Behind me the children laughed and clapped; likely there’d been a marble victory.
“How did he die?” I asked.
“Heart attack. He was giving a sermon. God chose that blessed moment to take him.”
I nodded. “Can you remind me when Jeremy went missing?”
“Don’t you know? I reported my son’s disappearance six months ago, surely it’s in the file.”
Ah, so thiswasAmy’s father.
“Just fact-checking, we’re new on the case,” Jamie said.
Abraham clicked his tongue and gestured for us to take a seat around what appeared to be a burnt-out campfire.
“Children, children, math time.” A woman rounded up the playing children. “A prize for the winner of the adding-up contest and then it’s cookery lesson.”
The kids whooped and jumped up, clearly happy with the plan.
Abraham smiled as he sat and crossed his long legs that were encased in faded sweats. “Cookery is one of their favorite lessons because they get to eat whatever they’ve made for lunch. Today it’s pizza, I think.”
I couldn’t deny the surprise that went through me. What I was seeing was very different from Amy’s descriptions. Had Nigel’s death changed the ethos of the commune? Had the nightmares of the past been buried with him?
It was too soon to know.
“Jeremy had been having mental health issues,” Abraham went on with a sigh. “After his twin sister left.”
“His twin sister?” Jamie asked, also sitting.
I followed suit, folding down onto the log.
“Amy, yes, he really went into a depression, for years. A dark place, you know. Wasn’t interested in anything. Even Nigel couldn’t bring him out of his slumber. It was as though his faith had gone with her, not just in God but in us.”
Good boy, you found your moral compass. I’d never met the lad but I was proud of him.
“For years I feared he’d hurt himself,” Abraham said. “He talked about going out onto the moors and not coming back. I think he did wander at night a few times. We tried our best, all ofus. But he had no interest in our mission, in contributing to our mission.”
“Which is?” I wanted to hear the crazy from the horse’s mouth. I leaned forward, elbows on my thighs.
Abraham rubbed his forehead which had deep creases running horizontally. “We are a safe place for the second coming, we are readied, we understand what He will need. Nigel, as a prophet, knew that we were the chosen ones.”
“That Jesus is coming to Yorkshire?” Jamie said, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice.
“I know we are mocked, but we will be proved right.” He tightened his jaw. “And there are enough of us now, here. We can protect and provide for Him.”
“There are enough of you?” I asked. “You mean you are happy with the population of the commune?”
“Yes.” He paused. “When Nigel died, after a few months we knew there would have to be changes and we implemented them. This is a place of love and support, families, and a sense of being with nature. We provide for ourselves, mostly.” He pointed to a large vegetable patch. “And that makes us happy. Well, most of us, not Jeremy. He still couldn’t shake the black cloud that hung over him.”
I tapped my pen on the notepad. I was itching to ask about orgies and forced pregnancy and children barely knowing their parents, but that might jeopardize my investigations.
Jamie turned to the right.
A woman was pushing a pram with a toddler at her side. She stopped to help the toddler investigate a chicken coop and pull out an egg. Her happiness was evident, as was the child’s.
“The big barn there,” Abraham said. “Is apartments for families. I’d hoped Jeremy would choose a wife and start his own family, but his darkness wouldn’t let him, and then one day…that was it…gone. We set up a search party, kept at it for days.Nothing. The same with the police, even the helicopter, no luck.” His eyes sparkled. “I just need to know he’s okay; he’s my eldest son.”
“You said he was a twin,” Jamie said.
