Charley

  From the Chicken House Tim O’Rouke is a real police officer – so when he writes about detectives and crime, you know he knows … so be very careful of how you decide ‘who did it’ in this amazing mystery with the strangest twist. Can you trust what you hear and see? Who is telling the truth about flashes, premonitions and texts from the dead? Or is it all just to put you off the scent? I’m not telling.

  OK, Tim – fair cop – I have an alibi, honest …

  Barry Cunningham

  Publisher

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: Charley – Friday: 12:22 Hrs.

  Chapter 2: Charley – Sunday: 23:43 Hrs.

  Chapter 3: Tom – Monday: 02:19 Hrs.

  Chapter 4: Charley – Monday: 01:57 Hrs.

  Chapter 5: Tom – Monday: 02:47 Hrs.

  Chapter 6: Tom – Monday: 03:34 Hrs.

  Chapter 7: Charley – Monday: 05:56 Hrs.

  Chapter 8: Tom – Monday: 07:34 Hrs.

  Chapter 9: Charley – Monday: 08:57 Hrs.

  Chapter 10: Tom – Monday: 21:54 Hrs.

  Chapter 11: Charley – Tuesday: 01.13 Hrs.

  Chapter 12: Tom – Tuesday: 07:30 Hrs.

  Chapter 13: Charley – Tuesday: 09:23 Hrs.

  Chapter 14: Charley – Tuesday: 10:43 Hrs.

  Chapter 15: Tom – Tuesday: 12:06 Hrs.

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  In loving memory of my friends Patrick Taylor and Richard Bevan who flashed so brightly. I just wish you had done so for longer. I miss you both with all my heart.

  CHAPTER 1

  Charley – Friday: 12:22 Hrs.

  I turned my back on my best friend’s grave as her black-suited family gathered about it. A cold wind whipped around the eaves of the nearby church. Crows, their feathers as black as the mourners’ clothes, sprang from the tops of gravestones, the beat of their wings sounding like gunfire in the bleak December morning.

  Suddenly, the fear that my friend might just reach out and wrap her cold white fingers around my ankle froze my heart. My skin prickled like goose flesh and I thought I was going to vomit. I heard a thump as a loose clump of earth broke free from the grave wall and dropped onto the coffin lid. The sound made me snap to attention as if I’d just been yelled at. Stuffing a bony fist into my mouth, I bit down and stifled the urge to scream. Then I placed one foot in front of the other and staggered away. I leant against a nearby tree and crumpled.

  Grief took me, its soulless fingers squeezing at my heart. The tears that had been standing in the corners of my eyes since Natalie’s coffin had been carried into the church, now spilled down my cheeks in hot streaks. Behind me, I heard the Priest’s soft voice, only just above a whisper.

  ‘Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us Natalie to love and care for. Now that Natalie’s life among us is over we give her back to you …’

  ‘No!’ I sobbed into my hands. ‘You can’t have her back.’

  Just as I felt my knees buckle I heard a rustle behind me. My father. He’d followed me away from the grave. Wrapping his arm about my waist, he pulled me towards him.

  ‘Charley—’ he began.

  ‘Get off me!’ I whispered, pushing him away.

  ‘But Charley,’ he said, looking back over his shoulder at the mourners. ‘This is not the time nor—’

  ‘Please … Dad!’ My lower lip trembled as I wiped away the silver stream of snot leaking from my nose.

  I just wanted to be alone. Why couldn’t he get that? He wasn’t Natalie. He didn’t understand me – not like she had. Natalie had been the only one. And now she was dead, cut to pieces beneath the wheels of a train. I squeezed my eyes shut, wringing terrifying images from my mind. I didn’t want to see them. Not now, not ever.

  Stop it!

  ‘Charley … I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Leave me alone, please.’ I lurched away from the tree, glancing back in the direction of the hole. Natalie’s parents were still standing beside it, red eyed and gaunt. I looked once more at my father, and then started off back across the graveyard.

  ‘Charl—’ I heard my father start, but he stopped short as if thinking better of it.

  Rain began to fall and the wind rushed through the branches of the nearby trees. The sound did little to smother the noise of the gravediggers shovelling earth.

  I ran. My auburn hair plastered flat against my cheeks and forehead. Plumes of breath jetted from my mouth and floated upwards into the overcast sky. Not knowing – or caring – what direction I was heading in, I raced towards a dark smudge of trees in the distance. As I drew closer, I could see that there was a small building nestling amongst their trunks.

  I sped up, my long black skirt whispering against my legs.

  Eventually I came to rest just beyond the treeline. Grey chinks of light slanted through the branches and glinted off the broken windowpanes of the dilapidated outhouse. There was a rustling sound from nearby.

  ‘Hello?’ I called out. ‘Is anybody there?’

  Silence.

  Pulling the collar of my coat tight about my throat, I moved closer. The building looked like some kind of derelict outhouse. The outside walls had once been white, but were now weather-beaten grey and covered in a mosaic of graffiti and moss. I could just make out a faded British Rail logo beneath the grime and dirt.

  The door had been pulled from its top hinge, though it still hung in its frame. I continued towards it, wanting to hide – to never be found again. It was quiet out here, peaceful, apart from the thrumming of the rain bouncing off the leaves above my head. I just wanted to be alone, to grieve.

  Then I heard the distant roar of a passing train. I didn’t want to hear that sound. It reminded me of what had happened to Natalie. Closing my eyes, I pretended it was the faint rumble of thunder.

  I opened the door to the rickety outbuilding and stepped inside. There were holes in the roof. The floor was covered in dead leaves, old tyres and a rain-soaked mattress. I shivered, pulling my coat tighter about me. I suddenly felt lonely. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt since Natalie and I had become friends. But now it was back. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to stop the flood of tears. When everyone else had taunted me, when those who I thought I could most trust had posted shit about me on Facebook and Twitter, Natalie had been there.

  My iPhone vibrated in my pocket, buzzing against my thigh like an angry wasp. I remembered setting it to vibrate as I’d left the house for Natalie’s funer— I couldn’t think of that word. To say it … to even just hear it in my head would somehow make this all real. And to me it wasn’t real. Natalie wasn’t dead … it was just a bad …

  BRRRR! BRRRR! BRRRR!

  The iPhone continued to buzz against my hip.

  ‘Why can’t Dad just leave me alone?’ I hissed. He would want to know where I was. He would want to tell me it was time to go home and put all this behind me. I could picture him searching the graveyard for me, a look of despair on his thin face.

  BRRRR! BRRRR! BRRRR!

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I shouted.

  I pulled the iPhone from my pocket and looked at the screen flashing blue then white. On seeing the caller’s name blinking on and off like a heartbeat, I dropped it as if it had stung me.

  NATALIE CALLING!

  My heart began to beat in time with Natalie’s name flashing on and off.

  NATALIE CALLING! NATALIE CALLING! NATALIE CALLING!

  My throat felt dry and I swallowed hard.

  NATALIE CALLING!

  The iPhone screen flashed as it lay amongst the leaves covering the ground. With a trembling hand, I reached down and picked it up. Was this some sick joke? I remembered the last time I had received a call from Natalie. I knew exactly when we had last spoken. It had been ten days ago, just before she had died beneat
h the train. It had been raining that day too. She had been on the way to my house. Her cab had failed to arrive so she was going to walk. Natalie never arrived. She took a short cut across the tracks and …

  I hadn’t seen the words NATALIE CALLING on my phone since she had been found dead.

  So how could she be calling me now? Someone must have found her phone. Perhaps a railway worker had discovered it on the tracks and was now calling everyone on her contact list? Perhaps whoever was calling was trying to return the phone to its owner.

  I shook my head, my brain feeling as if it were slamming against the sides of my skull.

  Trembling, I pressed ‘Answer’ and put the iPhone to my ear.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, my voice just a whisper.

  Silence.

  ‘Who is this?’ I asked, beginning to feel angry. ‘If you’re playing some sick joke …’

  I could hear short, shallow breaths on the other end of the line.

  ‘Look, whoever this is … I’m gonna report you to the—’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ a voice asked.

  With a gasp, I looked up to find my father standing in the doorway of the outhouse.

  ‘No one,’ I mumbled, hitting the ‘End Call’ button and sliding the iPhone back into my coat pocket.

  ‘You sounded upset,’ he said, wiping away the rain that dripped from his chin.

  ‘Of course I’m upset,’ I breathed, brushing past him and making my way back towards the church.

  ‘How long is this going to go on for?’ my father called after me. ‘Charley, you can’t ignore me for ever.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ I said under my breath.

  With head forward, chin against my chest and shoulders rounded, I made my way out of the crop of trees and across the grass. I didn’t slow down until I could see the church ahead of me. The graveyard was empty now, apart from the two lone gravediggers in the distance. From the treeline they looked like ghosts, barely visible in the gloom of the dying afternoon light.

  I turned away and headed out of the graveyard. Without the slightest idea of where to go or what to do next, I just walked. From over my shoulder, I could hear the sound of feet. My father was trotting to catch up.

  ‘Charley, wait a minute. This is stupid. Can’t we just talk?’ he called.

  I quickened my step.

  ‘Charley, please!’ he called again.

  Quicker still.

  I reached the gates to the graveyard and dashed into the car park, my shoes sending up splashes of black rain from the puddles that had formed in the cracked tarmac. From behind, a hand gripped my arm and spun me around.

  ‘Charley!’ my father wheezed. ‘Please, Charley, I know you’re hurting—’

  ‘You don’t know anything!’ I said, refusing to look at him.

  Gently taking me by the shoulders, he said, ‘I do know, Charley … I know …’

  ‘Get off me!’ I cried, pulling away from him. ‘Leave me alone!’

  Keeping a grip on my sleeve, my father pulled me closer. I fought him, thrashing my arms about as if drowning.

  ‘Listen to me! Just listen to me!’ he pleaded. ‘You were just a little girl when your mum died … but I experienced the same feelings you’re having …’

  ‘Stop!’ was all I could say. I didn’t want to hear this now.

  ‘I know what it feels like to lose the person you loved … the one person that means everything to you. I can help you through this, Charley …’

  ‘You’re glad Natalie’s dead!’ I spat, fresh tears spilling down my cheeks. ‘You never liked her. You wanted her out of my life from the moment you first met her!’ Looking straight into his eyes, I added, ‘Now you’ve got just what you always wanted.’

  Releasing his grip, my father flinched backwards, stunned, as if he had been punched. ‘Is that what you really believe, Charley?’ he asked. ‘Do you really think so little of me?’

  ‘“You should keep away from that girl. She is as mad as you if she really believes you have flashes. You have exams to revise for! The girl is a know-it-all. I don’t like the way she stares at me. I’m your father!” Isn’t that what you used to say?’ I reminded him, choking on my tears. “‘Why doesn’t that girl Natalie stop poking her nose into other people’s business? Why doesn’t she just leave you alone?’”

  I watched my father’s face turn ashen, as his fingers slid from my shoulders. ‘I only had your best interests at heart, Charley. I never wanted anything bad to happen to the girl …’

  ‘Her name is … was … Natalie.’ To hear those words from my own mouth sounded odd – like the crunching sound of breaking bones.

  ‘Okay. I never wanted anything bad to happen to Natalie,’ my father said.

  ‘Well it did,’ I sniffed. ‘And you can’t take back all of the nasty things you said about her.’

  ‘I know I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Charley.’ Again, he stepped towards me, his arms open wide. This time I fell into them.

  CHAPTER 2

  Charley – Sunday: 23:43 Hrs.

  Flashes! That’s what I call them. I’m Charley Shepard, the girl who can see things, the seventeen-year-old with an overactive imagination, the freak who can see lights like a thousand photographers crammed inside her head snapping away all at once!

  With one hand clasped to the side of my head, I staggered into the bathroom. If anyone had been looking, I wouldn’t have blamed them for thinking I was trying to hold my head together – like it might just explode at any moment.

  It was agony, like my brain was being rubbed against a cheese grater. I leant over the sink. Bile burnt the back of my throat. Then, as if slapped, my head rocked backwards and my neck made a cracking sound.

  Let go of me! I heard the voice say. Please, I just want to go home!

  I opened my eyes long enough to find the tap and turn it on. Water sloshed into the sink. I splashed some against my face. The flashes of light came again, jerking my head violently to the right. My knees buckled beneath me and I crashed to the bathroom floor.

  Please just take me home, the voice whimpered in my ear. It seemed so real, and for just the briefest of moments I was sure I could feel the girl’s breath against my cheek. I shuddered.

  I promise I won’t tell anyone about you, the girl whispered, her voice trembling inside me.

  ‘Please stop,’ I groaned, gripping the side of the bath. I tried and failed to pull myself up. I lay sandwiched between the side of the bath and the toilet. It always happened like this. For as long as I could remember it had always been the same. The voices first, then the pictures.

  It was the pictures I hated the most. They came in sudden flashes of light, bright and unrelenting, searing their hideous images into my brain. They came so fast, jittering past my mind’s eye, like a series of ancient black and white photographs. But somehow, today’s flashes were different. Brighter and faster than ever before. And the pain – I felt as if I were dying.

  The girl was being dragged. I could see her white trainers splattered with mud. It was raining and there were puddles – God, so many puddles – and they rippled, sending out distorted reflections of the girl. Horror and fear masked her prettiness. Seventeen years old, maybe eighteen, but no older. Green eyes, red lipstick, tear-smeared eyeliner.

  Kerry.

  Yes, her name was Kerry. The flash of the necklace showed me that. Jeans, jacket, raining … Her hair was wet and clinging to her face, blonde even though the rain had darkened it.

  Help me! the girl cried out, but what I couldn’t figure out was if she was calling to me or someone else.

  Flash! A hill set against the night sky. There was a car nearby, the engine still running. I could hear its purr and smell its exhaust. Another sudden burst of bright light. A muddy field, the smell of earth, the smell of alcohol.

  ‘Where are you?’ I mumbled, my skull feeling as if it were being crushed in a vice. I twitched and it was like I was no longer aware of the real world. All I was aware of was
the girl, the dirty trainers and the puddles. There was something else though. I could hear music. It was faint at first, drowned out by the sound of the rain and the girl’s hysterical sobs.

  That’s my mum calling, the girl pleaded with him. Please let me speak to her – she’ll be wondering where I am.

  Shut up! Another voice. Male.

  As I twitched on the bathroom floor, my eyes half open, pupils rolled back into my skull, I knew the voice belonged to the man who had dragged the girl through those puddles.

  Turn that thing off, he hissed at her.

  The music was a ringtone. My head jerked to the right, hitting the side of the bath as I tried to listen to it. Those light bulbs popped again in time with the music coming from the girl’s mobile phone.

  ‘Burn,’ I whispered, recognising the song. ‘You like Ellie Goulding – don’t you?’

  The girl was being dragged like an animal down a … dirt track? It was too dark to see clearly. The road was very narrow, there were trees on either side, and I could hear the rain and the wind as it tore through the branches.

  The music ended abruptly.

  He’d made a mistake. He cursed himself and it was as if I could hear his thoughts: Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I should have taken her phone! The flashes shone light into his soul and it was black. No amount of light could illuminate such a place. I felt his fear as his mind scrambled through the consequences.

  They’ll triangulate the signal, he cursed inside, pulling the girl through the mud. They’ll trace it – find it.

  I felt his fear and my body locked in a violent spasm. In some small way, I took pleasure in it. He was human, after all.

  Switch it off! he hissed at the girl, bringing his face close to hers.

  ‘Let me see your face, you bastard,’ I called out from the bathroom floor, my voice muffled and distorted. But I knew I wouldn’t see it. I only ever saw the faces of those about to die. Wide-eyed and full of fear.

  Flash! One after another in rapid succession. Blinding me again before I’d had a chance to see him. Then, somewhere close by, the sound of a train passing and a snapshot image of a broken chimney pot. What did those flashes mean?