Power and Control

by Robert H Wilde

  “How much did he have to eat?” Kane asked.

  The landlord was sat out the front, pale as a ghost, unable to speak, but the constables went inside themselves to look around. A clear living room, a clear kitchen, but in the bathroom was the body. A man in his thirties, laid sprawled on the floor, a kitchen knife laying nearby, blood all over the place, On the ceiling, the walls, the floor, even a mirror which was pulled into the room. But Kane and Koralova weren’t sick because they were used to stuff like this, uniform never got ill, instead they started securing the scene.

  Kane went back outside. “You ready to talk mate or do you want a bit more time?”

  “Ask,” the landlord said weakly.

  “Alright, what did you find?”

  “Rent was late, not been paid in a few weeks after I’d already agreed to delay it, no answer to phone, so I came myself. No answer at door, so I opened it with my key to see if he was in, what state it was in…”

  “To take anything valuable in lieu of payment?”

  The landlord was clearly doing that, but continued along a different track, “then I found the body. He’d been murdered. Never seen anything like it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, so you used your key to get in?” A nod. “So, the door was shut and locked?”

  “Err, yeah.”

  Kane nodded and went back in. There was no back way out of the flat. Then he went into the bathroom. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Koralova said. “Oh, I really am.”

  “Aiyoo,” came a familiar voice, so the constables went back out to find a big chunk of the MCU there. Sharma, Lindleman, Grayling and Maruma, plus Susan, were all waiting to be briefed. The landlord was laying on his back on the ground, so while Kane spoke Koralova went over to see if he was okay. He was just in a deep shock, but an ambulance was on its way and they could see to him as well.

  “We were called to a murder,” Kane said, “as you all were, but to be honest I reckon this is a suicide. No forced entry, door locked, looks like a single stab wound to the neck done in front of a mirror… no note but everything else checks out.”

  “Good deduction,” Sharma said, “you can help us take a look around.”

  The MCU fanned out throughout the house to look. Some people conceal information about their lives, and some leave it open on display. The victim had never meant to deny what was happening to him and there were potential clues all over the place. First things first though, find out who had died.

  “I got an ID,” Lindleman called out, “Pierre Walker, thirty-two on his driving licence.”

  Sharma was looking at the body, “Uniform are right, this looks like a self-inflicted wound, either that or the killer is a fucking artist.”

  “Seemed to live alone,” Grayling noted from a look around the kitchen.

  “Oh boy,” Grayling shouted.

  “What?”

  “I’m in the bedroom, all get your asses in here.”

  Everyone filed in and saw the same thing.

  “Is that…”

  “Really?”

  “Fucking hell.”

  A poster had been built out of flyers. Carefully stuck to the walls with little blue putty, a whole display had been created out of the promotional material for… New Hope Church.

  “Don’t fucking tell me he’s another conversion suicide?”

  “Search this room,” they used gloved hands to poke about.

  “Got something,” came a swift reply and Maruma held up a thick book. But it wasn’t a book, it was a diary.

  “Some days,” Sharma noted, “things go against us. But some days there’s a cosmic balance and stuff goes our way.”

  Maruma opened it. Dense spider writing with the blue ink lines three to a printed row in the book.

  Sharma grabbed her radio. “Mr Google, you there?”

  “Yes,” Green said.

  “Give me a date we know a gay conversion meeting happened, start a few weeks ago.”

  Without needing to look he said “28th, 21st.”

  Maruma flicked through the diary and found an entry. “I can’t take it anymore,” he read out, “I can’t stay celibate, it’s too much, it’s too much I just want to touch a man and be touched and they want me to stop, to turn away, to go with women but it’s a man I need and I want to be in…”

  “Alright, we don’t need the soft porn,” Grayling replied. “We get the picture.”

  “No, carry on,” Lindleman said, “this is getting interesting.”

  “No trying to pick up new techniques Rob” Sharma admonished.

  “Oh, I assure you I don’t need any teaching,” Lindleman shot back.

  Trying to get things back on track, Grayling tried “F, he was in conversion therapy, and now he’s killed himself.”

  “No.”

  “What?” they all asked Maruma.

  “This suicide isn’t about the therapy. Look, look here, this book is absolutely filled with writing until this entry here, when it all stops. When it says goodbye and he’s going to throw himself off a bridge. He tried suicide then, and from then on the entries are scattered, fevered and oh, oh wow.”

  “What?”

  “The night Cribb was killed. There’s an entry in the diary recounting how he did it.”

  “This guy killed Cribb?”

  “I think we’ll get a DNA match, yeah, unless he’s a total fantasist.”

  “Why, why did he do it?”

  “This suicide is all about guilt, at the murder he committed.”

  “Was Cribb connected to the therapy?” Susan asked.

  “I think,” Sharma said, “we’re going to need to go through this diary in detail. Okay, Maruma, log that, everyone else get on here, get that body sorted and SOCO on the scene, then we will all sit down and have a little reading session of this diary. Someone go and find a coffee shop and everyone else plump the cushions in the lounge.

  ***

  Before

  Pierre was on his back, the bridge in front of him and the face of a stranger above him. A woman, her hair a dirty blonde that was tied back, her face free of makeup. Perhaps forty years old, she seemed genuinely concerned about the man she’d just hauled back from jumping off a bridge.

  “What?” Pierre said stunned.

  “I’ve been following you,” the woman said, “I saw you walking along, and you looked in a bad way, so I loitered behind, I saw you, I thought you were in trouble…” she seemed as stunned as Pierre was by the turn of events.

  “That’s dangerous,” was all he could say in reply. “I might have been a crazy person.”

  “Well I kinda know you.”

  “What?”

  “You go to New Hope, right?”

  “Yeah, I do…”

  “I work there, quite high up, I’m Jessica Cook. Nice to finally talk to someone I see in the distance…”

  “Pierre Walker,” he said, “perhaps I should get up.”

  Jessica nodded and Pierre rose to his feet. He felt unsteady, because the adrenaline that had surged through him as he’d tried to jump was now subsiding and his legs wobbled, so Jessica grabbed him. “Steady, steady,” she said.

  “It’s okay, I’m okay.” Then he was upright.

  It was funny how just a minute later the world felt different. The bridge was now something to cross over water with, not to jump from. That water looked cold and unwelcoming, not the answer to all his problems. Suddenly there was a friendly face in the world, a warm face who still had her soft hands on his arms to comfort him, guide him. Suddenly, he had a connection.

  “Why don’t you come back to my place?” she asked. “We could have a talk, a cup of coffee, some soup. I have some soup in.”

  “You followed me…”

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s been miles.”

  “I have my car, that red one there, that’s my car. A woman kerb crawling after a man eh, what would my mother have said, bless her departed soul.” A smile
, a sense of belonging and kinship. Pierre could feel something returning, and then it hit him. The shame, of going to take his life, the survivor’s guilt of being so silly, of falling so low, of making the ultimate sacrifice. But Jessica saw this in his eyes and comforted him. “Not your fault, not your fault, we all get depressed, all get down. It’s awful. It’s mental illness, it is. Come back to my house, let’s have a chat.”

  “Don’t tell the church,” he blurted out.

  “Why?”

  “No, no, I better not…”

  “They’re something to do with this aren’t they?”

  How could you lie to the person who’d just saved your life? “Yes, it’s their fa…my fault, but they drove me to this. Sorry if you’re…”

  “Let’s just get you home, warm, fed, calmed down, and we’ll have a chat all about the church we both were part of.”

  “So, what happened to you?” Jessica asked. She nestled down in her armchair, having served two cups of coffee in the sort of quality china most often seen these days on antiques shows. Biscuits had been served too. Bourbons.

  “I dunno if I should…”

  “Come on Pierre, I need to know why you nearly jumped off a bridge.”

  Pierre looked at the floor. He’d never told this to anyone who wasn’t either the same and hiding it or running a group and banning it. “I’m gay.”

  “Okay… why’s that a problem?”

  “You go to New Hope…”

  “Yes, and I know they aren’t welcoming. I know they have preachers who are against it. But why the bridge?”

  “I’ve been going to a course, to stop us… convert us… bring us back to God and… I couldn’t cope anymore, not with being that evil. Not with being this sick. I had to jump to stop temptation. Maybe God would accept me more as a suicide than a faggot.”

  Jessica listened, nodding along. “The church screwed you up then.”

  “No, I screwed me up by being gay.”

  “Wanna know what I think?” Jessica asked.

  “Yes?”

  “I thought like the church did, really, until my son came out. My son was homosexual, and you know what, I could have ostracised him, I could have sent him away, but he was my son, so I looked again, and what I felt was love. He’s married now, to a wonderful man, and who is anyone, at all, in this world, to tell two people in love that their love is wrong? You know what I think, Pierre, I think love is important and it doesn’t matter what sexuality you are.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, so I’m glad I saved you. I am.”

  “Thank you. But something troubles me.”

  “Go on.”

  “You said something like we both used to be part of the church.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t leave over your son, cos you’ve still seen me there.”

  “Correct.”

  “So, what did you mean?”

  “I mean I’m in trouble Pierre. I lost my husband to cancer and have been supporting my family on just my income. One son moved out, never a burden but that saved money, but I have been supporting the others. I guess a single mum if you want to call it that. I’ve worked for the church for ten years and risen to the top of their administration, and now I’m going to be sacked.”

  “What for?”

  “Being a Christian.”

  “What?”

  “I was a vain woman, I suppose. I always liked the fact I still looked good. It’s easy to hit your forties as a woman and think the world has gone on past you, that it only likes youngsters. But I felt I looked good, and I dressed well, and the church has made me hate that, regret that, and I shouldn’t, I should feel confidant.”

  “I’m not following…”

  “Cribb. Cribb made passes at me, in the office, out of the office, a whole campaign of harassment, to the point he told me I’d be fired if I didn’t become his mistress. Flat out said I’d be fired. And he would, you know he would, I know he would, because there is no one to oppose him. The elders stick together and get up to all sorts. What could I do? I wasn’t going to give in, and if I argued he’d destroy my name. So… there is something…”

  “What?”

  “Would you help me fight back?”

  “Yes, of course, you saved my life, I’d help you do anything.”

  Jessica swallowed, “I want you to kill Cribb.”

  “What?” Pierre went wide eyed.

  “The bible allows for it. A man cannot harass another person into sex and not escape the punishment of God. I want you to be my avenging angel, to smite him.”

  “I…”

  “I’ve been looking Pierre, looking for someone to help me. When I saw you looking doomed, I followed, thinking this was the chance. I save you and you save me; we help each other. With Cribb I don’t… let’s be honest, I need this job, there’s no jobs out there, what hope do I have? For all my big words and refusal, I’d have to sleep with him.”

  “He couldn’t destroy you, there’s laws…”

  “Quince knows.”

  “What?”

  “Dear old Edward Quince, chief elder, knows Cribb harasses people into sex, and he knows it’s happening to me. He overlooks it, he ignores it. The church is corrupt. They drove you to suicide and they want to drive me onto my knees. We must stop it Pierre, we must, and you can do that if you kill Cribb.”

  “I… I could.”

  “How would you do it?” Jessica checked.

  “I could get a rope, there’s a series of garages near me that rarely get locked, just got junk in, I bet I could get a rope. Then it’s a matter of sneaking past the cameras, but that’s doable with patience, and I know the area well…”

  “Yes, you do…” Jessica confirmed of her chosen instrument.

  “Then I’d strangle him. No blood you see, if you strangle. I’d throttle him and then leave. Wear gloves. It’d be easy,” and weirdly, for Pierre, the idea of murdering someone did now feel straightforward. When your mind had broken the barrier marked suicide, everything else felt a degree easier, particularly this.

  “Will you do it?” Jessica asked, her planning and carefully chosen motivational tone replaced by a desperation. “Please, will you do it?”

  “Yes, you shouldn’t be blackmailed into sex. I will kill Cribb.” It all felt such a good idea when you were still riddled with a mixture of doom and survival. It would take preparation, no need to rush into it but… it was as if a giant clock was suspended in the air and every tick it took to midnight was a tock to Cribb’s death.

  “Oh, thank you so much. You’ll save me and my family.” And there wouldn’t be anything to connect her to it.

  ***

  Present Day

  Quince was now lodged in the paranoid train hurtling down the tracks to murder town. He’d deduced from the laptop that Jessica Cook was the person who’d killed Cribb, or at least he’d got to that conclusion because she’d threatened the elder verbally and to Quince that was proof enough, and that had opened up a new vista. Cribb had been intent on seducing Cook, and it hadn’t been going very well. Obviously Cribb was married, but Quince overlooked Cribb’s adultery as a small price to pay for support everywhere else, and there was no way the church elders were going to trigger a scandal among their own number, but Quince could only presume Cribb’s advances had annoyed Cook to the point she’d killed him. Which, even in his calmest mind, he didn’t associate with sexual harassment or an abuse of power and status, but instead thought it was the actions of a crazed woman, which was what he thought they all were really.

  But that did leave the problem of what to do with Cook, and to Quince’s collapsing mind she was out there, a tool of the enemy, ready to strike down other elders, like Quince, for going along with it.

  He resolved something had to be done with Cook… and it wasn’t going to the police.

  Quince’s car pulled to a halt outside the flats and he banged on a door until it was opened.

  “Aye mate,” said
Quince’s tame killer.

  “I need you to do another job for me.”

  “I dunno, killin’s killin ain’t it.”

  “How does that…”

  “Don’t wanna get in trouble. Is getting regular.”

  “Well don’t you want an excuse to kill people. I’ve got one, a woman, coming after us all, a woman who killed Cribb, I can prove it.”

  “Canna.”

  “I’ll pay you, how about I pay you in money?”

  “Cashola… for a killin. And God’ll be happy?”

  “Yes. How much do you want?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “Thousand!?”

  “Nah, five hunno quid.”

  “Oh, right, easy,” it didn’t occur to Quince that the price of a human life had just been the same as a cheap sofa. “I’ll go to a cash point, right, and then you’ll go do it?”

  “Yeah, yeah will.”

  This sounded good enough. In fact, a business transaction would keep everything in order. Quince went out to his car, pulled up the locations of cash points on his phone and soon returned with a pile of twenty-pound notes. He thrust them over and watched as they were counted.

  “Aye, aye, that’ll buy the beers aye.”

  “So, you’re going to do it?”

  “Oh aye. Ain’t gonna bother with the rope n’more. Just gonna cut her up. You got her deets then? Where’s this bitch live?”

  Quince smiled and handed over a printed piece of paper with just that. Go on my guard dog, he said to himself, go and free me of these worries.

  The MCU had returned to their office and completed a read through of Pierre’s diary. They had divided it among the team and gone through a section each, then compiled their results.

  Wick stood up. “So, what do we know, from this?”

  “Well sir, we know, thanks to Pierre’s notes, almost everything that had happened to him.” Sharma began ticking things off. “We know he struggled with feelings for men, we know he began an affair, we know the church guided him into conversion therapy, which he was going through with Jonathan Stewart and Kofi Salmons. We know Jonathan’s suicide affected Pierre, so he tried to kill himself and he was stopped, by a high-ranking member of the church team. This member persuaded him to continue a vendetta against Cribb born of sexual harassment, and Cribb was murdered. Pierre was then overwhelmed with guilt, gained no help from the church, and took his own life and if you think I’m talking round the elephant in the fucking room you are damn right because the diary doesn’t once give us the name of the aggrieved woman, just that she’s a good looking forty year old who works high up. This alone should be enough for us to get to a list of suspects and…” Sharma stopped, “why are you smiling sir?”