Atmosphere

  Atmosphere

  Robert Innes

  Published by Robert Innes in 2018

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Robert Innes.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact rgwisox@aol.com

  About This Book

  Released: August 8th 2018

  Words: 38,000

  Standalone: Yes

  Series: A Blake Harte Mystery Book 9

  Cliffhanger: Yes

  There’s no such thing as magic. Everything has a logical explanation, even when you can’t immediately see it. Nothing is impossible when looked at from the right angle.

  Blake Harte has always lived by this mantra. It’s an attitude that has fared him well in Harmschapel after being faced with numerous bizarre murders and situations. But Blake’s beliefs are soon to be tested to breaking point when touring magician, Sebastian Klein, arrives in the village with his daughter, and glamorous assistant, Amelia, to perform their touring magic show.

  Although reluctant to even watch the show, Blake and the rest of Harmschapel Police are soon called into action when Sebastian Klein performs the most baffling trick of his career. Just how many ways are there for a woman to completely vanish in front of an audience, especially when even the great Sebastian Klein has no explanation for what happened?

  What initially looks like a big theatrical stunt soon leads Blake and the team to one of the darkest and most sinister cases they have ever come across. The disappearance of Amelia Klein threatens to explode in the ugliest way possible, and there is no way of telling just how many secrets she could expose if found...

  Contents

  Also by Robert Innes

  Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Two Days Later

  Thank You!

  Also by Robert Innes

  Newsletter

  Also by Robert Innes

  The Blake Harte Mystery Series

  Untouchable

  Confessional

  Ripples

  Reach

  Spotlight

  Flatline

  Skeletons

  Touch

  Atmosphere

  The Gold & Silver Mystery Series

  The Hung Jury

  The Poison Pen

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  1

  “Tell me about the woman.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, what does she look like?”

  Blake Harte leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling with a sigh.

  “Old. She was an old woman. White hair, wrinkled face, shrivelled up old mouth.”

  “And it’s the exact same woman from the events we spoke about when you were a child?”

  Linda Forrest scribbled something onto her clipboard and then looked back up at Blake.

  “Yes,” replied Blake. “It’s the same woman from when I was a kid because it’s the same nightmare I’ve had ever since I was a kid.”

  Linda nodded as she continued writing. “And when these dreams started again, how long had it been since the last one?”

  “When I was at university, quite a few years ago.”

  “And since then?”

  Blake clasped his hands together in his lap and wrung them together slightly. He absolutely hated discussing the nightmares in such detail as this.

  “Since I had the first one a few months ago, I’ve been experiencing them at least once a week. Sometimes twice. I even had one last night and apparently I woke up my partner, because I was crying out, which is impressive as normally he can sleep through an earthquake.”

  There was silence for a few moments as Linda finished writing her notes and then placed the clipboard on the table between them.

  Blake studied her. She was a dumpy woman with kind looking blue eyes. He could not help but wonder if she was a grandmother, because Blake could imagine that she would be incredibly good at it. She had just the right level of calm serenity about her but at the same time appeared ever so slightly stern. Overall, he conceded, she seemed to be the right sort of person to be a therapist.

  “Okay,” Linda said. “Let’s talk about the actual dream itself. What happens?”

  Blake shuffled in his seat but said nothing. The room they were in was hot, and he could feel sweat trickling down his back, similar to how he felt whenever the nightmare woke him up.

  “Come on, Blake,” Linda pressed gently. “I know it’s difficult, but I need you to tell me what happens.”

  Blake took a deep breath. “It’s like I said. When I was ten, I broke into an old house on my street. It had been abandoned for years, but me being a young tearaway, I had to explore it. I had a mate that I used to have dares with, Tommy, and he dared me to go and find out what was going on inside the house.”

  “And nobody had been in or out of this house for years?” Linda asked him, leaning forward.

  “Not that I saw,” Blake replied, shuffling slightly in his seat. “Though, I was only ten. My parents always said that it may as well have been knocked down as they had lived there for years before I was even born, and they had never seen anybody.”

  “So, you get inside the house?”

  “Yes,” Blake continued. “The whole place was locked up and the only way inside was through a tiny window around the back of the house. I was a skinny child; I mean I wouldn’t call myself exactly large now, but as a kid, I was like a rake. Even I struggled squeezing through it, but I eventually found myself inside the house. I wish I’d taken the difficulty in getting in as a sign to stop being so stupid, but what can I say? I was ten.”

  “Okay,” Linda said. “And what did you find once you had managed to get inside?”

  Blake sighed again as his eyes landed on the large fish tank in the corner. There was a small fish fluttering weakly around the surface of the water, looking as if it was in its last moments of its life.

  “Blake?”

  “The room was dark,” Blake said quietly. “Pitch black, actually. I had to scramble around to find the light switch. Then, when I finally turned it on, there she was.”

  “And what was she doing?”

  “Not a lot,” Blake replied dryly. “She was dead. She was sitting in a rocking chair with a knife sticking in her back. There was a pool of blood beneath the chair. And I couldn’t move. I was so terrified staring at her face. It was like someone had frozen her in the middle of the most horrified scream imaginable. I mean, she had just been stabbed in the back, so I guess it’s understandable, but it was the most horrific thing I’d ever seen.”

  “So, you were frozen, in your mind trapped, unable to escape with this traumatic sight in front of you?” Linda clarified.

  “Basically, yes. After what must have only been about a minute or so, but it felt like hours, I finally managed to get back the use of my legs a
nd got out of there. Then I ran home and my mum called the police.”

  “You’re a policeman now, aren’t you?” Linda asked. “Do you think this event had anything to do with that?”

  Blake had wondered that himself over the years. “No, I don’t think so. Though, being a police detective did mean that I was able to find out details about the case a few years later.”

  “And what did you discover?”

  “Not a great deal,” Blake replied. “I know they found out her name was Julia Watkins. She was, according to her pension book, eighty-seven, and they also discovered that she had been squatting in the house for months. I suppose it’s unavoidable with old abandoned buildings. But as for her death, it was never solved. The only way in and out was through that tiny window that even I had difficulty climbing through. Other than that, the house was completely sealed.”

  Linda scratched the back of her head as she consulted her notes. “It’s the sort of thing you’ve become quite used to, haven’t you? These sorts of impossible events.”

  Blake shrugged. “I suppose so. I have been kept busy since moving to Harmschapel, that’s certainly true.”

  “A lot of murders?”

  “I’ve had my fair share,” Blake conceded. “Not that I didn’t get them when I worked in Sale.”

  “That’s Sale in the Manchester area, where you used to live before moving to Harmschapel?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ve seen a lot in the papers about some of the cases you’ve had to deal with since moving to the area,” Linda said thoughtfully. “ And of course, you helped bring a serial killer to justice in the earlier days of your career.”

  Blake shuddered at the memory. “Yeah. Thomas Frost.”

  “I read about him,” Linda said, nodding. “He strangled a number of women in the Manchester area and you were the officer that helped put him behind bars?”

  “Probably the closest I’ve come to experiencing evil,” Blake replied quietly. “The man is a psychopath. I had the unpleasant experience of meeting him again not so long ago. He hadn’t changed.”

  “All in all, that must be incredibly stressful, especially when you’re dealing with bodies. Murdered bodies at that.”

  Blake’s mouth was starting to feel dry. He leant forwards and took a sip of water from the plastic cup next to him.

  “It can be,” he replied. “That’s the job. Sadly, being a police officer isn’t all about catching people who have stolen the church collection money or handing out parking tickets for vehicles parked on the village green. Sometimes life happens, and life can be pretty brutal sometimes.”

  “Do you think that could have had an effect? Stabbings, shootings, strangulations, you’re only human after all.” She smiled kindly at him, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “Have a think about it. We’re coming to a close now for the first session, but I think we’ve covered some really helpful details today.”

  Blake was doubtful. As he thanked Linda and left the office, he could not help wondering exactly what she could possibly do to prevent him having bad dreams, especially as they stemmed from an event that had actually happened to him. There was no way to try and make sense of it, it was a traumatic experience that had clearly stuck with him and no amount of therapy was going to change that.

  As he climbed into his car, he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, briefly chastising himself for his lack of self-control when it came to smoking. He had been trying to quit for a long time, but recently, even Blake had to admit that he had basically become a full-time smoker again.

  With a heavy sigh, he turned the key in the ignition and began driving back towards Harmschapel, the image of the screaming old woman flashing into his mind’s eye briefly as he pulled out of the car park.

  Blake’s boyfriend, Harrison Baxter, was waiting for him when he arrived home. He was drying a load of washing up with a tea towel and looked up as Blake walked through the front door of the cottage.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile. “How did it go?”

  Blake shrugged as he threw his keys into the fruit bowl on the sideboard. “Alright, I suppose. It was only the first session though, so all I really did was sit there and go through the dream and make my head feel like it was experiencing it when I was awake as well as when I was asleep.”

  Harrison threw the tea towel down and shook his head as he walked towards Blake and put his arms around him. “Are you okay? You absolutely stink of cigarettes.”

  Blake scratched the back of his head, slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, well I had a few in the car. Sorry, I’ve been stressed.”

  Harrison squeezed him tightly. “They’re your lungs. I know you’ve been stressed recently. The last thing I’m going to do is lecture you about smoking.”

  Blake chuckled. “Thank you. All I need is a break, I think. Stop thinking about dead bodies and murders and weird happenings and just focus on some me time. Thank God I’ve got Sally’s thirtieth to look forward to. Just a few more days and I’ll be back in Manchester with her, getting drunk and forgetting about all this.”

  “Exactly,” Harrison said smiling. “At least you managed to get the time off work. Jai’s going to see his family that week, so I’m in charge of the shop.”

  “I’m sorry,” Blake replied, feeling his muscles relax slightly as he threw himself onto the sofa. “I’ll be sure to have an extra tequila, just for you.”

  “Always thinking of others,” Harrison said dryly.

  Blake’s reply was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. When Harrison opened it, the landlady of their cottage, Jacqueline, strolled in. She was clutching a clipboard and a large headscarf had been thrown across her large red beehive.

  “Good evening, darling,” she said to Harrison as he closed the door behind her. “And Blake, too. Perfect, I’m so glad I caught both of you.”

  Blake took in her ensemble. “Why? You got the rent, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing to do with that,” Jacqueline said, waving her clipboard in front of him. “You were aware that I’ve been given one of the upper management positions at the village hall?”

  “No,” Blake replied, frowning. “I wasn’t.”

  “Upper management?” Harrison repeated. “How many managers does a village hall need?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised, darling,” Jacqueline said cheerily. “They need looking after. A village hall can be the heart and soul of any village.” She pressed her clipboard to her chest and stared dreamily ahead of her. “My job is to keep this village and its community running smoothly and to make sure that the people of Harmschapel are the most vibrant and well-kept villagers anywhere. It takes drive to do what I’m doing, darlings. Drive, commitment and above all, resilience.”

  Her enthusiasm was met with muted bemusement.

  “So, did you want us for something?” Blake asked wearily.

  “I know you’re terribly busy, Blake, darling,” Jacqueline went on. “Harrison, however, I think is just what I’m looking for.”

  Harrison’s eyes widened worriedly. “Me? What? How? Why?”

  “I have arranged for a show at the village hall,” Jacqueline explained, smiling excitedly. “For two nights, we’ll be showing a performance by Sebastian Klein!”

  Blake and Harrison glanced at each other.

  “Who?”

  “Sebastian Klein!” Jacqueline repeated, clearly wondering why they were not both leaping around the room in glee. “He’s a magician! He lives in Clackton when he’s not performing, but he tours all over the country, and his next stop is in Harmschapel!”

  She turned her clipboard over to reveal a poster. It featured a blown-up picture of Sebastian Klein staring intently at the camera with a playing card in his hand. He looked to be in his forties with a pointed, black, goatee under his chin. He was wearing a long silk cloak and a top hat on his head. Above him the words “SEBASTIAN KLEIN CONFOUNDS YOU!” were emblazoned across the top of the poster.

  “Well, he
certainly looks the part,” Blake said.

  “Imagine the publicity this will bring to the village,” Jacqueline went on. “People love a magic show!”

  “So, where am I supposed to come into it?” Harrison asked.

  “Darling, I need help behind the scenes. You won’t be on your own, I’ve got some more help, but we need this show to be a success. And of course, I won’t be expecting you to do it for free. Mr Klein has been very kind and agreed that the profits from ticket sales can go towards anybody who gives their time to make the show the biggest success we can make it! So, what do you think? Can I rely on your help?”

  Harrison turned to look at Blake, who merely shrugged.

  “Extra money is never a bad thing,” he suggested. “You can spend it on getting her shed fixed.”

  He pointed towards the back door where Harrison’s old pet goat, Betty, was staring at them through the window. Harrison had had Betty since he was a child and had become extremely attached to her. Blake had known better than to try and persuade Harrison that she might be better off elsewhere when he had moved in, despite the fact that she clearly hated Blake. Recently, she had taken to smacking her back hoofs against the wall of the shed that Harrison had built for her in the yard resulting in the wood splintering and the roof starting to loosen.

  “Okay,” Harrison said at last. “When do you want me?”

  “Thank you, darling!” Jaqueline said, taking Harrison off guard with a sudden, tight hug. “If you meet me by the village hall when you’ve finished work tomorrow, we can get started. Right, I’ll leave you to it, boys! Have a lovely evening! See you tomorrow!”