Chapter 20

It was difficult to know where to start, or how to go about finding out what made Charlie like he was. Jane resorted to scanning groups of people wherever she went. Would she come across someone like Charlie and, if so, what could she learn.

It was a few years after her sister's disappearance, that Jane had encountered another man with a dark aura. The eerie, nervous, feeling was the same and the shadow was equally menacing. It had taken a long time to find another man like him. Hopefully, this meant that they were few and far between.

Alongside him, as he walked down the street, was a young woman who shone a sunny yellow. If she could talk to this woman, she might learn some useful information. Jane returned to town to look for her, many times, and was finally successful. There was no time to waste. Jane approached her.

"Hello. I saw you the other day, out with your boyfriend. What a handsome man."

"Eddie is handsome. He is very good to me, too." The girl was happy to talk about him.

"I thought he looked a bit, I don't know, dangerous."

"Oh, not Eddie."

"Does he work locally?"

"Um, I think so. Why are you asking all these questions?"

"My sister, Claire, had a boyfriend that looked very much like your Eddie. I thought that they might be related. She moved away with him and we've lost touch. It would be a chance to find where she is."

"Oh, I don't think he has any family. He never talks about them."

"What a shame. I thought I might, finally, be able to find her."

"I wish I could help. What was your sister's boyfriend called?"

"Charlie."

"Doesn't ring a bell. I've only been with Eddie for a short while and don't really want to ask him lots of questions. Maybe he talked about that stuff with his ex. You could try talking to her. She works at the café on Bridge Street. Her names Kathy."

"Thank you. I don't think you should tell Eddie about this conversation."

"Neither do I."

Only ten minutes later, Jane was ordering a coffee in the café. Seeing the dirty brown swirling around a tired looking girl, she knew she had found Kathy.

"Are you Kathy?"

"Yeah. Why do you want to know?" Kathy glared at Jane.

"I understand that you used to be with a man called Eddie. I have met people like him before. There is something wrong with him I think."

Kathy sagged into the chair opposite Jane. A quick look around, to see who was nearby, and she then leaned in for a conversation.

"Too right there's something wrong with that bloke. Couldn't see it at the time, of course. He had me under some sort of spell, I reckon."

"In what way was he bad?"

"I can't really work it out. All I know is that when I met him, I was a real innocent. A couple of years with him and I came out the other side feeling sort of used up. He took my goodness and I feel, like, cheap and hollow now."

"Don't think like that Kathy. You need to move on, get back to being the girl you once were."

"I don't even know if that is possible."

"What did he do to you to make you feel like that?"

"I can't explain it. I find it hard to remember much of what happened during those two years. It's all a bit foggy. When I think about it, I hardly knew anything about him. He would come and go, give me money for food and stuff, but I never knew what his job was. How weird is that."

The conversation with Charlie, so long ago, was recalled. He had referred to Claire as his goodness. Had he used Claire in the same way? Stolen her goodness and then cast her aside? Unless she could find her sister, she would never know.

Jane tried everything to learn more about this odd type of man. Searching for information about people who could see auras, she came across an interesting legend. It told of men with a dark pall draped around them, who could become animals and would then commit atrocities. Was Charlie like that?

Jane had never expected to find a man like Charlie in the village on the coast. As soon as she had seen Carl, she knew what he was. The strange circumstances which had seen him and Hannah move into the cottage had made her wonder about Mr Grundy's demise. Tales of beasts and murders were back in her thoughts.

Hannah's cloud actually glowed. Such goodness, but with a strength, too. Jane had hope for her. Hannah was not completely bamboozled by Carl. Jane had seen the doubt in her eyes and knew that the girl would question her boyfriend when things didn't add up. At some point she had been convinced that the girl was pregnant, but then they had moved away.

When Hannah had turned up on her doorstep, she had not been surprised. Jane did not think that it was luck or misfortune that had brought her and Carl to the village. The sense she had got from Hannah had been correct. This girl was special and she knew that they had been brought together for a reason.