Cult Following: No Faith To Lose (The Capgras Conspiracy Book 0)

by Simon J. Townley

“Take time off and reconsider,” Fitzgerald said. “A sabbatical. A week, a month, whatever you need. Understandable after all you’ve been through. But unpaid, you understand.”

  Capgras dropped the envelope onto Fitzgerald’s keyboard. “Freelance only from now on. Call me if you have an assignment.”

  “Go see Milikan first. You owe him that.”

  “Is he here?”

  “On holiday.”

  “Well then…”

  “So wait until he’s back.”

  Tom shook his head ruefully. It was done. He’d had enough of routine and schedules and time-tables and rules. “Like I said, call me.”

  He recrossed the newsroom but this time no one gave him a second glance. Their heads were down, busy with work: writing, editing, researching. Noodling through nonsense, looking for threads. Already, they were over the excitement of seeing him again, and doubtless they thought he’d be back now, part of the furniture and one of the team but that wasn’t going to happen. They’d find out soon enough.

  He almost made it to the door, but as he reached for the handle of the glass doors Fitzgerald yelled across the newsroom. “Got a job for you, Tom Capgras. Farringdon Tube Station, evacuation, fire trucks, alarms. Reports of a gas leak. You up for that, Mr Freelance?”

  Reporters leapt from chairs, grabbing jackets and cameras, phones and notebooks, scurrying for the door, while others jabbed at keyboards, hitting the internet.

  “Need you there, Tom,” Fitzgerald said.

  “This a hoax? False alarm?” Capgras shouted about the bedlam of journalists, stirred from their slumbers.

  “Looks like it’s for real,” Fitzgerald bellowed, ”girl from ad sales phoned it in.”

  Tom gave him a thumbs up, to reassure him he was on his way. He ignored the lift and leapt down the stairs, three at a time. Back in the saddle and on the job.

  Chapter 4

  Farringdon

  Capgras threaded his motorbike through the grid locked traffic. The bike, a 1963 Norton 650SL, was his pride and joy, his most treasured possession and trusted ally. He had left it for safe-keeping in his brother’s garage in a suburb of North London. His first task, on reaching the city, had been to retrieve the bike. He’d not yet had chance to clean and balance the twin carbs or strip down the engine, but those tasks were on his mental ‘to do’ list and would be tackled soon. Meanwhile the motorbike ran fine. The only problem was finding any spare road to drive on.

  Traffic around Farringdon was badly snarled and the only way to progress was to force his way through the narrow gaps between cars. When he got to within a quarter of a mile, he chained the bike to railings and left the open helmet and goggles secured to the seat post. He ran the last section, dodging through the crowds, the wail of sirens howling in his ears.

  He dipped his shoulders, bounced from foot to foot as he skipped through the torrent of people surging in the opposite direction. When he finally caught sight of the tube station, it was ringed with fire engines and police cars. Tom headed for a fireman who was pulling on safety gear. “What happened?”

  “Get out of here,” the man said.

  Tom flashed a press badge at the man. “What can you tell me?”

  “Nothing, it’s gas, that’s all I know, or poison. We don’t know, get clear.”

  Tom slipped behind the fire truck to avoid the policewoman who was rounding up stragglers and ordering them to move on. He peeked around the vehicle and chose his moment, scurrying along with a group of firefighters covered head to foot in chemical safety suits. He almost reached the doors to the tube when a policeman grabbed him by the collar and dragged him backwards, shoving him against a police car. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

  “Press,” Tom said, “what’s happening?”

  “Stupid bastard,” the copper snarled.

  “Is it a bomb? A fire? Gas? What?”

  “Get lost or I’ll arrest you.”

  Capgras wriggled out of the man’s grip and made conciliatory gestures, implying that he would move away. A yell came from the tube station entrance and a swarm of paramedics emerged, milling around a stretcher where a young woman jerked and twitched like a dying fly. She wretched, her face almost blue. The medics held an oxygen mask over her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Why? Fumes? But there was no sign of smoke. No fire. So it must be gas. Capgras stood in no-man’s-land, between the police lines, the fire and ambulance crews and the safety of the cordon being thrown up a hundreds yards from the station doors.

  He scanned the scene, looking for clues, for information, for anything that would give him an edge in reporting this story. It would all come out, before the morning edition, but there was the website to think about. He took out his phone and called Fitzgerald, told him his hunch.

  “Any confirmation? A nerve agent seems unlikely, Tom. Get a quote at least, or an off-the-record tip. Your diagnoses have been wrong before.”

  He was right, they had. He described the scene in front of him to Fitzgerald, who typed furiously in the background.

  “I have to go. The police are coming for me. I don’t fancy being arrested on my first full day of freedom. I’m on probation, after all.”

  “Get me reaction from the crowd,” Fitzgerald said “find someone who was in the station at the time.”

  Capgras moved away from the front lines, slipped under the police cordon and scanned the faces. “Did you see anything?” he asked a man in a suit, a woman nursing a chihuahua in her arms, a group of Chinese tourists, a gaggle of teenagers, taking snaps on their phones. No one knew a thing, or they weren’t telling.

  He peered through a crowd of uniforms trying to work out what had happened to the girl on the stretcher. No way to tell. But she was no longer alone. Three, maybe four more victims had been carried out. Two more emerged, over the shoulders of firemen while medics clasped breathing gear to their mouths.

  “Move further off,” a police inspector shouted. “Clear the area, for your own safety. Evacuate now.”

  Not safe, a hundred yards away? Tom scanned the crowd once more. So many faces. Then he glimpsed one he recognised. It couldn’t be. He imagined that. It might be anyone. Perhaps it looked like her, but his mind liked to play tricks. A confirmation bias, that was it. She’d been on his mind. But it wasn’t Gina. Why would she be here? All the same, he pushed through the throng, heading for that face. She’d gone. No, there. He caught another glimpse of her, from the side. It might be. But it had been so many years. Should he call her name? No. Don’t make a scene. But get closer, in case. He lost sight of her, then saw her clearly, long brown hair across her face. She wore faded black jeans, and an army fatigues jacket, and carried a backpack over her shoulders. She was surrounded by people, they seemed to be friends. They seemed worried, expressions stretched and drawn. Terrified. A young man cried openly, while a woman gripped her head in her hands as if in grief, or guilt, or fear. A man consoled her, rallying the group. He put his arm around the woman who might be Gina but probably wasn’t, then looked towards Tom. The man turned away again, rapidly, hiding his face.

  Too late. Tom had seen him. But it couldn’t be him. Impossible. He had to be wrong, though he’d know his old friend anywhere. But how could that be? After all, everyone knew that Charlie Bloody Marlo was long, long dead.

  Chapter 5

  Faces In The Crowd

  Medics yelled for a way through as they scurried towards an ambulance with a stretcher. It was the girl he’d seen earlier. They were fighting to save her life, but losing. A sea of police and fire crews opened to let them through. Tom turned, looked for Gina once more, and saw her, motionless, paralysed with fear, watching the scene unfold with deep grief written large across her face. She knew that young woman, Capgras was sure of it. If he needed a witness, an inside angle, someone to tell the tale of what happened, then there was no one better.

  His phone rang. He let it ring out and go to voicemail, his eyes fixed on Gina. But the crowd surged. Police ordered the
m away. Evacuate the scene, came the order, a chemical incident, they must leave immediately, don’t run, but keep moving.

  He felt the fear ripple through the throng. Their gawping had endangered their lives. They might stampede at any moment. He hated crowds, being confined, unable to shake his arms, to escape the smell and the heat of the surrounding bodies. Most of all, he dreaded being in a mob that had lost all sense and reason, that panicked and bolted, carrying him along like a stone on the beach, smashed and rolled on the shoreline.

  But he had to reach Gina, for old time’s sake and for her father, and for the story, most of all.

  He wormed his way through the throng. The crowd moved away, Gina among them. Marlo too, or the man who looked like him, but couldn’t be him. He kept going in their direction, elbowing through gaps, ignoring the curses, shoves and kicks.

  The mass of bodies picked up speed as word spread about the danger of chemicals or poison. The words ‘sarin gas’ swept the crowd like a forest fire on a hot wind. Shouts of anger and fear erupted from those nearest to the station, urging people to get out of the way.

  Where was she? There, twenty feet ahead of him, a flash of her hair, the side of her face. He yelled her name, but she didn’t turn. She couldn’t hear from that distance, not above the hubbub, the roar of traffic and the howl of sirens.

  The throng surged once more as if a damn had broken somewhere up front. Frantic feet and arms jostled for room. He pushed past a couple with a young child. He ignored their complaints. They needed to be safe, for sure, but he needed an eye witness account, and from this witness in particular. He used his shoulders to wedge his way through, getting closer. He called her name. Her head turned. Did she hear? He lost sight of her. Where had they gone? They must have moved, off to the left, towards a side street. He shoved through. He stumbled, almost fell. Instinctively he put out a hand, pushing someone in the back, but righting himself before he hit the pavement. A man turned and yelled at him, more in shock than anger. Capgras mumbled an apology.

  He’d not seen Gina or her group for several minutes and had lost track of them. Nothing for it but to keep heading in that direction. His phone rang again. Fitzgerald again, from the newsroom. He’d want updates, fresh copy, the latest angle, confirmation that Tom had witnesses and inside information, something to set the story above the standard responses and statements from the authorities. He ignored it, kept moving, desperate to catch sight of her.

  Finally, the crowd thinned out, and he could move. He jumped up to peer over the heads. No sign of her. He ran towards the side street, weaving in and out of the stragglers. She wasn’t here, nor her friends. He’d lost them.

  What now? He could plunge back into that horde of bodies but he’d get stuck in there. They must be here, somewhere. But London is a hard place to keep track people at the best of times.

  He ran down the side street, checking in the doorways. At the end, he scoured up and down the roads, but Gina and her friends had vaporised, if they were ever there.

  He’d have to find her again, and soon. Because whatever happened back there at the tube station, Gina was mixed up in it. And Charlie Marlo? That was a stretch too far. The man was dead. He had a younger brother, so maybe it was him. Gina must have kept in touch, fallen for the sibling. It happens. He’d find out, for sure. Just as soon as he tracked her down.

  Chapter 6

  Parental Concern

  Tom paused at the door, ready to knock, wondering if this was such a good idea. It couldn’t end well, but he needed information: the news agenda, after all is a ravenous monster, insatiable and demanding. Sometimes, the only way to get the facts was by talking to people and asking them nicely. That didn’t suit his temperament, but it had to be done.

  Knocking on doors was second nature to him: he had spent his late teens and early twenties working for a local paper, doorstepping the relatives of the deceased and the recently convicted.

  This, however, was different, because it was no stranger’s door. He had knocked here many a time while courting Gina, with a hope in his heart and a tingling in his 501s.

  He knocked, briskly and loud, then waited, listening to the footsteps approaching along the hall. A tall, angular blonde woman in her early fifties opened with a welcoming smile which turned instantly to a scowl.

  “Thought we’d seen the last of you, years ago,” Gina’s mother said.

  “I’m here to see Bob. He asked for my help. It’s about Gina.”

  “Have you found her?”

  “No, but I’ve seen her.”

  “Where?”

  “Can I come in?”

  She yelled her husband’s name. He roared back. The shouting ping-ponged up and down the stairs until finally he appeared, wearing golfing trousers that barely reached his calfs and a mauve woollen jumper with triangles across the chest. He looked ridiculous and Capgras realised, with an inner sigh, that he could never again be frightened of the man, or intimidated by him.

  He waved Tom over the threshold and they retreated to the large, open kitchen, where Mrs Gilmour scurried about making coffee while eavesdropping on their conversation.

  “I told you she was in trouble,” Bob said, once Tom had related his tale of the tube station. “You been to the police?”

  “Not yet. Not much to go on. Tell me everything you know about this cult.”

  Bob shrugged expansively. “You’re the journalist. You supposed to have all the answers.”

  “This is how we find them,” Tom said. “By asking people questions. You heard the reports, I assume. Police say sarin gas, but not a deliberate attack, more like an accident.”

  “Have they named that dead girl?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Or said who they think’s responsible?”

  “I believe the official line,” Tom said, “is that they’re keeping an open mind.”

  “Means they’ve got no idea.”

  “So we have a vital clue. A lead even the police don’t possess,” Tom said.

  Gina’s mother put cups on the table, with a glass jug of coffee and a bowl of sugar. “If that’s the case then we should call them, do the right thing.”

  “Gina could be in a lot of trouble,” Tom said. “She might go to prison.”

  “At least she’d be alive,” Bob grumbled. “Better than being mixed up in this cult.”

  “It might not have to be that way, not if we can talk sense into her,” Tom said.

  “Good luck with that.” Bob flinched as his wife clipped him across the top of his head, making his thinning hair waft up on end. “You got any kind of plan?”

  Tom scrapped the palms of his hands up and down the stubble on his cheeks. “We need intel on this organisation: where they live, where they hang out, what they do, how many members there are, who leads it. Everything. There’s nothing online. Are you sure about the name?”

  “It’s what Gina’s cousin told us, but it could be wrong. Perhaps they’re new, though Gina’s been involved for a while: a couple of years, according to her cousin.”

  “Can I speak to this cousin?”

  “No. She insisted we tell no one. She’d be angry we’ve told you this much. And her father… “

  “Your brother?”

  “He’s got a temper on him.”

  Bob’s wife huffed loudly and rolled her eyes, as if to imply that must run in the family, and that her husband was a fine one to talk.

  Tom poured himself a coffee, since no one had offered to do it for him, and dropped a teaspoon of sugar into the cup. “If we find them, we’ll need to snatch Gina. Cults are manipulative, persuasive, and maintain a powerful hold over people. It’ll be no good just going up to her and asking her to come along home. She’ll be suspicious and wary. And as soon as we approach her, she’ll likely disappear again.” Tom paused. “We have to grab her, extract her, by force if necessary. So we’ll need resources: people to follow her, that she doesn’t know, has never seen, which rules me out. And a team on standby.
I’d recommend immediate family, close friends. There might be trouble, so backup, ready for a fight, if that’s what it comes to. And a car, a driver, and a safe house. Not here. Somewhere she can be secured while she’s deprogrammed.”

  He glanced at the mother, whose face had turned as white as a freshly ironed sheet.

  “This sounds a bit dodgy,” Bob said.

  “When the facts are known, the police will understand.”

  “But we can’t tell them without implicating Gina in that incident.”

  “She’ll have to see sense, talk, tell the police everything, so they can move against the group. By co-operating, she’ll buy her own freedom.”

  “Selling her friends up the river?”

  “There’s no other way,” Tom said.

  “I don’t like it,” the mother said. “Gina won’t co-operate, not if we snatch her.”

  “We need more proof.” Bob thumped his fist on the table. “We’ve got to be sure, if I’m to get all these folks involved. We’re taking a big risk.”

  “She’s your daughter.”

  “I still say it’s down to you, Tom. Do your thing. Get inside the group. Find out what’s going on, Gina’s role in all this and how bad it looks.”

  “Get someone else,” Tom said.

  “Gina knows you. She’ll listen to you.”

  Fat chance of that. “She’ll give me away, long before the talking gets started.” Then there was the issue of Charlie Marlo, if it had really been him, though it couldn’t have been.

  “I don’t see any other way,” Bob said. “It’s down to you.”

  Capgras sighed, took a long breath. “I’ll ask at my newspaper, me might have someone who can go undercover. But I can’t guarantee anything. In the meantime, put that team of people together but be careful how much you tell them. Nothing about the tube station or sarin gas, understand? We keep this between ourselves.”

  “Right you are,” Gilmour said. “Not telling anyone. That’s the way to go.”