by Knox, Tom
Yet she didn’t cry. Karen had cried herself out last night, when she had been picked up from the pavement by kind strangers and driven to Julie’s house. On Julie’s sofa she had collapsed in on herself, like a demolished building. She had wept for an hour or more, continuously. And now the storm had passed; now the weeping was done, and the sterile bitterness, the fear, and the anger, were all that was left.
No, she didn’t want to cry any more: she wanted to kill this man Rothley. Even if she got there too late, even if he murdered Eleanor, she would kill him: she would, she would slay him. Her ardour for revenge was biblical.
‘And the third message. Can we hear that?’ said the CS. ‘We haven’t heard the third one yet.’
Karen pressed the button on her phone.
There had been five voicemails in a row. This was the third. It began with Rothley chanting.
‘Magoth, Asmodeus, Sebt-Hor, Ariton and Amaymon, I call upon you – here and forever – to return to this house, on the third day of the moon, when you shall take the child with you, unto the world unknown.’ A serious silence followed this chant, tainted only by a strange, machine-like sound in the background. Then Karen’s daughter spoke up, calmly and lucidly. ‘In cuius sunt vobis postulans hoc actus sacrificium?’
CS Boyle dropped his hands, and stared, transfixed, at the phone. ‘Good Lord. Is that Eleanor?’
‘Yes.’ Karen was almost used to it now. She stared at the window. Some small furtive flakes of snow were falling from a dark grey sky; she wished it would snow more, snow properly. Cover everything in whiteness and erase the world.
‘But … she’s talking Latin,’ said Boyle, stating the obvious.
Karen nodded. ‘Yup.’ She’d heard these messages a dozen times, first with horror, then with sadness and panic, now with this dull gnawing fearfulness, and anger. Lots of anger. ‘He goes on here, on the fourth message, it’s the same.’
Once more she pressed the speakerphone. Rothley’s firm, low and confident voice filled the office. ‘It is on Eleanor daughter of Karen that I shall work a spell of final binding. Eleanor daughter of Karen must be cast into the outer darkness. Bind and fasten the flesh of Eleanor. She must not breathe, she must not be warm, she must not move, strike her and bind her, on the third day of the new moon, strike her, and bind her, and take her, at once at once at once, lift her up as a sacrifice to Satanael, Saoth, Seth, Satanoth. Amen. Amen. Amen.’
Another pause. Then another tiny grinding, whirring noise in the background. It was surely some kind of machine? Yes. Karen recognized it. Like a drill, but muffled, as if someone in the background was making something. Perhaps a table. Or an altar? Alan was good at that stuff. DIY. He used to come round and fix Karen’s shelves.
Then Eleanor spoke again, her voice high and light, the voice of a six-year-old, quite calm and content. ‘Nos facere iussa. Sumemus diem tertium mensis puellam. Amen.’
The message ended. CS Boyle’s face was, again, appalled. His gaze was watery as he stared at the phone.
‘I don’t understand how she is speaking Latin, I just … Could he have coached her?’ His eyes desperately swept the room, looking at Karen, then Detective Sergeant Curtis, then at the grey sky through the window. He quailed visibly. Then he gazed at Karen once more. ‘What does it mean? The Latin? Have you had it checked?’
‘Yes.’ She took out her notebook. She had talked to Ryman, the witchcraft guy, first thing. ‘The first line is, apparently, “On whose authority are you commanding this act of sacrifice.” The second line of Latin is, “We will honour your command, we will take the girl on the third day of the moon.”’ Karen closed her notebook. Her voice was level. She was in control of her emotions, if nothing else. ‘The expert I consulted said these are the expected responses from the sub-princes in the Abra-Melin ritual.’
‘The sub what?’
Karen explained, matter-of-factly. ‘Demons, essentially. The first chant is Rothley first requesting the sub-princes, the demons, to do his bidding, and then the demons give their response, through my daughter, and then the second chant is Rothley’s command for them to do the sacrifice, and the demons respond again.’ She stared momentarily out of the window as she spoke. ‘The demons agree, they agree to do the sacrifice. Apparently, this second chant, of Rothley’s, is not from Abra-Melin directly – it’s ancient Christian Coptic magic.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The expert, Ryman, thinks that Rothley may have got hold of a more authentic copy of the Abra-Melin ritual.’
‘Authentic?’
Karen explained: ‘It seems there are many disputes as to the, uh, authentic version of this Abra-Melin magic – different versions in different libraries, with varying spells and demands and suchlike. Ryman’s theory is that Rothley has got hold, or thinks he has got hold, of a very ancient version, the authentic version, which has these Egyptian chants, from Upper Egypt, where the magic first came from. We know he is trying –’ she had to force the words out – ‘to do the ritual in the most authentic and challenging way. By taking a … a … a … a … child’s life.’ Keep going, she had to keep going. ‘It makes sense he would do everything as correctly as possible. Including sourcing the most authentic version of the ritual. If he really wants it to work.’
CS Boyle’s face was quite pale. ‘I still don’t understand how he’s got your daughter to speak Latin. I mean, she … she doesn’t speak, er, Latin, does she?’
‘No. Of course not. She’s six.’
‘Then how? She’s six years old, yet she’s word-perfect.’
Karen had no answer. She simply wanted Rothley dead.
Boyle straightened his uniform: a man visibly struggling to master his confusion, and maybe his emotions. ‘OK, the last message, you said there was one more?’
‘Yep.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
For the final time Karen pressed the button on her phone. The voice of a grown man sobbing filled the office. DS Curtis closed his eyes as the sobbing went on, and on. A grown man crying. For a minute, or a minute and a half. It was, in its own way, the most terrifying of all the messages.
The sobbing continued but the message cut out, automatically. The full ninety seconds was used up. The office was silent. Boyle exhaled, long and slow, as if he hadn’t been breathing. ‘Is that your cousin Alan?’
Karen nodded. ‘I think so. It’s quite hard to tell because, well, I’ve never heard him cry before. He’s not … you know, he doesn’t cry like that. But yes, I am pretty sure that’s him.’
‘But why is he crying?’ Boyle said, stupidly. Then he seemed to realize his stupidity and blushed and shuffled papers on his desk, to disguise his embarrassment. ‘All right, let’s reconvene here in an hour.’ He looked at Curtis. ‘How are we doing on the Crowley properties?’
Curtis began his explanation of their progress, combing through every address ever associated with Crowley. Karen knew all this stuff, so she excused herself and made her exit. She breathed deeply and calmly as she walked, fearing that otherwise she would faint. People in the corridor avoided her gaze; or so she imagined. Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps she just looked slovenly and they’d noticed and turned away in politeness. She was wearing last night’s clothes; after the phone messages she had been too scared and distressed to go home to the flat and get her stuff.
How did Rothley get Ellie to speak Latin?
Back at her desk she sipped water, then clicked on her computer. She had an email to her personal account from an unknown sender. She opened it.
You have something I want.
Come tomorrow to the building on Chancery Lane, the basement. Come at 7 p.m.
Come alone or I will kill your daughter. If you do not come I will kill your daughter. You have a small tattoo on your ankle, of a mermaid. Your new shoes need cleaning. You are wearing the same skirt as yesterday.
Lucas Rothley
37
Tawdros, Egypt
‘You’re sure you are all right?’
Helen smiled, a little wearily. ‘Yes. The fever has completely gone.’
She held his hand. The room was empty; the nuns had arrived and departed, whispering and smiling: their petitions had been heard by the Lord. Helen had first opened her eyes two days before. She’d looked frail then, but conscious at least. Today the youth in her face was fully restored.
And now Helen and Ryan were alone in her room; it was dark, and the desert night was purple and soft. There was nowhere to go. So she lay in the bed and Ryan held her hand, and he felt emotions reborn inside him, emotions that he thought had gone to the western hills.
‘Make love to me,’ she said.
He watched her: waiting for the joke.
‘I am not joking. I haven’t got anything to do but lie in bed. So you may as well get in. No?’
He kissed her hand. ‘You’re ill, you are recuperating.’
‘No.’ Her voice was firm. ‘I am not. I just needed a day or two of rest. And then …’ a sly pause, ‘some sexual healing?’
They made love. It reminded him, bittersweetly, of the time he’d had sex with Rhiannon on holiday in Greece, and they’d both had terrible sunburn. They wanted to do it desperately, touching was painful, but it was also delicious and irresistible, even as it hurt.
Helen’s eyes glittered in the dark, liquid and waiting; her kisses slurred. And her nakedness was pure and youthful: she was slender like the Pharaoh-queens in the paintings. He tenderly kissed the place where her wound was healing; he kissed the wound; he descended her suntanned stomach, he kissed the wound.
Sighing, and softly, she ran her fingers through his hair; her other hand twisted the thin linen sheet; then she pulled him to her face; kissed his chin, kissed his lips, then laughed, then stopped laughing – he turned her over, and she clutched at the pillow, clawing it, her arms extended, embracing the moon, like the night goddess, Nut. The undulation of her body, beneath him, was moving and arousing, and then she rolled over again and her tongue sought his; and the lamplight flickered over her breasts.
The dawn flush of orgasm rose to her throat; she closed her eyes and trembled, like the surface of water disturbed; and her sigh escaped her, the ka, the ba, the soul that flees.
Then she turned on her side and she clutched his hand to her chest. ‘Do you think this is the first time anyone has had sex in a monastery?’
‘It feels like the first time I’ve had sex since my wife died.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You do not have to say that.’
‘I do.’
They murmured for another hour, and kissed again; and she took him in her mouth until he shuddered. Then she fell asleep. Ryan didn’t. He lay there thinking – thinking nothing. The jackal howled outside, out there in the desert, as Ryan listened to the nothingness, to the wilderness, to the desert wind, to Helen’s breathing, to the faint, faint crackle of the wick in the oil lamp.
And what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place …
Where was that from? Deuteronomy. And it was true. He had been wandering in the wilderness, afflicted, and lonely, for years and years; and now he was here, next to her, and he was lonely no more. Ryan kissed the nape of Helen’s scented neck and she stirred in her sleep. And then he slept. For many hours.
They woke to enormous noise. The sun was high: it was almost noon. Something was happening outside, some ceremony: there was singing and chanting. Urgently Ryan threw on his clothes; Helen did the same.
He stared at her. ‘What are you doing?’
Her smile was brave. ‘I have been lying here for a decade, soon I will be a fossil. The wound is healed. The fever is gone. I feel fine. Come on.’
Slow and quiet, Ryan opened the door: he was engulfed at once by the urgent hubbub. There were laughing children and dark-haired Coptic women and priests who smelled of fortified wine, clapping and singing as they thronged the courtyard, and stepped into the church.
Albert saw him, and stole up, beaming. ‘How is Helen?’
‘Good. She wants to move on.’
‘Ah yes. Yes, I think we must.’ Albert nodded, eagerly. ‘And this gives us excellent cover. The crowds! It is a special service, Saf El-Rouh: “send away the soul”. A great Coptic businessman died, he came home from America very ill, he wanted to be buried here. This is the third day after his death. Look.’
The crowds were shuffling into the baroquely ramshackle old church, following a priest, assisted by a young deacon. The white-robed priest was reciting, ‘Iftah laha yaruh Bab al-Rohena.’
Albert whispered, amidst the noise: ‘It means, “Open the door for the soul, O God.”’
Ryan couldn’t resist a look. Inside the white-domed church many candles had been lit. Their light glittered off primitive icons, and flickered before the relics of St Theodore the Martyr. Handwritten signs in English hung on the white painted mud-brick wall: HOW DREADFUL IS THIS PLACE, THIS NONE OTHER THAN THE HOUSE OF GOD AND THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN.
Some of the brickwork was obviously rescued from Egyptian palaces or temples, and retained the ancient decoration: Ryan could still see, low on one wall, the shape of an extended wing, the wing of Isis, next to a Coptic cross. In the middle of it all, the people were praying, and singing, and eating. Plates were piled on a table, with bread and watercress, alongside two symbolic glasses, one filled with water, one empty.
It struck Ryan at once: how closely the scene paralleled Pharaonic mortuary rituals shown in ancient texts. The only missing ingredient was beer, but even as he wondered this the priest reached in his robes and pulled out some brown grains, barley maybe, and crumbled them in the water. It truly was an exact copy of ancient Egyptian funeral rites. The Copts were the Egyptians: they had the knowledge, even without knowing it, they were the key. They were the ankh.
He stepped back into the courtyard. Helen was there, next to Albert. Her determined energy had returned.
‘We must pack our bags.’
It took fifteen minutes. And they were ready.
In that short time the crowds had grown, and it was apparent a full-scale moulid was underway: a Coptic celebration, a saint’s day, carnival and funeral all at once. Death was being celebrated because death did not sting. The Copts knew the soul had escaped the cage, and was flying to heaven.
‘OK,’ Helen said. ‘How do we get to Philae? That’s next, right?’
‘Albert?’
Hanna was staring at the worshippers as they filed into the church. Abruptly, he crossed himself. And then his lips moved, murmuring. He was praying? The cynical and sceptical Albert Hanna was praying?
Ryan nudged him. ‘Albert – Philae?’
‘Oh, yes. Aiwa! I have bought us a car. It is perhaps the oldest car in the Theban Nome. A donkey would attract more attention, it is perfect.’
They stepped through the crowds to the monastery gate. But the crowds were intense; there were so many people. Some younger women, their dark hair streaming in the desert wind, were worshipping beyond the monastery walls. Ryan stared at them, in wonder. The wild noise of their singing was discordant, yet beautiful, as they raised their arms with palms outwards, like ancient Egyptians, again, doing the orant.
Still more pilgrims were chanting as they strode towards the monastery, others were clapping and drumming to sustain the beat. A large bearded man in black, episcopal and magnificent, was carrying a processional cross.
Albert stopped. ‘We must pray,’ he said. ‘We must give thanks. Helen is alive: it is a gracious miracle; she was dead and now she has risen, like Jesus.’
‘Albert, what the hell? Come on.’
The Coptic man turned and his eyes were shining. ‘Are you surprised? Why shouldn’t I be religious? I am a Copt. This is my faith.’
‘But, Albert, we can’t stay here. It is dangerous to linger. You want the answer, make the film, you will make money. And we need your help, Albert.’
‘What is money, to the treasures one stores in heaven?’ Hanna smiled beatifi
cally. ‘You think I am joking. Ah yes.’
‘Come on.’
Grabbing Albert by the arm, Ryan asked him where the car was. Albert shrugged, as if he didn’t care, then pointed towards a rusty green Chevrolet, maybe thirty years old, at the edge of the crowds. They ran to it, Ryan dragging Albert, and slung their bags in the trunk.
Ryan took the key from Albert’s pocket and Albert sat in the back. With wheels skidding, they took the desert road south. Philae was more than a day’s drive, beyond Aswan, right through the wilderness.
The desert was empty here, as Egypt slowly descended into real Africa: burning Nubia. There were no army checkpoints. The drive was long and the sun was hot and the car was air-conditioned by several hundred holes in the bodywork.
They talked as they drove. Ryan mentioned the frieze. Helen said, ‘I think it is just a Pharaoh. He is born of a god, is he not? The Pharaohs were regarded as divine.’
‘But there’s a hint of menace, or evil. Why is Thoth there, the god of magic?’
Albert spoke from the back. ‘It is the birth of magic. And what is wrong with that?’
Ryan shook his head. ‘But Macarius is saying, I think, that there is something magical at work in religion, and maybe in Christianity … Dark magic. Not good stuff. Remember that whatever it is, whatever the truth concealed in the Sokar Hoard, it shook Sassoon so much that he killed himself.’
Helen nodded. ‘It is all about magic: that would explain why the Sokar Hoard contained the Coptic spells. Religion is a kind of magic … But would that be enough to so unsettle a scholar like Sassoon? I do not think so.’
Magic. Or voodoo, thought Ryan. That was what he’d thought when he’d listened to the nuns in the monastery: they were doing voodoo, whispering their desert spells to heal the sick.
The desert stretched out before them, the sun quenching itself in the sand, struggling in the quicksand, dying all over again.
They pulled over at an anonymous hotel on the outskirts of Aswan. Helen and Ryan shared a room. Albert watched them sign the register and raised a saintly eyebrow, then retired to his room, complaining of a headache.