Girl:Broken

by S Williams

  Anywhere away from Leeds, she answered herself. And that was fine with her. The woman would get her money and set her up with a new identity in a new town, and then her boyfriend would never find her and make her do things she would be ashamed of.

  She could start again.

  Ahead of her, she saw the bridge. Stood in the middle of it was a figure, smoking a cigarette.

  Her contact.

  The person who was going to take her to the policewoman, Slane.

  Beata hurried on. As she drew nearer she saw that the person was wearing a windbreaker, with the hood pulled up to obscure their face. They were watching the traffic below. Beata nodded to herself. She’d seen enough films. She knew that undercover police had to protect their identity. She stepped onto the bridge and walked briskly to where the person stood.

  ‘Hello, I’m Beata,’ she said. ‘I’m not late, am I?’

  The person didn’t say anything. Merely took another drag of their cigarette, then sent the butt spinning out over the chasm, down onto the traffic. Beata watched as it bounced off the roof of a car, sending sparks into the air.

  ‘Detective Slane sent me,’ she said, her voice uncertain. She felt a cold stab of air slip between her skin and her coat and snake its way down her spine. ‘She said you’d take me somewhere safe?’

  The figure nodded and, finally, turned to face her. Beata gasped. It was the jogger. The one she had seen just before finding the body of the homeless man. She had only a moment to wonder what was wrong with the woman’s eyes before the hooded figure stepped forward and hoisted her over the rails of the bridge.

  Beata didn’t even have time to say ‘why?’ before her body smashed into the road fifteen meters below, killing her instantly.

  23

  3rd November

  Slane placed the clipboard with the signed document in the filing cabinet and then walked toward the coffee machine. Joseph noticed she wasn’t wearing socks. Her bare leg was visible between her trousers and brogues.

  ‘Very stylish,’ Joseph commented quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said the garden-fire voice of Collins, close to Joseph’s ear.

  Joseph gave a start; he had not heard the man approach him. For someone so heavy and solid he moved incredibly lightly. Joseph shook his head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He turned and pointed at the board. ‘I’ve signed your paper. Are you going to tell me why you think I can help you?’

  ‘Walter Cummings and Heather Tayler ran the Surrey branch of The Fishermen.’

  ‘I’m stunned, Inspector, that you have this much information,’ said Joseph. ‘It’s incredible.’ He subconsciously leaned forward, staring intently at the board. ‘As far as I was aware, nobody knew any of the names of The Fishermen. The children that survived only ever called them Mother or Father. Any interaction with the public, for supplies and such, was done by the men, and they all called themselves “Simon”.’

  ‘One of The fishermen met by Jesus on the sea of Galilee, yes,’ said Collins.

  Joseph gave a slight shake of his head in irritation; as if he wasn’t used to being interrupted.

  ‘Quite. And as all the houses were squatted, and their money came from private means, they never appeared on any kind of government record.’

  ‘Completely off-grid, yes,’ said Slane, joining them. She sipped her coffee. She was close enough for Joseph to smell her soap. No perfume, just the slightly antiseptic smell of a utilitarian cleanser. ‘It couldn’t happen these days, of course. Between the search for terrorists and Facebook, we pretty much know where everybody is all the time. In fact, with social media, we barely even need to search; people will just take photographs of themselves, geo-tag them, then post them in the public domain. Everyone with a mobile phone is an unpaid employee for GCHQ, basically.’

  She paused, then smiled at Joseph. ‘Except for your phone, of course. That won’t even have an internet connection. All that is, is a phone.’

  Joseph ignored the jibe. ‘So how did you get them? How did you get the names?’

  ‘When we searched through the wreckage of Damson Cottage we found some records that hadn’t been destroyed.’ Collins indicated the board, which showed a still from sometime before the explosion. ‘The ground floor of the house was split into three main rooms. A living room, where we assume the video with Gemma was shot.’

  Joseph felt a wave of nausea roll through him, as the image of the branded girl, silently screaming, flashed in front of him.

  ‘A central hall, with stairs leading up to the first floor, and a large farmhouse kitchen and dining room. The two rooms correspond to the two windows.’ Collins pointed to the right-hand corner of the building. ‘There was a third small room that was connected to the kitchen, here. This room, as you see, had no window. It was originally a pantry or larder of some sort. It was annexed to the kitchen. Everything in it was slate. Shelves, worktops. That sort of thing. The house is nineteenth century, pre-electricity, so the room was designed to keep perishables cold, so they stayed edible as long as possible.’

  ‘At the time of the explosion, it was being used as an office. We think they weren’t quite ready for us. They knew we were coming, of course. They all did. That’s why they blew themselves up; committed mass suicide. It’s quite common, as far as these things go, apparently.’

  Joseph nodded. ‘Jonestown, and Waco. Heaven’s Gate. Rather than having their alternative reality confronted, they choose to die instead. End their lives still in the bubble. Never having to face responsibility for their actions.’ He turned to look at the two officers. ‘What is unusual, however, is that they let all the children go. That they sent them out before blowing themselves and the houses up.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Collins. ‘I assume you’ve studied the papers on it? In your field, I imagine it’s required reading.’

  ‘I’ve read the available material, yes. What little there is. There’s almost no extant evidence to consider. No official paper trail, due to them being,’ he nodded at Collins, ‘off-grid, as you call it. No household records, all destroyed, it was assumed, by the explosions. Anybody who met the occupants said they were pleasant, if a little shy. In fact, other than the surviving victims, there was almost no evidence they even existed – the photograph in my lecture was considered to be one of the few that remain. The locations they chose were remote, without being noticeably so.’

  Slane nodded this time. ‘Yes. In the Goldilocks zone.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Slane held her hand out and tilted it back and forth. ‘Not too hot and not too cold. Any nearer to a town or village and people might notice something odd. Any further away, too rural, and they might get people popping round whenever the weather was bad. Contrary to what people believe, the sparser the population, the more everybody knows everybody else’s business.’

  ‘I see. Well, quite. So nothing was really known about them. All the information we have came from the children.’

  ‘Which was unreliable, as they were so damaged that they couldn’t tell fact from fiction,’ said Collins. ‘The children had all been abducted at a young age, then broken down and rebuilt in the image The Fishermen saw fit.’

  ‘If I remember correctly, they were all sent out of the houses naked before the explosion.’ Joseph looked at the house on the screen. Even though there was nothing special about it; no outward expression of the evil that went on inside it, Joseph found it hard to look at. Hard to look at, and hard to look away from.

  ‘Yes.’ Collins walked to the trestle table as he spoke, and sat down in front of it.

  The others joined him, barring Grant, who was typing on the keyboard. ‘We think that it was meant to be like a birthing. That The Fishermen thought the children would be born into our society, then infect it with their ideals. They had all recently been branded on their backs.’

  ‘Sick,’ said Slane.

  Joseph shook his head. ‘Yes, but with a weird sort of logic.’ Joseph’s voice had
taken on the characteristics that he used in lectures: authoritative, and didactic. ‘You have to remember that these girls had been there for considerable lengths of time. Sometimes even years.’ While Joseph was talking, he noticed that Grant had projected a still of the girl from the swimming pool. She was standing close to Cummings, and looked small and vulnerable alongside the adult frame of the man. ‘They had been moulded by abuse and pain until they began to associate the stimuli with love. To those girls, The Fishermen represented the law. Authority. Basic cult mentality. Control the environment and you control the person. Do it for long enough and they think it’s the only way things can be. How was it that this information was never made available?’

  The sudden change in direction would normally take a person a couple of seconds to assimilate. Slane responded almost immediately. As if she was expecting the question.

  ‘What information, Joseph?’

  ‘The names!’ Irritation acidised Joseph’s speech. ‘If they were found in the room as you’ve said, why weren’t the names released?’ Joseph paused, trying to work through what he had learned. ‘What else was found?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what wasn’t found, Joseph,’ said Slane softly.

  Joseph focused his full attention on her. ‘What?’

  ‘Enough bodies.’ Although Slane’s tone was soft, the words cut through the room, deadening the air.

  In the quiet after Slane had spoken, Joseph rubbed his head. His skull felt dry, as if the skin was shedding.

  ‘Well, yes. You’ve already told me Cummings was found murdered in Leeds.’

  ‘Last month, yes,’ said Collins.

  Joseph was mildly surprised to see him pull out a box-mod and vape a cloud of smoke into the air. ‘Aren’t you meant to do that outside?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Collins, then: ‘But you’re an ex-smoker, no? If it bothers you, of course I’ll step outside.’ Collins began to stand, but Joseph waved him back down.

  ‘No, it’s fine. I just thought, government building and all that…’ Joseph left the sentence hanging, but nobody said anything. Collins sucked in, then blew out another plume of vapour. Joseph closed his eyes, blocking out the room, trying to home-in on exactly what wasn’t being said. The room ticked around them. After a few moments he had it.

  ‘How did you know to look for him?’ He pointed at the board. ‘Walter Cummings. I mean he was just some street person. Murdered, yes, but probably not a priority. When he was found, I doubt anybody would connect him to The Fishermen.’ Joseph paused, then stared at Collins. ‘Unless they were looking for him.’

  ‘That’s right, Joseph,’ said Slane. ‘Like your lecture, when the discovery of Cummings’ body showed up on the wire, his photograph was attached to the report, which raised a red flag with us.’

  Joseph scratched his head harder. ‘I don’t understand. Why was there an “us” in the first place? Surely the traditional order is to set up a task force after the crime, not before it!’

  ‘As we said, there weren’t enough bodies,’ said Slane. Joseph stopped scratching and looked at her, the penny finally dropping.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  Slane gave a slight nod. ‘The team that was working The Fishermen case catalogued the scene. Forensics. The bomb squad. Demolition experts. They were very excited when they found the material that failed to burn. It contained a list of all the members of the cult. Not their real names; just codenames. But it listed who was in which house. How many and so forth. Cummings had already been ID’d as the father of Damson Cottage, but when the team collected the remains found in the wreckage, Cummings’ wasn’t there. We assume he must have left before the explosion.’

  Joseph stared at them, mouth slightly open. ‘But why wasn’t that information released? My God, that’s massive!’

  ‘It is not the way we would do things now, but at the time, it was considered better to contain the situation,’ said Slane.

  Joseph could see the discomfort on her face. ‘Contain? What does that even mean? A serial child molester was allowed to roam free, with the public thinking that all The Fishermen were dead? That’s…’ Joseph waved his hands about in disbelief. ‘Criminal.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Collins flatly. ‘But the alternative was worse. Once the story broke, after the explosions, the public was in a frenzy. Of course they were. Child molesters, to use your term, living within the community. And not just one, but six houses. People they had sold goods to. Perhaps made small talk with in the street. People who didn’t look like monsters, but just like them. The public was incensed. If it had got out that one of them was still loose, roaming the country, every stranger would have been a suspect. There would have been lynchings. You’ve seen what’s happened with the vigilante paedophile-hunters in recent years? The innocent men whose lives have been ruined? Yes, they have caught a few, but others were mistaken. Remember Bijan Ebrahimi?’

  Joseph nodded. ‘The gardener from Bristol, yes.’ Ebrahimi had been mistakenly identified as a paedophile, relentlessly persecuted, despite contacting the local police, and had been beaten by a neighbour so violently that he had died. Several neighbours then burned the body.

  ‘Right. So we know what can happen. When the story of The Fishermen broke, all hell was let loose. There were rumours of sex cults cropping up everywhere. It was decided at a parliamentary level to keep a lid on it. Not to mention about any survivors. Attempt to find him clandestinely.’

  ‘So that’s why a task force was set up?’

  ‘Yes. A small unit was established. Our primary task was to track down Cummings, but also to keep track of the girls who survived.’

  ‘If “survived” is the right word,’ commented Slane.

  Collins gave a curt nod. ‘Right. The girls were car crashes. Their heads were so messed that they could barely function. Then foster care or state children’s homes. In one or two cases of the younger children, adoption. It was the nineties. Lots of cutbacks, and nobody wanted these girls. Too much of a reminder. One by one they went off the rails.’

  ‘In the case of cults, with systematic and sustained physical and mental control, the rails are removed completely,’ said Joseph.

  ‘Okay. Anyway, that’s what happened. We were set up and everything else was brushed under the carpet. After a few years with no leads, we were mothballed, and the girls that were still alive slid off the radar.’

  ‘Until Cummings was found dead,’ said Slane.

  Joseph thought about it, looking from one to another. Then he shook his head. ‘That still doesn’t make sense. If you were mothballed then why did Cummings’ murder send up a flare? There was no one to send a flare to.’

  He looked at them, and after a beat Slane said, ‘Because a flare had already been sent up. Two months prior to his murder, someone had been investigating The Fishermen.’

  Joseph shrugged. ‘So what? I don’t see the connection. It’s the age of Google. There must be dozens of students looking them up all the t–’

  ‘Using their real names,’ finished Slane.

  Joseph shut his mouth. Started to say something, then reconsidered before finally saying a simple, ‘What?’

  ‘The person who was searching. They were searching using the real names of The Fishermen. Cummings. Tayler. The others.’

  Joseph narrowed his eyes.

  ‘How? You said all the girls were sent out, and everybody else was blown up, except Cummings. How could anybody else be searching using their real names?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Unless it was one of the girls?’

  ‘Exactly. Which is why we rebooted the unit. When Cummings turned up dead we were already on alert.’

  ‘And when we found the girl–’ Slane pointed at the whiteboard. At the cracked and faded picture of the young girl next to Walter Cummings. ‘–woman now, who had been looking up The Fishermen, we were completely on top of it. Right back in the game.’

  ‘Until the woman who had found Walter, Beata Nowak, was thrown off a bridge in th
e centre of Leeds.’

  Joseph stared at them, looking at first one, then the other. The silence stretched on, seemingly radiating out from Collins. Then Joseph looked down at the photograph on the table.

  ‘The thing is, Joseph, Beata had given a positive identification of the main suspect in Walter’s murder. Caught on CCTV running away from the scene.’

  She pointed to the board. ‘It was Daisy, Joseph. One of The Fishermen’s mermaids.’

  Joseph stared at her, unable to speak.

  She nodded and pointed to the board again. On the screen was another CCTV shot. ‘And this is the footage that started it all. When the original flag went up we followed the trail to various backroom public internet hubs around Leeds.’

  ‘Never the same one. The searches were done from different venues,’ said Collins.

  ‘We pulled the video feed from a tattoo parlour that rented internet access and we got lucky. There was some timestamped footage from when a couple of the searches were done.’

  ‘Looking for The Fishermen,’ said Joseph.

  ‘Using their real names,’ said Slane. ‘Yes.’

  Joseph looked at the screen. At the grainy black and white images of the person working the computers. Even though it was poor resolution and a wide-angled shot the person was instantly recognisable. ‘Jesus.’

  It was the girl.

  Daisy.

  The silence in the room solidified as Joseph thought of the implications.

  Then, as if to fill a void, his phone rang.

  24

  23rd October

  It went wrong from the moment Jay and Daisy walked into the session.

  Normally it was always the same people; women washed out from the burden of living, their faces coded with the pain of their past, like the lines of their skin were tattooed all the way through.

  Occasionally there would be the odd new person; someone who had moved to the area to escape abuse or coercion. Or someone local whose life had taken a turn for the worse but had slipped through the cracks in the mainstream health provision system. God knew that mental health services were stretched to the max.