The Devil's Moon (30 page)

‘Ma'am, this is Nick Cropper, the vicar of the Church of the Holy Blood. He was just pointing out that tropane alkaloids come under no illegal drug classification. I was pointing out that forcing them on unsuspecting members of his congregation probably was illegal. He was disputing that point.'

‘Why is he wearing restraints?' Gilchrist said. ‘Have we arrested him?'

‘He has been charged with assaulting a police officer, ma'am, yes.'

‘You?'

Donaldson grinned. ‘Not likely, ma'am. The officer sent to collect him. He apparently doesn't like being disturbed when he's with one of his parishioners.'

Cropper grimaced. ‘Bursting in on a man doing God's Holy Work.'

‘That's a bit of a highfalutin way to describe sex with someone young enough to be your son,' Donaldson said.

‘A friend of mine might have died because of you, Mr Cropper,' Gilchrist said, taking the chair beside Donaldson. ‘She's spending the night under observation in hospital.'

‘Reverend Cropper. My church just gives people a bit of a high. Some people can't handle it.'

‘Reverend – buy that title on the Internet, did you? Do
any
of your congregation know what you're doing to them?'

‘Enhancing their lives? I would think so.'

‘Where did you get the scopolamine you impregnated the order of service with?' Gilchrist said.

‘None of your business,' Cropper said. ‘It's not an illegal substance. I have a patch on my arm impregnated with it at this very moment.'

‘You suffer from travel sickness?' Donaldson said with a frown.

Gilchrist glanced at him.

Cropper bared big white teeth. ‘Hardly.'

‘If it's legal there's no harm in telling us who supplied it, is there?' Donaldson said.

‘Saddlescombe, by any chance?' Gilchrist said.

Cropper just looked at her.

‘There's a lot of religion going around,' Gilchrist said. ‘What do you know about recent events in Brighton?'

Cropper leaned forward, his face suddenly intense. He raised his hands and pointed as best he could with the first finger of each. ‘Here, in your sleepy town, Lucifer has risen.'

‘Early riser, is he?' Donaldson said. ‘Because he'll need to be to get a hold here.'

Gilchrist glanced at Donaldson. He really wanted to punch the vicar.

‘Tell me about the murder of a vicar committed not by the Devil but by some real-life individual.'

Cropper shrugged. ‘Can't help you there,' he said, and leaned back again.

‘He was murdered in a barbaric way,' Gilchrist said. ‘He lived in fear of his life.'

‘He was afraid of the Devil?' Cropper said. ‘A wise man.'

‘He was afraid of the Devil because some human had put the idea in his head,' Donaldson said.

Cropper looked intently at Donaldson. ‘I know many vicars. All are wary of the Devil if they are true to their faiths. But which one has been murdered? Vicar Dave?'

‘Who?' Gilchrist said.

‘He casts out demons and writes Christian songs – very, very bad Christian songs.'

‘That's enough to be killed, in my book,' Donaldson muttered.

‘Not him,' Gilchrist said. ‘A real vicar: Andrew Callaghan.'

Cropper nodded and jerked both hands up to put his finger on a bloody scab above his ear. ‘A real vicar indeed.'

Donaldson produced the only photograph they'd been able to find of Callaghan. It was some ten years old.

‘You know him?' he said.

‘Don't be so eager,' Cropper said. ‘Do you think I'd admit to knowing him if I'd done something to him?'

‘It's been known,' Donaldson said.

‘Nothing is known,' Cropper said. ‘A lot is presumed.'

‘OK,' Gilchrist said. ‘Did you know him?'

Cropper levelled a look at her. ‘I did.' He turned his mouth down. ‘Liberal sort. Which doesn't mean I would kill him. Why would I? I didn't even know he'd been killed.'

He looked back at the wall.

‘Why would you think vicars would be killing each other?'

‘To avoid a plague of them?' Gilchrist said.

She looked away as Cropper picked at the scab on his pate with a horny fingernail, his other hand hanging from the restraints in front of his face.

‘That's very funny,' Cropper said.

‘How did you know Andrew Callaghan?' Gilchrist said.

‘He came to ask my advice about someone who'd come to him for help.'

‘Who?' Gilchrist asked.

‘Well, he didn't name names. Someone who caused him concern because of his sexuality.'

‘What was it about this person's sexuality?' Gilchrist said.

‘What does it matter?' Cropper said.

‘Let us decide what matters,' Donaldson said. ‘What specific advice was he looking for?'

‘I've known Andy many a year. A little straight for my tastes but he has his depths. Had his depths.'

‘How did you meet?' Gilchrist said.

‘A conference of vicars. He was a good listener. I'm a great talker.'

‘You're mesmerizing, I believe,' Gilchrist said. ‘With a little help from hallucinogenic substances.'

‘An enhancement of my effect and not the cause of it, I assure you.'

‘OK – why did he think you could help him with this person?'

Cropper gestured at his scarred and sutured head. ‘He thought I might have experience of such a person since I go to the dark places of my religion.'

‘What was dark about this person's sexuality?' Donaldson said. ‘I thought the church had pretty much every kind of sexuality covered these days.'

Cropper bared white teeth in a grin but said nothing.

‘And had you experience of such a person?' Gilchrist said.

‘In fact not.'

‘What was your advice?' Donaldson said.

‘In Brighton? Are you kidding? My advice was: embrace the difference.'

‘Are you going to stop dancing around the maypole and tell us what this person's problem is?' Donaldson said.

Cropper looked at his cuffed hands; held them up for a moment as if in prayer. ‘A confusion about sexual identity.'

‘Swings both ways?' Donaldson said.

Cropper shook his head.

‘This person
is
both ways.' He guffawed abruptly. ‘Lucky person has a penis and a vagina. Both fully functioning.'

‘Lucky?' Donaldson said, grimacing. ‘Poor sod might have the worst of both worlds: might be frigid
and
impotent.'

Gilchrist was thinking about the photographs she had seen in the Jurassic Museum.

‘This person wasn't called Lesley Henderson, by any chance?'

Cropper shrugged.

‘All I know is it was a hermaphrodite,' he said.

‘Intersex,' Gilchrist said.

Donaldson turned to her. ‘Sorry?'

Before Gilchrist could explain there was a tap on the door and Heap came in.

‘I'm hoping you're not here to spoil the broth, Chef Heap,' Donaldson said, leaning in to the recording machine to add: ‘Detective Constable Heap has just entered the interview room.'

‘I am a lousy cook, Detective Sergeant, so I probably would if we were cooking. However, I'm here with information.'

‘Before you give it,' Gilchrist said, ‘just explain to the DS and Vicar Nick Cropper here about intersex people.'

‘Ma'am,' Heap said. ‘The term “hermaphrodite” is considered misleading and insensitive. Now such people are DSD and we refer to their status as intersex.'

Donaldson laughed. ‘What the fuck's DSD?' He glanced at Cropper. ‘Excuse my language, Vicar.'

‘Disorders of sex development,' Heap said. ‘It acknowledges a discrepancy between the external and the internal genitals – testes and ovaries. Medical science has no idea what the underlying cause might be.'

‘Both lots of kit apparently work in this case,' Gilchrist said. ‘So “discrepancy” doesn't quite cover it.'

‘I was quoting the technical description, ma'am,' Heap said. ‘But what you describe – true gonadal intersex – is extremely rare.'

‘This is all getting on
my
gonads,' Donaldson said. ‘DSD. Intersex. Jesus.'

‘Like you, Detective Sergeant, I do prefer the old name,' Heap said. ‘Hermes and Aphrodite conjoined.' He looked at Cropper. ‘Does the person under discussion have breasts in addition to a penis and a vagina?'

Cropper nodded. ‘I believe so.'

‘How old is he/she?' Heap said.

‘Mid-thirties, I believe,' Cropper said.

Heap turned to Gilchrist. ‘It's unheard of for someone of that age not to have been assigned a gender. In the days when this person was born, gender was assigned within days, sometimes hours. Usually the gender assignment was based on a quick look at the external genitals – which sex looked more developed – totally ignoring the chromosome gender.'

‘You mean how big the willy was?' Donaldson said.

Heap ignored him. ‘It was easier to reconstruct female genitalia rather than functioning male genitalia so the child was often assigned to be a girl. That could cause problems later for the individual if, as frequently happened, the chromosome gender was male. Female body, male brain. But not doing any surgery, not assigning a gender at all – unheard of.'

Gilchrist was, as usual, impressed with Heap's knowledge.

‘No sleep again, Constable Heap?' she said.

‘Do you need me any more?' Cropper drawled. ‘You three seem to have it sorted.'

They all ignored him.

‘Ma'am,' Heap said. ‘These days chromosomes, neurons, hormones, psychological and behavioural factors are all taken into account. Surgery is delayed for as long as possible – but not as long as twenty or thirty years.'

‘Snails and slugs are functioning hermaphrodites,' Cropper said abruptly. ‘In the absence of a male, slugs self-fertilize.' He smirked at Gilchrist. ‘One slug – the banana slug – has such a big cock in relation to its overall size it sometimes gets stuck inside another slug. If that happens, they bite off the cock and the eunuch only mates as a female thereafter.'

Cropper winked at Donaldson. ‘Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?'

I
t had been a long day for Watts but it was still relatively early in the evening when he headed for Lewes. The rain had let up for some time now but he almost missed the comforting swish of the windscreen wipers.

The lights were against him at Five Dials. He was sitting twiddling with the car radio when his daughter walked in front of his car, draped over a man. She was taller than the man so leaned down against him, her long hair spilling on to his shoulder.

For that reason it took him a moment to realize the man was Vicar Dave.

Anger had been an abiding problem for Watts – well, one of them – but he felt helpless as it surged over him looking at this horrible man with Watts' lovely daughter.

He hurled himself out of his car, bellowing: ‘What the hell do you think you're doing?'

His daughter whirled as if attacked, stumbling against the kerb. Vicar Dave steadied her and brought her on to the pavement. He kept his arm protectively around her as he gave Watts a cold look.

‘I assume you're addressing me rather than your daughter in such an aggressive way,' he said quietly, his voice almost lost in the blare of a car horn as the lights changed and Watts' car blocked the way. ‘But whatever I'm doing has nothing at all to do with you.'

Watts looked at his daughter. ‘What are you doing with this charlatan?' he said, aware even as he said it that this was absolutely the wrong way to go.

His daughter, flushed with embarrassment, looked beyond Watts at the impatient driver honking his horn. ‘It's none of your business,' she said.

He took a step forward. His daughter stepped in front of Vicar Dave.

‘You're making yourself ridiculous, Father.' There was scorn in her voice. ‘It's a bit late to show parental concern for me.'

‘You told me you were married to Christ,' he said.

‘Which is why you are being ridiculous,' she said. She glanced at Vicar Dave. ‘Dave respects the sanctity of that marriage.'

Watts looked at the vicar, who held his gaze. ‘Yeah, right.'

There was a renewed blast of a horn and an inchoate shout as the car behind Watts' veered round it to get through the lights. Other cars followed. More hoots and jeering calls.

Watts pointed at Vicar Dave. ‘Your card is marked, Mister.'

Vicar Dave shrugged.

‘Let's go,' Watts' daughter said. She took a couple of steps away from Watts and Vicar Dave. She looked at her father with something like disgust, something like pity. ‘Goodbye, Father.'

Fuck it. Watts had wanted to hit the vicar the first time he saw him. He'd fucked this up with his daughter. He might at least get something out of it. He took a swing at Vicar Dave's enticing face.

Watts would have laughed if it hadn't been so damned pathetic. Vicar Dave was handy, handy enough to dodge Watts' fist and use the momentum to up-end the former chief constable.

Watts heard everything from his pockets clatter to the floor a second before he did. At least, he thought afterwards, he remembered how to hit the ground without breaking anything.

His daughter looked at him, unconsciously tossing her hair. Vicar Dave walked off with a shake of his head. His daughter came over and helped him to his feet. She picked up some things and handed them to him.

More drivers blared their horns at him as they navigated round his car. She shook her head and said in a tiny voice, ‘Goodbye, Dad.'

He nodded at her then turned and went back to his car. The light was on green. She was still standing on the pavement as he drove off. She called something and gestured but, feeling foolish and angry and pitiful, he drove on.