Blood Atonement (21 page)

wasn’t right. ‘You were in foster care?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How did she contact you?’

‘A letter.’

‘How did she know where to send it?

‘She sent it to the Gateway football club. Probably knew it was the only place I could be found. The coach gave it me one Saturday morning.’

‘What did it say?’

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a greying battered envelope, frayed at the edges. ‘Be careful, it’s falling apart,’ he said.

Foster looked at the address. Gary Stamey, c/o Gateway

Football Club, Barking, Essex. The stamp had long since

peeled off. No postcode. He could only wonder how long

it took to reach its destination. He could see the trace of a sticker in the lower bottom corner.

Was there a sticker on this? Air mail?’

‘Don’t know what it said, but there was a sticker,’ he

said. ‘It fell off. Like the stamp.’

‘Can you remember what the stamp was? Did it have

the Queen’s head on it?’

He shook his head. Wasn’t the Queen. It was a picture

of, like, some mountains and stuff. And a sunset?’

Didn’t sound familiar to Foster.

He slid the contents out slowly. The letter had been

folded and refolded so many times that along the crease it was beginning to disintegrate. It was marked by grubby fingers, presumably Gary’s. Yet considering it was two years old it was still in reasonable condition.

He opened the paper up. The writing was immediately

recognizable as that of a teenage girl; big looping letters and fat round blobs instead of dots above the ‘i’s.

Gary looked uncomfortable, embarrassed even. ‘Can

you read it to me?’ he asked.

What, haven’t you … ?’ It took a while for him to

realize. “You can’t read?’

Gary shook his head dolefully.

“You’ve never asked anyone to read it to you?’ he asked, struggling to contain his disbelief.

‘No. I knew it was a secret. I can read some of it. I

knew it was from her because of the name and the writing.

I know a few of the words. But I’ve never been able

to read it all.’

The kid had kept it on his person for two years. By the

look of it, he’d taken it out of the envelope and looked at it many times. Yet he’d not been able to understand the message his sister had sent to him.

‘OK.’ He scanned it quickly. He would need to mentally

correct much of the syntax to render it readable.

Dear Gary

I hope, this Letter get’s to you OK and you are all

right. I sent it to the football club because I know

that’s the one place you Love. I hope you still go

there.

Just wanted you to know I am OK. Sorry I Left

Like that but I had to. The time was right. I know

you must be really angry with me for Leaving you

but don’t be. It is fine to be cross but I had to

Leave. I am with good people. They Look after me. Bit boring sometimes but no drugs and everyone is happy, no one even drinks beer or nothing. I have Learned to do Lots of stuff Like sewing and we

have animals Like cows and pigs and the countryside

is beautiful to Look at. Much nicer than Essex. I don’t miss home at all, just you.

Don’t tell anyone about this Letter or else! The

end days are on their way and we will be together

again in the celestial kingdom as a famlly with

our mum, too. God says so. Try and stay out of

trouble even though that is impossible for you!

God Loves you and so do I,

Leonie x

PS.
I’m married!

Foster looked up to see Gary’s big brown eyes moistening.

He was desperately trying to fight back tears but losing the battle.

‘Married,’ Foster said. ‘This was a year after she left? So she was only fifteen?’

Gary said nothing. Just looked down at his hands and

sniffed copiously. Foster read through the letter once

more, silently this time. It appeared that Leonie had not only got religion, but some extreme form. The people she had fallen in with were teetotal, it appeared, which made him think it was some kind of cult. And just exactly what were the ‘end days’. He asked Gary, but the boy didn’t know. Once again, he seemed small and alone.

‘She’s still alive, sunshine,’ Foster said softly. ‘And she said you’d be back together one day. Now that you’ve shown me her letter, that’s even more likely. It was the right thing for you to do. And brave with it.’

‘Really?’ Gary said, brightening. ‘You think you can find her?’

‘I know we can find her.’ He rubbed the hair on top of

his head. ‘Let me get you another glass of Coke and we’ll find a film you can watch.’

Once he’d settled Gary in front of the television, he

went to the kitchen and fired up his laptop. Then he went on to the Internet and typed in the phrase ‘end days’. The result was a hodge-podge of the banal and the barmy.

Sites discussing the impending obsolescence of computer

systems mingled with other sites predicting the end of the world — Judgement Day and the Apocalypse. Prophecies were coming true, billions were about to die and Jesus

Christ was set to return to earth. Foster took a wild guess

Leonie Stamey was referring to the latter. He then typed in ‘celestial kingdom’.

It led him straight to Wikipedia. The celestial kingdom

was the highest of the three tiers of Heaven envisaged by the Church of Latter-day Saints.

The Mormons, he thought.

He pored over the entries. The Church’s origin, Joseph

Smith’s visions — was he the Joe in the book Gary had

spoken of? The gold plates he found, upon which the

Book of Mormon was based, his treasure, the persecution

of its early followers, their flight to the safe haven of Salt Lake City and its evolution to the present and its place as the world’s fastest growing religion. He learned the religion’s basic beliefs, shuddered at its followers’ abstinence, paying particular interest to how the Church sent its

youngest recruits across the world to perform missionary work door to door. Had one been working in Leonie and Gary’s area?

He needed to know more.

Foster was stiff from another night on guard on the sofa, sleeping there to prevent Gary from leaving and anyone from coming in. He made Gary and himself a bacon

sandwich each; then, while he drank some tea and came

round, the kid stared slackjawed at more television. While he was enthralled by some junkie cartoon, Foster slipped out into the back garden and placed some Sellotape on the join of the kitchen window and its frame, then did the same with the back door and the battered old French windows at the back of the sitting room. Before leaving for Kensington and the Mormon Temple, after getting Gary

into his car, he pretended to have left something behind, and when he returned to the house he stuck another band of translucent tape across the frame at the foot of the

front door.

Sunday wasn’t a bad day to be hunting Mormons. Outside

the chapel in South Kensington, scores of them

milled around in their Sunday best waiting for their services to start. Foster did not know what to expect — all he knew about Mormonism was that the Osmonds were

members, and that it practised questionable marital practices, or used to. He was pleasantly surprised to see so many normal-looking people and not chanting weirdos in

robes.

He told Gary to keep quiet and behave, and the pair

followed the congregation into the chapel. He sat at the back, trying not to look too conspicuous even if all the men, and some of the boys, were in suits, and he was in a pair of chinos and a battered jumper riddled with bobbles.

Gary, in scruffy jeans and puffer jacket, looked even more incongruous, drawing more than a few concerned looks.

The ceremony lasted a long time but to Foster it felt

like an eternity. Hymns, invocations, a bewildering litany of assignments and callings, blessings, namings and confirmations.

Finally,

it ended. Foster told Gary, bored to catatonia, to

stay seated while he headed to the front, to the rotund, rather self-important man who had opened the service. He stood to one side as he shared a few words with the congregation, before closing in during a lull. He introduced himself as quietly as he could. The man did not respond, merely frowned and pursed his lips. ‘You could have chosen a better time to barge in here than a Sunday,’ he said crossly.

Barge in, Foster thought indignantly. I’ve just spent well over an hour of my life listening to the platitudinous bilge of you and your congregation — time I’ll never get back - but he resisted the urge.

‘It’s very urgent that I speak to you, Mr, er … ?’

‘Brewster. Roger D. Brewster. I’m the Branch President.’

I’m

inquiring about a loan, Foster was tempted to say in

response. ‘Mr Brewster, I can’t divulge why. I just need some information that may help us regarding an ongoing murder investigation.’

His ears pricked up at the word ‘murder’. He appeared

instantly less hostile. ‘Goodness me,’ he murmured. ‘Let me just see these good people off, then we can talk.’

He went back to smiling, shaking hands and nodding

earnestly for a few minutes until the hall emptied and the two of them, plus Gary, were the only ones remaining.

‘How can I help?’

‘I’m looking for some background information that

might be able to help us,’ Foster explained.

Well, you’ve got the right man,’ Brewster added. ‘I also happen to be the Director of Public Affairs for the Church in this country.’

‘You’re the PR man?’

He smiled. ‘I prefer my job title but, yes, more or less.

What is it you want to know?’

Foster wondered whether it was wise to let anything

slip to a man that dealt with the press. ‘Anything I tell you is in the strictest confidence, you understand that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Am I right in believing that it’s usual for young Mormon men to spend time on missions?’

‘That’s right. And not just men. Many young women

are assigned to missions, too. Usually aged between nineteen and twenty-five.’

‘How long do they do it for?’

‘Two years. Eighteen months for the women.’

That doesn’t fit, Foster thought. There was a three-year gap between Leonie Stamey going missing and Naomi Buckingham. ‘Do they occasionally last longer than two

years?’

‘Rarely. We have some retired couples who perform

missionary work and they can last anything between three

months and three years, depending on their circumstances and their means.’

What happens on these missions?’

Brewster laughed mirthlessly. ‘Many things happen.

Typically the missionaries are assigned to places far away from their own homes. They’ll be sent to a missionary training centre. In this country that’s in Preston. If they’re going to a country that speaks their native language, they’ll spend three weeks being briefed about their mission, taught how to conduct themselves, study the scriptures.

If they need to learn a foreign language then they’ll spend much longer, up to three months.’

‘So a missionary working in this country wouldn’t necessarily be English?’

‘No, it’s almost certain they wouldn’t. It’s more likely they would come from abroad, primarily the United States.’

‘And what sort of work would they do? House-to

house calls?’

Well, to describe it as work is slightly inaccurate,

although they could be said to be doing God’s work. The

missionaries pay to do it — or their families do, at least. But to answer your question, yes, the missionary companionship does undertake some door-to-door proselytizing.

Preaching the Gospel can also involve speaking to people on the streets, or taking part in community activities.’

‘Missionary companionship? They don’t do it on their

own?’

‘Never. Let me explain. Most missions are divided into

geographical areas that we call zones, and those zones are divided into districts. There are between four and eight missionaries in each district. These are split into companionships of two, sometimes three, missionaries who go out

together. Each is instructed never to let the other out of their sight unless they’re using the lavatory or taking a shower.

These are young people we’re talking about. To abandon

them to the streets of an unknown country without guidance and friendship would be a gross dereliction of duty’

Gary only mentioned one man who had visited their

flat. Foster was starting to think he was wasting his time.

‘Do you have a record of missionaries that were active in certain areas?’

‘To

‘Obviously I don’t have access to that information personally but, yes, there is a record. But we’d need to have a good reason to divulge it. Perhaps if you were to submit a request in writing … ?’

you.”

‘I could pass it on, yes.’

“I’ll get something to you.’ He took out a notebook

from his jacket pocket. There was no need. Brewster had

already produced a card from his wallet. Foster thanked

him and slipped it into his pocket.

‘If someone spoke about the end days, would you

assume they were a Mormon?’

He shook his head. ‘Not really. Almost every religion

in the world has their own concept of the end times,

the second coming of the Lord and the beginning of the

Kingdom of God. The specific details depend upon the

faith itself. Each has its own signs, traditions and beliefs about the last days. Some believe that a series of natural disasters will herald the Second Coming. Others that it will steal upon us like a thief in the night. We believe the

last days are already upon us, hence the name Latter-day Saints, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the end is nigh. Just that we’re nearer the end of the book than the start, if you like. But we’re always prepared.’