The Artisans

by J G Alva

  “Sit down,” Dot told them all, indicating the chairs around the table. She went to the counter and began getting mugs down from one of the cupboards. “Sit down.”

  “Dot-“

  “Do you want coffee?”

  Sutton smiled.

  “Tea would be amazing. No sugar.”

  “Right.” Dot held up a finger. “I remember. What about you two?”

  “Coffee for me,” Aimee said pleasantly, thankfully. “And tea for Toby.”

  “Coming right up. Are you hungry?”

  Sutton was about to reply when Aimee said, “just tired really. It’s been a long night.”

  She looked at Sutton, and whatever bad feeling had been left over from their conversation in the horse box disappeared.

  Sutton nodded.

  “Of course you are,” Dot said, turning from the counter. “You all look beat. I’ll get your drinks, then I’ll show you where you can all have a bit of a sleep.”

  “Uh, I’ve got to go out, Dot,” Sutton said. “I shouldn’t be too long. But if you could take care of them while I’m gone…”

  Dot beamed.

  “It will be my pleasure.”

  ◆◆◆

  She stopped him before he was able to open the front door.

  “Be careful,” Aimee said, and then smothered a yawn.

  “Your concern is overwhelming.”

  “I’m sorry. But I’m about to slip into a coma. And you can take care of yourself.”

  She kissed his cheek, which was, surprisingly, incredibly sweet.

  ◆◆◆

  Alfred Alger only lived three miles from Dot’s place, and so Sutton walked through the wooded and winding streets of Clifton in the early morning light and thought how pleasant a day it looked like it was going to be…in contrast to a night that had been so terrible.

  Although tired, he felt good. It was the fresh air, the promise of the day to come…it was all of it. It was days like this that were worth living for, worth fighting for…and Sutton never seemed to connect these feelings to the fact that it was because he was in terrible danger. It was almost as if he didn’t want to connect them. As if the knowledge of such a thing would steal its power.

  Alfred lived in a detached house on Pembroke Road. Half of it looked like the original building, but the other half did not: extensions and add-ons abounded. But that was not what disturbed Sutton.

  What disturbed Sutton was that the light on the outside of the stone porch was not on.

  And as he stood at the stone wall bordering the property, debating on what to do next, he saw a shadow pass behind the front bay window, moving fast.

  As if a person was being chased.

  Two flashes sparked in the dimness of the house, followed by two concurrent bangs.

  Gunshots.

  Fuck.

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 10

  After the phone call with Kent, Pat did not immediately return to the house.

  He wandered out to the main road, ostensibly looking for tyre tracks, but in truth because he needed the time to think.

  Out here, away from the activity in and around the house, there seemed like an abundance of silence. The night sky was huge, intimidating…as if the weight of eternity was poised to suddenly drop on him. It had been a clear night Friday night too, when he had collected Janine from Harriet’s house. Even though she had spent most of the journey talking about Harriet’s trip to the Bristol Old Vic, she had still seen what he had not. She seemed to have a sixth sense for danger; as if her antennae were constantly searching for threats.

  “Uh oh,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Look, dear.” She pointed to the car directly in front of them. The traffic was light, but they were stuck doing twenty; this was the speed limit inside the city now. “He forgot to close his little petrol cap thingy.”

  “He did?” Pat couldn’t see it.

  “Yes,” she insisted, mildly irritable. “It’s open. Should we tell him?”

  Pat watched as the car continued on its journey, oblivious to the knowledge that its petrol cap stuck out at a right angle to the body.

  “If I flash my lights, there’s no guarantee he’ll stop,” Pat said. He debated. “He’ll probably just think I’m…odd.”

  “Shame you’re not a policeman today, dear.” He was off duty and she knew it. “He’d stop then.”

  He felt like that now: blind to an obvious thing, simply because of who he was, and his perspective.

  Yes, he didn’t like the idea that one of this team – either Bob or Darren – might have betrayed the investigation – betrayed him – but at the same time he couldn’t ignore the fact that it might be true. The question was: how to determine if it was true?

  He sighed.

  There was only one way to determine anything, in his line of work: keep asking questions.

  The only problem was, nothing was more apt to get a detective’s back up than an interrogation, so he’d probably be best off asking everyone but them.

  How he was supposed to do this – and when he’d find the ruddy time – he had no idea.

  ◆◆◆

  “Hello, darling.”

  “Hello?”

  “Janine, it’s me.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine. I’m just calling to see how you are.”

  “Is it your back?”

  “Janine, I’m fine.”

  “Then why are you calling? I don’t understand. It’s three in the morning.”

  “Then what are you still doing up?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about you.”

  “That’s why I called. To let you know I’m okay.”

  “You could have text.”

  “I wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Oh. Well. You could have done that better if you had just stayed home.”

  “You know I couldn’t, I…How are the girls?”

  “They’re fine. I just let them out. Are you coming home any time soon?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Why bother? I’m only your wife. It’s not as if I’m important or anything.”

  “You know you are.”

  “Hollow words, dear. Especially as you are probably miles away.”

  Abruptly, she hung up.

  ◆◆◆

  “We’ll have to delay moving on the Cult,” Pat informed them, as he entered the living room. He felt old, and tired. “At least for now.”

  Darren was on his knees, trying to decipher scratches on the wooden floor as if they were hieroglyphs; Bob was at the patio doors, examining the broken glass still in the frame…but his head came up in surprise at what Pat had said.

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Pat hesitated. He tried to think how to word it, and then gave up; the problem was too big for his meagre vocabulary. “It’s…complicated,” he said uneasily. That was the grossest understatement of his career.

  “Shit,” Bob said, abandoning the patio doors.

  Pat frowned, and Bob automatically said, “sorry, Pat. But…what’s the problem?”

  “I know I said it was going to be tonight, that I was informed it would be tonight, but…I don’t see how that’s possible now.”

  Bob frowned, his attention keenly fixed on Pat. But Darren got to his feet and took a step toward him.

  Darren pointed to the hall behind him and said, “but Pat…look what happened here. We have two dead bodies, and one of them must surely be a member of the Cult-“

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pat said, cutting him off. “It’s not enough.”

  Darren’s mouth hung open for a moment. Then he said:

  “How can it not be enough?”

  Pat sighed.

  “Because Kent confirmed that the defector was Greg Matheson’s son. And the Cult now have him back. Or at least we think they do.”

  Darren shook his head and said, “but if we organise a raid
on them now, then we can catch them with Mr Matheson’s son-“

  But Pat was already shaking his head.

  “It’s no good. Because even if we recover him – if indeed the Cult has him, and if he doesn’t, our raid could come off as police harassment – then there’s no guarantee he will testify against the Cult.”

  Bob said knowingly, “because he’s been compromised. By the Cult.”

  “I don’t know,” Pat said. “But I do know that he didn’t leave it willingly.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Bob said, “Kent organised the investigation in concert with Matheson’s plan to break him out of the Cult?”

  “Something like that, I think,” Pat confirmed.

  “Well. That’s hardly surprising. You know the rich look after their own, and the hodgepodge way this investigation has been put together…it’s no great shock. Not to me.”

  Pat didn’t think he could stand another lecture on one of Bob’s many conspiracy theories. He was so suspicious of governments and the secret rich that it was a wonder he got any sleep at all.

  “How?” Darren asked. “We’ve never found anyone who’d gotten away from the Cult before. Either willingly or not. So how did he do it?”

  Pat said, “I’m assuming he was extricated. Gregory Matheson was a millionaire. I suppose he could have hired a tactical team of some description. I don’t know.”

  Bob groaned.

  Darren looked between the two older men for answers, but neither of them had any. This was the imperfect world in which they all lived. In the end, all Pat could give him was a shrug.

  Bob said, “Greg Matheson paid some mercenaries to go in and get him. What an idiot.”

  “I imagine it was something like that.”

  “How the other half live,” Bob remarked.

  “So even if we recover him,” Darren said, “his testimony won’t carry much weight.”

  “Well,” Pat said, and made a face. “Even if we got him in to court…I doubt we’d get a conviction. There’d be too many ways to punch a hole in his testimony.”

  “Might as well throw the case out altogether,” Bob said.

  “Now, Bob, that’s not the right attitude…”

  Bob nodded.

  “Sorry, Pat. I’m just…it’s just a bit too much for me right now. You can see what’s happened, can’t you? You can see what’s been going on here?”

  Pat frowned. Was this going to be another lecture on conspiracies?

  “What do you mean?”

  “Matheson didn’t care about the case. He didn’t care if it collapsed, if we couldn’t convict Bellafont – or any of them for that matter. He just wanted his son back. So he called up his good friend Raymond Kent and asked him to investigate the case, even though – legally speaking – he didn’t have a right…because nothing illegal has actually happened. Well…not until tonight anyway. His son probably went willingly to the Cult, like they all do. So the only way Matheson could get him back was to bring the law down on them. He used us. We were primed to raid them tonight in tandem with the rescue of his son only so he could get the boy clear and the boy wouldn’t have anything to go back to. It’s pretty f…” Bob quickly checked Pat’s face, and saw the beginnings of a disapproving frown. “It’s unbelievable, is what it is.”

  It might have smacked of paranoia, but Pat thought that Bob was probably right.

  And he also thought that there wasn’t much any of them could do about it.

  “I’m hardly ecstatic about things,” Pat said, and could have added: and I have to investigate both of you too, which I am even more deeply unhappy about.

  “So where is the Cult?” Darren asked.

  “On a farm. In West Kennet. But that was over two hours ago now.”

  “What are they doing there?” Darren asked.

  Pat shrugged.

  “No idea.”

  Bob thought.

  “They’re basically nomadic,” he said. “I doubt they’ll be there for long.”

  “I don’t know how they manage to be so elusive,” Darren remarked. “Considering they’re basically a convoy.”

  “They don’t bother anyone,” Bob said, but he was distracted. “They’re not violent. They don’t cause any trouble. People have got more substantial things to worry about.”

  “Bob,” Pat said, to get his attention. Bob’s head came up, as if he were surfacing for air. “Why are they doing all this?” He indicated the bungalow, and the bodies in the hall. “I know no one has ever left the Cult before, but this is completely out of character for them. They’re not violent. So explain it to me.”

  Bob shook his head: he didn’t know, not really.

  “You have more experience than either of us with these sorts of groups,” Pat continued. “So help us to understand what’s going on here.”

  Bob stared at Pat, his expression almost hostile, and then he nodded.

  “Alright,” he said, including Darren in the nod. “I’ll do my best to explain it…at least from my personal experience. So. There’s various recognisable types of cults, of which we are all aware: you’ve got religious cults, political cults, racist cults, terrorist cults, polygamist cults, doomsday cults. No matter the agenda, they all generally work around the same principles: control and conformity. But to understand a cult, you have to think of them not as a religious movement, or a political one, or a racial one…but as a community.”

  “Okay,” Pat said hesitantly. He wasn’t sure that was strictly true, but he was willing to entertain the idea.

  “I know,” Bob said, at his sceptical look. “But every cult lines up with the rules that define a community, irrespective of their agenda: a pyramid structure, with a leader at the top of the pyramid, and then the lower layers conforming to their place in the structure. I mean, it’s simplifying it a bit, but it’s basically true. However, the single unique difference between our society at large and a cult, is that the cult offers a true sense of belonging. A closeness. And a true sense of place, in the structure. The way it does that…well. That’s a different story altogether.”

  “It can’t be that simple,” Darren said, with a look at Pat.

  “Look,” Bob said, his hands held up. “Usually, a cult will attract new members by appealing to those that feel disparate and lonely, that have not belonged to a valid social unit before, for whatever reason. The Children of God cult used sex to entice in new members; they’d get the young and attractive members to go out into the towns, to see if they could hook young men. They even had a name for it: they called it Flirty Fishing. Social groups form – or at least normal ones do – based on shared interests, shared activities, shared lifestyle. But what if your interests are slightly…oblique? Then you are ostracised. Right? Cults both satisfy and feed that need, of a radical world view. They shower you with love when you first become a part of the group…and then withhold that love when you don’t conform to their rules. It’s a standard control technique. All the big cults do it: Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, FDLS, Children of God. It was the same with that activist group I was involved with. We helped each other out, and we did it freely, joyfully…because we were in something together. We were part of something. A group. If somebody’s car broke down, there was a dozen people I could call for a lift, and a dozen more who would help me to fix it. And they never asked for anything in return, never requested any money or favours in exchange for their help. They just did it, because you were part of their group…and by extension, part of their family. It was almost…shocking. Which is a statement in and of itself, if that makes sense.

  “And that was how it went, for me, for months at a time: just living your life, but in a vast network of people who would support you, look after you, be your friend. The only time things changed was when there was what they called a mission. Then the pressure to conform, to do your part, was overwhelming. It was almost impossible to resist. And that’s how these cults work. They rarely don’t have an agenda, and most of the
time only the upper echelons know what that is. And that’s what this looks like to me.” Bob indicated the destruction of the patio door. “A mission.”

  “Were you involved in any missions?” Darren asked.

  Pat could have winced. He had read the files; none of it had been pretty.

  He thought Bob would deny it, but surprisingly, he nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. Furtively, he avoided their eyes. “There was an animal testing laboratory in Camden. One night we broke in, freed the animals, and then set the place on fire.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

  “The lines got blurred,” Bob said desperately. “These people, they’re so good to you, you can’t help but like them. I don’t have many friends. I probably only have four or five people that I can call my true friends, who I’ve known from childhood. But when I was with these activists, every single one of them was a close friend. I know that’s the way it was designed, a thing they used to keep you close, keep you interested…but once you’ve had it, it’s difficult to get on without it. And they make you want to believe in what they believe in, because you don’t want them to turn out to be crazy…because what does that say about you, a person who needs crazy people for friends? You don’t want an end to all that attention, all that…love. And you want to help them get on. With whatever it is that they’re doing. You want to look after them…”

  Bob cleared his throat then and turned away.

  “It’s alright, Bob,” Pat said, but he was worried: the cracks went deeper than he had thought.

  Did that mean Bob might be susceptible to the Cult…that he might be the one talking to the New Artisans?

  No.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  Not Bob.

  But he couldn’t believe it of Darren either.

  And it had to be somebody…

  Maybe it was Greg’s Head of Security. Alfred Alger. Or the woman: Aimee Graham.

  He just hoped it wasn’t his friends.

  “It’s all a lie of course,” Bob said, shrugging. “Cults are the worst kind of social conformity. The worst kind of brainwashing…if there’s such a thing as a good kind of brainwashing. As you know I’m no big fan of governments, or the Church, but at least there’s culpability. To a point. These cults are ungoverned, unchecked. Unregulated. Everyone in Jonestown knew what they were doing when they drank the Kool-Aid, but Jones had convinced them that it was the end of the world, and there was nothing else they could do. The activist group I was investigating cost me my marriage, and they almost cost me my job…well, that remains to be seen. Not because I forgot what I was doing, and why I was there in the first place. But because I cared for the people. The woman…you know about the woman?”