THE UNWILLING SON an absolutely gripping mystery thriller that will take your breath away

by Jane Adams

  ‘This was not a matter for the police,’ Irene told her angrily. ‘It’s a matter for our consciences. We did what we believed was right at the time. We weren’t to know that Morgan had lost his mind.’

  ‘No. No, it’s not,’ Mitch protested. ‘This has nothing to do with conscience, religious or otherwise. Irene, we’re talking about murder. The killing of little children.’

  Bryn and Irene looked at one another, their faces full of pain. It was clear from the shocked silence in the room that most of the others agreed with Mitch and could not believe that they had stood by and done nothing.

  ‘And you were supposed to die that night, weren’t you?’ Mitch asked softly. ‘You’re telling me that, at the last minute, Morgan stopped believing in Lee and got an attack of conscience. Decided you and he and all those other people should die to pay for those kids’ lives?’

  ‘He didn’t die,’ Irene whispered, so quietly that at first Mitch wasn’t sure she’d heard her right. ‘We escaped, and so did Morgan. We were supposed to go back to the Markham house that night, but my mother had just died and I couldn’t go. Bryn stayed with me. We saw Morgan later and he said that he was glad we’d got away. That he knew we could be trusted to say nothing and that one day he’d be back and need people loyal to him. To be ready for him. Only those most faithful to Lee were at the house that night. Fire cleanses, Mitch. They knew what they were doing.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know if I would have gone anyway. I believed in Morgan and his teachings, but I was never so certain about Lee.’

  ‘And what about Martyn?’ Mitch asked desperately. ‘Surely he wasn’t mixed up in all of this?’

  Irene closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Martyn was away, studying. He’d been kept right out of all this deliberately. Morgan wanted him unsullied by it. But Martyn knew that something was wrong. All that day he had tried to reach us, but Morgan had disconnected the phones and told us all to stay inside. By the time Martyn decided that he had to come and find out what was wrong, it was all too late. He turned up at the house in the early hours of the morning, right in the middle of the investigation. The fire service was still damping down and Katie had been taken away. The rest was gone.’

  ‘And does Martyn know about all this? That you and Morgan and Lee . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what Martyn does or does not know,’ she said. ‘We hardly saw him back then and he was never told that we should have died. He’s accepted us, always, as loyal members of the new organization and we’ve worked hard for him.’

  ‘And Morgan. How do you feel about him?’

  ‘We owe him nothing,’ Bryn told her. ‘He abandoned us. Lied to us. We have no wish to have him back, not now.’

  ‘Have you thought it might be Morgan who’s been killing those children?’ Mitch questioned, aware that her voice had grown shrill with the panic and outrage she was feeling. ‘You’ve got to tell the police.’

  Again, Irene and Bryn exchanged a glance. ‘In the morning,’ Irene promised. ‘Give us this night, Mitch. In the morning we’ll call your friend and tell the police everything we know.’

  Mitch stared at them for a moment and then left the meeting room. Behind her she could hear the arguments continuing and then, as she reached her bedroom door, others spilling out into the hall. Some were crying, unable to believe that the couple they had seen as their leaders for so long could have been so mistaken in their actions.

  Mitch went into her room and locked the door. She hesitated only for a moment more, then she rummaged in the bedside drawer for her mobile and called George.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  George was at his London home when he took the call. It took several minutes for him to sort out what it was that had upset Mitch so much.

  ‘It’s going to take me a good couple of hours to reach you,’ he told her, ‘even at this time of night. I’ll call Ray and get him to come out to you. He’d better notify Beckett as well.’

  ‘I can’t believe they knew and did nothing,’ Mitch ranted. Later, she would cry, but just now all she could feel were outrage and anger.

  ‘It might not have been as clear-cut as that,’ George said, trying to soothe her.

  ‘You weren’t there. You didn’t hear what they had to say.’

  ‘No, but I will be soon, Mitch, I will be soon. Now let me call Ray and I’ll be with you as quickly as I can.’

  Ray was at Sarah’s but neither of them was asleep. Sarah insisted that she wanted to go along too. They paused only long enough to get dressed and inform Beckett of developments. He promised to phone ahead and tell the local officers that they’d be coming through the cordon.

  ‘Let me know when you get there and if you need backup.’

  ‘I will. It might amount to nothing, of course. George says that Mitch was close to hysterical.’

  ‘Well, check it out anyway. But, Ray, if they have information and they’ve been withholding it, believe me, I’ll see they burn.’

  * * *

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Katie asked Nathan. ‘Who my parents were?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not really. Your mother was there, I think. I don’t think your father belonged to us. I saw you with a woman, she was crying, trying to get you to drink your juice. You didn’t like it.’

  ‘My mother gave it to me?’ Katie was shocked. Somehow she had always had a picture of her mother knowing nothing. Of maybe being stolen from home and her parents never knowing what became of her. It had never occurred to her that her parents might have had a role in this. ‘Maybe she wasn’t my mother,’ she told him angrily.

  Nathan shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. But she knew that he didn’t believe that.

  ‘What about your parents? Were they there?’

  ‘My mother was in love with Lee.’

  ‘And, was Lee your . . .’

  He nodded. ‘I think so.’

  ‘And did she die?’

  ‘She liked orange juice,’ he told her simply.

  He got up and began to pace restlessly about the room, pausing now and then to examine one of the images painted on the wall. Katie watched him, her mind still reeling from the shock of the details he had just revealed. She didn’t want to cry, worried that if she started she wouldn’t be able to stop, but in the end she gave in and allowed fat tears to roll down her cheeks. The half-memory of a young blonde woman bending down to pick her up sprang into her mind. The woman she had dreamed about so many times, that must be her mother, the woman who’d been willing to let her die. Willing and compliant.

  ‘I was twelve years old,’ Nathan said suddenly. He was standing in front of her. She could see his legs through a haze of tears, and his voice came from far above her head.

  ‘Did you see him kill the boys?’ Her voice sounded fuzzy, thick with tears, and she sniffed loudly, trying to keep her nose from running.

  ‘I saw them die,’ Nathan said. ‘He made me watch. He made me do other things too, said the alchemy must work a certain way. And now it’s begun again and you’re the last, Katie.’ He knelt down and leaned forward, kissing her lightly on her forehead.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ray was momentarily blinded by a dozen camera flashes as they drove through the cordon at Sommers House. Their arrival, he thought, was probably the most interesting thing that had happened there in days.

  Mitch must have been watching for them, because the front door opened as soon as the car pulled up on the gravel drive. She threw herself into Ray’s arms, then pulled back with a murmured apology.

  ‘Come on,’ Ray said gently, taking her arm. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  Their arrival had disturbed the others. No one had been sleeping, except the children, though most of the adults had retreated to their rooms after the meeting.

  ‘What’s going on, Mitch?’

  ‘You phoned these people? After Bryn and Irene asked you to wait?’

  ‘What choice did she have? We should have insisted, not just sat around looking at one anothe
r, wondering what to do.’

  Ray half listened to the protests as he led Mitch through to the kitchen. ‘Where are Bryn and Irene?’ he asked, glancing around. Most of the adults had crowded behind them into the kitchen. He had expected Bryn and Irene to be the first there, asking questions, outraged at this lack of protocol.

  People looked at one another, glances showing that they too wondered what had happened to the community leaders.

  ‘We left them in the meeting room,’ Amy said.

  ‘If they were still there, they’d have heard the noise. It’s only across the hall.’

  ‘They wouldn’t come out if they were meditating.’

  But it didn’t feel that simple.

  Mitch went back into the hall, the others following. She tried the door to the meeting room and found it locked. They knocked, called out, but no one replied.

  The spare keys were in the dining room and Mitch ran to fetch them. The door was opened.

  Bryn and Irene lay on the floor close to the altar wall. Both were dead.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  When George arrived Ray filled him in quickly. It wasn’t yet clear how Bryn and Irene had died, but their bodies had lost little heat and preliminary time of death was put at around midnight.

  ‘Mitch called you at eleven-thirty. Then you called me and we left Sarah’s just after twelve. Mitch thinks that if she’d known, she could have called an ambulance but she was already in her room and didn’t come back down. She’s blaming herself for not realizing what they were planning when they asked her to wait until morning.’

  A family — husband, wife, two sleepy children — came downstairs carrying suitcases.

  ‘What’s happening?’ George asked.

  ‘There are chapter houses in Scotland and in Wales. Those with kids have asked to leave once they’ve given statements. The locals can take over from there and social services are being briefed. It seems the best way, getting the kids out of here. Beckett’s asked for the locals to escort them and block the roads to stop the press from following. That’s being done.’

  George nodded. ‘Where’s Mitch?’ he asked.

  ‘Dining room. Sarah’s with her.’

  * * *

  Mitch was sitting in the corner with Sarah beside her. She looked pale and tired and had obviously been crying for a long time, her eyes reddened and her cheeks blotched and stained. A WPC sat on her other side, going through her statement and trying to add detail, though Mitch was clearly finding it hard to make sense.

  George hugged her and shook her gently, then told her sternly to pull herself together. The WPC looked outraged, but it seemed to work. She even managed a watery smile. He then wandered off to talk to DI Winters, the local officer in charge, who seemed to be expecting him. Following behind, Ray heard part of the exchange.

  ‘Beckett spoke to me about you,’ Winters said, ‘and then my boss got a call from some bloke called Dignan. Home Office apparently. We’ve been asked to extend you every courtesy, whatever that might mean.’

  He clearly resented this trampling on his turf. A retired police officer on the scene he could just about handle, provided he respected protocol and kept out of the way. George was a different matter.

  ‘I’d just like access to a telephone,’ George reassured him, ‘and I’d like to take my young friend home when she’s given her statement. I do hope that’s all right.’

  Sarah called to Ray at that point and he heard no more of their conversation. She stood in the kitchen door with yet another tray of tea for him to distribute. George sauntered over to join him as he was handing it out.

  ‘Thought you’d retired,’ Ray said sarcastically. ‘And since when has Dignan been Home Office?’

  ‘It’s strictly true, in one sense,’ George told him comfortably. ‘They pay him a small retainer. I thought a call from him might smooth our way. Where were the bodies found, Ray?’

  Ray took him through to the meeting room. The bodies were being bagged ready for removal. George’s gaze took in the paintings on the wall, depictions of men and falling angels.

  ‘They have a perfect alibi for the murders,’ Ray commented softly. ‘All of them, being here, under the direct gaze of a couple of dozen journalists. Had they not, then things would have been quite different once Beckett heard about that.’

  He pointed at the altar wall and the flowing gold-edged script that read, ‘Man is like an angel falling.’

  * * *

  ‘You’ve got to talk to Martyn Shaw,’ Ray told Mitch when she had finished giving her statement. ‘He’ll have been told by now, but he’ll want to talk to someone on the scene. Someone he knows.’

  Mitch nodded. ‘We’ll use the video phone,’ she said.

  The media room was an eye-opener. Ray had no idea what most of the equipment did, he was only just getting used to computers. George, however, seemed right at home, taking over from Mitch when she seemed unequal to the task of even dialling the code.

  They got through to Chicago, where it was late evening. When Martyn’s image appeared it was against a backdrop of blue-black sky and glassy lake.

  ‘Mitch! My God, I’m so sorry. Are you all right? The children . . .’

  Mitch collapsed once more into sobs and George took over, introducing himself briefly.

  ‘Mitch told me about you,’ Martyn said. ‘She told me that you’re a good friend. But is everyone else all right? All I know is that Bryn and Irene killed themselves.’

  He was visibly shaken, clearly distressed. George did not trouble to mince his words.

  ‘You care about these people?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Then get here now. I’ll make the arrangements and call you back in, say, an hour. We’ll organize a quiet entry for you and a safe house. Then you can tell us what the hell is going on.’

  Ray expected Shaw to protest, but he simply nodded. ‘I’ll be packed and ready to leave,’ he said.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  They had returned to Sarah’s cottage and an exhausted Mitch been installed in Sarah’s bed. It was getting on for six o’clock by the time George left them and headed back to London to finalize arrangements for Martyn Shaw. He was very tired but would not give in to Sarah’s urgings to at least have a couple of hours sleep before he went. Sarah herself had decided to phone in sick later on. She had the feeling that it was not only Ray who had been caught on camera the night before and really couldn’t face the explanations should her colleagues see her on the morning news.

  ‘It’s a mess,’ she commented as they sat in her small kitchen, looking out over the fields and watching the sky lighten with the promise of dawn.

  ‘I don’t think we know the half of it yet,’ Ray said. He had called Beckett and brought him up to speed. Asked about the boy, but there was nothing new.

  Sarah had a portable television in the kitchen and she switched it on. They watched the early-morning news. The media already carried new pictures of Sommers House, the police cordon and one of the families leaving, escorted by police motorcyclists. Sketchy reports were emerging, rumours of murder or suicide, though as yet there had been no official statement.

  Speculation grew on the back of speculation. Experts were trundled on to give their views. In the absence of fact, comparisons were being made with Waco and Jonestown and the Church for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments in Uganda. Comparisons that were as inappropriate as they were grotesque.

  Ray tolerated it until he heard a psychologist talking about the children, speculating about the effects that these events might have on them. There were vague hints about abuse and satanic cults, nothing concrete but enough to start rumours. Even though Ray knew they were quite unfounded, he could well understand how such stories could grow, especially bearing in mind how suspicious and strange the Eyes of God must seem to the outside world.

  He switched channels, only to find Farrant and New Vision taking up space there. Farrant looked almost gleeful as the presenter aske
d him to comment on the reports coming out of Sommers. The same film was shown, families leaving, police escort. The roadblock to prevent pursuit. The same rumours of death.

  ‘I wish that I could say I’m surprised,’ Farrant intoned. ‘But I’m not. There has always been a history of mental instability among the membership and the leaders of the Sommers community were known associates of Harrison Lee. All I can say is that these events are tragic. We must all learn from them and hope that the children will receive proper counselling.’

  Ray turned off in disgust.

  He was worn out and so was Sarah. They fetched spare blankets and made up the bed-settee in the living room, falling asleep within minutes.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Nate remembered what it had been like. The boy in the cellar, knowing that he was going to die.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he had asked.

  ‘Nathan. Please, can you get me out of here? I’m scared.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Nate had looked around at the basement decorated with the images of man and falling angels, at the tiny, barred window through which, at sunset, the sky cast fire onto the tiled floor and the massive oak door that led back into the rest of the house.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he promised, looking into the dark eyes of the young boy who knelt in the darkened corner, his hands bound behind his back and his dirty face streaked by his tears.

  The others had not woken up. They had stayed sleeping while Harrison did all of those things he said he had to do. While he had made Nate watch and sometimes do things too, at what he said were the proper times in the rite.

  But Harrison had delayed the killing this time for reasons that Nate could not understand and Harrison had delayed too in giving the other one the stuff he needed that made him feel good. In control.

  The boy had begun to cry again, his face crumpling and his soft dark eyes filling up with tears.

  ‘I’ll try and get help,’ Nate said. ‘Get to a phone.’ Yes, that was it, though even as he thought it the words lost cohesion and slid from his mind, like the boy’s tears, slipping to the floor.