PK: I am Police Sergeant Praveen Kaur of Staffordshire Police, Needwood Neighbourhood Team. I would like to ask you some questions concerning the murder of Lauren Emma Jeffries at the Briar Hill allotments two days ago. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand this?
AH: I do.
PK: You were arrested in your allotment shed, shortly after a male killed Ms Jeffries by cutting her throat. Did you know this man?
AH: Yes. He was my lover.
PK: Can you tell us his name?
AH: I only knew him as Everett, though I’m quite confident that it wasn’t his real name.
PK: Why do you say that?
AH shrugging: Because he told me that he stole it from a dead soldier in No Man’s Land in 1915.
This takes the interviewing officer aback somewhat, and she consults with her partner for a moment.
PK: And you believed him?
AH: Everett was a deserter, thief, murderer, and cannibal, but he never lied to me.
PK: Do you know why he assaulted Ms Jeffries?
AH: Yes. I told him to.
PK: And why was that?
AH: Because our god needed her blood. Although to be accurate, it wasn’t rightfully hers, not since she ate the first flesh.
PK: Um, yes… So you admit that you incited him to murder her?
AH: Well yes, obviously. I’m sorry, I thought that was assumed.
PK: Several witnesses have alleged that you are also responsible for the deaths of three other residents of Dodbury. Would you like to comment on that?
AH: Not particularly.
PK: Why not? You’re ready enough to admit attacking Lauren Jeffries.
AH: I see no point in denying what was demonstrably true and right in front of your eyes. I’m sure that if there are other people that you’re looking for, you’ll find them soon enough.
PK: But you’ve been very cooperative so far.
AH: Sergeant Kaur, please don’t mistake self-possession for cooperation. I have no intention of helping you any more than necessary to avoid wasting time. Being in a cell was, yes, one of the two ways we thought this might go, but it’s still not my preferred course of action.
PK: And what is this course of action intended to achieve?
AH: The resurrection of my lord Moccus and the establishment of his new covenant.
She says this with the calm reason of someone discussing nothing more controversial than the weather, and the two police officers share a look.
PK: Moccus…?
AH: He Who Eats the Moon. The First Farmer. The Hunter in the Wood. He is a primordial fertility god, ancient even when the Romans arrived, and he has been worshipped on this island since before Christianity was born. We who are his followers are called the Farrow. We sacrifice him and eat his flesh, and in return he blesses us with health and longevity, but that which is taken must be given back, and so from those who eat his flesh some are chosen as vessels to return their gift and renew Moccus for the next cycle. At least, so it will be in the new church. We’re evolving.
PK: So, you’re saying that your cult practises ritual human sacrifice.
This is the first and only time that Ardwyn Hughes’ composure breaks, as she flashes with anger.
AH: We are not a cult! We are a religion. We had a liturgy, prayers, we gave philanthropically to charitable organisations. We don’t commit mass suicide or pray for deliverance by aliens or any of that rubbish.
PK: You’d think people would have heard about you by now.
AH: We have, by necessity, been small in number because there is only so much of the first flesh to go around. This appreciation of how much it is safe to consume is why we have survived for so long – while in contrast it is your civilisation’s wilful greed and ignorance of the same which is why the world is in such danger. This earth, our garden, is burning – literally burning, from the Amazonian rainforests to the Siberian tundra. The glaciers are retreating, and as they go they are giving up their dead. There are plastics everywhere from the top of Everest to the deepest abysses of the ocean, and have even entered the fossil record. This is happening because of your greed and apathy; you are taking too much, much more than the world can provide, but even if you stopped taking everything tomorrow it wouldn’t help because the damage is too severe. We must begin to put things back. We must replenish the world with our lives, our very blood if need be. We must give back what we have taken – that is the lesson Moccus has to teach us.
PK: And we’re supposed to learn it by killing our own kids? I don’t think so. I’m afraid you’re not going to be in a position to teach much of anything for long time.
AH: That is because you think like a product of your dying culture, which knows nothing but to invade and proselytise, to send crusaders and missionaries to conquer with the sword and enslave with the word. I will be content to remain in my cell and let those who yearn for a better way to come to me as Mother.
PK: I don’t think a prison will allow quite that many visitors.
AH: No, but they always allow phones, if only by their own negligence. My church won’t be a building, and my message won’t be by word of mouth. It will be online, everywhere and eternal. I told you, we have evolved; technology makes it inevitable. It’s started already. You’re helping me even as you sit there, mocking. (At this point, AH looks at the camera and begins to address it directly.) This video will be leaked – if not today then tomorrow, or in a year, or ten, but it will. And in any case, how long will they hold me for? Twenty
