The Watchers (19 page)

From
The Mind Possessed: A Personal Investigation into the Broad Haven Triangle

by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980) p.28

That winter silver-suited humanoids appeared all over the Havens. My first thought was that a prankster was at work. Was it coincidence that a local company manufactured firefighting clothing in the form of a three-piece silver suit? Even though the company was quick to reassure me that they weren’t missing any suits, it was still possible that someone local had access to one.

There was however another more intriguing theory to explain the origin of these extraordinary beings. Perhaps they were fantasies of the mind originating from folklore? I certainly couldn’t discount that idea. The ancient Celts believed in all sorts of manifestations – gods, light elves, dark elves, men, the dead, dwarves and giants. Indeed, the deity called Grimnismal was also known as Grimr, the Hooded or Masked One. Or Hjalmberi, the Helmet Bearer. We cannot overlook the fact that the giant silver figures witnessed in the Havens were also masked, or faceless; and of course, they appeared to be wearing helmets . . .

– 26 –

Haven Hotel, Skyview Hill, Little Haven

The hotel was in darkness; the power must have been out again. As I picked my way up the meandering driveway, my thoughts slipped from Martin Marshall’s description of the faceless humanoid to Selina’s covert investigation in the Havens. I didn’t know what I feared, only that I had to know how far Selina’s investigation had gone, what she had learned. A military experiment gone astray. A clever hoax. Or something . . . what? Supernatural?

As soon as I knew more, I would phone the admiral and update him. What I didn’t want to do was ask him for help, or show I needed it. He had trusted me enough to set me this task, and I had no intention of letting him down.

I mounted the steps to the arched Gothic doorway and knocked. Waited. When I looked up into the evening sky punched with stars I thought,
No
,
there aren’t any spiritual forces of evil up there
. Then an irrational but no less disconcerting thought pushed in:
What if the sky is conscious? What if it’s watching you right now
?

From behind the door came the rough sound of a bolt shooting back. Then Araceli appeared, standing there with a weary expression. ‘Robert, it’s late.’ She saw the state of me, her eyes running from the scratches on my face down to my mud-covered jeans. ‘God! What happened?’

‘You told me Selina asked you questions. You didn’t tell me she stayed here.’

Araceli blinked once. ‘I don’t generally give out the names of my guests.’

That felt like an evasive response. ‘Can you show me the room she had?’

‘I don’t remember.’

I studied Araceli’s face in the poor light. Her eyes were even puffier than before, and there was a red mark on the left side of her face.

I fished in my pocket for the pencil drawing I had brought from London. An enormous figure which broad shoulders, square head and a blacked-out face. ‘Look at this.’

Before taking the paper she produced a torch from her cardigan pocket and clicked it on. She shone the beam on the drawing and I watched a frown crease her brow, watched her hands begin to tremble slightly.

‘Selina gave me this drawing. It came to her from Martin Marshall, a young man living near Brawdy,’ I said. ‘A giant silver figure he saw drift right through the facility’s security fence. Selina interviewed him. She knew this had happened before, at RAF Croughton in 1963. I believe she was targeted, in London, for what she knew.’

‘Targeted by whom?’

I shook my head. ‘Please, I need to see her old room. In case she left something behind.’

‘No, I would have noticed.’

‘Well, let’s make sure, shall we?’

As she hesitated I remembered the missing key I had noticed earlier behind the reception desk. Remembered the hotel was closed for the season.

‘It’s Room 12, isn’t it?’

‘All right,’ Araceli said finally, ‘but you’ll have to be quiet. Tessa is sleeping.’

I stepped into the gloomy hallway and registered the same chalky unpleasant smell as before. From the corner the suit of armour watched me. As I followed her up the creaking stairs I wondered how on earth she managed up here alone.

We reached a wooden door marked with a splintered crack and Araceli stopped. She focused the beam of her torch on my chest. ‘Does Randall know you’re here?’

‘He knows,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure he approves. It’s like he doesn’t want me anywhere near here.’

She looked away for a moment, looked blank.

‘Araceli?’

‘Robert, I want you to promise me that whatever you find, whatever information you share with Randall, you’ll tell me, won’t you?’

I hesitated.

‘Promise me!’ There was no mistaking the warning in her tone. ‘Randall is hiding something from us. But he knows his stuff, and it’s important we’re all on the same page.’

The episode had left me flustered but keen to explore, so I agreed and looked on as she took a key from her pocket and opened the door. Araceli didn’t bother to try the light switch, but swung the torch around. Two beds with floral sheets, dusty pink lampshades, threadbare yellow curtains. I crossed to the window, pressed my fingertips against the cold glass, ran my fingers across the sill.

I lingered for a moment, looking out through the darkness, through my reflection, to a speck of light out to sea in the direction of Stack Rocks.

The room smelt of mildew and mothballs.

‘Can I take the torch, please?’

Araceli handed it to me and crossed her arms as I checked the drawers of the bedside cabinet.

Empty.

‘How long did she stay?’

‘Three nights.’

‘And was she the only guest?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why this room in particular?’

Araceli shrugged, unconcerned. ‘She asked for it.’

I considered this. ‘You’re telling me everything,’ I asked. ‘Right?’

‘I’m sorry,’ was all she said, and when I saw her slumped shoulders I wanted to take my question back, make it kinder. More, I wanted to . . . hold her.

‘I’m sorry for wasting your time,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’ But then, ‘Wait.’

I had glimpsed in the bobbing torchlight a heavy-looking iron grille above the open fireplace. It was probably just an air vent. We would go, but first I had to look behind that grille. I couldn’t reach without standing on something. I picked up the bedside cabinet, took it across the room to the fireplace and stood on top of it. It was stable enough. My hand reached for the grille, pulled it out.

‘Pass me the torch, please.’

Araceli handed it up to me.

I felt nothing at first. Just cold, damp bricks. And cobwebs.

But wait
. I sucked in a breath as my hand touched something firm at the back of the cavity.

‘What is it?’ Araceli asked.

A notebook . . . was that a notebook?

– 27 –

I turned to the first page. It was Selina’s handwriting. No doubt about that.

Why would she hide it here? Why not bring it back to London?

A simple heading confirmed all of my suspicions about Selina’s secret work: ‘The Broad Haven Triangle.’

‘Please, don’t read it in here,’ Araceli said suddenly. ‘I hate this room.’ She was at the door, rubbing her arms and eying the battered leather notebook, which was like a deadweight in my hands. ‘Bring it downstairs.’

I don’t know why I whispered my reply, but I did. ‘Wait, please, just a moment.’ I sat down on the bed nearest the window. Something was keeping me in this room, a terrible, black fear . . . I pressed my wrists against my eyes, wanting to blot out the image that was surfacing. An image of the future: Selina’s coffin sinking into a yawning grave.

‘Robert? You’ve gone white. What is it?’

My head was pulsing, and although my eyes were still closed, the image of Selina’s coffin was so clear, as if I could see it floating before me on a movie screen. Everything else – the room, Araceli – had receded, but that dreadful image remained perfectly vivid. Not a fantasy, I thought. This is real, this is happening, right now, or it’s going to soon.

Somewhere in the bowels of hotel I heard a floorboard creak. Or a door swing on its hinges. My eyes snapped open. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could say, feeling a total idiot. But the scene I had witnessed just a moment ago had come with startling abruptness.

We left the room together. My knees trembled all the way down to the ground floor.

On impulse I phoned the hospital in London where Selina was being treated. My strange vision had put the fear of God into me. Selina was still critical, they told me – but alive.

Thank God, thank God.

Araceli led me into the bar area, where she encouraged me to sit and rest. She chose the table furthest from the bay window and pulled up two high-backed wooden chairs. I was glad to sit down. I felt physically ill. More than that, I felt convinced that my vision would come true. I was anxious to switch attention away from me to the reason I had returned to the hotel that evening, thinking about Martin Marshall’s troubling recollection of the men who had visited him after his encounter with the humanoid.

‘Araceli, the men who came here after your sighting, do you remember anything about them?’

‘Not really.’

‘Think, please think. Cast your mind back and focus. Try for me.’

I could see she was trying. Her eyes had closed tightly as if to press the hidden recollection out. It was coming, slowly. I saw the memory forming on her lips. ‘Their eyes . . .’ she said distantly. ‘I couldn’t look away.’ There was a long pause. At last she said, ‘Dear God,’ in a voice so low it took me by surprise. Then, ‘No eyebrows – Robert, they had no eyebrows! And their faces were pointed. Their skin was hairless, so smooth. Like a woman’s skin.’

A memory – a momentary flicker of a spindly man with gleaming teeth and flawless skin. His hair was as white as snow, and he was staring down at me.

I dropped a comforting hand on Araceli’s arm. Something passed between us then – the long gaze we exchanged for five, perhaps ten, seconds confirmed there was a bond between us. That we had shared something. What? I had no idea yet, but the nagging sense of déjà vu was almost overwhelming.

Perhaps didn’t just forget these men
.
She was made to forget
.

‘Do you think they were from the military?’ I asked.

‘No, no way.’

‘Some government agency?’

Again she shook her head, and with a hoarse shaky quality in her voice said, ‘No, you don’t understand. Wherever they were from, they were . . . not . . .’

I sensed that she couldn’t say what she wanted to, so I said it for her. ‘You mean not from our world?’

She nodded slowly.

‘But how can you be—’

‘Listen to me!’ she hissed, her eyes flitting between me and the window, which overlooked the gravel drive. ‘They parked just out there – an enormous silver car, very shiny and polished. I couldn’t place it; it looked new
and
old. Honest to God, I’ve never seen a car like that.’ A terrible understanding crept across her face. ‘I was here, in the bar, and I never heard a thing, don’t you see? Nothing! No engine, not even the sound of tyres on the gravel. The first thing I knew of their arrival was them knocking on the door. Three times. Loud thuds.’ She paused, looked at me. ‘What is it? Robert, what’s wrong?’

I wet my lips, shook away a dark memory. ‘Nothing. Go on.’

‘There were just two seats in the car. I would swear to that. Two. But there were three men.’

Black suits that didn’t fit properly. Wide-brimmed hats, hair as white as snow, protruding eyes: these are the descriptions that would stay with me.

The Black-Suited Men.

Messengers of deception.

‘Something was strange in their movements. Stilted. The man in the middle was holding a map and had such a dull, strange way of speaking, like he was reciting words. He said, “We have come to talk to you about your flying saucer sighting. But we can’t stop today. We will call another time.”’

She shook her head, stunned either by the detail of the memory or the fact that she had forgotten. ‘So bloody weird, Robert. Why would they come to see me if they couldn’t stop? I think they wanted me to see them. They wanted to intimidate me.’

‘Did they ask you any questions about your sightings?’

‘Actually,’ she said, frowning, ‘they asked something that made no sense: “Will you give yourself?”’

That didn’t sound good and I asked cautiously – hardly wanting to hear the answer – whether she remembered anything else.

She nodded. ‘I closed the door, and by the time I came back in here, I saw through that window that the car had, well, gone! Just an empty space, as though it, just . . .’

‘Vanished.’

She looked at me uncertainly. ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’

‘What do you think?’ I asked, summoning a reassuring smile. My eyes moved to Selina’s open journal on the table and back to Araceli. ‘Together we can beat this, whatever this is. But you must trust me, OK?’ It came out with more confidence than I felt.

I thought for a moment her face would close up tight, like it had done during our first meeting, so it was a relief when she raised her chin and returned my smile. I couldn’t help but admire how brave she had been to endure all this and how calm she still was. That urge to hold her . . .

‘Why do you want to help us?’

‘Because you’re alone here, and no one should have no one.’ I gave an honest shrug. ‘And because I feel I owe it to you.’

Just then the telephone in the hall rang, startling us both. I wondered if it was the admiral, returning my call from earlier that night.

I stood and said, ‘Don’t worry – I’ll go.’

It was Randall. I pictured him alone in his study over at Ravenstone Farm, watched over by St John the Baptist with his up-pointing finger. ‘Well? Learn anything new, boy?’

‘Nothing I’m willing to share – yet.’ I chanced a peek into the bar to check Araceli wasn’t reading Selina’s journal.

There was a pronounced silence from the other side of the line. ‘If you still think the Americans are behind this then we’re all in trouble.’

I wasn’t sure I did think that. Not any more. The Black-Suited Men who had come to the hotel asking if Araceli was willing to give herself didn’t sound like the American military to me. Didn’t sound like anything human. Nor did the silver humanoids witnessed outside RAF Croughton and RAF Brawdy and now Araceli’s hotel. While I wasn’t ready to accept a supernatural explanation, I
was
beginning to wonder if the possibility of extraterrestrial visitations really was so fantastic, and I told Randall so.

‘Be not deceived by lying wonders,’ he said quickly. ‘You shouldn’t be in that hotel, or around that woman.’

‘Why on earth not?’

A pause. ‘It’s not a good place to be. Think about that lad this evening.’ I heard him turn a page in a book. ‘“In 1846 it rained real blood in several areas of the world. And all kinds of odd shapes and lights were seen in the sky. Peculiar figures in silver clothing were also sighted across Europe. They were humanlike but large and possessed the ability to pass through walls and disappear.”’

When I heard that I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t because what Randall said next wasn’t a laughing matter.

‘Those who witnessed such beings were said to have lost their minds, Robert.’ I was about to hang up when he sighed and said, ‘All right, listen. If I can’t convince you with words, let me show you. Tomorrow. Perhaps then you’ll see sense and leave.’

Saturday. ‘I’m busy tomorrow.’ I’d promised myself I’d look into the history of the area. Its alternative history.

‘Day after tomorrow then. Sunday. Four o’clock. I’ll collect you from the Ram Inn.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To meet someone who might change your perspective.’

*

‘Lock up well.’ It was the last piece of advice I’d given Araceli before wishing her goodnight and making my way back to the Ram Inn in Little Haven. The place was silent and deserted and I was glad.

Now, feeling more puzzled than ever, all I could think about was reading Selina’s journal.

I was halfway up the stairs when a hostile voice made me turn round.

‘Who exactly do you think you are, eh?’

It was Roger Daley, the landlord. He stood in the half-light at the bottom of the stairs.

‘What?’ I said.

‘You’ve been getting around quite a bit, haven’t you?’

‘Needs must.’ I gave him a polite smile. ‘Well, goodnight.’

‘A good night?’ he said roughly. ‘Been a while since we’ve seen one of those.’

What was this? Why was he so angry? ‘Have I done something wrong, Mr Daley? If you want me to pay more for the room, then I’d be happy to.’

‘You wanna be careful about associating with that old Bible-basher.’

‘Randall?’

‘Reckless old bastard. Ought to be locked up. Probably will be.’

‘Why do you say that?’

His eyes flicked up. I remember that moment as vividly as Selina’s last words to me because his eyes actually changed. Only for a second, but I’d swear to it on my parents’ graves. Those eyes blazed an infernal red.

‘Quite the commotion at the school meeting today, wasn’t it? Couldn’t help thinking most of it focused on you and him. And her.’

‘You mean Araceli?’

He nodded his shiny bald head. ‘We all saw you leave together.’

‘We?’

‘Those of us who care most about this community.’

Who did he mean? He and the woman from the post office? The classroom assistant Delyth Cale? Howell Cooper the headmaster? Or how about Father O’Riorden?

‘Time well spent?’ he probed. I was genuinely surprised by his forceful tone. ‘Learn much new about the Happenings?’

‘Not really,’ I lied.

‘What about the hotel? Get a good look around?’

‘If you don’t mind, Mr Daley, I’m exhausted, and—’

‘Pritchard is never to set foot in this establishment. Ever. And he – both of you – are to stay the hell away from the kids. Stay away from my nephew. Understand?’

‘Your nephew?’

His lips drew back over stained yellow teeth. ‘Martin. Poor lad. Reckons the two of you hounded him out at the base tonight.’

‘I’m just trying to help.’

He glared at me fiercely. ‘You can help by leaving it alone.’