‘Yeah, that’s about it.’ Julian shrugged.
‘Except now there’s something of a topical link into this story, eh?’ Shepherd added, with a wry smile.
‘You could say that.’
Julian remained poker-faced, but his mind was racing to catch up with the situation. More information on this man was coming to him, bits and pieces he’d unintentionally picked up from the background noise of daily news. William Shepherd, the independent Mormon candidate from Utah. The preacher, the businessman, the voice of common sense broadcast twice a week to tens of millions of the faithful, and a voice that broadly appealed to Christians from many other churches, the one and only candidate untainted by corruption and sleaze. And the guy who all of a sudden in recent weeks had started looking like a real contender.
‘I imagine your concern is how your great-great-grandfather conducted himself?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a concern. In this ridiculous business we call politics, public perception is everything.’ He sighed. ‘If my great-great-grandfather went and ate someone in order to survive… well, I think my campaign manager, Duncan, would have a hissy fit.’
Julian appreciated his candour — and his sense of humour.
‘I can imagine.’
‘So I’m sure you can see,’ Shepherd continued, ‘I have a very cynical, vested interest in how my ancestor behaved.’ He reached for the teapot and topped them both up. ‘You could imagine, for instance, how much mileage the Republicans and the Democrats would get out of something that resembled another Donner Party incident, eh?’
‘Yes. I can see how that would bugger things up for you.’
Shepherd looked at him, anxiously raising an eyebrow.
‘And? Did he?’
Julian shook his head. ‘No. There was no cannibalism… at all.’
Shepherd closed his eyes and sighed with relief.
‘I’m sure you understand how important that is? It’s such a taboo word and any kind of association with it…?’
Julian understood.
‘Politics is an awful game, one I genuinely detest. In some ways I’m not looking forward to the prospect that I might just win this election and have to play the political game in office for four years. But I’m doing it because someone has to. Someone has to show our people that there’s another way, that they don’t have to vote for one of two groups of corrupt sons-of-bitches. To be honest, it might be a relief not to make it to the White House.’ Shepherd sighed and laughed gently. ‘But don’t tell my backers that, eh? They’re bankrolling my campaign to win and nothing less will do for them.’
‘I can put your mind to rest,’ said Julian. ‘Your ancestor comes across in the journal as a very good man. But,’ he said, choosing his next words carefully, ‘some very… twisted… things happened up there. Really very dark, unsettling stuff. All of it revolved around Preston. I’ll be honest with you: whilst you personally may benefit from how Benjamin Lambert conducted himself, the Mormon faith may take a hit from Preston’s behaviour. ’
Shepherd pursed his lips, deep in thought. ‘Yes… but I believe from the little I’ve been able to research on the man that he abandoned the Church of the Latter Day Saints to follow his own path. He took his followers into a wilderness, literally and spiritually.’
Julian took his glasses off and wiped them. ‘Yes, very much so,’ he said. ‘Lambert’s description depicts a man tormented by something, by horrendous visions, capable of anything — even murder and mutilation. I’ve had a criminal psychologist examine the journal and without getting into a long-winded profile’ — Julian smiled edgily — ‘there’s something of the Charles Manson about him.’
‘Lord. Really?’
‘The psychologist’s phrase was a messianic narcissistic sociopath. Bit of a mouthful.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s just easier to say that he lost it. Went quite mad out there.’
‘Yes,’ Shepherd replied quietly, his eyes focused out of the window and on the mountains. ‘So, Mr Cooke, what do you plan to do with this story?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I had plans for a documentary, but at the moment that’s not looking so good. Perhaps a book.’
‘Well,’ said Shepherd, his gaze returning to the room, to Julian, ‘you’ve certainly got my attention, and,’ he added with a candid smile, ‘I’m a man known to have quite a bit of money. Perhaps we can help each other out here?’
CHAPTER 71
Saturday
Blue Valley, California
‘I still can’t believe you did that,’ Rose said, shaking her head angrily, ‘after all the care we’ve taken to keep this to ourselves, to keep this story under our hats, and you go and invite along some guy who might be the next President of the United States!’
She swung the hire car left, onto the road leading out of town and up into the woods. ‘Not only that, this guy’s a media owner. He’s the God-squad version of Rupert Murdoch. And here he is in Blue Valley, skulking around anonymously like some sort of Howard Hughes. Doesn’t his keen interest in this strike you as odd at all?’
Julian shrugged. ‘It’s understandable, given his position. Think of it: in a country where a blob of semen in the wrong place can get you impeached, don’t you think Shepherd is going to be somewhat cautious about a potential ancestral skeleton in the closet?’
‘He wants to stage-manage our story, that’s what he wants, Jules. He wants to be sure it’s got a spin on it that makes him look good.’
Julian shrugged. ‘Then there’s not a lot he needs to do, is there? Benjamin Lambert seems to have behaved like a gent.’
‘What if he wants to back-pedal the Mormon angle? What if he wants us to gloss over Preston being a psychotic nut?’
‘We won’t.’
Rose pursed her lips. ‘Yeah?’
She dropped a gear as the car wound its way slowly around a hairpin turn, taking them up a steep single-lane road that hugged the contours of a rock-strewn gulch.
‘I’ve got a question for you, Jules.’
‘What?’
‘What if we find something up there that turns things around?’
‘Eh?’
‘What if we find something that points to Lambert being responsible for those killings?’
The morning sun shone down through the tops of the Douglas firs lining the side of the road, dappling the windscreen with splashes of light and shade.
‘Oh, come on, Rose. You’re not still chewing over the Rag Man angle, are you?’
‘I’m considering it. Lambert survived, we know that. But he came out of those mountains a… a haunted man.’
‘Of course he did. But I mean, wouldn’t you be changed by that sort of an experience? Traumatised, even?’
‘I suppose. It’s just…’
‘What?’
Rose pursed her lips. ‘Well, what if the story was very different?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if, I don’t know… what if Lambert killed those people, but simply decided to leave a fictional account behind?’
‘What? On the off chance it might be discovered a hundred and fifty years later?’
