Killing Mind: An addictive and nail-biting crime thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Book 12)

by Angela Marsons

  ‘Not bad,’ Kim said, as Bryant parked in front of a detached house on the outskirts of Kingswinford.

  If this was Eric Leland’s home, they were not looking at his criminal activities as a result of an underprivileged childhood.

  A silver Lexus sat on the gravelled, low-maintenance drive.

  Kim knocked the door that was answered immediately.

  The woman was in her late forties with a blunt fringe bob. Her face was fully made-up and she was dressed in a powder pink skirt suit. The heels were not something Kim would have attempted to walk in, in a million years.

  ‘Mrs Leland?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, reaching for an oversize handbag.

  ‘Is Eric home?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid he’s not. Who wants him?’

  They both held up their ID at the same time.

  ‘May we come in?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Of course, but Eric isn’t here right now.’

  ‘When might he be back?’

  ‘Officer, my son is twenty-seven years old. He really doesn’t give me details of his plans.’

  ‘Well, may we speak to you for a moment? Maybe he’ll turn up while we chat.’

  ‘No, he… umm… let me just make a call. I’m due in early for a meeting.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kim said, entering the room she pointed to while she headed away, her phone in her hand.

  Kim instantly felt out of place in the room furnished in varying shades of white, everything was focussed or pointed towards a piano that stood before the window.

  Framed photographs of a handsome man, Mrs Leland and a young boy at varying ages stared back at her.

  ‘Okay, meeting delayed,’ Mrs Leland said entering the room. ‘We all like to think we’re indispensable, don’t we?’

  Kim said nothing and the woman followed her gaze.

  ‘Henry, my late husband, was a pianist.’

  ‘Sorry for your loss, Mrs Leland,’ Bryant offered.

  ‘Martha, please, and it’s almost six months now but thank you anyway.’

  ‘May I ask how he…’

  ‘Massive stroke. Died instantly. He didn’t suffer, thank goodness; now how may I help you?’ she asked, tucking her skirt behind her legs as she sat.

  ‘Ideally, we’d like to speak to Eric.’

  ‘Unfortunately, that’s not possible so you’ll have to make do with me.’

  The words were not unpleasant but they were final.

  ‘Mrs Leland, have you ever heard of a place called Unity Farm?’

  Her face paled and her eyes hardened.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of it. The damn place pretty much ruined my life.’

  ‘Please, tell us about it,’ Kim urged.

  ‘Happy to. They got hold of my son and wouldn’t let him go. Don’t get me wrong. I was glad of his new friends at first. I was getting a lot less calls from you people but that didn’t last long.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Okay, I need to explain that Eric was not an easy child. We tried every form of parenting and nothing worked. He was extremely demanding and not happy unless he was the centre of attention all the time.

  ‘He got expelled from three different schools and none of his friends ever visited twice. He was a bully who enjoyed negative attention more than positive. We tried everything: boundaries, no boundaries, tolerance and loving, firm. We tried two different counsellors and one of them refused to see him again after he touched her inappropriately. As parents, we totally failed and hoped he’d grow up. The behaviour followed him into his twenties and actually got worse. And then he met a man named Jake.’

  She paused for breath and shook her head.

  ‘This man became like God to him and after seeing the initial change in our son he became a God to us too for a while. It was as though we had the son we’d always hoped Eric would be. The violence stopped, the attitude went away and when we saw him he no longer called us names.’

  Kim wondered just what it had been like to live with Eric.

  ‘After about eighteen months Eric started to ask for money. Small amounts at first. We knew he wasn’t using it for drugs, so initially, we indulged him. I suppose it was relief or guilt that we hadn’t been able to effect this change ourselves. Anyway, the requests got bigger and more often until his father said enough was enough. He would give no more money until he could see where it was going. When we sat down and did our sums we saw that he’d spirited away almost twenty thousand pounds.’

  ‘How did he react to your refusal?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Badly. We woke one night to find him trying to take our possessions from the house. Henry tried to stop him, but the van outside was already half full.’

  Martha took a breath.

  ‘Eric beat up his father, called him a zombie, that’s their favourite name for non-cult members, and told him that the Farm needed the stuff more than we did. My husband never fully recovered physically or emotionally from the attack. That one action from Eric that night changed Henry’s life completely.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Eric stamped on his hands, repeatedly. Broke seventeen bones and he was never able to play the piano professionally again.’

  Kim tried to hide her horror but failed. There was a cruelty in that one action that said so much about their son.

  ‘Exactly. That’s when we knew Eric had been brainwashed. Old Eric, however bad he’d been, would never have done something so cruel.’

  Kim couldn’t have stopped listening even if she’d wanted to.

  ‘We thought getting him back from Unity Farm would be the hard part. We were offered an opportunity and took it but our problems only increased. We thought if we could just get him away from Jake we’d be able to talk some sense into him. It just made him worse. He resisted every attempt we made to make him understand that he’d been lured into a cult. His loyalty to the Farm and the people there grew even stronger being forced away from them. He began to threaten our lives, saying that once he got back home to his family he would make a plan to come back in the night and kill us both. It was as though we were dealing with a stranger; a violent hate-filled unpredictable stranger, who was capable of murdering us while we slept. We really did fear for our lives.’

  ‘So, what did you do?’ Kim asked.

  ‘The only thing we could do.’

  ‘Which was?’ Kim repeated, unable to join the dots.

  ‘To save our son and to save ourselves we only had one option.’ She paused and breathed deep. ‘We had our son committed.’

  Sixty-Eight

  The boss had instructed her to get background on Kane Devlin and Britney Murray. After a quick search, Stacey had decided to start with the easiest first.

  Sad as it was, Britney Murray’s story was not unique. Born to a teenage mother in the late nineties she’d been placed on the ‘at risk’ register when her unnamed father had walked out when she was five years old. Child Services had been alerted to her mother’s neglect by neighbours who had feared the child was being left alone for long periods of time. Despite their best efforts to keep the family together the girl had been taken into care when she was seven years old. Foster homes had followed until she dropped out of school and the care system when she was sixteen years old. She had no criminal record, and Stacey couldn’t help wonder at the girl’s life in the intervening years before she’d found safety at Unity Farm.

  A part of Stacey hoped that the place was not as dubious as it was beginning to appear and that Britney had found somewhere she could be happy amongst the family she’d never had.

  Judging by the quick update she’d just received from the boss, Eric Leland had been happy there too. And yet the closed group on Facebook had not wanted Eric Leland to join. He was still loyal to Jake, so did that mean the people in that group were not?

  The boss had told her earlier not to deviate from her tasks and she wasn’t going to. Well, not for long, anyway.

  She searched for the group again.
No result. She tried again. Nothing. Damn, either the group had changed its setting to ‘secret’ or had been closed down completely.

  She logged into the fake profile she’d made the day before and accessed her messages. The terse response from Penny Hicks was still there telling her, or Eric Leland, to fuck off.

  Stacey stared at the screen and tapped her chin.

  She’d tried every devious method she could think of to infiltrate this group to learn more about Unity Farm, except for one. Honesty.

  She clicked on the bar at the bottom of Penny’s response and typed.

  May I be honest about who I am?

  Stacey watched as the blue circle with a tick appeared. Message delivered.

  The photo of a plain blue sky dropped down. Message read.

  Three dots. Typing.

  Stacey readied herself to be told again to go away.

  Yes

  came the response.

  I’m a police officer investigating the murder of two people linked to Unity Farm.

  Three dots.

  Names?

  Stacey hesitated.

  Samantha Brown and Tyler Short

  Tyler’s dead?

  You know him?

  Stacey asked, quickly.

  Yes

  Were you at Unity Farm at the same time?

  Yes

  Did Tyler follow Sammy into the cult?

  Yes

  Because he was in love with her?

  Yes

  Did he leave because she was gone?

  Not straight away

  Why not?

  Because he’d made other friends.

  Was he seeing someone else?

  Not allowed

  Who was…

  I’m going now

  Penny typed before Stacey had chance to finish her question. She backspaced and asked a different one.

  Did you leave Unity Farm?

  Yes

  How long were you there?

  12 years

  What are you scared of?

  Jake

  Why?

  He hates people who leave. Always has.

  What does he do if he finds them?

  Stacey asked, feeling the anxiety rise in her stomach.

  Message delivered.

  Message read.

  No response.

  Stacey wondered if her system was frozen. The responses up to now had been brief but immediate. She pressed refresh and returned to her message folder.

  The message was still there but the profile had turned grey and was called ‘Facebook User’.

  She returned to the search bar and typed in the name but it was too late.

  The profile of Penny Hicks was gone.

  Sixty-Nine

  ‘So, who were the other guys on the bus?’ Tiff asked, as they were dropped at a housing estate just outside Netherton.

  ‘Sam, Frankie and Enya work full-time at the Tesco Superstore and the others ask for donations.’

  ‘You mean begging on the streets?’ Tiff asked, surprised. Unity Farm seemed above that somehow.

  ‘Jake doesn’t like to call it that. Every member of the family has to contribute something. Some are illiterate and can’t manage even the most basic work. Jerry even borrows a dog from an old mate sometimes. Beggars with dogs make more. Double whammy of social conscience and dog lovers,’ Britney explained heading deeper into the estate.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ she said, turning a corner. ‘You’re going to meet one of my favourites, Hilda, she’s a character.’

  Britney pushed open the gate to an unremarkable semi-detached house with a box porch.

  She stepped inside and retrieved the key from beneath a pot holding a dusty artificial plant.

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  Hilda looked startled for a second until she saw who it was. She smiled widely at the red-haired girl and then transferred that smile across to Tiffany when she realised she was not alone.

  ‘This is Tiff, she’s my new friend. You’re going to love her.’

  The woman’s face creased even more as she clutched Britney’s hand. ‘If she’s anything like you, I will.’

  Britney blushed. ‘Has Liz been gone long?’

  ‘Not long. She’ll be back later.’

  ‘Liz is her home help,’ Britney said, taking the pillow from behind Hilda’s back. ‘Comes in twice a day to get her up, put her back to bed and prepare easily cooked meals for later. It’s not enough,’ Brit said, punching the pillow and sliding it back behind her.

  Brit positioned herself back in front of the old woman.

  ‘What shall I fetch today, Hilda?’

  The woman reached for her purse, which was lodged between her thigh and the chair.

  A short list was on the table on the other side.

  Britney read it. ‘“Boiled ham, a tomato and a tub of Lurpak”.’

  Hilda nodded and handed Britney her purse.

  Britney opened it and took out a five pound note. ‘This is all we need today, Hilda.’

  Hilda nodded and put the purse back by her thigh.

  Britney put the list in her back pocket.

  ‘You wanna keep Hilda company and make us all a cup of tea?’ Britney asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Tiff said, as Brit headed out.

  She stood in front of the elderly lady. ‘How do you like your tea, Hilda?’

  ‘Strong with two sugars,’ she answered with a smile. ‘Cups not mugs.’

  Tiff headed to the kitchen and filled the kettle. She retrieved three cups and opened the unmarked canisters. The first was wedged full of triangle tea bags. She placed one in each cup. The second held neither coffee nor sugar but a rolled-up stash of notes. Tiffany smiled as she replaced the lid. Her own grandmother had kept an envelope of money behind the bread bin. Some people didn’t trust banks and building societies. The third canister contained the sugar.

  She headed back into the lounge, pleased that she’d accompanied Britney. It warmed her heart seeing the help she gave this lady. She forced herself to remember what she was here to do.

  ‘How often does Britney come to see you, Hilda?’ Tiffany asked, taking a seat.

  ‘Couple of times a week. She is an angel. Fetches me anything I want. Liz doesn’t have the time.’

  ‘No children?’ Tiff queried. If there were they should be shot leaving this woman’s care to total strangers.

  She shook her head. ‘Wasn’t meant to be but Ernest was enough for me,’ she said with a little sniff of emotion. ‘I look forward to her visits, always smiling. She’s a good girl.’

  Yes, Tiff was beginning to see that.

  ‘She brings her new friends now and again but mainly she’s on her own.’

  ‘How did you meet?’ Tiff asked, sitting down.

  ‘She just turned up one day saying she was doing some volunteer work in the area and asked if there was anything I needed from the shops.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  ‘Well Ernest had only been gone a couple of weeks so it was about four months ago.’

  She leaned forward and winked. ‘I think one time she brought her young man with her. I didn’t say anything but I could tell the way she looked at him.’

  Tiffany chuckled at the glint in the woman’s eye. The woman must have been mistaken. They weren’t allowed to form romantic attachments the boss had said.

  She left Hilda for a few minutes to finish making the tea.

  When she returned with the drinks on a tray, Britney was just coming back in the door.

  ‘Ah, lovely,’ she said, spying the steaming hot mugs.

  Britney held her hand out for Hilda’s purse and dropped the change back in.

  ‘I’ll just go and pop these in the fridge and you’ll be able to make your nice little supper sandwich later.’

  Hilda smiled as though Britney knew all her secrets.

  ‘Yes, that fridge is making a strange buzzing noise. I th
ink it’s on its last legs,’ she said. ‘A bit like me.’

  ‘Nonsense, Hilda,’ Britney said, coming back into the room. ‘You’re just getting started.’

  Britney sat and took a sip of tea. ‘I’ve told you. You need to sell this place and come and live with me. I’d look after you.’

  Hilda smiled fondly. ‘I know you would, love.’

  ‘Speaking of which, do your feet need doing? I’m happy to cut your nails and rub in some cream.’

  ‘They’re grand, love. Maybe next time.’

  Britney finished her tea and Tiff followed suit.

  ‘Okay, Hilda, best be off.’

  Tiff collected both their cups and took them through to the kitchen. She rinsed them out, dried them and put them away.

  She turned and hesitated before leaving.

  For some reason, she reached over and picked up the middle canister.

  She was surprised to find it empty.

  Seventy

  By the time Bryant approached Russells Hall Hospital Kim still wasn’t sure how she felt about Mrs Leland’s admission.

  Further questioning had revealed that seven months ago Eric had been removed forcibly from the cult using the services of none other than Kane Devlin. And of those seven months Eric had been in Bushey Fields for six and a half of them. She had explained how Kane had advised her that Eric was so indoctrinated he feared for her life and that she had to make the choice to allow Eric to return to the Farm or ensure he could not hurt her or anyone else until he’d received professional treatment.

  On one hand, Kim could understand that the ever present fear of your own son coming one night to kill you could only be terrifying. But was it believable? And even if it was, was sectioning your own son really the only option?