by M K Farrar
The card was still in her hand. It would look rude to hand it back again. Instead, she shoved it in her pocket. “’Kay. Thanks. Bye.”
She ducked her head and walked away without waiting for a reply, worried he’d try to pressure her into going. She didn’t need something like that. All she’d be doing was opening herself up to a new group of people to tease her and let her down. She was perfectly fine on her own.
Chapter Sixteen
Joel tapped both feet on his living room floor and drummed his fingers against his thighs. He’d looked up the address on the card and worked out that it would take him seventeen minutes to walk there if he went at a normal pace.
His grandmother was due to go out to her card game that she did every Wednesday evening with three other ladies. He knew they drank wine, and sometimes whiskey, because he could smell it on her, and sometimes she came back happier than usual and other times she came back angrier. He didn’t know if that was because she’d either won or lost the card game or if it was because of something else. Either way, he wasn’t going to ask.
She entered the lounge and picked up her cardigan from the back of her armchair. She stopped in front of Joel and frowned at him.
“What’s the matter with you?”
He glanced up, guilt swallowing him like a whale. “Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that. I can tell when you’re nervous, Joel. I’ve taken care of you since you were six years old, and your mother gave up on us both.”
He wasn’t a good liar. It was better if he just didn’t respond to a question that he didn’t want to answer rather than make something up. He clamped his lips together, and the tapping his feet made against the floor grew louder.
His grandmother gave an exasperated sigh. “Really, Joel? We’re going to do the silent treatment, are we? Tell me what’s wrong.”
Still he refused to speak. He wanted her to leave already. If she stayed here for too long, it would make him late, too, and he hated to be late. He grew anxious at the thought. He wanted to make sure he left exactly on time, not a minute before or after, but he couldn’t do that with Gran standing in front of him, her lips pinched with displeasure and her arms folded across her skinny chest.
They were in a standoff. She was going to be late, too, and like him, she hated to be late. How long would she wait for? Which one of them would give in first?
She cracked. “Oh, for goodness sake, this is ridiculous. Don’t tell me then. I’m not going to be late just because you refuse to tell me what’s wrong with you.”
She took a step away from him, and he blew out a long breath from between his lips. He had won this time. He wished the man who’d given him the card understood how hard it was for him to keep a secret. Maybe if he had, he would never have invited Joel along to this gathering, and Joel really wanted to go. He never got invited anywhere and he didn’t have any real friends either. The thought of meeting new people made him nervous but also excited.
“I’ll be back at my normal time,” his gran said. “There’s snacks in the cupboard, but don’t try to cook anything.”
“Okay.”
She shot him one final glare of irritation and left the room. A moment later, the front door clicked open and then slammed shut again.
Joel bounced to his feet and clapped in glee. She’d gone, which meant soon he could leave, too. It only took her two minutes to walk to the bus stop at the end of their road, and then she’d jump on the bus for twelve minutes, where she would get off and do the seven-minute walk to her friend’s house. He couldn’t risk leaving while she was still waiting at the bus stop because she would see him and want to know what he was doing, and then he’d have to tell her. But he knew the bus would arrive soon, and then he could do whatever he wanted. She wouldn’t come home until later.
He was lucky that the address on the card was only a ten-minute walk away. It meant he was less likely to be seen.
Joel put on his coat and left the house. Excitement bubbled up inside him, and he struggled to contain it. He never got to do anything fun, and even though this was scary, he was excited at the idea of making new friends. He followed the route on the map, keeping his head down and focusing purely on one step after the other.
He reached the house and stopped to look up at it. It was big and intimidating, nothing like his house at all. Doubt swamped over him. Should he go in? Maybe he was doing something wrong, and he should go home and watch the television until his grandmother returned instead.
A female voice came from behind him. “Are you here for the gathering?”
He jumped and spun on his heels, heat rushing to his face as though he’d been caught out doing something he shouldn’t. A pretty girl, not much younger than him, stood behind him, smiling up at him.
“I...umm...”
She filled in his words for him. “It’s okay, you don’t need to be shy. Everyone here is super friendly. Did our leader invite you?”
He guessed that was the man he’d met. “Yes, he did.”
“Well, what are you standing out here by yourself for then, silly? Let’s go in.”
He let this whirlwind of energy and happiness step past him and open the door. If everyone here was like this girl, he had no reason to be nervous. She didn’t even look at him like others did—unsure and irritated, like they were disappointed he wasn’t more like them. He didn’t like making people feel that way, even though he couldn’t help it. He still always felt as though it was his fault, and no one ever wanted him around, no matter how friendly he tried to be.
She led him through into a big kitchen-diner that had glass doors right across the back that opened up fully onto a neatly manicured garden. There were already a number of people here. He counted at least eight. Most were young women, but there were several men, too. He spotted the man who’d given him the card among them and stood there awkwardly until he was noticed.
“Joel!” the man the girl had called their leader cried, immediately coming over to shake Joel’s hand and clap him on the back. “It’s so good to see you again, my main man. How are you? Have you met everyone yet?”
Everyone turned towards him, and before he knew it, he was surrounded by smiling faces, people shaking his hand or taking him by surprise and hugging him. They each told him their names, but there were so many, he couldn’t focus on any of them long enough to remember. He hoped they weren’t going to be angry when they realised he wasn’t able to recall any of them.
“I’m so pleased you came,” their leader said after everyone had introduced themselves and had wandered away to continue their own conversations. “It really is important that we all learn exactly what we are. We take this life so seriously when really it’s only a tiny blip in who we actually are.”
Joel didn’t understand. “Who are we then?”
“We’re energy, Joel. The same energy that makes up the earth and the universe and the heavens above.”
“We are?”
“Absolutely.”
“My grandmother talks to me about Heaven. She says that’s where my mum is now.”
“Then your mum is a very lucky lady. I expect she’s sitting with God and all the angels right now, looking down on us all, and especially you, Joel.”
Joel nodded in agreement. “Gran says my mother is watching us, but she normally only says that when she thinks I’ve done something she wouldn’t like.”
“Your mother, and grandmother, and you and me, and even God, are all made out of the same energy, Joel. Isn’t that amazing?”
It certainly was. He never thought before that he was anything like God. There were times where he’d wondered if he was even human.
“Sometimes, you can even donate that energy to another person, did you know that? Have you ever spent time with certain people, and by the time you get home, you feel so tired, it takes you days before you want to see anyone else again?”
“Yes, I know how that feels.”
“Well, those people are energy vamp
ires. They suck out our energy and make us weaker. You’re giving them your energy but not by choice. But other times, people energise us, and they feel great, and we feel great. Have you ever felt that way, too?”
Joel nodded along enthusiastically. The girl he’d met on the way in had made him feel that way.
“That’s because they’ve given their energy willingly. We can all do that, if we choose to, and those who choose to give the most energy are the ones who will take their place in Heaven, beside all those people they have missed.”
Joel grinned happily. “Wow. That’s really good.”
He returned the grin. “It is, isn’t it?”
“I’ve done it, Joel,” one of the girls said. “It felt wonderful. I can’t wait until my time comes where I can give all of my energy.” She smiled at their leader and touched his arm affectionately.
Joel’s grin dropped to a frown. “All of your energy? But what happens to you?”
“You get to go to Heaven,” she said.
“And who gets your energy?”
“Our leader does, but do you know the wonderful thing?”
“No.”
“By taking all of our energy in, one day he’ll be a god, too. He’ll sit in Heaven, and there will be a special place for all of us around him. We’ll forever be surrounded by people who love and understand us.”
“Like being here?” Joel looked around the house doubtfully.
She laughed. “Yes, but only much, much better.”
Their leader held something up in his hand. “Here, Joel. I’ve got a gift for you.”
“A gift? Like a present?”
“That’s right. Everyone here has one.”
He held up a circle of brown leather cord, a pendant in silver hanging from it. He reached out and slipped it over Joel’s neck, and the pendant nestled against the hairs on his chest.
“There,” their leader said proudly. “Now you’re one of us.”
Chapter Seventeen
The image of those people dressed in the long white smocks and the hoods over their faces had haunted Erica’s dreams.
She’d spent a long and restless night dreaming of running down a road, trying to get to her house, and they’d been following her. In her dream, Poppy had been left home alone—something Erica would never even imagine doing in real life, which should have been enough to make her realise she was dreaming—and Erica was terrified the people in the white dresses would find out and do something to her. Three of them were behind her, but she was sure there were more. When she turned to look over her shoulder, they didn’t appear to be moving like normal people, but instead seemed to glide an inch or so off the pavement. Though she was running, she didn’t get anywhere, and she’d woken from the nightmare with her heart racing and her breath heaving in and out of her lungs.
Before she’d left work the previous day, she’d called around to a couple of different people who proclaimed to be experts on cults. One was in Manchester, the other in Exeter, but she’d got lucky with the third who was a professor at Queen Mary’s University in East London. He’d said he could squeeze her in before lectures started, so instead of going into the office first thing, she went directly to the university campus.
Erica found somewhere to park and climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the strange sense of déjà vu washing over her. A case from a couple of years earlier had also brought her to the university. A young girl had been raped, and the student who was responsible had been witnessed by another student. The attacker’s friend had then killed the witness, all of which was kept a secret from both the attacker and the rape victim. She’d come to the university on several occasions then, and it was strange to be back on campus.
The campus was a curious mix of modern buildings, to fifties tower blocks, to a Grade II listed building at its centre. She found the tower block she needed, then caught a lift to the floor the professor’s office was on. His door was already open, so she knocked on it lightly and stuck her head around the corner.
“Hello? Professor Hauge?”
A man was standing at his desk, leaning over to read something. His head shot up at the sound of her voice.
“Oh, yes, hello. You must be DI Swift.”
Professor Miles Hauge appeared to be in his early fifties. She’d pictured herself meeting some old scholar with wild grey hair who’d be sporting a cardigan, but instead Professor Hauge could have just walked out of an investment banking job.
“Yes, I am,” she said, putting out her hand for him to shake.
He crossed the room to grip her fingers in his. “Thank you for being on time.”
“Not at all. You’re the one doing me a favour.”
“Even so, some people seem incapable of being punctual. It’s a bugbear of mine.”
“Mine, too, actually,” she agreed.
He seemed like a charming man, but Erica had her walls up. She’d let down her guard on a previous case and had become too friendly with one of the victims, who, in the end, had turned out to be the perpetrator. That mistake had almost cost her life, and she was determined to never make that mistake again. It had also fully cemented her hatred of the Tube, and she swore never to use it again. She wasn’t sure how she was going to cope when Poppy got a little older and wanted to make her way around London by herself. The Tube was the obvious choice, but Poppy would probably be the only child growing up in the city with absolutely no experience of it. It would make Poppy seem like the odd one out among her peers, and Erica didn’t want that either, but she struggled to see any way around it. The thought of going down into those tunnels again made her feel as though it would bring on a panic attack.
“Can I get you anything at all?” he offered as he gestured towards a chair for her to sit. “Tea? Coffee?”
She raised her hand in a stop sign. “No, I’m fine. I don’t have a huge amount of time, and I know you’re a busy man, too, so it’s probably best if we just get straight to it.”
“Of course. I have to say, my interest has been piqued. You think we may have a cult here in East London?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure yet, but there are some things going on that I don’t understand. I was hoping you might be able to shine a light on them.”
“I’ll certainly do my best. So, what have you got?”
Erica briefly ran him through the case. She had photographs of the cuts they’d found on the girl’s body, trimmed right down so as to protect the girl’s identity. She also showed him printouts of the CCTV footage they had of what appeared to be people meeting in the same kind of clothes the victim had been wearing that night.
“Do you recognise these?” she asked.
“Not right away. The gowns they’re wearing are in white which may symbolise purity. Do you know if the victim was a virgin?”
“We’re unsure. There weren’t any signs of sexual assault on the victim’s body, so it’s certainly a possibility that the gowns mean what you’re saying.”
“The length of the gowns point towards that as well. Do you see how they’re all full-length, even covering the arms?”
“So no skin is showing.”
“Exactly.”
“I assumed the hoods were simply to hide their identity, but perhaps that could be a modesty thing as well,” she mused. It all felt as though they’d jumped back to the Dark Ages.
He picked up the pictures of the symbols and studied them. “I don’t recognise them. Can I keep hold of the pictures so I can look into it?”
“Of course. I appreciate any help we can get.”
He crossed his legs and slid the pictures onto his desk. “I’ll go through some of my books and see if anything seems familiar.”
“What about cults in general,” she asked. “Do you know of any here, in East London?”
He raised a finger to stop her. “First of all, let’s ask ourselves, what is a cult? Generally, a cult is formed when a group of people come together, normally for a religious reason. They tend to be bound b
y a shared commitment towards what they view as a powerful leader or an ideology.”
Erica pulled out her notepad from her jacket pocket and jotted down what he’d said.
“Think of it like pyramid selling,” he continued. “That leader only needs to draw in a couple of people and get them to commit to him and his beliefs fully, and then he sends those people out to bring in others, and so on. Pretty quickly, the group can grow. A cult preys on vulnerable people. The leader—almost always a man—tends to be charming and manipulative and intuitive. They’re also most likely going to be a narcissist. There’s a power imbalance, where the cult leader will use their charisma to initially dote upon the follower, making them feel as though they’re someone worthy of that kind of attention, giving them a purpose in life. They will then snatch that attention away just as quickly, leaving the person floundering and willing to do anything to please the leader.”
“A bit like gaslighting,” she said.
“Yes, exactly. There isn’t always a romantic relationship involved, though that does happen. Some cult leaders will use their power to seduce women, often underaged girls, which they may claim they need to have sex with in order to gain some access to Heaven or to help them survive. An example of someone who did exactly that is Daniel Perez, who convinced his followers, who were mostly women, that he was a thousand-year-old angel.”
Erica arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “People believed that?”
“You’d be amazed at what people are willing to believe if it gives their lives meaning. He eventually drowned one of his followers to collect a life insurance policy. After his arrest, he was convicted of twenty-eight crimes, including murder, and the sexual exploitation of a child. These are nasty people.”
Erica had come across plenty of nasty people during her career. She liked to think there was nothing anyone could do that would shock her anymore, but time and time again, she was proven wrong.
“So, the person we’re after is most likely male, charismatic, and knows how to read people.”
