The Babylon rite

33

Clapham, south London

DCI Mark Ibsen gazed around the clean white flat. It was decorated with framed photographs. Some foreign locations, some sombre, monochrome photo portraits.

‘It’s been a week now. How is she? Where is she?’

The young journalist, Adam Blackwood, nodded at a closed door to the left. ‘Sleeping, she sleeps in the day and she doesn’t sleep at night. She cries at night.’

‘You?’

Blackwood waved a hand across a weary face. ‘I’m OK. I sleep on the sofa.’

‘Ah.’

‘It’s not like that, Detective. Not me and Nina. Not that this really bloody matters.’

‘I understand. And please, call me Mark.’

Blackwood stood and walked to a bookshelf that was dedicated mainly to bottles of whisky rather than books. He took a bottle of Macallan, unscrewed the top, poured a good measure into a tumbler and glugged down the amber-dark Scotch.

‘You?’

‘I’m on duty. Your friend is generous.’

‘You mean lending me the flat? Or letting me drink his good Scotch?’

‘Both.’

Adam Blackwood shrugged. He poured himself another, and drank some more of that with a faintly trembling hand. ‘Jason’s a photographer, he works with me a lot, very good mate. Ironically, he was working with me the day this all started, in Rosslyn, when all this lunacy began. Now he’s on assignment in Spain at the moment, some story. He said we could stay here as long as we wanted. Obviously we can’t stay at my place in case they… whoever they are… are still looking for us.’

‘I’m glad you took my advice. We’ll have cars outside, twenty-four/seven. There’s one on the corner by the Common, another at the junction with Nansen Road.’

‘You got the guy, didn’t you? You shot him…’

‘We cornered him in Barnsbury Square. An hour later. He went down fighting, refused to surrender. A marksman took him down.’

‘But who was he? Why did he want to kill us all?’

Ibsen looked at Adam’s brave but frightened face. ‘Cammorista.’

‘Italian gangs? But he was American, he had an American accent.’

‘He’s half-Puerto Rican, brought up in California. But he’s been in Europe a long time, and he had strong links with southern Italian gangs, especially the Camorra, in Calabria, in Italy.’

‘And-’

‘They are known for people-trafficking: Moldovan girls, Romanian girls, sex slaves, high-class hookers.’

‘He was a pimp?’

‘Sometimes, yes. Sometimes drugs. High-level crime. He was a definite pro, with psychopathic tendencies. As we have seen.’

Adam whirled the whisky, his journalistic mind churning through the facts. Computing the puzzle. ‘So that explains the sex. The girls, I mean. Ritter imported whores, poor girls… so that’s how he hooked up with the sex party crowd, the rich kids?’

Ibsen nodded. ‘Yes. We believe so. Probably he supplied girls for the sex parties, for the millionaire swingers, or what you might call them. That’s how he got an in. To those elite circles.’

‘You know, if I wasn’t the bloody target of mad Puerto Rican sex-murderers this would be a bloody great story. Christ, why are they trying to kill us, Mark? Why did he kill Hannah McLintock? Like that?’

‘You stumbled on a trail first trodden by Archibald McLintock. He must have discovered something that the gangsters really want. Someone suspects you and Hannah and… sorry, you and Nina. They suspect that you know something. But you don’t. But they don’t know that. It is confusing, taken at face value.’

‘Confusing, and terrifying.’ Adam closed his eyes. ‘It was truly terrifying. I pissed myself. I did. I was sitting by that radiator chained to that radiator and I actually wet myself. Isn’t that pathetic?’ He opened his blue eyes and stared, intently, at the wall. ‘He was going to rape and kill Nina, after he raped and killed Hannah. And then he was going to kill me. And there was nothing I could do about it and so I wet myself like a baby. Jesus.’

Ibsen shook his head, feeling real pity. ‘It’s a reflex. Don’t be ashamed. They say the landing craft at D-Day were like open sewers because of men voiding themselves with fear. It’s only human. You tried to tackle him straightaway, which was brave. Remember that.’

Ibsen glanced at the window. The December afternoon was falling into darkness outside. Larkham was waiting for him around the corner, parked inconspicuously. They had some more leads to attend to. He had been here two hours and he needed to shift things along. ‘I have to broach a painful topic, Adam. I’m going to tell you something crucial and difficult because…’ He glanced at the door, behind which Nina McLintock was sleeping. ‘Because you are probably closest to Miss McLintock right now.’

Adam looked at the policeman, thoughtfully, as if he was digesting this: he was the person closest to Nina McLintock. ‘Tell me.’

‘Hannah McLintock wasn’t raped.’

Adam stared at him. He shook his head. ‘No way. I can’t believe that… I saw… I heard-’

‘I’m afraid it’s true. We have had the report from Pathology.’

‘But I watched, Mark. I saw! He dragged her in there at gunpoint. It’s crazy.’

‘I know, I know.’ Ibsen raised two pacifying hands. ‘I know. It seems impossible, but the evidence is clear. When a woman is raped, especially if it is a very violent rape, there is nearly always bruising around the perineum, and there are usually other marks of similar trauma in the area. We have found none on Miss McLintock’s body. None. It seems she was aroused. And maybe quite receptive. I am sorry.’

‘But…’

‘We also have evidence that she possibly orgasmed. Forensics have analysed the bedsheets.’

Adam Blackwood said nothing; then he said, in a slow, bewildered voice, ‘This is horrible. Just… totally… horrible. And yet… some of the noises. It did sound, a little like…’

‘A bit like sexual climax?’

‘I don’t know. Christ. Yes. No. Maybe…’

‘I understand your perplexity. But the facts, horrific as they are, are the facts. We also believe — again you must prepare yourself — that she had anal sex. And, even more astonishing, she slashed her own throat. Ritter didn’t do it. She reached around with a cutthroat razor, that he gave her, and she slashed her own throat. The fingerprints and the bloodspatter and the angles of incision all point this way.’

Adam Blackwood looked down at the ground as if he was going to vomit. ‘But she was plainly terrified. I saw her face, when he dragged her in there. It doesn’t remotely add up.’

Ibsen sat forward. ‘I have a theory. It’s only, ah, the faintest theory at the moment.’

‘Tell me. Tell me something. Anything.’

‘We are thinking along these lines: that there is some kind of hypnosis in play, maybe involving a cult. And we think this hypnosis or autosuggestion stimulates the libido.’

‘A cult? Hannah McLintock?’

Ibsen ignored this. ‘It is likely that the hypnosis or trance state leads to autoerotic, or perhaps hypersexual, arousal. But this also leads to a desire for self-mutilation, and the consequent sadomasochistic rush that comes with the pain.’

‘You’re talking about those horrible suicides?’

‘Yes, the horrible brutality of the suicides. Self-mutilation that generates a rush. A suicide that gives an orgasmic rush, perhaps the ultimate buzz.’

‘So this guy Ritter hypnotized her! And she cut herself.’

Ibsen paused, and shook his head. ‘It’s not as simple as that. Experts say you can’t just hypnotize people into killing themselves in a few minutes. That’s just nonsense, stage hypnosis, rubbish.’

‘So…’

‘What you can do is inculcate a kind of hypnosis over weeks and months, sessions of it, perhaps in a sacred or ritualized setting, so that this hypnosuggestion can be turned on by a trigger word, some time later, even years later. That is possible. It seems.’

Adam downed the last of his whisky. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Nor did I. At first. But all other explanations are coming up short, and in the right setting, of slowly and steadily ritualized hysteria or hypnosis, we think you can induce people to kill themselves. Like Jonestown. Guyana.’

Adam Blackwood shook his head. ‘But that means Hannah McLintock must have had… must have been…’

‘Connected with the other suicides. Yes. Perhaps in some sex club with strange rituals, and initiation ceremonies. Hannah and her fiance, they are — they were — a rich young London couple. Correct? Not entirely unlike our other victims. So we need to know more about her. Which is why I want you to ask her sister…’

‘No!’

‘Adam. We will question her ourselves. But you are close to her.’

A very long silence ensued. The muffled sound of traffic was restive, stirred in its dreams. Ibsen filled the silence. ‘I also think that this cult stuff, this sexual hypnosuggestion, might be linked to Archibald McLintock’s researches — his discoveries.’

‘Why?’

‘He committed suicide himself. In a fairly unusual way. Serenely. As if he was mesmerized. I have spoken to the Scottish police, read your own interview notes, Adam — you said he had a certain air of serenity that morning in Rosslyn.’

‘Archibald McLintock? A sex cult? Absurd. It’s surreal. He was seventy years old!’

Ibsen began to speak, but suddenly Adam interrupted.

‘Except… there was… something…’

‘What?’

‘The pots. The strange ceramics. He went to Peru. And brought them back. They are macabre, from the Moche culture. And some of the Moche shit, in the archives, is weird and bloodthirsty. I got a book and read up. See-’ He crossed the room and returned with a hardback book bristling with bookmarks.

Ibsen read the title. Sex, Death and Sacrifice in Moche Religion.

‘I got it off Amazon.’ Adam stared down at the book. ‘I’ve been reading it all week. It’s all in here. The Moche were very strange. Obsessed with bestiality. And sex with the dead. They were possibly into self-mutilation. I don’t know what the link is, but there must be a link.’

Ibsen was already scribbling in his own notebook. Noting the title of the volume. ‘Yes. The pots! I saw them in the photo. Thank you. We will look into this too.’ He put down his notebook and glanced at his watch. ‘OK. Adam, as I say we need to get cracking. I appreciate your help, and I understand your scepticism. But before I go I should say I also have one more hunch, which is a little more substantial, and relevant, which you should know.’

‘Yes?’

‘I believe there might be rival gangs after the McLintock discovery.’

‘How come?’

‘Differing descriptions. Remember the man you saw in McLintock’s flat, the intruder?’

‘Of course.’

‘That wasn’t Ritter. Was it?’

‘I guess not… I only got a glimpse.’

‘The man you saw in the flat had tattoos on his hands, right?’

Adam nodded.

‘But Ritter had tatts on his arm. So that means we probably have two different burglars in the flat in the space of a few weeks. The first intruder, the American who confronted McLintock, that was probably Ritter. It makes sense. The second — the one you saw — was someone else. We don’t know who yet.’

Adam leaned over. ‘I need another drink.’ Reaching for the whisky bottle, he unscrewed it and poured another inch and a half.

Ibsen waited, then gave his explanation. ‘Here’s the logic. Let’s say McLintock discovered this erotic hypnosis, this ancient or forgotten ritualistic trance, or whatever it is. In Peru maybe. God knows. Ritter, it seems, certainly had access to it. And he or his gang presumably got it from McLintock, or stole it from him. Ritter used it on Hannah, the hypnosuggestion, and it’s been tested on these rich kids. And it works. It is extremely powerful. I guess they want to make sure no one else gets it… Like a rival mafia.’

Adam swallowed then said, quietly, ‘I suppose that does make some sort of sense.’ He was frowning. ‘Because… They would want this great and precious bloody secret, this trick, this whatever it is, they would want it to remain a secret, to remain their secret. Right? Which means they’d want to snuff us out more than anyone, because we are on the same trail.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which means we are really in danger. Horrible danger.’ Adam offered the policeman a fearful smile. ‘Thanks. Thanks a whole bunch.’

‘I am truly sorry. But yes, that’s how I see it.’ He offered Adam his hand. ‘We’ll be in touch. And you must call whenever you want, day or night.’

Adam shook the policeman’s hand. Ibsen noted how tall the Australian was. Tall and muscular, yet deeply frightened, and who could blame him?

The evening was cold outside, a wind was skirting off the Common. Ibsen walked quickly to the car where Larkham had been patiently waiting. They had parked several streets away, down a dark and unused side road, just in case anyone had been observing and following them. He quickened his pace, thinking hard about the interview. The Moche pottery: how had he forgotten that? The sheer velocity of the case was knocking him off his stride.

He passed the open door of a brightly-lit newsagent, dispersing a tinny Christmas carol into the freezing air. The last corner turned, he saw the car at the end. Dark and waiting. Larkham was just a silhouette in the car in the gloom.

A strange silhouette. Ibsen walked quicker.

A very strange silhouette.

He stopped. Larkham was stiffened with early rigor mortis. Larkham was dead.