by Adam Croft
Before he could even think about what he was doing, he was striding towards the phone box. A thousand thoughts flooded through his mind. Was this an emergency? Probably not, he thought. After all, there wouldn’t be a whole lot they could do right now. The damage had been done. 101, the non-emergency number, would be the most sensible option. He lifted the handset, then paused for a moment. If what the message had said was real, lives could be at stake. It was down to him to act. He dialled 999, the emergency number.
A man answered his call. James froze for a moment, unsure of what to say. There was so much he wanted to say, but he had to keep it brief and to the point. Anything else, and they’d think he was a crackpot. No-one in their right mind would believe the whole story, not at first. Not even the police.
‘Hello, police emergency.’ the voice at the other end of the phone said.
‘Uh, yes,’ James replied, eventually. ‘Hi. Uh, there’s a dead body. Someone’s been murdered.’
4
Wendy curled a nostril in disgust at the state of the coffee mugs, and rifled through the cupboard to try and find one that could pass as almost clean. She needed to get another one of her own, with her name plastered over it. The last one had gone walkabout, as did everything else in the office sooner or later, and she hadn’t got round to replacing it yet.
Eventually, she found one that didn’t look too bad. She ran the hot tap until it was scalding, squirted a good quarter of a cup of washing-up liquid into the mug and scrubbed at it with a handful of scrunched-up paper towels. She rinsed it with the boiling water and sat it in the sink for a minute or so, hoping the steaming liquid would kill off the rest of the germs lurking in the porcelain.
The major incident room was quieter than usual — even quieter than it would usually be following the closure of any large case — and Wendy put this down to Jack Culverhouse’s absence. She didn’t know if he’d booked a holiday. She doubted it. But then again she tried to block out a lot of what he said. It wasn’t that she disrespected her boss; she just needed to try and keep her sanity occasionally.
‘Righto,’ Steve Wing said into the phone, raising his hand to stop Wendy as she walked past. ‘I’ll pass it on. Cheers. Bye.’
Wendy looked at Steve, waiting for him to tell her what he wanted.
‘A report of a body,’ he said. ‘The caller reckons it’s a murder.’
‘Good job we don’t need to pay pathologists, isn’t it?’ Wendy joked. ‘What did they discover at the scene?’
‘Uh, nothing,’ Steve replied.
‘What do you mean nothing?’
‘Nothing. The first responders can’t get in. They’re calling for backup.’
‘What, backup from CID?’ Wendy said, raising her voice.
‘Well, no, uniform are waiting for more of their own, but there’s only one reason the owners would deny access, isn’t there? If they’re trying to hide evidence or whatever, we’ll need CID on the scene sharpish.
Wendy narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you serious? What if it’s a hoax? Uniform just want to call CID out on a whim?’ She considered how lucky Steve was that Culverhouse wasn’t around to have this conversation with him. ‘Where is it, anyway?’
‘That’s the thing,’ Steve replied. ‘It’s at Hilltop Farm.’
The name rang a bell. Most local people knew of Hilltop Farm. There were stories about it being some sort of hippy commune or home to a religious group. But the farm had never fallen across the police’s radar, as far as Wendy knew. It was just another idiosyncrasy that made up the quirky fabric of the Mildenheath area.
‘And they’re denying access?’ Wendy asked.
‘Yep. Something about only allowing people in if they’re part of the Kingdom of God. The first responders said they’re allowed to enter private land if they believe someone’s committed a crime. Their response was that it’s not private land; it’s God’s land.’
Wendy sighed. ‘Sounds like fun. Get the DCI on the phone and tell him. He’ll make a call on it.’
‘Tried that,’ Steve replied. ‘Got no reply, so I sent a text.’
Wendy shook her head. She was often tempted to make a move away from Mildenheath and join a police force that operated in the same way as the rest of the country. Policing in Mildenheath was often a law unto itself. That was something that was changing, but not quickly enough for Wendy’s liking. That a Detective Chief Inspector could just ignore phone calls and not turn up for work would be unthinkable elsewhere. Proper procedures would have to be put in place, rules followed. But not here. She’d had something of a change of heart in recent months, wondering if perhaps Jack Culverhouse wasn’t such a bad bloke after all. That was quickly starting to change again.
‘Looks like you’re in charge for the moment,’ Steve added.
‘Me? I’m a DS, Steve. The same as you.’
‘Yeah, but you’re more... Well, you’re more senior. In a way, I mean.’
‘More senior?’ Wendy asked. ‘Is that meant to mean old?’
‘Well no, obviously not,’ Steve replied, adding that he was well aware he had a good few years on her. ‘But you’re kind of his right-hand woman, aren’t you? His second-in-command.’
Wendy raised her eyebrows. ‘Steve, if this is your way of getting out of making decisions, you can stick it up your arse. If you want us to attend the scene, we can attend the scene. But I’ll be buggered if I’m going to be the one to make that decision.’
Steve looked at her and smiled. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Never mind being Jack Culverhouse’s right-hand woman; she was starting to become him.
5
Wendy spotted Jack Culverhouse’s car parked up on a grass verge as she pulled up behind it on the rural track known as Wellfield Lane. Culverhouse got out of his car at the same time as Wendy and Steve, the two of them both surprised to see the DCI in attendance.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here,’ Wendy said, trying to gauge his mood.
‘You know me, Knight. Never one to pass up a chance for some hippy bashing. Any sign of the bosher?’ he called to the two uniformed officers at the main entrance gate to Hilltop Farm.
‘No, sir. But it shouldn’t be long.’
The bosher, or Enforcer, was the colloquial police term for the piece of equipment better known as a battering ram. Culverhouse looked up at the wrought iron gates that led into a small walled courtyard. The courtyard had a huge wooden gate behind it. Culverhouse wondered what good the bosher would do in this instance.
‘You tried this?’ Culverhouse asked, pointing to the intercom box on the wall.
‘Yes, of course,’ the young uniformed officer replied.
Culverhouse jabbed the button on the box. ‘Police. Open up,’ he barked.
‘I’m sorry, but this is not a public area,’ came the muffled and distant reply. ‘Please vacate the driveway.’
‘Sorry, no can do. We’ve had a report of a crime and we need to enter the farm.’
The tinny voice returned over the intercom. ‘This farm is the land of Christ. No-one has committed a crime here. We are people of God.’
Culverhouse leaned forward and spoke into the intercom. ‘I couldn’t give a rat’s arse if you’ve got Noah and St Peter in there doing the fucking can-can. We’ve got two ways of coming in, and one of them means you’re going to need to get a new gate. Do I make myself clear?’
There was silence for a few moments.
‘Perfectly,’ came the eventual reply. ‘Someone will be with you in a few moments.’
It took longer than Culverhouse would have liked for someone from the farm to make their way to the front gates. The high walls made it impossible to see inside the farm. It looked more like a prison than a working place of agriculture.
One thing was for sure, though: It was huge. The wall seemed to go on forever, and Wendy considered what they might find behind the gates. Should they have called for even more backup? She could see now why the two uniformed officers felt a little out of
their depth when they first arrived. But further backup needed to come from around twenty miles away. It would be some time before they’d have any more strength in numbers.
Going into a place like this was always a risk. Most police officers would put their lives on the line most days. Granted, the same couldn’t really be said of CID. But, once again, Mildenheath was different. Here, plain-clothes detectives did a lot of the legwork, as opposed to uniformed officers. Mildenheath and the surrounding area had a high level of crime in general. With the government slashing policing budgets left, right and centre, a different approach was often needed just to cope.
But that wasn’t the biggest concern at the forefront of anyone’s minds as they waited for someone to open up the farm. The largest worry was that someone could be hiding or destroying evidence during the ensuing delay. That could jeopardise any future investigation, and was one of the main reasons for searching the property as quickly as possible.
When the solid wooden gate opened, a large man appeared. He seemed to be of African origin, and looked to Jack and Wendy more like a bouncer than a vicar. They watched him as he walked through the first gate and went to open the wrought iron ones at the front of the farm. Culverhouse leaned forward to get a better look. The man’s hand disappeared from view for a moment, and seemed to be fiddling with the wall.
‘Don’t worry,’ the man said. ‘I’m turning a key. The gate’s locked with electromagnets.’
‘Electromagnets? On a church?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘It’s not a church,’ the man replied, offering no further information as he opened the gate and stood aside.
‘Whatever it is, don’t you think it’s overkill? That sort of security tends to make us think people are hiding something.’
The man just smiled.
‘Where are we meant to be going?’ Culverhouse said aside to one of the uniformed officers.
‘The old grain store, apparently,’ came the reply.
‘It’s over there, to the right of the white building,’ the man said. ‘Let me know if you need anything else.’
There was something in his tone that told Wendy they were being set up for a fall. Whatever evidence there was — if any — would have been hidden or destroyed by now. There was no other reason why the man would be so helpful all of a sudden. She’d almost discounted the possibility of an ambush. Almost. The small chance was something that played on her mind as she walked a couple of paces behind Jack Culverhouse, toward the grain store.
What struck Wendy most was that there seemed to be no-one else around. There were many buildings scattered around the vast farm, but no people. The only people she could see were her own team and the man who’d opened the gates and was now leading them towards the large, looming grain store. The whole place just felt spooky and wrong, somehow.
It was clear that no-one had used the building for storing grain for quite some time. At least, that’s what Wendy hoped. The missing tiles on the curved roof and the white paint flaking off the exterior walls gave the grain store a feeling of neglect. Indeed, the whole farm seemed to feel somewhat forgotten and abandoned in some ways, but fresh and invigorating in others. She supposed that was one of the hallmarks of a community locked away from the outside world.
The door creaked as the man unlatched it and swung it open, that being the only sound save for the officers’ own blood thumping in their ears. Wendy swallowed as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she tried to take in the sight in front of her.
6
Ben Gallagher scratched at his beard and stared through the gap in the curtains, watching the unfolding scene at the grain store. He knew exactly what the police would find there, and he knew it would make no immediate difference. But that was the whole point. It would plant a seed in their minds. It would open a paper trail. And there might well be something they’d spot while they were here — something which could start to unravel the whole operation.
He hadn’t expected them to spring into action so quickly. He couldn’t even be certain his messages were getting out — until now. That was a good thing, though. If he couldn’t be sure his messages were getting to their intended target, there was little chance of Father Kümmel or his henchmen finding anything out.
Father Kümmel must have believed he was pretty secure. Hilltop Farm had been shut off from the outside world for as long as Ben could remember — long before he’d arrived here, anyway. Save for very few trusted members, referred to as missionaries, nobody got out. Sometimes new people came in, but that was increasingly rare. Ben often wondered why that was.
It was the missionaries’ job to recruit new members, to convert people to the faith. And they sold the story well. Ben’s own father had brought himself, Ben and Ben’s brother, Harry, to Hilltop Farm almost twenty-five years earlier. The church preached self-reliance, community cohesion and protection from the outside world. They warned of the evils that existed and were growing within the world — corporate domination, an over-reliance on money, untold government corruption — all noble causes, but Ben knew this was just a smokescreen.
His own father had come to Hilltop Farm in the early nineties. There’d been a recession under the Conservative government which caused his and many other small businesses to fold. The same government’s previous recession in the early 80s had cost him his well-paid job then. He was a prime target for Kümmel’s church. The idea of self-reliance and freedom from money and corruption was an attractive one. After his wife, Ben’s mother, had taken the opportunity to run off with another man, his mind was made up.
Ben was three years old. Since then, the church and Hilltop Farm had been all he’d ever known. He’d grown up here, made friends here, had dedicated his young life to the church. But as he grew older he had started to doubt.
Harry was six years older than he was. He’d been nine years old when their father had brought them to Hilltop Farm. Harry had known life on the outside, life in the wider world. It wasn’t something he ever spoke openly about. Most people on the farm suspected what would happen to them if they expressed any interest to leave. But there were occasions when Ben had picked up on things Harry had said or done, little looks he gave.
And then, one day, he was gone.
Ben could still remember waking up that morning, well over three years ago now, unable to find his brother. In the coming days and weeks, the church wardens and overseers told Ben and his father they didn’t know what had happened to Harry. The unspoken truth was that Harry had escaped. But that was something the church leaders would never address or acknowledge. Father Kümmel always told the apostles that they were free to leave at any time, but no-one in the church knew of anyone who had successfully done so. Ben’s father became convinced that Harry had rejected God, and God had punished him for his sins. He said he’d been taken in the night into the Kingdom of God to atone for his lack of faith.
Ben felt comforted in the belief that Harry had escaped back to the outside world, but worried that Father Kümmel’s missionaries might not be as benevolent as they made themselves out to be. He had nightmares of them tracking Harry down and bringing him back to Hilltop Farm — or worse.
Until one morning, when he’d truly received a message from above.
7
The inside of the grain store looked as uncared-for and dilapidated as Wendy had expected. The structure was still there, but she could see the sunlight streaming in through the missing roof tiles, the wooden beams and panelling stained with damp patches where the water had got in. The inside of the building looked as open to the elements as the outside. No-one had stored grain in here for some time. There were no interior rooms, no hiding holes, no corners. They were surrounded purely by stone, damp patches and the odd hole in the roof.
She took one of the first response officers to one side while Culverhouse spoke to the man who’d led them here.
‘What else did the call say?’ she asked.
‘That there was a body in the grain store,�
� the officer replied. ‘The body of a woman.’
‘Did they give any more detail? Like who the woman was?’
‘No, not that I know of,’ he said. ‘It was pretty brief, apparently.’
Wendy stepped back outside into the light, took out her phone and called the control centre. She looked up at the sky. It was threatening to rain. The last thing she wanted was for more water to seep into the grain store and destroy any potential evidence that was in there — if there was any.
‘I’m at Hilltop Farm,’ she whispered, once she’d managed to get through to someone who could help her. ‘This call that came in about a body. Can you tell me a bit more about it?’
The controller took a moment to retrieve the details. ‘Yeah, pretty short call. Nineteen seconds in total. Mostly just him repeating himself. He seemed pretty agitated, so we took it seriously.’
‘Where did he call from? Did he leave any details?’ Wendy asked.
‘No details. Call came from a phone box in Mildenheath. Allerdale Road, it says here.’
Wendy sighed. She’d known of anonymous calls made from that box before, and recalled that it wasn’t covered by CCTV. She doubted that was a situation which had since been rectified. Very few things in Mildenheath ever got fixed or improved. She thanked the controller, ended the call and put her phone back in her pocket.
She stepped back inside the building.
‘Is this the only grain store on the farm?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ came the man’s terse reply.
‘You obviously don’t store grain in here, though. And I presume you don’t pop out to get your bread from Tesco, so where do you store grain now?’