Chalk Dust & Broomsticks, Chapter 41

The results of the tests on the stolen car reveal themselves and the Ka is getting strong.

Stanhope’s Discovery

Inspector Stanhope spent a few days in Cornwall, overseeing the forensic investigations of the red sports car. Prior to returning, he dialled his office back in Langwich.

"Yep, the car had fingerprints all over it," he told P.C. Knight. "Can you get the caretaker’s son in for questioning? His prints were on the steering wheel and he’s been in before for joy riding and stealing cars."

"Yes sir," replied Knight, "right away, sir."

The Inspector had found his first physical link to the cover-up: Wayne, Gerald’s "wild, almost uncontrollable" son, had driven Alex Simmons’s car. This proved the car's presence in Cornwall was not a suicide or disappearance, simply a case of joy-riding that got out of hand.

Back in Langwich, Inspector Stanhope decided to search Gerald’s house before interviewing his son, Wayne. He set off with P.C. Knight.

D.N.A. results of a front tooth, with amalgam in it, found amongst the ashes, confirmed that the body had belonged to Alex Simmons…

"What are we looking for, sir?" asked Knight.

"Personal effects, my friend; anything we can link to the body. Assuming she wasn't naked when she arrived in the boiler house, there must be links to her. Something could have been missed or removed," Stanhope replied.

They arrived at the caretaker’s house, which greeted them with a strong smell of chip pans and the loud sound of children. Jane, Gerald’s wife, leaning heavily on a stick, met them at the door.

“He didn’t do it, Inspector,” she insisted. “He hasn’t a violent bone in his body. He had no idea who the victim was.”

“We have a warrant to search your house. May we proceed?” The words came as a shock to Jane. As they searched, she followed closely. Tucked amongst the sheets and towels in the airing cupboard on the landing, Stanhope found an expensive looking mobile phone.

Jane hesitated, then confessed, “I found it. I found it in the boiler house, after… After…”

P.C. Knight stated, "You mean you took it. It belonged to the victim."

Stanhope told her he needed to examine it. Jane looked almost relieved. She had regarded the phone as bad luck since the day she found it. She’d hidden it away, especially from Wayne, but the Inspector’s request offered a chance to be rid of the unwanted burden.

As Stanhope bagged the phone, his spirits lifted, hopeful it belonged to Alex and held vital information. "Did you find anything else, Jane?"

Jane’s eyes betrayed her, flicking automatically to the little pottery owl pepper pot on the mantel shelf. She walked to it, lifted the lid, and then she remembered she had thrown it onto Althea’s desk.

"I found a gold necklace”, she admitted. It was also in the boiler house."

"What did you think when you found it?"

“I thought it belonged to Althea Gardner because it was in the shape of a letter A.”

Jane then explained her theory, born of her jealous nature, that Althea must have been meeting Gerald in the boiler house, and the necklace was dropped during a passionate tryst.

Stanhope laughed at the absurdity of the tryst, but his interest was piqued by Jane’s next statement.

“Yesterday, I returned it to Althea, but whilst doing so I noticed she was wearing an identical one, so I immediately realised that the one I found must have belonged to the person in the boiler house,” Jane explained.

Stanhope looked thoughtful. He dismissed the idea of Gerald and Althea, but not Althea's reaction. He handed the necklace to Knight to trace the source.

The search continued, but nothing else of significance was found.

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A few days later, the results for the phone were back. It did indeed belong to Alex Simmons. More astonishingly, there were a few text messages on view, made since her death. Some were mere squiggles of punctuation, making no sense, but when the corresponding phone numbers were checked, they belonged to Althea Gardner and Nick Blunt.

The Inspector now had solid proof: Alex was dead, and Nick Blunt had been trying to get in touch with her after the Christmas party. Someone else had also tried to access the phone, but they been unsuccessful.

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Flashback

The Night of the Christmas Party – December 1998

Alex’s Ka speaks

“When Althea hit me with the statuette, I blacked out. It was a stupid argument, but she lost it bigtime! I just knew I had to tell her our affair was over. It was never going to last, but she wouldn’t accept that. I told her we were finished; for my part, it had simply been a means to an end.

She must have hit me really hard, because when I struggled to come back to the light, I couldn’t. I could still hear, but my eyes wouldn’t open. A searing pain pierced even my thoughts. Then I felt a persistent tugging, and the noise in my ears became a loud whistle.

It was very hard to feel any emotion. The tugging felt like I was being pulled through a tight tube. What the hell was going on?
As the pain dissipated, images appeared of my past life, a baby, a teenager, my first job in an office. I travelled on. Then the tugging stopped, and my body felt as if it was melting, becoming mist. It felt light, like cotton wool, and it was lifting, moving upwards. I could feel a draught of air against me, but I still couldn’t see.

Panic set in. I’ve always hated not being able to see. I remembered a childhood visit to the country, sleeping in a pitch-dark room. This felt the same, but worse.

When my eyes cleared, I could see, and what I saw was my body, lying beneath me on the floor with a dent in my skull.”

End of flashback

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Nick's Haunted Bedroom – November 1999
Nick Blunt rolled over in bed and curled his right arm around Gina’s baby bump. He felt the baby kick and smiled, thrilled and frightened by the prospect of fatherhood. Gina was sleeping peacefully, her breathing quiet. If it wasn’t for the secret about the baby’s conception, all would have been perfect.

Suddenly, a cold draught curled around the back of Nick’s neck. As he reached up to tuck the duvet closer, he became aware of more than a draught: a body, cold and heavy, was pressing against his back, much as he was curled around Gina.

Nick froze, limbs paralyzed in fear. He didn’t want to wake his wife. A strong smell of musky perfume, Alex’s favourite, filled his nose, bringing him out in a cold sweat. First the dreams, and now this. He slowly started to turn away from Gina, inch by painful inch, holding his breath, until he was flat on his back. He extended a tentative hand and made contact with another hand, just a brief touch that felt like a dead fish. He shuddered and drew his hand back as the smell and the feeling of cold flesh diminished.
He felt the presence leave and relaxed a little, but then, in the corner of the room, behind the half-open door, he fancied he saw the shape of a woman. Straining his eyes, he saw long, dark hair covering her face, but as quickly as he saw her, she disappeared, leaving nothing but a strip of light beneath the door, which he swore had not been there before.

The Ka of Alex Simmons was no longer just haunting his dreams; it was now a physical, terrifying presence in his home, determined to break him.

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