The Artisans

by J G Alva

  “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.

  Two police cars were parked out front, their emergency lights making the shadows jump and flit in the bushes surrounding the property…but other than that, the night was quiet. The garage door was open, and there was a car inside, and space for two more.

  Pat pulled up to one side of the small dirt forecourt and got out.

  He looked around. A sprinkling of stars dotted the night sky. To his left, tyre tracks had raked an otherwise trim and well-tended lawn. Trees ran the length of one side of the property, while a row of low bushes covered the other side. Beyond them, Pat could see lights from another house hidden amongst the trees.

  Darren appeared in the front door then, a notebook in his hand. He waved, and Pat joined him.

  “Darren,” he said. “What have we got?”

  Darren raised his eyebrows comically.

  “Come inside. I’ll show you.”

  The interior of the house was just as ostentatious as the driveway, in its own way: parquet flooring, split levels, and a ridiculously large fish tank dominated a back wall. Small box rooms were visible through multiple doorways.

  “The call came in from the neighbour,” Darren explained. “She heard shouts, and then saw four cars racing up the drive.”

  “And we don’t think it was just a party?”

  “No. Take a look at this.”

  Darren indicated one of the large windows beside the front door. It was broken, and glass was scattered inside.

  “We think they gained entry through here,” he said.

  “Hm.”

  “There’s more. Let me show you.”

  Pat followed behind Darren as he led the way further into the house.

  Bob was in the kitchen recess. He was busy consuming a pack of Mini Cheddars.

  “Hi, Pat,” he said pleasantly.

  “Bob.”

  “Nice night for it,” he remarked wryly.

  Bob’s physical decline was sad to see, but Pat was aware of the reason behind it, and forgave him his current condition: overweight, unshaven, long hair unkempt.

  Beside him, the refrigerator had been attacked, its door pocked and dented, its contents scattered and sprayed around the interior and on the floor in front of it.

  “What happened here?” Pat asked.

  Bob shrugged but Darren said, “it looks like someone took an axe to the refrigerator.”

  “Probably upset about how much interest they were paying on the HP,” Bob quipped.

  “Do we know who owns the place?” Pat asked.

  Darren referred to his notebook.

  “Uh…a Gregory Matheson.”

  “What does he do?” Pat asked.

  “Millionaire,” Darren said. “Or so I gather. He runs and owns a big conglomerate.”

  “They’re into a lot of bits and bobs,” Bob said. “The conglomerate. But primarily it’s a tech company. Computers, mobile phones, that sort of thing.”

  “Well,” Pat said, and indicated the refrigerator. “I suppose this makes some kind of sense. At least in their eyes.”

  “There’s more, in the garage,” Darren said, indicating a door at the far end of the kitchen.

  Both Bob and Pat followed Darren as he went through it.

  Inside the garage, plastic sheeting had been laid on the floor, and underneath an impressive array of power tools a collection of medical bottles had been arranged. Incongruously, a hospital gurney resided in the garage section; it looked as if it had been discarded in a hurry. It lay against the side of an impressive sports car, as if seeking comfort.

  Bob pulled gloves on and looked at the bottles, reading out their labels as he went through them.

  “We have Flucloxacillin – which is for infections – we have Coumadin and Marevan – which is to stop blood clots – we have Lexapro – which can be used for anxiety, I think…”

  “What was going on here?” Pat asked.

  He went to the gurney. A sheet was pooled at the bottom, and the pillow had been dented. Someone had been lying on this gurney. But who? And why?

  “It gets better,” Bob said, holding up a finger. “Take a look at this.”

  Pat followed Bob as he walked to the open garage door. He stopped directly beneath it, and then pointed at the ceiling.

  Pat looked up, and to his surprise, saw an arrow stuck in the woodwork.

  “So it’s them,” Pat said, satisfied, at least to an extent.

  “The woman who called it in also said something interesting,” Darren added, looking at his notebook. “Her name is Joan Fisher. We can over and talk to her, if you want. She said she’ll still be up.”

  “What did she say?” Pat asked.

  “Uh…she said she saw a car driving away at high speed. She didn’t know what the make was. But” – and here he paused dramatically – “the other cars – also driving at high speed – that went after it, she said there was a picture on the door, of the front one.”

  “What do you mean, a picture?” Pat asked.

  “A painting,” Darren explained. “You know. A mural. On the passenger side door.”

  “What was the mural of?” Pat asked.

  “Mrs Fisher said she only caught a very brief glimpse of it, but it was of a child in chains, with a sort of halo around his head.”

  “That’s it then,” Bob said, nodding his head emphatically. “It’s the Artisans.”

  “But they’ve never been violent before,” Pat remarked. “Or even shown any tendency towards violence.”

  “That we know of,” Darren interjected.

  Pat looked around at the garage, at the plastic sheeting on the floor, at the drugs lined up on the work table against the back wall, at the hospital gurney.

  “What in God’s name was going on here?”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 3

  In the kitchen, while Sutton and Greg spoke amongst themselves, and while Dr Ruminatra attended to Toby, Aime
e brooded on the Cult.

  She already knew most of the details. Greg and Alfred had done their research, and she had read what they had uncovered.

  But knowing about them and then having to face them were two totally different concepts…and if what Sutton was saying was true, then she might very well be forced to cross that line, from research into reality. On paper, it was easy to look at them objectively, to wonder about the desperate state of mind you would have to reach to be pulled in by this semi-mystical nonsense…but the reality of what that meant scared her.

  More than once, Greg had said how ridiculous it all was: a science fiction story that people believed in so vehemently that they were willing to turn their back on society to follow it. He couldn’t understand it. Aimee wasn’t sure she did, but she was less inclined to dismiss it out of hand. People did crazy things sometimes for no discernable reason. Just look at her parents: religious zealots, not born out of hardship or suffering but from some hole in their psyche.

  The Church of the New Artisans was not that much different from many other modern cults she had heard about. You could not become a full member without renouncing your old life. You had to give them all your money. You had to swear allegiance to their leader. All pretty standard stuff.

  But it was the leader himself that put Aimee on edge. He was an enigmatic man they referred to as Bellafont. Aimee had seen pictures of him, old grainy black and white photographs that put her in mind of old newspaper clippings about the Ku Klux Klan or the Manson family. The quality of the pictures were poor – as Bellafont was notoriously camera shy – but there was usually just enough detail left in them for her to make out the pale pale eyes. They seemed to fill up Bellafont’s whole face. In the photos they were white, so he looked almost blind, but in real life she knew them to be a very light blueish-grey. The skin around the eyes was turned down, so that Bellafont looked as if he might just be on this side of some sort of retardation: Down Syndrome, or something like it. He was a tall man with long dark matted hair pulled back from a greasy, spotted forehead. A black straggly beard obscured the lower part of his face. He always seemed to be wearing the same clothes, no matter where or when he was photographed: an old worn robe, frayed at the edges, brown, that hung almost to the ground. Madness clung to him like smoke; you could almost see it. Aimee could think of nothing worse than being alone in a room with that man. She’d had nightmares about it, ever since the Cult had taken the boy: Bellafont visiting her in a cell where she was bound and left to wallow in her own filth, while he bent forward to stroke her hair…

  She shivered again now at the memory of the dream.

  “How can they know where we are?” Greg asked, working himself into a lather. He was leaning against the kitchen counter. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “They’re not stupid, Greg,” Sutton said. He filled a glass with water. “Clive Goddard might even be some kind of genius. They say they don’t use technology, but I know Clive has a computer, I’ve seen it. So even if Toby didn’t tell them about this place, then they can find out about it: they just have to go online.”

  Greg blinked.

  Sutton gulped the water thirstily.

  “Why would Toby tell them anything about me?”

  Sutton closed his eyes momentarily, as if losing patience. He put the glass in the sink.

  “Every new Disciple has to do a Purge,” Sutton explained, “even before they’re allowed in the camp. Part of the Purge involves telling Clive Goddard absolutely everything about who you are. And I mean everything. It lasts eight hours, and they don’t give you anything to eat or drink, and they only very reluctantly allow you to have toilet breaks. So even if you are able to lie, you’re so tired and hungry and thirsty at the end of it you can’t keep track of the lies you told. At the end you’re so exhausted you don’t want to. You just want it over and done with.”

  “Did you have to do that?” Aimee asked him.

  Reluctantly, Sutton nodded.

  “So they know who you are, Greg. Intimately. And my bet is that Toby gave them a list of your properties too. Whether he wanted to or not. So it’s only a matter of time before they check this one out. To see if he’s here.”

  Greg stared at Sutton, still undecided.

  “How long?” Aimee asked. She didn’t like this. “How long before they get here?”

  Sutton shrugged, but said, “worst case scenario: half an hour. They leave the new Disciples on their own for an hour, after they take the Star Shot; so when I took him, I knew I had an hour. But it took just over an hour for us to get here, and we’ve been dealing with his condition…If by magic they came straight here, if by magic they pick this address first, then we have half an hour. So we need to leave now.”

  “But he can’t be moved,” Dr Ruminatra insisted.

  “He has to be.”

  “I don’t think-“

  “Figure out a way, doctor,” Greg said, staring at Sutton. Aimee knew that look: Greg didn’t believe Sutton, but it was always more shrewd to expect the best…but plan for the worst. He pulled out his phone, and used it like a pointer, singling out the doctor. “I’m going to talk to my Head of Security. I don’t think we’ll need to move, but in case we do, be ready.”

  Greg turned away, but Sutton followed him.

  “I want to get paid before you do anything else,” Sutton said to Greg.

  Greg was typing on his phone, but he looked up at this.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Red was once again suffusing the skin of Greg’s face.

  Uh-oh.

  “You bring my son in drugged, convulsing, half dead-“

  “Greg,” Aimee said, trying to forestall this.

  “-And not only that, but half of Bellafont’s army trailing in pursuit…and you want to talk to me about money?”

  Greg was using his Manager’s Voice, but Aimee could have told him not to bother. It wouldn’t work on Sutton. He was too much his own man.

  “Transfer it to my account now, please,” Sutton said, unmoved.

  “I don’t know who you think-“

  Sutton moved then, so quick Aimee almost didn’t see it. He chopped at Greg’s throat, while at the same time snatching the phone out of his hand. He then looped an arm around Greg’s throat.

  Greg was gasping for breath, struggling to free Sutton’s grip from around his neck.

  “You…you fuck,” Greg spat, more surprised, she thought, than in any real pain.

  “If you’re unsatisfied with any contractual obligations,” Sutton said, talking over him, “then I am more than happy to cite some of your transgressions-“

  What? Aimee stared at Sutton. What did that mean?

  “-I have however fulfilled my obligations in full. Your son, delivered to you. Alive. As requested.”

  Greg coughed, “the drugs-“

  “Are not covered by the contract. As you well know. Now transfer the money to my account before I really lose my fucking temper.”

  Greg was sweating profusely.

  He whispered something to Greg then; Aimee did not hear what it was.

  “I…I want…” Greg gestured at his throat, but Sutton ignored him. “I want to…extend your….contract…”

  “Pay me first,” Sutton said. He produced the phone, and Greg took it. He also loosened his grip on the man’s throat. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Greg made the call, transferring the money and then hanging up.

  Sutton released him.

  “£250,000 is now in your bank account,” Greg said, his voice gone thick. He coughed, and then ineffectually smoothed the creases out of his clothes. “If you’d like to check?”

  Sutton nodded his head but looked ready to fight.

  “I knew you’d try to do this, Greg,” Sutton said.

  Greg sneered.

  “And you fucking know everything.”

  “I know how you work. But this first time, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Not again. If you want to
extend my contract, then you’ll have to pay me upfront. Otherwise I walk.”

  Greg sneered again, and then said, “£100,000 to act as bodyguard until the police take the Cult.”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “You already have a dozen bodyguards on staff-“

  “Not with insider knowledge of the Cult.” Greg rubbed at his sore neck. He looked at Sutton out of the corner of his eye. “I need my boy safe. Right now, you’re the man most capable of doing that.”

  Sutton stared at Greg, debating, and then glanced at Aimee.

  “Alright. Transfer the money, and I’ll stick around.”

  Greg made another call, and then coughed and said, “done. Check it.”

  “I will,” Sutton said and, with a glance at her, left the room.

  “Greg,” Aimee said, coming toward him, “what was that all about?”

  “My God, my neck…” Greg stretched it, pulling his head back. “He’s got a grip like a fucking vice.” He moved his head around, and then looked at her. “A lot of good you did.”

  “I wasn’t going to get in the middle of a fist fight between the two of you, for fuck’s sake…”

  Greg laughed.

  “You know what: I like him. But I don’t think I’ll ever play poker with him. If he loses, he’s liable to come round the table and start pulling off limbs.”

  “He doesn’t lose a lot,” Aimee admitted.

  “I bet. I’ve got to speak to Alfred. Get ready to move, in case we have to.”

  He patted her on the shoulder, and then went up the steps out of the kitchen, making his way across it to the study. While Dr Ruminatra prepared a sedate Toby for transport, Aimee climbed the steps behind Greg, but stopped in the main hall to look around; Sutton was nowhere to be seen.

  She found him standing at the long front windows, the blinds pulled back, looking out.

  “Sutton?”