Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter 2
4

“Damn it, Ash, you know I’m less than six months from retirement, right?”

Maurice Reid made his way irritably to the front of the church and put a case down on the front pew, ignoring the bodies piled before the altar as if they were a perfectly ordinary sight. He was clad in the blue plastic scrubs from the neck down; his bald head was the only visibly exposed part of him.

“Ye
ah, Maurice, I know but your duty pathologist and I got a real mess here so better someone who knows what they’re doing than that sixteen year old you sent me last time.” Ash had brushed his hand through his hair so many times that it now stuck up on end so that he looked like a horrible cross between Jedward and a toothbrush.

“That girl is smarter than you, kiddo,” Maurice said. He started to circle the pyre carefully studying the mess. Alix noticed how differently he approached it to everyone else. No distaste,
no shock. Just like any other examination.

“Please don’t call me ‘kiddo’, Maurice. Have you met our new psycho-analyst, by the way?”

“Nope and don’t intend to unless she’s young and attractive.”

Ash coughed and Maurice looked up, conscious of the awkward silence that followed. He looked around and his eyes fell on Alix. She tried unconvincingly to conceal a wry smile.

“Ah,” he said, “well I’m not disappointed, Doctor..?”

“Franchot,” she said, offering her hand, which he took. He had a weathered but kindly face and Alix took an instant liking to him. There was something wholesome
about him, something endearing.

“Charmed,” he said. She smiled, trying to think whether anyone had ever said the word “charmed” to her before. She didn’t think they had and she flashed Ash a curt glance. He shifted his weight from foot to foot gawkily.

“Well, doctor Franchot, please call me Maurice and please don’t listen to a word that Fielding says about me, okay?”

“I try very hard not to listen to him and it’s a pleasure meeting you,” she laughed.

“Good. I can see you’ll do very well.”

“Hello?” said Ash. “Dead bodies? Media frenzy? I like the Brady Bunch as much as the next guy but could we please focus?”

“If it’s one thing I’ve learnt, Ash,” said Maurice walking towards his bag and producing a Dictaphone which he started fiddling with, “it’s that it doesn’t matter how freaky people are, the world stops for beautiful women. Now, what the Hell happened in here?”

*

It didn’t take Maurice long before he strode back across the length of the church to join Ash and Alix over by the font. Keera had been circling round like a vulture, not really knowing what to do with herself. She had asked Ash earlier if she could get back to base but he had told her, much to her disgust, that she needed to hang around to hear what Maurice’s preliminary findings were. She had compensated for the inconvenience by throwing Alix as many dirty looks as she could practicably fit into the hour and half or so that it took Maurice to examine the bodies.

By now, dusk had started to settle in and the pyre was bathed in a blue moonlight
. The decomposing flesh shimmered and glowed surreally. It seemed like there was an energy coming from it; something powerful and dangerous.

A forensics team had arrived and were busying themselves photographing and recording every conceivable variable at Maurice Reid’s direction.
But as industrious as they were, they crept round the pyre uneasily like it was a giant, sleeping demon; a thing to be respected and feared.

“Sixteen bodies,” said Maurice, wiping his brow and placing his glasses on the side of the font.

“The whole village,” murmured Keera.

“What?”

“There are sixteen people in White Helmsley. We found all the houses deserted.”

They looked down the centre aisle and to the pyre.

A whole village.

“How did they die?” asked Ash.

“From what I can see – and I stress that I need to separate the bodies, the cold has already started to freeze them together making close analysis difficult – but from what I can see, they all had their throats slashed with a blade. Probably something short. A kitchen knife would do it.”

“Did they all die at the same time?”

“They’re all at pretty much the same stage of rigor, yes.”

“With the same weapon?”

“The same
type
of weapon, yeah. Same weapon? Too early to tell.”

“So this is a massacre?” said Keera.

“Not necessarily,” said Alix.

Keera looked at her darkly. “So what else is it?” she said, folding her arms and cocking her head to one side as if she
couldn’t-wait-to-hear-this
.

“Could be mass suicide.”

“Sixteen people kill themselves and then – what? – their dead bodies just fall on top of each other? Yeah, nice one,” Keera smirked, mockingly.

“No,
obviously
there’s another party to this we haven’t found yet.”

“Okay,” said Ash, noticing the tension for first time. “Why don’t you expand on that a little more, Alix. You mean like a suicide pact?”

“No, a suicide pact is usually the term that’s used to describe distressed Goths who hate their parents and decide to take an OD together. This would be better referred to as a mass suicide.” She looked at Keera, who stared back blankly. She had probably been one of those girls – the ones who first got laid at the age of thirteen and hung around after school smoking Greek cigarettes. The image cheered her up a little.

“Have you ever heard of Jonestown?” she asked.

“Hell yeah,” said Maurice, picking up his glasses and cleaning the lenses on his plastic suit. “Nobody does it bigger than our Yankee cousins.”

“No, that’s right.” She looked at Ash who shrugged his shoulders, signalling her to go on. Keera didn’t say anything.

“Jim Jones was an American cult leader who founded a group called the People’s Temple in the seventies. Their aims were loosely connected to religion. Jones was an orthodox Christian but his followers believed he had foreseen the end of the world. They thought that the only salvation was Jones himself and that only they would be saved when the apocalypse came. And so his support grew. But the secret operation of the People’s Temple brought heavy media pressure and rumours of corruption and abuse within the Order were ripe. So, to avoid public scrutiny, Jones moved himself and his followers to a forest area in Guyana, in South America, that he called Jonestown. They leased thousands of acres from the government and lived in a self-sustained, isolated community. There are differing accounts of why Jones and his followers fled America. Some say they were divorcing themselves from what they perceived to be a growing trend of fascism in the US. Others say that they were the subjects of American government funded mind control experiments. Like many things, for every forcible, logical explanation, there are always five crackpot conspiracy theories.”

“But these people didn’t
move
here together,” protested Keera. “They just live here. Probably because the houses are cheap and the council tax is low.”

“May be, but the point is about what happened next. You see, there were rumours about se
xual abuse within the People’s Temple.”

“I saw a documentary a few weeks ago about a religious cult in America run by a guy named Michael who told his females followers that God had commanded them to sleep with him,” interjected Ash, slightly over-excitedly.

“Yes,” said Alix, “isn’t religion just the perfect excuse to do things that otherwise would be considered morally reprehensible. Anyway, the rumours prompted a congressman from Washington to pop down and start snooping around. He found that things were hardly Toon Town and some of the residents of Jonestown expressed an interest to come back with him. He was apprehended on the way out and shot dead, along with at least one defector. Several other people were wounded.”

“I think I’m starting to remember this story,” said Ash.

“Don’t try and make out like you know what I’m talking about,” she scolded before continuing. “Fearing reprisal, Jones then apparently ordered that everyone commit suicide. 914 people died. Men, women, children.”

“You’re telling me that
this guy convinced over 900 people to kill themselves?” said Keera sceptically.

“Ah, well, not necessarily. The psychological process involved in breaking someone’s mind so fundamentally that they are prepared to kill themselves for someone else’s cause is very complex and only achievable if you know what you’re doing and on a small number of vulnerable individuals. Even on a small scale, it takes years of careful manipulation and grooming. Take suicide bombers for example. How do you get people to strap enough
Semtex to their bodies to blow a hole in the world and walk into a bank? You work on them. You tell them it’s their duty. You tell them they will be rewarded in the afterlife. You play on their beliefs. You tell them God has chosen them. You honour them, let them live like kings. Everyone gives them nothing but the highest respect and regard, for years. You make them into living martyrs. And when the time comes, how can they refuse without being outcast, or killed anyway? The Aztecs were no different. Before you were sacrificed you got to live as a King for a year. It’s difficult to refuse to take one for the team after so long a time going round sleeping with whomever you wanted, isn’t it? But that’s just when you’re talking about one or two people. That kind of brainwashing wouldn’t work on the scale of Jonestown.”

“Okay, so how then?”

“I guess this is where the boundary between murder and suicide is a little blurred,” she said. “Not all of the people in Jonestown killed themselves. The rest were murdered. Some escaped into the forest but there was evidence that a number of others were shot, or injected forcibly with poison. But how many of the residents of Jonestown killed themselves and how many were killed by others isn’t known.”

“But why?” said Maurice. “Why did these people kill themselves, even if there was some outside influence helping them on the way?”

“Clearly we’ll have to find that out.”

“This is bullshit,” said Keera.
“Guv, we’re looking for a serial killer not a cult leader.”

“A serial killer?” exclaimed Alix, her voice rising. “No way. Serial killers murder individuals carefully over long periods of time for personal reasons. They don’t kill groups of people randomly at the same time.”

“They’re all killed in the same way,” said Keera angrily. “Like a serial killer.”

“At the same time.
Unlike
a serial killer.”

“Okay!” shouted Ash, rubbing the sides of his head and closing his eyes, like the squabbling was giving him a headache. “Okay. Listen: priority one right now is the media. So far, we’re lucky because of the weather but sooner or later someone is going to notice this entire village is missing so I
want focus, please, not conflict.”

He looked up and saw the two women glaring at each other. “And you two need to learn to work together,” he said, pointing at them
both. Alix shot him a look and was about to speak before she thought better of it. Like it or not, he was technically her boss now. She suppressed the urge to say, “
she
started it.” Keera pursed her lips even more than usual so that they nearly disappeared altogether.

“The fact is,” said Ash, “we need time and we need analysis. Careful analysis based on facts, not guess work. I reckon we have a window of twelv
e hours or so before this place turns into a media frenzy and when that happens the heat
will
be on.”

He looked up at the techies buzzing around the pyre. Nine times out of ten the media got wind of crime scenes through techies
trying to cash in. Tabloids would pay up to five grand for this sort of gig. Well who would blame them? The pay was lousy and the hours unpredictable.

“I want warrants for every house in this village,” said Ash. He looked at Keera expectantly. She sh
rugged her shoulders and went to the front of the church to collect her bag. Maurice mumbled something and got back to the pyre. When they were gone, Ash leant over the font and let out a deep breath; he wished he could just exhale all of his troubles into the water but, when he looked back up again, they were still there.

His phone rang. He fished it out of his inside pocket and checked the caller ID, but he
knew who it was. He ground his teeth together, knowing with a sinking heart that he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He span around hitting answer at the same time.

“Yes?” he hissed.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at work.”

“Great. I’m just going through your kitchen trying to find some olive oil. Where is it?”

“What are you doing in my kitchen, Penny?” he sighed.

“Cooking
your
dinner, mister. I assume you’ll be home in less than forty minutes.”

“No. I’m two hours away at least and we haven’t-” He broke off knowing it was pointless trying to explain to her that she didn
’t have an open invitation to wander into his house and cook him a meal.