by Conrad Jones
‘Did you?’
‘Yes, behind a line of tiny nuns and priests from all over the Christian world. I put my hand into the hole and touched the rock where they crucified the son of God.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Nothing.’ I laughed. ‘There was no epiphany or lightning bolts, but I’ll tell you something about the city. There is an electric atmosphere there. You can feel it everywhere. I can’t explain it, but there is an energy there which all three faiths will claim belongs to their God. There is something that we can’t explain emanating from every brick and stone.’
‘Did you use the ‘force’, Luke?’
‘Piss off.’ I laughed again. ‘I don’t do religion, but scientists know that certain things in nature can absorb energy, such as crystals and batteries, right?’
‘Now you’re talking my language.’
‘Do you remember vinyl records?’
‘Just about, although I’m not as old as you.’
‘Well, I think that certain elements retain echoes of the past within them, just like a vinyl record does, except, rather than a stylus needle picking it up, some people’s minds do it. When they see a vision it’s a replay in their mind, and I think that the same thing happens with these forces or energies. They’re all around us, but some people feel them, and some people don’t.’
‘I can accept that as a theory.’ Peter smiled and slurped his coffee. ‘So, you think that there is good energy and evil energy?’
‘No, I don’t.’ I laughed at his confusion. ‘I believe that there is energy around us and that it’s people who are good or evil. They use the energy to suit them. The followers of Satan believe the evil force released in a murder can be absorbed by the killer, like a vinyl record absorbs music.’
‘That makes sense to a degree, but I’m not going to get it by the governor.’ Peter paged down on the laptop and clicked on a subsection entitled ‘enemies’.
‘Listen to this. This is really interesting.’ He nudged me. The piece related to sacrificing enemies and specifically mentioned journalists and writers. ‘For Satanists, not only the manner of living is important, but also the manner of your death. We will not tolerate the writers who interfere with our work. We will eradicate them. We must live well and die at the right time, proud and defiant to the end – not waiting to become sickly and weak. If you find them, kill them. The mundane scum of the earth wail and tremble as they face death: we stand laughing and spit with contempt at those that mock us or seek to expose us. Thus, do we learn how to live, and when we find them, they will learn the pain of death.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘That’s you fucked, then.’
‘It’s no idle threat.’
‘They’re crackpots,’ Peter gasped.
‘Yes, but they’re real,’ I insisted as I read on. ‘Listen to this piece about killing writers and journalists. Fabienne said they hated writers, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, she did say that. This is getting weirder.’ Peter frowned. ‘Go on, then. Read it.’
‘Great care is needed in choosing a sacrifice: if the object being disposed of is a difficult individual or individuals, then they must be disposed of without arousing undue suspicion. A temple or group wishing to conduct such a sacrifice with magical intent must first obtain permission from the Grand Master or Grand Lady Master. If this is given, then detailed preparation must begin.’
‘Do-it-yourself sacrifices?’ Peter scoffed.
‘It’s a ‘how to’ guide for selecting a victim.’
‘They’re fucking nuts.’
‘Listen, though.’ I held up a finger and read on. ‘‘First, choose the sacrifice, those whose removal will actively benefit the Satanist cause. If candidates are zealous, interfering Nazarenes, for example journalists and writers, attempting to disrupt us in some way, then they must suffer horrific pain. Use sacrifice to protect established Satanist groups and orders. Find them and kill them.’ I made the claw hands again, although the chapter disturbed me. I tried to make light of it. ‘Doesn’t look good for me, then.’
‘I can’t believe this is on the Internet.’ Peter shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’m going to look into getting this site blocked. That has to be illegal.’
‘I haven’t got a clue about the legalities, but it’s frighteningly close to what she said.’ I looked at him for agreement, but he was having none of it.
‘She could have read the same shit that you have.’
‘Fabienne said they hated writers before we read any of this. This backs up her story, Pete.’ I appealed to him to keep an open mind. ‘Either she has done a lot of research or she was a witness to their meetings.’ I was adamant she was a victim, not a murderer. They’d abused her from a young age. They were monsters and I was going to help her. At least that’s what I thought then; of course, all I did was make things worse.
CHAPTER 12
Constable Knowles – 6540
Back then I didn’t know why Constable Knowles had targeted me. Since then I’ve had time to look at his police records and to listen to the recordings that he made. I’ll explain them as best as I can because his fate was forged by his own hands, not mine, although I don’t think that a Crown Court judge would see it that way. They will say that I went too far or that I used excessive force. I’ll let you decide.
Ged Knowles joined the police force four years before our first encounter. He attended the police training academy at Bruche, Warrington, where his employee records show that he was unpopular with the instructors and the recruits. His probationary notes show that he was recommended as a fail and yet he passed and was deployed onto the streets. Every note on his file shows that he was an unpopular, racist, sexist pig, yet his superior officer waived disciplinary action on numerous occasions. When he attacked me, he was already on his final written warning for misconduct; being suspended for excessive use of force during my arrest and a pending serious assault charge would be the final nails in his coffin as far as his career went. At least that’s what I thought at the time.
Soon after graduating, another police officer had introduced him to the Nine Angels purely because, after spending many long night shifts in the same patrol car, he saw that Knowles was naturally violent, racist and sexist. His colleague teased him with tidbits of his secret organisation to test the waters and see what his reaction would be. As soon as he mentioned their liberal attitude to violent sex, Knowles wanted in. Over a period of months, the officer weaned him into the O9A. Once he’d been accepted, they regularly attended their ceremonies, which turned into a seething orgy of violent sex. That suited him down to the ground. Ged thought the religious stuff was bullshit, but he went along with it for obvious reasons.
When he joined the Nine Angels, they promised him a promotion at work and a pay rise, and all he had to do in return was lean on people when he was told to. People like me, writers, journalists and other police officers; people who got too close to the Nine Angels. He was a violent, aggressive, bigot anyway so he enjoyed it. The problem was, the O9A demanded secrecy and discretion, especially the senior members that held important positions in respectable organisations and businesses. Most had families and friends who would disown them if they discovered their true religion. Ged Knowles was in serious trouble at work. His position as a police constable was fragile at best. The fact he’d received a final written warning months before – for assaulting a reporter while off duty on a night out in Manchester – didn’t help, and his excessive use of force during my arrest had put his behaviour under the microscope.
He was suspended on full pay and I heard later on, that he was calling in favours from members of the senior hierarchy within the force. There were sinister members all the way up to the top, but they didn’t want to cover for a rogue officer who had overstepped the mark in public. He was making waves, attracting attention, and becoming a liability. The North Wales Police were keeping a lid on the incident as far as the Press were concerned, but I wasn’t. Despite being warned that I
may still be charged with the mysterious assault on the beach warden, I told my side of the story to anyone who wanted to listen. I wasn’t guilty of any crime and the level of violence used to arrest me was unacceptable. That was my side of it. The police would have to respond on behalf of their suspended officer.
Looking back, the story made a few of the middle pages of the regional publications and then fizzled out completely. It was another indication of how wide and high their connections are. They had the power to stifle the Press. Not completely of course, but they can ensure that an unsubstantiated allegation is treated as just that: unsubstantiated. A couple of the stories hinted that I was once a Thai-boxing fighter and that my novels are graphically violent. The readers could read into that whatever they wanted, but it made sure that I didn’t appear to be a completely innocent victim of police brutality. There’s no smoke without fire.
While Knowles was on suspension, he tried to call in favours from his fellow Niners. Many tried to distance themselves from him, but Officer Knowles was pedantic. He felt that he had gone out on a limb to ward me off and as such the Niners owed him. After a barrage of telephone calls, a senior member of the order contacted him and summoned him to a meeting. I know that he met with a senior officer and the nexion leader. Knowles was on the periphery of the order back then, a Neophyte; he was at the bottom of the hierarchy. But he was full of self-importance and would go to any lengths to achieve promotion within the police force and the O9A. In his mind, he was a superior being, an alpha male, and he deserved to be promoted. He wanted to progress, and he knew that his suspension was a serious blow to his career in law enforcement. He needed to know what the Niners were going to do to support him. Progression would bring him power and he was desperate to embrace it, but he couldn’t progress until he was deemed ready by the order.
What happened before that meeting can only be guessed, but I know that he met with a man who was, a local Justice of the Peace. He was a council member, a member of the Masonic Lodge and, unbeknown to his family and friends, the Master of the Temple in his sinister tribe. That’s how they function. They integrate into all sections of the community and spread their evil subversively, constantly looking for new members. That’s why I know they’ll find me eventually.
How do I know all these details about Knowles? Because he was a clever man who trusted no one. Knowles recorded his meeting with the Niners. He knew that the recording could be used to leverage promotion or to blackmail the attendees at a later date. He had several meetings recorded and he kept them on a memory stick, which I took from his pocket when he died. If I sound like a ghoul or a despicable thief, before you judge me, read on. The recorded conversation goes like this, and bear in mind that Knowles sounds drunk on the recording:
‘What happened, Knowles?’
‘I had that fucking writer bang to rights on an assault charge, but a do-gooder constable turned up at his house at the same time. It kicked off and things got a little bit out of hand. I sprayed him and roughed him up a bit. The constable reported me for assaulting him. I had him for assaulting a warden; she’s a Niner too, but another patrol turned up and screwed it all up.’ Knowles can be heard laughing as he brags to the Niners, although the two senior members can’t be heard laughing at all. ‘He went down on his lawn behind a fence. I thought he was out of view of any witnesses, so I kicked his head like a football. He’s an arsehole; no one will listen to him and his whining. It will blow over.’
One of his colleagues, snorts. He sounds angry. ‘It won’t blow over, you idiot.’ His voice is crisp and well-educated.
‘Don’t call me an idiot,’ Knowles snaps. ‘You told me to warn him off. You told me to sort him out.’
‘I told you to lean on him, not to kick his face in on his front lawn in front of other officers.’
‘Okay, you two, calm down,’ a second voice pipes up. He sounds more mature than the others, and from the recording it’s obvious that he’s in charge. ‘Blaming each other is not going to get us anywhere. Ged thought he was acting on our behalf, so we need to come up with a plan to resolve the problem.’ The last sentence sounds patronising, as if he thinks that Knowles is of low intelligence.
‘You don’t understand how an internal investigation works,’ the first voice says, concerned. From his knowledge of internal affairs and the language he uses, I deem that he’s a senior police officer. ‘The assault charge is not going to disappear. The main witness is a well-respected police officer and there are two other independent witnesses. This will not go away.’
‘You need to encourage Wright not to give evidence against me,’ Knowles demands in a slurred voice. ‘With him out of the picture, it’s just Jones and his fat mate we need to worry about.’
‘And how do you think I should go about encouraging a decorated police officer not to give evidence?’
‘You’re the governor, so act like one and tell him.’ Knowles growls disrespectfully. ‘If I go down, then I’m not going alone, I promise you that.’
‘Your threats to expose another member of the order will be dealt with, Knowles,’ the senior officer retaliates. ‘This is all your own doing and Jones is a high-profile victim of a serious police assault. There are two clear choices here …’ He pauses. Knowles remains silent. He must have realised that his veiled threat was a mistake.
‘What do you see as the options?’ the older voice asks.
‘We need to shut Jones up.’ He pauses. ‘Or we need to shut Jones and Knowles up permanently.’
‘What are you doing?’ Knowles sounds panicked at this point and there are other people in the room, moving about. There is the sound of a scuffle or a chair being dragged. Although I’ve listened to his recordings a thousand times, I’ll never know exactly what happened. ‘Okay, okay,’ Knowles bleats. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘I agree,’ the older voice says. ‘You need to shut him up, Knowles. If you fuck this up, then we’ll eradicate you along with the writer, understand?’
‘Yes,’ Knowles replies sheepishly, all his bravado gone. Then there is a loud cracking sound, like a whip almost, and he moans. ‘Okay. I said okay.’
‘How far has this mess gone?’ the older man asks, ignoring Knowles’s distress.
‘We know he has spoken to the girl, although I haven’t heard the tapes yet so I don’t know what she’s told them. It doesn’t matter, he must be silenced.’
‘How did he get to the girl? I thought she was sectioned.’
‘Sergeant Strachan from the murder squad arranged it, from what I believe.’
‘What a tosser. If I had my way, I’d shut him up for good, too.’ Knowles sounds like he is talking through clenched teeth.
‘Do it and do not mess it up.’ The older man sounds weary with it all. ‘He caused us no end of problems with his infernal books. We were under scrutiny for months while investigative reporters searched for evidence that we exist. I cannot allow that to happen again. Kill him and you will be advanced, fail and you will suffer.’
The recording clicks and comes to an abrupt ending at that point. I think Knowles was using a watch or pen with a small memory to record, but there is enough there to explain what happens next. I didn’t realise that in writing my books, I had put the spotlight on them. The buzz around the storyline sent journalists scurrying everywhere looking for evidence that they existed. Most people start with the Internet and the investigators bombarded sites with hits. The unwanted attention caused many of the order’s members to defect for a while to hide their identities. Apparently, that was my fault, and it was only a matter of time before they murdered me.
CHAPTER 13
Fabienne Wilder
Fabienne tried to explain things to me as simply as she could and I accepted the things she told me with an open mind, although I wanted to believe her anyway. I was smitten with her. I wish that I could say it was all sympathy, but it wasn’t. She fascinated me physically, mentally and – although I tried not to be – emotionally, too. I
kidded myself that it was about protecting her because there was a mental connection between us. I don’t profess to be psychic, but she was, and I think that she used my imagination to communicate certain pictures from her mind. Maybe it was her looks, maybe I was smitten to the point of believing anything that she said, but the plain and simple fact was that I did. The Order of Nine Angels was daunting and shrouded in mystery and bedevilment, but I genuinely believed I could protect her from them. How wrong can a man be?
I knew that the moon cycle had an effect on the crime rate, but she told me how their strength increases during the full moon and how much more aggressive the females become. I had no problem believing that; it definitely affected my mood. It always had. I realise not everyone is going to believe it though, right? How can a lump of rock circling around the earth possibly affect the actions of the billions of humans going about their business far below? Most scientists will laugh at you if you were to suggest that the moon has a direct effect on the abhorrent behaviour of humans. Is it physical? I don’t know, maybe. Fabienne will tell you it is – she experienced their sexual violence for nearly a decade, and it was far worse during the full moon.
There is enough basic research to show that there is a statistically significant increase in criminality during the full moon. Many people have a gut reaction about the moon, accepting without too much thought that they tend to get drunk easier when the moon is full or that they’re more likely to get into an argument. Women say their period pain can be worse during a full moon. As I said earlier, there is a theory that says the effect of the moon on women is tidal, that it has the same pull on the water in our bodies as it does on the planet’s oceans. Water accounts for more than eighty per cent of our bodies, so it’s possible that the pull of the moon affects the concentration of the chemicals in the body. Fabienne’s gift became ultrasensitive when the moon was waning.
