by J G Alva
“The charcoal should do just as well,” the doctor said, coming to stand near the head of the bed. “Miss Graham,” he said, waving her over. “Hold his mouth open.”
Aimee joined the doctor.
“I have to pour this in,” he explained.
She nodded. She looked at Toby. He was awake, but his eyes were at half mast, and a strange dreamy smile touched his lips. An overwhelming bubble of sympathy rose up in her. He was such a good boy…and now this…
“Miss Graham, we cannot wait.”
She nodded again. She put a hand on Toby’s jaw, and then another on his forehead. He was burning hot to the touch.
“Be careful he doesn’t bite you,” the doctor said, and then poured the fluid into Toby’s mouth.
The foul liquid seemed to slip neatly down his throat…until some involuntary reaction forced it back up and out of his mouth. He thrashed his head away from the doctor, leaning over the side of the bed and retching and coughing up what was in his stomach, and spraying it all over Aimee’s Christian Louboutins.
“Damn it,” Dr Ruminatra muttered, and when Toby had stopped coughing, he poured the last of the contents into his mouth.
“Quick, hold his mouth shut,” he ordered, and Aimee pushed Toby’s jaw shut, while at the same time holding tightly to his head with her other hand. He was sweating, and her hand wanted to slip down his forehead. Toby struggled to move his jaw, while Aimee struggled to keep it closed. A large runnel of the stuff was leaking out of the corner of his mouth and down her arm, but she saw his throat work, so at least some of it reached his destination.
“You can release him now,” Dr Ruminatra said. “It should absorb what remains of the poisonous substance in his stomach.”
She did as she was told, and stepped back, but she needn’t have worried, because it seemed like all the fight had gone out of Toby. The doctor gently eased his head back on to the pillows, and with the sheet wiped at the fluid around his mouth. The boy had a thousand yard stare, and might have been star gazing if there hadn’t been a concrete ceiling and a patio above his head.
Dr Ruminatra put a stethoscope against Toby’s chest once more, and seemed to be comforted by what he heard. He grunted and then bundled the stethoscope up.
Distractedly, Aimee noted Toby was no longer aroused.
“How is he?” Greg asked.
“He’s not out of the woods yet,” Dr Ruminatra informed him. “But he should be fine for the moment. I need to set up an IV to restore his fluid balance though.”
“Okay,” Greg said. He released his hold on his son’s legs as if afraid he might spring up off his back and attack him…but nothing happened. “Thank you, doctor.”
The doctor nodded, and turned to the medical equipment on the table.
Sutton had already released Toby, and now he stepped back from the gurney. He stared down at the boy, but there was no emotion on his face. His head twitched, and then he scratched at the back of his head, and in that moment she realised that someone had cut his hair…and badly. It was short, irregular, like an untrained aunt had hacked at it to save money. His lovely hair…It made him seem smaller somehow, less vital.
“Are you okay, Sutton?”
He looked at her. There was something in his look that made her feel uncomfortable. Some searching in his gaze, as if he was looking not at her, but through her. It was unnerving, and not like him at all.
“We’ve got another problem,” he said.
It took a moment for what Sutton had said to sink in.
“What?” She said, shaking her head. “What is it?”
“We have to move him,” he said, indicating Toby.
Greg was attending to his son, but looked up at this snippet of the conversation.
“What?” He sounded angry.
“We have to move him,” Sutton repeated.
Dr Ruminatra shook his head.
“Absolutely not-“
“You don’t understand. We have to.”
“Why?” Aimee asked.
He looked down at Toby.
“Because they’re coming for him.”
*
CHAPTER 2
“Do you have to go now?”
“I told you it was going to be tonight, honey,” Pat said.
His wife looked fiercely irate in that moment.
“Yes. An hour ago. This is ridiculous. They can’t expect you to drop everything just like that. They can’t.”
The Girls’ Room was a converted utilities room. They had chosen it because it had its own access to the back garden. The tumble dryer was still in the corner, but the rest of the space was filled with dog paraphernalia: two dog baskets, assorted balls, bowls for food and water…and under it all newspaper, which he had to change every couple of days.
Maisie and Prudence were Golden Retrievers, both three year olds and both boisterous; they excitedly jumped up at Pat, until he had to get down on his knees to satisfy them. Once on their level, they dissolved into excited yelps, and alternately ran around him in circles or licked his face.
“You know this is a very special case,” he said, in between being assaulted by the girls. “That I might very well have to drop everything-“
“Don’t let them lick your face like that, Pat. It’s disgusting.”
“Janine-“
“It’s Sunday night, Pat.”
Janine looked on the verge of tears.
He rose to his feet. The girls – quieter now – nudged at his hands with their noses or wandered around him in restless and confusing circles.
He looked at his wife.
She stood in the doorway, anger being replaced by misery. And fear. When they had first met, there had been no indication of the pervading fear that would come to rule her in later life. She had been a happy, carefree young woman…almost girlishly naughty on occasion. Now, more than just her appearance had changed. The red curls had been chopped back, and the colour came out of a bottle. She wasn’t a tall woman, and at fifty two she certainly didn’t look her age, but her eyes were flat and hard, and did not invite anyone in. She was still slim, but this came from nervousness and anxiety, not exercise; she suffered from IBS more often than not, and it all contributed. He loved her deeply…but it was not an easy and effortless love anymore.
“I know,” he said. “But there’s nothing I can do. Can you get Harriet to come over?”
“They’re in Lyme with Roger. When will you be back?”
“I don’t know. Not until the morning, if everything goes according to plan.”
She stared at him, and then with all the bitterness and betrayal of a scorned woman said, “you’re actually going to go?”
The anger was coming back.
He took a breath.
“Janine, I have to. This is the culmination of a four week operation involving three different departments-“
“Oh, for God’s sake, spare me the sales pitch. I know you, Patrick Dean Harris, and I can tell when you’d rather be at work than at home with your wife. Just go, if you’re going to go. See if I care.”
Janine turned and swiftly crossed the hall to the kitchen, where she slammed the door.
He turned to the girls, who stared earnestly up at him.
“At least you’ll miss me,” he said, rubbing their heads.
*
Detective Inspector Patrick Harris was a thirty two year veteran of the police force; he’d been in the police longer than he’d been married. He was a tall man, with a large thick neck; it was so large and thick that it seemed like an extension of his head. There was a continuing joke in the Major Crimes Investigation Unit, usually reserved for the newer members when they’d had their first glimmer of success:
“You may have solved this case, but have you found Inspector Pat’s neck?”
But there was no maliciousness in the telling and re-telling of this joke. On the whole, Pat was well respected. But he was such an oddity in his department that people couldn’t help remarking on it:
he had gone to Cambridge and had been a medal winning oarsman in the late seventies; he had a terrible taste in clothes, not so much out of date as simply inappropriate for his age: white slacks and rugby shirts and cotton sweaters tied around his neck in a loose knot; he was so softly spoken that when he addressed a working task force or a group of people they could hardly hear him, and the old nickname of Whispering Pat Harris would be resurrected; he never swore, and preferred not to hear anyone else use foul language; he had been bald for as long as anyone could remember, and with the hair of his eyebrows and even his eyelashes going from grey to white, he looked like he might be suffering from a severe turn of Alopecia. More than once he had been compared to Duncan Goodhew, and it didn’t help that he had a passing resemblance to the man.
He was just one of those men who seemed to be permanently out of step with the world around him…and completely unaware of it too.
But if these jokes and names were said with affection, then nobody joked about the quality of his work. He was like a tank, implacably pushing forward, unstoppable but for the most uncompromising of barriers. And if it was an obsession with him, then it was a quiet and polite obsession. The only person who really suffered at the hands of it was himself.
And perhaps his wife.
A month ago, DCI Kent had visited him in his home with a strange agenda.
They had been sitting on chairs in the back garden. Janine had been at Harriet’s again – she was at her house almost every day now – and they had been alone. The sun was shining; it was a beautiful cool May morning.
Raymond Kent was a short, hard man. He had close cropped white hair and small eyes crowding a nose that had been broken more than once. He was in his fifties, and had deep lines cut into his cheeks, as if scarred from a knife fight…but it was just old age. His skin was like an old white shirt that needed ironing.
“I’m setting up a taskforce,” Kent had said, his hands in the pockets of his flannel jacket. “I want to put you in charge of it.”
“Okay,” Pat said hesitantly, yet to determine if this was an honour or a punishment.
“You’ll be investigating a cult. A very worrisome cult. It’s my hope that, at the end of the investigation, we can put an end to this group once and for all.”
“Who are they?”
“The Church of the New Artisans. Have you heard of them?”
Pat hadn’t, and shook his head.
“They started about ten years ago. A really odd bunch. Drugs and orgies and things like that. I’m getting pressure to sort them out, once and for all. Tell me: what would you need to accomplish that? I can’t promise much, not for the initial taskforce, but if things go the way I expect them to, then I can bring other departments in. But you’ll still be in charge, Pat. Okay?”
“Okay,” Pat said. “Can I ask why me?”
“Why you?”
“Yes. I don’t have experience in this field.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to do it?”
“No,” Pat said carefully. “I just want to know what you think I can bring to an investigation like this.”
Kent stared at him for a moment, a flat hard stare that usually got things done.
“Let’s call it…a lack of imagination,” he said eventually.
“Excuse me?”
Kent showed a rare glimmer of humour.
“Not where it counts. But I don’t want anyone even slightly…susceptible to this cult to be involved in this investigation. They have a habit of swallowing people whole. I’m not kidding.”
“Okay.”
Kent rubbed at his top lip and said, “when was the last time you went to church?”
Pat thought.
“I honestly can’t remember.”
“See?”
“I think so.”
“Also, I can see a protracted time period for this investigation, and I know from the Llandoger case that you can see the course.”
“Yes.”
The Llandoger case had been a murder inside a pub in which thirty two people had turned on a homeless man who had wandered inside to beg. It had been a nightmare. The problems stemmed from the fact that the Llandoger Trow was one of the oldest pubs in Bristol – it dated back to the 17th century – and as a consequence its design was a thin, narrow-roomed, low-ceilinged hobbit hole with winding passageways and multiple entrance and exit points. Of the thirty two people in the pub, eight had already managed to slip out the back before the police had arrived. The cramped quarters meant Forensics couldn’t piece together who had dealt the fatal blow. The investigation had lasted, off and on, for six years before coming to any kind of resolution.
“So…who would you need?” Kent asked.
“Well…if it’s a cult, then I suppose Robert Costar.”
“Bob? He’s officially suspended, pending the outcome of the investigation into his UCO work.”
“I know. But he’s familiar with these sorts of groups. His experience would be invaluable.”
“Alright,” Kent said. “I’ll see what I can do. But I imagine we’ll only get him on consultation. He won’t be reinstated, not until after the investigation.”
“That’s fine.”
“Who else?”
“DC Darren Board.”
“I’m not familiar with the name.”
“He’s young. But I have high hopes for him.”
“Ah. I see. Your prodigy?”
Pat smiled.
“Something like that. And…can I have one more?”
Kent gave a small nod of his head: he wasn’t promising anything, but he would see what he could do.
“Can I have Sally Rutter? She’s simply excellent as an Administrative Support Assistant. There’s none better.”
“Alright,” Kent said. “Let’s see if we can’t make it happen.”
The Cult itself made Pat uneasy. He couldn’t understand how the Church of the New Artisans had come into being. He could only liken it to a mass hallucination, or an unruly mob: a phenomenon that swept people up in something they could neither understand nor control. He had studied cults and listened to Bob, but he still couldn’t make any sense of it. It was like trying to understand madness: it was impossible.
If the phenomenon of the Cult itself was hard to comprehend, then in contrast its evolution was simple enough: ten years ago, a young man had written a science fiction book that he had claimed occurred in a brief period of forgotten human history. The publisher had jumped on this as a sales gimmick, and promoted the novel as a ‘true story’; it had worked, and the book had become a bestseller. What nobody had predicted was that the more fanatical of its fans would band together – under the leadership of its author – and demand to be recognised as a formal religion.
So began a long and fraught relationship with the police. Pat had read the files. From numerous protests at the sites of power plants and computer companies, to reports from worried parents that their children had been abducted by the Cult, the police had investigated the Church of the New Artisans time and again and come up empty: no protest ever turned violent; no new Cult member could ever be proven to have been indoctrinated against their will. All attempts to prevent the Cult from operating had failed, which meant that the pressure on Pat and his team to do what no one had been able to do previously was a considerable one.
But he had been assured by Kent that this time they had an ace in the hole: someone in the Cult wanted to talk. Kent wouldn’t tell him who it was. In fact, there was a lot that Kent wasn’t telling him. This lack of transparency also made Pat uneasy. How was he supposed to run an investigation without all the information?
The Work Room was on the first floor of Bridewell Station, at the end of a long tiled corridor in the former CID unit. It was about twenty feet square, a patchwork of panels and mottled sections of wall, all of which had been covered in a coat of mortally ill tan coloured paint. A big square folding table filled the centre of the room, now covered in file folders and other miscellan
eous paperwork. On the back wall, a busy whiteboard had been lost under Blu-tacked paper and arrows and all manner of notations. One wall was predominantly glass, which looked out on to an empty office…just last week it had been stripped of its technology, and wires lay tangled on the floor like discarded seaweed. A door beside the windows led to the office.
“I still don’t understand why we have to wait,” Daren had said, when Pat had been in earlier in the day.
Pat turned from the whiteboard to face him.
Darren was a studious man. Slim but fit, he had a dark mop of hair on his head, and a thin narrow face that end in a pointed chin. He had large blue eyes that made him look younger than he really was. He liked to wear tan chinos and grey blazers. Today, he was wearing navy jeans and a quilted corduroy jacket. He was a good worker, and he would make a good detective. There was another reason Pat liked him, but it was not a reason he would ever have admitted to himself: Darren did not talk much, and was even more reluctant to talk about his personal life. Such things made Pat uncomfortable. As far as he was concerned, if there was a problem in your personal life, then it was up to you to sort it out; sharing it seemed embarrassing and uncouth, like talking about what went on in the bedroom. But Pat didn’t consciously recognise this; he only knew that he found Darren’s company soothing, and that they worked well together.
“I understand your reservations,” he said. “I do. I’ll admit, this isn’t like any case I’ve dealt with before. It’s ambiguous, to say the least. But you know why we’re waiting.”
“The Defector,” Darren said, but he didn’t look happy. He didn’t look like he believed in this person.
“Yes. Someone is unhappy with the Cult. Until we get confirmation that they are willing to testify, then we can’t move against them.”
“Because we have nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Pat said, because there was other evidence against the Cult. “But not enough.”
*
The house was on the western edge of Long Ashton.
There was a small set of gates and a wall encircling the property, and the house was situated on a rise above it. If asked, Pat could offer some judgements about the owner of the house simply from the ostentatiously long drive to the building. The house itself was very modern, all steel and glass, an assortment of different sized boxes all attached to each other in a line. Pat spent a moment admiring it.