Urban Myth (17 page)

‘I
f our children don’t come back I’ll never forgive you, Jack.’

Nicole’s words burned into me like hot needles. Her voice rose in a raw, wrenching fury as she glared at me across the kitchen.

‘It’s your damned fault and you know it,’ she yelled. ‘We should never have come here. That girl warned you but you chose not to listen and not to tell me.’

I stood with my back against the wall, my heart pounding furiously. Nicole was seated at the table, her face screwed up, her fists bunched in front of her.

Her outburst had been building since we’d woken up ninety minutes earlier to discover that Michael was missing. The text from Tina’s cell phone had done nothing to allay our fears. Had my daughter actually sent the message? If not then who had? And what was meant by ‘
Michael is now on the other side with me?
’ The other side of what, for God’s sake?

‘Right now I hate you for what’s happening,’ Nicole was saying, her voice quivering with anger and frustration. ‘If only you had told me about the call and the warning, I would have been more responsible. I would never have risked our safety.’

I took it on the chin because she was right. And she needed someone to blame. For an hour and a half she had managed to hold her hysteria down while we both frantically searched the house and grounds for Michael and Tina. But now she needed to let it out in a burst of emotion that was, quite rightly, directed at me.

But I didn’t want to be distracted by self-recrimination. I needed to focus on getting our kids back. I wasn’t prepared to sit around in a state of paralysis waiting for another curious text message or bizarre event.

Nicole ended her tirade and drew in a deep, tremulous breath. Then she made an exasperated noise and dashed into the hall where I heard her break down in tears for the third time.

I thought it best to let her be for a while so I went out through the back door and stood on the patio. I tried for the umpteenth time to get through to Tina’s cell phone but it was switched off. I pocketed my own cell and gazed up at the sky, which was dark and foreboding. There were no stars. The mist had cleared and the air felt dead and musty.

What, I wondered, was happening to us? Our children had vanished. Our food had been poisoned. The real world simply did not allow for things like those we had experienced. Did it mean that for us reality had been suspended? How else could you possibly explain it?

I stared out into the blackness of the forest. The last text had said we would see Tina and Michael later. But how much later? And from where would they come? I still found it impossible to believe that Tina had gone off by herself. And it was equally impossible to accept that Michael, at only ten years old, had done the same. Which left me to conclude that they had been taken. But by whom and for what reason?

My brain tried to combat the fear by repeating the mantra:
There has to be a logical explanation
. But if there was then I wasn’t seeing it.

The sense of menace in and around the house was tangible. And there would be no escape from it until the kids were back. But the waiting was painful; like nothing I had ever experienced. We were supposed to be on vacation. Enjoying ourselves. Making the most of our beautiful surroundings. Yet it had all gone hideously wrong. Our family had been torn apart – literally. And we had no idea who – or what – was responsible.

A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and into my eye. As I wiped it away I heard Nicole cry out. A new wave of panic coursed through my body as I ran back into the house. I found her in the living room. She was standing in front of the TV, one hand over her mouth, the other pointing at the screen.

‘It just came on,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

The volume was way up and the eerie sound was like wind blowing through a tunnel. There was no picture as such, only pixelated images floating across a snowy background. But the images were slowly taking shape, like figures emerging from a fog.

‘Holy Christ,’ I said when I suddenly realized what we were staring at.

Their faces appeared first. Then their torsos came into focus. They were lying side by side on a flat surface. They were so close together I couldn’t see what it was. Tina was wearing her PJs. Michael was in the T-shirt and jeans he’d had on when we last saw him slumped in the armchair. But their eyes were shut and it looked as though they were asleep – or dead.

It was all too much for Nicole. The shock of seeing our kids on the screen caused her to faint in front of the TV. She went down in a sprawling heap, her fall thankfully cushioned by the thick, grey carpet.

I just stood there – gaping in disbelief at Tina and Michael. Their faces were pale and serene. It was a haunting image.

Through the mind-numbing terror I willed them to move; to show the slightest sign of life. But how could they? It was a still image. A moment frozen in time. Or was it? I couldn’t really tell. I tried to move closer to the TV but my body had shut down. What I was seeing was startling, bewildering. It was simply beyond my comprehension.

Then I found myself watching in horrified fascination as the picture began to fade. Light giving way to dark. An insidious shadow crawling over the static forms of our children, until the picture disappeared altogether and the screen reverted to grey reflective glass.

I would probably have continued looking at the blank screen if Nicole hadn’t begun to moan. The sound of her voice jolted me out of my trance. I crouched beside her, saw that the trauma had caused her to lose control of her bladder as well as her consciousness. Her face had a greenish pallor and there were heavy shadows under her eyes.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked. A stupid question.

She looked up at me, struggling to focus. Then she remembered what had happened and gasped as the fear shuddered through her.

She turned to the TV, cried out, ‘My baby. Where’s my baby?’

I felt a sickening in my stomach, an ache I couldn’t fix.

‘The picture just faded away,’ I said. ‘It lasted less than a minute.’

She pulled herself up onto her knees, frowning at the screen.

‘But how was it possible? It looked so real.’

‘It
was
real,’ I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. ‘That was a picture of our kids.’

She staggered to her feet. I had to hold onto her until she regained her equilibrium.

‘Were they alive, Jack? Tell me you saw them move.’

‘It was a static image,’ I said. ‘A photo, I think. So there was no movement.’

She blinked her eyes rapidly several times.

‘Then where the hell are they, Jack?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll get them back, though. I swear.’

‘But what if they’re dead?’

‘They’re not dead.’

‘You don’t know that. How can you be so bloody sure?’

‘It’s what I believe, and you have to believe it too.’

‘I don’t know what to believe any more. Except that I may have just seen an image of my son from beyond the grave.’

‘What you just saw was a picture,’ I told her. ‘This has nothing to do with ghosts and shit. Some mortal madman is behind this and I reckon its Nathan Slade.’

She looked at me, confusion twisting her features.

‘It stands to reason,’ I explained. ‘I’m sure the groceries he left were injected with a knock-out drug of some kind. He wanted to sedate us. It was when we were out cold that Tina and Michael vanished. That was no coincidence.’

‘So you think Slade took our babies?’

‘I don’t believe they went of their own accord. And I doubt that ghosts are into using tranquilizers. Therefore, it’s the only logical explanation.’

‘But what about the texts from Tina?’

‘They came from her phone,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t mean she sent them.’

A deep furrow entrenched itself in her brow. For a moment she struggled to breathe. I held her arm and squeezed it. Poor Nicole. Her mind was in turmoil. She didn’t know what to think and what to believe. For that matter, neither did I. But I knew it was important to stay calm and focus on looking for answers in the real world and not in some imaginary parallel universe. I’d been swept along by the
whole paranormal scenario, but it was time to reassert my beliefs and apply more reason and logic to our situation.

I left Nicole standing there in the middle of the room and stepped over to the TV. There was nothing unusual about it. A normal
thirty-two
inch flat screen on a stand. No video or DVD recorder. I turned it on and the screen came to life. A commercial for toothpaste. I used the remote to flick quickly through the channels. It worked fine. The faces of our children did not reappear.

I pulled the TV away from the wall and checked the back. There were two black cables for the aerial and the power. But there was also a third cable going from a connection on the TV through a hole in the wall. This one was white and I was not sure of its purpose since the property did not have a satellite or cable service.

I felt I was onto something so I started to kneel down behind the TV to inspect it more closely. But I didn’t quite get there because the lights were suddenly extinguished. Nicole let out a muted scream and as I jumped up I banged my shoulder against the side of the TV.

The darkness in the room was solid and at first I could not even make out the contours of the furniture.

‘Stay where you are,’ I said.

I managed to shuffle over to my wife without colliding with the table. She was shaking and sobbing at the same time.

‘I have to find the flashlight,’ I said, lowering my voice to a whisper.

‘Don’t leave me, Jack. Please.’

‘You’ll be OK. I have to—’

I didn’t get to finish the sentence because there was an almighty crash in the kitchen. It shook us both to the core and caused the floor to vibrate. We clung to each other instinctively. Nicole’s fingers sank deep into the back of my neck.

I could only guess at what had happened: something heavy had smashed onto the kitchen floor. Whatever it was must have been dropped or thrown. But who was out there? What threat did they pose to us?

My thoughts were gnashing in my head when suddenly I was gripped by the sensation that we were being watched – from the doorway. Nicole must have sensed it too because she spun round just as I did.

‘Who’s there?’ I called out.

As I stared across the room to where I knew the doorway to be I saw a movement. A shadow was detaching itself from the darkness and coming towards us. I let go of Nicole and put myself between her and the doorway.

‘Who the hell are you?’ I yelled. ‘What do you want?’

The shadow took shape, an outline against the blackness, a human form with wide shoulders and a featureless head. I took a step forward, anxious to protect Nicole, who was now hysterical behind me.

But when the attack came I wasn’t quick enough to stop it. I saw a flash of something just before my head exploded and my knees buckled. I collapsed in a heap on the floor as an excruciating pain
detonated
behind my eyes and shot down my backbone.

I heard Nicole scream. I felt something brush against my leg.

And then the floor swallowed me up and I dropped into the icy embrace of oblivion.

N
athan Slade’s ex-wife had given Temple a lot to think about. As he drove away from Poole he mulled over what she’d told him about the hidden cameras at King’s Manor. They provided yet more evidence that the man was a deviant pervert. Prostitutes, porno films, secret cameras to spy on people in his house – how sick in the head was he, for fuck’s sake?

The circumstantial evidence against him was mounting by the minute. He was one of Genna’s sex clients. He had disappeared having pulled thousands of pounds out of his bank account. He’d bought a one-way ticket to Thailand. He had a criminal record and was clearly a dangerous sexual predator.

Temple wondered why it was proving so hard to find him. After all, he had phoned the Keaton family to tell them he would be dropping by the house later in the week. But would he actually turn up? Temple thought it most unlikely.

He lit a cigarette and opened the driver’s window. It was half past nine and he felt tired and hungry. He wondered if Angel was still at the hospital with Genna’s mother.

He fumbled in his pocket for his mobile and slipped it into the hands-free socket on the dashboard. He was about to press the
speed-dial
button for Angel’s number when the phone buzzed with an incoming call.

It was DCI Brian Ellroy, from Scotland Yard’s Human Exploitation and Organized Crime Command. The officer he’d been trying to reach all afternoon.

‘I’m afraid I only just picked up your message,’ he told Temple. ‘I’ve been flying back from holiday in the Maldives and landed in the UK only a short time ago.’

‘No problem,’ Temple said. ‘I appreciate you calling me.’

‘I gather it’s about Damien Roth. You responded to the red flag.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So what’s going on? Has he been arrested?’

‘Hang on a sec,’ Temple said. ‘I’m driving and can barely hear you. Let me pull over to the side of the road.’

Once the car was stationary and the engine switched off Temple told Ellroy about the murder of Genna Boyd.

‘She appeared in a string of porn movies produced by Roth and his partner, Belinda Wallis,’ Temple said. ‘So we ran a check. I have to say he’s been pretty helpful. When I asked him why your lot interviewed him he said it was no big deal – that he knew a bloke you were
investigating
in connection with snuff movies.’

Ellroy gave a little laugh. ‘Well I can tell you it’s a bit more serious than that. If you’ve got a minute I’ll give you a rundown.’

‘Fire away,’ Temple said.

‘Just over a year ago a man named Jason Freemont was found dead in a remote farmhouse outside Newbury,’ Ellroy said. ‘He’d been stabbed repeatedly in the face and body.’

The name rang a bell with Temple. Newbury was in the
neighbouring
county of Berkshire, about an hour from Southampton.

‘The house had been empty for two years and was on the market along with the farmland,’ Ellroy said. ‘It was in a poor state of repair but still had electricity and some furnishngs.’

‘So what was Freemont doing there?’ Temple asked.

‘He was using it as a location for snuff movies. He had access to the property and others like it in the area through his job as a local estate agent.’

Temple sat back and lit another cigarette from the stub of the first.

‘Freemont’s body was found in one of the bedrooms,’ Ellroy said. ‘He was naked. The room was a real mess with blood everywhere. We strongly suspect that something went wrong during the making of a movie. One theory is that the intended victim may have turned the tables on Freemont.’

‘I remember the case now,’ Temple said. ‘But there was no mention of snuff films or anything like that.’

‘That’s because we got involved and asked for that aspect of the case to be kept from the public. We’d already started an investigation into the snuff business and we didn’t want to spook the main players. Besides, it would have served no useful purpose at that time to tell the world what we knew.’

‘So what else did you find in the house apart from the body?’ Temple asked.

‘Not much. Whoever was responsible made a good job of cleaning up the place. No prints were found and there was no camera
equipment
. They couldn’t remove the body, though, because they were disturbed by a young couple who were camping nearby and went to investigate after hearing screams. As the couple approached the house they saw someone watching from a window. So they held back and called the police from a mobile phone.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The couple watched from nearby woods until the police arrived. During that time they saw three people leave the house in a hurry and make off in a car that had been parked on the driveway. It belonged to Freemont and was later found abandoned in Basingstoke. But they didn’t get a description of the suspects.’

‘Who got clean away I take it,’ Temple said.

‘That’s right. But when we later searched Freemont’s terraced house in nearby Reading we found a box hidden under the
floorboards
. It contained a selection of extremely violent porn material including three snuff movies on a remote hard drive. They featured the murders of three women who were drugged and tied to beds. In each case the killer, who used a knife, wore a rubber head mask. But we’re pretty sure it was Freemont. Same build and same eight-inch cock.’

‘Were the movies the real thing or could they have been fakes?’ Temple asked.

‘These were the genuine article,’ Ellroy said. ‘No doubt about it. One of the girls had her hands cut off on camera. It was gruesome.’

‘I bet.’

‘We were able to identify two of the victims. Both were eastern European prostitutes who’d been missing for some months. Their bodies were never recovered.’

Temple clenched his jaw, squeezing the cigarette between his lips. Smoke trailed languidly from his nostrils.

‘The detectives were also able to determine that two of the murders took place at the same farmhouse,’ Ellroy said.

‘So what has this got to do with Damien Roth?’

‘Freemont was a part-time porn actor and had been hawking himself around adult film makers for years. He appeared in three legit movies made by Filthy Films. His phone records showed that he and Roth were regularly in touch over the course of a year and a half.’

‘And this led you to believe that Roth was involved in the snuff films – and therefore the killings?’

‘The pair had spoken on the phone the day before the murder and the detectives who interviewed him were convinced he was lying. But his girlfriend gave him an alibi and they couldn’t link him to Freemont’s killing or any of the others. He denied he was one of the people who fled the house in Newbury. And he denied any knowledge of snuff movies. We kept him under surveillance for a few months but he stayed clean so we had to give up. That’s when I red-flagged him.’

‘This is crazy stuff,’ Temple said. ‘How long had Freemont been doing it?’

‘We don’t know for sure. Possibly years. He was a loner. Single. No friends. Spent all his time downloading extreme porn, including bondage, fetish and bestiality. Turned out he was abused as a child and his mum was a prossy. Classic psychopath material.’

‘So what more do you know about Damien Roth?’ Temple asked.

‘We looked into his background. He started making porn movies at university. One teacher there described him as an oddball. That’s where he first met Belinda Wallis, who had a reputation for being aggressive and antisocial. She started appearing in his films but then later they formed a company together. I interviewed both of them several times and each time I came away thinking I’d been
manipulated
. They’re among the new breed of porn peddlers – savvy, erudite, inconspicuous and computer literate.’

‘I’ll haul them in again,’ Temple said. ‘Maybe get a warrant to search their place.’

‘Bear in mind that if Roth is involved he’ll be covering his tracks well. That’s why it’s so hard to catch these bastards. Snuff movies have
gone from being an urban myth to a multi-million pound international business. We believe there’s now a large creation and underground distribution network in operation. Paedophiles have shown all the other scumbags how easy it is to make movies and get them circulated to a depraved audience that’s willing to pay top dollar. Not only that, but the films are becoming increasingly elaborate.’

‘What do you mean?’

Ellroy cleared his throat. ‘In the past, snuff movies were made on the cheap in abandoned buildings and grim cellars. The victims were usually drugged, tied to a bed or chained to a wall. But that’s all changed. Now the movies are proper production numbers with
build-up
scenes and even storylines.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘I wish I was. The producers are even trying to better each other by making their movies stand out, with high production values and unusual settings.’

‘Is this just based on anecdotal evidence?’ Temple asked.

‘Not at all, and I can give you a recent example. A year ago two teenage girls disappeared while walking home from a college in Hamburg, Germany. It was assumed they’d been abducted but nobody knew for sure what happened to them – that was until six months ago when a snuff film surfaced on the internet. The two missing girls were in the movie. They were shown being chased through woods by three men wearing masks. When they were caught they were stripped, tied to trees and brutally cut up. I could give you more examples but I don’t want you to have a sleepless night.’

‘That’s bad shit,’ Temple said.

‘You bet it is. The internet has unleashed an enormous audience for porn and tough competition and consumer desensitization have pushed the industry towards hardcore extremes. Every bizarre taste is catered for. In fact, according to the latest data, simulated rape movies are among the most popular downloads. But when it comes to snuff, well, that’s Holy Grail for a lot of jaded people. The ultimate turn-on. And the internet gives them access to it.’

‘It’s a shocking thought,’ Temple said.

Ellroy agreed. ‘Shocking, but not surprising. I’m afraid we live in a world where life is cheap. Thousands of people disappear off the
streets every year and nobody gives a shit. Gone are the days when snuff was just industry folklore.’

The two detectives talked for another ten minutes, by which time Temple felt thoroughly depressed. The beginnings of a headache were growing at the base of his skull.

He ended the conversation by asking Ellroy if he had heard of Nathan Slade. The name meant nothing to him. However, he said he would run it through his division’s database. Temple then thanked him for the information and promised to keep him updated on their dealings with Roth.

When he came off the phone Temple struck up another cigarette. He sat smoking for a while, letting the shock of what he had heard work its way through him. He was still sitting there five minutes later when his phone buzzed. It was Angel. She said she had been trying to contact him.

‘Sorry. I’ve been talking to someone.’

‘I gathered that,’ she said. ‘I wanted to let you know that I’ve got the package Genna Boyd gave to her mum.’

Temple sat up straight, threw his half-smoked cigarette out the window.

‘Where was it?’

‘In her bag would you believe? All along it was in the cupboard next to her hospital bed. She’d completely forgotten that she’d put it in the bag. I found it when she asked me to get something out for her.’

‘So what’s in it?’ Temple asked.

‘Two unmarked DVDs.’

‘Have you checked them?’

‘Not yet. I’ve only just left the hospital. Heading back to the station. Where are you?’

‘Coming back from Poole. I’ve spoken to Slade’s ex-wife.’

‘Did she have much to say?’

‘Plenty. I’ll brief you when I get in.’

‘Are you coming straight back?’

‘No. I need to make a little detour first. But I won’t be long.’

Temple hung up and switched on the ignition. He intended to drop in on King’s Manor. He wanted to have another chat with Jack Keaton – and warn him about Nathan Slade’s hidden cameras.