by Dan Waddell
'Do you know whether the TCF have any access to computers, reference books, that sort of thing?' he asked.
'They didn't even allow televisions when I was there.
Maybe they do now. They do have a website -- I've seen it.'
He shook his head sadly but with the same wry bewilderment that characterized most of his actions and words.
'They have a website?' Nigel was astonished.
Pettibone nodded, eyes dancing with amusement in reaction to Nigel's disbelief. 'I know. Fucking crazy, huh?'
'Nearly all these groups have websites,' Donna drawled in agreement. 'Go and search and you'll see. They're competing.
You ban TV and everyone else having a PC because you don't want your believers to be led astray, but you need to let people know what you believe so the cult down the road doesn't snatch your recruit - if you don't grow, you can stagnate and die. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; the Kingston Clan; all of them bar the smallest and most backward have a website. The TCF might only have started with a few people but it's estimated to have around two thousand members now and, like Mormonism as a whole, it's growing.'
'I just thought these groups were a bit incestuous,' Nigel explained. 'That you had to be born into them.'
'No, your friend here is right,' Pettibone said. 'They want new blood. Usually female - or it's OK if you're already married and you don't mind sharing your wife. Or your daughter, for that matter. You just have to move to the ass-end of nowhere to sign up.'
'One thing I don't understand,' Heather interjected.
'The fire, yes it loomed large in the minds of the people of the TCF. It led directly to them setting up their Church.
But I don't see why the mainstream Church has withdrawn all reference to it. Why airbrush history when the history doesn't reflect that badly on you.'
'That's my Church,' Donna interjected. 'Think of these splinter groups as very embarrassing, ultra-embarrassing kid brothers. You don't even want to pretend you know them when they get into trouble or do something to shame you. You like to pretend they don't even exist. The Church is trying to distance itself as much as possible, act like they never were even Mormons in the first place -- get rid of the information, then you stop people following the trail. But one thing you can't do is stop living, breathing people passing it on by word of mouth.'
11
Foster was at his desk when his phone burst to life. He had been kicking his heels, as bereft of inspiration as the rest of the team. It was Heather; she was almost stumbling over her words in her eagerness to pass them on to Foster. Blood atonement, she kept repeating excitedly.
Blood atonement.
Foster managed to make her slow down and explain.
She told him what she had learned from Josiah Pettibone, about the splinter sect formed from the ashes of the 1890
tragedy, and their teachings.
'You've got to go there,' he said. 'Take a look around.'
She said she planned to at first light the following day, given the lateness of the hour in the States. 'They're pretty cut off from the world,' she explained.
Well, take care. Let me speak to Harris and let's see if we can open a channel with the US authorities. We might need them.' He paused. 'Do you think Naomi's there?'
'I doubt it. I mean, how? Unless he managed to change her appearance and get her a new identity in a week. Or rowed her here himself.'
She was right. It was doubtful. It was more likely that a former member of the TCF, or someone seeking to set up an offshoot, was doing it in their name. Heather's mind appeared to be heading in the same direction.
'They may keep themselves to themselves but they do have a website. There could be contact with the outside world. Maybe you could have a look and pass that on to the Americans - see if there's been any particular regular traffic to the site?'
Foster took a note. Heather rang off, but not before he'd wished her luck and urged caution once more. Neither of them knew what she might find when she got to Liberty City. He woke his computer from its snooze and hunted for the website of the True Church of Freedom. He found it immediately.
It was basic in design, and didn't play the theme from Deliverance as it loaded. The home page was rudimentary, a few pictures of the town and the rolling hills that surrounded it. There was a brief history of the Church and a set of links to one side. One was a link outlining their difference with mainstream Mormonism. The next was a list of revelations regarding the Church above and beyond those experienced by Smith, Young and Taylor. It included Orson Walker senior, Orson junior, and two successors.
Most of it seemed to be justifying their position as the one true Church and condemning the main Church as apostates.
Orson junior's first revelation, of June 1891, Doctrine and Covenant 143, caught his eye: Revelation given to the fifth prophet and fourth President of the Church, Orson Walker junior, concerning the oath of vengeance, which was only part of the temple endowment ceremony, but which, after the death of his father and members of his family as a result of a grievous fire, was, according to the Lord, to become scripture.
1. I say thus: Thou shalt seek and never cease to seek to avenge the blood of our Prophets on this nation, including the blood of my servant Orson P. Walker, and you will teach this to your children and your children's children unto the fourth generation.
2. If ye believe it, then let it be, Amen.
He read the revelation again and again.
There was the motive.
Harris agreed to approach the Home Office for permission to involve the FBI, though warned the process might be lengthy, and in the meantime cautioned against Heather wading into a small, tight-knit community, and urged patience. Foster knew there was no way he could stop Heather. He kept his counsel.
When the day was over, he decided to pay a visit to Gary, still at the safe house. He wanted the kid to see a familiar face. It was past eleven at night when Foster pulled up outside a detached cottage hidden behind some trees on the outskirts of a village just off the M4, fifteen miles outside London. The lights inside the house appeared to be off. He'd expected Gary to still be up. He checked the address he'd been given; he had the right place. Maybe the boy had got bored and gone to bed.
He got out of the car, parked half on the pavement.
The area was lit by a solitary streetlight. The nearest house was 200 yards away down the road, another detached cottage.
A few cars went past, then nothing. It was quiet and isolated and secluded. Ideal.
He went towards the house, which seemed to be a simple but spacious two-up two-down. All very bucolic and homely, he thought. A million miles away from what the kid was used to. Out front was a small gravel drive where a Ford Scorpio was parked. The back and front lights were flashing intermittently. The alarm must have gone off and muted itself. The wind, probably. But why hadn't they come out and shut it off?
He found the doorbell but there was no sound when he pushed the button, so he knocked softly. No answer. This time he knocked more loudly. No answer. Odd. He thought it was the deal that at least one person stayed awake. He went to the front window, but the curtains were drawn and with the light off it was impossible to make anything out. Then he glanced at the front upstairs window.
The curtain hung open. He went back to the door and rapped hard. No response. A vague sense of disquiet settled in the back of his mind.
There was no point calling headquarters to see if the address had been switched -- or if they had holed up somewhere else for some reason -- because there would be no one there at this hour to respond. He put his hands on his hips and thought for a few seconds, then with a sigh gave up and went back to the car. He got in. Then he got out again. There was no way he could sleep until he'd discovered what was going on here.
He crunched back along the drive to the front door.
He tried the handle slowly. It turned. He pushed the door. It opened a few inches, then stopped. Som
ething was in the way. Something heavy. He couldn't get his head through the opening to see what it was so he gave the door another heavy shunt. It inched open. He squeezed his head through. Inside, the hall was dark but he could see the obstacle.
A body. The floor beneath was sticky and coated with blood.
Without thinking Foster gave the door the biggest shove he could muster, a rasp of pain coursing down his injured collarbone. He ignored it and squeezed round the door, trying not to step on the body. It was a man. Tall, thickset, balding. There was a small gunshot entry wound to his forehead. He'd been shot as he opened the door.
Foster could still smell cordite in the air. It was recent.
Foster went down the hall, breathless, a rising sense of panic in his craw. He turned into the sitting room. It was empty. A game console lay in the middle of floor, wires like spindly, tangled limbs. He checked the kitchen. It was difficult to see so he flicked on the light. There was a breakfast bar obscuring much of his view, at the end of which he could see a pair of trainers peeking out. The blood on the floor told him the person wasn't hiding. He peered round and saw the body of a young woman lying face down on the floor. Obviously dead. He looked up.
On the wall was a panic button. Given no one else was here the killer had managed to murder her before she had a chance to press it.
He turned round and sprinted up the stairs, which creaked after every step. At the top he checked the first room, a small bathroom with a dripping tap that was empty. Beside it was an empty bedroom, a double. The bed was made with an unopened suitcase on it. The next room was single and unoccupied. There was another set of stairs leading to a converted loft. He stood still, breathing hard. From up there he could hear the low murmur of voices, some laughter. A television. He walked up slowly, hoping against hope that Gary was lying propped up, watching TV, oblivious to the carnage below.
The door was ajar. He pushed it open, revealing a small room half-covered with sloping eaves which gave it the feel of a den. There was a bed, creased and used. Empty.
To his right were a sideboard and a television; the source of the noise was a comedy sketch show. He turned it off and looked around the room, staring at the floor and the sheets on the bed. Nothing. No sign of blood. Then, like a punch to the kidneys, it hit him.
He sprinted down both flights of stairs, ignoring the cries and protests of his body and his bursting chest, past both bodies, not even giving them a second glance. The back door was unlocked. He pulled it open and ran out into the large, dark garden walled by hedgerow, where a light rain drenched his face. He went down some stone steps and headed straight for the middle of the lawn where he expected to find the body of an elevenyear-old boy. There was nothing. He bent double, chest heaving, sucking in air. He pulled himself upright. Some mistake, surely. Gary's body had to be out here, its blood seeping on to the wet ground. He went to the borders, kicked at the bushes, peered into every nook and cranny, the drizzle soaking his scalp.
He screamed out the boy's name. Then again, from the pit of his stomach.
But there was no sign of him.
Dead or alive, he was gone.
12
They left Donna and Pettibone behind in Llewellyn, hired a car and set off before the sun had risen. The air was chill and clear; Nigel wound down the window and sucked in great lungfuls until Heather, nose almost pressing against the windscreen as she got used to driving on the opposite side of the road, told him to close it before she got hypothermia.
As they left the small town behind and headed into the fladands, a watery red sun crept up from behind silhouetted mountains to reveal mile after mile of landscape unbroken by the sight of man or beast.
Three hours of seeing only the occasional car and isolated petrol station later, the road led them up a winding hill. As they descended from the summit, in the distance they could make out a small, unspectacular town, the first they had seen for more than fifty miles. Nigel checked the map; it was Liberty. It must be - there was no other town within thirty miles. He felt his stomach tighten. It wasn't every day you paid a visit to a town filled with fundamentalists who had chosen to cut themselves off from the civilized world. He didn't know what to expect and wondered whether this was such a good idea. The plan was for them to portray themselves as innocent, bewildered tourists on a road trip, perhaps seek out somewhere to stay and hope there was one person in the whole community who might be willing to speak to them without arousing suspicion.
'Is this a good idea?' he asked Heather as they made their way down the hill, shading their eyes. The sky above them was cloudless and the rising winter sun was directly in front.
Her eyes, red from tiredness and staring at a straight road, narrowed. 'It's the best one we've got. Why, are you getting cold feet?'
'No,' he lied.
We're going to go in and ask some questions as nicely as possible. Look upon it as a piece of local history. You once told me that nothing beat a field trip, getting out there and asking questions. Consider it research.' She smiled.
He felt partly reassured, but the grip of tension in his gut remained.
The town wasn't signed. It was just there, as if dropped from the sky fully formed and without warning. One minute there was open road and wilderness; the next, a few houses that became a street and then other streets. The houses were simple one-storey structures, sometimes with a car parked out front, which surprised Nigel. All of them were painted white. Everything was white - the fences, the doors.
He expected it to be rather more basic. An American flag fluttered limply from a pole outside one or two, which gave a lie to the idea of it being some separatist movement.
We need a shop, or some kind of cafe,' Heather said, driving slowly. We need people.'
'There's one,' Nigel murmured. A woman was out the front of her house washing her doorstep. She stopped as their car passed, watching them. Nigel checked the rearview mirror as they pulled away. The woman continued to look. He guessed the road into town, pockmarked and battered, was barely used and rarely repaired. He checked Heather's face and saw the first signs of apprehension.
The town itself was neat and well ordered, organized into an almost perfect grid. Nigel had half-expected it to be clapboard shacks with tin roofs, barefoot inbred urchins playing in open sewers, while wild prairie dogs roamed seeking scraps for food. Instead, although his experience of smalltown America was strictly limited, Liberty did not seem that different from Llewellyn, only reduced in scale.
Heather drove towards the centre of the grid, through identical white streets and past identikit white houses that made reference points difficult. Eventually she turned into a small square, overlooked by a larger building that Nigel guessed to be either some kind of town hall or civic building, a small fountain in the middle. The centrepiece was a tall dazzling temple, which towered over the square. On its roof a cherub blew into a trumpet. Like all the other buildings it was white, but it seemed to gleam.
There was a small parking bay filled by a few other vehicles and Heather pulled slowly in beside them. Nigel checked his watch -- 9 a.m. He looked around. There must have been some form of recent celebration. Small white flags lined one side of the square; a small marquee and a few stalls lined the other.
Nigel did not notice Heather switch a silver band from her right ring finger to her left. She scanned the square: no more than a dozen buildings. Nigel was forced to squint, as the bright winter sun glanced off the pure-white buildings to create a dazzling glare. He now understood what Pettibone had meant when he advised them enigmatically to take their sunglasses. He did not have a pair.
Heather did, and put them on before sniffing the air. 'I can smell bread,' she said. Sure enough, in one corner of the square there appeared to be a bakery. As they walked over, Heather's boot heels clip-clopping loudly, Nigel felt as if he was being watched by eyes from every window overlooking the square. He looked up but the glare hurt his eyes. They saw no one. It was like the bright morning after Armaged
don.
A painted sign above the door said 'Liberty Bakers', and the smell was enticing. Loaves were stacked in the window.
A woman and a man were behind the counter in white hats. The store itself was empty. Flour hung in the air.
Heather walked in, bold as brass, Nigel in her slipstream, happy to give his aching corneas a rest from the fierce, reflecting light.
'Good morning.'
The man's face didn't change from its stony setting; the woman, however, smiled a rictus grin. 'Good morning,'
she said. There was a period of awkward silence. 'Can I help?' the woman finally asked, grin still fixed.
We're lost,' Heather said. We're hoping you could help.' ŚYou don't sound like you're local,' the woman said, still smiling, her eyes unblinking and wide.
'No, we're on a bit of a road trip and we needed to make a stop.'
The man dead-panned. 'Isn't much to see round here.'
'On our way to Oregon. Pinot Noir country.'
The woman kept smiling. 'I love your accent.'
'Thanks. English. My husband here is a wine connoisseur.'
Nigel
nodded eagerly, wondering inside, 'What?'
Well, you won't find any of that here,' the woman said, a hint of disapproval in her voice. We're a dry town.'
Heather held up her hand. 'That can wait for Oregon.
We're just after a place to wash and rest for a day before heading on. Made the mistake of driving through the night, miscalculating how far we had to go and everything.'
'A major miscalculation,' the man said, not even turning to look. 'The Oregon road is eighty kilometres north.
You're way off track.'
Heather turned to Nigel. 'See, I told you we'd taken a wrong turn,' she said, rather too theatrically he thought.
She shook her head. 'Is there anywhere in town we can stay, maybe get some help with directions? Lord knows we need them.'
