Psychic Surveys Book Four: Old Cross Cottage: A Gripping Supernatural Thriller Read online

  Psychic Surveys Book Four, Old Cross Cottage, Copyright Shani Struthers 2017

  This Kindle edition published 2017

  The right of Shani Struthers to be identified as the Author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying, the Internet or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. It may not be given away or re-sold to other people.

  www.authorsreach.co.uk

  www.shanistruthers.com

  All characters and events featured in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to any person, organisation/company, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover credits: Adobe Stock / Rachel and Mark Bell. Design by RoseWolf Design

  * * *

  Dedication

  For Rachel and Mark Bell and their very much loved Old Cross Cottage.

  Acknowledgements

  I say it every time but I really do mean it, thank you so much to all my beta readers for reading and amending early drafts of Old Cross Cottage, without you there’d be so many mistakes and plot holes! Thank you also to my editor, Jeff Gardiner, I’m chuffed to be working with you still and also Gina Dickerson, not only a wonderful author (as is Jeff!) but also a demon cover designer – and I mean demon in the nicest possible way! This book is dedicated to Rachel and Mark Bell who own Old Cross Cottage but again, I’d like to say thanks to them for the wonderful, if seriously spooky, weekends spent there!

  Foreword

  A huge thank you to all those who’ve been with me from the beginning of the Psychic Surveys journey – I really appreciate your support. I envisage six books in total in the series with several companion novellas, each one covering a separate case and different areas of psychical ability. You can jump in at points other than Book One (The Haunting of Highdown Hall) but please note certain story elements do continue from book to book. Whichever you choose to do, I hope you enjoy the ride!

  Psychic Surveys Book Four

  Old Cross Cottage

  ‘It’s not wise to linger at the crossroads…’

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Also by the author

  A note from the author

  Prologue

  So still.

  In the early hours of the morning, with the moon hiding behind thick layers of viscous cloud, it’s dark – hiding the fork in the road that lies ahead.

  And on that road stands Old Cross Cottage, as alone as it’s ever been.

  A beautiful cottage, or it could be, if the pink render were not so mottled, if the thatched roof was a little tidier, if the picket fence that surrounds it was more welcoming instead of standing like a series of soldiers on guard. To the side of the porch is a plaque, as worn as the house – Old Cross inscribed upon it in black letters which twist and turn at angles. Diamond leaded windows, symmetrical but on a slant, indicate the cottage is listing, the ground beneath trying to bury it, perhaps.

  A noise interrupts the stillness. Not a dog barking in the distance, unsettled and anxious, nor an owl in the trees presiding over the cottage and over the ancient village of Canonibeare itself.

  This is a sound from within.

  A shuffling backwards and forwards stops then starts again. Becomes urgent. As though someone is trapped and desperate for escape. But no one’s at home.

  No one living.

  Another sound: a door opening and then just as quickly slamming shut. The action repeats not once but twice, then a third time. A voice? Could it be? Muffled and unintelligible, lips working furiously as words tumble out. There’s crying too; stifled sobs. So pitiful it would tear your heart in two to hear it – so hopeless.

  The door bangs again. The crying abruptly ceases.

  A bruised sky dawns.

  All is still again at Old Cross Cottage.

  So still.

  Chapter One

  “We’re all going on a summer holiday—”

  Ruby winced. “Cash, you sound as if you’re in pain.”

  Leaning back into the passenger seat of her old Ford, he continued to sing, a satisfied smile on his face. “No more working for a week or two—”

  “Even the dog’s barking at you!”

  Not that he’d be able to hear Jed – the ghost dog – only she could. And it wasn’t barking exactly, it was a kind of howling, as painful as Cash’s singing.

  “Fun and laughter on our summer holiday—”

  “Since when have you been a fan of Cliff Richard anyway?”

  That almost got him, he’d faltered, missed a beat.

  “And technically it’s spring. British Summertime doesn’t start for another month.”

  “God, you’re pedantic, Ruby.”

  At last, an answer! “You know what, right now I’ll consider that to be a blessing. Seriously, I was just about to make a diversion and go in search of some duct tape.”

  Before he could respond further, she asked him to stick the sat nav on. They’d got as far as they could without expert guidance.

  “So you’ve never been to Lyme Regis before?” she asked, watching him from the corner of her eye as he leant forward to retrieve the ‘shat nav’ – his pet name for it – from the glove box. Once it was in his hands, he keyed in the details for the village of Canonibeare, asking Ruby several times for confirmation of spelling – ‘Canoni-what?’ – before attaching it to the windscreen. They had another half an hour or so to go – time in which she planned to keep him talking, not singing. She could only be expected to suffer so much. “Have you even been to the county of Dorset?”

  “Have I even been…? Yes, thank you, Miss Davis, I’ve driven through it loads of times, being as it’s on our doorstep.”

  “What? It’s one hundred and fifty miles away!”

  “Don’t be so small-minded, that is on our doorstep, relatively speaking.”

  “Relative to what?”

  “To if we were living in America, or Russia, or… Europe. An Italian friend of mine, Enrico, thinks nothing of driving a two-hundred mile round trip for a night out.”

  “So, I’m small-minded, is that what you’re saying?”

  “And I can’t sing, is that what you’re implying?”

  “I implied nothing. You can’t sing. That’s more of a statement, I believe.”

  “Ruby,” his hands clutched at his heart, “you know how to wound a man.”

  “Yeah, and don’t you forget it.”

  After a brief moment of companionable silence she started speaking again.

  “So come on, where’s the best place you’ve ever been?”

  “The best? Ah, that’s difficult. I love any kind of escape, discovering new places, new people, and different cultures. Abroad, I suppose it’s got to be Jamaica.” That was no surprise, his mother was born there, and he’d talked about it fondly before. “The vibe’s so laid back, music fills the air. It literally fills the air, Ruby, and the food … ah, it’s amazing, as is Aunt Hilda’s homemade rum. Man, that stuff is powerful!”

  He’d also mentioned the rum before, how he and his brother, Presley, had stolen mouthfuls of it when they were kids and the adults weren’t looking, how it soon became obvious what they’d done due to the fact they could barely stand, let alone walk! They’d only been to their mother’s homeland a couple of times; there simply weren’t enough funds for more visits. She’d raised them alone after her husband, their father, abandoned them when Cash was barely two – an English man; he’d simply upped and left with little to no contact since, and started another family. Not that Cash seemed bothered by it. He, his brother, and mother were a tight unit.

  “What’s number one over here?” she continued.

  Although they’d been together for nearly a year and a half, she still enjoyed finding out about him – his memories mingling with hers to form a common history. This was their first holiday together – a whole week in a village a few miles outside of Lyme Regis, in a place called Old Cross Cottage, belonging to Rachel and Mark Bell and offered rent-free – well, fr
ee in a sense, in return for services rendered at least.

  “Scotland, it has to be Scotland,” Cash was saying, nodding his head as if to add weight to that fact. “It’s magical, Ruby, it really is. I’m talking about the Highlands and Islands. I was eight, Presley was ten and Mum borrowed a friend’s camper van, we took off for the whole summer, roamed from place to place like nomads. Not that you’d have known it was summer, it was freezing and poured with rain at some point every single day, but it was brilliant, still brilliant, sitting in the camper van with the door open and a cup of tea in your hands as you stared at the wilderness, feeling alone but never lonely. At one with the world, d’ya know what I mean? Connected.”

  “I do know what you mean,” replied Ruby, overtaking a camper van and wondering at the synchronicity of it. “It sounds spiritual almost.”

  “Yeah, it was, no almost about it.”

  Ruby had rarely travelled as a child. Raised with no father on the scene either, it was her grandmother who looked after her in the main after Jessica, Ruby’s mother, had suffered a breakdown due to her own psychic experiences. She’d had a day trip here or there with Gran, visited castles, country parks and stately homes, but never ventured too far. She’d made up for that as an adult somewhat, spending weekends away with friends and former boyfriends and usually favouring the West Country.

  “Thirteen,” Cash noted, interrupting her train of thought. “Lucky for some.”

  “Thirteen what?”

  “Miles,” he answered. “That’s all we’ve got left. What shall we do about groceries? Bridport’s the closest town, there’s bound to be a supermarket there, we can stock up. Talking of rum, I fancy a bottle of Captain Morgan and I can whip up jerk chicken tonight if you like. We’ll get kindling for the fire too. I know it’s May but blimey, I don’t think the weather-gods do!”

  Ruby checked her watch. It was a nice idea but…

  “I’ll tell you what, let’s just get to the cottage shall we? Drop the bags and do the shopping later.” She glanced briefly at him. “And jerk chicken sounds wonderful. We can get some Coke too, to go with the rum. Oh, and chocolate. Loads of chocolate.”

  “Aero or Galaxy?”

  “Both. And Dime Bars.”

  “Dime Bars too? Ruby, you’re a girl after my own heart!”

  Dear Cash. He was so easy-going, so accommodating. He didn’t suspect a thing. Guilt began to nag, tapping away at some inner door and refusing to desist. As for Jed, she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head. He wasn’t impressed with how dishonest she was being either, far from it. As a non-psychic, Cash couldn’t ‘see’ Jed, but that didn’t seem to matter; there was a bond between them, a real and tangible thing. Cash talked to him just as he would a living dog, even holding the door open for him on occasions should Ruby happen to mention he was trotting along behind them. It was just one of the things she loved about him: his sweet, almost too good to be true nature. But it wasn’t an act, he was good, he was true, and she was lucky to have him.

  Which of course increased her guilt further.

  “Cash…” she began, deciding to come clean.

  The phone rang.

  Her mobile, attached to the dashboard, was within easy reach. Noting it was Theo, her friend and colleague, left behind to take care of Psychic Surveys, Ruby’s Lewes-based high street business, specialising in domestic spiritual clearance, she thought it best to answer. If there was a problem with work she should know about it. Taking her eyes off the road for a few seconds, she reached across.

  “Rubes! Watch out!”

  “Huh? What’s the matt…? Shit!”

  They were on a single carriageway, going via the town of Bridport; the traffic they’d encountered was sparse given it was just before noon, when a car approaching from a side road shot straight out in front of them. It was so sudden, so unexpected, even Jed was taken by surprise. She’d have expected her protector – at least that’s how she thought of him – to bark or something in an attempt to alert her. Instead, Cash reached out, one hand turning the steering wheel to the left, the other yanking up the handbrake. Just as well because in her panic Ruby had closed her eyes and removed both hands entirely as she brought them up to cover her face. They were going to hit the car, there was no way they’d miss it. The next sound she’d hear would be the screeching of brakes, the crash of metal, thunderous in her ears, a roar like no other, it would be deafening. Why the hell hadn’t the driver waited for her to pass? What the heck was he playing at? He or was it a she? She hadn’t actually seen. All she’d registered was a flash of red – the colour of the car itself, or the driver’s jumper or jacket? Red for danger, danger, danger…

  “Bastard!” It was Cash’s voice, not the sound of colliding metal. “What a complete tosser!” Twisting round to look behind him, he yelled, “Hey, where do you think you’re going, come back, come back!”

  “Cash, he’s not coming back, not for love nor money.”

  Facing the front again, Cash was clearly shaken. “I can’t believe he didn’t stop, check that we’re okay. He’s just driven off and left us here.”

  ‘Here’ was in the bushes. They’d veered off the main road, gone onto the verge, and come to a grinding halt amidst a bank of greenery. Ruby looked at the foliage squashed against the car and was immediately grateful for such a soft cushioning. If they’d had the misfortune to hit a tree trunk, she doubted either of them would be talking right now, let alone calling the driver a variety of names. She also breathed a huge sigh of relief they hadn’t hit anyone. It wasn’t a pedestrian walkway they’d mounted but even so, there could have been a cyclist, or a rogue jogger.

  Which didn’t bear thinking about.

  Jed leapt forward to lick her face.

  “All right, all right, Jed. You can stop, it’s fine.”

  Even though her hand went straight through him, she attempted to bat him away. He refused to be put off, however, intent on apologising for being caught off guard.

  “Jed, we were all caught off guard.”

  She turned to Cash. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” His voice was calm but his skin, caramel in colour thanks to his exotic heritage, was decidedly ashen. “What about you?”

  “I’m okay,” she replied, a slight tremor suggesting otherwise. “Thanks to you.” Exhaling, she shook her head in dismay. “Closing your eyes and taking your hands off the wheel in a crisis probably isn’t the best reaction in the world. Sorry.”

  A smile made him looked less bewildered at least. “Rubes, when it comes to battling demons and sending spirits to the light, you’re second to none. When it comes to more practical matters, such as driving, leave it to me.”

  “No it’s all ri—”

  “Seriously, Ruby. We’ve only got a few miles to go and well… as much as I love Jed, I don’t want to join him in the hinterland just yet.”

  “The accident wasn’t my fault!”

  “You were about to answer your phone.”

  “On loudspeaker.”

  “Even so.”

  “I’d checked what was on the road ahead, there was nothing, absolutely nothing. That man, woman, or whatever – an idiot for sure – just came out of nowhere.”

  “Nowhere?” Cash looked back at the road, so did she, neither of them able to see where the road branched off from this particular vantage point.

  “Lucky though,” she reconsidered.

  “Lucky? Why?”

  “That the road was as empty as it was.”

  Cash couldn’t disagree with that.

  “Where is everyone?” Ruby asked. The subsequent quiet was unsettling.

  Cash shrugged. “It’s midday, Friday, people are working I suppose. We’re bound to see more life as we get closer to the town.” In no mood for pondering it further, he added, “Come on, swap over. I want to dump the bags and get to Bridport. I’m starving. We can grab some lunch as well as food for tonight. Fill the cupboards.”

  “You and your stomach,” Ruby replied, as she climbed out of the car. The bushes had completely blocked Cash’s exit, giving him no choice but to clamber into the driver’s seat. Whilst he shunted the car back and forth she stood in the fresh air, breathing great gulps of it. Her view ahead was clearer now. Off the main drag, there was a road to the left and one immediately opposite it. That bloody driver, she fumed again, wondering not only where he’d come from but also where he’d gone. Disappeared into thin air apparently, as though he’d been conjured up.