Death all those centuries ago. During the Reformation, when an edict had been announced in 1571 stating that all stone altars must be destroyed, the people of Shepherd’s Cross had hidden their altar under the floor of the chancel. Not that the culprits would have known this, Jackson thought. And even if they had, I doubt they would have given a damn. Still, if evil did not exist, what need would there be to follow God? There have always been those who lean to the good and those who lean to the bad - a fact my world relies on to exist at all.
Jackson entered the church and walked down the central aisle, passing under the single Norman arch that divided the chancel from the nave. He knelt before the altar and crucifix to which an effigy of Christ was pinned, and said a brief prayer. When he’d finished praying, he returned to his feet, the arthritis in his left knee causing him to groan as he stood up. He slowly turned around to face the twenty wooden pews. Come ten o’clock on Sunday morning, he’d be lucky if half of them would be filled; more likely there’d still be a dozen or so remaining empty. Twenty years ago when he’d arrived here, he would have been preaching to a full house, with standing room only on key dates in the calendar like Easter or Christmas. Of the regulars who did still attend, the vast majority were at least sixty years old. The children of the choir, who had traditionally filled the room with singing, had all grown up and had families of their own; their own children rarely deciding to following in their parents’ footsteps. And one by one, those who did remain were marching irreversibly closer towards meeting their maker. Of the thirteen families who had moved into Rowan Lane, only two or three had ever set foot in his church, apart from maybe at Easter, and that was only because of the chocolate egg hunt around the churchyard.
Jackson sighed again. He knew it was wrong to dwell on happier times. Busier times, when people had flocked to church, not as a result of some misplaced sense of duty, but because of their faith and love of God. They’d come together to laugh and be with each other, to smile at each other and give thanks for friendship and enduring support in good and bad times; to celebrate the importance of community and helping your fellow man. Whichever way he approached it, he couldn’t help feel that Shepherd’s Cross was slowly but surely losing its soul to the outside world; a modern world that worked day and night to invade even the remotest comm
unities with its never ending drive for consumption and individualism. He’d noticed it with some of the newcomers; they’d leave for work first thing in the morning and return late in the evening, always looking tired and unhappy in spite of their expensive homes and fancy cars. The numerous trappings of success on display appeared indeed to be nothing more than traps. No time to stop and talk, no time to care about anyone else except themselves.
Jackson walked to a small table in a recess beside the altar. He opened the drawer underneath and removed a notepad and pen, and sat down to write his sermon for the coming Sunday. He looked up and stared out of the small, round window on the east wall. Tradition had it that the window represented the eye of the church, warning off evil spirits that dared venture too near to the house of God. He suddenly felt very old and tired. His gaze shifted away from the window to the scene of the crucifixion on the wall, the statue of Christ’s eyes returning his stare but failing to provide him with the assurances he was increasingly seeking. His fingers went to pick up the pen, but it was no use. He could think of nothing worth writing today.
Chapter 6
12.30pm: Emily Mitford pulled back the Post Office blinds and looked outside. After ensuring that there were no further customers making their way up the footpath, she locked the door and turned the ‘CLOSED’ sign towards the outside world. She now regretted her earlier decision to invite Charlotte and Olivia over for a cup of tea. It wasn’t that she no longer wished to talk to them, but rather that it had been an unusually busy morning that had left her feeling tired and in need of putting her feet up for an hour. The sudden chiming of the doorbell informed her that there was little chance of that, however.
