Urban Myth (8 page)

‘T
his is the place,’ Nicole told us. ‘I can still remember the day I brought them here. It was cloudy and cold, with the hint of a breeze.’

By contrast today was warm and bright. The sky was bleached a pale blue and the air was filled with the subtly sharp scent of wild flowers. We were standing on the bank of a narrow, clear-running stream a few miles east of King’s Manor. On our side of the stream the open grassland dipped into a valley in which nestled a tiny hamlet. We’d driven through the hamlet before parking the car and following the stream on foot. Nicole had shown us where she used to live – a lovely period cottage set back from the road with a thatched roof and a large chimney.

I’d tried to persuade her to knock on the door and speak to the new owners. She hadn’t been keen, though. Said it would be too upsetting to be invited inside. But she was upset now, of course, as she pointed across the stream to a small clearing in front of some woods. It was where her parents had often come to picnic and it was where she had scattered their ashes after they were killed when their car was struck by a lorry on the A35 near Lyndhurst.

I stood with my arm around my wife as the tears gathered in her eyes. Michael and Tina sat a few feet away on the decaying remains of a huge tree trunk. It was an enchanting spot. The clearing was
sheltered
by tall, ageless trees that broke up the sun’s reflection on the water. The rich brown of beech and sweet chestnut leaves formed a striking canopy above the damp woodland floor. Wild flowers clung to the banks of the stream and I could see shoals of tiny minnows swimming over the gravel on the bottom.

I held Nicole close as she began to cry, her shoulders heaving with
every sob. Tina followed suit and to his credit Michael put his arms around his step-sister and held her head against his chest.

I blinked back my own tears. It wasn’t easy. Never had I
experienced
such an overwhelming surge of emotion. It was a moment of sheer, unbridled sentiment that reinforced the love I had for my family. God forbid that any harm should ever come to them. I wasn’t sure that I would want to go on living if I lost what I had now. So beguiled was I by the intensity of my feelings that it was some moments before I noticed something truly amazing at the edge of the wood. Not fifty yards away two brown fallow deer had entered the clearing and were watching us.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I blurted. ‘Take a look at that.’

I let go of Nicole and she followed my gaze, her eyes wet and
red-rimmed
. When she saw them she gasped out loud and her face lit up.

‘My God,’ she said. ‘They’re beautiful.’

One was a buck deer, with antlers that were broad and
shovel-shaped
rising above his head. The other was a doe, or female, and her back was covered with a sprinkling of white dots. You don’t have to be an expert to know that fallow deer are shy creatures and rarely make an appearance when there are people around. So we were immensely privileged. Even the kids were awestruck and I watched Tina scramble to get her camera out of her mini rucksack. Nicole broke away from me and took a step towards the water’s edge. It was as though she was suddenly in a trance. She stared at the two deer and they stared back, without moving and without showing any fear.

‘It’s a sign,’ Nicole said. ‘It has to be.’

I knew instinctively what she was thinking before she came out with it. Nonetheless her words filled me with a wondrous sense of elation.

‘Mum and Dad sent them,’ she said. ‘I know it. I can feel their
presence
. They’re here with us now and that makes me so happy.’

I was happy too, even though I knew that this was just a
coincidence
and not some strange, spiritual event. Nicole’s joy made me feel better about bringing her to England and swept away all my
misgivings
. I knew that this moment would live with her for years to come – long after she’d forgotten about all the weird and unpleasant stuff that had happened to us.

We were all still on a high by the time we got to Burley. Nicole was positively glowing. She couldn’t stop talking about the experience with the two fallow deer. As far as she was concerned her parents had sent them into the clearing to let her know they were there.

I said nothing to discourage her from believing this fantasy, but the irony wasn’t lost on me. My wife professed not to believe in ghosts and demons and anything supernatural, and yet she was suddenly convinced that her mother and father had communicated with her from beyond the grave.

The village of Burley is a popular tourist attraction. It was once an Anglo Saxon settlement and during the fifties and sixties was known as the home of a famous ‘white witch’ named Sybil Leak who
eventually
moved to America.

We left the Discovery in a car park behind The Queen’s Head pub, which Nicole informed me was a notorious meeting place for
smugglers
and highwaymen in the sixteenth century. Armed with our cameras, and looking very touristy, we strolled into the tiny village, which consisted of a few streets lined with gift shops, cafés, a post office and a couple of pubs.

It was surprisingly busy, but not only with day-trippers. The police were very much in evidence. Two patrol cars were parked up in the centre of the village and several uniformed officers were standing around with clipboards talking to passers-by. We were approached almost as soon as we left the car park but once the officer established that we were not locals he didn’t bother to ask us any more questions. But he did confirm what I already suspected, that it was all part of the investigation into the murder of the young woman whose body was found in a shallow grave near the village.

We tried not to let it unsettle us, but that was difficult because everyone seemed to be talking about it. There were enough things to distract us, however, including the gift shops selling occult paraphernalia. Their names were as intriguing as their products – The Coven of Witches, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Witchcraft, Wizzydoras. Their shelves were cluttered with such things as spell books, magical concoctions, witches’ broomsticks, pot-bellied stoves, tarot cards, toy dragons and wands.

A book about the ghosts of Burley was prominently displayed in one shop. I glanced through it and discovered that the village was supposed to be well and truly haunted. There was the boy in ragged clothes who wandered around the lanes crying, the mysterious rider who had apparently been spotted roaming the heath outside the village and a knick-knack store, which apparently had its own ghostly cat. All bullshit, of course, but the kids were fascinated.

After visiting the witches’ shops I was ready for some lunch and suggested we pop into one of the pubs or cafés. But the others wanted to carry on exploring the rest of the village shops.

‘Why don’t you go and have a drink,’ Nicole said. ‘We can meet you in an hour or so.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘We all know you don’t like shopping so if you come with us we’ll feel obliged to hurry up.’

I laughed. ‘In that case I’ll go and sample a pint of your famous English beer.’

Nicole pointed across the road to a small café called the Black Cat Tea Rooms.

‘I’d like to have lunch there,’ she said. ‘It was my dad’s favourite place.’

I kissed her on the cheek. ‘So be it. Meanwhile, try not to burn a hole in your credit card.’

Of the several pubs in the village I was closest to one called The White Horse. It looked like a typical British pub, with a half-timbered exterior and wooden benches out front.

I crossed the road and went into the public bar. The interior was charming and traditional, as I’d hoped it would be. There were stout oak beams criss-crossing the low ceiling, a huge inglenook fireplace, horse brasses and thick leather belts mounted on the walls. The public bar was tiny but that was OK because I was the only customer. The barman was in his fifties with a downturned mouth and sagging cheeks. His red, bulbous nose suggested a fondness for drink.

‘So what can I get for you, sir?’ he asked in a smoker’s husky voice.

‘I’d like to try a pint of your best beer,’ I said.

His eyes brightened and he let loose a grin that revealed a set of unsightly yellow teeth.

‘So you’re a Yank,’ he said. ‘That’s marvellous. I can’t remember when we last had an American in here. We used to get loads of you, but I reckon the recession and the exchange rate has made our little corner of the world less appealing.’

I warmed to the guy immediately and when he served my pint I offered to buy him a drink. He thanked me and poured himself a large brandy. I sipped at my beer which was warm and heavy. But I liked it. It slid smoothly down the back of my throat.

So we got talking. He told me his name was Ray Turner and that he’d been the pub landlord for twenty years. He asked me where I was from in the States and who I was with. He was intrigued to learn that I was married to someone who had lived locally and he actually
remembered
Nicole’s parents and what happened to them, describing it as an awful tragedy.

‘I didn’t know them personally,’ he said. ‘But I saw them in the village from time to time, along with their daughter. A pretty young lady as I recall. Such a shame.’

He moved the conversation on and explained, in case I hadn’t heard, why the police were in town.

‘Dreadful business,’ he said. ‘The poor girl’s body was found over near Castle Hill – that’s a ten minute walk from here.’

‘Is she a local girl?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. They say her name’s Genna and I’ve never come across it before.’

He then asked me if we were staying in the forest. When I told him we were renting a house called King’s Manor he arched his brow, ‘That’s Nathan Slade’s place. I didn’t know he was still letting it out.’

‘It was advertised on the internet. It looked perfect so we booked it. Arrived yesterday.’

‘Have you met him yet?’

‘I’ve been trying to reach him, but he’s not answering his phone. I haven’t actually spoken to him. All our dealings have been by email.’

‘He used to pop in here occasionally, but I haven’t seen him in a while. That’s no bad thing because he’s a bit strange.’

‘What’s strange about him?’

Ray sipped his brandy, smacked his lips together. ‘Well to say that
Nathan Slade is an eccentric would be an understatement. I reckon he’s just plain weird. In fact he’s always given me the creeps.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘His appearance for one thing. He’s in his mid to late fifties but he has this thick mane of grey hair that he wears in dreadlocks. And he has glasses with yellow-tinted lenses. They look daft. And he looks daft.’

‘That doesn’t sound too weird to me,’ I said. ‘Just, well,
unconventional
.’

‘But that’s not all. There’s other stuff too – like the way he makes women feel uncomfortable. It’s happened here in the bar a couple of times. He ogles them and makes smutty remarks. One of my female customers took offence one time and called him a pervy old sod. He laughed in her face.’

‘And is he? A perv, I mean.’

‘That’s how he comes across. In fact, rumour has it that’s why his second wife left him. She found something out about him and scarpered. They’d only been married a couple of years.’

‘What did she find out?’

He shrugged again. ‘Who knows? He’s never talked about it. But his wife told a friend before she went that he was sick in the head and she wanted to get as far away from him as possible.’

‘So where is she now?’

‘Living in Poole apparently. That’s along the coast from here. She’s with her son from a previous marriage.’

‘All very mysterious.’

‘And so is what happened at King’s Manor earlier this year.’

‘What happened?’ I asked, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

He leaned on the bar and I could smell the brandy on his breath.

‘As you probably know, this area of the forest has long been
associated
with the occult and the paranormal.’

I nodded. ‘I’ve seen the shops. Almost bought a book of spells.’

‘Yeah, well these legends about ghosts and witches are good for business. They attract thousands of visitors every year. It’s why we have more than our fair share of so-called haunted properties – and that includes this pub as well as King’s Manor.’

‘You’ve got to be shittin’ me,’ I said. ‘King’s Manor?’

‘The story goes that it’s haunted by the ghost of a woman named Elizabeth Maddox. She lived and died there years ago.’

‘There’s an old photograph of her at the house,’ I said. ‘She was apparently the widow of the original owner.’

‘Well I shouldn’t worry about it. Nobody really takes all that stuff seriously. And I’m pretty sure that the only scary thing ever to walk the corridors of the manor is Slade himself.’

I was about to tell him what we had experienced in the house, but suddenly thought better of it. I didn’t want him to think I was another gullible tourist.

He downed some more of his brandy and carried on. ‘Anyway, a local teenage lad went to the house late one afternoon back in June. He wanted to ask Slade if he could take some photos of the house for a school project he was working on about haunted Burley.’

‘Don’t tell me he saw a ghost,’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘For this boy it would have been less of a shock if he had. You see, Slade opened the door with a live snake around his neck.’

An image of the adder on the bed reared up in my head and my chest tingled. A wave of questions followed, fizzing and spitting inside me like frenzied bubbles in boiling water.

‘It was a grass snake apparently so it would have been harmless,’ Turner said. ‘But that’s not the point. It gave the poor lad a fright because he’s apparently terrified of reptiles. It’s like a phobia with him. So he took to his toes and bolted away from there.’

‘Jesus, it must have been awful for him.’

‘It was. But Slade got a shock himself a couple of hours later when the boy’s father turned up at his house ranting and raving. I know the guy. His name’s Ned Parker. He went ballistic, calling Slade potty and dangerous.’