by Steve Mosby
1 August 2013 Carl Thompson found murdered (arches)
2 August 2013 Laura Harrison found murdered (fire station); last known sighting of David Groves
3 August 2013 Charlie Matheson’s car crash
4 December 2013 Death of the 50/50 Killer
28 July 2015 Charlie Matheson reappears
1 August 2015 Gordon Peters murdered; Paul Carlisle abducted
There were some obvious correlations there.
Start at the beginning, though.
It began with Groves saving Laila Buckingham on 15 March 2008, over seven years ago now. I looked through the initial reports, reading how he’d fought with Simon Chadwick and saved the little girl. She was eight at the time of the abduction. Groves’ own son, Jamie, was less than a year old. I knew this additional detail because for some reason the file contained a clipping of a newspaper interview Groves had given shortly afterwards. Perhaps Sean Robertson had included it. The profile of a hero, added in to counter the accusations and evidence that filled the rest of it.
My son’s not one yet, Groves was quoted as saying, but all through the search I kept trying to imagine how it would feel if he was Laila’s age and had been taken from me. How I’d do absolutely anything to get him back. And how a child must feel. I prayed for her and tried to keep faith.
A religious man, just like Sean Robertson had said.
Which hadn’t done much for him in the end. Groves believed that in saving Laila Buckingham, he’d crossed paths with an organised gang of paedophiles, and that they’d targeted his son afterwards as an act of revenge. Jamie went missing on 14 June 2010.
His body was found on 8 September 2012, and after over two years missing, it had been far too deteriorated to estimate either a cause or time of death. It was assumed that he had died shortly after his abduction. Since there was no way of telling right now, I decided not to guess, and to concentrate instead on the date of the abduction.
The first connection, then.
14 June 2010 Jamie Groves abducted
19 June 2010 Rebecca Lawrence reported missing (14th?)
The dates didn’t match precisely, but the 19th was only when the Lawrences had made the call to the police. It was likely that Rebecca’s disappearance had occurred on the 14th, when the money from her account was withdrawn, which meant that they would tally exactly.
And that couldn’t be a coincidence.
I rubbed my jawline, trying to work out what it meant.
Like Laura Harrison, Rebecca Lawrence had been a nursery worker. Was it possible she had also been a member of the gang? But if she had been involved in the abduction of Jamie Groves, then it was clear something else had happened that day too. Because that was when Rebecca Lawrence had vanished from the face of the earth.
Fast-forward three years.
30 July 2013 Edward Leland found murdered (home)
1 August 2013 Carl Thompson found murdered (arches)
2 August 2013 Laura Harrison found murdered (fire station); last known sighting of David Groves
These were the three killings that Groves was convicted of in absentia – the rest of the alleged paedophile gang. Leland’s body was discovered on 30 July in the remains of a house fire believed to have been started in the early hours of that morning. The other killings followed in the handful of days afterwards.
Of course, if Charlie was to be believed, there had been one other member of the gang.
3 August 2013 Charlie Matheson’s car crash
The staged accident had occurred the day after Groves’ disappearance. Charlie was connected to the paedophile gang in two ways: through her husband, Paul Carlisle, who for some reason had not been targeted at the same time as the others; and through Rebecca Lawrence, who had reappeared in dramatic fashion as her stand-in at the crash scene.
I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing, but looking at it as a whole, it was fairly clear to me that there was no way David Groves had been responsible for most of it. While he could still conceivably have committed the three murders in 2013, it made little sense that he’d abduct Rebecca Lawrence on the day his own son disappeared, and then somehow hold her in captivity for over three years. Not to mention the fact that three men had abducted Paul Carlisle today.
So that was two members of the gang he couldn’t have dealt with himself. Robertson was convinced he’d been framed for the killings of the other three too, and I was beginning to believe he was right. Someone else – the people behind Charlie Matheson’s imprisonment, I suspected – had targeted them all, and in the process framed David Groves.
But why?
From what Charlie had talked about – the Devil in Hell; God in Heaven; a cult of some kind – it made a vague kind of sense to me that they might go after a gang of murderous paedophiles. But Groves had been a good man. A decent man.
And what about you, Charlie?
I looked up at the screen.
28 July 2015 Charlie Matheson reappears
She’d been sent back to deliver a message to Mercer. But that interested me less right now than the timing.
Why now?
I stared at the screen again. I’d interviewed Charlie on 29 July, the day after she was found. Not quite a full two years since her abduction, but only a few days out. Was there some kind of resonance there? There had to be, but I couldn’t see what it might be. So what about the long game then? These people were highly organised. They had planned this carefully.
Mercer’s words from earlier came back to me.
Peters did a poor job this time with Matheson, didn’t he?
What he’d suggested about Dr Gordon Peters.
Whatever sedative he gave her, it seems like it was too much. Perhaps he set everything back slightly. For people as organised and precise as this, maybe that would be a sin.
If Peters had been more careful with his dosages, then Charlie might have remembered to ask for Mercer when I’d first spoken to her. Allowing for some time for her story to unfold, and for arrangements to be made, he might have gone to see her as early as 30 July, two days ago. Which was the anniversary of Edward Leland’s murder. But there was nothing special about Leland, was there?
No, I realised.
Not the anniversary of Leland’s murder at all.
Jamie Groves’ birthday.
He would have been eight years old on 30 July this year. I flicked back through the file on the desk until I found the newspaper interview Groves had given after saving Laila Buckingham. The portrait of a hero. A good man.
I read the quote again.
My son’s not one yet, but all through the search I kept trying to imagine how it would feel if he was Laila’s age and had been taken from me.
How I’d do absolutely anything to get him back.
Mark
The briefing
‘You know what you’re asking, don’t you?’ Pete said. ‘You actually do realise what you’re suggesting?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re serious about this?’
‘Absolutely.’
There were five of us in the main operations room. I was standing beneath the plasma screen, which still showed the twin images of Charlie Matheson – from before and after her abduction. Greg and Simon were sitting down. Mercer remained with us for the moment, mainly because of his knowledge of the 50/50 case, but he appeared to be completely ignoring me. He kept pacing back and forth, staring at the various sheets and notes that had been tacked to the walls. Pete was standing up. He had spent the last minute staring at me as I spoke. Now he ran one hand through his ruffled hair and sighed heavily.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.
I understood his unease. I’d just suggested we contact Caroline Evans, the ex-wife of David Groves, and begin formalities for possibly the worst invasion of a bereaved parent’s peace I could think of. The exhumation of her murdered son’s body.
I turned to Simon. ‘What were the autopsy results on Jamie Groves?’
Simon
was silent for a moment; the situation seemed to have subdued even him. He consulted the notes he had in front of him.
‘The cause of death was undetermined,’ he said. ‘The body was entirely skeletal.’
‘Identification?’
‘That was established by the father, David Groves. The boy’s body was found in the clothing he was wearing when he disappeared, along with a stuffed toy that belonged to him.’
‘Except we know that the people we’re looking for are pretty good at staging scenes like that. Substituting one body for another.’
‘Mark.’ Pete shook his head. ‘I’m going to need more.’
Mercer was still wandering the perimeter of the room, looking at the various documents on display. I didn’t think he’d been paying the slightest attention to me, but now his voice drifted over.
‘He’s right, Pete.’
‘Right about what?’
‘David Groves isn’t dead,’ I said. ‘And I don’t think his son is either.’
The silence from that settled in the room for a few seconds.
‘Right.’ Pete sighed. ‘Start at the beginning.’
I did.
‘Here’s what I think.’ I clicked through so the plasma screen showed the timeline I’d developed. ‘I think we’re looking at two very distinct groups of people at work.’
The first was an organised gang of predatory paedophiles. The membership included Rebecca Lawrence, Edward Leland, Carl Thompson, Laura Harrison, Paul Carlisle and – at least to some extent – Simon Chadwick. Over a period of several years, the group had abducted and abused a number of children of various ages, some of whom it was likely they had also murdered. We’d never identified all the children in the photographs that had been recovered.
‘Our second group,’ I said, ‘amounts to a kind of cult.’
We didn’t know how many people were involved, although there were clearly several, with perhaps two at the top – the individuals Charlie Matheson had described as God and the Devil. They weren’t really those things, of course; they were just men. But the group had been abducting people and subjecting them to their own version of Hell. Bad people who hadn’t been caught, and who needed to wear their sins to repent. If Charlie were to be believed, there was even a Heaven of a kind. In their own minds, these people seemed to be creating their own version of the afterlife here on earth.
‘We don’t know who they are,’ I said, ‘but we know they have money and patience, and that they’ve been active and well organised for a long time. There’s also evidence that they’re connected to the man we knew as the 50/50 Killer – that perhaps this is where he came from. We know the 50/50 Killer was highly organised too, and that he stalked and researched his targets for lengthy periods of time. We know he was religiously motivated, to some extent, and independently wealthy. All that tallies.’
I glanced over at Mercer as I said this, but again, he had his back to me and seemed not to be listening. He was studying the information on the walls as though it was ancient hieroglyphs that he could make sense of if he looked at them for long enough.
Pete was staring at my timeline.
‘And the connection?’ he said.
‘Is that at some point, the second group – this cult – became aware of the first.’
‘When? How?’
‘I don’t know. I’m guessing it was when Laila Buckingham was abducted. I think that was certainly the moment they became aware of David Groves. But we know they have money, resources, determination. They’re actively looking for sinners. Maybe they started making connections that we didn’t, or following up on things we couldn’t. Monitoring people in ways that just aren’t open to us. Putting together the pieces. ‘
‘And then?’
‘And then the first group targeted Jamie Groves.’
I couldn’t be certain about this, but I thought that it had to have been Rebecca Lawrence who stole Jamie away from his garden, and that it was at this point that our second group had intervened. Lawrence had then been held captive until the car crash, when her resemblance to Charlie Matheson had proved useful in making the substitution.
‘What makes you so sure Jamie Groves is still alive?’
‘Again, I don’t know for sure,’ I said. ‘There are two options that I can see. Lawrence could have killed him herself, but I don’t think she would have done that alone, and she was the only member of the gang that went missing that day. I think it’s more likely that our second group took Jamie – that they decided they wanted him for some reason. Maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing at that point. But I think David Groves is the key to all of this now.’
Pete frowned.
‘So then they wait three years to deal with the rest of the gang?’
‘Five years in total,’ I said. ‘If we include Paul Carlisle.’
‘All right. Why?’
It was a good question, and for now, I only had a partial answer. I looked at the timeline on the screen.
‘We know they framed David Groves. And I believe they abducted him too. That would all have taken time to organise. But the dates themselves might be crucial.’
My son’s not one yet, but all through the search I kept trying to imagine how it would feel if he was Laila’s age and had been taken from me. How I’d do absolutely anything to get him back.
‘Laila was eight years old when she was taken. Jamie Groves would have turned eight two days ago. I believe that something was supposed to happen then – and that Charlie was meant to set it in motion – but it got delayed. And I think it might be some kind of test for David Groves.’
‘A test?’
I shook my head. ‘We know these people are obsessed with Heaven and Hell, and right and wrong, and Groves was painted in the press as a good man. A religious man. A hero. He said he’d do anything to get his son back. I think maybe they want to see whether that’s true.’
‘Have him prove his love,’ Mercer said.
I didn’t reply. Because if that was the case, then once again, the parallels to the 50/50 Killer would be there.
Pete was looking over at his old boss.
‘But why ask for John?’ he said quietly. ‘What’s the point?’
‘Maybe it’s not as complicated as it seems,’ I said. ‘If this is where the 50/50 Killer came from – his family, let’s say – then they would obviously have a grudge against John. Perhaps they just wanted him to understand about David Groves. That he didn’t die. That he was wrongly convicted. That he’s been held in captivity ever since. That John got it wrong, which means an innocent man – a good man – has been suffering all this time.’
I glanced over at Mercer.
‘Maybe they just wanted to rub John’s face in that.’
Although Mercer still had his back to me, I could see that he was processing the possibility, and that it hurt him. His head was bowed slightly.
‘Yes,’ he said.
For a moment, nobody else said anything. Everyone’s focus was on Mercer, while he stared at the wall in front of him, or through it. After a few seconds, Pete turned to look at me.
‘But we still don’t know where this place is?’
‘No.’
‘So if David Groves really is still alive – and if his son is too – then we have no way to get to them?’
I shook my head. ‘Our best bet probably is tracking Charlie. She’s convinced she’ll be taken back there – to Heaven this time, to be reunited with her daughter – so they’d have to collect her at some point. But we don’t know when. We don’t even know if.’
‘And we know how careful they’ve been,’ Simon said.
Which was uncomfortable, but true. As things stood, we had no way of tracing these individuals and finding any of the people they were holding captive. It was possible we never would. And whether my theories were accurate or way off the mark, we might never know for sure.
Mercer broke the silence that followed.
‘What’s this?’ he said
softly.
‘What’s what?’
I walked over to where he was standing, and saw he was pointing at one of the sheets tacked to the wall.
‘Oh, that’s nothing. It’s a list of hospitals vaguely in the search area. I wanted to make sure Charlie Matheson hadn’t just wandered off from one.’
‘Yes, but why are most of them crossed out?’
‘Those are the ones the officers contacted about missing patients.’
‘But not all of them are. Look.’
He pointed at one of the names on the list, and then another. There were four in total. Instead of crossing them out, whichever officer had made the calls had scribbled something next to them.
‘CD?’ Mercer said.
‘I’m not sure.’ I shook my head. ‘Closed down, perhaps. I don’t know where they got the list from. Why?’
‘Cane Hill Hospital.’
Mercer tapped the paper with the back of his finger, then walked over to one of the desks, leaving me to peer at the line he’d indicated. Cane Hill Hospital – CD. The name meant absolutely nothing to me. I looked at Pete, and he shook his head. Him neither.
Mercer was leaning over, working through the file he’d brought with him.
‘What are you thinking, John?’ I said.
‘One of the identities I discovered for the 50/50 Killer. Wait. Here it is.’ He pulled out a couple of documents and read from them. ‘From a car rental. He gave his name as Nicholas Cane.’
‘That’s pretty thin, John,’ Pete said.
‘Isn’t it.’ Mercer walked back to the wall beside me, then spoke almost idly over his shoulder. ‘Greg, can you access the files for Gordon Peters, the doctor who was found murdered this morning?’
Greg hesitated.
‘Sure. But I remember the list of hospitals. Peters never worked anywhere called Cane Hill.’
‘That’s not what I’m asking. Check his own medical records.’
‘His—’
‘His medical records, Greg.’ Mercer sounded impatient now, still staring at the list of hospitals. ‘Gordon Peters. Can you do that or not?’
Greg looked over at Pete, who stared back at him for a moment, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Greg raised his eyebrows.