The House of Lost Souls by F. G. Cottam Page A

‘Sit down, mate. Please? I’m having a rough time of it right now. The manners aren’t what they should be. But I’m very grateful you’re here. I will be, anyway, if you can help my sister.’
    Seaton sat down. He hadn’t meant to go. He was here to help if he could. Right now, he was resolved to help. He just didn’t have time for the sort of macho bollocks he thought a man with Mason’s background would probably consider a necessary preamble. The man had Belfast written all over him. Two, three tours of duty. But Seaton didn’t have the time or the inclination to listen to or tolerate that crap just now.
    ‘Does she remember anything about the visit?’
    Mason shook his head. ‘She’s pretty heavily sedated.’
    ‘Before?’
    ‘She was extremely subdued. But I don’t think so. She wouldn’t be drawn, awake. And there were no nightmares I could discern when she slept. Then she went to the Beal funeral and thought she saw Rachel Beal at the graveside.’
    ‘They all did.’
    ‘After that, she seemed almost catatonic. And then she tried to take her own life.’ Mason pulled on his cigarette. ‘She walked into the sea, Mr Seaton.’
    The two men were quiet for a moment. Outside, all around them, wind gathered and whooped and there was the heave of waves breaking on obdurate stone.
    ‘A night not dissimilar to this one, a week ago. I was playing patience by the bay window overlooking the shore. I saw her because she’d wrapped—’
    Mason’s voice broke.
    ‘—she’d wrapped her modesty in a bed sheet.’
    Her modesty. Seaton was pretty sure as soon as he’d sat down with him that Nicholas Mason had killed men. He was equally sure now that he would help this family, if he possessed the strength to do it.
    ‘Some of what I’m going to ask you to do, Mr Mason, you’re going to have to take on trust.’
    Mason looked at him.
    ‘Faith, might be a better word.’
    Mason said, ‘Might as well call me Nick.’
    ‘Paul,’ Seaton said. They shook hands over the table.
    ‘I know there’s something very odd going on, Paul. Something inexplicable in any terms I’m familiar with. And it’s frightening. I witnessed the Beal funeral. Against Sarah’s wishes and without her knowing. But I’m glad I did. I was there when she collapsed. But before she collapsed, I saw some very strange things.’
    ‘Anything since then? Anything here? This is important.’
    Mason considered. ‘There were two occurences last night, actually. In the early hours. I’d checked on Sarah just before midnight. One of the nurses I’ve hired was watching her, of course. I reckoned on nicking two hours’ kip. But I was woken by the radio playing in the kitchen and I had to go and turn it off.’
    ‘What was odd about that?’
    ‘Apart from the radio switching itself on?’
    Seaton shrugged.
    ‘Before Hereford and the regiment, I was in the paras. Anyway this particular night three of us were manning a road checkpoint in a wood at Crossmaglen. We had no specific intel concerning Provo activity. It was just routine. I’d just finished my watch, was listening to my Walkman, drinking a brew, when they hit us with a mortar shell. Both my men were killed, blown right out of their kit and pasted in bits in the trees. I wasn’t even scratched. I’ve never been able to listen to that song since. And it was the one playing when the radio decided to come alive.’
    ‘What was it?’ But Seaton knew.
    ‘John Lennon. “Imagine”.’ Mason stood and pushed a hand into his pocket. ‘I haven’t even offered you a drink, Paul. You’ll drink something?’
    ‘You said there were two things. You said two strange things happened last night.’
    ‘They did. I’d switched the radio off and was climbing the stairs and I thought I heard a bell toll. It tolled only once. But it tolled louder than any bell has a right to in Whitstable.’
    ‘I’ll take a whisky off you,’ Seaton said. Mason went to the bar and he put his head in his