by James Raven
‘You need to get down here right away, sir,’ the DS said. ‘We’ve found out why Mason wanted someone to burn his house down in the event of his death. And trust me, you’re not going to like it.’
12
Temple didn’t ask the detective to elaborate over the phone. Instead he told him he’d get to the house as quickly as he could.
Angel was disappointed that he had to go out, but she said she understood and that they could talk again later.
Temple had a quick shower and shave, and put on a clean suit and shirt. Angel made him coffee and toast and before leaving, he gave her a long kiss on the mouth and told her that he loved her.
As he drove towards the forest his head was all over the place, but at least the tablets the hospital had given him were controlling the pain.
He wasn’t able to control his thoughts, though. They rushed through his mind at a rate of knots. The baby. The burglar. The missing couple. Grant Mason’s bizarre dying wish. He was struggling to make sense of any of it.
Fatigue was making it difficult for him to concentrate. At the same time, nervous energy was running through him and something cold and heavy had settled in his stomach.
He guessed he was still in a state of shock. But then that was to be expected. He’d been beaten unconscious by a burglar in a balaclava and then he’d been knocked for six by Angel’s bombshell revelation.
Pregnant. Jesus. He hadn’t seen that one coming. He wondered what he’d have said to his dead wife if he’d known about it yesterday morning. He and Erin had tried for another baby when Tanya was two. But she’d failed to conceive and it turned out she had a problem with her ovaries. They were both devastated to begin with, but resolved not to let it became an issue. They’d considered themselves lucky because they had a healthy, beautiful, mischievous daughter.
But deep down, Temple had always yearned for another child and he’d felt sorry for Erin because she thought she’d somehow let him down. The yearning had dissipated over the years, however, and now the thought of starting over again with another baby filled him with dread.
Angel’s whole attitude to motherhood was bound to change, if it hadn’t already. Her career would be pushed into second place and their life-plan would have to be re-written. She’d be desperate for his approval, his commitment to both her and the baby. She’d try to get inside his head to find out how he really felt. She’d tell him he wasn’t too old to change nappies and push a pram. And he’d have to be careful how he responded. Every view he expressed would have huge significance.
He’d have to quickly come to terms with the situation; suppress all doubts and fears and act like they’d been blessed.
He knew that if he didn’t there’d be a very real risk of losing her.
It was a dry, cold morning in the forest. A grey mist climbed off the fields and the moorland bracken was tinged with a delicate frost. Thin clouds hung like webbing in the sky and a weak sun was threatening to make its presence felt.
Temple reached East Boldre just before nine. There were three patrol cars on the road and a WPC was standing at the entrance to the track to prevent unauthorized access.
She waved Temple through and when he got to the house, he was surprised at the level of activity. Scene of Crime Officers (SOCOs) were there in force, along with a dozen or so uniforms. He also spotted DS Vaughan leaning against his battered SUV, wearing a white forensic containment suit.
Temple parked between the SUV and a forensic van. He switched off the engine and took a moment to close his eyes and blink away thoughts of a future that was going to be very different to the one he had envisaged. It was time to focus on the present and find out what the hell Grant Mason had been up to.
‘So what’s this all about?’ he said to DS Vaughan when he got out of the car.
Vaughan looked rougher than usual. He hadn’t shaved and his eyes were dark and rimmed with shadow.
‘They found stuff in the loft,’ Vaughan said. ‘It looks like Mason was using it as an office.’
‘But there’s an office downstairs.’
‘This one’s different, guv. You’ll see. And it’s all intact so we’re assuming that last night’s intruder didn’t go up there.’
‘Do we need to alert Beresford?’
‘I’ve already called him. He’s on his way here.’
Temple followed Vaughan into the house after putting on a forensic suit and shoe covers. Downstairs, it was very much how it had been hours before except that it was crawling with SOCOs.
Lee Finch, the senior SOCO, was well-known to Temple. Tall and sinewy with a stooped posture and a solid reputation. He wore small rimless glasses that gave him an air of studious charm.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d be able to get here, Jeff,’ he said. ‘I heard what happened to you last night.’
Temple shrugged. ‘It could have been worse.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re here. What we’ve found is more than a little disturbing.’
‘Then lead the way,’ Temple said.
They climbed the stairs to the landing. The loft hatch in the ceiling was open and an aluminium step-ladder had been lowered to the floor.
‘We went up there to check it out as a matter of routine as soon as we got here,’ Finch said. ‘It took me a couple of minutes to realize what we were looking at.’
A few seconds later, Finch and the two detectives were in the loft, which had been converted into a large office with a desk, a free-standing wardrobe and a cabinet. The roof sloped steeply on both sides and was lined with thick layers of insulation.
There were no windows, but plenty of light came from two lamps fixed to the overhead rafters. In front of the desk was a leather swivel chair. On the brick wall to the right of it a large map of the New Forest. On the wall to the left, a montage of colour photographs in various sizes. Temple was too far away to see what was in them.
‘Check out the stuff on the desk first,’ Finch said.
Temple stepped up to the desk. On top was a large computer monitor with keyboard and tower. The screen was on, and showing a photograph of a naked woman tied to a chair with a ball gag in her mouth and small metal clamps on her nipples. She looked terrified.
‘Jesus,’ Temple said.
‘Believe it or not, that’s just Mason’s screen saver image,’ Finch said. ‘We haven’t looked beyond that yet.’
‘Each to his own, I suppose.’
‘Take a look in the top drawer,’ Finch said.
Temple eased open the drawer. Inside was a collection of objects including a large hunting knife with a bone handle, a compact Sony camcorder, a stun gun that was capable of delivering 300,000 volts and a box of blue latex gloves, of the kind he and the SOCOs were wearing.
‘Interesting, eh?’ Finch said. ‘Especially the stun gun. I know those things are widely available on the internet, but you don’t often come across them in people’s homes.’
‘It’s a strange thing for Mason to have,’ Temple said.
‘I know. Now look at the photos on the wall there.’
Temple moved over to the wall and squinted up at the photos. At once the urge to vomit rolled through his stomach.
There were perhaps fifty photos and they were all explicit and repulsive. They showed a number of men and women being restrained by ropes and straps and chains. Some were close-ups of male and female genitals. A bruised and swollen penis. A blood soaked vagina. A woman’s breast covered with severe bite marks.
Another photo showed a young girl tied face down across a table with her legs apart. A large black dildo had been inserted deep into her rectum.
In another photo a middle-aged man was hanging by a chain from the ceiling, his pale, naked body covered with whip marks.
‘These must have been downloaded from the internet,’ Temple said, knowing that there were hundreds of websites specialising in photos and videos of bondage and sadomasochism.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Finch said. ‘Until I checked out th
e camcorder in the drawer. The latest recording shows a young lad seemingly being raped by whoever is holding the camera.’
Temple snapped his head round and stared at Finch.
‘Are you kidding me?’ he said.
‘I’m afraid not, Jeff. The lad – who looks to be in his late teens – is bent over the same table as the one in several of those photos and his hands are cuffed to the legs.’
‘My God.’
‘The guy with the camcorder is taping his own dick entering the lad from behind. The lad is begging him to stop so I don’t think he’s a willing participant in some sado sex game.’
Temple’s heart was pounding now, booming in his ears. He shook his head as he struggled to take it in.
‘There’s something else that’s even more disturbing than those images,’ Finch said.
Temple looked at him and felt a tightening in his gut.
Finch stepped up to the map on the other wall and beckoned Temple over. It was a large ordnance survey map, showing everything from main roads to cattle grids.
‘Look at it closely,’ Finch said.
Temple saw that names and dates had been written with a ballpoint pen at various locations across the map. At each location, someone had also scrawled a small religious cross.
‘There are ten crosses and fifteen names,’ Finch said. ‘Against five of the crosses there are two names.’ He pointed to a cross next to the names Michael and Fiona Maitlin. ‘The dates span two years, the most recent being that one – 28th December. Just two months ago.’
Temple pushed out his bottom lip and studied the map. His eyes homed in on the name and date Finch was pointing to.
‘Paul Kellerman,’ he said. ‘That name rings a bell.’
‘It did with me too,’ Vaughan said. ‘So just before you arrived I got the office to run a check. A twenty-year-old student named Paul Kellerman disappeared just over two months ago on 24th December. His car was found close to his home in Bournemouth, which as you know is only a few miles west of the New Forest. He was last seen earlier that day by friends he was visiting in Winchester.’
Temple nodded. ‘That’s it. I remember the case. The Dorset Constabulary were handling it.’
‘It could just be coincidence,’ Vaughan said. ‘The name’s not that unusual.’
Temple thought about it. ‘But if it’s not a coincidence, then why did Mason write his name on this map? And what’s the significance of the date – just four days after the lad vanished?’
‘The answer to that could lie with those religious crosses,’ Finch said.
Temple turned to him. ‘What do you mean?’
Finch paused for several beats. ‘Well, a religious cross usually marks the location of a church or a cemetery – or even a grave. And I know for a fact that there are no churches or cemeteries at the locations pinpointed on this map.’
Temple arched his brow in disbelief. ‘So what exactly are you saying, Lee?’
Finch sucked in a breath. ‘I’m saying we need to consider the possibility that this map is telling us where fifteen people are buried in the forest. Among them a young student who disappeared two months ago.’
13
It was a shocking thought and one that brought Temple out in a cold sweat.
Was it really conceivable that those crosses on the map denoted clandestine graves? And that there were ten of them spread across the New Forest? Surely Finch was jumping to a macabre conclusion.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Jeff,’ Finch said. ‘That it’s a wild conjecture. Well, that’s exactly how people reacted when it was first revealed that Myra Hindley and Ian Brady had buried the bodies of their child victims on Saddleworth Moor.’
‘But those two were complete psychos,’ Temple pointed out.
‘Sure they were, but isn’t there compelling evidence here to suggest that Grant Mason might have been just as sick in the head as they were?’
Temple knew that Finch had a point and it sent a shiver up his spine. He paused to compose his thoughts and look around the loft. It was stark and sterile. Not the sort of place where an author would find peace and inspiration. But then Grant Mason obviously hadn’t come up here to write his books. Instead he’d come to indulge his horrific fantasies and perhaps to gloat over the evidence of his own debauchery.
Temple went back to the photographs on the wall and felt a coldness grip his mind. He counted at least seven different people, all adults. Four men and three women. If it hadn’t been for the blood smeared on their bodies and their terrified expressions, he would have assumed that they were sadomasochists indulging in their own peculiar idea of fun. But it looked to him as though they were being restrained against their will while being tortured.
‘So let me get this straight,’ Temple said. ‘You’re saying that these could be the same people whose names have been scrawled on the map?’
Finch nodded. ‘It’s certainly possible, given what we’ve got here.’
‘As crazy as it sounds I have to agree,’ Vaughan said. ‘Mason might have abducted them. Then after he finished playing with them, he buried their bodies in shallow graves in the forest.’
‘So why did he highlight the locations on a map?’ Temple said.
‘Same reason he put those photos on the wall, I reckon. To provide a constant reminder of what he’d done. It gave him pleasure and was all part of his sick thrill ride.’
Temple had to admit that as a theory it was frighteningly plausible. And it would explain why Grant Mason had desperately wanted his house to be destroyed by fire. He’d feared his sick little hideaway would be discovered.
Temple saw Mason in his mind’s eye. The man had always looked so ordinary. Quietly spoken and seemingly respectable. A local author and pillar of the community. He certainly hadn’t struck Temple as a sexual sadist. But that was the thing about such people – they were always so good at covering their tracks.
The evidence they’d stumbled upon did suggest that Mason had led a secret life. There was the camcorder, the stun gun, the photos, the video footage … it was pretty incriminating stuff and there was unlikely to be an innocent explanation for it all.
‘So how do you want to play this, guv?’ Vaughan said.
Temple turned away from the wall and pressed his fingers into his eye sockets, as if he could erase the images from the photos.
He took a deep breath and held it for a while before speaking.
‘For starters, we keep a lid on this until we know for certain what we’re dealing with. If our suspicions are made public it’ll lead to a media firestorm. So we need to move quickly to see if the theory stacks up. That means carrying out a thorough search of the house and finding out what’s on the computer and camcorder.
‘We also need the data from Mason’s phone and online activity. Plus, I want all the names on the map put into the system. Are they also people who are missing and if so, do the dates tally with when they disappeared?’
‘I’ll get right on it,’ Vaughan said.
‘And we need pictures. Start with Paul Kellerman. If we’re right about this, then he might well be the poor sod who’s being raped on the camcorder.’
Vaughan finished scribbling his notes and quickly descended the step-ladder.
‘So what parts of the loft haven’t yet been searched?’ Temple asked Finch.
The SOCO gestured with his head. ‘The computer, the wardrobe and the cabinet. As soon as I saw what was on the wall and inside the desk drawer, I called a halt because I thought you should see it first.’
‘That was the right call, Lee. But now, let’s go through the rest of it.’
Finch went to work on the computer and expressed his astonishment when he discovered that it wasn’t password-protected. Within minutes he was inside Mason’s files and sifting through scores of pornographic images and videos. It was all violent material and some of it involved children and even animals. It made Temple’s flesh crawl.
‘We’ll need to get this anal
ysed by the experts,’ Finch said. ‘Most of it has clearly been downloaded from the internet, but I’m not sure what Mason uploaded himself.’
‘Check his browser history,’ Temple said.
It turned out that Mason had been a frequent visitor to websites showing and selling all manner of violent porn.
‘I’m guessing he spent a lot of time up here wanking himself dry,’ Finch said.
Temple’s body was rigid, his jaw clenched. He was finding it hard to believe the evidence of his own eyes. Mason’s computer was full of the vilest forms of pornography. Simulated rape, incest, extreme bondage where women were cruelly beaten and sexually abused.
It made Temple feel sick so he turned away and decided to check the wardrobe and cabinet.
In the wardrobe there were three items of clothing – a green parka, a pair of denim jeans and a dark blue woollen sweater. Plus a pair of muddied Wellington boots.
Why the hell was he keeping them up here? Temple asked himself. Was it because he used to wear them when he went on the prowl?
Temple went to the cabinet. It was waist high and had two doors. Inside was a single shelf on which rested a number of objects and below it several stacks of hardcore porn DVDs. The objects on the shelf included an expensive looking man’s watch, a woman’s gold bracelet, three gold rings, two digital cameras and a Zippo lighter.
Temple felt his stomach flip when it struck him that these could be callous souvenirs from Mason’s victims.
He reached in and picked up one of the cameras. A Nikon Coolpix L29. But the battery power had been spent. He replaced it and picked up the other one – a Canon IXUS.
It came on when he pressed the power button and seconds later, he was flipping through the photos stored on it. The first was a close-up picture of a squirrel eating a nut. The second, a wide-angle shot of dense woodland.
But the third picture caused every nerve in his body to slam to a stop. It was a shot of Rosemary Hamilton posing in front of the Knightwood Oak.
Taken no doubt by her husband Bob, just before the couple went missing.
14
