The Forgotten Son Page 14

‘I didn’t see a damn thing,’ Henry said, lowering his eyes.

  Lethbridge-Stewart didn’t believe him. ‘You used to visit Draynes Wood with us, Henry, I know this. It’s one of the few things that have returned to me since I came back here. Did you see the Hollow Man, too?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ George piped up. ‘I recognise that look, Henry.’

  Lethbridge-Stewart smiled. He liked these men, liked the way they all knew each other, had history together. And he liked how George had clearly caught Henry out. Henry was less pleased.

  ‘Okay, so I saw it!’ Henry snapped. ‘I was there in Draynes Wood, up there with my dad. I took a stroll and heard the rest of you. Went to look and I saw it. Saw the man appear, saw him fall apart like the embers of a fire.’ He looked up at Ray, accusing him of something. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave it there? Let it be a story?’

  Too many departments and too little communication between them. Bureaucracy, one of the worst parts of the British Armed Forces, and the sole reason Major General Hamilton had only just received the news.

  He perused the report once again, waiting for the phone call to be picked up on the other end. There was only one man he could talk to about this, the only officer of staff rank in a position to do something about it. And the man had failed to report in that morning – despite calling Corporal Wright the previous night.

  Finally the phone was picked up.

  ‘Corporal Wright, has the colonel reported in yet?’

  ‘No, sir,’ came the quick reply. ‘Not since last night.’

  ‘I see. So we can assume he is still in the area of Liskeard?’ Hamilton considered that for the moment. The trail of Staff Sergeant Arnold had dried up in Liskeard, and now Lethbridge-Stewart was in the area following a lead that he had failed to reveal. It was clearly connected, and almost certainly related to the report before him. The report was from a top secret army vault somewhere in Northumberland. Apparently the storemen had received telephoned orders from the vault quartermaster, a Captain Hawkins, to transport the Yeti and other ephemera from the London Event to a place called Remington Manor, just a mile from Draynes Wood in Cornwall. Near Liskeard. The curious thing was that Hawkins insisted that he had given no such order.

  Steps needed to be taken, and quickly. They could not afford another incursion like the recent one in London.

  ‘Wright, put Major Douglas on the line. It would appear Lethbridge-Stewart was right; the Great Intelligence is still out there, and it’s mobilising.’

  George wasn’t liking this at all. All this time he’d believed it to be just a story. He’d never read any of Ray’s books, didn’t care for such novels, but he knew the story. And now it was real.

  ‘My son is up there,’ he said, his voice shaking more than he would have liked.

  ‘Your son is here.’ Alistair turned to Owain.

  ‘Not Owain, Lewis. He went there to look for Owain, I know it.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  George looked at Owain, but his son had his head lowered. ‘Because Owain hasn’t been himself all week. Neither of my boys have been.’

  Henry spoke up. ‘It’s just boys turning to men, George.’

  ‘No it isn’t,’ Ray said. ‘You told us in the pub that Owain had been up at the Manor last weekend.’ He stabbed a finger at George. ‘I warned you all, but you just wouldn’t listen. Just think I’m the madman, the author and his crazy stories.’ He looked down at Henry sadly. ‘You knew I was telling the truth. Do you think I had forgotten that? Think I’d forgotten what happened at Alistair’s birthday party? But I left you be, let you live with your denial. But now you all know different.’

  George didn’t want to admit it, but Ray was right. Something had been wrong all week, ever since his boys had gone to the Manor. If this Hollow Man was real, then what else was real about the stories he’d heard? And Henry had known all this time. George wasn’t sure what angered him more – that he hadn’t listened to Ray, or that Henry had been keeping it all a secret for the last twenty years.

  ‘Gentlemen, secrets are all very well, and we all have reasons for keeping them,’ Alistair said. ‘But now is not the time. Mr Vine.’ He turned to Owain. ‘What happened up at the Manor? What did you see?’

  Owain looked up, and George recognised the contempt in his eyes. He wasn’t going to tell Alistair a thing. Owain never had been the type to confide in people he didn’t know, especially when put on the spot.

  ‘Did you see those beasts?’ Ray asked. ‘Big hairy things.’

  ‘You really saw them?’ Henry cut in, turning to his friend. ‘Those grizzly bears?’

  Ray swallowed, coming out in a sweat. ‘Yes. I went up there yesterday. I had to go and find Owain… I’d failed to keep people away, but I couldn’t get too close. I…’ He swallowed again, his voice sounding raw. ‘They were no bears. I don’t know what they were, but they weren’t bears.’

  ‘No,’ Alistair said, his eyes now steel. ‘They were Yeti.’

  For the first time all morning Owain felt Gordon with him. He wasn’t sure how Gordon was feeling, but he was watching the whole conversation unfold.

  How does he know?

  Owain waited for an answer, while Lethbridge-Stewart quizzed Ray on what he had seen.

  I know Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart of old, Gordon said.

  Owain had worked that out. Gordon was Lethbridge-Stewart’s father, or at least the ghost of him. But it wasn’t Gordon who had answered, it was the pure consciousness. It had encountered Lethbridge-Stewart before. Somehow it had touched the soldier.

  ‘I saw them, too,’ Owain said before he even realised he was going to. He looked around the room, and shrugged. ‘How could I tell you?’ he asked his dad. ‘You would have just laughed at me.’

  ‘I’m not laughing now.’

  Owain wasn’t sure if his dad looked disappointed or relieved. Possibly a mixture of the two.

  ‘Did you feel this Hollow Man?’ Lethbridge-Stewart asked. ‘Any of you?’

  The men looked around, each keeping their own counsel.

  ‘What about you, Mr Vine?’

  Owain Vine shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. There was something there. I felt it, a week ago.’ He went on to describe his previous visit to the Manor with Lewis and Charles. Lethbridge-Stewart listened. Suddenly it was all making perfect sense to him, and he couldn’t believe he had not considered the possibility.

  He had been warned that the Great Intelligence was ‘out there’. Only it wasn’t so much ‘out there’ as ‘here’, all this time. What else could have resurrected a corpse? The last thing the Great Intelligence had succeeded in doing was possessing Arnold, and now it was using him again.

  But how did his mother fit into it all? Lethbridge-Stewart had been certain the two events were connected, but now? He couldn’t for the life of him think how. If Ray was to be believed, the Hollow Man, whatever it was, was connected to the Great Intelligence, and it had been in the Manor for over thirty years. Lethbridge-Stewart knew he was missing something.

  ‘So you believe Lewis went to the Manor to find Owain?’ he asked George, once Owain had finished his story.

  George nodded. ‘Where else would he go? He hasn’t returned all night.’

  Lethbridge-Stewart let this fit into the puzzle. Still there were pieces missing. ‘Very well. What I am about to tell you, gentlemen, can never leave this room. Indeed, I will be breaking the Official Secrets Act by telling you. But I believe the events happening here are directly connected to recent occurrences in London.’ He looked around the room, and his eyes came to rest on Private Bishop. If Hamilton discovered this conversation, Lethbridge-Stewart knew there would be hell to pay. But he had little other choice. ‘As you know, almost a month ago London was evacuated. The official story is a major gas leak and bears escaping from London Zoo, but the truth is London was under siege by an alien intelligence…’

  Gerald Sherwin hated walking the
dog. He didn’t trust dog-walkers – it always seemed to be them who found dead bodies or unexploded bombs. He’d seen it on the news so many times and found it hard not to be suspicious. His mother was a dog-walker, the one who usually walked their little Red Setter, Pat, but she wasn’t feeling too well today and so this morning it was down to him. Pat: a stupid name for a dog if ever there was one. He resented having to shout it after the creature.

  His plan was to go as far out as he could, maybe even let Pat go. He never liked the dog anyway. Stupid thing was far too needy – like all dogs. If anything, Gerald decided, he was a cat man.

  It was a cold morning and Gerald was wrapped up warm, but it didn’t stop him shivering when he spotted a blanket of snow in the near distance. He stopped, surprised to see that the snow appeared to be moving. Stretching out like some kind of fence, covering the hedges. Only… He peered closer. It wasn’t snow at all, more like some kind of thick web. But it seemed to be alive, pulsating hypnotically.

  He shook his head and looked around. At some point he had released hold of the lead and Pat had ran off. He didn’t remember letting go, yet as he looked around the field he could see no sign of the Red Setter.

  His mother was going to go spare.

  He turned around to retrace his steps, but thoughts of his dog and his mother were forgotten as, as if from nowhere, a large claw swept down towards his head. There was no time to question, no time even to be surprised – just enough time for one final thought: Sometimes it isn’t the dog-walkers that find the dead bodies…

  ‘And there you have it, gentlemen, the level of threat Bledoe appears to be under,’ Alistair concluded.

  ‘So we now have a ghost in the Manor and a dead soldier somewhere near our village?’ Henry said, his limit of incredulity long past.

  George offered a lopsided smile. Henry was glad he was not the only one taking this all with a pinch of salt, not that he was best pleased with George for putting him on the spot earlier. There were some things best forgotten, and what he had seen in 1937 was one of them. He did not appreciate being called on it.

  ‘That’s the long and short of it, Henry, yes. What I suggest then is a quick recce of this Manor. If it was indeed a Yeti you saw, Ray, then you can be sure the Intelligence will have others. Although how it got them here is beyond me.’ Alistair rubbed his chin. ‘I think I shall have to get onto Major General Hamilton, let him know the situation here, once I know the strength of the Intelligence’s forces.’

  Alistair was deadly serious, more so than Ray, which said a lot. Ray was sitting down now, his head in his hands. Henry couldn’t blame him. He had lived with this for years, believing it all, but never being believed. Henry supposed he should feel guilty for not supporting Ray, but Henry had a family to worry about, Ray had only himself. Henry couldn’t afford to indulge in the things that would drive a man insane.

  ‘Don’t forget the aliens,’ George said.

  ‘Of course. And not grizzly bears, but robotic Yeti.’ Henry shook his head and stood up. This was all quite insane. He was a publican, and a good one at that. This was all too much for him.

  ‘Sir,’ Bishop said. ‘When we were looking for your mother, Mr Barns and I questioned a woman who told us that some fruit had been stolen from her house during the night.’

  ‘Stolen fruit, too,’ Henry said, no longer able to contain his mirth. ‘Whatever next.’

  Alistair raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Mr Barns… Henry, I can understand how this must all seem to you, but you yourself witnessed this Hollow Man, and I assure you I did not break my oath to tell you a pack of lies.’ He turned back to Bishop. ‘However, I fail to see how stolen fruit could be important.’

  ‘Because the woman also told us she found muddy prints in her kitchen. Boot prints, sir.’

  ‘Combat boots?’

  ‘That would be my guess, sir. After all, Staff Sergeant Arnold must need food at some point, surely?’

  Henry really didn’t like where this was going.

  ‘Henry, I want you and Private Bishop to talk to this woman again, see if she saw anything else.’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ Henry slumped his shoulders and walked out of the cottage, not waiting to see if Bishop was following. He needed fresh air, and Alistair had given him the excuse he needed to get it.

  Owain looked up from the magazine he was reading to see his dad entering the kitchen. The big meeting must have finished.

  ‘We’re going up to the Manor.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘Not you. We need someone to remain here and keep an eye on Mrs Lethbridge-Stewart.’

  Owain shook his head and let out a grunt. ‘Guilty, then, is that it?’

  His dad’s face creased in a frown. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It’s your fault, you know, if Lewis is in trouble. If you hadn’t punched him, he would have come back by now.’

  Owain could see he had hit a sore point. He knew his dad, not one for expressing his feelings at the best of times. Sure, the two of them had enjoyed some good times over the last year, going for a sneaky and illegal pint in Liskeard when his mother wasn’t around, but it didn’t make up for half of the stuff Owain had witnessed over the years.

  ‘If it’s anybody’s fault, then it’s yours, son. If you hadn’t disappeared yesterday, then Lewis would never have had to go out looking for you.’

  Owain let out a snort of laughter. ‘I’m not surprised he wanted to leave Bledoe.’

  His dad stepped forward and grabbed Owain by the shirt. ‘Listen to me, Owain, I’ve had enough of Lewis’ lip, and if you don’t want the same as he…’

  Owain pushed his dad aside with ease. Joining with Gordon had changed him, in more ways than one. He didn’t need anybody any more. Just Gordon. He looked back at his dad. The old man looked weak, every one of his forty-eight years showing. With a smile, Owain carried on out of the kitchen.

  Only Lethbridge-Stewart was in the room now.

  ‘Your mother will be safe here,’ Owain said. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’

  Yes, Gordon agreed. Quite safe.

  Ray opened the top drawer and removed the sepia-toned photograph. He had lived with the pain for so long, he didn’t need more reminders of what had happened, and had removed all pictures of his best friend from the living room some years ago. But this one he kept, safe in the top drawer in his bedroom.

  It showed three boys sitting outside Redrose Cottage. The youngest of the three, Alistair, stood slightly away from the elder two, dressed, like the older boys, in grey shorts and a tanktop over his neat shirt. All three wore smiles, excited about going back to school. If nobody knew any better they would have assumed the boys were brothers, and that’s how it had felt back then.

  With James it was like being a twin, instead of the younger brother who got the hand-me-downs. Ray never got on with his own brother, so was it any wonder he and Alistair had become so close after James had died?

  Ray smiled at the picture. ‘Soon,’ he said, ‘soon we’ll understand it all.’

  He was still confused as to why Alistair did not remember James, but Ray knew that determined look on Alistair’s face. Things were coming together. Years of pain, of not understanding, were about to come to an end. Up at the Manor were all the answers, and with Alistair by his side Ray knew they’d find them.

  Finally he would be vindicated, no longer considered the madman of the village.

  — CHAPTER TEN —

  Face of the Enemy

  THE WEB WAS BLOCKING THEIR way. Staff Sergeant Arnold lifted an arm to deflect it as it moved in the breeze that swept through the Underground tunnel. He had seen what the web could do. Already it covered much of the Underground and a fair amount of London above – many had died in it, and he didn’t plan on being one of them. Standing behind him was Private Evans, a less than exemplary sapper from the Royal Engineers, while Corporal Lane knelt next to him, a much more dependable non-commissioned officer from the regular infantry. They all crowded around a sm
all trolley that sat on the rail tracks.

  Arnold gestured down the tunnel. ‘The colonel will be through there at Covent Garden in a few minutes, right?’ he said rhetorically. He knew Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and his men were above ground, trying to find another way to Covent Garden. He thought of the fury of the Yeti’s onslaught; hopefully they’d avoided the worst of it.

  ‘Do you think they'll be able to load the police box on here, Staff?’ Evans asked, the trace of cowardice evident in his strong Welsh voice.

  Arnold didn’t see why not. He still didn’t understand why the colonel needed a police box, or indeed why there was one in the Underground anyway. But orders were orders, and Arnold was a soldier who didn’t question them when given.

  ‘Well, if we can get this thing through the fungus stuff,’ he pointed out. He peered through the web, which was now pulsing. He could just about make out the rest of the tunnel beyond. ‘There's not much of a gradient in this section of the tunnel. Right.’ Arnold stood up. ‘I want one volunteer.’

  ‘Volunteer?’ asked Evans, looking at Arnold in a way that could only be called insubordinate. He glanced sideways at Lane. ‘That’s a dirty word, that is. Not me!’

  Arnold was not surprised. Evans had proven his cowardice several times already. If they got out of this, Arnold intended to have a word with Evans’ regimental staff sergeant. There was no way he would have put up with such backchat in 21 Regiment. Arnold turned to the corporal.

  ‘Lane?’

  ‘What for, Staff?’ Lane was weary, and Arnold couldn’t blame him, but at least he was willing.

  Arnold pointed at the trolley and explained. ‘Well, if this thing wants some help going through to Covent Garden, I’m going through with it…’

  ‘Into that stuff?’

  ‘Have we got those respirators?’

  ‘Well yeah, here.’ Lane placed his rifle on the trolley and reached for the packs that held the respirator masks. He handed one to Arnold.

  ‘I reckon we should be all right in these.’ Arnold removed his beret and hung the pack around his neck. He opened it and retrieved the mask inside. He handed the other pack to Lane. The corporal didn’t take it. ‘Oh, all right, Lane lad. I’ll go by meself.’