by Adam Croft
‘Kitchens.’
Wendy sensed she wasn’t going to get much out of him.
‘What’s your name?’ Culverhouse asked.
The man turned and looked at him for a moment, no expression on his face.
‘Nelson.’
‘And what’s your role here?’
Nelson smiled. ‘I help to look after the farm.’
‘Funny. You don’t look like a farmer,’ Culverhouse said.
‘“For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Samuel, chapter sixteen, verse seven.’
It was Culverhouse’s turn to smile. ‘So in other words you’re trying to tell me you’re not the big, burly protection racket engineer you look like?’
Wendy placed a hand on his arm. ‘Guv, I think we should—’
‘I am a spiritual man, Detective Chief Inspector,’ the man said, interrupting. ‘I serve my God and I help Father Kümmel to look after our apostles. We are a close community, bound by God.’ By the time he reached the end of his sentence, Nelson was almost toe-to-toe with Culverhouse, towering a good eight to ten inches over him.
‘Right. Well I’m glad we got that sorted,’ Culverhouse said, stepping backwards and heading towards the entrance to the grain store. ‘Mind if we speak to this Father Kümmel?’
Nelson shrugged. ‘I can ask him.’
* * *
As they entered what Nelson had referred to as the chapel, Wendy wondered whether this farm was connected to the electricity grid at all. This building, like the old grain store, suffered from a distinct lack of light. The windows — if, indeed, that’s what they were — were not only tiny, but high up on the walls. It reminded Wendy more of a prison cell than a chapel. The whole building smelt damp and musty. It was grim enough at this time of year, but she wondered what it would be like here in the depths of a particularly harsh winter.
Father Joseph Kümmel sat at an ornate wooden desk, which looked entirely out of place in this building. Wendy doubted very much whether it was permanently situated here. She didn’t suppose it would last five minutes with this amount of damp in the air. All for show, she thought.
‘Father, this lady and gentleman are from the police,’ Nelson told him. DS Steve Wing had accompanied the uniformed officers in a more detailed search of the old grain store, watched over by another of the church’s heavies.
‘The police?’ he replied, with a voice of calm surprise. ‘How unusual. I don’t recall us having been visited by the police before. How can I be of assistance?’
Wendy had assumed from the off that he would have been well aware of their presence. There was no way they would have opened the gates and let the police in without word from the very top. Hilltop Farm had been a closed community for decades, and she was pretty sure that hadn’t just changed this morning.
‘We received a call earlier today alerting us to the possibility of a death here on the farm,’ Culverhouse said, jumping in before Wendy had a chance to speak.
‘A death?’ the pastor said, placing a hand over his heart. ‘I do hope not. Have you heard anything about anyone dying, Nelson?’
‘No, Father Joseph. Nothing,’ Nelson replied.
‘Do you have any information on who it is who’s supposed to have died?’ he asked, addressing Culverhouse.
Wendy looked at her boss. They could both see exactly where this was going.
‘No, we don’t have an identity,’ Wendy said, trying to assist the DCI.
The pastor’s face relaxed. ‘I see. I think I know exactly what this is,’ he said, standing and pacing the room. ‘You do realise that this is not a church in the conventional sense, Detective Sergeant? We are a closed community church. That means the traditional churches see us as pretenders and the wider community sees us as wackos and nut-jobs. We try to live a peaceful existence here. We are self-sufficient and we have no reliance on the outside world or the greater economy. Of course, that does not sit comfortably with many people.’
‘Are you saying this was a hoax call?’ Culverhouse asked.
‘I’m saying, Detective Chief Inspector, that you have gained access to the church’s property, discovered that there is no dead body and seen for yourself that we are a peaceful and harmless people. The rest, I am sure, you can deduce for yourself.’
‘I think you’ll find we finally gained access to the church’s property after threatening to smash the gates in, have only searched one building on the farm so far and the only people we’ve seen have been you and two of your goons.’
The pastor smiled. ‘On the contrary, you were informed that Hilltop Farm was private property, and you are perfectly welcome to dig wherever you like and speak to whomever you please. You can even help with the harvest, if you like. Kill two birds with one stone. I’ll lend you my own shovel.’
Culverhouse nodded, holding eye contact with the pastor. ‘We’ll be in touch.’
* * *
‘Shouldn’t we do a more thorough search?’ Wendy asked Culverhouse as he strode towards his car. ‘I mean, I know it’s a tricky one to call, but something’s not quite right, don’t you think?’
‘Thinking’s dangerous, Knight. I prefer to look at the facts in front of us. And let’s face it — there aren’t any.’
‘You’re still not answering me,’ Wendy said, standing between him and his driver’s door. ‘Something’s not right, and you know it. What about the way he referred to us both by our ranks? How the hell did he know what rank we were? We never even introduced ourselves to him.’
‘So he’s seen our pictures in the Mildenheath Gazette a couple of times. And what?’
‘Are you serious? A religious cult, cut off from the outside world for decades, but still has the local paper delivered?’ Wendy said, with a derisive snort.
‘Oh yes, you’re totally right,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘It’s completely unlike churches and religious groups to be hypocritical, isn’t it?’ He could see Wendy wasn’t budging. He sighed. ‘Look, what do you want me to do? I can’t go sending in a team of fucking JCBs to dig up a farm just because some crackpot made an anonymous call from a phone box to say there’s a dead body somewhere. And who do you suppose made the call, by the way, considering no-one gets in or out of Hilltop Farm?’
Wendy had to admit that she didn’t have a response to that. She was convinced there was something far more than met the eye. But she also knew she was going to have to go some — not for the first time — to convince her boss.
8
Ben stood as still as he could, his feet planted on the floor as he watched Father Joseph Kümmel begin to speak. The atmosphere was tense to say the least; an air of expectant anticipation filled the air. It wasn’t often that Father Joseph assembled everyone in the community in one place to speak to them directly. The fact that he was doing it out here in the open courtyard seemed symbolic to Ben. Let’s get everything out in the open. The low, late afternoon sun was making him squint, and accentuating his headache.
Father Joseph liked to maintain an aura of elusiveness where possible. Where necessary, his sermons aside, he’d be seen but not heard. If he summoned you to the chapel, you knew it was important. Your heart would be thumping in your chest. You knew you were going to come face to face with him, fortunate enough to be able to share a room with him alone. It was always a huge moment, and it’d fill you with awe, respect and a small amount of fear.
Not fear in a bad way; more a fear of disappointing him. That was the sort of power he held over people. Thinking back and looking at things objectively, Ben could see that Father Joseph was a master of manipulation. He gave people everything they desired at that moment in time: protection from the outside world, food, comfort and relative warmth. They felt safe, or at least safer than they did on the outside.
As Father Joseph spoke, everyone else was completely silent. His deep voice filled the outdoor space as if they were all packed inside a small room.
‘My ch
ildren, I am sorry to have to report that earlier today I was made aware of an attempt by someone on the outside to besmirch the good name of our church. As you are all aware, belonging to the church is a matter of free will. Anyone is free to leave at any time. You need only come and ask me.’
Ben could see a few heads nodding.
‘As most of you have been members of the church for a good many years, you all know the way of life that we are able to enjoy here. Because we are able to enjoy that way of life, dark forces on the outside want to do us harm. Of course, I would never say that those who have left or doubted their faith are in any way responsible for this. But I think we should all pray for their souls, and that they might find the way to ensuring a gracious respect to the community that gave them so much.’
The crowd began to murmur their agreement and lowered their head in prayer. A minute or so later, Father Joseph spoke again.
‘And if any members of the church should have any worries or concerns whatsoever, you all know that you can speak with me. You are all welcome to the chapel at any time.’
Ben tried to hold a straight face. He knew damn well that direct access to Father Joseph was kept limited. He also knew that no-one would even dare to try and impose on Father Joseph’s time for anything any less trivial than imminent death. He had cultivated the perfect cult of personality: making himself seem at the same time both approachable and omnipotent.
As Father Joseph spoke, Ben heard the sound of an approaching helicopter. It wasn’t a rare sound to hear on the farm, particularly as it was on the flight path between two Royal Air Force bases. But on this particular occasion it chilled him to the bone. It wasn’t the sound itself. It was the fact that Father Joseph had stopped speaking and was looking up to the sky, watching the helicopter pass overhead. Ben didn’t know if it was his own guilty conscience speaking, but he could swear he saw the early stages of paranoia crossing Father Joseph’s mind.
9
The day had been a washout, as far as Jack Culverhouse was concerned. It had started late, as it was. The visit to Hilltop Farm had been less than successful, and he’d spent the rest of the afternoon writing up more sodding paperwork. He estimated that for every hour spent doing some actual work, he’d spend another two writing reports about it. It was one of the things that wound him up about modern policing. To him, paperwork and filing were for office managers and secretaries; police officers did policing.
The job had become increasingly bureaucratic over the years. The fairly recent introduction of politically elected Police and Crime Commissioners had almost tipped him over the edge. Not only was he answerable to red tape and desk-bound management, but he now had politicians breathing down his neck. And not just any old politician, either: Martin Cummings, the sort of man who assumes a position way beyond his capabilities and makes up for it by enacting swingeing changes just for the sake of it. Still, Cummings was up for re-election shortly, and Culverhouse would be the first person waiting outside the polling station that morning with pen in hand.
For now, though, he was taking every day as it came. He knew he had a cushy number compared to most people in his position. CID departments were being merged all over the place, and the rest of the county had been moved into Milton House, the purpose-built county police HQ more than twenty miles away. An office block. Mildenheath Police Station, at barely forty years old, was hardly a beautiful old building but at least it was a police station. A proper nick. It had cold brick walls, broken radiators and a fucking awful canteen. But at least it wasn’t all glass partitions, swipe-card entry and lifts.
He’d finally chucked last night’s whisky down the sink before he left to head to Hilltop Farm earlier, and he had half considered pouring himself another one when he got home, but he realised that would’ve just been habit. When he thought about it, he didn’t actually want one. He didn’t know what he wanted, other than to put some utter crap on the telly and zone out for a bit. A couple of hours to not think about dead bodies, bureaucracy and trying to kick water uphill. ‘All part of the fun,’ Detective Sergeant Frank Vine would say. It wound Jack up that Frank was such a cantankerous old bastard but could always manage to come out with some sort of motivational witticism whenever anyone else dared to have a bad day.
Just as he was starting to zone out in front of a travel documentary, he heard the front door open. He’d given Emily a key. She was the only person he trusted with one, despite the fact that he’d not seen her in nine years and had no idea how trustworthy she was now. But then again, if you couldn’t trust your own children, who could you trust?
He heard her rucksack thud on the floor before she walked through into the living room.
‘Nice day?’ he asked, trying to be as normal and relaxed as possible.
‘Was alright,’ she replied, heading straight for the kitchen.
‘I was thinking about what we’ll do when you go back to school,’ he called after her, not moving from his seat on the sofa. ‘You’ve only got a few days left before you go back. I mean, I’m happy to try and sort out timings with work and drive you up there each morning and pick you up, if you wanted to stay here occasionally. Only I don’t think there’s a direct bus from here. Or perhaps... Well, I don’t know,’ he said, leaving that out in the open. He wasn’t about to suggest out loud that Emily transfer to a school in Mildenheath. He didn’t even know how long she would be staying with him. Hell, he didn’t even know why she’d turned up in the first place, but he certainly wasn’t going to ask her to go anywhere. He was enjoying having her around, or at least knowing that she was nearby and safe. They were both things he hadn’t been able to enjoy knowing for the past nine years.
For now, he was just going to ride with it and pretend everything was as normal as possible. He got the impression from Emily that was what she wanted. She’d had more than enough drama and upheaval. They both had.
‘Milk’s off,’ she said, holding the carton out through the doorway so he could see it.
‘Seriously? It was alright this morning,’ Jack replied.
‘Well it’s off now,’ came the response, followed by the sound of her pouring it down the sink.
Jack cursed his luck. He’d managed to miss the good years — seeing Emily through school, watching her learn musical instruments, seeing her blossom into a well-rounded child — and he’d instead managed to come in at the tail end and have a stroppy teenager to deal with. He decided to join her in the kitchen. They were going to have a conversation whether she liked it or not.
‘Do you want some dinner?’ he asked, thinking of making himself a cup of tea but then remembering there was now no milk.
‘I’ve eaten.’
‘Where?’ He realised he didn’t even know where she’d spent the day, never mind where she might have eaten. Should he have made more of a point of asking her before she left this morning? Or should he be asking her now? Or would both of those options put him in the bracket of ‘overbearing parent’? He didn’t know; he hadn’t been here before. There wasn’t much call for that sort of interrogation when she was four. He felt like he’d only been given the first few pages of the instruction manual.
‘Out,’ Emily replied, giving him absolutely no information whatsoever. That didn’t sit right with him. Jack Culverhouse’s world revolved around information. He was keen not to alienate Emily within the first twenty-four hours, but he decided he was still her father and still needed to know where she had been. She wasn’t even fourteen, for Christ’s sake.
‘But where? You’ve been out the whole day. Do you work?’
Emily raised an eyebrow and curled the corner of her mouth. ‘Dad, I’m thirteen. And before you ask, no I didn’t fancy a sodding paper round.’
Jack sighed. ‘Emily, you have to understand. You’re almost... Well, you’ll be an adult soon. I’m trying to work out what’s gone on, what’s going on. I’ve been wondering where you were for the past nine years, and now you’re just... Look, can you at least let me know
what’s going on? Where we stand? Don’t get me wrong, I love having you here and I’m really pleased that you’ve dropped by, but—’
‘Dropped by?’ Emily said, raising her voice and interrupting him. ‘Dropped by? Seriously? Like, I was just passing and wanted to say hi and pop in for a cuppa? Really?’
‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ Jack replied, desperate to explain. ‘What I mean is—’
‘Yeah yeah, I know what you mean.’
Jack shook his head. ‘No. No, you don’t. I’m trying, Emily. I’m trying to verbalise something that can’t be put into words. All I want to know is where I stand.’
‘Where you stand? Jesus Christ, you’re my dad. What do you mean you don’t know where you stand?’
‘Well how long are you staying here? Is this going to be a regular thing? Listen, I love having you around, but I’d just like to know what your plans are. Is that too much to ask?’
Emily stared at him for a few minutes, a disgusted look on her face, before she shook her head and turned to open the fridge door. As she did so, Jack noticed a mark on her neck, poking out under her hoodie, visible just for a fleeting moment as she turned her head.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, trying to remain as calm as possible, even though he knew damn well what it was.
‘What?’
‘On your neck.’
‘Nothing,’ Emily replied, pulling her hoodie further round her neck.
‘Don’t give me nothing, Emily. It’s a love bite.’
‘It’s a rash.’
‘It’s a love bite. I know a fucking love bite when I see one.’
Emily said nothing for a few moments, and seemed to be staring into the fridge. She turned and looked at him.
‘And so what if it is? What are you going to do about it?’
Jack had been thrown a curveball. ‘What am I going to do about it? What do you mean? What do you want me to do about it?’