The Devil's Moon (28 page)

‘I
t's an opera by Gluck,' Nicola Travis said.

Watts was driving along a country lane just a couple of miles from Glyndebourne. Travis lounged in the passenger seat, head back, dreamy smile on her face.

She was wearing a black cocktail dress that showed off her toned arms. Watts glanced at her bare bicep.

‘No patch today. Are you OK in the car?'

She tilted her head towards him. Same dreamy smile. ‘I'm very OK.'

He looked back at the road. ‘Gluck the lesbian artist?'

‘Different person. This is Christoph Willibald Gluck and we're seeing his best-known opera:
Orfeo ed Euridice
.'

‘The Orpheus in the Underworld story,' Watts said.

‘That's right. Orpheus goes to get his dead wife from the Underworld but can only succeed if he doesn't look at her. She thinks he's ignoring her so gets upset. He's obliged to reassure her by looking back at her and she dies again. Which, frankly, is her own stupid fault.'

Travis laid her hand on his thigh. ‘How are you with ballet? There's quite a lot in this version.'

‘I'll endure.'

She gave his thigh a squeeze. ‘Orpheus is traditionally sung by a woman. A contralto like Josephine Baker or Kathleen Ferrier. But in 1760 Gluck did a version where it could be performed by a soprano castrato.'

‘Which is it going to be tonight?'

‘That remains to be seen,' Travis said, that same dreamy smile on her face.

Gilchrist and Heap interviewed Newell in a storeroom at the back of the museum. Newell indicated the boxes around them.

‘We're still unpacking exhibits.'

‘Tell us about the Wicker Man,' Gilchrist said.

‘Nothing to say, really. I was one of the half dozen who took it down from the farm on to the beach in the middle of the night. I drove the truck, actually – I'm the only one with an HGV licence from a gap-year job. We unloaded it at the water's edge and once we were sure it was secure we left someone on guard, the rest went back home for a bit of sleep and I came down here.'

‘Bit early for work, wasn't it?'

‘We've been against the clock trying to get the museum open before the festival so I thought I could get a few hours in.' He looked sheepish and indicated a couch in the corner of the storeroom. ‘But to be honest I was knackered so I had a kip on there.'

‘And there was nobody in the Wicker Man.'

‘Of course not.'

‘Who stayed to guard it?'

‘Lesley Henderson – but I don't know what happened there. I've not seen Lesley since.'

‘Do you know where Henderson is?'

‘I assumed at Saddlescombe?'

‘Did you tell anyone about your plans?'

‘Of course not – that would have defeated the object as I understand it. I wasn't directly involved in constructing it – they just needed me to drive it down there. As I said, this museum has been my main focus of attention.'

‘Are you a Druid or a wiccan or a wizard?' Heap said.

Newell laughed. ‘Basically a pagan. But, you know, a lot of gays are interested in the pagan and the occult. That's why it's so popular in Brighton.'

‘What's the attraction?' Gilchrist said.

‘Well, at a basic level, it's the link between queers and the freedom of nature – and of the night. In the years when homosexuality was illegal queers operated clothed in darkness – as do witches and sorcerers. They operated in nature, where there are no restrictions – as do magicians and pagans. Darkness may be a negative cultural meme but it is central to both the queer experience and to black magic – and has been for centuries.'

Gilchrist glanced at Heap to see whether he understood the word ‘meme'. He appeared to.

‘Black magic and homosexuality have always been linked. Take the Knights Templar – when they were broken up the accusation that they had been practising black magic was linked to charges of homosexuality – sodomy and anilingus.' He saw Gilchrist's look. ‘Rimming?' Still incomprehension. ‘Well, never mind. Then there's Joan of Arc – a cross-dresser who was burned as a witch.'

‘I think there might have been more to her than that,' Heap said mildly.

‘Not in queer history,' Newell said. ‘At the end of the nineteenth century all these gay French writers were interested in the occult. The decadents? Huysman wrote
A Rebours
which influenced Wilde's
Dorian Gray
but he also wrote
La Bas
– essentially a novel about black magic.'

‘What about the link between gays and paganism?' Heap said.

‘In California back in the seventies there were big attempts made to make gayness central rather than an add-on to a pre-existing spiritual tradition. Among the pagans, the Faery Circle, the Reformed Druids of America, the Radical Faeries all rejected hetero-imitation and redefined queer identity through spirituality.'

Gilchrist glanced at Heap. His face was expressionless.

Newell caught the look and smiled. ‘One meme in LGBT culture is a passionate need to forge an identity free of hetero-oppression. Whether they are pagan or Christian they want some deity who isn't linked to gender or sexuality. They look for a non-inclusive model of a deity. A deity who transcends gender.'

Gilchrist frowned. She knew the lesbian, gay, bisexual part of LGBT but had to think whether the ‘T' stood for transgender or transexual. ‘Give me a moment to absorb that,' she said. Transgender, that was it.

‘It makes sense if you think about it,' Newell said genially. ‘Does a planet have a gender? Then why should its creator? Yet Christians think in terms of God as a he. Pagans think often in terms of goddesses, which feminists love. LGBT Christians want a god who is neither; LGBT pagans want one who is both.'

‘A bisexual?' Gilchrist said.

‘Quite literally,' Newell said. ‘Androgyny and – to a degree – sexual confusion is important both in world myth and in pagan beliefs.'

‘Is that why those photographs interest you?' Heap said.

Newell nodded. ‘Don't forget intersex people have great potency in the occult.'

‘You know a lot about this,' Gilchrist said.

‘I did my dissertation on it,' Newell said. ‘But Lesley may be the person you need to speak to for greater insight.'

‘Why?' Heap said.

‘Because there's a certain amount of sexual confusion surrounding Lesley.'

Heap frowned. ‘As in gay or straight?'

Newell scraped his hair back off his forehead. ‘As in male or female.'

Gilchrist was out of her depth, yet again. She could think of only one thing to say. ‘What's a meme?'

Travis had packed an ice box but they left that in the boot and headed for one of the marquees in the gardens surrounding the old house.

Usually, people would be sitting on rugs all over the grounds drinking their pre-opera champagne. They would dine al fresco during the long interval in the middle of the opera.

But the constant rain had reduced the gardens to a quagmire so aperitifs and the subsequent dinners would all take place in marquees, at tables on duckboards.

Watts bought a bottle of the house champagne and he and Travis found a corner of a table by the entrance to the marquee.

Travis's dreamy smile had been replaced by a sardonic one. She leaned into Watts. ‘It's always the same at these posh dos. The men soberly, smartly dressed in dinner jackets; the women dressed like dog's dinners.'

Watts glanced around. There were certainly a lot of unflattering dresses on display.

‘You probably don't know exactly what tulle is,' she murmured. ‘But you're seeing a lot of it.'

Travis chinked his glass and took a sip of her drink.

‘They're all here – wives of politicians, of captains of industry, of the country's business elite done up like Christmas trees and looking like Christmas turkeys. Giant polka dots, oversized bows, unfeasibly high heels.'

She took another sip of her drink.

‘When it comes to female fashion the rich are different,' she said. ‘They have money but no taste. I've always thought women with more money than fashion sense should be obliged to wear the female equivalent of a standard dinner suit, as men do – mostly. Men wearing ties not bow-ties with dinner jacket – what's that about? Those idiots aside, women should dress as soberly as men.'

‘To avoid making spectacles of themselves?' Watts said.

Travis shook her head. ‘To save the rest of us from embarrassment.'

Watts laughed. He liked this woman.

‘Never have I felt so out of touch,' Gilchrist said as she walked with Heap down to the seafront. The rain was holding off for the time being. ‘What's a meme again, big brain?'

‘It's like a concept or an idea shared by a culture.'

‘I'm not sure I'm any wiser. When he mentioned Joan of Arc was a cross-dresser who was burned as a witch – could that artist Gluck's cross-dressing be part and parcel of why she called her painting
The Devil's Altar
?'

‘It is possible, ma'am, but I don't know. However, I think I might have found a link between that painting and the Wicker Man, thanks to your flatmate Kate.'

‘Kate?'

Heap flushed. ‘I met her at the farmers' market this morning. We were both looking for someone to talk to at the Saddlescombe Organics stall. She's doing a story on the food poisoning at Plenty.'

Gilchrist felt odd that one of her staff had met her friend, even if it was Bellamy.

‘And what did Kate tell you?'

‘Did you know you ate cooked lily bulbs as part of your meal the evening you got food poisoning? Provided by Saddlescombe Organics.'

Gilchrist stopped.‘Lily bulbs and the home of the Wicker Man. OK, let's get down to the restaurant and then tomorrow it's time for another trip to the farm.'

‘What about Lesley Henderson, ma'am?'

‘Man or woman, you mean? Well that's going to be an interesting line of enquiry. Interesting choice of first name though, don't you think? Lesley could be man or woman. Do you want to see if you can get anywhere with a birth certificate?'

‘With only the name to go on?' he said.

She smiled. ‘I have utter faith in you, Bellamy.'

Travis was almost exhaustingly vivacious. During the opera, Watts was mildly embarrassed as she kept making comments in a voice far too loud. He was aware of a dichotomy in his personality. He had no problem, back in the day, addressing large audiences or doing radio or television, but he was also quite shy. He preferred to be unobtrusive when out in public.

Travis was wriggly, constantly shifting in her seat. He assumed that was because she wasn't enjoying it but wondered too if it was the booze. She wasn't obviously drunk but there was something off-kilter.

At the interval, as they were getting the hamper out of the boot, he asked if she was enjoying the opera.‘

‘You kidding?' she said, her voice ascending on the last syllable. ‘I'm adoring it.'

She pressed her body against him. ‘That said: what say we skip dinner and get in the back seat of the car?'

Watts couldn't help but look around the car park, at the same time chiding himself for being a coward. He was clear on his thinking. Earlier, she had expressed her pleasure loudly. Extremely loudly. His ragtop had very little soundproofing. Assuming they got in the back of the car, and she enjoyed herself, most of Glyndebourne would know.

He looked down at her. To hell with most of Glyndebourne.

T
he restaurant was closed with no sign of life inside. Gilchrist telephoned the number on the door and left a message asking the manager to call her as a matter of urgency. She looked at her watch.

‘Enough for today, Bellamy. I'd invite you for a drink but I wouldn't want you getting the wrong idea.'

‘No, ma'am.'

They parted and Gilchrist cut up across the Pavilion Gardens to New Street. She was turning right at the statue of Max Miller but looked left and saw a familiar figure walking towards the Colonnade. She watched the figure go into the pub and headed that way herself.

She ordered a drink at the bar, aware that Danny Monaghan, the person she had seen, was sitting in the corner at the far end of the room. He was trim, fit-looking, hair perhaps a bit greyer than the last time she'd seen him.

Their paths hadn't crossed since the aftermath of the Milldean Massacre. As the most experienced armed response officer in the force, Monaghan had been supposed to lead the armed raid that went wrong. He'd stood down because he'd been drinking earlier in the day. A couple of months later he'd left the force – an act that immediately made Gilchrist suspicious.

Gilchrist didn't really trust any of her colleagues – a mix of paranoia and experience – but Monaghan was a man she would have entrusted her life to. Then.

She took her drink over to his table.

‘I was over the limit,' he said as she sat down.

‘Did I ask?'

He smiled. ‘You wanted to. From what I hear that flipping massacre is all you want to talk about.'

Gilchrist took a swig of her drink. ‘Well, this is going rapidly downhill.'

‘I'm just saying. I know there was a lot of dodgy stuff going on but I wasn't part of it.'

‘Fair enough. I believe you.'

‘In that case . . .' He raised his glass and chinked hers.

‘Why'd you retire then?' she said.

He lowered his glass. ‘Offered more money elsewhere. The force was keen to get rid of us on favourable terms.'

‘Money isn't everything,' Gilchrist said.

Monaghan gave her a look. ‘You should have gone,' he said.

‘I hadn't done anything wrong.'

‘Nor had I but the time was right. You hung on. A month ago I would definitely have said you should think about getting out. Nothing for you in the force any more.'