Wytchmoor Peak

By Mike Crowson

Wytchmoor Peak.
The police at Witchmoor Edge, West Yorkshire, are trying to trace missing schoolgirl 13 year old Chelsey Bradon. Into this hunt is catapulted retired DCI David Cooke. He phones his successor, Millicent Hampshire with a strange story about needing unspecified occult help because his neighbour Athena Harcourt-Jones has stirred up some kind of unpleasant entity with her excavations and research on her newly acquired Temple Farm. Investigation quickly establishes that she has disappeared and is, by a puzzling coincidence the last person to see the missing schoolgirl before she too disappeared.

CDI Millicent Hampshire pushes on with the police investigations but calls on Tobias N'Dibe, a friend with serious occult interests: He's acquainted with Athena and knows her as an occultist and investigate whatever it is she has stirred up. A check on Athena's house near York turns up the body of a man who seems to have died of fright: no injuries and o medical explanation but a look of horror on his face. A search of Temple Farm uncovers another body. It too was someone who with no visible injuries but a look of horro on his face – did he also died of fright. There is, however, still no sign of Athena Harcourt-Jones.

Chelsey turns up unexpectedly and claims she had been held prisoner with Athena, but escaped ... but that lady disappeared again ... as had the retired DCI. Both are tracked down in a story that ends that a blaze of both natural and supernatural fury. As N'Dibe insists karma is satisfied and the universe rebalanced.

Note that Mike Crowson is 40 years a student of the occult and is a high adept of the Golden Dawn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Crowson
• Release date: Jan 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458044389

Mike Crowson

Former teacher, former national secretary of what became the UK Green Party and for 40 years a student of things esoteric and occult. Now an occult and esoteric consultant offering free and unconditional help to those in serious and genuine psychic or occult trouble

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Wytchmoor Peak

Mike Crowson

Copyright Mike Crowson 2010

Smashwords Edition 2011

Acknowledgements and Dedication

I'd like to acknowledge the help I had from Ardane Stewart in solving the problem of a resolution to an involved plot and I dedicate the fight against conscious evil to the US group of spiritual warriors The Abode of the Lion, to two good friends, Jackie and Paul, who have joined me from time to time in the fight against psychic evil, as well as others who have helped.

Prelude

The younger man was in his late twenties, the older - well it was hard to say. He might have been no more than his late fifties, but he looked ancient. Both were obviously seamen, weather beaten and weather hardened, but both wore good clothes, suggesting rank rather than a common sailor. The one stooped to enter the tavern, the other was already stooped.

Outside the wind was blowing a gale, pushing against the inn door like a leaning giant of a man. It was raining too - not hard but steady, wind driven and miserable. It was not the weather for the sea and the inn was fairly full. The younger man pushed the door shut and both stood, recovering from the violence outside.

Good evening, sirs, the barmaid called in welcome, for this was a time when sailors were heroes. What can I get you?

The older man peered at the barmaid, as he might have peered from the prow of his ship in poor visibility. Are you my niece Amanda? he asked. It's a good while since I've seen you, and that was fifty miles or more inland, but you look a lot like the girl I recall.

Amanda looked at him closely. Uncle William! she said in some surprise.

And what might Amanda Huddlestone of Temple Moor be doing as a barmaid in Whitby? This is hardly the occupation I would have thought appropriate to well brought up young lady.

It's a long story and not a nice one, she answered, smiling especially at the younger man. First tell me what you will have, then my brother Richard will get you food and later I'll tell you the story.

You can get us both flagons of ale, replied the younger man, watching her with interest.

So your brother is here too, William Huddlestone observed. Well you must have a story to tell.

If you have any news of the Spanish defeat your story will be of more interest, Amanda said, placing the two flagons on the counter."

News, laughed the younger man, Your uncle commanded one the English ships. We chased part of the Spanish fleet north but we hove into Whitby because the weather worsened.

Hear that, Amanda called to the room at large. Several heads looked up. One of the English fleet that defeated the Spaniards drove them north and took shelter here. We have the captain with us.

To the younger man she said, If you and Uncle William take a seat at that table over there, I'll see what food there is and call my brother to you.

* * *

So now you tell me your story Richard William said.

Both Amanda Amanda and Richard sat opposite them. The weather was worse not better but the regulars were sated with the news and and stomachs were filled with the food a sailor misses.

It is not a pleasant one. My father dabbles in dark matters, and my brother is as bad. They are both depraved and perhaps insane. Women - maids perhaps or local girls, disappear from time to time. They go down to the cellars below the house and are not seen again.

Richard is being too polite in my company, Amanda said. They take pleasure in causing pain. It is so widely whispered that no one local will take employment there. They find servants from far afield. They are evil and cruel."

As well as bringing forth creatures of darkness, Richard added.

And what of your sister Jayne?

She is the reason I left with Amanda, said Richard, Left Temple Moor and left the name of Huddlestone. I am just Richard, the cook at a Whitby inn and this is just Amanda, my sister, the barmaid at that inn

Again Richard is being too delicate, Amanda interposed. My father and my brother so raped and abused my sister that she has lost her mind. They keep her locked up in that awful house.

I think, Bartholomew, William mused to his younger companion, That we had better ride inland and visit Temple Moor, while this storm keeps us tied in port.

They are dangerous, depraved people, Richard said.

With strange powers, Amanda added.

The older man nodded. We'd best take big William with us and perhaps Edward the carpenter.

The younger man laughed. They'd both be glad of the change and big Will always likes a fight.

"But we'll take pistols too, as well as swords and fists., William Huddlestone commented.

Chapter 1

The phone on her desk was ringing and the rain splattered relentlessly against the windows of her office, as she took off her jacket and shook both her hair and her folding umbrella. Considering that she had only walked across the police station car park for a short distance and an even shorter time, Chief Detective Inspector Millicent Hampshire looked more windswept and wet than you would have imagined ... unless you had been out in that driving rain, sweeping down from the moors on a gusty wind.

The phone on her desk kept ringing insistently.

Actually she had been dashing from car to interview and back to her car all afternoon and was rather more soaked as a result than would have been the case if a quick dash across the car park had been her only exposure to the March rain.

The phone was still ringing insistently.

Going round the desk, she settled in the chair and grabbed the phone. Hampshire! she said with her customary economical, but not unfriendly, manner and tone.

David Cooke here, said a voice. Former CDI Cooke that was.

Hello David, Millicent said surprised, How are you keeping? She was thinking and wondering. It had been a couple of years, maybe more, since Cooke stopped being her boss and she had stepped up to fill his shoes. He had taken first a prolonged and unpaid leave to spend the last few months with his wife, dying of cancer. Millicent, with several other members of the Witchmoor Edge CID, had been to the funeral. After a month or two in which he seemed to have done nothing in particular, except perhaps grieve, Cooke had taken early retirement and her position had been confirmed, but she had spoken with him only once since then.

How are you? she asked again, when Cooke did not immediately continue.

I wanted to talk to you about ... things ... er ... esoteric, Cooke said, clearly not quite knowing how to phrase whatever was bothering him. You know, paranormal. Occult

Millicent was even more surprised. As far as she knew Cooke had not the slightest interest in the occult or the paranormal. It was not a secret that some of her own interests were offbeat and unusual, but she didn't advertise them and wondered how much Cooke knew about them.

In her later 40s she was tall for a woman, a slim and mixed race widow whose Spanish policeman husband had been killed by an ETA car bomb. She had left her daughter in Seville with her late husband's parents and gone into the British Army bomb squad and then to the West Yorkshire police. She was considerably psychic and that helped her as a detective. She also had one or two unusual friends and some spare time activities that did not sit well with her job.

How can I help? she queried.

I told you, it's all to do with the ... er ... occult. I can't talk about it over the phone. Would you be free to drop round for a chat? he asked. What are you doing now?

Millicent wondered briefly whether he meant the phone line was compromised somehow, but decided he probably meant that he would be searching for the words and perhaps needed visual feedback as part of the communication. She liked that sort of aid to communication herself, especially when interrogating a suspect. Someone's written report was never quite the same as seeing the facial expression and body language for oneself. Perhaps it became a habit with detectives. Rain splattered relentlessly on the office window and drops ran down the pane.

I've just got back from interviews in a child abduction case, she said. I've been rushing from place to place and trying to dodge the rain, but I guess I could finish off what I'm doing here and drop round in an hour or so, if it's important.

Millicent felt she could well do without being sidetracked, especially after the day's complete lack of developments, but David sounded concerned, or maybe confused and she had always felt sorry for his situation. She had quite liked him as a boss and they had worked well as a team.

It's important. he said. I don't quite believe what's happening myself and I want to talk to someone who won't automatically think I'm going mad or getting delusional, or paranoid. Millicent didn't like his tone. It sounded panicky or a touch hysterical, as if he were going to pieces. Or at least in danger of it.

O.K. she said. It's about three-ish now. I'll tidy up a few odds and ends and I'll see you around four thirty or so.

Thanks. I really would appreciate it. He sounded sincere and relieved.

You're still in the same place? The village, she recalled, felt a lot more remote than was suggested by the distances involved. There were places around Witchmoor Edge not at all remote in terms of actual distance, that were far away in terms of services and accessibility. The village of Temple Moor was only a little further away up the dales, but definitely one such in atmosphere and 'feel'.

Temple Farm Cottage, Temple Moor, he said. Same location, same phone number.

All right. See you somewhere around four thirty, then said Millicent, still wondering, and rang off. She sat at her desk not moving, except for her fingers drumming absently, a faraway look in her eyes. The rain still splattered against the window, but the detective gave no sign that she had heard it.

Chapter 2

The rain was still drifting down from the moor in sheets, driven on the chilly and miserable March wind, as Millicent's car splashed to a halt outside a stone built cottage of indeterminate but considerable age. It was long and low, with a roof of thin slabs of granite rather than tiles, and mullioned windows set in stone frames. She drove as far up the gravel track from the road as she could get and eyed the sodden distance to the front door as she cut the engine. As the engine died so did the sigh of the heater and the screen wipers clicked to a halt. The sound of the rain beat on the roof and the view through the windscreen was soon obliterated by streaming droplets of water and the beginnings of a rapid misting up. The headlights cut off too, of course, and the cottage took on a dismal and empty look.

Millicent picked up her handbag and the umbrella from the passenger seat next to her, steeled herself for the weather and opened the car door.

It was nearly dark, but should still have been daylight - this was, after all, close to the clocks going forward and the days were lengthening steadily, but the iron-grey, lowering sky hiding the tops of the hills, the low clouds scudding across it and the curtains of rain sweeping down from the fells, all absorbed what little light there was, and the chilly wind made it feel even gloomier as the spirits darkened.

As Millicent had recalled earlier, it hadn't been far up the dale from the outskirts of Witchmoor Edge - not even an hour's drive - though the roads were back lanes that wound and climbed. The village of Temple Moor was not far from the cottage either: you could see the church tower from the drive in spite of the gloom, she noticed as she ran towards the front door. It opened before she got there and David Cooke stood aside to let her in.

Come in Millicent, Cooke said.

She kicked off her shoes, wondering whether they should now be on first name terms. She supposed so, since they were no longer work colleagues but friends. She had used his first name herself when he had phoned earlier. The light was on in the entrance porch and the cottage showed its age in stone-flagged floors and a panelled entrance hall, but it was warm and welcoming.

Leave your outdoor things in the hall and we'll have a drink before we talk, he said. I'm sorry to drag you out in weather like this.

She put her umbrella, still open, to dry in the hallway and hung her jacket on the hangers to one side. Cooke led her into a large living room, well carpeted, with an open plan kitchen beyond.

Have a seat, he said and went into the kitchen area.

Millicent sat herself in one of the armchairs, in front of a smouldering fire of logs. This wasn't enough to warm the whole house, so it must be decoration: the central heating must be on. She looked around. Like her own cottage in Baildon, this one had been well modernised into an estate agent's dream.

She relaxed a little, watching Cooke pouring steaming water from an electric kettle into a mug and a small caffetiere. He was tall and thin with greying hair rather longer than she remembered, wearing an open necked shirt, dark trousers and wine red slippers. He looked pale and rather gaunt she thought: had he been eating properly since his wife Mellisa had died? He had always looked on the thin side, but it was more a haggard and hunted look about the ex-DCI that worried her. Coupled with his worried and slightly hysterical tone on the phone earlier and his references to the occult, it didn't add up to anything reassuring. He carried over a tray with the caffetiere, a couple of mugs, milk and sugar and some biscuits.

I recall you always preferred coffee to tea, he remarked as he set the tray down of the small table by the fireplace. I'm a tea man myself, he added unnecessarily as he dragged the table to a more central position.

He pushed down the plunger of the caffetiere and poured some coffee into an empty mug. The other held steadily strengthening tea. He added milk to the tea and spooned out the tea bag.

Help yourself to milk and sugar, he told Millicent handing her the mug of coffee. And help yourself to biscuits.

She noticed that he made no effort to help himself to one.

So, Millicent said, sitting back in the armchair. What is the problem?

Can I tell it as a story, then you can ask questions afterwards. That way you'll know what to ask.

Millicent smiled and shrugged. Tell it your way, she said. I don't think I'm investigating a crime and taking a statement, am I?

Cooke grimaced and Millicent wondered for a moment if she was, perhaps, taking a statement, The moment passed, he sat back in the chair and visibly ordered his thoughts, while Millicent watched him, calm and curious, sipping her coffee.

When I first took leave of absence from the force, he began, "I bought this cottage and Melissa and I moved up here. For two or three months she seemed to get better and the three months prognosis extended to almost eight before she grew suddenly worse and died within a couple of weeks. You wouldn't believe it on a day like this, but in nice weather this can be a lovely spot and I think that helped her strength. She loved it here.

When she died so suddenly I was devastated. I think I must have believed she was beating the illness. We had a woman to come in three or four times a week to help out - still does in fact, or I don't think this place, he gestured around the cottage, would be anything like as neat and tidy.

He looked around. I suppose it's too big for one, really, and it leaves me tight for money, but I didn't want to ... don't want to move. It acquired too many good memories in a short time. Anyway, Mrs. Dyson - that's the daily woman - suggested a woman in the village who could get in touch with the spirits of those who had ... passed over, and get messages from them. Miss Harcourt her name was. Elderly spinster lady who must have been 80 or more. The long and short of it is that with nothing much else to do and missing Melissa I agreed to go and see her with Mrs. Dyson.

Millicent had often wondered why so many people seemed to think the dead have nothing better to do than send message to 'loved ones'. They presumably have a lot of adjusting to do themselves, getting used to life in a different dimension.

Well, Cooke continued, I went with Mrs Dyson and found Miss Harcourt a very pleasant old lady and she seemed able to get information from Melissa that wouldn't have been known to anybody in the village, along with some very reassuring messages. If it had stopped at that point I don't think there would have been a problem.

Millicent finished her coffee, put the mug down and waited.

I went back another time - for more reassurance, I suppose, or because I just had nothing better to do at that moment. This time Miss Harcourt had a niece with her. A younger woman called Athena Harcourt-Jones. Affluent, elegant and very good looking, but there was something about her - She looked to be in her thirties, but I think she was somehow a lot older than she looked. Miss Harcourt said Athena had bought Temple Farm and was investigating the ruins.

I should explain, he went on, "that Temple Farm Cottage was two cottages, knocked through into one and well modernised. Temple Farm is up the road a little way and stood empty for a while when the owner died. Well this Athena had apparently bought the farm, but I'm not sure that she ever intended living there. She wanted to study or find something around the