The Devil's Moon

by Peter Guttridge

  They were dropping down into Brighton now. Seagulls skirled above them, acutely white against the black sky.

  ‘My point is, ma’am, if you don’t believe in a religion then you look around and conclude the world is full of nutcases. Nutcases who believe all kinds of unprovable nonsense. That so many do believe in unbelievable things probably means that people have some fundamental and crucial need for a faith in something beyond the real world.’

  ‘So whatever is going on has a certain rationale from the point of view of whoever is doing it?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ he said.

  They were heading down Dyke Road into Brighton now.

  ‘Come for a drink,’ Gilchrist said.

  She saw his look.

  ‘I’m not coming on to you so forget any screwing the boss or screwing the taller woman scenario.’

  She saw a new look. God, he was as bad as she was at hiding her emotions.

  ‘Not that I don’t think taller women in general wouldn’t find you attractive and not that I’m referring to your size . . .’

  As she floundered she caught the look on his face. She couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘And you can piss off, Constable Heap.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, a sly grin on his face. No blush.

  ‘Hello there, Chief Constable.’

  Vicar Dave had God is Love tattooed on his right forearm. The sleeve of his shirt hid whatever he had on his left. Watts had a strong urge to punch him.

  ‘I recognize you,’ Vicar Dave added. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I’m no longer officially in the police,’ Watts said. ‘Call me Bob.’

  ‘And I’m Dave, as you know. Vicar Dave, the youngsters like to call me.’

  ‘You’re pretty much a youngster yourself,’ Watts said as pleasantly as he could.

  ‘I’ve been doing Christ’s work for fifteen years now.’

  ‘Casting out demons.’

  ‘Among other things.’

  Vicar Dave had a piercing stare.

  ‘Do you know the girl from the visiting choir you were talking to?’

  ‘Yes,’ Watts said. ‘She has a wonderful voice.’

  The vicar nodded. His eyes got added intensity from the fact they were black. Fanatic eyes, Watts thought. Charles Manson eyes.

  ‘I heard you ask her where her voice came from,’ Vicar Dave said.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘To analyse singing and to think of what it is like is the Devil’s business. How you move from one word to another, how you connect the heart to the lyric and how you find the melodic line is for God to give.’

  Watts nodded. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘The world is a wicked place and the Devil needs only a crack in the window to enter your home unbidden. Once inside he is a most unwelcome guest.’

  ‘And your job is to throw him out again – but not just out of the house. You believe in possession, do you not?’

  Vicar Dave nodded without looking at Watts. He spread his arms. ‘Look around this city. It is filled with sin. There is madness here. Unholy madness. The Devil and his disciples assault the innocents of this city hourly with drink and drugs and lewd living. I see the debauchery on every street and it sickens me. And the only shield is the Bible and our champion is Jesus Christ.’

  ‘How do you cast them out?’

  Vicar Dave had distracted himself. He darted a look back at Watts. ‘What?’

  ‘The demons. How do you cast them out?’

  Vicar Dave dropped his arms. ‘The ceremony is secret, I am afraid.’

  ‘It’s in a church.’

  ‘The first part of the ceremony is in the church then I do the actual casting out in an inner sanctum.’

  Watts gave a little shrug. ‘What do you do with the demons once you’ve got them out?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I’m rusty on my Bible but when Jesus cast demons out wasn’t there usually a handy herd of swine nearby that the demons went into?’

  ‘You refer to the Gadarene swine in the Gospel of Mark.’

  ‘If you say so. I seem to remember all these pigs – a couple of thousand of them – ran into the sea and were drowned.’

  ‘The unclean spirit when asked his name declared: “My name is Legion, for we are many”.’

  ‘There you go. But what do you do with them? I mean, back in New Testament times I would have been cheesed off if I’d been the owner of those two thousand pigs Christ sent off to be drowned before he went merrily on his way. Losing my entire livelihood on a passing stranger’s whim – well, I might have wanted to crucify somebody myself.’

  Vicar Dave gave the merest hint of a tight smile.

  ‘But that was then,’ Watts said. ‘These days we live in a compensation culture. An animal-loving culture, for that matter. Send any unclean spirits the way of some local flock or herd of animals and you’re going to get your ass sued. The animal liberation activists – members of your own congregation even – will be after you. I mean, Jesus might not have shown much species respect but I’ve just been hearing in a rap that you’ve yolked your church to that particular cart. Not that it will be pulled by any animals I presume.’

  ‘Is that an attempt at levity?’ Vicar Dave’s eyes were fierce. ‘Bob?’

  ‘Levity? Is that like walking on water? Or am I thinking levitation?’

  Vicar Dave looked for a moment at the tattoo on his forearm. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Some very strange things are happening in Brighton.’

  ‘Harbingers of the End of Days, perhaps.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘All the time. But, yes, the evidence seems to indicate that the End of Days approaches. It was even predicted in a calendar by the ungodly Mayans.’

  ‘That’s that then? Don’t start reading any long novels?’

  Vicar Dave gave his tight smile. ‘Or short ones.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Sarah Gilchrist phoned Watts when he was wandering along the seafront in the rain, his head swirling from seeing his daughter, experiencing the weird church service and all the talk about Crowley and Templars and the secrets of Saddlescombe Farm earlier in the day. She invited him to the Colonnade for a drink with her and a colleague.

  The Colonnade was a single-room bar beside the Theatre Royal. Although not much of a theatregoer Watts liked the posters and signed actor photographs all over the walls. Plus he was a sucker for these Victorian places with their red plush and soft lights in big glass bowls.

  It was chucking it down so he came through the door of the pub dripping wet. Sarah Gilchrist was sitting at a table at the back of the pub with a short, trim young man with rosy cheeks.

  The pub was heaving because it was the interval at the performance of Rosemary’s Baby at the Theatre Royal next door. However, the way parted for a man so thoroughly wet.

  Sarah introduced him to the young man. ‘I wanted to get you two talking about all that’s going on in Brighton. Bellamy here has a big brain.’

  Watts nodded as he carefully took off his dripping coat then went to the bar to order. He glanced back at Sarah. She looked tense. The return to duty, he guessed. He saw Heap excuse himself and go downstairs to the toilet.

  It took a few minutes to get served but as he took the drinks the audience drained out of the pub and went back into the theatre next door.

  He sat and gestured to the steps Heap had gone down.

  ‘What’s with Boy Wonder?’

  Gilchrist punched his arm. ‘Don’t you start. He’s a bright man. It’s not his fault he looks like a schoolboy. University entrant but chose to come in at the bottom to learn policing from there up. Takes a lot of stick for it.’

  Heap rejoined them.

  ‘Do you know what synchronicity is?’ Watts said when Heap was seated.

  ‘The title of an old Police album,’ Gilchrist said.

  Watts and Heap both glanced at her.

  ‘What?
I like them.’

  ‘Police?’ Watts said. ‘You were a kid when they were big.’

  ‘I always liked the name,’ Gilchrist said. She laughed. ‘Not because of my future profession. It wasn’t!’

  ‘Sting got the title of the album from Jung,’ Watts said. ‘Jung developed this theory of coincidences that he believed had a deeper meaning.’

  ‘I think you’re about to lose me,’ Gilchrist said. ‘But I’m sure Bellamy understands.’

  ‘OK, I find these books on my dad’s bookshelf about the occult, signed by their authors to him with odd messages. One of them is by Aleister Crowley, the black magician. At Lewes Museum an archaeologist told me this afternoon my father was involved with Aleister Crowley in World War Two to fight the Nazis on the astral plane – don’t even go there.

  ‘He also told me some weird occult stuff about the Knights Templar at Saddlescombe Farm up on Devil’s Dyke. That happens to be where Colin Pearson – one of those occult writers my father knew – lives.’

  ‘You know the Goat of Mendes was loose on Devil’s Dyke last night?’ Heap said. ‘He cast his shadow over the town.’

  Watts frowned. ‘I was up there last night.’

  Gilchrist half-stood to peer at the top of Watts’ head. ‘Are your horns detachable?’

  ‘Ha,’ Watts said. ‘Are you serious about this apparition?’

  ‘Nobody saw him on the dyke that we’re aware of, but a lot of people saw his giant shadow fall over the town.’

  ‘I saw a ram with really big horns at the farm.’

  ‘It was half-goat, half-man,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Sheep don’t usually inspire terror in my experience. We were up there just now. At Saddlescombe Organics because of the Wicker Man you told me about – the commune there built it. Thanks for the tip.’

  Watts spread his hands. ‘There you go. I pick out this book from my dad’s bookshelf and suddenly everywhere I look there’s black magic. You have all this occult stuff happening in Brighton. My next-door neighbour has a sheep’s heart nailed to his door. The magical equipment of some Elizabethan magician called John Dee has been stolen from the British Museum. An attempt was made to steal more of his occult stuff from the Science Museum and from the Archaeological Museum in Lewes.’

  Watts took a sip of his drink. ‘Oh, and a book of spells has been stolen from the Jubilee Library, which I don’t think you know about. The Key of Solomon. Is this a zeitgeist thing or what?’

  ‘A book of spells?’ Gilchrist said. ‘From the kids’ section?’

  ‘No – the real thing,’ Watts said. ‘It’s called a grimoire. Pretty ancient, I gather.’

  Gilchrist filled Watts in on the missing vicar, the person burned to death in the Wicker Man and the theft of The Devil’s Altar.

  ‘I spoke to the other vicar – David Rutherford – earlier today,’ she said. ‘Apparently the dead man felt under threat from Satanists. I know, I know. But he’d kind of freaked out. And certainly his flat gave every indication of that. Pentacle on the floor, all that stuff.’

  ‘Any leads?’

  ‘Yes, actually. Whoever threw the shit and smeared it on the walls of the vicar’s apartment ate at Plenty. We’re checking that out tomorrow – they’re closed at the moment, having tried to poison me and Kate.’

  ‘Revelling in your power, are you, Detective Inspector?’ Watts said. ‘Closing a place down because they treated you badly.’

  ‘Fuck off – we weren’t the only people they poisoned.’

  ‘And The Devil’s Altar?’

  ‘We have CCTV of two people, one of whom we think is a woman. Both are swathed in waterproofs. We’ve traced them as far as the Imperial Arcade.’

  ‘Most of the population of Brighton is in waterproofs in this weather,’ Watts said.

  ‘True – and it seems likely the person messing up the vicar’s flat was a gay male,’ Heap said.

  ‘And in the British Museum?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Pass. I can maybe find out. I don’t think the police have been called in about that either.’

  They all took a swig of their drinks, then Heap said: ‘Are you a religious man, Bob?’

  ‘I’m quite the contrary,’ Watts said. ‘Religion appeals to hysteria, fear . . . ignorance. I remember my father telling me once that in its early days Christianity was not a religion – it was an epidemic. I’d go further than my father: religions are viruses. We’ve got to find the cure.’

  ‘And what is that cure?’ Heap said. ‘Marxism?’

  ‘That was just another sort of religion. Humanism maybe?’

  ‘Which is based on nothing,’ Heap said. ‘You need a basis for a moral system: you can’t just pluck an arbitrary one out of the ether.’

  Gilchrist gave an amused glance at Watts.

  ‘You a university man, Bellamy?’ Watts said after a moment.

  ‘Does it show?’

  ‘Just a tad. Are you religious?’

  ‘I was brought up Catholic but it didn’t really take.’

  ‘Not even the guilt?’

  Heap blushed. ‘A bit of that.’

  Gilchrist sighed. ‘People’s beliefs.’

  ‘You’re not religious either, Sarah?’ Watts said.

  ‘Not in any way, shape or form. Pisses me off to tell you the truth – what people get away with in the name of it.’

  The door burst open and a screeching gaggle of women tottered in wearing high-heeled boots. They took off their raincoats to reveal micro-skirts and T-shirts emblazoned with ‘Laura’s Hen Party’. As one they bared their teeth. Plastic vampire teeth.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Gilchrist’s first appointment the next morning was the Jubilee Library. The rare books department was on the top floor at the rear of the imposing glass-fronted building. It looked little more than a small reading room through a set of glass doors. Subdued lighting protected twenty or so books on display in glass cases. But there were no books on shelves as Gilchrist expected.

  ‘I thought it would look like a second-hand bookshop,’ she said to the director of the collection, a nervous man with sparse black hair combed across his pate. His manner didn’t seem to fit his name, which was Allcock.

  ‘These are rare books, Detective Inspector – we keep them in temperature-controlled rooms. Our collection dates from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. Many are touched, if at all, only when wearing gloves but most of the collection is under lock and key.’

  He led her through an enormous room, full of tier after tier of shelves, and through to a tiny office piled with papers. He cleared space on a straight-backed chair and invited her to sit.

  ‘You lost a rare manuscript but didn’t report it,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Why?’

  Allcock looked surprised. ‘That’s an internal matter. We’re hoping it’s just misplaced.’

  ‘That’s not what we heard,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘From whom?’

  Whom. This man was another Heap.

  ‘Is it something called the Key of Solomon?’

  Allcock nodded reluctantly.

  ‘How did the library acquire it?’

  The librarian seemed surprised by the question. ‘I don’t really know but I assume it was in the George Long collection.’

  Gilchrist looked her next question.

  ‘In 1879 Long donated about three and a half thousand volumes, mostly in sixteenth-century Greek and Latin.’

  ‘Do you really believe the Key has been mislaid?’ she said.

  Allcock shuffled papers on his desk. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Somebody broke in here? Or was it out there on display?’

  Allcock looked almost sorrowful. ‘I think it was probably the first time it had been out on display.’

  ‘Aren’t the display cases alarmed?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Theoretically.’

  ‘Theoretically?’

  ‘Theoretically they are locked and alarmed. But there was a week when my regular staff members and I were away on
a course. Somebody not familiar with our policies turned the alarms off and unlocked the case to remove another item.’

  ‘And they didn’t lock it again,’ Gilchrist said. ‘And this thief just happened to be in the room?’

  The man looked embarrassed. ‘It appears the case might have been open for some days.’

  ‘CCTV?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Yes. But our system is time-lapse. Four frames a second. Movement can be quite blurred or missed altogether.’

  ‘You save the images though?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘For a limited period, yes.’

  ‘So if the thief did steal it on the day the case was first left open, the recording will probably have been wiped.’

  Allcock clasped his hands. ‘I would think so.’

  ‘And nobody noticed the theft?’

  ‘The casing of the manuscript was still there.’

  ‘The casing?’

  ‘It was in a silver case, very finely engraved. To be honest it was on display for the casing not the content. I doubt anyone knew what was in it.’

  ‘Somebody obviously did.’

  He looked rueful. ‘Obviously. I’m just grateful the casing wasn’t stolen as well.’

  ‘Is the manuscript valuable?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘It has intrinsic value as an ancient manuscript but it is priceless to some people.’

  ‘Because it is a book of spells.’

  ‘A grimoire, yes,’ Allcock said.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Pretend you’re talking to a particularly stupid child and we’ll do fine.’

  There was a uniformed policeman hovering near the Saddlescombe Organics stall when Kate Simpson stepped into Brighton Farm Market. He was short and had rosy cheeks and people further inside the yard were giving him wary glances or whispering about him. He remained composed.

  The stall had not yet opened. She stopped a couple of yards away from him. He looked at her, frowning.

  ‘Lesley Henderson?’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘Kate Simpson from Southern Shores Radio. Looks like we want the same stall.’

  He nodded. ‘I need to take a statement from someone who should be working on this stall today.’

  ‘Ditto,’ she said. ‘They provide unusual food for Plenty and I’m doing a story about the food poisoning there.’