Page 45 of Killing Mind

‘Wasn’t there an American Governor that visited that group?’ Stacey asked.

‘Leo Ryan; a Congressman who went to investigate mistreatment. He and his party were shot dead as they were about to board the plane to go home. Within hours nine hundred people were dead when Jones ordered a mass suicide. But it was just a nice peace-loving church,’ he added sarcastically.

‘We met Jake Black,’ Kim offered. ‘Seemed a nice enough…’

‘Well of course he did. Very few people will follow someone who looks like the Elephant Man.’

‘Are you saying people go to Unity Farm because the top guy is good looking?’ she asked with disbelief.

He shook his head. ‘It’s not about good looks. You’ve only to look at Charles Manson to know that, though being handsome didn’t hurt David Koresh. It’s about charisma. Every group leader must possess that charisma, that something that makes you want to believe every word they say and follow them anywhere.’

Kim had no clue what her colleague was scribbling down because for her the man had yet to say something of interest.

‘Mr Brown, you’re talking about famous, well-documented cases of brainwashing and mind control that happened many miles from here. This is the Black Country in the West Midlands. Nothing like that—’

‘Inspector, how many families of crime have you visited that thought things like this could never happen to them, that gun crime, even knife crime happened somewhere else.’

She silently conceded his point. But still, she couldn’t believe what he was saying.

‘I’m sorry but there’s no murderous cult right here on our doorstep.’

‘You can be sure of that.’

She nodded. Pretty sure.

‘How long did you spend at Unity Farm?’

‘About an hour?’

He leaned forward resting his forearms on the table.

‘And do you think you saw anything that Jake Black didn’t want you to see in that time?’

She’d seen his office and a golf buggy.

‘Wouldn’t your job be so much easier if murderers looked like monsters, if they all had horns and they didn’t appear as normal people? Cults very rarely look like cults, Inspector. They always dress up as something else.’

‘Go on,’ Kim said. She didn’t believe him but she was keen to know how the man had convinced himself.

‘They look like religious groups, political, racial, psychotherapeutic, even outer space. The fastest growing are the ones that centre around New Age thinking and personal improvement training, like Unity Farm.’

‘So, you’re saying that Sammy was lured to this evil place and brainwashed somehow because she was at a low point due to being dumped?’

He shook his head with frustration.

‘You’re not going to believe anything I say, are you?’

‘It’s hard, Myles,’ she said, thinking about the girl selling vegetables in the shed. The girl hadn’t looked brainwashed, apprehensive perhaps but certainly not brainwashed. ‘Look, we’re getting off track here. Jake told us something that disputes your story about your daughter. He says that Sammy didn’t leave Unity Farm of her own accord. He states that she was taken by force. Is that true?’

His face fell into despair, and Kim knew that Jake was telling the truth.

‘But why, Myles? Why would you do that to her?’

His watery gaze met hers but he held back the tears. He was teetering on the edge of letting go. She could tell he wanted to free himself of the burden.

‘I need the truth now, Myles. All of it.’

Thirty-Eight