The Devil's Moon (29 page)

‘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 . . .'

‘Sorry. 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.'

‘Where does this take us in the investigation of a murder, a theft and a church desecration?'

Heap coughed. ‘Presumably Gluck knew something of the potency of datura when she named her painting. But the thing is, ma'am, these datura look like lilies to anyone who isn't a gardener and even to people who are. I wondered if someone mixing up datura tubers and lily bulbs is what poisoned you and Kate. And that takes us right back to Saddlescombe.'

‘Good thought. But tell me you've figured out if Lesley Henderson is a man or a woman and I'll be truly impressed.'

‘I would like you to be so, ma'am. I'm working on it.'

F
or the remainder of the date Travis's off-key exuberance irritated the hell out of Watts. As he drove back to her home he was trying to think of an excuse not to go in. Nothing had come to him by the time he pulled up behind a deux chevaux parked in front of the house.

But Travis surprised him. Leaning close, her perfume wafting over him, she said: ‘I'm not going to invite you in, Mr Watts. You've quite tired me out.'

Watts probably should have made a token effort to persuade her. Relieved, however, he simply said: ‘Of course. I'm pretty tired too.'

She gave him a quick look then kissed him on the cheek.

‘It's been such a day,' she said.

Watts didn't say or do anything when she got out of the car. He watched her sashay to her front door. She gave him a wave and blew a kiss before she went inside. He put his car in gear, pulled round the other car and drove away.

Gilchrist found Kate sprawled on her sofa bed, her handbag on the floor beside her, things spilling out of it. Gilchrist thought she might be drunk but couldn't smell alcohol.

‘Kate?' she said, shaking her gently.

Kate didn't respond at first then opened one bleary eye. ‘What's happening?'

Her voice was croaky.

‘You tell me,' Gilchrist said.

‘It was like the other evening but I haven't eaten anything today.'

Gilchrist glanced down at the contents of her bag. She picked up the scrunched-up programme. ‘What have you been doing?'

‘I went to church.'

Gilchrist opened out the programme and saw it was actually a service sheet. As she read the first page she was aware her fingers were beginning to tingle. She glanced down at Kate's half-open hand beside her head. She reached down and opened it. The palm was scarlet.

Gilchrist dropped the service sheet and rushed to the kitchen sink. She grabbed TCP from the cupboard and poured it over her hands then scrubbed at them. When she had dried them on kitchen towel she called Heap.

‘Emergency, Bellamy, so no pissing about. Ingesting datura – did you say you can ingest it by touch?'

‘Transcutaneously?'

‘By touch, Bellamy.'

‘Sure, ma'am. It gets into your system through the pores. In South America and some Asian countries they saturate business cards or publicity flyers with burundanga – that's what they call scopolamine. They hand the impregnated paper out to tourists then follow them until the drug takes effect. Then they attack them. There is talk they do the same in the US.'

Gilchrist glanced back at the service sheet and down at her friend. ‘What happens if you overdose on it?' she said, glancing at Kate, who was still pretty much comatose on the sofa.

‘Drowsiness, dizziness, agitation, fever, excitability.'

‘That's it?'

‘Seizures, convulsions, hallucinations, coma and death.'

‘Better get an ambulance round here, Bellamy. I think Kate's OK but best to be sure. And get someone over to the Church of Holy Blood with a search warrant. I want to talk to the vicar and the staff about impregnating their service sheets with scopolamine.'

‘I'm on it, ma'am. One more thing about scopolamine. In Colombia it's known as the Devil's Breath.'

She frowned.‘Because it smells bad?'

‘No, ma'am. Because it steals your soul.'

Watts was in his poky Brighton house, sprawled on the sofa, shoeless, drinking a black coffee when his mobile rang. It was a landline number he didn't recognize, except that it was a Brighton code.

It was Nicola Travis.

‘It seems like only a moment,' he said.

‘Bob, I'm so sorry I sent you away. Too much excitement in one day for a Sussex girl. Quite exhausting, actually. Please forgive me.'

‘Nothing to forgive,' he said. ‘Probably as well I didn't come in.'

She laughed throatily. ‘Well, I'm not so sure about
that
.'

He gave a quick laugh.

‘I left my purse in your car, I think,' she said abruptly. ‘I hope. It has my phone in it.'

‘I can go and look. Do you want me to bring it over tomorrow?'

She was silent for a moment, then: ‘How gallant. I wonder if you would first mind checking that my purse is actually in your car? If it isn't I need to phone Glyndebourne. But no peeking now.'

Watts was already on his feet. ‘I'll call you back in ten minutes.'

He found his shoes and went out into the night.

Her purse was in the pocket of the passenger-side door. He saw her cold box too, sitting in the back seat.

He phoned her from the passenger seat. ‘Got it.'

‘Thank goodness.' She sounded more than relieved. ‘And my phone is in there?'

‘I don't like to pry,' he said.

‘Don't be silly. I'm not asking you to scroll through my texts. Just see if it's in there.'

‘OK. Hang on.'

There was actually little in the bag. Watts groped around in the bottom and touched something hard and oblong. He pulled out the latest iPhone. He was using the same one himself. The screen was dark but he touched something by mistake and it lit up. There was an image of a flower as the screen saver. He dropped it in his jacket pocket.

‘It's here,' he said. ‘Shall I bring it over tomorrow? The ice box is here too.'

‘How sleepy are you?' she said.

‘You'd like me to bring it over now?'

‘I know it's a horrible imposition but a girl without her mobile . . . Would you?' Her voice was throaty again. ‘It doesn't have to be a return trip.'

Don-Don was sitting in the interview room with a bald-headed man who had nicks all over his head. The man was sitting back, legs apart, a kind of sneer on his face. Gilchrist thought he had his hands together in his lap in prayer until she saw the plastic restrainer on his wrists. She could tell the sneer wasn't going down well with Donaldson, who was leaning across the table, clenching and unclenching his fists. He jerked to his feet when Gilchrist entered the room.