by Adam Croft
52
PC Karim Rashid was starting to get pretty sick of being given the shitty jobs. By now, he was starting to wonder whether policing on the whole was just one great big shitty job.
He’d expected to be out on the streets, responding to 999 calls and arresting criminals. Instead, he spent most of his time escorting alcoholics from off-licences they’d been banned from and finding old women lying dead in puddles of piss in their nicotine-stained flats. He’d had a short frisson of excitement during the Ripper case a while back, and had been one of the officers out on the streets on the night of one of the murders. He’d hoped he’d be the one to finally find and arrest the Ripper, but instead he’d been the one who’d discovered the victim dead in a car park.
Story of his life.
He’d moved south to Mildenheath from Leicester after finishing university. His three older brothers had all turned to a life of crime early on, and he’d been determined not to go the same way. They’d all struggled at school, but he tended to find academia much easier. That gave him something to work towards. Over time, he’d managed to cut almost all ties with his old life back home. Now he’d started to put some of his family’s wrongs right, by working on the other side of the fence. It felt weird calling Leicester home. Mildenheath was home now. But he was now starting to doubt whether a career in the police was for him.
It all looked great at first. Even when he’d been asked to join a team combing Hilltop Farm for evidence of a murder cult, he’d been excited. How could you not be when it was put to you like that? But, of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. In fact it wasn’t fun at all. Instead, he was on his hands and knees in the dirt and dust rifling through cupboards and dirty old barns trying to find something they didn’t even know existed.
Evidence of murder was what they’d been told to look for. Usually, that meant a dead body. The brief was that had murders been committed, it was likely the bodies were on the farm. But so far they’d found no trace of that at all. All he’d had were bizarre encounters with the people who lived here, who’d been quite happy to go out of their way to make life difficult for them. They wouldn’t answer any questions and seemed to be more offended and upset at the police intrusion. No helping some people, he thought to himself. None of them seemed happy to be here. Not truly happy, anyway. Accepting of their situation, yes. Deeply, spiritually happy? No. He’d seen that look in people’s eyes too many times when he was younger to know that it wasn’t true happiness.
And here he was, on his hands and knees, scrabbling about in a glorified old shed, searching for something, although he didn’t know what. The irony wasn’t lost on Karim.
What did they expect him to find, exactly? The only dead bodies he’d come across here were rats. Calling the building a ‘medical centre’ was an absolute joke. He knew he wouldn’t want to be treated in here. It looked like something out of the historical medical rooms in the London Dungeon. He wouldn’t be surprised to find leeches and medieval implements. But the truth was that there was very little in here at all.
He decided he’d done all he could do, and instead he’d ask his sergeant if he could get involved with something else. It was pointless spending any more time in here.
As he went to leave, the floorboard creaked below his feet. Nothing unusual in itself — they’d been creaking every time he walked over them — but this time it had the effect of sparking a thought in his mind.
Apart from one room, which had a concrete floor, the others in this building all had wooden boards. The boarded rooms were a good foot or two higher than the concrete one. Indeed, you had to step up into the boarded rooms and down into the concrete-floored one. But why had these rooms been raised? He could see no logical reason for it. It made getting through doorways a nightmare. And aside from that, there were the other odd noises he’d been hearing. He’d put it down to the generator in the field nearby, or perhaps just the sorts of noises that old damp buildings made. But there was something telling him the faint murmur wasn’t quite right.
He took a screwdriver from his box of tricks, knelt down and tried to prise back one of the loosest floorboards. It was taking quite some effort, but it was shifting. He’d just about managed to lift it up enough to slide his fingers underneath the gap and give it a proper lift, which meant he’d be able to lift the two neighbouring floorboards.
But he didn’t need to.
As the floorboard lifted, he saw the milky, yellowy whites of the pair of eyes looking back up at him, blinking as the light cut across them.
53
Wendy heard the sound of Culverhouse’s office phone clattering back into its cradle. A moment later, the door flew open and he came marching over to her.
‘Knight. Where’s Kümmel? Has he been released yet?’
‘Yeah, a few moments ago,’ Wendy said, noting the look of panic and excitement on his face. ‘There’s a patrol car dropping him back. Why?’
‘Shit. Grab your coat.’
Before Wendy could say anything, Culverhouse was jogging towards the stairs.
* * *
‘What is it?’ Wendy said, when she finally caught up with him in the car park.
‘There’s been a discovery at the farm. A fucking big one. That medical centre? A PC thought there was something weird about it, so he pulled up the floorboards. He found Amy Kemp and Ben Gallagher, bound and gagged.’
‘Alive?’ Wendy asked, getting into the passenger seat of Culverhouse’s car and closing the door.
‘Barely. Amy’s in a worse state than Ben, but neither of them are looking too rosy. They reckon there could be more, too. They reckon that’s where the bodies are.’
Wendy couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. ‘Shit. Are you serious?’
‘Afraid so,’ Culverhouse said, turning left out of the car park and putting his right foot to the floor.
‘But won’t the officers at the farm intercept him when he gets there?’ Wendy asked.
‘Yes, but I want to be the one to nab him. They were going to suggest calling off the search. Fucking good job they didn’t.’
Wendy had to admit that had Culverhouse not joined CID, he could have made a decent traffic cop. His high-speed driving under pressure had often impressed her, and she never felt unsafe with him at the wheel. And with the speed he was travelling at, it was a good job too.
As Jack ate up the road in front of them, Wendy’s thoughts turned to what they would find when they got there. She could only imagine the scene, discovering what Ben and Amy had been through. And all the time they’d been sitting in an interview room with Father Joseph and his arrogant solicitor, he’d known exactly what had gone on. He’d almost convinced her of his innocence. Not quite, but she’d had her moments. He was a calm and confident man. Clinically a psychopath, Wendy thought. Not the comic-book interpretation of the word — a babbling screaming maniac, but a person who has no empathy or remorse, and instead feeds off their own ego and sense of self-importance. She always found people like that both scary and remarkably interesting.
It scared her to know that even she, an experienced Detective Sergeant, could have come close to being sucked in by someone like Father Joseph. He had completely and utterly believed that he was in complete control of the situation and that he’d come out smelling of roses. He’d seemed almost affronted that the police had had the nerve to even investigate him.
But that would all change now. He’d have one hell of a shock when he got back to Hilltop Farm.
She thought of all the people who’d been affected by Father Joseph Kümmel’s ego-driven life. The Bens, the Amys, the Sandras. There’d be more, she knew. And the saddest stories wouldn’t be from those who’d escaped and were able to tell the tale. They’d be from those who’d died at Hilltop Farm or were still living there, oblivious to the crimes that had gone on around them and still unfailingly faithful to Father Joseph and his church.
She pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket, unlocked it and fired o
ff a text to Steve Wing.
* * *
Any news from Dorset on finding Sandra K?
54
Lulworth Cove was a beautiful place all year round, but it seemed particularly engaging and serene today. The late morning sun had burnt through the mist and the smooth azure sky looked polished and ready for the rest of the day. Whatever that day might bring.
Sandra had parked her car in a car park a short walk away. She’d been down here yesterday, too, but it hadn’t felt right. Maybe she’d been tired after the drive, but it didn’t seem to be the place she recognised and loved. Today, though, was different.
Today, it felt like a new world. It seemed so far disconnected from yesterday to be almost a completely different world. Anyone else might’ve seen that as a sign of new beginnings, of a fresh start. But Sandra knew there could be no new beginnings, no fresh start. Something like she’d been through was always just the beginning of the end.
The torment would always be there. Things like that never went away. They had a lasting, damaging impression on your psyche. When your trust, your belief and your faith are abused in such a way, how can you ever expect to trust again, believe again, have faith again? No blue sky could ever make Sandra want to live in a world like that.
But something had changed. She knew that much. Maybe it was just a sense, a spiritual connection. But the colour of the sky that morning and the sound of the waves crashing against the rock told her that a page had been turned. A new chapter had begun. The story was over. She looked down at the rocks below, watching the water crash over them, the spume calling to her, talking to her. It seemed to be telling her everything was alright. Whispered messages revealed the truth.
She’d never heard the sounds so vibrant, never seen the sky so bright. It marked the turning point. But for her, there could be no turning. She couldn’t go back and there was no way of moving on, either. She’d forever be rooted in what happened, in what was still happening. Ghosts did not simply disappear.
She looked down at the rocks again, and listened as the white spume and crashing waves called to her.
Slowly, she looked up and stepped forward towards the edge, her toes hanging out over the precipice.
She took a deep breath, looked back down at the waves, and answered their call.
55
They arrived at Hilltop Farm barely a few minutes later. Culverhouse wrenched the handbrake on and jumped out of the car before Wendy had even registered that they’d stopped.
She could see Father Joseph had arrived back at the farm maybe less than a minute before they had. He still had a look of shock on his face as the uniformed officers detained him at the gate and informed him that he was being re-arrested on suspicion of murder, conspiracy to murder and of perverting the course of justice.
‘We meet again, Father J,’ Culverhouse bellowed as he walked up behind him. ‘Who’d’ve known it’d be so soon?’
‘Would you care to tell me what this is all about, Detective Chief Inspector?’ Father Joseph replied, his face belying the calm, composed air his voice held.
‘Certainly,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘All in good time. Now if you wouldn’t mind waiting here with these officers, I’ll be back in a few moments.’
He beckoned for Wendy to follow him and the uniformed PC, who led them towards the medical centre.
Inside, the air seemed to be different to outside. It was heavier somehow. The PC led them to the threshold of the main room, where the floorboards had all been taken up. The surface underneath showed a number of holes, recessions in the concrete that were probably five feet deep and four feet wide. Jack reckoned there must be a good dozen of them in here alone. But his eyes were drawn to the areas of concrete that didn’t have holes — the areas where fresher concrete, of a different colour, had been smoothed over the top.
‘Ben Gallagher was found in this one,’ the PC said, pointing to one of the holes, ‘and Amy Kemp in this one. Amy’s in no fit state to talk at the moment, but Ben seems mostly just dehydrated and worn. He said he was told to drink a poison, to end his own life. He refused, so he was bound and gagged and put in one of the holes.’
‘Christ,’ Wendy said. ‘And what were they going to do then?’
The PC shrugged. ‘If you ask me, I reckon we’re going to find bodies under the rest of this. My theory is if people wouldn’t take the cyanide and kill themselves, they were put into one of these pits to die naturally. Then they’d come in and fill in the hole with concrete.’
Wendy stood, stunned. ‘Shit. But there must be...’
‘I know,’ the PC said. ‘There’s loads of them. Doesn’t even bear thinking about.’
* * *
Outside, Father Joseph stood patiently with two officers. By now, he’d managed to regain his look of composure and complete confidence. Wendy couldn’t see how he was going to wriggle his way out of this one, though.
‘Thank you, officers,’ Culverhouse called over. ‘We’ll deal with this one from here.’
He waited until the two uniformed PCs had disappeared from sight, then he looked Father Joseph Kümmel in the eye.
‘I’ve seen some stuff in my time,’ he said. ‘But that just about tops the lot. Go on, then. Give us your pathetic explanation.’
‘I’m not quite sure what I’m meant to be explaining,’ Father Joseph replied.
‘The pits. Ben Gallagher and Amy Kemp were found inside concrete pits under the floorboards in your medical centre. Your medical centre.’
‘The church’s medical centre,’ Father Joseph replied.
‘Interesting. If someone had said to me that people had been found bound and gagged on my property, my first response would’ve been some sort of shock. I might even ask if they were alive or dead. I wouldn’t immediately jump on the defensive and try to deflect blame. Why did you do that?’
Father Joseph smiled. ‘Detective Chief Inspector, are you accusing me of a crime here? A number of people live in this community. I cannot be held responsible for their actions.’
Culverhouse took a step closer towards him. ‘So what if I were to tell you that we’ve got a witness, perhaps two, who are willing to testify that you tried to get them to drink cyanide. And that when they refused, you had them thrown into those pits.’ He could see the flicker in Father Joseph’s eyes. ‘Ah. You didn’t know that bit, did you? You didn’t know they were still alive. Tough cookies, Ben and Amy. Ben’s even talking. Can’t shut him up. Attempting assisted suicide? That’s quite something.’
Father Joseph flared his nostrils. ‘Never in my life have my hands ended the life of another person. If the Lord chooses to take these lives, that is His choice to make. I am simply his servant.’
Culverhouse stepped forward again, his nose almost touching Father Joseph’s. ‘Interesting deflection. I suppose God has provided a great alibi for you, hasn’t he? Saves having to take responsibility yourself. But then again, it was all one big scam wasn’t it? Admit it, Kümmel. Your power’s just crumbled away. Now you’re nothing but a sad, pathetic old man.’
Wendy watched as Father Joseph’s face contorted, a split second before he launched himself at Culverhouse. Culverhouse stepped to the side, wrenched Father Joseph’s arm behind his back and read him his rights.
56
The atmosphere amongst the group assembled in the Prince Albert was slightly different to what it’d traditionally been following the handover of a case to the CPS. Often, there’d be a celebratory atmosphere; a feeling of a job well done. This time, though, there was a huge undercurrent of regret. Regret that they’d not been able to apprehend Father Joseph sooner, that they’d not had information earlier which could have saved more lives.
It wasn’t often that the scale and nature of a killer’s crimes was discovered only at the end of a case. It was the upside-down nature of the Hilltop Farm investigation that had thrown a few people off kilter. Regardless, though, a decision to charge was a decision to charge. It would now be largely down to the c
ourts to ensure that Father Joseph Kümmel saw justice.
Culverhouse had, as tradition dictated, bought the first round and was readily letting the others know that he had, of course, had suspicions about Father Joseph all along. DC Ryan Mackenzie entered the pub, her rucksack slung over one shoulder, a hand-knitted beanie hat pulled over her head.
‘Drink?’ Culverhouse said, by way of greeting.
‘Great, thanks,’ Ryan replied. ‘I’ll have a pint of Foster’s.’
Culverhouse looked at her for a moment, but chose to say nothing and instead went back to the bar to buy her drink.
‘Alright?’ Wendy asked Ryan as she sat down.
‘Yeah I’m good. Had a couple of things I wanted to finish off. Give me less to do in the morning. Mandy should be joining us in a bit. She’ll be leaving work in a few minutes.’
Wendy smiled. She was looking forward to meeting Ryan’s partner, but she was more looking forward to seeing the awkwardness of Jack Culverhouse as he tried to politely make conversation with a lesbian couple.
‘Shame about ol’ Sandra Kaporsky,’ Steve said, somehow internally sensing that a positive atmosphere needed extinguishing.
‘Mmmm,’ Wendy replied, not wanting to delve too far into the negative. ‘Just goes to show how deeply things like that can affect people. It’s tragic.’
‘What’s happened?’ Ryan asked, taking off her coat.
‘Chucked herself off a cliff,’ Steve replied through a mouthful of peanuts before Wendy could answer.
‘Dorset Police found the body of a woman on the rocks at Lulworth Cove,’ Wendy explained a little more delicately. ‘It was identified as being Sandra.’