It was through one such viewing port that Heck now watched as Rabbit, aka Dennis Purdham, was interviewed. Of all five suspects, he had been the most visibly distraught on arrest. Aside from their leader, Wolf, also known as Ranald Ulfskar, the others – Sherwin Lightfoot (Goat), Michael Hapwood (Toad) and Jason Renwick (Boar) – had also registered surprise and shock when the police showed up, but as with any cult, and that was what Heck felt they were dealing with here rather than a conventional criminal gang, they’d drawn strength from their leader’s stoicism, and were obediently keeping their mouths shut.
Purdham was the exception.
Like the rest of them, he’d struck Heck as an outsider: unshaved, long-haired, pockmarked. The clothing they’d seized from him mainly comprised oil-stained hunting gear and mismatched bits of army surplus wear. But, at the age of twenty-three, Purdham was much younger than his confederates, and possibly only involved in the murders as a bit player – or so his solicitor was seeking to intimate. He’d wept when they’d booked him in, and wept again when they gave him his white custody suit. As such, while the others were left to stew in their cells, it wasn’t long into Purdham’s interview before he’d begun to talk.
The interviewers were Gemma Piper and Jack Reed, who, by prior agreement, was adopting an understanding guise. It was this that Purdham had responded to, gradually regaining his confidence.
‘At the end of the day, Christians are a set of vile bastards,’ he said in broad Staffordshire. ‘Everything about them stinks. Their hypocrisy, their dishonesty … they’re a bunch of fucking control freaks too.’
‘Someone give you a hard time when you were young, Dennis?’ Reed asked. ‘A priest maybe?’
‘You mean was I kiddie-fiddled?’ Purdham shook his head. ‘Nah … never happened to me. But there are lots it did happen to, aren’t there?’
‘So, you and your friends were responding to sexual misdoings?’ Gemma said. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
Purdham hesitated, unsure how to reply.
He wasn’t as stupid as he looked, Heck thought, because to admit to this would be to admit premeditation.
‘Because in case you did,’ Gemma added, ‘I can tell you that there’s never been any suspicion about those three people. Or about the Reverend Hatherton, who is the incumbent at Milden St Paul’s.’
‘That means he’s the one I stepped in for tonight,’ Reed explained.
‘Look …’ Purdham scrubbed a hand through his lank, mouse-brown hair. ‘I don’t think anyone was specifically targeted. It’s what I said before, Christians are … just shit-arses.’
‘You mean Christians in general?’ Gemma asked.
‘Lots of people agree with me on this.’ Purdham’s eyes widened; he became animated. ‘You only need to go on social media. Everyone’s always saying it.’
There was a soft click in the viewing room, as a door opened. Heck turned and was surprised to see the squat, bull-necked shape of DCI Bob Hunter come furtively in. Hunter acknowledged Heck with a nod and signalled that he didn’t want to interrupt.
Heck turned back to the mirror, beyond which Gemma was in mid-reply.
‘It’s worth remembering, Dennis,’ she said, ‘that social media is an echo chamber.’
Purdham regarded her confusedly.
‘Every mother’s son on the planet uses it to sound off about stuff that bugs them. They may have genuine issues with religion, even with Christianity specifically … but just because they gob off about it online, most of them are not even so hyped about it that they stop celebrating Christmas. So, I’d say it’s a near certainty that what happened at St Winifred’s in the Marsh, for example, would be right off their agenda.’
The killing of the Catholic priest, Father John Strachan, on March 21 that year, had been the first murder in the Black Chapel case. The victim had answered a knock at the presbytery door just after 11 p.m., at his church, St Winifred’s in the Marsh, up in rural Cambridgeshire – only to receive an axe-blow to the face, which had killed him instantly.
‘Look … I’ve admitted I was there,’ Purdham said, tingeing red. ‘But … I told you, I didn’t participate.’
‘Neither did you do anything to prevent it.’
‘It happened in a flash. I didn’t even know Ranald was armed.’
As Heck listened, he thought again about Ranald Ulfskar. It was a cute name he’d given himself. In real life, he was Albert Jones from Scunthorpe. He was the spiritual leader of this weird group. At fifty, he was the oldest, and though also the scrawniest and most ragbag, he was, without doubt, the toughest and had led the most lived-in life. And yet it was through Ulfskar/Jones that Heck had first learned about the so-called Black Chapel. Ulfskar had spent several years as a roadie for a very successful black-metal band from Scandinavia called Varulv. One of his fellow roadies at the time, Jimmy ‘Snake’ Fletcher, someone not quite as besotted with Varulv’s dangerous Nordic vision, had later become one of Heck’s informants. And once it had become apparent to Fletcher that the East Anglia priest killings were a series, and that they were in synch with certain dates in the calendar, he’d got on the blower.
‘We also strongly suspect you were there at the murder of Reverend Glyn Thomas,’ Gemma said.
Purdham hung his head and said nothing.
The second cleric to die had been a Church of England minister, the Reverend Glyn Thomas. On the night of April 30 that year, he’d been alone at his church of St Oswald’s, out in the Norfolk back-country, when, just before midnight, intruders had forced entry to the vicarage. He was hauled out in his nightclothes and forced to watch as both the vicarage and the church were set alight. He was then bound, hand and foot, and had a wire noose tightened around his neck, which was attached to the tow bar of a vehicle. After this, the Reverend Thomas was dragged at high speeds along isolated country lanes for fifteen miles, before his body, or what was left of it, came loose of its own accord. It was found in a roadside ditch the next day, but only several hours after the blazing ruins of St Oswald’s had drawn the attention of early-morning farm workers.
‘And what about the murder of Michaela Hanson?’ Gemma wondered.
Purdham still said nothing.
In the case of the Reverend Michaela Hanson, it was mid-evening on June 21. She’d been alone in the Church of Our Lady on the outskirts of Shoeburyness in Essex. As with the incident at Little Milden, it was shortly after evensong, and the congregation and altar servers had gone home. Reverend Hanson was collecting the hymnals from the pews when intruders entered through the sacristy door. Her naked corpse was found the following morning, spread-eagled on the altar table. She’d been slashed across the throat with something like a billhook and pinned to the wood with a pitchfork.
‘There was even a sexual element in that one, wasn’t there?’ Reed said, referring to the fact that the Reverend Hanson’s lower body had also shown signs of being violently attacked.
‘Which at least is in keeping with this Odinist fantasy,’ Gemma said.
Purdham looked up sharply, as if to mouth a protest, but managed to restrain himself.
‘Why don’t we talk about that Odinist angle, Dennis?’ Reed said.
Still, Purdham held back on a response.
‘Those Vikings had a pretty violent attitude to life, didn’t they? Rape, pillage …’
‘They get misrepresented by films.’ Purdham hung his head again; he almost seemed embarrassed