Fallen Roads

By Charles Towlson

Set in the tranquil English village of Fallen Roads, this novel unfolds when a simple sign is put up, ‘Land for Sale’, a trigger point from which there is no turning back.

Quintessentially English with a village pub, a village newsletter and a host of believable characters, Fallen Roads has everything and leads the reader into the paranormal world of the legendary ‘Leaning Man’ but not before Noel Falards, a young drifter arrives in the village and secures a job as a farm labourer along with an old cottage on Salford Lane. His presence changes everything.

With unsolved mysteries, witches, and magic dice, it takes all the skills and experience of paranormal investigators Don Fearsall and Della Frosan to find out what is truly happening, but will it be too late?

Sprinkled with mystery and humour throughout, Fallen Roads is an engaging page-turner and will keep the reader hooked to literally the very last word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035805945

Charles Towlson

Charles Towlson, 70, is retired and spends his time writing, gardening and playing the odd game of tennis. A former London doorman, Head of Chess in a private school and gardener on Corfu, Charles has written all of his life and has 12 unpublished books to his name and hopes that Fallen Roads will see him as a published author. Married for 29 years, Charles lives with wife, Renata, and they have one son, Zak, 21, already a published author.

Book preview

About the Author

Charles Towlson, 70, is retired and spends his time writing, gardening and playing the odd game of tennis.

A former London doorman, Head of Chess in a private school and gardener on Corfu, Charles has written all of his life and has 12 unpublished books to his name and hopes that Fallen Roads will see him as a published author.

Married for 29 years, Charles lives with wife, Renata, and they have one son, Zak, 21, already a published author.

Dedication

To my wife, Renata, and son, Zak, with love and thanks for always inspiring me.

Copyright Information ©

Charles Towlson 2023

The right of Charles Towlson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035805938 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035805945 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Denis Robinson, local reporter, for his continual encouragement.

Thank my son, Zak, for persuading me to change the title.

Renata, my wife, without whom I could not have submitted the original manuscript.

And finally, Publishers Austin Macauley for taking a chance on Fallen Roads.

Chapter One

1855. Margana Enid Camp was a witch. Or at least that is what the residents of the little village of Fallen Roads thought of her in the mid 1850s, when she cursed the village and the villagers with her strange, cackle of a witchlike voice, almost laughing every time she spoke, but it wasn’t funny.

Margana used to sit in a rocking chair at the bottom of her garden, just inside her gate, frightening everybody as they passed by with her spells and curses and the rolling of her dice onto a rickety old table. Her red, white and green dice. The only tools of her trade. The casting of lots. The telling of fortunes that she seemingly made up on the spot, but that nevertheless had the desired effect on those who heard. Beware, young maiden, your golden hair will turn grey today. Cursed with age, in one so young. That was all it took.

Margana lived in a brick shack with a grotesque gargoyle poised on the roof. The schack was on Top End Lane, which for the residents of Fallen Roads was the worst possible place, because they had to pass it on their way to the church or the pub or when walking in or out of the village, so the curses were almost relentless, day in day out, week after week, year after relentless year, until one day, the shack burnt down and Margana left the village and retreated to a small cave in the rock face up in the hills, ‘Camp Enid’ as it quickly became known, and remained known throughout the ages, but the damage had been done, the curses cast, her memory a cloud over the village, especially that one curse, the one that she chanted time and time again, as she left for the hills. The one that sent a chill through the spine.

This wicked world will never learn, show me a sign and I’ll return.

This wicked world will never learn, show me a sign and I’ll return.

But of course, the years rolled by, the decades came and went, and two new centuries raised their heads, until, in the end, Margana Enid Camp became forgotten, ‘Camp Enid’ the only reminder of her existence, and even that, no more than a landmark, a reference point in conversation, Up passed ‘Camp Enid’ and keep on going, until finally, she had gone.

But over time, another story filled her place, never one so menacing as Margana but nevertheless one that filtered into village life. It was the ghost story of The Leaning Man.

Chapter Two

2018. Noel Falards was twenty-two years old and a natural drifter. He had left school at seventeen years of age and had worked on farms, fairgrounds and building sites, so he wasn’t afraid of hard work.

Noel always wore a red beret and always the same one, the same red beret that he bought from a car boot sale in Skegness when he was working there at ‘Fantasy Island’ in the summer of 2016. He just saw the beret, tried it on and that was it; from that day on, he always wore a red beret.

In truth though he had been greatly influenced by two friends who were visiting him that day, the forever nick-named ‘Denim Cap,’ one of Noel’s schoolfriends who always wore a denim cap, something Noel had always admired, and Pi Camden, Denim’s girlfriend, and it was Pi who had encouraged Noel to buy the beret.

You look great in it! she said, It makes you look bohemian, that’s what you’ve been missing! Let me take a photo of you both. Here, look!

Noel took Pi’s mobile phone and looked at the photograph and sure enough the two of them, Denim and himself, did look pretty cool together, standing there wearing their respective hats, and Noel paid for the beret without even taking it off of his head. His bohemian look, complete.

Later that evening, Denim and Pi left Skegness to head for a small music festival where they were presenting ‘Future Sounds,’ a sixty-minute music video of up and coming bands, part of their new business venture ‘DP Cinema Chain’ which they ran from the back of their truck. It wasn’t a cinema, and it wasn’t a chain, but that’s what they called it.

As for Noel, he went to his four-hour night shift back at ‘Fantasy Island’ before one last patrol of the perimeter fencing, locking up and away. His red beret firmly on his head.

That was two years ago now and Noel had worked abroad since then as a gardener on a smallholding on Corfu. His first task of everyday being feeding and watering the fifty or so chickens in the chicken run, but after that, the day was very much his own as long as he did his work, which he always did.

It was on Corfu where Noel took to sticking his beret in his back jeans pocket; it was too hot to wear it, so that’s what he used to do, stick it in his back pocket, sort of half in and half out, not all the time, but enough to become a habit.

Noel learnt a lot on Corfu, especially about chickens, but he also learnt how to drive a tractor, build and repair fences, re-roof barns and construct small structures like sheds and log cabins. They seemed to love log cabins on Corfu, and all that came in very useful when Noel drifted into the village of Fallen Roads in the middle of the English countryside one Friday morning early in 2018, carrying nothing more than an ex-Navy holdall.

The village had the appearance of a place where nothing ever happened, and a traditional black and white sign welcomed Noel on his arrival. ‘To Top End’ it read, accompanied by an arrow, from which Noel assumed there might also be a ‘Bottom End’ and there was. In fact, it was a village full of ‘Ends.’ There was a ‘Top End cottage,’ a ‘Top End shop’ and a ‘Top End Lane,’ and obviously the ‘Bottom End’ equivalent.

Noel stopped and put his holdall down and sat on a bench, top end of the village and looked around, not that there was much to look at. There was a pub across the road, ‘The Arms’ it was called, and a sign in one of the windows read ‘Room Available Today’ and Noel thought about enquiring.

Then a white van pulled up outside ‘The Arms’ with ‘Froland Ales’ on the side in old fashioned lettering, with ‘Established 1918’ underneath, so one hundred years old this year. A man got out, probably about sixty, and opened the back van doors and started to unload some crates and boxes onto the pavement, followed by some more of the same, obviously a delivery.

Then a girl appeared from inside the pub and Noel’s interest grew. She was about the same age as Noel or maybe a bit younger, and she immediately noticed Noel sitting on the bench and Noel nodded and smiled and lifted the front of his beret, like a gentleman in a bowler hat would do, only beret style, and the girl smiled back and gave a little wave.

The man and the girl proceeded to continue with the delivery, this time moving the boxes from the pavement to inside the pub, and Noel asked if he could help.

Want a hand, mate? He shouted, when the man re-appeared from inside.

There’s not much left, came the reply, but thanks anyway, but by this time Noel was standing next to the open van doors.

It’s no problem, said Noel, and then, looking at the girl, who was just about to lean into the van for the last box, added, Here, let me. Noel Falards at your service. Happy to help.

The girl smiled again. Thank you, she said, adding, anywhere on the left, as Noel disappeared into the pub.

The man looked on, too old to appreciate the immediate chemistry between the two strangers, all three of them now standing on the pavement together.

Thanks for your help, he said, I’m Ron Falslead, owner of ‘Froland Ales,’ the local brewery.

A good man to know then, joked Noel, and they shook hands.

…and I’m Sandra Folle, said the girl, the barmaid here, only they call us ‘bar staff’ now, but it means barmaid.

I like barmaids, said Noel, I always have done.

Sandra blushed, her face going the same colour as Noel’s beret, and she busied herself pretending to check some paperwork that she was holding.

Okay then, said Noel, I’ll be on my way, nice to meet you both, and that was that. Noel touched the top of his beret again, picked up his holdall and then, just before leaving, winked at Sandra and walked off, heading in the direction of ‘Bottom End’ wherever that was.

It wasn’t far, and on the way, Noel passed a pond at the entrance to a field on his left that rose gently to a blue sky horizon and nothing more, other than some sort of cowshed that