by James Raven
Teams of officers – some with sniffer dogs – were drafted in to search the land around Grant Mason’s house.
They swarmed through the woods and over the heathland in the hope of finding Bob and Rosemary Hamilton. It was pretty clear now that Mason had had something to do with their disappearance. Why else would their camera be hidden in his loft?
The photo of Rosemary Hamilton posing in front of the ancient tree was preceded by photos of both of them in front of the King’s Tavern pub.
The discovery of the camera not only heightened fears for the missing couple – it also gave credence to the theory that Grant Mason had claimed at least fifteen other victims. But the Hamiltons’ names did not appear on Mason’s map. Did that mean they were still alive? And if so, where were they now? A thorough search of the house and detached garage had revealed no further trace of them or anyone else.
Temple viewed for himself the footage on Mason’s camcorder to see if they were on it, but it showed only the young man being physically and sexually abused. There was even a sequence where the camcorder was placed on a tripod and the operator – a fully-clothed Grant Mason – walked into shot, carrying a leather paddle whip with metal studs. He then filmed himself beating the young man’s bare buttocks until the young man passed out.
Revulsion pooled in Temple’s eyes as he watched the footage and he had to suppress the urge to be sick when he was shown a photograph of Paul Kellerman. It confirmed that the lad on the video and the missing student were one and the same.
‘That’s not all, guv,’ DS Vaughan said. ‘The office just got back to me on those other names. There’s a misper file on all of them. And the dates on the map more or less coincide with when they disappeared.’
‘Shit. Are most of them local?’
‘Not at all. A few are from London, a couple from Dorset and two are tourists from abroad.’
Temple’s voice cracked with emotion as he shared this information with the rest of the team when they gathered inside the mobile incident room for the first on-site briefing.
The sheer magnitude of what they were dealing with had now sunk in. Even Beresford, a detective with a wealth of experience, was visibly shaken. And he wasn’t the only one. Fiona Marsh kept shaking her head and silently mouthing ‘Oh my God’ as Temple ran through the facts.
He said there was no correlation in age, status or gender between the people who had disappeared or been kidnapped.
‘We have to work on the assumption that the Hamiltons were abducted, probably while visiting the Knightwood Oak,’ he said. ‘The stun gun we found in Mason’s desk may have been used to bring them down before they were restrained.’
Temple went on to list what else was in the loft for the benefit of those who had not been up there. He described the photos on the wall and said that the desktop computer was being analyzed. He mentioned the clothes in the wardrobe and the personal belongings in the cabinet.
‘The watches, the rings and the bracelet probably belonged to the victims,’ he said. ‘We need to talk to their relatives about that stuff.’
Temple then told them what little he knew about Grant Mason. He said he would talk to Hilary Dyer again, and wanted teams to visit the local village and all the pubs within a three-mile radius.
‘I’ve met one of his friends,’ Temple said. ‘A guy named Tom Fowler. I’ll get his contact details from Hilary. Meanwhile, someone should talk to his publisher. We need to build up a picture of Mason as quickly as possible.’
‘What about the intruder you encountered last night, guv?’ Marsh said. ‘Could the break-in have had something to do with all this?’
‘It’s a good question, Fiona, but I really don’t know. He may have been an opportunistic local thief who heard that Mason had died.’
‘Do we know yet what he stole?’
‘Not yet, but there’s a laptop missing from the downstairs office.’
‘So, what’s the next step?’ DS Vaughan said. ‘With the map, I mean?’
Beresford answered this one. ‘A specialist search team is already on its way to the location marked with Paul Kellerman’s name and the most recent date. We don’t know how accurate the map is or how big an area we’ll have to check over, but if there is a grave there I’m confident we’ll find it. Meanwhile, I just spoke to the Chief Constable about the other locations on the map. He’s arranging for small teams to visit each one to see what the areas are like. But it’ll be kept low profile and no digging will take place until I give the go-ahead.’
15
It was in a quiet part of the forest south of the A35 and about five miles from Mason’s house. Open heathland dominated the area, but there were also woods and a small lake.
Paul Kellerman’s name, along with the tiny cross, had been scrawled on Mason’s map just above the lake and slightly to the left of a small parking area.
A couple of walking trails led away from the parking area. One went into a wood of silver birch and beech trees, and the other cut through a jungle of tall yellow-flowered gorse bushes.
By the time Temple arrived in the middle of the afternoon, the search was well underway. Strimmers had been used to clear some of the scrub and foliage. They were employing cadaver dogs and the latest ground-penetrating radar equipment to try to locate a grave. Success in finding a body would depend on how deep it was buried.
The parking area was crammed with vehicles and Temple knew the media would soon get wind of what was going on. Then the hordes of reporters, photographers and TV camera crews would descend.
The activity around Mason’s house had already prompted a call from the local newspaper, which had been tipped off by someone in the village. If it turned out that Grant Mason had been a serial killer, then it would ignite interest around the world.
Temple was already feeling the pressure of an inquiry that was growing by the minute. His team were working flat-out. Fiona Marsh had gone back to the office to coordinate things from there and DC Derek Whelan had been left in charge at the house. Vaughan was with Temple as they waited to see if the search teams would make a grim discovery.
Fortunately for everyone, the day was mild and dry and the sun was making the occasional appearance through the cloud cover.
Temple called Hilary Dyer and told her about his encounter with the burglar, but not about what was found in Mason’s house. She was shocked and said that she remembered locking the door after her visit to the house yesterday morning.
‘Who else would have a key?’ he asked her.
‘I really wouldn’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have one. In fact, yesterday was the first time I’d ever been in the house by myself. Tom Fowler might, I suppose, or Noah Cross perhaps.’
‘Who’s Noah Cross?’
‘Another of Grant’s friends. They played golf and drank together. He lives with his twin sister Amanda in East Boldre.’
‘Do you have his number?’
‘I’ve got his contact details on file, but it’ll also be on Grant’s phone.’
‘Do you know where his phone is?’
‘I have it here with me along with his wallet and personal stuff. The hospital put it all in a bag.’
‘I’m going to arrange for someone to pick them up,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile I’d rather you didn’t speak to anyone about any of this, especially the media.’
‘What is it you’re not telling me, Jeff?’ she said. ‘Did you find something at the house?’
‘I’ll come and see you a bit later, Hilary,’ he said. ‘We can talk then. And I’ll want you to tell me everything you know about Grant Mason.’
‘Of course, but it’s really not much. We didn’t socialize and only ever discussed his work.’
Temple asked her about Mason’s laptop and she said it should have been on the desk in his office. He hadn’t taken it with him to the book signing.
‘Did you know he had an office in his loft?’ he asked her.
‘No, I didn’t,’ she replied. ‘But then why would he? He work
ed in the study downstairs.’
Temple told her to make a note of everything she knew about Mason, including a list of his friends and contacts.
‘I’ll drop by as soon as I can,’ he said, before ending the call.
As Temple pocketed his phone, Vaughan handed him a steaming coffee in a Styrofoam cup.
‘The van’s just arrived with some sandwiches, guv,’ Vaughan said. ‘D’you want me to get you one?’
Temple sipped his coffee and grimaced as it burned his tongue.
‘I’m not hungry, thanks,’ he said.
‘Me neither. But then I don’t suppose anyone here has got much of an appetite right now.’
‘It’s an unpleasant business,’ Temple said.
Vaughan nodded. ‘This Mason bloke must have been some piece of work. What he got up to was fucking sick.’
‘And the scary thing is there are a lot more like him out there.’
‘Too right there are,’ Vaughan said. ‘That’s why I never want kids. I just don’t think it’s fair to bring a new life into this fucked up world.’
Temple immediately thought about Angel and the fact that she was pregnant with his child. In all the excitement he’d pushed it to the back of his mind. And he was too preoccupied now to dwell on it. But Vaughan’s comment caused a knot to form at the back of his throat because he found it hard not to agree with the sentiment.
The world was indeed fucked up. It was also cruel and corrupt and crowded. What sane person would want to throw another baby into the mix?
They had an unexpected result after only three hours. A GPR machine was sending short pulses of high-frequency radio waves into the ground close to the stump of a felled oak tree. Suddenly the receiver picked up returning pulses – an indication that there was an object below the surface.
The spot was in the woods about forty yards off the walking trail. The ground was covered with leaves and broken branches. When the cadaver dogs were called over they got excited, which was a cue to start digging.
Dusk was fast approaching by this time, so high-powered spotlights were set up and forensic technicians were summoned.
The GPR operator estimated that the object was about three feet beneath the ground, so it didn’t take long for two men with shovels to reach it. A shout went up when one of the men spotted something in the soil. It was part of a black plastic bin bag.
Temple hunkered down next to the ditch as the earth was carefully removed and more of the bag was revealed. It was no longer intact and the body inside it was soon exposed.
The sick, rancid odour of decomposed flesh suddenly filled the air, and Temple found himself staring down at a face that had been half-eaten away by insects.
This was the third time in his many years on the force that he’d witnessed a clandestine grave being uncovered. But that didn’t make it any easier to take in. He stood up and felt a rush of bile in his throat.
After two months in the ground the body was in a bad way, but it hadn’t been completely reduced to a skeleton. It appeared it had been wrapped in several bin liners and bonded with tape. This had held back the rate of decomposition. There was still some decaying flesh on what they could see of the naked torso, and dark strands of hair clung to the skull.
‘Looks like a young man to me,’ Vaughan said.
Temple thought so too. ‘We’d better get the pathologist here right away.’
He left it to the forensic team and walked away from the grave with the blood beating in his ears. He’d been hoping that they would be proved wrong about Mason’s map. But now there was every reason to believe that another fourteen bodies were buried in the forest.
When he reached the parking area, Temple called Beresford and gave him the news. The Chief Super was in a meeting with the Chief Constable.
‘Is it the body of the missing student?’ Beresford asked.
‘We won’t know that for a while, but I’m pretty sure it is,’ Temple said.
‘Then we have no choice but to go public with this, Jeff. There’s already a TV crew at Mason’s house and the papers are pestering us for information.’
Beresford asked Temple to keep him informed, and said he would talk to the Chief Constable about cancelling all leave and assigning an army of officers to the case.
‘I’ve got a feeling that Grant Mason is about to become as notorious as Fred West,’ Beresford said. ‘And that means the eyes of the world will be watching to see how we handle it.’
Temple knew what it was like to be at the centre of a media storm. The last time he experienced it was when the sniper was shooting at motorway traffic. He feared that the pressure this time round would be even more intense. The nature of the crimes would have a chilling effect on the public. As did those murders committed by Fred West and his wife Rose between 1967 and 1987.
West was a sexually depraved killer who murdered at least eleven girls and women, including members of his own family. He, like Mason, filmed himself raping and torturing his victims. He then buried them in his garden and in fields around his homes in Gloucester.
Grant Mason might have murdered more people than West and if he hadn’t suddenly died of a heart attack, God only knew how many victims he would have claimed.
‘You want a ciggy, guv?’ Vaughan said as he stepped up beside him.
Temple had officially given up the weed a year ago, but he occasionally had a smoke in stressful situations and Vaughan was well aware of that.
Temple was about to succumb again when his mobile buzzed. He took it from his pocket and saw the call was from DC Marsh.
‘I was going to ring you,’ he said. ‘We just found a body. And it’s probably that of the student Paul Kellerman.’
He heard Marsh mumble an expletive.
‘I’ve got more bad news for you, boss,’ she said. ‘It’s why I’m calling.’
‘Then fire away.’
‘We’ve been trawling through the stuff on Mason’s computer,’ she said. ‘And we came across photos and some video clips that were a bit of a shock.’
‘Why?’
Marsh cleared her throat. ‘Well, they provide conclusive proof that Grant Mason wasn’t doing what he did by himself – the bastard had an accomplice.’
16
As always, it came upon him suddenly, an animal lust that needed sating.
He had never been able to control it, except during those years in prison when he’d been forced to satisfy his cravings with memories and fantasies. But being free again meant that he could respond when the familiar desire stirred inside him. And that’s exactly what he intended to do now.
All day he’d been in a state of high anxiety, wondering what, if anything, the police had found in Grant Mason’s house. It had played on his mind to such an extent that he hadn’t thought about anything else.
But now he could enjoy a brief respite thanks to those ever dependable demons in his head. It was as though they knew he needed a distraction, a release from the turmoil that was raging inside him.
His heart started to pound at the prospect of what he was going to do. And as he got up from the sofa and switched off the television, his excitement was already at fever pitch.
He bounded up the stairs to his bedroom and stripped off all his clothes. Then he studied his reflection in the mirrored door on the wardrobe.
He was pleased with what he saw. The narrow waist and hard, flat stomach. The sharp, delicate nose and full lips. The soft features and supple skin. The huge, pink-tipped penis that was already standing to attention.
Not bad, he thought, for a man in his mid-forties who ate all the wrong food and no longer worked out.
He went back downstairs, turned off all the lights in the house and then opened the concealed door in the hall that led to the basement. He stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him.
The darkness enveloped him like a heavy cloak and a jolt of pure electricity pulsed through his veins. He held his breath and listened to the whispered voices below. The s
ound was something to savour and it suffused him with a giddy feeling of power and total control.
They knew he was back, and he was sure that he could smell their fear; it hung in the air like sweet perfume.
He waited thirty seconds before switching on the light. A single naked bulb on the ceiling filled the basement with a warm orange glow.
The temperature was the same as in the rest of the house – a comfortable twenty-two degrees day and night. That was so his playthings wouldn’t get cold. He didn’t like it when their flesh was covered in goose bumps.
He reached the bottom of the short staircase and surveyed the scene before him. The basement was forty feet long by twenty feet wide. It was one of the features that had convinced him to buy the house. The other was the fact that the property had been considerably run-down and therefore dirt cheap.
There was a cement floor and blank walls on which were displayed all kinds of sexual paraphernalia. An array of whips, canes and riding crops hung from brass hooks. Chains with leather bracelets hung from the ceiling and walls. Shelves were filled with butt plugs, handcuffs, bondage tape, ball gags, coloured ropes and various other devices for inflicting both pleasure and pain. Grant, who had helped him to purchase and then set up all the equipment, had always referred to it as the dungeon.
The centre of the room was taken up by two single beds and a wooden dining table with three chairs. Next to the beds were two chemical toilets of the kind used by campers. In one corner, a tripod for use when taping the action.
His latest playthings occupied the beds and had done so since being brought here six days ago. The beds were screwed to the floor so they couldn’t be moved. His playthings were cuffed to the beds so they couldn’t escape.
It was the perfect set-up. Clean, virtually soundproof, extremely intimidating. A great place for letting the imagination run riot.
‘Please … let us go.’
It was the woman, whimpering as usual. Hadn’t she realized by now that begging turned him on?
She was sitting up in the bed, clutching the blanket tightly around her shoulders. She stared at him pleadingly through one eye – the other was still bruised and swollen from the beating inflicted by Grant on Monday when he got carried away.
