Witch (Sydney Hart #1)

Witch (Sydney Hart #1) Page 14

I threw on my bathrobe and padded to the bathroom. Feeling sick and with my heart still racing, I started to run a bath. While it filled with water, I sat on the toilet and had a pee. Why had I dreamt about that girl in the well? My mind raced. Had the girl in the well been hiding away in my subconscious because Vincent had mentioned her? How had she ended up in that well? The girl in my nightmare had told me she'd been pushed. By accident or on purpose?

I turned off the taps, slipped out of my robe, and climbed into the bath. The warm water lapped over me and I leant my head back. Staring up at the white ceiling, I thought of how the girl had been humming and singing. To picture her standing at the bottom of the well, her dark eyes staring at me, made me shiver and I sunk deeper beneath the warm bath water. Why had she been singing that song  -  why did she say that she would be watching me? Because you fell asleep listening to that song, dummy, my mind tried to reason. That's all it was. You were listening to that Police track and the words and music filtered through your subconscious and into your dream. I splashed some of the bath water onto my face in an attempt to clear my mind.

Vincent had said that a girl had died by falling into a well ten years ago. What if it is the same girl  -  the same well  -  I had seen in my nightmare? And if it was, why? The old man was still haunting my sleep. He had been in the well, too. Was there a connection between him and the girl? Had he been involved in the girl's death in some way? Michael had told me he hadn't really known the old man, other than he was odd and spoke kinda strange. He definitely did that  -  calling me witch. But he only kept making a guest appearance in my dreams because of what happened out on the road, I reasoned. The old guy was my guilty conscience, come alive to haunt me. That's why he wanted to talk to me. Would he ever be silenced unless I told the truth? I feared he would always be there  -  lurking in the shadows of my dreams  -  whispering the word Witch.

Who was the girl, though? I would only find that out if Vincent found more of the missing paperwork from the file he had mentioned. I didn't have a contact number for him and I couldn't risk telephoning the police station. I couldn't let my father know that I'd been in contact with anyone from work. As my mind tried to reason out the dream and try and conjure ways of how I might find out who the girl was and why she came to be in that well, the telephone suddenly rang. With water dripping from me, I climbed out of the bath, wrapped a clean towel around me, and went into the living room.

"Hello," I said into the phone.

"Sydney, it's your father," he said.

My heart leapt into my throat. Had he discovered that it hadn't been Mac who'd returned my iPod, and that I had spoken with the new recruit, Vincent? "Hey, dad," I said casually.

"I just called to see how you were doing?" he said.

I swallowed hard with relief. "Okay, I guess."

"You guess?" my father came back. "Are you okay, or not?"

"I'm not sleeping too good," I confessed, wanting to share my burden. I wondered how his sleep had been. Had his conscience been pricking him too as he lay alone at night? Somehow I doubted it. "I keep having nightmares."

"They'll soon pass," he said, more like a doctor giving medical advice than a father offering comfort.

"I'm not so sure," I said softly, looking out of the living room window at the grey day. "I don't think they will ever go away unless I tell the truth about what really happened. How those people really died."

I heard my father breathe deeply on the other end of the line. "Sydney, that time has passed. We can't go back on our story now."

"But..." I started.

"Listen to me, Sydney," he cut in, "there isn't going to be a problem here unless you create one. The paperwork has been sent over to the coroner's office. As far as everyone thinks, it was a regrettable accident caused by the old guy, who was half blind, steering his horse and cart out into the road in front of your patrol car."

"But that's a lie, dad," I breathed. "That's not what happened and you know it  -  I know it."

"Look, if you start to wobble now, girl, the whole thing will go belly-up," he warned. "But it won't just be you who will be in the dock; it will be Mac, Woody, and me. Both of them are good men, with wives and children. Do you want to see them lose their jobs? Or worse, go to prison for perverting the course of justice? Because that's what will happen, Sydney  -  that's what will happen to all of us."

"But..." I tried to start again.

"I understand how you feel," my father said down the line, his voice taking on a calmer tone as if trying to reason with me. "However you want to look at it, Sydney, you didn't mean to kill those people. It was a mistake, right?"

"Right," I whispered, closing my eyes and picturing that little boy with the red sticky hair.

"A mistake you would have to pay for with the rest of your life if the truth ever came out that you had been drinking on duty, which resulted in the death of those people," he reasoned with me.

"I get the feeling I'm going to pay for it anyway," I whispered into the phone.

"Maybe," he said. "But it will be a darn-sight more comfortable dealing with your guilt from the comfort of your apartment than a prison cell. Think about that, Sydney. You wouldn't cope with life on the inside. I've seen it. Those people live like animals. They'd eat you up for breakfast and spit you out for supper, especially being a copper and all." He paused, then added, "Can't you see I'm just trying to protect you?"

"I know," I said softly, but the feelings of guilt felt just as raw as ever.

There was a long pause.

"Why don't you go and see your mum for a few days?" he suddenly suggested. "The change of scenery will do you good. You know, get right away from Cliff View. You might even decide that you want to stay..."

"You want to get rid of me?" I breathed, feeling crushed at his suggestion. "You don't want me to come back because I'm an embarrassment to you. I cause you problems and always have."

"That's not what I meant," he said. "What I'm trying to say is, you might decide there is a better life for you in Spain. Let's be honest  -  what's there to offer you in Cliff View? You're always telling me that there is no life down here  -  that you don't really have any friends. All I'm trying to say is that you might have a more interesting life over there with your mum..."

"And Julio?" I snapped, wanting to hurt him as much as he had hurt me.

There was another long silence at the mention of my mum's lover's name.

Almost at once, I regretted what I had said. My father didn't deserve that. Trying to make amends, I said, "I don't want to go to Spain. If I had wanted to, I would've gone already. I want to stay in Cliff View  -  it's my home...and I don't want to leave you."

Ignoring my last comment, my father said, "It's up to you, Sydney, if you want to stay, then get a grip. This thing will pass in time. If you need me, you know where I am."

The phone line went dead. I replaced the receiver, knowing that I'd pissed off my father  -  again. Still hurting at his suggestion that I go and live in Spain, I wanted to prove to him that I wasn't the screw-up he took me for. I wanted to show my father that I could do something worthwhile in life for once  -  that I could make a difference. And I knew how I might do that. Dream, nightmare, or premonition  -  I couldn't rid myself of the feeling that perhaps the girl in my nightmare and the old guy were somehow connected. Perhaps he had pushed her down the well? If I could somehow prove that, then it would go a long way of relieving some of my own guilt and show my father that I could be a good cop after all.

But where was the well? If the old man was in some way connected then it would have to be close, if not in the town of Cliff View itself. How would I find it? With no way of contacting Vincent, I would have to rely on my own policing  -  detective  -  skills. With the towel still wrapped tightly about me, I plucked up my iPad. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, I typed 'wells  -  disused wells  -  cliff view  -  Cornwall  -  England' into the search engine. Within moments, I was shown a list of results. The third link on the list read: Cliff View Heritage Association. I tapped the link with my finger to reveal a website run by the local council. It had been designed to attract tourists to the local town and area. There were a few pages of postcard-type pictures showing off the local beaches, hills, and valleys, but there was also a page with old ordinance survey maps. I clicked to this page. The map showed the locations of fountains, signal posts, pathways, disused railway lines, and old wells. The map also contained historical notes on the areas concerned. Dragging the tip of my finger over the map of the town and surrounding area, there were only three wells that I could find. All three of them were located outside of town and on farms in the surrounding areas. Two of them were described as nothing more now than ruins, and the well I had seen in my nightmare, although disused, still appeared to be intact. The third and most likely to be the one I had dreamt about sat on the edge of Michael's father's farm.

I looked up from my iPad. I remembered telling Michael I'd dreamt about falling into a well, and he had seemed a little confused by this. He hadn't mentioned then that there was a well located on the farm where he lived with his father. Why would he? I'd only been talking about a dream, after all. Don't lots of people dream from time to time that they are falling down holes, off buildings, and cliff edges? Maybe there was no connection for Michael to make. What did I really know about any of this? Was the girl I had seen in my dream even connected to the girl who Vincent had said had fallen into a well? And even if she was, it didn't mean it was the well on Michael's farm. But there was one similarity between what Michael and Vincent had told me. The girl had fallen into a local well ten years ago, which was about the same time Michael had left Cliff View to join the Army.