‘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 ca
r 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.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The 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.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘I was just being realistic. You know how these things work. The Milldean thing is a mark against you, even though you were cleared. And then the volt gun.’ He spread his hands. ‘But, as I say, that was a month ago.’
‘The evidence disappeared,’ Gilchrist said. ‘No volt gun in the evidence room, no case to answer.’
Monaghan grinned. ‘Yeah. I heard.’
Gilchrist bristled. ‘It had nothing to do with me.’
Monaghan put his palms up in a placatory gesture. ‘I know. You weren’t even in the country when it happened. Still . . .’
He shook his head then gave her a sideways look. ‘Good old Reg Williamson – God rest his fat arse.’
Gilchrist thought Monaghan was changing the subject but there was something in his tone of voice. She leaned forward. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Your partner was a busy boy on his last day of service.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘You don’t know?’ Monaghan looked at her face. He shrugged. ‘OK, then: you don’t know. Reg lifted the volt gun from the evidence room. It’s somewhere in the briny deep off Beachy Head in all likelihood.’
She clenched her jaw. Reg Williamson, in the middle of all he was going through, on the day he drove his car off Beachy Head, had thought of getting her off the hook.
‘How come you know this and I don’t?’
Monaghan drained his beer. ‘Another reason you should maybe still think about leaving. The seaside is the last place you want to be in a leaky vessel.’
Gilchrist made a face. ‘I don’t trust anyone in the force anyway after Milldean.’
He ignored that. ‘Buy you another before I go?’
She shook her head. Monaghan stood.
‘You watch out,’ he said. ‘You’ve spent more time on suspension than working the last few months. You must be tired working a full week.’
She laughed. ‘Fuck off.’
He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Just saying.’
He put his glass on the bar as he walked out and didn’t glance back.
Travis talked non-stop for the remainder of the dinner period. Watts nodded and grinned and smiled, chewing his food slowly and sipping his wine. He knew people were looking at them. He knew his clothes were a bit askew. She was sitting with her legs open, her cocktail dress riding up on her thighs.
He couldn’t figure out if she was high from life, from the sex, from the drink or from something she might have taken earlier. But high she certainly was. It was compelling but also unnerving.
Arm in arm, they went back into the opera house for the second half. Travis was vivacious; Watts was wary.
The phone signal wasn’t great in the Colonnade so Gilchrist was surprised when her mobile rang. It was Bellamy Heap.
‘What are you up to, Bellamy?’
‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. I’ve got something else for you. I’ve been in touch with Gluck’s biographer.’
‘That was very punctilious of you.’
‘I thought so, ma’am.’
‘Go on.’
‘The painting is not of lilies. The flowers are datura. The plant was a favourite of Constance Spry, Gluck’s lover at the time Gluck did the painting.’
‘Where does that get us?’ Gilchrist said.
‘I’m not sure. Datura is used medicinally. You can smoke the leaves and the roots for asthma. In low dosages it’s a useful medicine for travel sickness on transdermal patches.’
‘Doesn’t sound particularly diabolical then.’
‘Well, in the States it’s called jimson weed or loco weed because it sends horses mad if they eat it in the wild. And it’s always been a “magic plant” wherever it grows. The Aztecs used it as part of human sacrifice rituals.’
‘Nice.’
‘But here’s the thing, ma’am. In Europe, datura is linked to witchcraft – like henbane, mandrake and deadly nightshade, which are roughly in the same family. It’s an essential ingredient of love potions and witches’ brews.’
‘I’m guessing witches’ brews aren’t good but what bad stuff, specifically, does datura do?’
‘Pretty much all parts of the plant are hallucinogenic because they are toxic. The line between use as a hallucinogenic and as a poison is a fine one. A lot of people tried it as a recreational drug at the end of the last century and died or went psychotic. One person’s hallucination is another person’s delirium. Doctor Gonzo in Fear and Loathing—’
‘Fear and Loathing?’
‘You really should get out more, ma’am.’
Gilchrist smiled to herself. ‘So my flatmate keeps telling me. So, this Fear thing?’
‘Hunter S Thompson? Gonzo journalism? His book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is pretty much a cult classic, a textbook for every druggie and slacker student. Johnny Depp played him in the movie—’
‘OK, Bellamy, I sense you’re gearing up here – can we get back to datura?’
‘Doctor Gonzo is a friend of Thompson. He’s given a datura bulb as a gift. Now datura grows from seed but some sorts do have tubers so I guess that’s what he means.’
‘Bellamy . . .’
‘So
rry. He eats the whole thing at once. He goes blind and is carted home in a wheelbarrow where he starts making noises like a raccoon.’
‘So there’s a risk it can turn you into a raccoon but the greater danger is that it’s an hallucinogen that can kill you,’ Gilchrist said.
‘In a nutshell – but that’s also true of most hallucinogens,’ Heap said.
‘What makes datura particularly dangerous then?’ Gilchrist said.
‘It’s full of tropane alkaloids: scopolamine, hyoscyamine and atropine. It’s probably one of the most dangerous plants on sale in garden centres. In some countries it’s illegal to buy, sell or cultivate datura plants. It can be lethal for children. If they get atropine poisoning, they’re going to die.’
‘If the kids eat it, you mean?’ Gilchrist said.
‘It doesn’t have to be eaten. It can be ingested in various ways – even through the pores.’
‘Scopolamine, you said – truth drug, isn’t it?’
‘Sometimes thought to be,’ Heap said. ‘The Czech secret police used it when quizzing political prisoners. If you know your Raymond Chandler he used it in Farewell My Lovely. It’s in Graham Greene under another name.’
‘The patron saint of Brighton crime,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Might have known he’d figure. Is Pinkie a junky then?’
‘It’s not in Brighton Rock; it’s in The Ministry of Fear.’
‘Don’t know it,’ Gilchrist said.
‘The protagonist in The Ministry of Fear uses a drug called hyoscine, derived from the scopolamine in henbane, for the mercy killing of his wife. Later someone else tries to poison him by putting it in his tea.’
‘Bellamy – did you know all this before or do you swot things up when the rest of us are asleep?’
‘Sleep, ma’am?’
She heard the rustle of paper.
‘I printed it all off the Internet. It’s used as a poison for suicide and murder. Crippen used it to kill his wife way back when. Between 1950 and 1965 in India there were almost three thousand deaths caused by ingesting datura.
‘These days in Thailand they slip scopolamine to tourists to rob them. In Bogota, Colombia, one in five emergency room admissions for poisoning have been attributed to scopolamine. It’s used to rape as well as rob.’
The Devil's Moon Page 22