Rules of the Earth: A dark gripping detective thriller (Crane and Anderson Book 1)

by Wendy Cartmell

  Rules of the Earth:

  a dark disturbing detective thriller

  (Crane & Anderson Book 1)

  Wendy Cartmell

  Published by Costa Press 2016

  © Wendy Cartmell 2016

  Wendy Cartmell has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Rules of the Earth

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  By Wendy Cartmell

  From Wendy

  Basic Element

  Boy

  Aldershot Mail Online

  Crane

  Rules of the Earth

  Two lost girls.

  An out of control detective.

  Is anyone safe?

  Sgt Major Crane is out of the army, out of a job and definitely out of sorts.

  So when DCI Anderson throws him a lifeline, Crane grabs at it with both hands.

  A young girl has been found, dazed, bruised and mute.

  As Crane and Anderson try and find out what’s happened to her,

  another girl is found.

  But this time she’s dead…

  Prologue

  Six months earlier….

  It was stifling inside the black hood and he was sure the pointed top was wilting in the heat; just as he was. The smell of the blood in the chalice was making him feel sick and, if he was honest, the last thing he wanted to do was to drink it. But the humiliation of not joining in the ceremony was probably worse than taking a drink. Just.

  He and his fellow supplicants formed a semi-circle around an altar, upon which lay a young child: she was very much alive but drugged to keep her quiet while the bloodletting took place. Her long blond hair was in dramatic contrast to the plain black shift that she wore. Her face was white, lips flesh coloured and only the faintest rising and falling of her chest indicated that she was breathing. On the back of one hand was a needle that fitted snugly into her vein. Attached to the needle was a small plastic tube that allowed her precious blood to drip out into the chalice. She could have been asleep, instead of unconscious. Around her were placed seven candles, six black and one white, their flames guttering and smoking in the hot fetid air.

  Normally children were banned from attending these rituals, the only exception being the Satanic baptism, which was specifically designed to involve infants, and such a baptism was taking place in the basement of a remote house in the dead of night. It was a ceremony deemed to be necessary to override any Christian or other religious ceremonies that the child may have been subjected to before joining the Satanic Church. He wasn’t so sure it was necessary himself, but then all the churches had their rules, didn’t they? He guessed it was no different to a Catholic first communion or a Jewish Bar Mitzvah and so he’d decided he may as well play along. Let’s face it he had nothing better to do that night. And as he was moving soon, he’d thought he’d better make the most of the last meeting he would be attending.

  As the chalice was passed to him he muttered the rite: Cursed are the lambs of God for they shall be bled whiter than snow.

  Taking the tiniest of sips but still gagging on the foul taste of the blood, he just about managed to swallow it instead of coughing it out and spraying it all over the child. Thankful that he’d managed to get through it, he passed the cup to the next in line. To be fair, the group had tried to adhere as closely to the ritual as they could, using the rules described in the Satanic rituals, or dramatic performances as they were sometimes called. They followed the suggestions of the clothing to be worn, the music to be used and actions to be taken. It was said that the pageantry and theatricality was intended to engage the participant’s senses on all levels. He could relate to that, for apart from the blood, the rest of it was definitely working for him.

  All the males wore black robes and hoods but the young women were encouraged to make themselves attractive to the males present. As a result he was surrounded by a surfeit of black leather and rubber, long shiny thigh length boots and even the odd whip or two. Everyone wore the sign of sulphur around their necks. The intent of the women to stimulate sexual feelings amongst the men was exciting and he couldn’t wait for the bloody ceremony to be over, so they could get on with the really interesting part, the part that started once the ceremony ended.

  The Church of Satan smashed all concepts of what a ‘church’ was supposed to be. It was a temple of indulgence, where one could openly defy the temples of abstinence that had previously been built. Rather than an unforgiving, unwelcoming place, as so many of the church’s built by religions that worshiped God were, theirs was a place where you could go to have fun. It was a religion based on self-indulgence, of carnality (of the here and now instead of the there and then), and, most importantly to him, of pleasure instead of self-denial

  At last the final person drunk from the chalice, the welcome sound of the bell ringing nine times rang around the room, signalling the end of the ceremony. The formal part over, it was time for the only reason he was there. It was time for the fun to start….

  1

  Today…

  “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are,” Bethany sang in her head. She would have sung out loud, but her throat was raw and sore from crying. Oh and screaming. There had been a lot of screaming. She remembered that at least. The rest of it she just wanted to blank out and singing that song helped her do just that.

  Shivering, whether from cold or fear she wasn’t quite sure, she pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders and tried to tuck it around her body, so no cold air could get in. She wriggled down into her cocoon and imagined she was a butterfly, ready to burst from the confines of her sheath that kept her safe from predators, until she was ready, formed and changed into a beautiful creature. The land-bound caterpillar shrivelled, lying decaying on the forest floor.

  Would she be safe, lying on a filthy mattress, covered by a smelly blanket? She knew she wouldn’t. But no one had been to see her in a while. She felt she was safe for now. But then, in horror, she wondere
d if they’d forgotten about her? Moved on to another young girl? That thought was worse. If that were the case, she’d never get out of there. She’d stay in the filthy cell until she died from starvation, or dehydration, or whatever it was that you died from.

  She’d been snatched from the park. Or at least that was the last place she remembered being in. Vague memories of ice cream, that tinkling music and chocolate sauce. She thought she’d fallen asleep after eating the ice cream and woken up here. Wherever here was.

  She’d no idea how long ago that had been. She’d wanted to scratch the days on the wall, like she’d seen in the films. But she had nothing to scratch with and anyway the light never went off. The dirty bulb high in the ceiling provided a weak yellow light all the time, so she soon became disoriented, having no way to discern day from night, or night from day. She was fed at irregular intervals, a plate with a shop bought sandwich, a piece of fruit and a bottle of water. She’d thought she could count every time she was fed, thinking that would help tell her how long she’d been there. She was constantly hungry, so thought they only fed her once a day and so it should have been easy to count the meals. But as her strength waned, she became confused and after five, or was it six meals, she couldn’t remember what the last number had been.

  She closed her eyes, determined to try and get some sleep, pulling the blanket over her head to shut out some of the light, when she heard footsteps. She thought they sounded like her dad’s boots. Her eyes flew open and she held her breath and listened. Hard. But there was no other sound. It seemed it wasn’t time for another visit, or for another meal. She was safe for now. But her limbs wouldn’t obey her mind. They began to shake again and she wondered if she was becoming addicted to whatever it was they gave her to keep her sleepy. Not so much willing and able, but oblivious. She fancied it was something they put in the water, but not in every bottle. Sometimes she felt fine after drinking it. At other times she would rapidly fall asleep and upon awakening had no recollection of what, if anything, had taken place. Just that the backs of her hands were sore and bruised. She felt like one of her Barbie dolls, to be played with for a while and then thrown back into the toy box. Discarded. Until the next time.

  Tears tracked small rivulets through the dirt on her face, their salty taste coating her lips. Angrily she dashed them away and sniffed back the others threatening to fall from her eyes. She wouldn’t break. She wouldn’t give in. She wouldn’t stop hoping. Hoping that one day this would be over and she’d be back home in Birmingham with her family.

  The shuffling had started again. She was sure it was boots. It couldn’t be mice or rats; they would scratch along the floor with their claws. Someone was making their way towards her cell in this cold basement that was her home now. She fancied it was a basement at any rate. The dirt floor, the wooden steps that she could see from the small square opening in the door of her prison climbing up the far wall. The damp, fetid air, the lack of windows, yes, she was sure it was a basement.

  Scrabbling up the mattress, she curled into the corner, covering herself with the blanket from head to toe. Clamping her hands over her ears she began again to sing the song in her head. “Anything your heart desires will come to you.”

  The blanket was grabbed and thrown off her. She kept her eyes shut and her hands over her ears, shrinking even further into the corner. What did he want? Why hadn’t she been drugged? Perhaps she hadn’t drunk enough of the water? But it was too late now. Perhaps if she pretended to be unconscious he’d leave her alone. She was good at pretending. As a hand was placed on her arm, a large hand, a man’s hand, she couldn’t pretend anymore. She screamed a scream that burst out of her, despite her sore throat. She kept screaming, batting the hand off her arm, struggling as two hands grabbed her arms, kicking with her bare feet at the solid bulk of the man who was trying to hurt her and screaming, still screaming, until she was crushed against a body and rocked, rocked like a baby, rocked until she stopped struggling.

  A hand caressed her hair, stroking her head over and over, and his voice whispered, “It’s alright. You’re safe now. I’m a policeman. I’ve come to take you home. Your wish has been granted.”

  He rose from the floor, his strong arms lifting her as though she were no more than a paper doll. “I’m going to cover your head with the blanket,” he said. “Just to protect your eyes. Okay?”

  She managed a small nod against his shoulder, still unsure that it was really happening: that she was being rescued. Her nightmare was finally over. With her head safely covered, she felt him walk up the wooden stairs, her body bumping against his as he climbed each tread, going up the stairs she’d fantasised clambering up for so long.

  Once up the stairs, he moved quickly through what she imagined to be the house belonging to the basement and burst out of the front door, her head still covered by the blanket, through which daylight weakly filtered.

  “I’m taking you to an ambulance,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest and she managed another small nod. Bethany heard the creaking of the springs as they entered the vehicle and he placed her gently onto a hard bed, so she was sitting on it with her toes touching the floor. “There’s someone here waiting for you,” he continued. “So I’m going to take the blanket off your head.”

  The lights in the ambulance were stronger than she’d imagined. Even though she thought she’d prepared herself for the glare, she had no choice but to squint and hold up her hand against the lights. Through scrunched up lids she saw her mother sitting opposite, arms open, face wet with tears. Without any conscious thought, Bethany tipped forward to fall into her arms.

  But instead of landing against the soft bosom of her mother, she fell face first onto the flea ridden, ripped mattress in her basement cell.

  2

  The living nightmare seemed without end. Sgt Major Tom Crane couldn’t stop re-experiencing the accident every time he closed his eyes. Each dawn he awoke drenched in sweat from the dreams he couldn’t run away from, no matter how hard he tried. Once fully awake, the pain kicked in, yet another reminder that the accident had really happened. He was trapped in a broken body. Everything he held dear had been ripped from him. His job, his house, his way of life, his career and his mates. Gone. All gone in an instant.

  Shivering in his damp tee-shirt, Crane struggled to sit and then once upright swung his good leg out of the bed, grabbing the gammy one and dragging it over to meet the other. As expected, the first few steps were agony as he stumbled his way to the bathroom. It was as if a gremlin had a dagger and was twisting the point round and round in his hip joint. Actually not one, but what felt like a whole family of the little buggers. He hated those gremlins with a passion. They would pop up at the most unexpected of times, poking and prodding with their knives, making his leg buckle; an attack that more often than not ended with him tumbling to the floor.

  Crane turned on the shower and as he waited for the hot water to run through, he peeled off his tee-shirt and boxer shorts. The scars on his leg were beginning to fade, but the mental ones, he knew, would take much longer. As he stepped into the shower, luxuriating in the hot jets of water, try as he might, he couldn’t shake the memories.

  A split second was all it had taken for the stupid soldier driving the lorry to make the decision to drive off, before Crane was safely in the back of it. The vehicle had jerked forward, bowling Crane against the back board that should have stopped him from falling out. But the two soldiers tasked with securing the board hadn’t had time to complete the action before the lorry kangarooed off and so Crane felt himself falling backwards out of the lorry. As his body hit the floor, everything went mercifully black.

  He was later told that the official enquiry into the accident had proven that the soldier driving the lorry was to blame. The driver thought he’d heard the double tap that indicated he could safely move off. But it turned out the taps he had heard were for the lorry next to him. The only good thing about the accident was that Crane had been in a lorry parked
outside Provost Barracks on Aldershot Garrison, instead of on exercise in the middle of the Brecon Beacons, meaning that an ambulance arrived quickly, rushing him to Frimley Park Hospital.

  When he’d regained consciousness Crane had been horrified to find himself in hospital with his left leg elevated and some sort of metal contraption wrapped around it. Machines blinked at him, tubes went in and out of his body and he was in the grip of excruciating pain that started in his left hip and shot all the way down his leg to his toes. Panic had gripped him and he’d started screaming.

  That was pretty much where the dream ended and the corporeal suffering began. Crane was now out of hospital, but heavily reliant on pain killers and a stick. He refused to sit in a wheelchair and was determined to work his way through the pain and treatment. From the start he was convinced he could fully recover and return to work. The problem was that the British Army hadn’t agreed with him. They’d described his determination to return to full health as valiant, but pointed out that the surgeons and doctors in charge of his care had a very different prognosis. They said his shattered hip would mend, but because of it being kept immobile after surgery so his broken femur, tibia and fibula could heal, it would mean constant pain from the hip replacement and restricted movement, more so than if he’d had a normal recovery. Crane was unwilling to accept that diagnosis, but it hadn’t mattered. The Army had spoken and just like that his career was over.

  He wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d been injured in a war zone whilst doing something worthwhile. Helping rebuild a war torn country and instructing new recruits in the local military police, something he’d done with some success a few years ago. Maybe if his leg had been shattered by an IED, or bullets even, he could have handled it better. But to be medically retired because he fell out of the back of a bloody lorry, well that was embarrassing in the extreme. Who would have thought the great Sgt Major Crane could be laid so low by an inexperienced soldier?