The Mills of God

by Deryn Lake

‘And where will you be, sir?’

  ‘I hope that wasn’t meant sarcastically.’ There was a ripple of laughter. ‘I mean to go on a bit of a walkabout. Potter will be here in charge of operations. Any further questions?’

  Half-an-hour later Tennant had finished his briefings to the sixty or so extra policemen who had been drafted in for night duty in Lakehurst and drank a hasty cup of coffee before putting on his coat – he liked a good old-fashioned coat, none of your modern designs for him. Then he walked out of the mobile headquarters and turned right down the High Street.

  It was a bitter night, a wind whipping up from the lower part of Lakehurst, past the Victorian houses and the Catholic church. It stung Tennant’s eyes as he walked down that straight, long street towards The Dell. Overhead the moon and the stars had been totally blacked over by a thick layer of cloud and the inspector thought that this could well be the scene at the end of the world. He suddenly felt miserable and downhearted. To be defeated by some raving lunatic at this stage of his career was disheartening to say the least and he made himself a mental promise that he would not leave Lakehurst until the task was completed satisfactorily.

  His thoughts turned to the cloaked figure who had attacked the vicar. He now knew that the cloak was a part of the chorister’s uniform and that Mrs Cox had known Old Turner – as the vicar had described him – who had had to retire from the choir through sheer advancing years. That done, the poor old boy had died within six months and his ashes were happily buried in Lakehurst churchyard beside a rhododendron bush. The cloak had been left as an heirloom to one of the newer members but who it actually was, Mrs Cox had not been sure.

  The offending garment had now been removed to Lewes in a large evidence bag and was currently under examination by Rosamund in the forensics lab. The thought of her made Tennant realize fully how much he needed a woman to make love to. He still hadn’t had time to have that evening with her – and hopefully spend the night – and it didn’t look to him as if any of that were going to materialize until the end of this investigation was well and truly in sight.

  He fell to wondering about the owner of the cloak. Was it possible, he thought, that these were two entirely different people. That the person who stalked about and so obviously assaulted the vicar was someone entirely different from the savage and sadistic killer who killed his victims in such an horrific manner. Pictures of poor Ceinwen, her throat stuffed with her guileless and innocent poetry, came back to him and he stopped for a moment feeling suddenly short of breath.

  A cyclist in bright white trousers, most unsuitable for the weather, was battling against the wind and went past Tennant, but other than for that person there was no one else about. Lakehurst was like a plague village, deserted and still, with nothing except the lights on in houses to tell him that there were living creatures here at all. With a feeling of trepidation, the inspector entered The Dell.

  It was a truly depressing place. An enclave of ten identical houses, probably erected in the eighties, all built in a U shape, the end four facing one another so that the owners must have suffered from an appalling lack of privacy. Sonia lived in one of the bottom houses facing up the road so was somewhat better off than most of her neighbours. As Tennant walked into The Dell he noticed a car without lights parked at the far end and thought to himself that his instructions were clearly being carried out. He tapped on the window. It was lowered and he looked into the startled face of a WPC. Beside her, fast asleep, was a fellow officer.

  ‘Good evening, Constable Belloc.’

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  The policeman struggled awake, shouting, ‘What the hell’s happening?’

  ‘I am,’ answered Tennant, ‘and I’d advise you to keep your voice down. You’ll have everybody in the street coming out to see what’s going on.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Is Mrs Tate in?’

  ‘Yes, her lights are on downstairs.’

  ‘So I see. Has anybody called on her?’

  ‘Not since we’ve been here, sir. And that was an hour ago.’

  ‘If anybody does come – and that includes the vicar and any of the doctors – you are to bring them in for questioning immediately.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘I’ll just have a look round. Stay here until somebody comes to relieve you.’

  Tennant walked quietly past the curtained windows of The Dell and felt a definite stab of excitement. It reminded him of the past, when he had been a sergeant to a great inspector, one Grey, known amongst the junior members of the force as The Man. Grey had had an uncanny knack of solving his cases, in fact Tennant sometimes wondered if he used psychic powers. At this moment he wished that he possessed some.

  Moving silently the inspector stood by the gate of number five. Very faintly he could hear the sound of the television from within. Quiet as a cat, the inspector stepped over the low iron fence and into Sonia’s garden. Slinking his way round to the back, he peered in through the kitchen window. The room was in total darkness but he could vaguely make out various objects from the light filtering round the door. It looked normal enough. And then he had a horrid vision of the death of Ceinwen, lying undiscovered in her sitting room. He went round to the front and was about to ring the door when he heard a pair of feet walking up the road and definitely towards this end of The Dell. Tennant froze back into the shadows.

  He could see by the street light that it was Jack Boggis making his way, quite steadily for him. He wore an old fashioned anorak – Tennant vaguely wondered if it was Jack who had inspired the word – and his usual grumpy expression. The inspector could not help but notice that Jack’s slack jawline swung a little as he walked.

  With an increase of pace, he went up the garden path and extended a digit to press the bell.

  The inspector stepped forward.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Boggis. I would like you to accompany me to headquarters, please.’

  Jack spluttered so violently that his false teeth nearly came out.

  ‘What do you mean? What for?’

  ‘I am afraid that I am unable to reveal that except to say that we would like you to answer some further questions.’

  ‘And what if I refuse?’ Jack asked nastily.

  ‘Then you leave me no alternative but to place you under arrest,’ Tennant answered in the pleasantest voice he could muster.

  ‘Now look ’ere . . .’

  ‘No, Mr Boggis, you look here. I have been informed by Sergeant Potter that your attitude throughout this investigation has not been particularly cooperative. In fact, at times, downright obstructive. I am sure you have your reasons for this which we can investigate a little more closely at the station. Now, are you coming quietly, as they say, or do you wish me to place you under arrest?’

  ‘This is intimidation.’

  ‘No it isn’t. It’s normal police procedure.’

  Jack began to bluster into Tennant’s face, a fact that had the inspector taking a step back.

  ‘What about civil liberties? I demand my rights. I want my solicitor present. I’ve a mind to sue the lot of you. There was I, on my way to make a social call, and I’m suddenly wanted for questioning. It takes some beating, it truly does.’

  Tennant didn’t answer but frogmarched the man back towards the car.

  ‘Constable Belloc, drive us to the mobile unit, would you.’ He looked at the yawning policeman beside her. ‘You wait here and keep your eyes peeled. A bracing walk round The Dell might be just what you need.’ He turned to Boggis. ‘Now, sir, get inside out of the cold.’

  It was very late and Cheryl Hamilton-Harty was doing her final check on the horses before she went to bed. She was clad in her pyjamas with a thick coat on top and, as she had removed her make-up, was looking far from glamorous. For all her strange character and rampant nymphomania, she genuinely loved the horses and as she entered the stables the smell of horseflesh and the soft whinnies of greeting met her.

  She was stabling
twelve horses and two ponies at the moment, which was about the number she hired out at weekends. She loved Saturdays and Sundays when the merchant bankers and city whizz kids came down to the big houses they owned round and about, and thought that riding – no longer to hounds unfortunately, or so they agreed – would enhance their image. Afterwards, of course, Cheryl would invite them in for a little drink and then, as she was reasonably attractive and utterly unable to control her libido, they would have a small siesta. Now it was late on Sunday and everyone had left for their flats in London, and it was back to the routine of teaching toddlers and tinies for the intervening five days.

  She stroked her own horse’s flank. ‘Hello, Florence. Do you want a carrot then?’

  Cheryl extended one and was just feeling the soft mouth consuming it when a voice behind her said, ‘Hello, my dear.’

  She whirled round to see a figure holding a riding whip, the sort she used when she took out the governess car.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked, disconcerted.

  ‘Don’t you know me?’ continued the unearthly voice, neither male nor female.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she answered.

  ‘Perhaps this will refresh your memory,’ it said.

  And the whip snaked out and tightened round Cheryl’s neck until everything went dark and her body fell silently to the ground.

  SEVENTEEN

  It was the postman who found her when he eventually arrived in Speckled Wood shortly before twelve noon. He had a package to deliver – a package that would not fit through the front door – and when he knocked the door swung open.

  ‘Cheryl,’ he called out. ‘Where are you? I’ve got a parcel for you.’

  There was no reply and he heard his voice echoing through the silence of the big house that she shared with old Mickey, her lodger, though the exact nature of their relationship was still a subject for village gossip.

  He turned away towards his van and then he heard an unaccustomed kicking from the stables. He thought this highly unusual because, say what you like about her, Cheryl was good with horses and would have turned them out to pasture by this time. Calling her name, the postman made his way in there.

  It was dark inside and the kicking was coming from the horses who were knocking the walls of their loose boxes as a sign that they wanted attention. He took a couple of steps into the dimness and then he saw her, lying in a crumpled heap, with something obscene and black coiled round her neck like a snake. He took one nervous step closer, saw that it was a whip that had ended her life, saw something pinned up on the wall but did not stop to read it. He fled out and into his van, reversed in the stable yard and headed at top speed for Lakehurst.

  Tennant had spent a most uncomfortable night – what there had been of it – trying to snatch a few hours sleep wedged in a chair in the mobile headquarters. He came to full consciousness at about six o’clock and forced himself to wake up completely by imbibing a great deal of black coffee. But his mind was full of Jack Boggis. To say he disliked the man would have been an overstatement but there was something in Boggis’s basic character that quite offended him. Whether it was the tremendous conceit, whether it was his blustering manner, or whether it was his ill-fitting false teeth that added the final insult, Tennant could not be sure. But the truth was that the less time he spent in his presence, the better.

  On the previous night he had questioned him closely about being in The Dell and about his relationship with Mrs Tate. Boggis had given a self-satisfied smile and had almost rushed the information at him that he and Sonia were having ‘a bit of a fling’. Tennant had allowed his tiny wince to show, as this was carefully added to Boggis’s statement. Eventually, with the statement typed out and signed, he had released Jack to walk home through that most inclement of nights at one o’clock in the morning.

  At eight thirty a.m. the DNA teams set forth to take samples from the entire village, and Tennant decided – having ascertained that Sonia Tate was up and about – to make his weary way back to Lewes to see his superintendent. He just had time, he realized, to go back to his own flat and have a shower and change his suit before going into the office. But he made the mistake of stretching out on his bed and when he woke up it was two and a half hours later.

  Jumping to his feet, Tennant threw on his clothes and ran down the street still knotting his tie. When he walked into his office the clock on the wall was pointing to noon. In as nonchalant a way as possible he went to the superintendent’s door and knocked on it.

  ‘Come,’ said Miller grandly.

  Contorting his features into what he hoped was a confident smile, Tennant made his way in.

  Miller glanced up and immediately looked down again. ‘Any progress?’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Oh quite a bit, sir.’

  And Tennant went waffling on about the cloak he had found being the offending garment and how the DNA samples were being taken this very day.

  ‘And?’ said Miller pointedly.

  At that very moment Tennant’s mobile rang and he raised his eyebrows at the superintendent, who nodded briefly. The inspector took the call outside and retrospectively was glad that he did so.

  ‘The postman found who?’ he asked, the line having crackled at that important point.

  ‘Miss Hamilton-Harty, sir. She’s been strangled with a whip. Forensics are there now.’

  ‘Was there anything written on the wall?’

  ‘Oh yes, the usual type of thing, signed by the Acting Light of the World.’

  ‘God damn the bastard to hell. I’ll come straight back.’

  He popped his head round Miller’s door and said, ‘Sorry, sir. I’ve been called back to Lakehurst. I think we’re on the point of a breakthrough.’

  Why he said that he couldn’t possibly explain, even to himself. But the superintendent had to have some kind of encouragement or he might easily put somebody else on the case. And that would be too much to take.

  He drove back to Lakehurst very fast and stood silently in the mobile unit while Potter gave him the bare outline. Tennant actually hissed between his teeth as he listened.

  ‘And I thought it was Sonia Tate who was going to be the next victim,’ he said, shaking his head slowly from side to side. ‘What a fool.’

  ‘You weren’t to know, sir. I thought she would be the obvious person too.’

  ‘And all the while poor Cheryl didn’t have a copper in sight down at Speckled Wood when the Acting Light of the World came to call.’

  ‘Let’s get down there.’

  They drove at a great rate, as if the turn of speed would relieve their feelings, and reached the farmhouse, behind which stood the stable block, about ten minutes later. The usual white clad figures were crawling all over it and something stirred in Tennant’s memory as he saw them. He turned to Potter.

  ‘Do you know I think my guess was right, the killer has got himself some protective clothing.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because the other night when I went down to Sonia Tate’s there was a cyclist out and I noticed he had very white trousers on. I think they were protective gear.’

  ‘But they themselves must be corrupted now if he commits murders wearing them. I mean he has to get to and from the locations somehow, even when he’s walking.’

  ‘And now I’ve seen a suspicious cyclist. I want every bicycle in Lakehurst examined.’ Tennant lowered his voice. ‘Potter, I’m determined to get this bugger, whoever he – or she – might be. I’ve told you all along that I don’t believe the religious maniac theory. That I think someone or other is busy working out their own sadistic fantasies and trying to tie us up with some religious waffle.’

  ‘Well, I’ll not rest until I see him behind bars. He’s been walking all over us long enough.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go in.’

  They marched up to the stables and a young male SOCO handed them protective clothes. Duly clad they entered the stables. Poor Cheryl Hamilton-Harty, looking quite elderl
y without her make-up, was lying on the floor, a long whip wrapped round her neck and then knotted by means of twisting the lash round the handle. Hardly daring to raise his eyes Tennant looked up to see the message.

  ‘Number Five. Thou shalt not commit A. Take great care. The Acting Light of the World.’

  ‘He’s actually mentioned the ten commandments, the bastard,’ said Tennant.

  ‘But if Cheryl was just enthusiastic about sex—’ Potter didn’t finish.

  ‘Maybe her fellow riders –’ Tennant allowed himself a hollow laugh – ‘were all married men.’

  ‘Maybe she’s been married.’

  ‘Maybe she still is.’

  At that moment the police doctor arrived and began his examination, talking over his shoulder to Tennant.

  ‘Strangled to death with the whip exerting so much force that the vertebrae were snapped. She would have died within a few minutes. Whoever did this must have used enormous pressure.’

  ‘Could it have been a woman?’

  ‘A strong woman in a frenzy – yes.’

  Potter turned to Tennant. ‘Oh my God, sir. Where does this leave us?’

  ‘Determined,’ said Tennant, standing upright as a small female member of the forensics team, at a nod from the doctor, delicately began to unpick the whip from around Cheryl’s broken neck.

  Peeling off his protective garments he said, ‘This business has gone on long enough. Now we solve this case.’

  Ten minutes later he was back at the mobile headquarters and on the phone to the vicar.

  ‘Hello, Reverend Lawrence. I have some news for you. The cloak which once belonged to Turner – an ex-member of the choir – has been identified as the one worn by your assailant. I wonder if you would mind doing me a favour. When’s the next choir practice?’

  ‘Tonight as it happens.’

  ‘Good. Would you ask them to stay on at the end of it, just for a short while. Then I want everyone in the vestry to identify which cloak is theirs. And, Vicar . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t give them any warning at all of this. It’s very important that we keep this utterly to ourselves.’