by Jane Adams
Ray almost snatched the phone.
‘It was here when I arrived,’ Rowena told him. ‘On the hall floor with the other post, but it was just a piece of folded paper, no envelope and your name on it. It was only when I opened it I realized what it was. She wrote it to her mum and dad. Says she’s OK but that she can’t leave yet. She says that the boy on the bike is trying to help and that he’s done nothing wrong. And not to worry.’
Ray laughed harshly at the irony in Rowena’s voice. ‘Try not to handle it any more than you have to,’ he told her. ‘Put it in an envelope and I’ll take it along to Beckett, get it dusted for prints.’
As he was getting ready to leave Mitch came down the stairs.
‘I heard the phone,’ she said.
‘He’s taken another one,’ Ray told her. ‘Eleven years old.’
‘Oh; God.’
‘Why has he broken the pattern, Mitch? All he’s done so far is to copy Lee. Why this one?’
* * *
News had spread fast and by the time Ray got to Mallingham a crowd had gathered. A dozen officers had been employed simply to keep order and as Ray was led through the cordon a faction of the crowd surged forward to shout at him, waving placards and demanding to know what was being done. Someone remembered that he’d been on the investigation of eleven years before.
‘What’s he fucking here for? Couldn’t get the bastard last time round.’
Ray said nothing. He kept his head down and walked swiftly through the cordon, looking back only when he had reached the door. Many of the placards concerned the Eyes of God. ‘Child Killers’ he read, ‘Satanists’ and ‘Devil Worshippers’. A woman holding a placard saw him looking and yelled that they should take their kids away. Social services and the police should go and raid their homes. ‘Get something fucking right at least,’ she yelled. ‘See how the bastards like that.’
Ray turned and went through the door into the apartment block. He knew that they were wrong, the crowd, their hatred misdirected and ill-informed, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to blame them. When nothing seemed to be happening, and children had died. If the killer had now broken the pattern, they might well go on dying. With that feeling of helplessness came the need for someone to blame. The scapegoat mentality was deeply ingrained, Ray had long ago figured that one out.
Beckett was waiting for him in a room that had been taken apart. Covers stripped from the bed, the sheets painted with a gaudy depiction of the human eye. The walls likewise daubed with images, not just circled eyes this time but winged figures that might have been angels, might have been something else. They appeared more insect-like, their bodies squat and stylized, with enormous wings protruding from their sides. The killer had taken plenty of time, there was no sign of frenzy or panic in the painting, each image carefully completed. The difficulty in recognition coming from a lack of skill and not of time.
‘They heard nothing?’ Ray questioned.
Beckett shook his head. ‘The grandfather sleeps with the radio on, falls asleep listening to the World Service. The grandmother is a little deaf. The killer took the boy out through the window and must have walked back down that path between the trees to the main road.’
Ray could feel Beckett’s anger.
‘Do you know how many people I’ve got assigned to this? How many have been pulled back off sick leave, been seconded, been working double shifts?’
Ray nodded. ‘I can guess.’
‘You saw the crowd outside.’
‘Difficult to miss.’ He paused. ‘It’s not your fault. You’re doing everything you can.’
‘You think that makes it all right?’
‘Of course I don’t.’ Ray glanced shrewdly at the other man. ‘They’re talking about pulling you off the case?’
Beckett nodded.
‘Saying you’re listening too much to an old fart who should know when he’s retired?’
‘They didn’t put it quite that way.’
‘Maybe they’re right. Fat lot of use I’ve been so far. This time or the last.’
Beckett shook his head but said nothing to contradict him. ‘When does this Martyn Shaw arrive?’
‘George said he’d have him here this afternoon. His boss wants a word first.’
‘Politics takes priority.’ Beckett shrugged. ‘Would expect no less.’
‘I got this,’ Ray said, producing the letter from his jacket pocket. ‘Arrived at the office some time in the night or very early this morning.’
Beckett read it. ‘At least she’s alive,’ he said grimly. ‘One set of parents still have a bit of hope.’
He handed the letter back inside the plastic wallet that Rowena had placed it in. ‘Show it to the parents, get them to verify the handwriting, then get it over to forensics. Not that I hold out much hope. I’ll let the office know it’s coming in. And we’ll see what this so-called Prophet’s got to say for himself this afternoon.’
Ray watched him as he strode out of the door, then followed more slowly, taking a last look around the room. The meeting between Beckett and Martyn Shaw was not going to be comfortable, he thought. Beckett was not in the mood to be either conciliatory or gentle. He thought of the young man, barely more than a boy when he had so briefly met him eleven years before, and wondered how things would turn out.
* * *
Nathan had gone out just after midday to buy food. He knew as soon as he stepped out onto the main road that something was wrong, something new had happened. It had been a feeling half with him all morning, but he had done his best to ignore it. The other one had changed something but he did not know what.
It took little time to find out. People everywhere were talking about it. The fourth child that his enemy had taken. He managed to remember what food he had set out to buy and found an early edition of the local paper, the child’s face staring out at him from the front page. Then he went back to Katie, so shaken that he could barely find his way.
If Lee’s three killings and then the first three here made the six, then why another? There could be only one reason left. The original ritual had been abandoned. Nathan was no longer the key. No longer chosen. The new killings had not been for him, but for the other one.
Chapter Thirty-six
Beckett and Martyn Shaw met for the first time as the lunchtime news was playing on TV. Beckett had the set on in the incident room and watched himself coming out of this last victim’s flat, his refusal to comment drawing jeers and catcalls from the crowds.
Shaw came over and stood beside him, though neither spoke. The younger man stiffened as he saw the messages written on the placards. His lips moved slightly as he read the words.
‘What did you expect?’ Beckett asked him bluntly.
‘I don’t know. Is that Ray Flowers?’ Shaw asked uncertainly as the report turned back to show images from the week and Ray was seen talking to Beckett. Ray had not been scarred the last time Shaw had seen him.
‘Didn’t need to be a prophet to work that one out,’ Beckett told him coldly.
Shaw ignored him, watching as the news item finished with a brief interview with the vocal Mr Farrant of New Vision. ‘I am appalled by all of this,’ Farrant declaimed, a look on his face of intense pain and equally intense disgust. ‘New Vision has no connection with any of this. You should be talking to the Eyes of God. To Martyn Shaw. Ask him if he didn’t foresee any of this, with his so-called powers of prophecy. Ask him if he can’t look into his crystal ball and tell you which one of his followers is killing your children. Ask him.’
Beckett reached out and killed the set. ‘And did you?’ he demanded. ‘Did you foresee this? Or did your second sight somehow let you down?’
Shaw just nodded slowly, his soft brown eyes meeting and holding Beckett’s gaze. ‘Of course I knew,’ he said softly. ‘Anyone who knew Lee knew what would happen once he was dead. We warned your people what would happen. I wrote time and again to DCI Bryant. I kept in contact with him until he threatened to ta
ke me to court for harassment if I didn’t stop. Then I wrote to his solicitors and I warned them. The letter should be in their files, if anyone’s bothered to ask, and in case it’s not I have copies with me of all the correspondence I ever had with Bryant and with them. They wrote back and told me that my concern had been duly noted. That I should have no further anxiety. Lee was locked away.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘They didn’t understand, Mr Beckett, DI Beckett or whatever it is you are. It wasn’t Lee whom I was warning you about. It was Morgan’s son.’
Chapter Thirty-seven
‘Farrant knew about Morgan’s son. I lost touch afterwards, but I believe Farrant knew where he went and what he did. I warned Bryant, told him that I believed Morgan had brainwashed the boy, made him believe that he was some kind of messiah. An avatar was what Morgan and Lee called him. They believed that they could bring into being some kind of saviour.’
‘By killing children?’
Shaw shook his head. ‘I don’t pretend to understand it. When I first knew Morgan, he was a good man. Kind, gentle, probably the first person I’d ever met who didn’t think I was crazy. I could talk to him about the things I saw, the things I felt. He told me he believed I was some kind of medium and should think of being trained properly. When I was about sixteen, six months or so after I had met Morgan, he took me along to this spiritualist church. Morgan wasn’t a spiritualist himself, but back then he had a lot of respect for the way they trained their people. They took time and care and some churches, like this one, had what they called development circles, where people who had the gift or whatever you call it could go along and practise in safety.
‘It was miraculous. The room was full of people, all sorts of people. Little old ladies who saw fairies at the bottom of their gardens. Men and women who claimed to have Amerindian guides even though they’d never been further west than Wandsworth. Healers who practised the laying on of hands. Oh, I’ve no doubt some were delusional. Some saw only what was inside their heads, but there were also those like me, who predicted events, who felt when someone was in trouble and what that trouble was. Who—’ he shrugged — ‘had visions.’
Beckett eyed him sceptically. ‘All very nice,’ he said. ‘But how does that help us?’
‘It doesn’t,’ Shaw apologized. ‘Why should you care what Morgan meant to me before he came well and truly under Lee’s thumb?’
‘I thought Morgan was the boss of your operation. How come he let Lee have so much control?’
‘It didn’t happen overnight. Morgan met and liked Harrison Lee. It was hard not to like him, believe it or not. Harrison was a born flim-flam man. Fifty years ago and he’d have still been selling snake oil. These days I guess he should have stuck to cars, double-glazing, insurance instead. Somewhere along the line he caught religion and he started selling that. Trouble was, he began to believe his own lies. And Morgan . . . Well, he was like many so-called seekers. Willing to believe, concerned to seem open-minded, just in case the truth should bite him on the behind, disguised as something he didn’t recognize, so he listened to all that Lee had to say and he swallowed it little by little until there was no way back.
‘In that final year, eighteen months, I was away a lot. Morgan wanted me to study and he helped me pay my way. Finding me money for books and helping out with lodgings. My family couldn’t have done it for me and I was grateful. But each time I came back he and Lee had gone that one step more. I didn’t know where they were heading but it scared me. They read all this obscure stuff about alchemy and sacrifices and how there must be rituals to purify the soul, and they got James involved. Poor stupid James. He’d only got his father. His mother had been killed in a car crash when he was nine years old and his dad was his universe. He hated it when Morgan spent more time with his students and his good causes than he did with him and to have his dad suddenly concentrating on him big-time must have seemed like a miracle.’
‘But you must have suspected what they were doing. Why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘No. That’s where you’re wrong. In the six months before the explosion I’d seen nothing of Morgan. I’d quarrelled with Lee. He was on this expansionist kick. Said that we should go out and proselytize. Get new recruits and prepare them for the new messiah. I had no truck with any of that. It wasn’t my way then and it isn’t now. I was amazed that Morgan went along with it.
‘And I was worried about James. He was sick, completely out of it half the time. I asked Morgan point blank if he’d been taking drugs and Morgan just shrugged and said, “Whatever it takes”, as though it didn’t matter. I left one night after we’d had an almighty row and vowed I’d never come back. Morgan cut off all financial support and wrote to me saying that I’d have no more help until I came to my senses and saw Lee for the miracle-worker he was. There’s a photocopy of the letter in the folder. I sent one to Bryant afterwards as well. I kept in touch with some of the people at the Markham house and then, when Lee stopped them writing, I kept an eye on things through the old ladies who lived down the road, Franny and Clara Albert. I called them once or twice a week and they let me know what was going on as best they could.’ He shook his head. ‘Not that they knew much. To them, the Markham house was another place to have tea. They were old and not altogether there. I think that’s why Lee continued to tolerate them as much as he did.
‘One thing I did find out. More people were moving in there, people I didn’t know, and some of the old crowd had moved away. I didn’t know where. The night of the explosion I’d been afraid that something would happen. I don’t know why, just a bad feeling that grew all day.’
‘So you decided to put aside your differences and come back home,’ Beckett said sarcastically.
Shaw smiled at his tone. ‘Actually, no. Franny Albert called me. Said there’d been an explosion and the place was crawling with policemen. That’s why I came back.’
‘How old was this son of Morgan’s?’
‘Somewhere about seventeen. Oh, he wouldn’t be among the dead, Inspector. That’s my whole point, you see. Franny Albert told me that he’d gone away. She said he’d gone to a sanatorium.’ He smiled. ‘She was an old lady, she used old-fashioned words, but I guessed he’d gone into either rehab or hospital. And by that time Lee had found himself another candidate for conversion. That was another thing we’d quarrelled over. He’d brought a young kid to the Markham house. Said he was his son, though I never knew if that was true. His mother had come to live with them and was having an affair with Lee. He described her as the divine mother, if you please. The boy was about fourteen, I only saw him a couple of times before the explosion, but he wasn’t among the dead either. Both of the children who died were females under twelve. Lee wouldn’t let us use the boy’s proper name and I don’t think I ever knew it. Lee just called him his angel and when Morgan’s son left the Markham house, Lee decided that his angel was the one. The chosen. His new avatar.’
‘And you never tried to talk to anyone about this? Never thought about what they might have been planning?’
‘You’d have believed me, would you? If I’d come to you and said that these people were planning something. That I didn’t know what it was, but it involved turning a fourteen-year-old boy into a new messiah. And I thought it might involve some sort of magic. You’d have acted on it, wouldn’t you?’
Beckett sighed and crossed the room to look out of the window. It had begun to rain again, light drizzle from heavy, overloaded skies. ‘I don’t know what I would have done,’ he said. ‘This was before Waco, before the Heaven’s Gate suicides, before anyone had heard of the Solar Temple. Before Uganda. I don’t know what I would have done.’
‘Probably nothing. The police and social services were still reeling from what happened in Cumbria, and Orkney hadn’t happened yet. Thankfully, we believe in religious freedom in this country. The Quakers started out as just another cultish group, so did the Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and dozens of others
. You look deep enough into any of their pasts and you’ll find a fair amount of crap. That’s often just the way of it. And now you can buy your New Age trappings in the nearest supermarket. You can indulge in off-the-shelf Wicca and by-the-numbers Cabbala and no one turns a hair. And, for the most part, I think that’s good. It breaks down barriers. Problem is, what might once have been difficult and inaccessible, might once have involved secret groups that selected their membership and kept them at arm’s length until they were sure what made them tick, no longer exercise control. The sick-minded can get power, whether you believe in the reality of it or not, as easily as the sick in body can buy paracetamol.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t have believed me. You would have done nothing.’
Beckett still did not reply. Truth was, he was uncertain in his own mind.
Shaw changed the subject, taking Beckett by surprise. ‘What happened to Ray Flowers? I almost didn’t recognize him.’
‘He cut himself shaving,’ Beckett retorted harshly. Then he shrugged. ‘Someone thought he was someone else and attacked him. Burned his hands and face with a home-made flame-thrower. He decided to retire.’
Shaw smiled. ‘I can’t imagine he’s as good at retirement as he was being a detective.’
Beckett shook his head. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘He’s not. But I think he could have lived without this.’ He paused, considering what Shaw had told him. ‘But you must have heard about the deaths. Three boys in one small town, you can’t have ignored that.’
Shaw hesitated. ‘I didn’t ignore it,’ he said. ‘When I heard about the second one I felt . . . I don’t know, chilled. I suppose that’s the best word. But I didn’t connect it to Morgan and Lee. Even in my nightmares, I didn’t think that they’d go through with that.’
‘Go through with it? You mean they talked about murder?’
Shaw nodded slowly. ‘Lee did. He talked about blood being the life-force. About the right blood charged in the right way being the most powerful force it was possible to summon. I told him he was crazy, but Morgan came up with all of these philosophical and religious precedents. He said I was taking it too seriously, that it wasn’t as if they had to drain the life from anyone. A little would do and he left it at that. I never thought he’d resort to murder.’
