by Conrad Jones
‘Okay, look, if you want the full details, then I’ll start again.’
‘This is your last chance.’
‘Okay, okay. I found out that a missing girl called Pauline Holmes joined a satanic cult in Plymouth.’ He paused as he made up the lie in his mind. ‘That was all the information that I had so I began with the Internet and came up with the Church of Satan – which I’m sure you all know about – and then I tried to find her that way, but the people that I spoke to were jokers and potheads. After a year or so, she contacted her parents and the police and said that she wanted to go home, but she disappeared before anyone could actually talk to her face to face.’ He paused for effect, but his story wasn’t gaining any reaction in the room. ‘I found out that she bought a ticket to Manchester with her credit card and hasn’t been seen since. I looked into her case and found nothing but dead ends. There’s no substance to the story and that’s the truth.’
‘You said that she joined a group called the Nine Angles?’
‘I have no idea what they were called.’ Frustration and helplessness were creeping through him. ‘No one knows anything about her or who she was with. Like I said, there is no story. I don’t print speculation and there were no hard facts to go to print with.’
‘Come on now, Malcolm.’ She smiled again. ‘Malcolm Baines, up-and-coming, award-winning writer; you focused your attention on this Pauline Holmes girl and that’s all you could come up with?’
‘It’s impossible to know who she was hanging around with. She stopped having contact with her friends and family. She didn’t sign on the dole and she didn’t pay any taxes. She never signed on the electoral register. She no longer existed.’ He shrugged and tried to sound sincere. ‘She could have gone back to the order she joined or done a runner up north with the ticket that she bought. There is no evidence that she boarded the train, but I couldn’t find any that she stayed either.’ He appealed to the other faces but there was no response from them. ‘Who knows, and frankly no one will care because up until now, there has been no crime committed. Unless she makes a complaint or a body is found, there is no story, honestly.’
‘So, the mother never mentioned that her daughter joined a nexion of the Order of Nine ‘Angels’?’
Malcolm hesitated and his eyes flickered left as he manufactured an answer. He knew that the mother had mentioned Nine Angels. ‘Like I said before, her parents said something about the Nine ‘Angles’, not Nine Angels, but the detail was so sketchy, I didn’t follow it up. The police in Plymouth did some digging, but they turned up nothing. It was another dead end.’
‘He’s a liar,’ a man’s voice spoke this time. The voice came from the shadows at the back of the room. Malcolm heard footsteps as the man stepped into the light. The footsteps sounded like he was walking on gravel, and the sound echoed as if the room beyond the candlelight was cavernous. ‘He investigated the girl’s disappearance far deeper than that, and the police in Plymouth were convinced that she’d joined a group calling themselves Nine Angels.’
‘The police knew.’ She stared at Malcom and shook her head. ‘You’re lying to me.’
‘They knew but they were doing nothing about it. I told you, it’s a dead end.’
‘The police have left the case open. Malcolm even went down there himself, didn’t you Malcolm?’ The man showed himself.
‘What are you doing here, Clement?’ Malcolm’s eyes widened with surprise as the man stepped into the light. He was shocked by the man’s presence, but it also gave him some comfort momentarily. ‘Help me, Clement. Get me out of this thing, mate.’
‘I have no authority here, Malcolm. Fabienne is in charge here. I’m merely a source of information.’
‘Information?’ Malcolm repeated. Stark cold fear gripped him. His breathing was shallow, and his heartbeat reached epic levels. Tears formed as he realised how much they would know already. ‘What have you told them?’
‘I’ve told them everything Malcolm.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Why do you think?’ Clement answered with a smile. He reached out and touched the woman’s face. She chuckled at Malcolm and kissed Clement. She pulled away quickly and glared. ‘The rewards for helping out are generous, should we say?’
‘You’ve set me up?’
‘Well, I never liked you much, Malcolm. I can’t think of anyone who does, if I’m honest.’ The woman grew bored of toying with him and Clement looked disappointed as she stepped towards Malcolm. He looked at Malcolm with distaste. ‘You’re a fat, arrogant wanker at best and I was going to release you from your contract on your next review, but by meddling in our business you’ve saved me the time and the severance pay.’
‘You were going to let me go?’
‘Yes. You’re past your sell-by date.’
‘I wasn’t staying anyway. I had job offers queuing up, Clement.’ Malcolm rocked his head back against the clamp and laughed hoarsely. ‘He’s my boss. He’s my tight-arse editor and supposed to be my mate.’ Malcolm shook his head and looked at the blank faces in the room as if they should appreciate the betrayal. ‘So, that’s how this bunch of lunatics knew about the story, eh, Clement? You arsehole. You turned me in to this lot for lunatic; you wait until this comes out; you’ll never work in the industry again. I’ll see to that.’
‘Do you think it will come out, really?’ Jason Clement chuckled. ‘To quote you, “‘You have no idea who you’re messing with’”. We are also connected.’
‘If anything happens to me, the police will come down on you like a ton of bricks. I worked closely with them on this. They’ll find you. They’re already looking into it across two forces,’ Malcolm ranted. Saliva dribbled down his chin. ‘One scratch on me and you lot are heading for the loony bin.’
‘Who is looking into it, Malcolm?’ Clement neared him.
‘Never you mind,’ Malcolm sneered. He felt a little glimmer of hope in the knowledge that he’d contacted the police during his investigation. ‘They’re all over the cases I highlighted.’
‘Poor, deluded Malcolm.’ Clement shook his head. ‘Is it your friend Inspector Woods who is leading the hunt?’
‘I’m not telling you, Clement.’ Malcolm hissed. ‘If anything happens to me the police will come directly to your desk. They know that I was keeping you updated.’
‘I don’t think the police took you seriously.’
‘Oh, they did, you arsehole.’ Malcolm sounded like a petulant child. ‘Inspector Woods was well into it. He was all over the disappearance of the girl. It’s only a matter of time before his detectives come knocking on your door, darling,’ he sneered at the black woman. ‘Bloody lunatics,’ he barked at the expressionless faces around him. The woman smiled and seemed to look through him. She was looking at something behind him.
‘They’re not such a bad bunch, once you get to know them, Malcolm. The benefits of the sinister way are far greater than you can comprehend,’ a man’s voice came from behind. Malcolm thought he recognised it, but he couldn’t be sure. He tried to twist his head, but the clamp held him. ‘I was interested in your findings because I wanted to know how much you know about us.’ The speaker stepped from the side into view.
Malcolm swallowed hard and his lips quivered. ‘Inspector Woods? Don’t tell me, you’re with this bunch?’
‘The Nine Angels are not what you think they are, Malcolm,’ the Inspector spoke calmly. Malcolm almost laughed at the sight of his naked body. It seemed comical that the detective was speaking to him with his pot belly and bandy legs exposed. His testicles dangled ridiculously low from an unkempt bush of grey pubic hair. ‘We offer a different way of thinking, a different way of life. We’re not bound by the same rules as you. Society isn’t ready to embrace our alternatives yet, but it will.’
Malcolm closed his eyes as all hope disintegrated before him. He swallowed and shook his head as he spoke.
‘Okay, fine, I believe you,’ he said, deflated. ‘If I’ve pissed you all off,
then I apologise. Do whatever you like, just let me go. No one gives a toss what you lot do anyway, and I won’t tell them. I have no evidence and you haven’t hurt me, so who would believe me anyway?’
‘Society’s ignorance and fear of something different makes us pariahs, Malcolm. If we are to maintain our normal roles in the mundane world, secrecy is essential to our existence. You threaten that. We can’t let you go.’
‘Okay, I get the message.’ Malcolm chose to ignore the last line. He clung to the hope that this was a warning. ‘I need to bin the story and forget all about you lot. Fine, I’ll delete everything.’ Malcolm looked from the woman to the inspector to his editor. They looked at him, their eyes full of contempt and something else – pity. ‘Come on, no one will believe this shit anyway.’
‘Where is the story stored?’ The woman leant forwards. Her voice was stern but calm. ‘Lie and we turn the dial.’
‘What dial?’ Malcolm panicked. He thrashed about in the chair, but it was useless. ‘Please don’t turn any dials,’ he pleaded, despite having no idea what she meant. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything that you know,’ she whispered.
‘Okay, the story and all my research are on my laptop. Let me go and I’ll give it to you. I can get another one. I’ll leave my job and work somewhere else, just let me go and you’ll never hear from me again.’
‘He’s lying,’ Clement spoke. ‘He deletes everything from his laptop so that none of the other journalists can steal it.’
The woman nodded her head. ‘Turn it on.’
Malcolm felt movement behind him, and the chair seemed to vibrate. There was a faint hissing sound and he felt a cold draft against parts of his skin. ‘Don’t turn anything, I’ll tell you where my research is.’
‘You had your chance, Malcolm.’
‘I’ve stored it on a memory stick, don’t hurt me please,’ he begged; but his plea went unheeded. He heard a click, click, click, which reminded him of his gas cooker igniting at home. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as nine gas rings ignited beneath him, burning his skin simultaneously. The crackle of sizzling hair and blistering flesh was audible, and the strong odour of burning skin filled the air. He screamed and his body twitched, trying to escape the pain, but the more he moved, the worse it became. ‘Stop, stop, stop.’
‘That hurts, yes?’ She smiled and watched the tears running down his face as the blue flames seared his flesh and boiled the body fluids as they wept from the sizzling wounds. The veins in his neck looked like they would burst, and his lips curled back to expose his teeth. ‘Each turn of the dial releases a stronger flame. The pain you’re feeling now is nothing to the agony we can make you feel if you keep lying to us. Where is your memory stick hidden?’
‘Please stop,’ Malcolm wailed. His brain couldn’t compute the amount of pain it was processing so it focused on the nerve endings which hurt the most. ‘Stop it or you’ll never see it.’ His words were almost inaudible.
‘I’ll never see the research?’ she hissed as Malcolm writhed in agony. ‘Then you’ll never see daylight again, Malcolm Baines.’
Malcolm screamed for help and the scream turned into a sickening wail. No one but the nexions heard his screams. Eventually, Malcolm told them where all his research was stored, and he gave them the personal details they needed to make his death look like suicide. The dial was turned up many times before his heart finally stopped beating.
CHAPTER 1
They’re Coming
I didn’t meet Malcolm Baines before he died, but I’d read some of his stories. We had a mutual interest in the spread of organisations that were linked to the disappearance of homeless people. People trafficking is something that we all know about, but we choose not to look at the facts in detail because it frightens us. Google ‘missing persons in the UK’ and check out the websites. Did you know a child is reported missing every three minutes? Every three minutes, yet our newspapers lead with celebrity crap day after day. Over two hundred thousand names are on our missing person lists, and that can be multiplied by ten in the US.
Malcolm researched traffickers across the globe in his search for the lost. He had a knack for seeking out missing persons, even those who didn’t want to be found. When they found his body in a burnt-out car, suicide was suspected. At the inquest into his death, the facts indicated that he had taken his own life. During the last twenty-four hours of his life, he’d apparently gone to a nightclub with his workmates, consumed a large amount of alcohol and cocaine, then signed up with three Internet gambling sites and lost every penny that he owned. His bank account was taken from a healthy balance to its overdraft limit within the space of a few hours, and his credit cards were maxed out shortly afterwards. According to the evidence presented at the inquest, after losing his fortune overnight he’d taken a five-litre can of petrol and driven his Porsche to a secluded spot in the New Forest, where he’d covered himself in the fuel and ignited it with his Zippo.
At the time of his death, I thought it very sad that a man could sink so low that burning himself to death was the only option that he had remaining. Now I know differently, although proving my theory at the time was impossible. The wreck wasn’t found for four days, so the charred remains of his body had been further ravaged by the forest wildlife. Murder was never suspected. His body was cremated before the inquest was finalized, thus making it impossible to request a second, more-detailed autopsy; apparently a mistake made at the morgue led to his body being released to an undertaker who disposed of the corpse at the expense of the state. The documentation handed over at the cremation identified the body as that of a John Doe; a homeless man who had no family. The mix-up made a few headlines at the time, but little was truly known about what really happened. In my opinion he was investigating the ‘Niners’ and they killed him for that. Then they made his death look like a suicide. It was over a year before anybody listened to me.
This is the hardest book that I’ve written so far. Why? Simple: because it’s true. And the knowledge that they’re coming for me piles on the pressure to write it quickly. How would you start a book about real evil and hold the belief of the readers? All I can do is give you the facts, the names and the Internet links for you to follow. Then it’s up to you to decide. I’m used to telling stories, but not like this one; not the truth. I’ve written biographies, but they’re somebody else’s truth, not mine. I write fiction, but this story is real. They say that fact is stranger than fiction, and it is true in this case. You only need to watch the news to realise there is more evil in the real world than in any fictional one. The evil that man can inflict upon fellow man knows no limits. Little surprises me anymore when it comes to the pain and suffering humans inflict upon each other. Where shall I begin my story? At the beginning, I guess.
The night it all began I was researching the novel that I was writing at the time, The Child Taker. It was inspired by the abduction of a young girl from an apartment in Portugal. She was on holiday with her parents and the story touched me so much that I wanted to write a novel where the abduction ended with the safe return of the child and all the bad guys died. Researching that book opened a window into a world that few would have the nerve to see, especially if you’re a parent.
One of the most shocking stories that I read surfaced in Charleroi, Belgium in August 1996, when a local man named Marc Dutroux was arrested and confessed to abducting two young girls. Newspaper reports alleged that he ran a business in which girls were kidnapped and sold. They were confined in cells in the basement of his house and then sold for tens of thousands of dollars. He admitted that he transported them out of the country for a life of child prostitution. Pornographic videotapes were found and used as evidence to support the case against him. Google his name and you’ll be saddened and amazed; dozens of links appear.
I often find disturbing stories during research, but this one rattled me more than most. The story of his arrest caused a public outcry as Dutroux was a convicted pa
edophile and had served time for the rape of five young girls. He was released after serving three years of a thirteen-year sentence. As the investigation came under the spotlight, accusations of satanic worship, rape and human sacrifice bubbled to the surface. This new slant on the twisted individuals involved baffled me. I simply didn’t believe organised groups gathered to worship the devil, engage in the rape of women and children and be a party to murder. This was the not the stuff of seventies horror films when Christopher Lee and Vincent Price were world-famous vampires. Those films were tame compared to the gory effects we see on screen today, but even the most warped imaginations wouldn’t have imagined this. The fact that it was real, sickened me, and sinister cults were firmly on my radar. I delved deeper into the story looking for the proof that this wasn’t just one depraved individual acting alone. I needed to see proof that large numbers of people could meet and indulge in activities that would make most of us vomit.
When they searched Dutroux’s home, they found a dungeon built in the basement from which they rescued two young girls – I won’t put their names in here. I see no need for that, as the story is easily accessed on the Net. Can you imagine what those girls had suffered? Although traumatised by their ordeal, they told police that they’d been tied up, transported to ritual gatherings, and raped repeatedly by numerous men. At least three hundred child pornography videos were taken as evidence; some featured the two survivors being abused by Dutroux. Where was the evidence of a satanic cult? Read on, because I need to explain where it all began for it all to make sense.
The day after finding the two survivors, police dug up the bodies of two eight-year-old girls – again, I’ll omit their names. They’d been missing for over a year. Two weeks later, they recovered the bodies of two more missing girls who had been buried deep under the floor of a shack in the garden. Dutroux confessed to raping and killing them. My question at this point was that if Dutroux was trafficking young girls for tens of thousands of pounds, then why was he burying their bodies beneath his property? Surely, they had a monetary value if he kept them alive. The truth is terrifying; obviously, they were being used for another purpose.