The Revelation Room (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 1) Read Free

Susan’s murder. People told me I would get
through it. Told me to trust the Lord and look to the future. They meant well.
They were only trying to help. But I rejected everything. I even lost my faith
for a while. But guess what?’
    Ben shook his head, setting off firecrackers in his neck.
    ‘I got through it. I picked myself up. I had a two-year old
little girl who needed me. Bit by bit, I put the jigsaw back together again.
And you can do the same, son. You just need to trust the process of life.’
    ‘I’m not as strong as you, Tom.’
    Tom smiled. A tired smile, frayed around the edges.
‘Nonsense, lad. Life makes you strong. The tests that the Lord puts before us
are all designed to make us stronger. After Susan died, I blamed God. Shoved
the lot of it at His door. Why was I being punished? I was in Rwanda trying to
help. Trying to make a difference. I’d offered my life up to teach the
disadvantaged, to give hope to the poorest of the poor, so why did He take
Susan? Why did she have to die? She wasn’t even thirty years old.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Tom. I didn’t mean—’
    ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. The perpetrators of the
genocide have an awful lot to answer for, but that’s God’s business, not mine.
But I’ll tell you this for free; bitterness can eat you right up on the inside.
It’s like rust around the heart.’
    Ben considered his own childhood. The humiliation. The kids
who had mocked and abused him at school just because he’d been different to
them. ‘I’m just not cut out to rescue people, Tom. I can barely rescue my hair
in the morning.’
    ‘And I didn’t think I was cut out to raise a little girl on
my own. I didn’t think I had the strength to come back to England and start
again from scratch. We were all set to live our lives out in Rwanda. We had
plans. Simple plans for a simple life. But the thing is, Ben, I found the
strength, because God gave me the strength. Slowly but surely, my faith
returned. I started teaching again. I raised Maddie as best as I could. I lived
again. And you will find the strength, too.’
    ‘I can’t even brush my teeth without poking myself in the
eye.’
    ‘The Lord trusts you, son. The Lord has faith in you.
Susan’s death, as terrible as it was, as heart-breaking as it was, was God’s
way of putting me to the test and giving me strength and courage to succeed.’
    ‘And what happens if I don’t want to accept the test?’
    ‘That’s your choice, son. It’s what we call freewill.’
    ‘Come on, Ben. You can do this,’ Maddie encouraged.
    Ben laughed. ‘He was originally going to train me to go out
on operations. Everything was going so well until I got stuck in railings
opposite a client’s house. The picture of the fire brigade cutting me free made
the third or fourth page of The Feelham Gazette.’
    Maddie smiled. ‘Everyone has a mishap now and then. You have
to focus on what’s happening now. Focus on being strong for your mum and your
dad.’   
    Ben looked into her beautiful green eyes. He wanted to thump
his chest and declare himself ready for battle, but he wasn’t capable of
finding sand in a desert, let alone a man being held captive by a cult. He
still slept with the light on at twenty-two years of age, for God’s sake. And
he was terrified of spiders.
    Tom wedged his hat back on his head. ‘Come on, son. Let’s
get you and Old Joe home.’
    Ben stood up. He felt  like a condemned man about to
walk to the gallows. He picked up the canvas holdall. For once, Old Joe was
quiet.  
 

Chapter
three
     
    Ben stood on the front doorstep with
Maddie and Pastor Tom and introduced them to his mother.
    Anne Whittle looked from one to the other like a dormouse
contemplating cats. ‘Is something wrong?’
    Ben’s stomach churned like a cement mixer about to pour
concrete all over his mother’s life. ‘We need to talk to you.’
    ‘Why? What is it?’
    ‘Let’s go inside.’
    They followed Anne along the hallway and