by M K Farrar
“Do you think he’s gone back to the same spot where he killed Stacey?” Shawn suggested.
She shook her head. “I’ve already got officers there. We would have heard something if he’s shown up there with Bethany.”
“So where could he have gone?”
“I don’t fucking know!” She gritted her teeth and clenched her hands, doing her best to rein in her temper. It wasn’t like her to lose it, but she couldn’t stand the thought of a girl dying on her watch. If only they’d got here a few hours earlier, they’d have most likely found her lying on that fold-out bed. Would she have come with them willingly, or would she have told them she was where she wanted to be? She was still a schoolchild, though, and even taking Stacey Ford out of the picture, he was still in breach of multiple codes of conduct. There was no sign that there was an inappropriate sexual relationship between them, and Bethany was sixteen, but whatever the hell was going on here could hardly be considered an appropriate relationship between a student and a headteacher. But she wasn’t going to only get him on this, she would get him charged for the murder of Stacy Ford, and then he would never be able to take advantage of a vulnerable young girl again.
Erica needed some fresh air, and not only that, she wanted to get a look at the street, to see if she could get any sense which direction he’d gone in.
She left the property and stepped out on to the pavement. The neighbours had all been woken, either by the commotion or by more police officers banging on their doors. They were going house to house, waking whoever lived there to ask questions about their so-called ‘respectable’ neighbour, most importantly, had anyone seen him leaving that evening, and if so, did he have a teenage girl with him. People were shaking their heads and frowning.
A man came stumbling towards the outer cordon that was blocking the road. He seemed agitated about something, flapping his hands. Normally, Erica would have let the officers deal with him, but something about him had caught her interest.
He was dressed head to toe in white.
Erica stepped away from the house and hurried up the road towards the man.
“What’s happening here?” she asked when she got close enough.
“The leader is going to hurt her. He’s making her cry.”
It was clear the young man had some kind of learning difficulties. He seemed genuinely distressed, though, and what was he doing out on the street at this time of night?
She frowned. “Making who cry? What do you know?”
“Beth-a-nay.”
“You know Bethany?”
“Yes. She’s my friend. She’s upset.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“At the park.”
“At Springfield Park?”
“No, not that one. A different one. I wanted to help her. I ran so fast, until my legs hurt.”
“How long have you been running?” she asked, thinking they might be able to get an idea where he’d come from if he could tell them. If it was only ten minutes versus thirty, they would be able to pinpoint parks that distance away.
But he shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not good with telling the time.”
“You came back here? To this house?”
“No. My house is further on from here. At the end of the road and around the corner.”
It was only luck that had him running past. Could she trust what he was saying? He’d known Bethany’s name, and from the outfit, he certainly looked like he was part of the cult.
“Do you think you could show me? If I brought up a map, could you point to which one you’ve come from?”
“Yes, I’m good at maps.”
She didn’t miss the pride in his tone. “What’s your name?”
“Joel. Joel Cumbee.”
Quickly, she pulled out her phone and brought up a map of the local area. She showed it to him. “Do you think you know which park you’ve just come from? The same one where you left Bethany?”
“My grandmother is going to be really angry with me when she finds out I didn’t stay in bed. She’s going to be really, really angry.”
“Don’t worry about your grandmother, Joel. I can speak to her. You know, I think when she finds out what an incredible job you’ve done by helping the police find a missing girl, she’ll be far too proud of you to ever be angry.”
He blinked in surprise. “She’d be proud of me?”
“Absolutely.” From his expression, Erica got the feeling he’d never had anyone be proud of him before, and she had to resist giving him a big hug. If he helped them find Bethany, she’d be prouder of him than anyone. “Now, you said you were good at maps, so have a really good look at this one and see if you can figure out where you last saw Bethany.”
He squinted down at the phone and then took it from her to turn the screen to get a better view. “We’re here,” he said, pointing at the correct spot. He hovered his finger over the screen, tracing the road and route in the air as he went.
“This is the park.”
Erica raised her voice to shout across to Shawn and the others. “We’ve got a location for Bethany.” Then she turned her attention back to Joel. “Good work, Joel. Really great work. We’ll make sure your grandmother understands how well you’ve done. You might even be responsible for saving a girl’s life.”
He beamed at her.
“How many others were there? The whole of his group, or just the two of them?”
If Joel was there, too, she assumed it wasn’t only two, unless Joel suspected something and had followed them.
“Everyone. Everyone was there.”
“Who is everyone?”
“All of our group?”
“What group? Do you mean The Second Law?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know its name, but it’s the one our leader gathered us together for. He is the gathering man.”
“Can you give me a number of people you might have left at the park?”
He shrugged. “I’m not very good with numbers.”
“Try.”
“Seven, maybe.”
Jesus, seven of them, all standing there, watching as their so-called leader administered a lethal injection to a young girl. Did they all help to cut her, too? Take it in turns to mark her skin with those symbols? What kind of sick excuse had he come up with to make it seem as though doing such a despicable thing was all right? Did they truly believe it, or was it just an excuse they told themselves to try to justify their own sick desires to themselves? How many would be victims themselves? Or would they be monsters, no different to Peter Woodhouse?
If she discovered any of them were complicit in his crimes, she’d do everything in her power to make sure they spent time inside, too.
Joel would need to be questioned at length, but he was clearly a vulnerable adult and would need to have someone with him—most likely the grandmother he had mentioned. Questioning, especially during a case as serious as this, could take hours, and it would be something someone like Joel would probably struggle with. It was important that they didn’t upset him any more than necessary.
Erica found herself praying they weren’t too late to save Bethany, as much for Joel’s sake as hers.
One of the uniformed officers called over to her. “Boss, Millfields Park covers almost fifty acres. We’re not just going to be able to find them right away.”
“Get on the radio,” she told Shawn. “We need every officer available. I want that park flooded with police, dogs, horses, helicopters—everything we have available.” She looked to Joel. “You ever been in a police car, Joel?”
He shook his head.
“Well, now’s your time.”
She helped Joel climb in the back of the car, and then got behind the wheel. She’d drive while Shawn radioed for backup.
“We have to hurry,” she said. “We might be too late already.”
If he planned to kill Bethany the same way he had Stacey, all it would need was a single injection of fentanyl which wou
ld take only seconds to administer and not much longer to stop her heart.
THEY USED THE LIGHT and sirens, speeding along the roads. Traffic was sparse at this time of night, but not non-existent, and she wove between vehicles, or sped past the ones that had pulled over.
As they approached the park, she cut the noise and lights. The other cars did the same. She didn’t want to give Peter Woodhouse warning that they were on their way and possibly make a run for it with Bethany, or even try to speed things up so that she’d be dead by the time they got there. He might have heard distant sirens, but that didn’t matter. This was London, and barely a minute went by without the siren of a police car, ambulance, or fire engine filling the air.
“Do you know where they were from here, Joel?” Erica asked him, twisting in her seat. “Can you show me?”
The park was big, and finding a small group of people here wasn’t going to be easy.
He nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Good work. Do you recognise anywhere around here?”
“I think we walked through from over there, but they’re in the middle of the park now.”
They climbed out of the vehicle and set off across the grass, uniformed officers joining them. If seven other people were conspiring to kill Bethany, there were going to be a lot of arrests. She struggled to get her head around it, remembering what the professor had said about how cult leaders were masters of manipulation. Were those present during the attempted murder of Bethany and the murder of Stacey Ford accomplices, or were they victims themselves? She guessed that was going to be for a court to decide.
Voices of alarm rose from further ahead. They must have been spotted.
“Police!” she shouted, though she was already out of breath. “We have you surrounded, stay right where you are.”
Flashes of white between the black silhouettes of tree trunks. People scattering.
Were they going to be too late?
A few of the cult’s members had remained, perhaps not wanting to abandon their leader, or maybe unsure of where they were supposed to go or what they were supposed to do. Erica picked out Peter Woodhouse, standing a distance from Bethany. They must have all been in a circle, with the girl at their centre. There was someone else she recognised, too, one of the other men. George Wiles, the park ranger. That son of a bitch. He’d said that he’d found God, but she’d never imagined this was what he’d meant by it.
“We know who you are, Peter Woodhouse. There’s no point in running.”
He shook his head. “You’re making a huge mistake. You’ll be judged at the end. When God decides who will be sitting at His side on judgement day, it’ll be people like me who served Him that He chooses.”
“If it means murdering innocent girls, that’s a heaven I can do without,” she threw back.
“It’s not murder if it’s what they want. I’m just helping them.”
“You’ve manipulated them. No one would want this.” She took a step forward, reaching for the handcuffs in her shoulder harness under her suit jacket. “Peter Woodhouse, you’re under arrest for the murder of—”
His eyes widened, and he glanced down at his hand. Erica realised what he had—a syringe. He wasn’t going to go so easily.
He lunged for Bethany, but Erica threw herself between him and the girl. She knocked the syringe out of his hand, but then a slash of something sharp cut across her neck. The next moment, he was thrown to the side as Shawn collided with him, throwing him to the ground. Shawn straddled the other man and slammed his hand containing the blade against the ground, once, twice, until it fell free. Shawn took his weight off Woodhouse long enough to roll him over then yanked his hands behind his back and snapped on the cuffs.
Bethany remained crying in the middle, hunched on the ground, her face buried in her knees.
Some of the other cult members were running, chased down by uniformed officers. Shouts of “Stop, police!” rent through the otherwise peaceful night air.
Blood, thick and hot, ran through Erica’s fingers.
Oh God, no.
“Shawn?”
His eyes widened as he looked towards her. “We need medical attention over here. Officer down!”
Instantly, he was by her side, tearing off his shirt and bundling it against the side of her neck. “It’s okay. I’m sure it looks worse than it is. The paramedics will be here any second.”
She didn’t need to glance down at his shirt to know the white had already become red. The scalpel had been small but terrifyingly sharp and had cut deep. Did it get an artery? She was in good hands, but that didn’t stop the fear settling in her veins.
“Bethany?” she asked, still worried for the girl, despite her own circumstances. “Is she all right?”
“Naeema’s got her. She’s fine. She’s safe.”
A paramedic appeared at Erica’s side, taking Shawn’s place. She checked the wound and quickly began pulling dressing from her bag. “You’re DI Swift, is that right?”
Erica detected a Scottish twang. “Erica,” she said. “Call me Erica.”
“Okay, Erica. I’m Kathleen. I’m going to take over from here. We’re going to get you into the ambulance and take you to the hospital.”
Erica managed to glance up to see Naeema help Bethany to her feet. She seemed unharmed, at least physically. Mentally and emotionally, she would need support and time. The poor girl had already been struggling, even before she’d been caught in the trap her headteacher had reeled her into. What sort of nightmares would she have now? It wouldn’t be fair for her to be put under the scrutiny of an entire school, both teachers and pupils. People would speculate about exactly how far the relationship had gone, and Bethany didn’t need to hear those kinds of rumours.
A stretcher was brought over for Erica.
She grasped for Shawn. “Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” he said. “I’m right here, Erica.”
She was surrounded by a couple of paramedics, pushing Shawn out of the way.
“I’m coming with her,” Shawn said.
“Okay,” the paramedic said. “Just give us space to do our job.”
She was lifted onto the stretcher. The paramedic had replaced Shawn’s sodden shirt with a pad of some kind and used it to keep pressure on the wound.
“It hasn’t caught the artery. You’re going to be okay.”
She hadn’t even felt the pain yet. The shock of it had left her numb. How had she not seen the scalpel? She’d known he’d be carrying one because of the wounds on Stacey Ford, but she’d been focused on the needle.
“You’re going to be okay,” she heard Shawn say.
She closed her eyes and brought her daughter’s face to mind. She would get through this, just like she’d got through everything else. She wasn’t going to let another psychopath bring her down.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Bethany never went back to Millway Academy.
She was relieved. There was no way she could have faced people after what had happened, and being in the school every day would only remind her of him. All she wanted to do now was spend time with Florence and try to get her parents to forgive her for putting them through so much.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” her mother said. “You’re home now, and that’s all that matters.”
Bethany turned to her father. “I’m sorry, Dad. Are you furious with me?”
“No, of course not. I’m furious with that man, not you.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d let me come back home.”
“Of course we would. Why would you say that?”
“Because you act like you hate me, Dad.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Why would you think that?”
“Everything you say and do. It’s clear you prefer Florence. I feel like I’m nothing but a letdown to you.”
“Jesus, Bethany, no. I don’t feel that way at all. I’ve felt like you’re the one who hated me. You grew up, and became a young woman, who clearly
had things to deal with that I had no way of understanding. Instead of trying to learn how to understand them, I shut you off. It was never that I preferred Florence, I simply knew how to act around her. You’re my eldest daughter, and I love you, no matter what.”
“Why don’t you act like it then?” Tears streamed down her face.
He drew her into his arms and stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m an adult. I’ve behaved appallingly. I’ll do better, I promise.”
She wriggled from his embrace and wiped her hand across her face. She’d started now, had ripped the plaster off, and she had more to say. “That’s not all. I hate the way you and Mum fight.”
Her mum seemed to crumple from the inside. “Oh, darling, all parents fight. It’s normal.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. Parents have disagreements, but the two of you don’t even seem to like each other.”
Her parents exchanged an uneasy glance.
Her father let out a sigh. “It’s not easy when you’ve been married for a long time. Your mum and I have been married for twenty years, and we were together for five years before then. I guess we’ve fallen into some bad habits.”
Her mother pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I never thought this affected you kids.”
“I’d rather the two of you split up than you continued living like this.”
Flo shot out of her seat. “No! I don’t want you to break up.”
“Hey, it won’t come to that.” Her dad pulled Florence onto his lap. “Your mum and I just clearly need to work on some stuff.”
Her mum opened her mouth, as though she wanted to say something, and then changed her mind.
“What is it, Mum?”
Her mother’s eyes grew wet, and she blinked rapidly, her mouth tightening. “Has it...has it caused your trichotillomania? Me and your dad fighting, I mean.”
Bethany didn’t want to make her parents feel bad, but they needed to know. “It hasn’t helped. I never felt happy here, and I didn’t feel happy at school either, and I didn’t even have a friend’s house to escape to.”
“That’s why you got involved with that man?”
