The Devil's Moon (25 page)

‘I know the Scorsese film.'

Pearson nodded. ‘Statistically speaking, if Jesus and Mary actually existed and did have a child and that child had a child or children and so on down the centuries, by now half the world would be descended from Jesus. So where's the bloodline then? And if, instead, you had centuries of inbreeding between sons and daughters of a bloodline down the generations, that bloodline would probably have produced an imbecile by now.'

‘Then what do you think the Templar secret was? The Ark of the Covenant?'

‘Can I just clarify?' Pearson said. ‘You think that whatever the Templar secret was it is presently here at Saddlescombe. What am I then? The Guardian? Have I got it underneath my desk in my study?'

‘Or are you someone searching for it?'

‘Do I look like I'm searching for a secret? Have I dug up half the farm to find it?'

‘The Ark of the Covenant?'

‘Oh, that. Well, sure, I've got that. Avril uses it as a bedding box.' Pearson shook his head. ‘Why do you want to know?'

‘Because I do think whatever the Templar secret is, that secret is the secret of this place – and that is the reason for all these bad goings-on.'

‘Have there been bad goings-on other than the Wicker Man on the beach?' Pearson said.

Watts gave a brief outline of recent occurrences, Pearson's eyes fixed on him the whole time.

‘John Dee's magical equipment and the
Key of Solomon
both?' Pearson said.

‘That combination means something to you?'

Pearson was about to respond when Avril came in with a tray.

‘Home-made soup – you'll try some, Bob?'

Watts stood. ‘Not for me, thanks, Avril. I only popped by.'

‘Made with only natural ingredients,' she said.

‘Even so. But thank you.'

Avril put the tray in front of her husband.

He looked up at her. ‘I thought you were at the allotment,' he said.

She patted him on his shoulder. ‘I was but I couldn't let you starve, could I?'

Pearson ogled her as she left the room. Watts was amused by the man's lechery. He sat back down. Pearson contemplated the soup. He glanced in the direction of Avril's departure.

‘The Ark of the Covenant resided at the very heart of Solomon's Temple,' he said. ‘It contained the tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments for Moses. But the Temple was destroyed how many times in the Old Testament? By Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman conquerors with no respect for any religious beliefs other than their own. How could the Ark have survived intact for the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon to uncover it? I simply don't see it.'

He dipped his spoon in the soup and slurped it into his mouth.

‘Anyway, I thought Indiana Jones took care of the Ark.' Pearson pointed his spoon at Watts. ‘If the Ark is anywhere it's not in our coal cellar, it is in Ethiopia. The Queen of Sheba and Solomon were lovers and had a child in Eritrea. That child founded the dynasty that ruled Ethiopia until Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974. The dynasty survived three thousand years because it had the Ark to prove its lineage.'

Watts watched Pearson take two more spoonfuls of his soup and dunk a hunk of bread into it.

‘Not that anybody has ever been allowed to see it.'

Watts chewed his lip. He had no real interest in any of this Biblical stuff. Pearson leaned forward and massaged his chest then sat back, his mouth open, for a moment.

‘Are you OK?' Watts said.

‘No,' Pearson grunted. ‘I'm old. I never know whether it's indigestion or a heart attack.'

‘Have you had yourself checked out?'

Pearson sat forward again. ‘Of course – despite Avril's disapproval.'

‘Why does she disapprove?'

Pearson glanced at the door again. Did he think Avril was listening?

‘Avril doesn't believe in doctors. Didn't you know she's a white witch? She relies on the old medicines to cure her.'

‘And do they?'

‘Usually,' Pearson said, rubbing his chest again.

‘What do the doctors say about your health?'

‘They say that when a heart attack happens I'll know it's not indigestion.' He picked up his spoon and waved it. ‘Old people get sick.' He took a spoonful of soup. ‘So have you finished asking me foolish questions about the Templars?'

‘Maybe the Templars took something else from the Temple,' Watts said. ‘What about the
Key of Solomon
?'

‘Well, it can't have been here if it has been in the library, can it?'

‘The original.'

Pearson shook his head. ‘They stashed the original book of rituals, written in Solomon's own fair hand, down the well here? I've got news for you, Watts. The
Key of Solomon
was not written by Solomon because Solomon didn't exist.'

Watts frowned. ‘He's in the Bible and the Qu'ran.'

‘That may be so. But there is absolutely no other evidence for his existence. He is meant to have left a legacy of major buildings, including his Temple, but there are no archaeological remains of any of them. The odd archaeological finds that have been linked to him probably came a century later in the Omride period. This period was polytheistic so the Bible glosses over it.'

‘If the Temple didn't exist how are all these conquerors pulling it down?' Watts said. ‘We know the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, captured Jerusalem and destroyed the city and the Temple.'

‘We don't
know
anything. The Bible is not a reliable historical source. There is no archaeological evidence although, I admit, the most likely place for the site of the Temple – Temple Mount – can't be properly explored archaeologically because of Muslim sensitivities.'

Pearson put his spoon down and moved his plate away. ‘But from my perspective it's irrelevant. Leave that to the Freemasons. Don't you find it curious, by the way, that most Masons wouldn't have a clue what to do with a trowel?'

‘Why irrelevant?'

‘Because if you only half-listened to me the other day you will know that my life's work has been to explore the perfectibility of man – or some men – by accessing the potential within them and within their brains. And whilst I accept the probability that certain rituals can access hidden parts of the mind, I do not accept that angels or demons, gods or devils are going to show us the way. If the Templars' secret was hidden knowledge, I'm interested. Treasure wouldn't go amiss either. But if their secret was some way to raise the Devil through the so-called
Key of Solomon
– I'll pass on that, thanks.'

With an effort Pearson lifted his tray and put it on his side table.

‘Now it's time for my postprandial nap. Go and pester Avril. She'll like that. She certainly liked it when your father pestered her.'

G
ilchrist had arranged to meet Rutherford after his Saturday service at St Michael's, although her mind was on a lot of other things.

She got the time of the service wrong. When she went into St Michael's, Rutherford was still going full throttle. His glasses were halfway down his nose and he was peering at the congregation over them. Gilchrist stood at the back.

Rutherford pushed his spectacles up his nose and looked at the papers on his pulpit.

‘In his beautiful and tragic essay “God's Lonely Man”, novelist Thomas Wolfe stated that: “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”' He paused, presumably to let the quote sink in. ‘Wolfe goes on: “When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people we find that they are all suffering from the same thing.”'

He took off his spectacles.

‘The final cause of their complaint is loneliness.'

He looked around the church. He didn't seem to notice Gilchrist.

‘I think we can all find an echo in our own lives for those sentiments. But there is, of course, one vast omission in Wolfe's thesis.'

He looked up to the soaring arched ceiling. ‘I speak of God's cure for that loneliness.'

That was when Gilchrist stepped back into the foyer and started fiddling with her phone.

Watts found Avril in the kitchen.

‘Not too late for soup, Bob.'

‘Honestly, no,' he said. He was finding it odd that she was acting so normally after her curious behaviour the other day. He looked at the vegetables and plants lying across the table. Saw the flowers.

‘Those the lilies you cook with?'

‘Calla lilies. Yes. They're poisonous.'

‘All parts of them?'

She nodded. ‘They contain calcium oxalate, as do rhubarb leaves. But unlike rhubarb, with the lily it makes the whole plant toxic. You haven't ingested them raw, have you?'

He shook his head.

‘Good.'

‘So why are they in your kitchen?'

‘I cook with them.'

‘You're going to have to explain that.'

‘Many foods we eat are toxic if not prepared properly. Beans need soaking and boiling. Raw potatoes will give you a nasty turn. If you cook the calla leaves properly you destroy the toxins.' She smiled at him. ‘All cooking is chemistry, you know.'

‘So I understand,' Watts said.

‘Did you come in to ask me about cooking?'

‘Colin says you knew my father.'

‘Does he?'

‘Donald Watts.'

She squinted as she tried to remember. She shook her head.

‘He wrote as Victor Tempest.'

She gave him a calculating look. ‘Victor Tempest was your father?'

‘You knew him?'

She started to rummage in a drawer of the table. ‘Scarcely.'

She took from a drawer a small package wrapped in silk. She carefully unwrapped a tarot pack.

‘These were Aleister Crowley's own design. Useless for divination because he missed out essential elements of the original.'

‘Aleister Crowley gave them to you?'

‘I'm not that bloody old. He died in 1947, you know.'

‘Cremated in Brighton – yes, I know.'

‘You know why he was cremated, don't you?'

‘Cheaper?'

‘They didn't want his grave to become a shrine or a pilgrimage site. Plus, it seemed the appropriate way to send him to hell – reducing him to ashes.'

‘Who is “they”?'

Avril didn't hear his question. Or chose not to. ‘The conspiracy theory version has it that darker fears were in play. That Crowley was a magus and a powerful one and that only by burning him could his spirit be destroyed. His Poem to Pan was recited during the service and the local newspaper reported that this made the ceremony a Black Mass. Some say they saw his spirit rise in the smoke from the chimney of the crematorium and drift away in the clear blue sky.'

‘So cremation didn't kill him?'

Avril didn't respond directly. ‘His ashes were taken out to sea off Black Rock and scattered by the light of the full moon. A Devil's Moon.'

‘At midnight, I assume.'

She smiled. ‘Naturally.'

‘Who told you this?'

‘Ian Fleming, I think.'

‘You knew Fleming?'

She shook her head. ‘He died when I was fourteen.'

‘Then how did he tell you?'

‘He and Colin corresponded.' She proffered the cards. ‘I meant Crowley designed the cards, not that they were his. Your father gave them to me. Would you like them?'

‘No, no. They were a gift to you and the Tarot is not my thing.'

‘Tarot cards only do have power if they are a gift. If you purchase them for yourself they are useless.'

‘Did my father ever talk to you about Aleister Crowley?'

‘I don't remember. So many conversations with so many men whilst taking so many drugs.'

‘Tell me about your children.'

Avril looked cautious rather than surprised at the abrupt change of subject. ‘What about them?'

‘Do they still live at home?'

‘They flew the nest years ago, Mr Watts.'

‘Bob, please.'

‘Why do you ask about them? Bob.'

‘I noticed on my last visit that one bedroom, underneath all the books, still seemed to be used. And there is that second chalet in the garden . . .'

Avril frowned. ‘I didn't know you'd been poking around in our home.'

‘I observed in passing. Colin was showing me around.'

‘If you must know,' Avril said. ‘Colin snores. I occasionally find it necessary to leave his side for the sake of my beauty sleep.'

Watts spread his hands. ‘I just wondered if one of them still lived at home, that's all.'

Avril shook her head. ‘They stay over occasionally.'

Watts smiled. ‘Colin also said you don't believe in doctors.'

‘He's been quite gabby, hasn't he?'

‘Do you?'

‘Most modern medicines are plant-based in one way and another. I prefer to go to the source.'

‘How do you know how to identify the source?'

She walked over to a table by the sink and picked up a book. She held it in front of her, cover out. ‘Culpepper's Herbal Remedies. My Bible. And these Downs are my chemist's shop.'

‘I imagined it was mostly grassland,' Watts said.

Avril smiled, showing her sharp incisors. ‘It's a paradise. The whole of the valley is carpeted with orchids in June. There are many rare things here. The silver-spotted skipper butterfly, burnt orchid, even juniper trees. And there are many medicinal herbs and plants to be found.'

‘Great.'

‘In the autumn you see a purple blanket of flowers. Know what they're called?'

‘I don't.'

She laughed a pleasant laugh. ‘Devil's bit scabious.' Then picked up a long, oddly-shaped root from the table. ‘Do you know what this is?'