The memory of Pat’s kindness became, this Christmas morning, still more touching in retrospect. Turning his head, he saw the few gifts that she’d brought upstairs still lying on the floor just inside the door.
He got up from his bed, still coughing, reached for his crutches and swung himself toward the bathroom. His urine was dark, his unshaven face in the mirror ashen. Though dismayed by his own debility and exhaustion, habits ingrained in him by the military prevented Strike from returning to bed. He knew that lying unwashed with his leg off would merely increase his hovering feeling of depression. He therefore showered, moving more carefully than usual to guard against the risk of falls, dried himself off, put on a clean T-shirt, boxers and dressing gown and, still racked with coughs, prepared himself a tasteless breakfast of porridge made with water, because he preferred to conserve his last pint of milk for his tea. As he’d expected to be well on the mend by now, his stocks of food had dwindled to some limp vegetables, a couple of bits of uncooked chicken two days out of date and a small chunk of hard Cheddar.
After breakfast Strike took painkillers, put on his prosthesis and then, determined to use what small amount of physical strength he could muster before the illness dragged him under again, stripped and remade his bed with clean sheets, removed his Christmas presents from the floor to his kitchen table, and carried the projector and roll of film inside from the landing where he had left them. The can, as he’d expected, bore the mark of Capricorn upon it, drawn in faded but clearly legible marker pen.
His mobile buzzed as he propped the can against the wall beneath his kitchen window. He picked it up, expecting a text from Lucy asking when he was going to call and wish everyone in St. Mawes a Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Bluey. Are you happy? Are you with someone you love?
It had been a fortnight since Charlotte had last texted him, almost as though she’d telepathically heard his resolution to contact her husband if her messages became any more self-destructive.
It would be so easy to answer; so easy to tell her he was alone, ill, unsupported. He thought of the naked photo she’d sent on his birthday, which he’d forced himself to delete. But he’d come such a long way, to a place of lonely security against emotional storms. However much he’d loved her, however much she could still disturb his serenity with a few typed words, he forced himself, standing beside his small Formica table, to recall the only occasion on which he’d taken her back to St. Mawes for Christmas. He remembered the row heard all through the tiny house, remembered her storming out past the family assembled around the turkey, remembered Ted and Joan’s faces, because they’d so looked forward to the visit, having not seen Strike for over a year, because he was at that time stationed in Germany with the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police.
He set his mobile to mute. Self-respect and self-discipline had always been his bulwarks against lethargy and misery. What was Christmas Day, after all? If you disregarded the fact that other people were enjoying feasts and fun, merely a winter’s day like any other. If he was currently bodily weak, why shouldn’t he use his mental faculties, at least, to continue work on the Bamborough case?
Thus reasoning, Strike made himself a fresh cup of strong tea, added a very small amount of milk, opened his laptop and, pausing regularly for coughing fits, re-read the document he’d been working on before he’d fallen ill: a summary of the contents of Bill Talbot’s symbol-laden, leather-bound notebook, which Strike had now spent three weeks deciphering. His intention was to send the document to Robin for her thoughts.
Talbot’s Occult Notes
1. Overview
2. Symbol key
3. Possible leads
4. Probably irrelevant
5. Action points
Overview
Talbot’s breakdown manifested itself in a belief that he could solve the Bamborough case by occult means. In addition to astrology, he consulted Aleister Crowley’s Thoth tarot, which has an astrological dimension. He immersed himself in several occult writers, including Crowley, Éliphas Lévi and astrologer Evangeline Adams, and attempted magic rituals.
Talbot was a regular churchgoer before his mental health broke down. While ill, he thought he was hunting a literal embodiment of evil/the devil. Aleister Crowley, who seems to have influenced Talbot more than anyone else, called himself “Baphomet” and also connected Baphomet both with the devil and the sign of Capricorn. This is probably where Talbot got the idea that Margot’s killer was a Capricorn.
Most of what’s in the notebook is worthless, but I think Talbot left three
Strike now deleted the number “three” and substituted “four.” As ever, when immersed in work, he felt a craving for a cigarette. As though in rebellion against the very idea, his lungs immediately treated him to a violent fit of coughing that necessitated the grabbing of kitchen roll to catch what they were trying to expel. Suitably chastened and shivering slightly, Strike drew his dressing gown more tightly around him, took a sip of tea he couldn’t taste and continued to work.
Most of what’s in the notebook is worthless, but I think Talbot left four possibly genuine leads out of the official police record, only recording them in “the true book,” ie, his leather notebook.
Symbol key
There are no names in the notebook, only zodiacal signs. I’m not listing unidentified eye witnesses—we’ve got no chance of tracing them on their star signs and nothing else—but by cross-referencing corroborative details, these are my best guesses at the identity of people Talbot thought were important to the investigation.
Strike now deleted the last paragraph and substituted a name and a new note.
* I suggest an identity for Scorpio below, but could be someone we haven’t yet heard of.
** No idea what either of these symbols mean. Can’t find them on any astrological website. Talbot seems to have invented them. If he’d stuck to birth signs, Irene would have been one of the Geminis and Roy would have been Capricorn. Talbot writes that Phipps “can’t be true Capricorn” (because he’s resourceful, sensitive, musical) then comes up with this new symbol for him, on the advice of Schmidt.
Schmidt
The name “Schmidt” is all over the notebook. “Schmidt corrects to (different star sign),” “Schmidt changes everything,” “Schmidt disagrees.” Schmidt mostly wants to change people’s star signs, which you’d think would be one certainty, given that birth dates don’t change. I’ve checked with Gregory Talbot, and he can’t remember his father ever knowing anyone of the name. My best guess is that Schmidt might have been a figment of Talbot’s increasingly psychotic imagination. Perhaps he couldn’t help noticing people weren’t matching the star signs’ supposed qualities and Schmidt was his rational side trying to reassert itself.
Possible leads
Joseph Brenner
In spite of Talbot’s early determination to clear Brenner of suspicion on the basis of his star sign (Libra is “the most trustworthy of the signs” according to Evangeline Adams), he later records in the notebook that an unidentified patient of the practice told Talbot that he/she saw Joseph Brenner inside a block of flats on Skinner Street on the evening Margot disappeared. This directly contradicts Brenner’s own story (he went straight home), his sister’s corroboration of that story, and possibly the story of the dog-walking neighbor who claims to have seen Brenner through the window at home at 11 in the evening. No time is given for Brenner’s alleged sighting in Michael Cliffe House, which was a 3-minute drive from the St. John’s practice and consequently far nearer Margot’s route than Brenner’s own house, which was a 20-minute drive away. None of this is in the police notes and it doesn’t seem to have been followed up.
Death of Scorpio
Talbot seems to suggest that somebody died, and that Margot may have found the death suspicious. Scorpio’s death is connected to Pisces (Douthwaite) and Cancer (Janice), which makes the most likely candidate for Scorpio Joanna Hammond, the married woman Douthwai
te had an affair with, who allegedly committed suicide.
The Hammond/Douthwaite/Janice explanation fits reasonably well: Margot could have voiced suspicions about Hammond’s death to Douthwaite the last time she saw him, which gives us the reason he stormed out of her surgery. And as a friend/neighbor of Douthwaite’s, Janice might have had her own suspicions about him.
The problem with this theory is that I’ve looked up Joanna Hammond’s birth certificate online and she was born under Sagittarius. Either she isn’t the dead person in question, or Talbot mistook her date of birth.
Blood at the Phipps house/Roy walking
When Lawson took over the case, Wilma the cleaner told him she’d seen Roy walking in the garden on the day Margot disappeared, when he was supposed to be bedbound. She also claimed she found blood on the spare bedroom carpet and cleaned it up.
Lawson thought this was the first time Wilma had mentioned either fact to the police and suspected she was trying to make trouble for Roy Phipps.
However, turns out Wilma did tell Talbot the story, but instead of recording it in the official police record, he put it in his astrological notebook.
Even though Wilma had already given him what you’d think is significant information, Talbot’s notes indicate that he was sure she was concealing something else. He seems to have developed a fixation with Wilma having occult powers/secret knowledge. He speculates that Taurus might have “magick” and even suggests the blood on the carpet might have been put there by Wilma herself, for some ritual purpose.
Tarot cards associated with Taurus, Wilma’s sign, came up a lot when he was using them and he seems to have interpreted them to mean she knew more than she was letting on. He underlined the phrase “black phantom” in regard to her, and associated her with “Black Lilith,” which is some astrological fixed point associated with taboos and secrets. In the absence of any other explanation, I suspect a good slug of old-fashioned racism.
Out on Charing Cross Road, a car passed, blaring from its radio “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Frowning, Strike added another bullet point to “possibly genuine new information,” and began to type.
Nico “Mucky” Ricci
According to Talbot, Leo 3 was seen leaving the practice one night by an unnamed passerby, who told Talbot about it afterward. Nico “Mucky” Ricci was caught on camera in one of Dorothy Oakden’s photos of the practice Christmas party in 1973. The picture’s reproduced in her son’s book. Ricci was a Leo (confirmed by d.o.b. in press report from 1968).
Ricci was a professional gangster, pornographer and pimp who in 1974 was living in Leather Lane, Clerkenwell, a short walk from the St. John’s practice, so should have been registered with one of the doctors there. He’s now in his 90s and living in a nursing home, according to Shanker.
The fact that Ricci was at the party isn’t in the official record. Talbot found the fact Ricci was at the practice significant enough to write down in the astrological notebook, but there’s no sign he ever followed it up or told Lawson about it. Possible explanations: 1) as Ricci was Leo, not Capricorn, Talbot concluded he couldn’t be Baphomet, 2) Talbot didn’t trust the person who said he’d seen Ricci leaving the building, 3) Talbot knew, but didn’t record in his book, that Ricci had an alibi for that night Margot disappeared, 4) Talbot knew Ricci had alibis for other Essex Butcher abductions.
Whichever applies, the presence of Ricci at that party needs looking into. He’s a man who had the contacts to arrange a permanent disappearance. See action points below.
It cost Strike far more effort than it would usually have done to organize his thoughts on Mucky Ricci and set them down. Tired now, his throat raw and his intercostal muscles aching from coughing, he read through the rest of the document, which in his opinion contained little of real value other than the action points. After correcting a couple of typos, he attached the lot to an email and sent it to Robin.
Only after this had gone did it occur to him that some people might think emailing work colleagues on Christmas Day was unacceptable. However, he shrugged off any momentary qualms by telling himself that Robin was currently enjoying a family Christmas, and would be highly unlikely to check her email until tomorrow at the earliest.
He picked up his mobile and checked it. Charlotte hadn’t texted again. Of course, she had twins, aristocratic in-laws and a husband to keep happy. He set the phone down again.
Little energy though he had, Strike found the absence of anything to do still more enervating. Without much curiosity, he examined a couple of the Christmas presents lying beside him, both of which were clearly from grateful clients, as they were addressed to both him and Robin. Shaking the larger one, he deduced that it contained chocolates.
He returned to his bedroom and watched a bit of television, but the relentless emphasis on Christmas depressed him and he switched off midway through a continuity announcer’s wish that everyone was having a wonderful—
Strike returned to the kitchen and his gaze fell on the heavy projector and can of film lying just inside the door. After a moment’s hesitation, he heaved the heavy machine onto his kitchen table, facing a blank stretch of kitchen wall and plugged it in. It seemed to be in working order. He then prized the lid off the tin to reveal a large roll of 16mm film, which he took out and fitted into the projector.
Doubtless because he wasn’t thinking as clearly as usual, and also because of the need to stop regularly to cough up more sputum into kitchen roll, it took Strike nearly an hour to work out how to operate the old projector, by which time he realized that he had regained something of an appetite. It was now nearly two o’clock. Trying not to imagine what was going on in St. Mawes, where a large turkey with all the trimmings was doubtless reaching the peak of bronzed perfection, but seeing this flicker of returned appetite as a sign of returning health, he took the pack of out-of-date chicken and the limp vegetables out of the fridge, chopped it all, boiled up some dried noodles and made a stir fry.
He could taste nothing, but this second ingestion of food made him feel slightly more human, and ripping the paper and cellophane off the box of chocolates, he ate several of them, too, before flicking the switch on the projector.
Onto the wall, pale in the sunlight, flickered the naked figure of a woman. Her head was covered in a hood. Her hands were bound behind her. A man’s black-trousered leg entered the shot. He kicked her: she stumbled and fell to her knees. He continued to kick until she was prone on the ground of what looked like a warehouse.
She’d have screamed, of course, she couldn’t have failed to scream, but there was no soundtrack. A thin scar ran from beneath her left breast down to her ribs, as though this wasn’t the first time knives had touched her. All the men involved had covered their faces with scarves or balaclavas. She alone was naked: the men merely pulled down their jeans.
She stopped moving long before they had finished with her. At one point, close to the end, when she was barely moving, when blood still dripped from her many stab wounds, the left hand of a man who seemed to have watched, but not participated, slid in front of the camera. It bore something large and gold.
Strike flicked off the projector. He was suddenly drenched in cold sweat. His stomach was cramping. He barely made it to the bathroom before he vomited, and there he remained, heaving until he was empty, until dusk fell beyond the attic windows.
30
Ah dearest Dame, quoth then the Paynim bold,
Pardon the error of enraged wight,
Whome great griefe made forgett the raines to hold
Of reasons rule…
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene
Annabel was wailing in Stephen’s old bedroom, which was next door to Robin’s own. Her niece had cried through a substantial portion of Christmas night and Robin had been awake along with her, listening to Joni Mitchell on her headphones to block out the noise.
Four days stuck in her parents’ house in Masham had driven Robin back to Mitchell’s sprawling
, wandering tunes and the lyrics that had made her feel strangely lost. Margot Bamborough had found something there she had needed, and hadn’t Margot Bamborough’s life been far more complicated than her own? Ailing parents to support, a new daughter to love and to miss, a workplace full of cross-currents and bullying, a husband who wouldn’t talk to her, another man lurking in the background, promising that he’d changed. What were Robin’s troubles, compared to those?
So Robin lay in the dark and listened as she hadn’t on the train. Then, she had heard an alienating sophistication in the words the beautiful voice had sung. Robin hadn’t had glamorous love affairs she could anatomize or lament: she’d had one proper boyfriend and one marriage, which had gone horribly wrong, and now she was home at her parents’ house, a childless twenty-nine-year-old who was “traveling in a different direction to the rest of us”: in other words, backward.
But in the darkness, really listening, she began to hear melodies among the suspended chords, and as she stopped comparing the music to anything she would usually have listened to, she realized that the images she had found alienating in their strangeness were confessions of inadequacy and displacement, of the difficulty of merging two lives, of waiting for the soulmate who never arrived, of craving both freedom and love.
It was with a literal start that she heard the words, at the beginning of track eight, “I’m always running behind the times, just like this train…”
And when, later in the song, Mitchell asked: “what are you going to do now? You got no one to give your love to,” tears started in Robin’s eyes. Not a mile from where she lay, Matthew and Sarah would be lying in bed in her ex-father-in-law’s spare room, and here was Robin, alone again in a room that for her would forever have a hint of prison cell about it. This was where she had spent months after leaving university, pinioned within four walls by her own memories of a man in a gorilla mask, and the worst twenty minutes of her life.
Troubled Blood: A Cormoran Strike Novel Page 34