Chapter Nine
Mitch
“Hey, Jamie, how’s it going?” I stepped away from the front steps of the police station and out of hearing range of any colleagues passing by.
“Not bad, you?” he said down the phone.
“Got a favor to ask.” I watched a gull steal a crisp packet from a refuse bin. Damn things were a pain in the ass.
“Sure. What’s going on?”
“I need to go to Yorkshire.”
“Bit of a trek,” he said.
“And I can’t go alone, need a buddy.”
“You know you can count on me. I’m in Marbella next week, on the yacht, so sooner rather than later would suit.”
Jamie was often jet-setting with his super-rich family, but that didn’t change his moral compass. He was a valued member of Galahad, pulled his weight big time, more than his weight if you counted the tight spots his cash had got us out of.
“How about tomorrow? I’m not on shift,” I said. Sooner than I’d planned, but fuck it, these weirdoes at The Way Forward needed the once-over. And if Yorkshire police weren’t going to do it, I was.
“Good for me. Shall I pick you up from Rose Cottage? Say six? Will take a few hours to get there.”
“Perfect, thanks.”
“Do I need my bandana?” he asked.
“No, but expect me to be in uniform.”
“You said you were off shift tomorrow.” He sounded confused.
“I am, but they won’t know that. You can be my superior.”
He laughed. “Okay, I’ll let you fill me in on the way. Sounds intriguing, though.”
“Something like that.” I hung up. A sense of excited anticipation gripped me, but at the same time something darker, like betrayal or deception, simmered in the background.
It didn’t sit well.
I hadn’t told Amy I was going to check out the odd fucking cult she’d grown up in.
How could I not go and see it with my own two eyes?
I was a police officer. Curiosity was part of the job.
I’d been on a fast track to detective once upon a time, until I’d proven myself unable to stick to stupid rules.
Policing was a game about the end result, surely, for the good of the innocent citizens.
How you got there didn’t matter, on or off duty, or at least that was my opinion.
Not the force’s, apparently.
So my nosey nature was a given. If things were amiss, I wanted to know.
I just couldn’t help myself and had lain awake in the small hours with The Way Forward on my mind and wondering how they could be brought down.
Their website had a few details, mainly stating that the savior was coming and the faithful should join the righteous.
A blog hadn’t received new content for five years, but what was on there up until that point was pretty way out.
It even included a counter stating how many souls belonging to Jesus were preparing for his arrival at the commune.
I presumed this to mean the number of children born.
Children who barely knew who their parents were, if at all. Children who didn’t know family life, but did know harsh discipline. Children who had no contact with the outside world and the moment they hit adulthood were shamed publicly and subjected to incest and rape.
Yes, I wanted to know more. Yes, I wanted to see this prick Nigel Strand and see what I could pin on him. And if I couldn’t find something obvious, I’d make something up. No harm in that, it would still be the same end result.
Prison.
If I got him behind bars and disbanded the commune, Amy might even be pleased with me. And I wanted that smile.
I wanted her.
I headed back into the station. I was on duty until midnight. Pissed me off in truth, I was enjoying having evenings with Amy. Two in a row, one out for dinner, one eating in, and fuck, I’d enjoyed showing her just what her body could do if played with right.
We hadn’t fucked again, but I was itching to. My cock longing to feel her orgasm around it, squeeze and drip and tremble. And damn, her pretty little pert tits, I needed more of them.
But she hadn’t been ready for me. She’d been pliant and sleepy in my arms, as if a weight had been lifted from her and all she wanted to do was revel in the lightness.
Who was I to argue with that? Especially when she drifted off to sleep with her cheek on my shoulder and her hand clutching my t-shirt as though I were her anchor in a storm.
I sighed at the memory and settled down to some paperwork—some lowlife asshole stealing from Waitrose I’d arrested…again. Sooner he got put away the better, it would save me the grief of arresting him over and over.
The next morning, I was poking gravel with my boot at five minutes to six and waiting for Jamie. He wasn’t late and arrived at six on the dot.
“Hey, thanks for this.” I dropped next to him and inhaled the scent of new car. Jamie always drove quality and seemed to switch his wheels up every six months or so. This was a Jaguar. “Nice set of wheels.”
“Thanks.” He glanced at me and pulled out onto the avenue. “Always makes me look twice when I see you in uniform, Mitch. Never thought I’d be mates with a copper.”
“Ha, don’t let it fool you. More and more this uniform is a cover for Galahad business. A way to get information on the assholes we want to send to Hell. Wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.”
“The sacrifice is appreciated.”
“Does pay the bills to the ex wife, too.” I shrugged. “Though they’re all off to Disneyland Orlando soon, so not exactly scrimping by.”
“Shit, man, I’m sorry, that sucks.”
“Yeah, I know.” To think of my boys heading off to have the experience of their childhood without me was a punch to the guts. But what could I do about it? Nada, that’s what.
“You know the offer still stands for the villa in Corfu. Greece is beautiful, and flights are cheap. It sleeps ten and sits there empty most of the year. Got a fab pool with views out to sea and totally private.”
“Are you being serious?” I turned to Jamie. He’d mentioned it before when I was having a crap time, but I hadn’t wanted to go on my own. Now a sudden image of me, Amy, Nathan, and Harry popped into my head. It would be my own slice of Heaven. Blue sky, blue sea, and the people I loved.
Loved!
The kids, I loved them with all of my heart, would until the day I died. Amy? Was she someone I could love?
So far…there was no reason why not.
But what about my darkness, could she ever love me if she knew about that?
The part of me that had no qualms about shooting a murderer in the head and watching his brains splatter on the wall, or yanking out fingernails to get information.
That was a part of me only Galahad saw, and that’s because their own souls matched that particular shade of blackness.
“The Kosovan girls,” I said, trying to shake my ruminating. “The ones from the farm last week.”
It had been a shoot-out. The twin’s woman taken by some twat who thought he could outsmart us—he’d wound up with a broken neck for his trouble—and in the process we’d uncovered a trafficking operation.
Women. From Kosovo. Brought to the UK on the promise of a better life that turned out to be a one-way road to prostitution, drug addiction, and sex slavery.
We’d soon put a stop to that shit.
“The two who didn’t speak English have gone home to Kosovo,” Jamie said. “Glad to be alive and not likely to visit the UK for a holiday in the future.” He frowned and gripped the steering wheel. “Makes me so fucking mad. These assholes that think…” He gritted his teeth.
“I know, man, that’s why we do what we do.” I paused. “And the other one, Sorenna, wasn’t it?”
I’d seen her at Rose Cottage. Jamie appeared to have a soft spot for her, but he was a man who kept his love life, and sex life, close to his chest. I’d never known him date and presumed his parents would one day set him up to marry some equally rich toff who would benefit both families’ business arrangements.
“Sorenna, yes.” He nodded.
“And?” I circled my hand in the air.
“She doesn’t want to go back. She was running for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“That’s her story to tell.”
“Fair enough. So is she going to stay at Rose Cottage?”
“For now, until we work something out.”
“We?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jamie said, hitting the main route that would take us north up the country. “So spill, why are we going to Yorkshire?”
“Well, this woman I’ve met—”
“What? Back up. I mean about bloody time, old chap, but what woman?”
I laughed at his shocked expression. “You can talk.”
“This isn’t about me.” He pointed ahead. “I’m driving north because of your woman. Who is she?”
“Amy, a friend of the twins’ girl, Rebecca.”
“Ah yes, okay, I did know something about that, carry on.”
“She grew up in this weird cult, Jesus Army style, preparing for the second coming. Anyway, she escaped before she was subjected to an unimaginable…assault…though she’s told me enough about her childhood to wonder why social weren’t all over this place. There was neglect at the very least.”
“Place?”
“Yeah, a place in Yorkshire, on the moors. Out of sight and out of mind for the authorities. The Commune of Light it’s called, but it seems pretty dark to me. It’s still going from what I can tell, even though she left ten years ago.”
“And that’s where we’re heading?”
“Yeah. Just to, you know…have a nose. Figured the uniform would get us further.”
“I agree. And if you can’t pull it off, I’ll outrank as your detective and get us in.”
“Exactly.” I handed him a fake ID.
“So well prepared. I’m impressed.” He slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Does she know you’re going? Amy?”
I hesitated. “No.”
“Risky move, man.” He downturned his mouth. “Chicks don’t like you poking into their past, especially if it’s traumatic, and it sounds like this one is.”
“I know but…what if there are other kids there who need…”
“Rescuing?”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s try and keep an open mind and see what’s what. If there are kids or women who need Galahad, we’ll be all over it. But let’s check it out first before getting all gung-ho.”