The Babylon Rite (16 page)

Ibsen closed his eyes as he felt the vertigo of nausea hit him. He calmed himself with two deep breaths, then looked again at poor Imogen Fitzsimmons’s face.

It was difficult to work out quite what she had done to herself in her final hours, so elaborate was the cutting. She seemed to have sliced off her own lips, which gave the horrible impression that she was grinning fiendishly: like a skull. She had also cut open her nostrils, or at least tried to. The damage was too complex to see which parts of her nose remained intact. The earlobes were missing: drools of blood trailed down each side of her neck.

Most disturbing was the way she had diligently sliced out the flesh of her cheeks, as if she had been trying to skeletonize herself. The skin and flesh had been so drastically cut away that the teeth and the bone were partly visible through the holes in the side of her face. She was half pretty young woman, half bleeding, horrific skull.

Larkham was pale and perspiring. ‘How could anyone do that? To themselves?’

It was too much. The two officers gazed at the corpse. Helpless, dwarfed, and mute.

Then, as they stared at the white face of Imogen Fitzsimmons, the girl’s head tilted, and she blinked, and a trickle of blood ran from her lipless mouth, as she desperately tried to mumble a word.

She was still alive.

It would have been an idyllic setting, Adam thought, if they hadn’t come here to discuss the terminal illness of Archibald McLintock.

The pub was timbered and earthy; a huge log fire roared at one end in a baronial hearth, a dog snoozing before the flames. Two farm-workers sat in a corner, nursing pints of Theakstons, conversing away the gloomy winter afternoon. The bar even had a buxom and giggling maid. She served the farmer, William Surtees, who returned to their table with a tray.

‘You didn’t have to buy the drinks.’

Surtees returned his change to the watchpocket of his mustard-coloured waistcoat. ‘Nonsense. Least I could do. I should learn not to be so – gah – indiscreet.’

Nina took her pint of Guinness and Adam his half-pint of orange juice. Surtees sipped at a scotch and water, then said, ‘Now, please, what can I tell you? How can I redress things?’

‘Start at the start. How did you know my father?’

‘He first came here ten years ago. Researching the Templars. The preceptory is on my land. Most people who come sightseeing just jump the gate and have a gander, but your father very graciously asked permission to visit the site, in person. Subsequently, we became acquainted. I saw him about once a year, sometimes more: he would stop over if he was driving down to London. We’re just twenty miles from the A1, though you wouldn’t know it. Darkest Yorkshire!’

‘He never mentioned you.’

‘We weren’t boon companions! But definitely friends, in a distant way. I would look forward to seeing his old car pulling into the farm, that Volkswagen you were driving.’

‘He gave it to me last year. Bought himself a big shiny new one.’

Surtees nodded. ‘Well. That’s why I stopped just now, when I saw that car. Hold on, I thought, that’s old Archie’s car. And of course I knew, from the terrible … from the … ah … from the ah … that he couldn’t be driving it. Most perplexing. But here we are. The Angel Inn. You know there are often Angel Inns wherever there are Templar sites? Archie told me that.’

Adam interrupted. ‘So when did you last see him?’

‘July last year, I believe.’

‘July 24th?’

‘Yes, quite possibly.’

‘Is this when …?’ Adam paused and looked at Nina; she urged him on with a fierce but subtle nod. ‘Is this when he told you he was dying?’

‘Yes. He stayed over, at the farm. My wife was away and he and I stayed up late and had a few jars. He liked a drink. And then it just— Well he just confessed. He said he had terminal cancer, had a year or two to live at most. Awful. But he was keeping it quiet. As many do.’

Silence. The dog was staring at Adam, for no reason. Baring its fangs. Surtees elaborated, ‘The strange thing was he didn’t seem that downcast. He was of course upset. But more for his children, for you, Nina, and … Hannah, is it? Working in London?’

‘Yes, Hannah.’

‘It was your future that concerned him most. The girls. He worried about you, your financial future and suchlike. But other than that he wasn’t perhaps as depressed as one might have anticipated. Actually he was quite
enthused
. Gloomy yet enthused. An odd mix.’

‘Enthused about what?’

‘He said he had some startling new theory. Relating to the Templars. A radical new departure. Wouldn’t tell me more. Probably would have gone whoosh right over my head anyway! But, yes, that’s what he said, he was intellectually excited by it. Very sad, in retrospect. Did he ever publish anything?’

‘Nothing,’ said Adam. ‘That’s one of the reasons we’re here. Following up clues: we’re trying to find out what he was researching.’

Nina added, ‘We’re going to Temple Bruer next.’

Surtees grimaced. ‘Temple Bruer. Ugh! Went once, can’t stand the place. Too spooky, all those legends! Your father would chide me for this, for believing in ghosts!’ He paused then asked, ‘So, the other reasons?’

‘What?’

‘You said you had other reasons, to be here?’

Adam stayed quiet, waiting for Nina to answer. This was her call.

Nina said, ‘It’s the suicide. I still don’t believe my dad committed suicide. Even if he was terminally ill. It just, ach, wasn’t his style. And he didn’t even leave a note! It doesn’t make any bloody sense.’ She glared at Surtees. ‘And I want to prove it. Somehow. Just somehow.’

The waistcoated farmer looked at Nina with an expression of sincere sympathy, but also curiosity. ‘I must say Archibald McLintock didn’t strike me as the kind of man to take his own life. He was not a bolter, not a coward. He squared up to the world. But if not suicide then what? Perhaps the cancer spread to his brain? Sorry, awful to speculate.’

‘Nope. He was lucid and fine at the end. Happy even. As Adam can vouch?’

Adam nodded, unsurely. Nina continued, ‘I really do think he was murdered. Or at least intimidated in some way. Forced? Hmm. I don’t know.’

Adam winced at the word murdered. It felt a little insane. But the farmer was looking at Nina, his expression anxious, yet knowing. ‘Miss McLintock. It may be irrelevant but … there is … something … just possibly …’

‘What?’

‘Something rather peculiar.’

‘What?’

‘Three weeks ago, I spotted two men in the field by the old preceptory. They were staring at those little stone graves. These chaps seemed so out of place I went to talk to them.’

‘Out of place?’

‘Their clothes were … rather odd. This was November. In the Dales. But they were wearing thin leather jackets. And city shoes! I was walking the dog, but I saw them over the gate, and they struck me as conspicuous, abnormal. So I went to have a chat, say hello as it were.’

‘What did they look like?’

‘I’d say they were in their thirties, or so. And they were swarthy, if one is still allowed to say that! Italian or Spanish looking, I mean.’

He paused, staring gravely at his glass. ‘And, they were hostile, positively menacing.’

‘You spoke to them?’

‘Just one. I only heard the one man talk. He had an American accent.’

A heartbeat of a silence. Adam leaned close. ‘Did the American have tattoos?’

‘I can’t properly recall. Yes, perhaps. Why do you ask?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Nina hurried on. ‘What else did they say?’

‘Well. This is the sinister bit, this is the element that perhaps you ought to, ah, be aware of. When I said they were on my land, they didn’t bat an eye. Instead they asked about your father, very aggressively. Did I know him? Archibald McLintock? What did I know of him? What were his reasons for visiting Penhill?’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘Nothing! Of course I asked them to get off my land in short order. Lucky I had Alaric with me, big boxer, big three-year-old bitch. So they sauntered to the car, and that was that, really. I watched them drive away. Most peculiar. As I say. I called your father to tell him, naturally – but he seemed … rather unsurprised. Perhaps alarmed, but unsurprised.’ Surtees sighed. ‘That was the very last time we spoke. So. There it is. Not sure if it is relevant. I am afraid I have to go in a minute, it’s already dark out there.’

Their drinks were finished. The conversation was finished. Surtees stood, solemnly shook them by the hand, gave his sympathies once more and exited into the dark and the cold.

All the other drinkers had left. It was just Nina and Adam in the bar, and a Christmas tree, fairylights frantically flickering, on and off.

A secret that will get you killed.

Nina was furiously texting something into her phone, her dark head bowed. A sudden, troubling notion unbalanced Adam. ‘Nina, have you been updating the Facebook page? And tweeting?’

She looked up. ‘Sorry?’

‘Are you still updating? Telling everyone where we are and what we’re doing?’

Her eyes expressed innocence, then anxiety.

‘Yes. Of course. But—?’

‘The whole world could be reading,’ Adam hissed. ‘Anyone at all. We need to get going. Right now.’

Dr Andrew Laraway, silver-haired, brisk and archly Bostonian, gazed sympathetically at Jessica.

‘You have no evidence of mercury poisoning, Miss Silverton.’

Jessica knew this. She’d always known this. Before she even got here she’d known this. But she just wanted to be here. To have a reason, however feeble and phoney, to escape from Zana. But she could not escape her fears, even as she ignored them. She had been pestering Laraway to explain her symptoms, even as she wanted to deny them.

‘I understand, Dr Laraway. I’m sorry for wasting your time. Asking all these questions.’

‘You’re not, Jessica, not at all …’ He hesitated, for a moment. ‘But I must ask – why did you come all the way here? I imagine you are aware that cinnabar is inert. After so long.’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘So what is it, Jessica? The mild diabetes we discussed when you were last here?’

‘No. Yes. No.’

An awkward silence intervened. The doctor sighed, delicately, and looked at her. ‘Can I ask you some personal questions, Jessica?’

‘Yes …’

‘You seem to suffer – and this is not meant to be insulting – a notable concern for your health, almost an obsession?’ He sat back, tutted at himself. ‘No, that’s not the
mot juste
. My sincere apologies. You are not hypochondriac, you are clearly very intelligent, determined, hard-working, even bold. Quite admirable. And yet … there is a hypersensitivity and a gentle neuroticism. Therefore, and before we go on, I’d like to know more about you and your life.’

This was strange, and a little unnerving. She said, ‘All right.’

‘Let’s start with your life now, your profession? How are things professionally? Is there anything in your career that has troubled you?’

Jessica knew she needed to talk about everything that was happening at Zana. But she didn’t want to. So she diverted, as always. ‘My last job was in Calcutta.’ She tried to seek Laraway’s eyes, like a truthful person. ‘That was tough. The anthropology of poverty.’

‘Please explain?’

‘We had to work with … these children, infants even. We had to research these poor kids that actually live under the platform at the railway station. This big British imperial railway station, you know. These street kids live there in utter poverty. They were attacked, molested, abused. I met one boy …’ Jess shook her head. She was being candid now. This memory was brutal. ‘He used to sleep under the platform, with a razor blade under his tongue. He showed me how to do it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The razor was to ward off attackers: men, abusers. He was eight years old.’

Laraway sighed. ‘The world is too much with us. That’s awful.’

‘But, actually, you know, it wasn’t entirely bleak. There were people helping them, charities. Some of the stories were inspiring. Kids coming from nothing, from this dire poverty, and remaking themselves. The human spirit is really there, everywhere, indomitable. In Calcutta. India. It’s the best and the worst of places.’

The doctor leaned forward. ‘But what about Peru, Jessica? You never talk about what you are doing here.’

Jess didn’t really want to talk about Peru. But maybe, she thought, maybe she needed to talk about it. Maybe the perceptive Dr Laraway was just doing his job, and doing it well, and she needed to be honest.

‘There is something.’ Jessica inhaled, profoundly, as if she was on the stage of the Met and about to sing an aria: and maybe she was.

It took her ten minutes, fifteen, then twenty. But she told him everything. The Moche, the Muchika, the Museo Casinelli, the amputations, the intruder at Zana. Slowly and eloquently she recited the entire and recent demonology of her work in Zana.

At the end, for perhaps the only time in their acquaintanceship, Dr Laraway was entirely silenced.

It took him a long time to respond. ‘My God, that is quite a narrative. That is indubitably extreme. Anyone would be unsettled by such a sequence of events. Really. Astonishing. And very perturbing. I have never heard of the Moche. And this man McLintock. Goodness.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you believe the intrusion was linked to that awful explosion last month, here in Trujillo? The Texaco garage?’

‘Possibly.’

‘What do the police say?’

‘Not much, they’re looking into it. I reckon they think it is a bit far-fetched. Why should anyone be intent on destroying archaeological knowledge? It is bizarre.’

Another silent hiatus. The manioc trucks were hooting in the streets below. Now Laraway swivelled in his chair, and tried a new tack.

‘Very well, then. Now let’s talk about your background. I know some of it, but not all. Your father … ah … died of cancer.’

Jess felt her throat close against the words. This subject. This subject. ‘When I was seven. Yes.’