Atmosphere (The Blake Harte Mysteries Book 9) by Robert Innes

Excerpt

“Tell
me about the woman.”

“What
do you want to know?”

“Well,
what does she look like?”

Blake
Harte leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling with a sigh.

“Old.
She was an old woman. White hair, wrinkled face, shrivelled up old mouth.”

“And
it’s the exact same woman from the events we spoke about when you were a
child?”

Linda
Forrest scribbled something onto her clipboard and then looked back up at
Blake.

“Yes,”
replied Blake. “It’s the same woman from when I was a kid because it’s the same
nightmare I’ve had ever since I was a
kid.”

Linda
nodded as she continued writing. “And when these dreams started again, how long
had it been since the last one?”

“When
I was at university, quite a few years ago.”

“And
since then?”

Blake clasped
his hands together in his lap and wrung them together slightly. He absolutely
hated discussing the nightmares in such detail as this.

“Since
I had the first one a few months ago, I’ve been experiencing them at least once
a week. Sometimes twice. I even had one last night and apparently I woke up my
partner, because I was crying out, which is impressive as normally he can sleep
through an earthquake.”

There
was silence for a few moments as Linda finished writing her notes and then
placed the clipboard on the table between them.

Blake
studied her. She was a dumpy woman with kind looking blue eyes. He could not
help but wonder if she was a grandmother, because Blake could imagine that she
would be incredibly good at it. She had just the right level of calm serenity
about her but at the same time appeared ever so slightly stern. Overall, he
conceded, she seemed to be the right sort of person to be a therapist.

“Okay,”
Linda said. “Let’s talk about the actual dream itself. What happens?”

Blake
shuffled in his seat but said nothing. The room they were in was hot, and he
could feel sweat trickling down his back, similar to how he felt whenever the
nightmare woke him up.

“Come
on, Blake,” Linda pressed gently. “I know it’s difficult, but I need you to
tell me what happens.”

Blake
took a deep breath. “It’s like I said. When I was ten, I broke into an old
house on my street. It had been abandoned for years, but me being a young
tearaway, I had to explore it. I had a mate that I used to have dares with,
Tommy, and he dared me to go and find out what was going on inside the house.”

“And
nobody had been in or out of this house for years?” Linda asked him, leaning
forward.

“Not
that I saw,” Blake replied, shuffling slightly in his seat. “Though, I was only
ten. My parents always said that it may as well have been knocked down as they
had lived there for years before I was even born, and they had never seen
anybody.”

“So,
you get inside the house?”

“Yes,”
Blake continued. “The whole place was locked up and the only way inside was
through a tiny window around the back of the house. I was a skinny child; I
mean I wouldn’t call myself exactly large now, but as a kid, I was like a rake.
Even I struggled squeezing through it, but I eventually found myself inside the
house. I wish I’d taken the difficulty in getting in as a sign to stop being so
stupid, but what can I say? I was ten.”

“Okay,”
Linda said. “And what did you find once you had managed to get inside?”

Blake
sighed again as his eyes landed on the large fish tank in the corner. There was
a small fish fluttering weakly around the surface of the water, looking as if
it was in its last moments of its life.

“Blake?”

“The
room was dark,” Blake said quietly. “Pitch black, actually. I had to scramble
around to find the light switch. Then, when I finally turned it on, there she
was.”

“And
what was she doing?”

“Not a
lot,” Blake replied dryly. “She was dead. She was sitting in a rocking chair
with a knife sticking in her back. There was a pool of blood beneath the chair.
And I couldn’t move. I was so terrified staring at her face. It was like
someone had frozen her in the middle of the most horrified scream imaginable. I
mean, she had just been stabbed in the back, so I guess it’s understandable,
but it was the most horrific thing I’d ever seen.”

“So,
you were frozen, in your mind trapped, unable to escape with this traumatic
sight in front of you?” Linda clarified.

“Basically,
yes. After what must have only been about a minute or so, but it felt like
hours, I finally managed to get back the use of my legs and got out of there.
Then I ran home and my mum called the police.”

“You’re
a policeman now, aren’t you?” Linda asked. “Do you think this event had
anything to do with that?”

Blake
had wondered that himself over the years. “No, I don’t think so. Though, being
a police detective did mean that I was able to find out details about the case
a few years later.”

“And
what did you discover?”

“Not a
great deal,” Blake replied. “I know they found out her name was Julia Watkins.
She was, according to her pension book, eighty-seven, and they also discovered
that she had been squatting in the house for months. I suppose it’s unavoidable
with old abandoned buildings. But as for her death, it was never solved. The
only way in and out was through that tiny window that even I had difficulty
climbing through. Other than that, the house was completely sealed.”

Linda
scratched the back of her head as she consulted her notes. “It’s the sort of
thing you’ve become quite used to, haven’t you? These sorts of impossible
events.”

Blake
shrugged. “I suppose so. I have been kept busy since moving to Harmschapel,
that’s certainly true.”

“A lot
of murders?”

“I’ve
had my fair share,” Blake conceded. “Not that I didn’t get them when I worked
in Sale.”

“That’s
Sale in the Manchester area, where you used to live before moving to
Harmschapel?”

“That’s
right.”

“I’ve
seen a lot in the papers about some of the cases you’ve had to deal with since
moving to the area,” Linda said thoughtfully. “ And of course, you helped bring
a serial killer to justice in the earlier days of your career.”

Blake
shuddered at the memory. “Yeah. Thomas Frost.”

“I
read about him,” Linda said, nodding. “He strangled a number of women in the
Manchester area and you were the officer that helped put him behind bars?”

“Probably
the closest I’ve come to experiencing evil,” Blake replied quietly. “The man is
a psychopath. I had the unpleasant experience of meeting him again not so long
ago. He hadn’t changed.”

“All
in all, that must be incredibly stressful, especially when you’re dealing with
bodies. Murdered bodies at that.”

Blake’s
mouth was starting to feel dry. He leant forwards and took a sip of water from
the plastic cup next to him.

“It
can be,” he replied. “That’s the job. Sadly, being a police officer isn’t all
about catching people who have stolen the church collection money or handing
out parking tickets for vehicles parked on the village green. Sometimes life happens, and life can be pretty
brutal sometimes.”

“Do
you think that could have had an effect? Stabbings, shootings, strangulations,
you’re only human after all.” She smiled kindly at him, then glanced at the
clock on the wall. “Have a think about it. We’re coming to a close now for the
first session, but I think we’ve covered some really helpful details today.”

Blake
was doubtful. As he thanked Linda and left the office, he could not help
wondering exactly what she could possibly do to prevent him having bad dreams,
especially as they stemmed from an event that had actually happened to him.
There was no way to try and make sense of it, it was a traumatic experience
that had clearly stuck with him and no amount of therapy was going to change
that.

As he
climbed into his car, he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, briefly chastising
himself for his lack of self-control when it came to smoking. He had been
trying to quit for a long time, but recently, even Blake had to admit that he
had basically become a full-time smoker again.

With a
heavy sigh, he turned the key in the ignition and began driving back towards
Harmschapel, the image of the screaming old woman flashing into his mind’s eye
briefly as he pulled out of the car park.

Blurb:

There’s no such thing as magic. Everything has a logical explanation, even when you can’t immediately see it. Nothing is impossible when looked at from the right angle.

Blake Harte has always lived by this mantra. It’s an attitude that has fared him well in Harmschapel after being faced with numerous bizarre murders and situations. But Blake’s beliefs are soon to be tested to breaking point when touring magician, Sebastian Klein, arrives in the village with his daughter, and glamorous assistant, Amelia, to perform their touring magic show.

Although reluctant to even watch the show, Blake and the rest of Harmschapel Police are soon called into action when Sebastian Klein performs the most baffling trick of his career. Just how many ways are there for a woman to completely vanish in front of an audience, especially when even the great Sebastian Klein has no explanation for what happened?

What initially looks like a big theatrical stunt soon leads Blake and the team to one of the darkest and most sinister cases they have ever come across. The disappearance of Amelia Klein threatens to explode in the ugliest way possible, and there is no way of telling just how many secrets she could expose if found…

Buy links:
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07L43NR4N/ref=series_rw_dp_sw
US: https://www.amazon.com/Atmosphere-Blake-Harte-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B07L43NR4N/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43126026-atmosphere?from_search=true

https://robert-innes.co.uk/

Want to know more about the author? Click the image of Robert Innes to reach his website!

Robert Innes is the author of The Blake Harte Mysteries – a series of head scratching and impossible crimes. When he’s not trying to work out how to commit seemingly perfect murders and building up a worrying Google search history, Robert can be found at his local slimming group, wondering why eating three pizzas in the space of a week hasn’t resulted in a weight loss. Since the creation of the Blake Harte mystery series in November 2016, each book has become a best seller in LGBT mystery both in the USA and the UK.