The Deceit (37 page)

‘Glover?’

‘Yeah, him: according to Glover you just dropped to the floor, like you had been drugged.’

‘Yet I haven’t been drugged, the tests show it.’ Karen frowned. She wanted to get going, get out of bed, get back to the case. Get back to
living.
‘But … but the hallucinations were intense, just
intense
. Like the most lucid dream. Vivid detail. I imagined the abduction, I imagined case meetings, everything. I imagined Eleanor talking
Latin.
Yet it’s not a drug … What could do that?’

Boyle was sitting on a chair in the far corner, but his voice filled the room. Confident and calm. ‘We think it is a mental parasite, that induces hallucinations. One of the symptoms is, as you know, biting the fingers.’

Karen stared down at her bandaged finger. Then she looked at Boyle. ‘But I dreamed that I did this. So … I really did this – but in my sleep? In my coma?’

‘You really did it.’ Boyle nodded. ‘You had to be restrained.’

‘That’s what the girl did, in Chancery Lane, bite her fingers …’

‘Yes. Clearly she was suffering the same – what is the word? The scientists told me, the same
parasitogenic
delusions. Remember the strange red
cake
you found at Chancery Lane?’

‘Oh my God. I sniffed it.’

‘We don’t know if Rothley intended you to find it, or just left it by accident.’

Karen worked it through. ‘So you had the cake examined, Pathology, right?’

‘Wait.’ Boyle came and looked her up and down, like a relieved but still-worried father. ‘We have discovered more.’

‘
More?
’

The confusion was back. Karen gripped the bedsheets. A sudden terror that she might tip once more into hallucination, psychosis, overwhelmed her; but then she thought:
Psychosis
– that’s what happened to the girl at Bodmin. Except that Alicia Rothley’s psychosis was much worse, and more prolonged. She had never come round, never recovered.

DS Curtis interrupted her thoughts. ‘Karen, remember you told us to search every site that had ever been connected to Crowley? You were adamant: you said even if it’s been turned into a bloody car park, search it?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, we did. And your hunch was right, you were bang on. We searched and searched and eventually, yesterday, while you were in here, when you were, uh …’

‘Raving mad. And strapped to the bed?’

Curtis smiled. ‘Yeah. When you were tripping out we finally found that there had been a Golden Dawn temple—’

‘Crowley’s cult.’

‘They had a temple, just off Howland Street, Fitzrovia, in an old Georgian townhouse. But it was bombed in the war and then it was shops and then last year they demolished that and built a brand-new office block, unoccupied for a year – economic conditions and all that – but of course, it wasn’t unoccupied.’

‘Rothley was there.’

‘He was in there all right.’

The snow had stopped falling outside. A winter sun glimmered, feebly.

Curtis went on. ‘We broke in straightaway, but we were too late, just a few minutes too late. Rothley must have had CCTV or something. He got out just in time to save his own sorry arse, but …’

The new horror evolved. ‘He’d killed a child?’

Boyle came back, crisp and emotionless. ‘Not yet. He’s abducted her. Zara Parkinson, eight years old. Daughter of Nick Parkinson. We found
him
,
still alive, just about. He told us everything. Rothley had kidnapped them both, and tortured them.’ Boyle sighed. ‘It’s more of his so-called magic, I fear. Of course we are searching for the girl right now. We are hopeful we can save her. Rothley made mistakes, in his panic to escape with the girl. He left lots of evidence behind.’

‘Such as?’

‘For a start, his notes. He wrote everything down. He talks a lot about his – what do you call it? His
grimoire.
His book of magic, Abra-Melin. Apparently he believes that
his
version of Abra-Melin is
the
version. It’s from a town called Araki, somewhere in Egypt. Seems he bought it at auction a couple of years ago.’ Boyle frowned. ‘We’re having it translated, but we’ve already got a handle on these blood-cakes, the cake you sniffed. They are apparently called “incense of tears”.’

Karen flinched.

‘That’s the term used in his notes. It appears Rothley makes these blood-cakes from all kinds of organic compounds. We found various test tubes and samples. And we know that parasites must be in the example of incense that you found, in Chancery Lane.’ Boyle put his police cap back on, getting ready to go. ‘Because, after you flaked out, we got the evidence straight to Pathology. So far they have isolated one organism which closely resembles
Toxoplasma gondii
, the feline parasite which attacks the brain and causes visions and delusions. So we’re pretty sure that your brief inhalation of the incense of tears was the culprit. That’s what pitched you into delirium for a few days.’

‘Kaz, if you’d actually
eaten
some,’ added Curtis, ‘you might have gone entirely nuts. Forever.’

‘Like the girl in Bodmin.’

‘Yeah.’ A brief silence ensued. Then Boyle showed her a photograph of a late-middle-aged man, suave and suntanned, and wearing the smile of discreet wealth. He looked like a Silicon Valley software mogul. Jeans in the office, but a yacht at Malibu.

‘Who is that?’

‘Samuel Rani Herzog.’

‘He’s Jewish.’

‘You guessed. We found lots more of these photos in Rothley’s grim little factory of magic. Rothley even wrote the name of the man, in what appears to be rat’s blood, on the wall. With lots of curses.’

‘So who is Herzog?’

‘Lives in Israel. And London. A billionaire, made his money out of weapons – Israel has a thriving defence industry. In the last decade Herzog has developed an interest in bio-weaponry. Five years ago he was recruiting parasitologists and neurobiologists. An odd mix. Since then his research has become more secretive, or at least low profile. This jars with his social image: he is a man with good friends in high places.’

Karen looked away. The snow had started again. Gentle, fairy-tale flakes. Settling on the near-dead branches of the winterbound trees. ‘Rothley was in Israel?’

‘Yes. That’s the connection. So now we’re looking for Herzog as well as Rothley. And of course the girl, Zara Parkinson.’ Boyle glanced at Curtis, and hurried on. ‘Herzog was last heard of in Israel, but he has many properties in England, and France and Egypt. A complex web. If he lands at any airport in the EU we’re going to trail him. We suspect he is doing experiments, using parasites. He must have recruited Rothley. But Rothley went rogue, and now Rothley hates Herzog. That is our best guess. What the hell are you doing?’

‘Getting out of bed, what does it look like?’

‘But, Karen, you’ve just—’

‘What? I’ve just woken up. Now I want some coffee. And then I want to get back to work. We have to save this girl, right?’

Ryan’s sickness and blindness worsened: by the evening he was slipping in and out of delirium. Sometimes he was lucid and calm, sometimes the parasite bit deep into his soul and the madness surged.

And the worst of it was that he enjoyed the madness. Because when he was mad he believed. As he stared through the porthole at the shining, hazy waters of the Nile he felt an influx of something, something greater than himself, a brilliance in the singing air, a surging oceanic beauty, supporting him. He felt the absolute conviction that God existed. It was all so true. It all made sense. Parasite or not, there was potent and emotional meaning to
everything.
It all mattered, it was all part of a plan, impossible to know yet irresistibly true. And death was a subtext. Just part of the whole, a mere petal of the rose.

Ryan nearly cried. Tears sprang to his eyes as he thought of his wife and their dead child and for the first time ever this did not make him sad.
Rhiannon
. He knew it was the parasite but it didn’t matter. Helen stared at him and he loved her too, but it didn’t matter.

‘Lie back, Ryan. Lie down. Please.’ She pressed a T-shirt, soaked in cold water, to his sweating forehead, as he collapsed onto the bed again.

The hours of darkness passed, in sweated madness, and then in calm. When the lucid hours arrived he thought the problem through. It was obvious that he and Albert had been infected by the same brain parasite that induced religious fervour: therefore he pillaged his memories of the last weeks to work out where. Luxor? Aswan? Philae? Bubastis?

Bubastis seemed the most likely. All those revolting cat mummies. But then he remembered Albert hadn’t been down into the tunnels.

Helen had drifted into asleep, next to him. A frown darkened her beautiful face, as she dreamed. Gently, he stroked the pale curve of her neck. He loved her. He knew that. And if he loved her he had to let her go: he’d already worked that out, as well. If she stayed with him she was doomed.

By dawn, or maybe sooner, before the next attack of madness, he had to decide how they’d separate. Probably his only option was to take himself to a hospital, which meant certain arrest by the Egyptians, and possible murder by the Israelis: it meant the End. And there was no guarantee Helen would survive even when they
did
split.

‘Mr Harper?’

An American voice? Outside the cabin?

Ryan stood, and grabbed a Swiss Army knife. Unjacking the little blade, he opened the door.

A white-toothed, rich-looking, middle-aged man stood there. He had a tiny diamond stud in his ear. Gazing down at the pitiful little pocket knife in Ryan’s hand, he said, ‘Not sure that’s going to liberate you from the
entire
Egyptian army.’

Behind him stood two other men, types Ryan now recognized: the surfer-dude soldier. Military boots, pricey tattoos, evident muscles, sunglasses at night. And beyond them all was the purser, wearing the nervous-yet-contented smile of a man who has been recently and lavishly bribed.

The rich guy spoke. ‘I am Samuel Herzog. And that is …’ He peered over Ryan’s shoulder. ‘That’s Helen Fassbinder, isn’t it? And one of you is infected? Or both?’

Ryan shook his head, but the lie was evidently feeble. He wasn’t even sure
why
he was lying.

‘Ah. It’s
you
isn’t it? You are infected?’ The man smiled quietly. ‘Then we better be quick. The cycling between mental states is increasingly rapid as the illness takes hold. You are clear-headed now?’

Ryan nodded. Mute but truthful.

‘Good. We need to be good and honest friends – we really need each other. I have a car on the dock, and a private plane at Luxor Airport; there are two nurses on the plane.’ His smile was dazzling: quite perfect. ‘Come to England with
me
and we can save your life. You can’t really go to Sohag Hospital, can you? They’d have no idea what to do. They’d probably feed you Tylenol and let you die like a toilet rat.’

Ryan looked from Herzog to Helen, sleeping on the cabin bed. He didn’t trust this man, but he was also dying; what could he do? Perhaps the man could save them both. ‘I need to know more.’

‘Let’s go on deck. My guys will watch over Helen.’

Ryan followed him to the deck of the boat. Where the eternal stars admired their faint reflection in the dark Nile waters. The river-haze was there, but it hadn’t worsened. His blindness had plateaued; the fever of faith had abated. But he knew it would return.

Herzog spoke first. ‘Here’s what
I
do. I make weapons, and I sell them. I have always been interested in new weapons, especially bio-weaponry: the future. I have excellent resources. And I have been following your
situation
for a while. Very closely. And that is why I sent my soldiers to protect you.’

‘Soldiers?’

Herzog nodded. ‘My soldiers of
fortune
. Ex-SAS, ex-Navy Seals. They take big risks, because they need the money. I choose guys with debts and problems, and I pay them Homeric bucks. I told them to watch your back because I wanted to see if you, Ryan Harper, probably the globe’s most gifted Egyptologist after Sassoon, despite your early retirement, could decode the Sokar documents. And prove my thesis.’

‘You knew Victor.’

‘He was my hero, for a long time. I loved him. Almost like a father. Yet he also annoyed me, he was so religious. Deluded. And he sold himself as this great Jewish figure – a survivor of the camps – yet he didn’t make Aliyah, did he? He didn’t go to Israel? No. But
I
did. I left America, New York, and went home, to help our Jewish homeland. Sassoon stayed in nice comfortable Hampstead in London. Where the Palestinians are less able to kill you with rockets. Sassoon and I remained in touch. I told him what my research was beginning to reveal: that monotheism was parasitogenic, and this was possibly the final secret concealed in the Sokar documents. He assured me I was a fool, and he went off to find the Hoard. And he found the
truth
. Poor Victor.’

‘But why are
you
here? Why do
you
need to decode the documents?’

‘I want to know if I am right about Sokar. But I also want the documents, or want
ed
them, for the purposes of science.’

Ryan looked at the sky. Was it blacker than before? It seemed so. His vision was deteriorating again. He trembled at the idea: even as part of him yearned to yield. And believe. He had to use his last moments of lucidity. ‘So why come to us? Hanna has the documents.’

Herzog shook his head. ‘Not any more.’

‘Sorry?’

‘We had people in Aswan who got to Hanna, in hospital, as fast as we could, before the Israelis got there. The Israeli zealots might not have known his identity but we
certainly
did. My men took the Macarius papyrus from Hanna before he died, in Aswan. Raving.
Meshugah
.’

Ryan was trying to see through the glass darkly. ‘The Israeli involvement … why? I don’t—’

‘A section of the Israeli military is highly orthodox, and fundamentalist – they pray at Masada to Yahweh the night before they graduate as officers. Prayer vigils for soldiers?
Imagine.
They have growing influence, however, and the most senior of them knew Victor Sassoon, the great scholar of Egyptology and Jewish theology. We
all
knew Victor Sassoon.’