The first afternoon briefing of any investigation was often quite a busy one. Early plans of action had been put into place and information would be starting to come through. It was usually at these early briefings that the general direction of an investigation would start to become clear.
With this particular investigation, the mood was an odd one. It was standard for CID to get involved when there had been a death and there was a suspicion of foul play. In this case, though, there wasn’t even a body to prove that anyone had even died. But with uniform resources being severely limited and a CID unit on hand in Mildenheath, it was often easier for uniformed officers to just dump it on Culverhouse and his team to cover their own arses.
‘Right, settle down everyone,’ Culverhouse said, before taking a mouthful of black coffee. ‘Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Stage one. A call comes in to us from an anonymous person telling us there’s a dead body, potentially a murder victim, in the old grain store at Hilltop Farm. What have we got on that, Ryan?’
Ryan MacKenzie stood up and started to read from her notes.
‘Well, I got onto the control centre and asked—’
‘For fuck’s sake. Sit down, will you? What do you think this is, the crown court?’ Culverhouse barked.
‘Sorry, sir. Just trying to be formal.’
Steve Wing let out a guffaw. ‘Formal? Here? Don’t make us laugh.’
Ryan chose to ignore him. ‘I got onto the control centre and asked them for a transcription of the call. I’ve got the original audio, too. Transcription reads as follows. “Operator: Emergency, which service? Caller: Hi. Operator: Do you need fire, police or ambulance? Caller: Police. Operator: Connecting you. Operator: Hello, police emergency. Caller: Hi. Uh, there’s a dead body. Someone’s been murdered. At the farm. Operator: What address? Caller: Hilltop Farm. Operator: Hilltop Farm? And where’s that? Caller: It’s just outside Mildenheath. Operator: Do you have an address? Caller: No. No. No I don’t. It’s along from the Seafarer pub. Operator: There’s a dead body on the farm? Caller: Yes. Operator: Whereabouts on the farm? Caller: The old grain store. Operator: There’s a dead body in the old grain store? Caller: Yes. A woman. Operator: Where are you phoning from now? Caller: Uh, from a phone box. Please just send someone. Operator: We’ve got officers on the way. What’s your name? Caller: No. I can’t say. Please. It’s a murder. Operator: It’s a murder? Are you a witness? Caller: No. I can’t tell you. Please. Operator: Sir, can you stay where you are? I’ll send some officers to your location as well. They will be able to help you. Caller: No. No.” Then he hangs up.’
‘Very... thorough,’ Culverhouse said. ‘And what can we get from that? The caller doesn’t have an address for the farm. If we’re assuming the call came from someone who knows the farm well, or has been on it, wouldn’t he know the address?’
‘Dunno, sir,’ Ryan replied. ‘Not all farms have addresses as such. Just maybe a road name and near whatever town they’re near.’
‘Right. Well I don’t think we can rule out that this was a hoax call. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I’d like nothing more than to walk into the chief constable’s office with proof of that, believe me. Bloody waste of time. Frank, anything on the finances yet?’
‘Not a thing, guv,’ Frank Vine replied. ‘Taking ages to get anything back from the banks. Usual story.’
‘Keep me updated when you hear something,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘Knight. What did you get from Father Joseph Kümmel?’
Wendy took a deep breath. ‘I wish I could answer that, sir. The short answer is not a lot. I found him pretty difficult to deal with, actually. He always seemed to know the right thing to say without actually saying anything. I can see exactly why he’s running a cult.’
‘Alternative church, Detective Sergeant Knight,’ Culverhouse said.
Wendy looked at him, even though he wasn’t looking at her. The brazen hypocrisy of the man was astounding.
‘Right. Well whatever you want to call it, it seems pretty clear to me why he’s so successful with it. Father Joseph was pretty standoffish when we went to see him on the original call yesterday. He was totally different today. Still evasive, but much calmer. Like he was trying too hard to be nice.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘Yesterday he had a whole gang of us turn up unannounced, threatening to kick the gate in. Whereas today he gets visited by a young woman who just wants to ask him for a list of names. Doesn’t take a mastermind to work out that he’s going to respond a bit better to that, does it?’
Wendy stood open-mouthed in disbelief. The DCI would usually be the first person to spot something suspicious where there was nothing. He was probably the least tolerant person she knew, yet here he was defending Father Joseph Kümmel and whatever was going on at Hilltop Farm.
‘Debbie,’ he said, before Wendy could respond. ‘What did you find out about the farm?’
‘Went onto Google Earth like you said,’ Debbie replied, holding up a sheet of paper with an aerial image printed on it. ‘Can’t see much, to be honest. There are a few buildings scattered about, but other than that it’s difficult to make much out. It’s not a great image. A lot of these satellite images were done years ago and haven’t been updated since. To be honest, from above it just looks like a cross between a working farm and a holiday camp.’
‘What about ownership?’
‘Just heard back from the land registry a few minutes ago. It’s been registered to the Community of Freedom and Enlightenment since May 1971.’
‘Right. Who’d they buy it off and how much for?’
‘No idea, sir. Land registry only started keeping title registers in 2000. We’re going to have to dig a lot harder for any information like that.’
‘In which case,’ Culverhouse said, perching on the end of his desk, ‘That’s going to take up a lot of time and resources. We need to question if it’s worth it. We’re going to have to find out whether the claims made on the phone call are real or not. And quickly. Ryan, did you get anything from CCTV?’
‘I’ve had uniform on the case, sir. Nothing residential that we’ve been able to find yet. The row of shops on Allerdale Road don’t have anything, either. Most just cover the front of the shops. Two cover the slip road and parking area for the shops, but not Allerdale Road itself, and not the phone box. I’m currently mapping out where we do have CCTV coverage from shops, banks and residential addresses — as well as council-owned CCTV — and trying to block off areas where we should look. With any luck we’ll be able to see a person or a car in the area at the right time. I’ll get highways onto checking ANPR, too. There aren’t any number plate recognition cameras in town itself, but there should be some on the main roads leading in and out. Might be useful if the caller came from out of town.’
‘Excellent. Keep me posted. And someone get onto the voice experts, too. Get that recording of the phone call analysed. They’ll be able to pick out accents, nervousness, all that. They’ll probably even be able to tell us if the bloke was telling the truth or not. Save us a whole lot of hassle.’
Although it wasn’t something she’d admit to very often, Wendy completely agreed with the DCI. She hoped beyond hope that the call would turn out to be a hoax. Because, if it wasn’t, this whole investigation could turn out to be very messy indeed.