The Babylon Rite

by Tom Knox

  The discussion was over, it seemed. DCI Lorna Pizzuto was already standing, putting documents in a briefcase, then offering a handshake.

  Nina accepted the gesture, in a way that said eloquently, I still don’t believe you.

  Their walk to the door of the police station was short and silent. Outside, Adam inhaled the Edinburgh air, on busy Craigleith Road. The cold winter breeze was malted, carrying the distinctive tang of the breweries nearby. Yellow Edinburgh buses queued at the junction. He thought, inadvertently, and piercingly, of Alicia, crushed by a bus: King’s Cross in Sydney. How easily it happened, how easily death just took you, flippantly, crazily; with no logic, no logic at all.

  It was an interlude of sadness and of awkwardness. Adam didn’t know what to say, or do. Believe the police, or believe Nina? Carry on, or go home? He didn’t want to think about Alicia, he didn’t want to brood.

  ‘You believe them, don’t you?’ Nina said at last.

  ‘I …’ He wondered whether to lie and decided against. ‘To be honest, I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on.’ She took his arm. ‘Let me show you something. It wouldn’t mean anything to the cops. But it might just mean something to you.’

  She was already hailing a cab. He followed, bemused.

  Ten minutes of light Edinburgh traffic found them in Grassmarket, climbing another set of tenement stairs to another flat: Nina’s own.

  The flat was pleasant but spare, chic but austere. The flat of someone who wanted to live quietly and unfussily, or of someone who expected to be moving again soon. He sat down at her request in a leather chair. What was she going to show him?

  She returned with two mugs of tea, in Rangers Football Club mugs.

  ‘Nice flat.’ He didn’t know what else to say.

  Nina looked around the living room, appraisingly, as if she were an estate agent estimating the value. ‘Yeah well.’ She shrugged again. ‘I can only afford it because I sold up in London. Sold my ill-gotten gains.’ She sipped her tea. ‘I used to work in the City. But the job was so intense I quit.’

  He gazed at her, wide-eyed; she laughed, ruefully. ‘Ach. You didn’t take me for a banker, did you?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You’re right. I wasn’t. Took me five years to realize it. I don’t know what the hell I am but I’m pretty sure I’m not one of nature’s bankers. But I made a bit of cash so I’m set. I guess. For a while.’

  It occurred to Adam that, stupidly, he hadn’t ever asked her what she did. Her job: the most basic and essential of questions. The darkening whirl of drama meant he had neglected the primaries of his craft. Get the facts, all the facts, especially the most basic: age, job, race, marital status and hair colour if you are writing for a tabloid. Pretty Nina McLintock, 27-year-old brunette, spoke of her father’s death …

  ‘What do you do then, now?’

  ‘Charity work. Atoning for my sins.’

  ‘What kind of charity work?’

  ‘Scottish Shelter. For homeless people. I help them raise and make money, because I know how to handle money.’

  ‘Full time?’

  ‘Three days a week. The pay is dreck but that doesn’t matter, right now. Anyway, I’ve taken some time off, since Dad.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Nina set the tea on the table. ‘Enough. Look at us! Reduced to bourgeois chit-chat.’ Her smile was terse. ‘Let me see if I can engage you. Re-engage you? Do you want to see what I’ve got?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She stood and crossed the room to a cupboard. Opening a large drawer, she pulled out a plastic shopping bag. Then she dropped the bag on the coffee table between them. It was apparently stuffed full of small slips of paper.

  Adam stared.

  ‘Remember last night?’

  ‘Not something I’m going to forget.’

  ‘Remember I ran into the kitchen—’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I went to get this.’ Nina gestured at the bag. ‘Receipts. Hundreds of receipts. Maybe thousands.’

  He didn’t understand, though he could see the dim outlines of where this was going. Then he realized. ‘Your dad’s receipts.’

  ‘Exactly! You were a freelancer once, right? You understand.’ She barely waited for his affirmative reply, then hurried on: ‘Dad was meticulous about this stuff, tax returns, claiming expenses. All that. As I was searching his desk, last night, I suddenly remembered that he kept all his receipts in a big bag in the kitchen, he’d chuck them in there automatically, whenever he got home.’

  Adam felt the pleasure of something unfolding, reverse origami. ‘I get it. All his receipts from last year, you can see exactly what he did, where he went?’

  ‘I’ve already looked at a few. And … in here—’ she tipped the bag over, and dozens of little slips and chits and invoices rustled onto the table, ‘—is an exact record of where he went on that trip around Britain, and Europe, and everywhere, last year.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He went to Tomar in Portugal. He went to Rosslyn again and again. He went to Temple Bruer. He went to the Dordogne.’

  ‘Rosslyn, Temple Bruer …’

  ‘Yup. He went to a whole bunch of sites connected with the Templars. A long, long trip. And then he went to South America. Because he really was on to something. He must have been. He did intense research! My dad was not a lunatic. He was a scholar, a serious man, and he did serious research last year. And it’s all here, all the clues we need. We just have to piece together the damn puzzles, follow this paper trail. And then we can find out what he discovered.’

  Adam gazed at the litter of paper and he recalled McLintock’s words. It’s all here, it’s all true, it’s more strange than you could ever realize.

  The Templars are connected to everything.

  17

  TUMP Lab, Zana, north Peru

  ‘So, darling, tell me your theory.’

  Dan Kossoy was sitting on his usual stool, in the centre of the main lab in Zana, virtually the only clean modern building in the town. His grey T-shirt expressed support for the Hamilton Mastiffs ice hockey team, his wise brown eyes expressed sincere interest in his anthropologist’s latest conception. But he’d used the word darling – and it was the first time he’d ever used it.

  The lab was quiet except for the low buzz coming from the big fridges, which stored the Moche bones, cradled in soft yellow polystyrene foam – like holy babies in swaddling.

  ‘Jess? Your theory. Tell me! You have my unusually undivided attention!’

  ‘Why? Because we are sleeping together?’

  He shook his head and looked genuinely hurt. Jessica immediately regretted her flippancy. Dan was a decent and kindly man; that was why she liked him. He didn’t deserve sarcasm, however frivolous.

  ‘Sorry, Dan. That was glib. I just …’ She took her seat, on a stool next to his; then she pushed the blonde hair back from her eyes and looked at him. ‘To be honest, the situation between us is kinda weird. I don’t normally do this sort of thing. Us, I mean. Sorry. I want to know that you are taking me seriously as an anthropologist, a scientist, not just because we are … going out. Does that make sense?’

  He gazed at her; his warm hand rested on hers, briefly, then withdrew. ‘I understand. There are ethical questions. To be entirely honest,’ he sighed, ‘I have never got involved with anyone like this, before. I haven’t even had a girlfriend since my divorce, Jess. I was a monk in the desert! Then you walked in to the laboratory …’ He smiled, earnest and affectionate. ‘But please, do trust me, I can detach our relationship from the science. I promise. Now tell me your theory.’

  Jess cleared her throat. ‘For what it’s worth, I now believe that, in opposition to our accepted understanding, virtually all the representation on Moche ceramics and in their murals are essentially depictions of real events. Not just the sacrifice ceremony. All of them.’

  Dan stared at her. ‘And what makes you think this?’

  ‘The bo
ne in the ankle at the Sorcerer.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You know it. El Brujo. The human bone, in the mural of the ankle?’

  Dan nodded.

  ‘Ah. Yes. And so?’

  ‘I think it’s a clue. The Moche are telling us something. Think about it! You put a real human ankle bone in a representation of an ankle. What does that say?’

  ‘They ran out of paint?’

  She didn’t smile. ‘It says this is all meant to be taken literally. When we show you something, we mean it.’

  Her lover looked distinctly unconvinced. ‘OK. The bone. What else?’

  ‘Flesh beetles. We see beetles and flies on pottery, dancing around skeletons and prisoners who are waiting to be killed. Now we have a staked-out prisoner, fed to beetles.’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose … it’s just possible. But even if it was the case we can’t know whether he was fed to them alive or dead.’

  Jess nodded, despite her frustration. She needed to stay lucid and plausible to persuade the world, beginning with the leader of TUMP. ‘But, Dan, he was definitely in agony, right? He died in some great pain, judging by the skull, right? Which is odd, and telling.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘OK, OK maybe it’s a question of interpretation. But look at it this way: even if we discount that example, there are so many others. Such as the other prisoner. Skeleton 1d. The one at the side of Tomb 1? Now think of the context – the avian crania nearby.’

  ‘Vulture skulls. Yeeeeees …’

  ‘They were positioned around the head of that victim, who was staked out. As if they had been there, pecking at him, as he died. The eyes. Just like this.’ She reached in her inside pocket, unfolded a printed photo of the pot from the Museo Casinelli, and held it out to him. Dan frowned and scrutinized the photo: of the bottle in the shape of a skeletal man, half-dead, half-flayed, and tied to a tree with his eye being pecked by a vulture.

  ‘You think he died like this?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But this man is tied to a tree, Jess, not staked to the ground, and he could just as easily be a dream figure, symbolical, some mythological—’

  Jess shifted on her stool, repressing her impatience. ‘But that’s just it. It’s our perceptions that are faulty, the evidence is actually pretty clear. Our fundamental approach is, I believe, just plain wrong, one hundred and eighty degrees wrong, Dan. Think about it. Whenever we find a new Moche symbol or picture and it shows something ghastly or deviant we conveniently presume, time after time, that it is part of their mysterious mythology, part of a folklore, nightmares of an underworld, who knows? But we can’t just keep this up. The paradigm is cracking: it can’t support the accumulating and contrary evidence. The evidence that they did most of this stuff!’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘How many times have we found human and animal remains that exactly match what the Moche show us on their pots? Think about it! How many pots show amputees? We now have endless skeletons with amputations. We also have hundreds of murals showing ritual dismemberment, arms and hands and feet – chopped away from the living, then scattered. And that’s what we are finding in the tombs, right? Dismembered bodies, people pulled apart as they struggled, literally chopped up alive.’ She was almost breathless now. ‘And what about the people thrown off the mountain, as a sacrifice?’

  ‘The sacrificed victims discovered at the bottom of the Huaca de La Luna? Yes, I suppose that’s true. There may be something here. But it’s very ambitious and somewhat unsupported, I think we still need Steve Venturi’s verdict before we can go anywhere. We – you – need empirical data: we need the truth about the amputations. If you get that, then we can talk some more.’ He gazed right back at her. ‘Of course, if your theory is in any way correct it means virtually all the erotic practices on the ceramicas, the ceramicas eroticas, must depict sexual acts the Moche actually performed. Rather incredible, no?’

  ‘Not incredible. That’s my perception. They did it.’

  ‘Sex with animals?’ Dan was half laughing, yet his expression was sickened. ‘Women masturbating dying men, men who had been half-flayed? Sex with skeletons, foreplay with mutilated corpses? Christ.’

  ‘Bestiality and necrophilia, in fervent variety. Yep. I reckon that’s what they did.’

  ‘It’s hard to take, Jess. Hard to believe any society could be that sick. Unless you get Venturi to back you up on the amputations I’m going to hang fire. And think some more.’ His gaze was troubled. ‘However, even if we eventually accept that the Moche did some of this stuff, we still need an explanation why.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well. I’m wondering if it occurred, perhaps it was a reaction, to terrible societal pressure, possibly an El Niño event?’ His eyes were alive now, as he calculated and theorized. ‘That makes sense, Jess. Doesn’t it? We know El Niño ruined cultures around here. A bad El Niño might have traumatized an ordinary civilization into performing … appalling acts. Yes.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, darling! Get me Venturi to confirm you on the amputation, then we can talk some more.’

  This time she ignored the darling. This time, in truth, she realized she quite liked it. Why not? They were going out, they were lovers. Maybe it was time to get over herself, and tell the world. This is me, and I’m with Dan. Jessica excused herself to go to the washroom. She felt a rising elation as she did. So long as Venturi came through she had a chance at proving her Big Theory. Once they understood the Moche rites, they would be close to understanding Moche beliefs.

  And yet there was still so much more to be unravelled and explained. Was it really El Niño that had caused all this? It seemed hard to credit; the sacrifices and tortures had been going on for centuries. They had not sprung into being after just one drought or flood, however apocalyptic. And then there were the ulluchus, the blood of the unknown god. Why was the god bleeding?

  Jess dried her hands, and walked quickly towards the door but the last washroom mirror caught her attention. She lingered, examining herself. Her pale European face. Her blonde hair. Her lips. Her face. What did that face say? Was she really OK?

  Jess gazed over her hands. The fine tremor had gone. Hadn’t it? That sudden thought about her father was paranoia, surely. He had died of cancer. That’s what she knew. That’s what she had been told.

  No. Yes. No.

  She chastened herself for her hypochondria. Pushing the door to the washroom, she walked back down the long corridor to the main lab. Concentrating on science, not silly fears.

  But a noise made her pause. Ten metres from the lab door.

  Shouting.

  What was this?

  Someone was shouting in the lab. And it wasn’t Dan. The voice was harsh, Spanish, probably Peruvian – and the voice was angry, and brutally aggressive.

  Where was Dan?

  Jessica inched to the laboratory door, its tinted glass panel. If she got close, she could probably see through, without being seen herself.

  There!

  Stunned by what she had seen, Jessica flattened herself against the wall, her mind roiled by panic.

  A strange dark tall man had Daniel Kossoy pinned by the window, next to the bone fridges. A gun was pressed so hard to Dan’s throat it had visibly whitened the skin of his neck.

  The man was going to shoot. The finger on the trigger was squeezed with slow, delicious subtlety. About to kill her boss. About to kill her lover.

  18

  Rosslyn Chapel, Midlothian

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Adam extended a hand to Nina, and as they crossed the snowy car park of Rosslyn Chapel.

  ‘It’s just a wee bit of snow! I grew up in the Borders, we’re used to snow.’

  He tried again. ‘No, I meant, you know, coming back here to Rosslyn …’

  ‘I’m OK! C’mon let’s just get going.’

  They reached her car, chucked their coats on the back seat, and climbed in. Nina turned the key and they took the main road out of tow
n, past the site of the crash. Adam stared out of the window.

  A casual passer-by would never have guessed that this chilly stretch of urban road was the scene of a recent suicide – or murder. Virtually all traces had been erased: just a few broken bricks in the snow-capped wall – where Archibald McLintock’s car had impacted – told the story.

  ‘So.’ Her voice was firm, probably masking the emotion. ‘What did that tell us?’

  Adam didn’t know what to say. What had this visit to Rosslyn told them?

  They knew, from her father’s receipts, which Nina had sorted into a time sequence, sealed in different noted envelopes, that her father had spent two days at Rosslyn. He had visited on two consecutive occasions before embarking on his long journey south to the Templar sites. But why?

  Nina was swerving the car – a diminutive Volkswagen – on to the A1. The high road for the south.

  ‘Ach,’ she spat. ‘Dammit.’

  More snow flurries had slowed the traffic to a maudlin crawl, behind gritting lorries which were spitting their loads into the fresh white snow, soiling it brown.

  ‘Take us six hours to get to Berwick, this rate.’ She gazed across the gear well at him. ‘Come on, Adam. Talk to me. Mr Australian Journalist. Rosslyn. Tell me we found something.’

  Reaching in the damp pocket of his wax jacket, he took out his notebook. ‘I did make some notes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Whatever he found in Rosslyn has to be mysterious. Your dad was an expert on the Templars and the Grail legends and medieval European history. In that light, what could Rosslyn have told him that he didn’t know already? It must be something no one has solved …’