Sealed Entrance

By Mike Crowson

Sealed Entrance

Brian Winters and his family have disappeared, leaving a sealed entrance leading nowhere in an otherwise normal house; an attractive newly wed appears to have attempted suicide by jumping off a footbridge over a major road into the traffic; even more bizarre, a rural bus off its route crashed through a wall and into a ravine with no survivors, and Theo Havens has been strangled up on the moors with no one around but his wife ... and she's lost her mind.

DCI Millicent Hampshire can't see a connection between these odd events, but her psychic friend Tobias N'Dibe, aided by his psychic teenage protegee, Chelsey Braden and her mongrel dog Scruffy can ... but their information comes from the astral plane, and it is going to need a big astral punch up before it's over: fortunately all three of them (including the dog) have astral counterparts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Crowson
• Release date: May 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458003669

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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Sealed Entrance

Mike Crowson

Published by Smashwords

Copyright Mike Crowson 2011

Prologue

I remember falling but not much else - no time for fear or panic, no time to wonder who or why, no time even for pain. I was crossing a footbridge over a major road, when somebody seemed to heave me up and push me over the side, onto the road below. Memory plays tricks and you hear stories of memories suppressed because the conscious mind rejects them, but I don't think I saw anyone at all. Again, I can't remember what I was doing on the bridge - returning from the shops on the other side, maybe - or of being with anyone. On the other hand, some individual did throw me off. Bastard! I think a vehicle may have hit me as I fell, and slammed me towards the side of the road, but I'm not sure. I just remember falling and then hospital.

I have a vague consciousness of lying on a trolley in accident and emergency, being prodded and examined by a doctor and undressed by a nurse. I was embarrassed in a detached sort of way to be naked, but she didn't hurt me, though I didn't seem able to do anything myself.

No response, I remember the doctor saying about some reflex. I told him I couldn't feel anything. He shone a light into my eyes to examine them.

Hmm, he said, noncommittally. How did it happen?

I was thrown off a bridge, I said.

According to a witness, she just jumped off a footbridge, onto the Aire Valley Trunk Road, said the nurse, ignoring me completely.

The Doctor pulled a face. Makes a change from paracetamol and vodka, I suppose, he remarked.

I was about to say that no one in her right mind would choose to jump onto a main road from a bridge.

Before I had chance to speak, he continued: Well there's extensive pelvic and spinal damage and the head injury, though there's not much blood loss that I can see. Renew the drip. Take some blood samples in case we need to give her transfusions for internal bleeding later. Send her for X-rays of her spine, pelvis and head, then send her up to intensive care and let Doctor Dennison have a look at her.

The doctor rushed off. The nurse bustled about, acting as if I wasn't there and then things went hazy again.

I became conscious a second time on the ward, but only briefly. I was linked up to a variety of monitors and I couldn't move. I wasn't held down in any way, it was just that I was unable to force even the slightest movement of my muscles: not a finger, not my head, not even my eyes. It was brief but boring and very, very scary.

The third time I became aware I was wide-awake and could sense what I couldn't see. I could hear and speak and think, but I still couldn't move. It was some time, possibly days, later, when a doctor - presumably the Dennison they had mentioned in accident & emergency - had come onto the ward to examine me, bringing several students with him. I could see him when he stood at the end of the bed and a bit of the side reflected off the facemask helping me to breathe. I could see he was about the same age as my mum - early forties I should guess - and the nurses stood alongside him in a way that suggested he had some authority, even the one as old as my gran.

I couldn't see much of the students except when he called them forward to look at some bit of me. He shone a light in my eyes, held up the X-rays to examine them and drew in a long breath. He looked over the various monitors connected to me and then turned his attention back to the students.

Let's recap, Dennison said. Female in her early twenties,

Twenty three, I told him.

Pelvic damage on the right side. Substantial and fairly serious but I could repair that. Spinal damage looks much more serious. I think there could be near total paralysis from the waist down.

I thought Dennison was a bit blunt, considering he was speaking in front of me. Not very high up on the bedside manner scales, perhaps: it was just like he thought I couldn't hear. He put down the X-rays of my back and bum on the bed and picked up the one of my head. He was out of my sight but I think he was looking from the X-ray to the various monitors.

Pulse a bit fast and temperature a little high, he said.

Not enough to cause real concern, surely, the older of the two nurses suggested. I could still just see her, but I could hear them both clearly enough.

The older nurse moved back into full view again: she had greying hair that had been very auburn - the colour still showed a bit - and a sharp though pleasant manner. Perhaps she wasn't as old as my gran at that, but she must have been getting on a bit.

Oh no, I agree, Dennison said. It's the head injury that concerns me. How did she get the injuries, do you know.

Some one tried to kill me, I said.

Attempted suicide, I believe, said the sister ignoring me like Dennison had done.

Like hell it was attempted suicide!

Well, the attempt was nearly successful, Dennison remarked drily. She hasn't shown any sign of life? he asked.

I wished they wouldn't talk about me as if I wasn't there.

Not really, the older nurse said. I've thought once or twice she might have responded to her position being changed as we settled her in, but nothing of her own accord. Three days and still nothing.

I've tried to talk to you, I said, annoyed and worried as well. But you won't take any notice of me.

They were still taking no notice of me. I don't think they could hear me. Perhaps I couldn't communicate at all, as well as not being able to move.

Dennison nodded slowly to the nurse and then spoke to the students I couldn't see. There's no sign of life on the EEG. Unless there's any change in the next hour or two, we're going to have to think about switching off the various life support features.

Please don't switch me off, I said starting to panic. I didn't know whether I could breathe without this thing on my face and I couldn't move to feed myself or drink anything. If they switched off all this gear I'd be a goner. Besides, I wanted to know what had happened on that bridge. I'm not dead yet and anyway they haven't caught the person who tried to kill me.

"I think I'll talk to the relatives when I've finished my rounds. I'll ask them to drop in this evening.

The doctor was obviously taking no notice of me at all. I screamed in panic: FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T SWITCH ME OFF!

He ignored me completely. I might as well have said nothing.

He glanced at his watch but I could see the ward clock from where I was lying - it was just turned ten thirty.

I'm due in the operating theatre at two, he said, presumably to the students. And I want you to pop into my outpatient clinic after I've finished here, but, he added to the nurse, There might be time to phone the relatives before lunch and set up an appointment if we push on. Right, he continued briskly, Let's see what else you have for us,

The curtains around me swished open as the junior of the two nurses followed the doctor and the ward sister and the students to the next bed, to close those curtains as briskly as she had opened those around me.

CHAPTER 1

This will be frustrating, Detective Inspector Lucy Turner remarked as she plonked down on the interview room table a thin folder of notes that the Missing Persons section had taken down, along with a digital voice recorder and her own notebook. I'm afraid there are loads more questions now, and I'd like to record everything you say anyway, for future reference, so I'm going to ask you to go through the whole story again. Sorry.

Lucy didn't actually look very sorry, but her whole attitude seemed at least superficially friendly as she unwound the microphone lead and set the recorder out on the table. She was small for a police officer, in her mid to late thirties with a pretty face that belied a sharp tongue and sharper mind - and a sometimes bizarre sense of humour..

Now, she continued, fiddling with the on - off switch of the recorder, This is D.I. Lucy Turner interviewing Mrs. Geraldine Stone regarding the apparent absence of her brother Brian Winter, his wife Susan Winter and daughter Naomi Winter. The time is eleven thirty on Tuesday May 25th. Would you just repeat your name to identify yourself on the recording, please?

Geraldine Stone, The woman answered.

Thanks. That's presumably the former Geraldine Winter?

That's right.

When did you first report your brother missing?

Let me see, Geraldine said. I actually came in and spoke to Missing Persons last Thursday ...

The 20th of May?

That sounds about right. But I spoke to them on the phone at least a week before that. They didn't seem to think it was very urgent.

Lucy looked at the notes in the slim folder and nodded. A missing adult isn't urgent in the same way as a missing child, she agreed. Especially when there's no evidence of anything suspicious surrounding the absence. When did you find your brother missing. Or not find your brother I suppose is more accurate. When did you realise he'd gone?

The university called me to ask if I'd seen him because he wasn't taking his lectures and the students were complaining. That was sometime at the beginning of the month. I hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks myself, so I went round to his house. There was no answer so I let myself in with the spare key I keep for him.

You normally have a key?

In case someone locks themselves out, yes. You might say it's just for emergencies.

I see. And he wasn't there?

There was nobody there. There was a week or so's mail on the floor in the hall, but he wasn't there, his wife wasn't there and little Naomi wasn't there either. No sign of life.

What about their personal effects? Lucy asked, looking at the notes again and not expecting a response. Was anything missing to suggest they were on holiday? The whole thing was puzzling, which was why Missing Persons had referred it to the C.I.D. detectives in the first place.

Pretty well everything seemed to be there. I couldn't see anything obviously not there. Except for the three of them, of course.

What about his car?

He doesn't drive, though Susan does, but that first time I didn't look in the garage. I just thought it was all very odd. A couple of days later, with still nobody about, more mail on the floor and Brian still absent from his lectures without explanation, I went through the house again. I took the garage key from the kitchen to look round and the car was there. I had a more thorough search of the house afterwards, but I was certain the place was empty and abandoned with everything in it.

That agreed with what she had said to Missing Persons. You are Geraldine Stone?

The woman nodded.

The file says you live at 26 Baildon Lane, Witchmoor Edge, that you are aged 38, a teacher at Merrymoor High School. You can confirm that?

Yes.

You are married but separated with two school age children?

Geraldine Stone nodded, looking only mildly exasperated. So far, Lucy noted, she had confirmed the story she had told to Missing Persons exactly. It was either well rehearsed or a well remembered truth - probably the latter.

Okay, the detective said, Tell me about your brother. How old was he?

Two years older than me. His birthday is February so he'd be 41. His wife Susan was five or six years younger than him, I'm not exactly sure of the year, but her birthday is September 23rd. Naomi was five.

The child was old enough for school?

She'd just started at Glendale Primary,

Ah! And when did she last attend school?

I didn’t ask them right off, Geraldine answered. When I did they told me May 3rd.

I see. You said your brother was absent from work at the university. What was his subject?

Geraldine stone looked a little surprised at the question. Lucy wondered why. It was something it was natural for a detective to ask and for a sister to know. Geraldine frowned. She was presentable, though a little overweight, light on the make up and with her shortish, light brown hair lightly permed.

Well, er, she hesitated, He lectured in quantum physics, sort of, and he wrote a couple popular books on the subject.

But? Lucy asked expectantly. She was certain there was more.

But he had all sorts of odd ideas that general academic opinion thought too eccentric for him to be taken seriously, Geraldine continued. Or so he said.

Lucy was mildly intrigued. What sort of odd ideas? she asked.

I didn't understand them. Geraldine answered. He was a genius and I can't keep up with a genius.

That, the detective thought, is either a lie or an excuse. I don't know whether it matters or not, or even whether it is relevant or not, but you do have a very good idea in what way he was experimenting and you did understand his ideas, or some of them anyway. But are you saying you don't know because you're hiding something or because you're embarrassed, either for him or for yourself?

"What about family?'

Our mother died last year and our father a few years ago. Susan was Canadian, but I think her parents were dead too.

Brothers or sisters?

Geraldine shrugged. We don't have any and she never talked about hers.

That's another evasion, Lucy thought. Out loud she said, OK. I think we'll drive over to his house and I'll give it once over before I let a team of Scene of Crime Officers loose on the place. What was the address?

2 Timegate Close, Geraldine said, looking relieved. Again Lucy wondered why. It's that new estate off the East Morton Road, she added.

Lucy nodded, thinking that the words 'East Morton' brought to mind Tobias N'Dibe and thus his friend, her boss, Chief Inspector Millicent Hampshire. This whole affair sounded odd enough to interest Toby and she wondered in passing whether he knew Winters

Shall I take my own car? Geraldine asked.

Yes, DI Turner agreed. I'll follow you in mine.

Lucy pulled in behind Geraldine Stone's estate car, switched off the engine and looked at 2 Timegate Close. It was a rather nice detached house about eight or ten years old, the first building on the corner, and Timegate Close itself led into a small private estate of similar properties - nice and peaceful but not pretentious. Behind it was a small wood, perhaps the last remains