‘It’ll go to our depository. It’ll be safe there, for the next five years anyway. It’s procedure. They keep them, all of them, for at least five years. I’ve no idea why.’
After she put down the phone, Alice googled ‘The Elect’ and numerous results appeared, ranging from a Daily Mail headline ‘“The leader of the Elect molested me” shock testimony’ and obscure American sites to assorted blogs, a ‘Cult Documentary’ on YouTube and Wikipedia. Sampling a selection of the links she discovered that the Elect was an offshoot of the Plymouth Brethren which had, throughout its history, been subject to frequent schisms, purges, mass excommunications and desertions. Over time the ever-decreasing rump (known as the Derby-Cornell-Waring sect) had become more and more withdrawn from the outside world, a place which was regarded as a zone of evil and corruption. Their current leader, who in similar style to his predecessors was known as ‘The Chosen One’, ran an agricultural machinery business in Wisconsin and, since his father had held the leadership before him, seemed to occupy an almost hereditary office similar to that occupied by the Kims in North Korea. The Elect themselves were subject to numerous prohibitions; these included eating or drinking with any person not in the fellowship, sharing a residence with anyone not in the fellowship (sharing even a semidetached residence would breach this prohibition as the properties would share a common wall), sharing a sewer or driveway with anyone not in the fellowship, marrying anyone not within the fellowship, and joining any trade union or professional association. The Elect considered themselves exalted in the eyes of the Lord. Every day of the week, and several times on Sundays (‘Christ’s Day’), the Elect were required to attend meetings, whether for the ‘Lord’s Repast’, worship, Bible study or reading, or prayer. If possible, the adherents, or ‘holies’ as they sometimes referred to themselves, schooled their children within Elect schools. Many had now been set up by them within the UK, including a fair number in Scotland. Attendance at university was forbidden due to its potential for corrupting the students. Consequently, the community counted few doctors, dentists or lawyers within their number, and any of these were now elderly, having qualified before that particular prohibition was brought into effect. Ten years earlier, the church had lost a wrangle with the Charity Commission and its charitable status had been withdrawn on the grounds that it produced no benefit for the public.
As she checked out a selection of the blogs, many written by ex-members of the Elect or with contributions from them, one thing became very apparent. Many ex-members appeared to have been traumatised by their time within the sect, feeling the need to tell others of their experiences, seeking support from others whose memories of life within it appeared to be equally unhappy. One site, calling itself ‘The Painful Truth’, stated, ‘The Elect who leave or are expelled from the faithful have often met with what non-members view as great unkindness, barbarity even. Leavers are shunned by members of the group because they are considered to have opted for the world and its works rather than God, and because they could bring members into contact with the sinful world and all its vices.’
According to her mother, Miranda Stimms had left the group, although whether her leaving was voluntary or not had not been mentioned. If she had indeed, as her mother had maintained, grown up gay or bisexual even, it seemed unlikely that there would be any place for her within the Elect whatever her choice had been. Picturing Mrs Stimms in her immaculate house, Alice had little doubt that she remained within the sect, and her slightly strange, frightened demeanour now seemed understandable. The police, being part of the corrupt world, servants of that world, would bring with them no comfort, no reassurance for her. They, too, would be contaminated, alien to the sect and its adherents. Hostile. And if Miranda Stimms had been brought up by them, she might well come across as old-fashioned and unworldly. In short, she would be odd.
12
As Alice was taking her coat off the back of her chair, ready to leave and go to Kinross-shire, Elaine Bell strode into the office. She was deep in thought, but catching sight of Alice she came bustling over to her desk. Parking herself on the edge of it, she settled herself down for a proper chat.
‘What do you make of it?’
‘What? Miranda Stimms, the deceased, being in the Elect?’
‘What are you talking about?’ came back the impatient reply.
‘I’ve just heard from that counsellor in Musselburgh that Miranda Stimms belonged, or used to belong, to a religious sect called the Elect.’
‘Did she, indeed. Whoever the hell they may be. No, not that. I mean about Hamish Evans being found. Are you off somewhere?’
‘I don’t know what to think yet. I’ve seen his parents, they identified the boy and had a few useful things to add. They’d never heard him mention Anna, didn’t know much about any argument between him and Miranda. But there was one interesting thing. They told me it couldn’t have been his baby, because he was sterile after an attack of mumps as a child. They speculated that that might have been the cause of any row between them. Have you spoken to Harry McCrae?’
‘Harry? Yes, I spoke to him only about half an hour ago. He’s pretty sure the lad died of those knife wounds to his back. I asked how long he reckoned he’d been dead.’
‘And?’
‘Patience, Alice. If you’d just be good enough to let me finish for once? As per bloody usual, the good doctor wouldn’t stick his neck out. His “initial” or “preliminary” view, which may, of course, “be subject to subsequent revision at the mortuary” is that he’d been dead, in the water, for anything up to a week.’
‘If he’s been dead since last Saturday, he couldn’t have argued with Miranda Stimms on the Monday, couldn’t have killed her. That’s when she was last seen, or, more accurately, heard. Him too. So we know McCrae’s estimate’s wrong to that extent at least. And we also know that the boy caught his London to Edinburgh flight on the Monday night. So, dead in the water for five days max.
‘Maybe the blood spatters and so on in the common stair were his, not hers as we thought?’
‘Could be, I suppose. We’ll find out, although not soon enough. The lab remains as constipated as before. I doubt it anyway. Dr Cash postulated a fall from the start, specifically a fall backwards. That’s what the head wound, knuckle abrasions etc. suggested. With those knife wounds to his back, the boy . . .’
‘Would have bled like a pig in an abattoir, I know, but only if he was alive when they were inflicted. So?’
Seeing Alice doing up the buttons of her coat, Elaine Bell rose from her perch, and repeated, ‘So? Are you off somewhere? Two murders within five days. Not two strangers but boyfriend and girlfriend, both dragged out of the sea. Connected, plainly connected. So, who’ll be next? Get a move on, Alice. I don’t want another body dredged up.’
‘The boy being infertile is significant. Miranda Stimms’ mother told us her daughter was gay – but Miranda had a boyfriend, him, or so her work friend, his parents and others have all told us. But we know she had a girlfriend, too. I suppose the existence of the baby just, to my mind, confirmed some degree of heterosexuality.’
‘In this age of miracles and wonders – the age of turkey basters? I think you’re being a little naïve there, Alice. You’ll need to be sharper than that if you’re going to catch whoever’s responsible for these deaths. Have you anyone in your sights as the daddy, or the donor, for that matter?’
‘Not at this minute. My point is, if it wasn’t Hamish Evans’ child, then whose child was it? I’d like to know, because whoever else’s it was, it wasn’t Anna’s. There was someone before Hamish Evans, Irene mentioned him in passing. He worked at Co-op with her. His name is Sam Inglis. And I am off. I need to see somebody about something else, but something important.’
The chief inspector’s mind being on the investigation, and the investigation alone, this explanation seemed to satisfy her curiosity. Alice did not feel the need to elucidate further, and to explain that the person concerned had nothing what
soever to do with the Stimms case or the Evans case. Already they had consumed hours of her life, shortened it, and for the moment she had no more to give. This was important, to her. The Rice case also merited some priority.
Once at her destination in Kinross-shire, high in the Ochils, she got out of her car, stretched and gazed up at the night sky. Apart from the impassive gibbous moon which seemed close enough to touch, it was alive with numberless stars, every one brilliant, cold and flawless. Standing in the moonlight, bright as day, she exhaled slowly, allowing herself to relax for the first time in a week. All the tension in her body slowly began to drain from her. Here, she seemed to have entered another world, a cleaner, simpler one where the sounds of silence could not only be heard but also felt in the flesh, and she allowed the stillness to enfold her like a shawl. Completely motionless, conscious of her own breathing, her own heart beating, she was reminded of the huge gulf between life in the city and life outside it. It was as great, as wide, as that between a busy harbour, all ice-cream-carrying tourists jostling each other, yapping dogs, roaring motor boats laden with day-trippers in their sun hats, seagulls screeching from the chimney tops, on the one hand; and on the other, the great, wide expanse of the open ocean. One crackled with life, dazzlingly full of colour, electric with motion, fizzing with its own concerns, generating and nourished by ceaseless noise, and the other just was. Its grandeur was in its being. Humankind and all its affairs were as unimportant to it, as meaningless to it, as a single wave breaking on the shore. And without man and his schemes, plans and interventions, it would go on just being, changing at its own pace, ignoring the human blink-of-an-eye timescale, altering only in millennia or, in its perfection, not at all.
She closed her tired eyes and inhaled the chill air, savouring its sharpness in her lungs, revitalising herself with its icy purity. The cottage was exactly as she had remembered it, set on top of the hills, small, stone-built and with a view to the south unlikely to be bettered anywhere on earth. Below, in the plain, the loch shone like polished lead, the dark shadow of the Lomonds behind it and the lights of the settlements clustered around its shores winking across the water to each other. In the far distance, a plume of orange flame was visible, resembling the pillar of fire which comforted the Israelites in the wilderness, betokening God’s presence. That would do for her, she decided. She preferred that view of it to the more mundane reality; it was the burning of excess gas at the chemical plant in Fife. With its image remaining branded on her retina, she turned back to examine the cottage.
As she had expected, no lights were on in any of its windows and she circled the place like a burglar, peering in, touching the stone, hardly able to believe that within days such a treasure would be hers. Even the double front doors with their faded green paint seemed perfect, and hidden deep in the hard ground below her feet would be bulbs, snowdrops, crocuses, grape hyacinths, daffodils, perhaps, and as the months passed they would reveal themselves to her along with all the other plants, and weeds, in her garden. ‘My garden’, the very words pleased her.
Less than two metres from the house’s western gable lay the pond. A thin film of ice coated its surface, reflecting the moonlight, and as she walked towards it, her eyes scanning its far boundary, she made out the silhouette of a heron. It was standing on a single leg, in a bed of dry and broken reeds. On her approach it took flight, flapping its great wings in slow motion as it rose, majestically, above the roof, its long legs trailing behind it. When summer came there would be frogs, diving beetles and dragonflies, she thought, and for the first time since Ian had died she felt joy, pure, unadulterated joy, and recognising it, tears came to her eyes. Even if the roof of the cottage leaked, its plumbing failed and the place was overrun by a plague of rats, as some of her friends had predicted, he would have understood exactly why she had bought it. He would have seen all that she could see, and more.
The first thing that struck her on meeting Father Vincent Ross was the blueness of his eyes; the second, that he did not look like any priest she had ever encountered before. Her convent education had prepared her for a number of possible archetypes, but he fitted none of them. He was not Irish, for a start, had no pot belly, and did not exhibit the slightly self-satisfied and unctuous air that she had prepared herself for. Few clerics ministering to a convent of nuns, never mind the pubescent girls in their care, did not have their heads turned, whatever they looked like, believing themselves to be a peacock amongst eager peahens. Instead, she thought, looking at him across his own sitting room, he resembled a slightly dishevelled former pugilist, with his nose unmistakeably broken, and his profuse sandy hair falling untidily all over his face. In boxing terms a featherweight, possibly, to her welterweight.
True to form, he had immediately offered her a drink, unable to stop himself from recommending a 2012 Sauvignon Blanc Grande Reserve. Seeing him fussing about the place in search of a suitable glass, she was reminded of Ian’s amusement at the fellow’s notorious uneasiness over his hobby. Golf might be uncontroversial for a priest, but fine wines? And how many times had she heard him being teased over the phone, called Jancis or Gilly, being lambasted for his ‘poncy’, ‘pseudish’ winespeak. From the guffaws that usually followed such abuse he seemed to be able to hold his own.
Sitting opposite her in his armchair, he was so short that his feet hardly touched the floor, she noticed. A Siamese cat lay on his lap, purring, and sometimes, she thought, he seemed to be addressing his comments to it as much as to her. Despite the fact that she hardly knew him, she found his company restful, the few silences between them neither heavy nor oppressive. With the ease of an old friend he asked her what she had been doing that day, before she came up to see the cottage.
‘I was looking something up . . . on one of your rivals, you might say. Another church. I needed to learn something about it for my work, for an investigation I’m involved in.’
‘What church?’ he asked, sitting back in his armchair with his nose hovering over his wine glass like a kestrel over its prey.
‘The Elect.’
‘Rivals? They’re rivals to the Catholic Church in much the same way a mosquito rivals the National Blood Transfusion Service – or a lollipop lady the traffic division of the Met.’
‘You’ve heard of them?’
‘Certainly. There are a fair number in Kincardine, and no doubt others around the place. They are an offshoot of the Plymouth Brethren. They prospered in Scotland for a while, particularly in fishing and mining communities, until their leader was exposed as a “speaker with two mouths”. That cut their numbers.’
‘Sounds intriguing.’
‘I thought so too. Do you want to hear about it? Have you time?’
‘Plenty of time.’
While he talked she looked around the room in which they sat. It had been furnished sparsely, practically, without fripperies of any kind. No cushions or curtains, but there was a computer, a TV and books everywhere, overflowing their shelves, stacked on the floor. Photographs, all in a straight line, had been stuck along the entire length of a cream-coloured wall. One she recognised. It was of Ian, laughing, looking astonishingly young and holding a tankard up as if making a toast. Seeing it, she felt her heart turn over and looked away quickly, determined that her face should not give her away. A cardboard box caught her eye. It was filled with wine bottles, and had been shoved out of sight, or out of the way, below a desk. Three coffee cups, unwashed, were stacked by the side of his armchair. The place bore all the signs of someone living on his own, attending to the essentials and pleasing only himself. She should know.
‘Well,’ he continued, looking at her, apparently pleased that she was interested, ‘it happened in about 1945. Their then leader, Timothy Cornell, was staying with a devout family, the Flemings, on some ministry matter. Unfortunately, Mr Fleming discovered the Chosen One naked in the marital bed with a naked Mrs Fleming. The pair of them were completely blootered – on an early Napa Valley white, apparently, if you can beli
eve it. At that date, it will hardly have been drinkable pre-Robert Mondavi – if oak-smoked barrels . . .’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, the Chosen One explained that, despite appearances, he had simply been teaching theology to Mrs Fleming, and when challenged on their unlikely classroom and lack of school uniform, he added that the whole thing had been, in fact, a test, something designed to weed out the faithless from the flock. Mr Fleming, unconvinced, threw him out of the house, a semi in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, without clothes. A passing newsman took a photograph and it got into the local newspaper and from there into the national and international media.’
‘Did any of the faithful remain?’
‘You’d be surprised at the numbers who stayed on. Thinking about it, we are all, I suppose, credulous in our own ways.’
‘Water to wine?’
‘Rising from the dead sticks in the craw of many.’
‘But not you?’
‘If he was the son of God, why should it? Either he was what he said, the son of God, or he was a lunatic. “Love thy neighbour as thyself” doesn’t sound to me like the sentiment, the words, of a lunatic. But we’re straying from the point.’
‘My fault. Are there any of them here, in Kinross?’
‘Of the Elect?’
‘Yes.’
‘A few, probably, but I don’t know for sure. Last year one of their oversized meeting halls sprang up between here and Stirling. They’re unmistakable. More like a cash-and-carry than a church. They’ve got no windows, a huge car-parking space, high-security fencing, air-conditioning . . .’
‘Air conditioning? Why on earth . . .’
‘Because it’s all centralised. They have to build them in accordance with a blueprint devised in Wisconsin, the home of their current “Chosen One”. And it’s always a Him. Hence the air-conditioning, obviously something largely superfluous in our lovely weather.’
Troubled Waters Page 15