by M J Lee
‘I’ll try to explain it to you the same way Matthew explained it to me.’ She laid her hands in her lap and sat up straight. ‘We are all the products of our early lives. The Jesuits, those evil men, understood it best, when they said, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” But who were we, the children Matthew had been given by God? We had been taken from our families, or they had given us away, and we were put into a place, definitely not a home, where we were abused, mistreated, misused and assaulted. Every day of our young lives.’
She took another deep breath and stared off into mid-air. Mrs Ryder had closed her eyes now, her head resting back on the pillow, too exhausted to understand her daughter’s words.
‘When I was in the place, the home as they called it, I was punished for speaking out of turn by being put in a small cell behind the kitchen. There I sat, my head on my knees, and cried and cried and cried. There were no blankets, nowhere to sleep, nowhere to lay my head. And I was cold, so cold. Even now, the thought of it sends an ache deep into my bones.’
She shivered visibly before continuing on.
‘Once a day, I was fed. The door would open and a hand would place a tray with water and bread on it down on the ground. I never saw who it was, never heard them speak to me, never saw their face. Just a hand holding a tray. After three days, they let me out, telling me, “You must not be disobedient again, or else worse will happen to you.” I remained good for the rest of the time I was there, because I knew what they meant. The others were not so lucky, they were given to Davidson, or Dunphy or the gardener.’
For a second, Mrs Ryder lifted her head from the pillow and tried to speak, but the effort was too much for her and her head drooped back down again.
‘Matthew had been there too. It was where we first met. He had been treated badly by those men, used and sold to others like a slave. But he had come to understand why it happened. Even better, he understood how the sins could be expiated.’
‘What are you saying, Jane? What sins? Whose sins?’ Mr Ryder was leaning forward, trying to understand every word his daughter was saying.
Her eyes moved to his face. ‘Not ours, we were innocents and still are. The sins of the trespassers. You see, Matthew taught us we had to forgive them and help them find forgiveness from God.’
‘Forgiveness from God? I don’t understand, Jane.’ Mr Ryder tried to reach out to touch his daughter.
She pulled her arm away. ‘I have told you, my name is Barbara.’ The voice was icy cold. She closed her eyes for a second before continuing on. ‘It became our mission, the purpose of our group, to expiate the sins of the trespassers. “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” We helped the people who sinned against us, saving them from the fires of eternal damnation.’
‘How do you help them? I don’t understand.’
She opened up the pencil case and took out a hypodermic, removing the cover and pushing the needle into a small glass bottle filled with a colourless liquid.
‘What are you doing, Jane?’
‘Helping the sinner who is your wife, James. And afterwards, I will help you. Because yours was the sin of omission. You did nothing to stop her when she was abusing me.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘You didn’t want to know. You were as bad as she was. Everybody knew Jimmy Savile was abusing young girls and boys, but nobody did anything about it. Everybody knew children were being abused in Manchester, but nobody did anything. You are all sinners. You must be saved from the eternal flames of hell.’
Chapter 102
They raced down the M60, Claire Trent on the phone to Cheadle station asking them to send a squad car to the hospice urgently.
She put the phone down. ‘What’s our ETA, Henry?’
‘At this speed, about eight minutes, boss,’ the driver answered.
‘The squad car will arrive at roughly the same time. You think she is going to kill them, Ridpath?’
‘Yes, boss. As far as I can work out, she and Adam Jones have been planning this for years, killing the workers and volunteers at the children’s home.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not certain, boss. Revenge? A warped sense of justice? Religious fanaticism? You saw the altar at the farm, it reminded me of something Adam Jones said when we met him in prison. A verse from the Gospel of Matthew: “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”’
‘What? They’re cutting off people’s hands because of some verse in the Bible?’
‘I think so, boss.’
‘How come we didn’t know? How have they been killing people for all this time without us knowing?’
‘It was a cult, presided over by a charismatic man, Adam Jones. Think of Manson and his followers. I think its members were made up of former residents of children’s homes. People who had suffered abuse in their life.’
The exited the M60 at Cheadle, the houses on either side of the road blurring as the car accelerated in the outside lane, forcing its way through a red light. A sharp left threw Ridpath against the car door.
‘But wasn’t this Adam Jones in prison?’
‘I think he carried on running the group from there and they continued killing people, kidnapping those who had abused them in the past.’
The police car swung sharply left into the driveway of the large house that served as the hospice, sliding to a stop outside the entrance portico.
Ridpath and Claire Trent jumped out and ran through the front door. A nurse on reception stood in front of them, trying to stop them going further.
Ridpath flashed his warrant card. ‘Mrs Ryder, which room?’
The nurse ran behind her desk and checked the list. ‘Room twenty-three.’
‘Which way?’
She pointed down a long corridor. ‘At the bottom on the left, but you can’t—’
He ran down the corridor, hearing Claire Trent’s high heels clacking behind him, the sound echoing off the green walls.
Room 18.
Room 19.
Room 20.
Room 21.
Room 22.
Room 23.
He burst through the door. Mr Ryder was slumped on the floor in the corner, his body at a strange angle. Jane Ryder was holding a hacksaw dripping with blood. She lifted up the wizened right hand of her mother proudly, her blue eyes as cold as ice. ‘You’re too late. I’ve already released her.’ A used hypodermic lay on the bedside table.
Claire Trent brushed pat Ridpath, pulling handcuffs from her jacket. ‘Jane Ryder, I am arresting you for the murder of Patricia Patterson and Maureen Ryder. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be taken down and may be used as evidence in court against you.’
She grabbed the woman’s hands, twisted them behind her back and snapped the handcuffs around her wrists.
‘Do you wish to say anything?’
‘My name is Barbara Abbott, and I set her free.’
TWO WEEKS LATER
Chapter 103
‘Good morning, Ridpath, I thought you’d like to know Helen will be reconvening her inquest into the death of Jordan Harrison at Hordern Farm. After the confession of Jane Ryder, or Barbara Abbott, as she keeps calling herself, we were left with no choice. It appears he was killed when he wanted to leave the farm, it wasn’t an accident.’
‘I heard as much, Mrs Challinor, thank you for letting me know.’
‘How are you?’
‘Not bad, still a bit tired. The doctor at Christies says I need to look after myself better.’
‘That’s obvious. Do you want to take a few days off?’
‘Maybe later, we have so much to do at the moment.’
‘Your
call, but personally I would take the time away.’ She paused for a moment, biting the end of her pencil. ‘I’m sorry I put you under so much stress. I didn’t mean to, the problem with Mrs Ryder meant the inquest had to be resolved as soon as possible. I should have listened to you and postponed it.’
Ridpath didn’t answer. Part of him was still unhappy at Mrs Challinor. Her obsession with serving the families had created unnecessary pressure on the investigation.
‘I knew you were unhappy with my decision—’
Ridpath now tried to speak, but she halted him with a raised hand.
‘But given similar circumstances, I probably would make the same call again. It makes me wonder if I haven’t reached my sell-by date in this job.’
Ridpath tried to interrupt, but again she stopped him.
‘I’ve been asking myself over the last couple of weeks whether I have become so obsessed with serving the families that I’ve lost focus on my judicial role. We are part of the system of justice, whether we like it or not, and justice takes time, it can’t be rushed.’
‘I appreciate your honesty, Mrs Challinor, but isn’t there a balance? We must serve justice and the families we represent equally. It often seems to me that one or the other suffers. Just look at the Hillsborough trials. Where was the justice for the families there?’
‘Of course, you’re right. It only makes me question my role even more.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘You know I’m due to retire next year.’
‘I didn’t know, Coroner.’
‘I had thought of continuing on, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps a younger person, one less involved, would do a better job.’
‘May I speak frankly, Mrs Challinor?’
‘Please go ahead, I think you’ve earned that right.’
‘I’ll put it as bluntly as I can. I think the world of justice and the families we serve would be poorer if you left the profession.’
The coroner looked down at her desk. ‘Thank you, Ridpath, you don’t know how much that means.’
An awkward silence lay between them for a second before Ridpath continued, ‘In one way your decision to hold the inquest broke the case. It brought Jane Ryder out of hiding, into the light.’
‘I never really understood why she did that.’
‘Loyalty. Obedience. Sheer devotion. I don’t know what it was, but she was ordered by Adam Jones to attend the inquest and she did. She was a sacrificial lamb to enable the others to get away.’
‘Have they been found yet?’
‘DCI Turnbull is leading the search, but they seem to have vanished into thin air. He thinks at least six people lived at the farm at any one time; however, there may be other cells in different parts of the country.’
‘It was shocking they could remain hidden for so long.’
‘They held the lease on the farm for seven years. Barbara Abbott won’t tell us where they were before then. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out.’
‘If Adam Jones hadn’t lost his nerve, they could have stayed there forever.’
Ridpath shook his head. ‘I think he worked out the secrets of the farm would have been discovered eventually. After my visit to him in prison, he wanted to clear up the loose ends.’
‘The Ryders were a loose end?’
‘Mrs Ryder was. We checked with other former residents of Daisy House. She used to volunteer there before it closed. Apparently she had a vicious temper, used to enjoy beating the kids with her belt and restricting their food, locking them away in the room off the kitchen where we found the backpack.’
‘Yet Jane was placed in her care?’
Ridpath shrugged his shoulders. ‘The same people who advised on the decision were the ones abusing the children. It was a vicious little cabal.’
‘How many people were killed?’
‘We’re not certain. Forensics has revealed at least nine different bodies in the field where the pigs were. The cult used the pigs to help them dispose of the bodies. Eight hands have been found, including the three in the backpack. Forensics now have the laborious job of matching the DNA to the workers and children who went to Daisy House. It will take a while.’
‘Why weren’t the deaths discovered earlier?’
‘Good question. I think it was because there were no bodies, so the people who vanished just stayed on the missing persons list.’
Mrs Challinor stared out of her large window.
‘I failed them, didn’t I?’
Ridpath shook his head. ‘This wasn’t another Shipman case. The deaths were never reported to the Coroner’s Service. They were missing people who would have stayed missing if the film crew hadn’t discovered the backpack. The strange thing is we still haven’t found out the identity of the third female hand.’
‘Who do you think it is?’
‘Because she was so young, I think it was a resident who somehow aided and abetted the abusers to save herself. But Jane Ryder isn’t saying a word.’
He gestured towards the door.
‘I’ll get back to work now, we have the family waiting outside. After we’ve finished, I need to head over to MIT.’
‘Another case?’
He shook his head. ‘Not now. Just ploughing through the submission to the CPS on Jane Ryder.’
‘What’s going to happen to her?’
‘I hope she gets locked away for the rest of her life, but it’s all in the lap of the gods.’
Mrs Challinor smiled. ‘Otherwise known as a judge and twelve jurors.’ The smile vanished and she stared straight at him. ‘I am sorry, Ridpath.’
He nodded once and closed the door behind him.
Mrs Challinor was left alone in her office. Still the feeling lurked inside her that she could have done more to help those who had died. How was it that no coroner was aware that any of them had been killed?
A wave of despair flowed through her. She had spent all her career dealing with death, perhaps it was time to care for the living.
She glanced at the picture on her desk of her daughter and her grandsons. Was it time to enjoy long days with them rather spending any more hours in this office?
She sighed and picked up another file, her latest case. Two young children had died in a house fire after an inflammable substance had been poured into their letterbox and set alight.
She realised it wasn’t yet time for her to go. There was still so much she and Ridpath could still do.
The guilty needed to cry, not the innocent.
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About the Author
M J Lee has worked as a university researcher in history, a social worker with Vietnamese refugees, and as the creative director of an advertising agency. He has spent 25 years of his life working outside the north of England, in London, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok and Shanghai.
Also by M J Lee
DI Ridpath Crime Thriller
Where the Truth Lies
Where the Dead Fall
Where the Silence Calls
Where the Innocent Die
When the Past Kills
When the Evil Waits
When the Guilty Cry
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © M J Lee, 2021
The moral right of M J Lee to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, incl
uding photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook ISBN 9781800325661
Print ISBN 9781800325678
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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