by Jane Adams
‘Belonged to some weird religious group. They kicked him out when all the trouble broke. Weird lot, they were. Own a big house and land out towards Otley. Turned it into some sort of organic farm.’
Mike glanced at him, interested. This was a part of the Pearson saga he was unfamiliar with. ‘Not all religious groups are crazy,’ he said. ‘Some just want to live in their own way.’
Price gave him an indulgent smile. ‘Guess you’re right, guv. But they seemed like an odd lot to me.’ He frowned, remembering. ‘Had this great big oak door with a painted text above it. Something about kids.’ He closed his eyes as though to see the memory more clearly. ‘ “Suffer little children.” That was it. “Suffer little children.” What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? I mean, the sort of thing the Pearson woman was on about today about having her kids suffer for what’s right. . . Well, that sounds weird enough to me.’
Mike smiled. ‘Suffer as in suffrage or on sufferance, Sergeant. Not as in to make suffer.’
Price looked confused. ‘Sir?’
‘It’s from the Bible.’ Mike snorted in vague amusement and pushed himself away from the window.
‘Well, I kind of figured that.’ Price sounded vaguely hurt.
‘Quite. The phrase is “Suffer the little children to come unto me. For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” ’ He shrugged. ‘Something like that, anyway.’
Price gave him a disbelieving look. ‘Never took you for a religious type, guv.’
Mike laughed again. ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Sunday school. Strange how these things stay with you.’
Yes, very strange, he thought. Memories of a crowded, dingy little room above the fish and chip shop. The faint sound of hymn singing from the Wesleyan chapel next door. Dust motes, circling in the narrow shaft of sunlight that burned its way through the uncurtained window and made promises of playtime, which the child Mike knew were never kept on a Sunday. And Miss Fuller. Wrinkled skin, dry as parchment, hair fixed tightly in a small bun stuck full of pins, reading ‘First Bible Stories’ from a large, brown bound book wrapped in a tattered dust cover.
He’d not thought of her in years, and yet, there she was, so sharp and clear in his memory he could even taste the dust-dried air that filled the room.
‘Never went myself,’ Price said, jolting him back to the present. ‘My mam and dad didn’t have time for that sort of thing, thank God.’
Mike laughed, briefly.
He’d never sent Stephen, his own son, to Sunday school either. Mike’s ex-wife had been a regular churchgoer, all wrapped up in the social scene that went with it and happy that way. Stevie had often gone along with her, but not Mike. The Sundays he’d had free had been special times. Times he took his son and his wife — though as time went on just Stevie — as far away from the everyday world of work as possible.
But Stephen was gone now. All that promise, lost in a single moment.
Mike sighed heavily and dragged his thoughts away from the bad places in his memory. Places he really didn’t like to go. Instead, he found the spaces in his thinking filled by the memory of the Pearson children, sitting side by side on a shabby green sofa and the tiny, determined shaft of sunlight, teeming with swirling motes of dust that filtered through a gap in the boarded windows.
Chapter Twelve
Friday evening
Thursday had been a heavy day. Heavy with routine and uneventful in any way that really mattered.
The weather had been unbearably, turgidly, end-of-summer hot. Startling blue skies and hard-baked pavements. Unnatural stillness. The night, airless, despite the showers that broke out in the early hours, breathlessly close, denying sleep to all but the most exhausted.
Friday had turned out to be no better.
Mike slid a hot finger inside his even hotter, sweatier collar, easing the damp fabric away from his neck.
He could feel the city grime working its way into his skin and the moist trickles running down his back and gathering, soggily, at his waistband. The air in the car tasted stale, as though he’d breathed it too many times.
His mind filled with thoughts of a shower and a cold beer, not necessarily in that order, and of an evening spent with Maria.
He’d taken to keeping spare clothes at John Tynan’s place. A practice he was very glad of now. He could shower and change there and John, being John, would no doubt have something cooked and waiting for him and Maria when they got there.
It was a funny thing, Mike reflected. He’d never laid much store by family, his own parents both dead and the two brothers he’d half shared his childhood with living so far away. When he’d married, the idea of family had seemed an attractive one. He’d had visions of three or four kids, seaside holidays. A dog, maybe. All the usual clichéd adverts of modern family life.
It hadn’t turned out that way, though. There’d only been Stevie followed by three, distressingly late miscarriages and then, as though the gods saw fit to rub it in, the road accident that had taken even his son away from him.
The open windows of the car let in a freshening breeze and Mike shivered unexpectedly. Glancing up and ahead, he noticed the clear blue of the summer evening was being encroached upon, rapidly, by gathering clouds.
So there was going to be a storm, was there? Lord knows, I’ll be glad of it, he thought. Something to break the deadening tension of the overheated day. Moments later, fat raindrops splattered against the windscreen of the car. The clouds thickened visibly, blackening the sky, bringing sudden darkness and a vicious wind, sharp tanged with sea salt chilling the sweat on his chest and arms.
Mike shivered again and closed the window.
By the time he had turned down the narrow lane that led to John Tynan’s the rain was driving hard against the windscreen, flooding the wipers.
He was profoundly grateful as the lights of Tynan’s cottage came into view.
* * *
Johanna Pearson gazed out of her newly replaced living room window. Rain splashed heavily on to the narrow street, poured down and passed the already overloaded storm drains, flowing like a small and transient river under the kissing gate that led from the close.
Johanna laid her forehead against the window. She was alone in the room, the children and Eric having supper in the kitchen below.
When would this end? When would there be a time not haunted by the past? By the harsh accusations made against Eric? By other people’s lies.
And they were lies. Eric had told her so many times. Lies told by those who resented his popularity with the children he had taught. Who could not bear for someone so different from themselves to have success in any measure.
Johanna Pearson sighed deeply.
She could hear Eric calling to her from the kitchen, urging her to come down and eat.
‘I’m coming, Eric,’ she called in response, and moved reluctantly away from the window.
All she wanted was to be left in peace to raise her brood quietly and happily away from all of this anger and controversy.
In her more honest moments, Johanna admitted how much she resented being cast out from the House of Solomon. Acknowledged that, in some small way, she blamed not just the Elders but also Eric for allowing such a thing to happen.
He called to her again and she heard him begin to climb the stairs.
‘I’m coming,’ she said, trying to keep the weariness from her voice.
* * *
‘The rain’s stopped,’ Maria commented, peering out into the darkness at the rapidly clearing sky. She smiled at John Tynan and pushed her plate aside, accepted the offer of more coffee. They had talked over dinner, John telling them about Sam Pearson and his strange compulsion to find his uncle.
‘Well, so it has,’ John commented. ‘Never last very long, these late summer storms. They’ve largely blown themselves out over the sea before they get this far inland.’
He frowned again, returning to his earlier topic.
‘I did some reading,’ he said. ‘Local paper
s from about five years back. Seems that Eric Pearson faced an indecency charge before he left this religious group.’
‘That’s right,’ Mike confirmed. ‘It didn’t survive long enough to get to court. The kids involved, well, it seems their parents decided not to let them testify.’
‘Oh?’ Maria asked. ‘What went on?’
‘Photographs,’ he sighed. ‘There were four children involved, all at the school Pearson taught at. It’s one of those small, private places. Large fees and big houses. The kids — there were two seven-year-olds, a five-year-old and the other one I think was about eight. It was the older one who blew the whistle — said that Mr Pearson had been taking photographs of them and that he’d persuaded the younger ones to take their clothes off and pose naked.’
‘There was more than that,’ John put in.
Mike nodded. ‘Yes, there were allegations that he touched the two seven-year-olds in a way that would certainly be viewed as indecent. But the problem was, the so-called evidence was procured a good while after the event and after close questioning from three very persistent teachers and a very inexperienced counsellor.’
‘Hmm,’ Maria said, ‘common sort of problem, that. But the photographs . . .?’
‘Disappeared. No trace, either at the school or Pearson’s home. There were doubts that Pearson even owned a camera.’
‘He could have borrowed one,’ John said.
‘He could. There’s no way of knowing. Pearson stated his innocence from day one and continued to do so right up until the time the CPS decided to throw the case out on its ear.’
‘And the Pearsons were still part of this sect — the Children of Solomon — at that time?’ Maria asked him.
‘Yes. But they left soon after. The council moved them into emergency housing when the Elders told Pearson he had to get out.’
‘They turned the whole family out?’ Maria was appalled.
John shook his head. ‘No, from what Embury tells me it wasn’t like that. The Elders told Eric Pearson that he would have to go. Johanna Pearson said that if her husband was going to be excommunicated then that meant they should all go.’ He grinned. ‘I phoned Embury again today. Got him to ask Sam about it. Sam reckons they argued for days, then just upped and left one night and parked themselves at the local council offices. Well, you can imagine. Johanna was pregnant with their youngest and they’d already got the other five. Seems Johanna sat there, threatening to get straight on to the local press if the council didn’t help them out.’
‘And the Elders refused to have them back?’ Maria asked. ‘I mean, they’d be viewed as having made themselves deliberately homeless, just walking out like that. The council’d be bound to try and persuade them to go home.’
‘Well, Sam reckons that the Elders were always willing to have Johanna and the kids return. Just not Eric Pearson.’ John paused, thoughtfully. ‘Embury says that Sam is very reluctant to talk about it. That he gets the impression Sam more than half believes the allegations made against Eric, but Embury can’t get him to go into detail. Very close mouthed when he wants to be, I should think, our Sam.’
* * *
Just past dusk and after a fall of rain with a fast-clearing sky and a rather sickly half-moon dragging itself out into the open. Not the perfect time for rabbiting perhaps, but good enough.
Mal called the dogs close to heel. They wrapped about his footsteps, noses twitching, snuffling at the ground or raising their shaggy heads to catch some drifting scent.
Mal loved nights like this, though they happened less often now, since the twins had arrived and domesticity had taken its toll.
He carried the gun broken over his arm and moved softly; the dogs surprisingly quiet too, despite the pent-up excitement. He’d most like take rabbits back with him tonight, but the truth was, Mai enjoyed the space to himself as much as the thought of rabbit smothered in fresh herbs.
He climbed the bit of fencing at the field boundary and headed towards the copse on the other side. The ground was soft there, almost boggy, and beyond the trees was a slight rise and a bank with a sheltered dip behind. A good place for rabbits, and for the odd courting couple prepared to scramble the few hundred yards from the road.
Clicking his tongue to call the dogs back to him again, Mal strode across the rain-wet grass. He skirted the stand of trees and rounded on to the bank. Both he and the dogs moved more slowly now and the dogs kept close to him, noses down, hackles raised in anticipation.
It was late evening, but very far from being truly dark. Once away from the shadows of the trees the view across the dip was a good one and, Mal knew from experience, the warren large enough to mean that he would not have to wait long before tomorrow night’s dinner presented itself.
Contentedly, Mai breathed in the damp, rain-chilled air and began to ease his way across the bank towards the flattened spot close to the old tree stump that was his favourite place for waiting.
* * *
‘Was Sam born into the sect?’
‘Yes. Yes, I believe so. He talked about never having lived anywhere else. And I got the distinct impression that the same went for his father. He didn’t mention having a mother. I assumed she must be either dead or gone some other way.’
Again, Maria nodded, as though John’s words confirmed her thinking.
‘So what’s going on in that head of yours?’ Mike asked her. ‘I’ve got to admit I can’t figure out the setup. I mean, I looked through the old files. Our lot took the place apart looking for the photographs. They say the cult members neither interfered nor helped. They made absolutely no resistance and asked no questions. One of the Elders called them all together, told them what was going to happen and said they were to just let it happen, and that’s what they did. They accepted it as though it were an everyday thing to have big-footed plods digging up their flowerbeds.’
He frowned, as though puzzled by something.
‘My sergeant, Price, tells me that they had to go back a couple of weeks later. Return some papers or something, and the whole place, well, Price reckons you’d not have known anyone had been there. Everything replanted. Everything immaculate.’
* * *
‘Bloody tourists!’ Mal muttered angrily. He was convinced that tourists and incomers were responsible for most of the ills he saw around him.
I mean, he thought angrily, what local would go dumping their bloody rubbish in a spot like this?
He unclipped his torch from his belt and shone it on the offending pile of black dustbin bags. A couple of them were already torn open and the fetid contents dragged across the grass. Foxes, probably, Mai thought.
He turned the torch beam back across the field towards the road, the light picking chewed-up turf and the tracks of several vehicles at the field edge.
Travellers, then, he thought, remembering vaguely some report he’d heard about police moving a group on a few days before.
‘Time they learnt to take their fucking rubbish with them. Leaving their bloody mess.’
The dogs were nosing about in the pile. Irritably, Mai called them to him. The mood of the evening was spoiled now and his hunt, too, no doubt, if there’d been folk tramping about all over.
He kicked petulantly at the nearest bag, then stepped back, momentarily startled at the resistance, the weight of it against his foot.
He shone his torch at the heavy bag, then bent down for a closer look, enlarging a small hole already torn in its side.
* * *
‘Makes me downright suspicious,’ Mike said. ‘I mean, you hear such stories. Mind control. People cut off from their families, virtually held prisoner—’
‘And all that’s true,’ Maria interrupted him, ‘of some of the more extreme religious groups. You can’t pin that kind of label on here, though.’
‘So? Tell me.’
‘I did some digging after John’s phone call,’ Maria said. ‘There are three houses run by the Children. One here, which we know about. One in Scotland somewhe
re and another just outside York. They’re farmers, groups of families that joined together about fifty years ago, formed the first community and expanded when their population did. They don’t proselytise and they seem capable of becoming both part of the local scene and of standing outside it. This group out at Otley trade with the local farmers and are part of the combine collective.’
‘The what?’ Mike asked.
John grinned. ‘They share the more expensive machinery. Smallholders who can’t stump up the capital on their own, they’ve been doing it for a while round here.’
‘Ah!’ Mike nodded. ‘And what do they actually believe, these so-called Children?’
‘Hoped you wouldn’t ask that. They don’t exactly advertise that part of it.’
‘Embury says they believe their founder to have been the Lord’s prophet, or something,’ John put in.
Maria nodded. ‘Though exactly what he prophesied is a bit vague.’ She frowned, then reached over and investigated the contents of the coffee pot.
‘I’ll make you some more in a minute, my dear.’
‘Thank you, John. It seems he predicted some kind of world crisis. Not the end of the world, exactly, but a great turmoil.’
‘And for that they called him a prophet?’
She laughed. ‘No, not exactly. He advocated gathering like-minded people, forming self-sufficient communities and protecting their children, sheltering them from what was going to happen on the outside.’
‘So he wasn’t into modern living,’ Mike stated. Then frowned, suddenly. ‘No, that doesn’t fit. Pearson worked outside the community and I remember seeing photographs in the old report, some pretty high-tech stuff. Price said we had to call our computer buffs in to check things out.’
‘I never said they did away with high-tech,’ Maria objected. ‘Just that they gathered together to protect themselves from the bad things.’
She smiled and added, ‘In fact, Norman Luther advocated taking the best of the old and the best of the new. Of gathering together the knowledge of the past and of the present, from wherever it originated, and preserving it.’
