We Are The Hanged Man

by Douglas Lindsay

  He heard a movement in the shop. He had not known that Newton would live above her shop, but it had been an educated stab in the dark.

  The door opened. She leant against the frame. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't surprised to see him either.

  'I suppose you knew I'd be back,' said Jericho.

  'Come in,' she said.

  She was wearing a black kimono, her legs bare, a large v of skin at the top of her chest. Jericho determinedly looked her in the eye.

  'Thanks.'

  He walked into the shop. She hadn't turned a light on in coming to answer the door, so he waited to follow her through as his eyes were not yet adjusted. Many a fool walks into a cabinet in the half-light. He kept his eyes on the floor as he waited for her to lock the door, then turned and followed her.

  'You don't mind coming upstairs?' she asked.

  'No,' said Jericho.

  Even though she wouldn't catch him looking, he made sure to look to the side as they walked, rather than at the movement of her buttocks against the thin material of the robe.

  He remembered the strange collection on the shelves, the curious heads and the dragons and bizarre potions that he assumed were all a joke. In the dim light he could make out eyes and small purple bottles and feathers and small boxes.

  She walked up the stairs ahead of him. He looked at her feet and wondered if she lived alone. Maybe there would be a commune. Or a man, wondering what the fuck Jericho was doing there at eight-thirty on a miserable January evening. He had spoken to her before during working hours, why couldn't he have done it again?

  He followed her into the small apartment. Expected there to be incense burning, a similar smell filling the air as there was in the shop. There was nothing other than the vague aroma of cooked bacon, but even that went as soon as he walked into the sitting room.

  There was music playing – Curtis Jones, Jericho recognised – a single lamp in the corner. A book was turned upside down on the arm of the chair. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. On the floor beside the chair there was a glass of white wine.

  'Can you I get you a drink?'

  Jericho realised he was staring at the book. He had heard of it, had never read it. Battling his preconceptions. What had he expected? That he would interrupt her bathing in blood, smearing herself with the severed head of a chicken and reading Denis Wheatley?

  'Yes,' he said distractedly. 'I'll… you have… what do you have?'

  He shook his head, perhaps in the hope that it might stop him talking like one of the less evolutionarily developed Muppets.

  'I have white wine,' she said, without hint of apology at having nothing else.

  'I'll have a white wine,' said Jericho.

  He thought of the glass of white wine he hadn't drunk at Sergeant Light's house. He thought of Sergeant Light.

  She left him standing in the room. He looked at the bookshelves while she was gone, his eyes trailing aimlessly around, taking nothing in, although he did notice that the shelves were not filled with the kind of thing that occupied the shop.

  A glass of wine was put into his hand; she raised her glass to him and he reciprocated. She stood less than a couple of feet from him, and finally the smile came to her face.

  'You took your time coming back, having not asked everything you needed to when you were here before.'

  Jericho didn't reply. Looked behind him and sat down in the chair opposite the one she'd been sitting in before he'd arrived. The room was warm, pleasantly fresh smell in the air, as if she had recently cleaned.

  'Pursuing other lines of enquiry,' he said.

  'And why have you decided to pursue this one now?'

  Jericho made a small movement of his head, as she lowered herself into the seat opposite. She straightened her shoulders and airily waved her hand.

  'I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to be asking you questions, am I? You want to know about the Tarot, the deeper meanings of the Hanged Man card, and if possible, why I think this person who's taunting you might have chosen to use the Tarot instead of some other means. Of which there would obviously be many.'

  Jericho caught her eye again and nodded. Didn't want to say anything.

  'I could sell you a book,' she said, and her smile widened.

  Jericho took the joke, covered his mouth with his wine glass.

  She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, the glass in her right hand. The kimono fell slightly from her chest, and for the first time Jericho had a view of her breasts. Small, slightly uneven, large, thick nipples. He put the wine glass to his face again, realised that he'd almost drunk half of it already. He didn't like white wine. He looked her in the eye.

  'As I said previously, no one knows the true origin of the Tarot, so ultimately can anyone know why someone chooses to use it now? Many believe that its use evolved in 14th century France, that's the first recorded mention of them. That, of course, like most things in history, is disputed. There are many claims of it coming out of Italy or ancient Egypt or from the Hebrew. Torah…'

  'What about the Hanged Man?'

  'It was one of the original cards, although the nature of the card itself has evolved.'

  'From what to what?'

  'The original cards don't appear so well-defined, although clearly they were always intended as a card of discovery and reawakening. It was later that the notion of Odin, hanging upside from the Tree of Life…. I said that before…'

  'And has it ever been used as a threatening card?'

  'It's not my area, but I don't think so. I'd say only in fiction and by people who don't understand the true purpose of the Tarot.'

  Jericho took his eyes from her and stared at the floor. The initial bout of questioning over, a second to re-evaluate.

  'You've received another card?' she asked. 'Or cards?'

  'Two more since Sergeant Haynes came,' he said. 'He has one of them, here's the other.'

  He took the cards from his pocket, picked out the most recent one and reached out to hand it to her. As she stretched to receive it he couldn't help but stare at her right breast. Knowing he was looking, she held the pose for a second or two, then leaned back as he managed to look her in the eye.

  'Found it on my pillow,' he said.

  'Your pillow? Ah. Not a good sign.'

  'No.'

  She made an impressed noise with her lips as she studied the card.

  'Ah,' she said again. 'That doesn't look good, does it?'

  'No.'

  She took a last look and quickly handed it back to him.

  'That's it?' asked Jericho. 'That's all you've got to say? Ah…?'

  'I don't think you need a Tarot expert,' she said, 'apart from the curious fact that they're choosing Tarot at all. Even that could be because they watched Live And Let Die on TV a couple of weeks ago.'

  Jericho snorted quite unattractively and took another drink to hide the peculiar noise which he'd just allowed himself to emit. Almost finished his first glass.

  'What they're doing with the Tarot, the way in which they're manipulating it and using it…' She shook her head. 'They're just doing their own thing, they're not drawing on the history of the Tarot for that. They could be going anywhere with this, although it seems pretty clear where that is. I presume you're watching your back.'

  'And the house in the background?'

  'Can't say anything more about it than I did previously.'

  Jericho drained the glass, laid it down on the carpet, sat back and rubbed his fingers hard into his eyes.

  'All right, the Tarot then. If we assume that the people who are doing this didn't just watch Live And Let Die last week, are there specific types of people that might use the Tarot for this kind of purpose?'

  He opened his eyes and she wasn't there. Looked down at his empty glass, and it was gone, and then he was aware of her footsteps padding back through to the sitting room, and she was putting a full glass into his hands.

  'You look like you need it,' she said.

 
; He took the glass and nodded. Didn't immediately feel like having any more so put the glass back down on the carpet. She sat down opposite him again, and once again leaned forward, her elbow resting on her knees, the kimono falling away at her chest and over her thigh.

  'Did you…?' he began, aware that he was being extremely turned on sitting so close to her, a warm room, alcohol in the air.

  'Yes, I heard,' she said. 'First of all, it's a pretty big assumption to make. I mean, that the person doing this isn't just jerking off. All sorts of people do all sorts of stuff with the Tarot, but for everyone with a Tarot deck in their hands, there's probably less than zero point zero zero one per cent of them not just screwing around. Might be even less than that.'

  Jericho lifted the drink, even though he really didn't want any more; the usual defence mechanism.

  'Let's assume,' he said from his position of safety behind the glass, 'that we're dealing with someone from that very small percentage, if for no other reason than there's no point in talking about any of the others.'

  'And given the quality of the symbolism used,' she said, 'and the obvious thought and preparation that's gone into this, it's not entirely unlikely.'

  'Good. So who uses Tarot these days?'

  She shifted position slightly. Every time she did so the robe shifted position too, and every time a little more of her skin was revealed. It looked beautiful, unblemished. Jericho continued to try not to stare.

  'There are individuals, sitting happily at home, doing their own thing…'

  'And knowing what's coming?'

  She laughed.

  'Then, I suppose, there are individuals doing much the same thing but offering their services. The ones you'll have heard about, the ones you get in places like Glastonbury. The ones who are as likely to be full of crap, but who every now and again know what they're doing.'

  'And what are the quality of the people you get around here?'

  'I'm pretty good,' she said.

  She smiled. Jericho didn't often smile, but he found himself sort of grimacing back at her.

  'Anyone else?' he asked to cover his discomfort.

  'There might be organisations,' she said.

  He asked the question with his eyebrows, but got no immediate response.

  'Organisations?' he asked.

  'There are organisations that do everything, Chief Inspector,' she said. 'There are so many of them.'

  'And in relation to the Tarot?'

  'There are organisations with deep roots in European history. Whose roots might well go back as far as the Tarot itself. One never knows with whom one is dealing.'

  He smiled eventually, again reaching for the wine.

  'Fuck,' he said. 'Shadowy organisations… You mean MI6 or some bunch of French wankers that have been protecting the Holy Grail since the 12th century?'

  She smiled in return.

  'You don't think that the world is controlled in the shadows, by unelected men sitting on unelected committees?'

  'And you think such a group of men are sending me toy cards?'

  'They're not toys, Chief Inspector. And I said no such thing. You merely asked me who it was who used the Tarot.'

  She settled back, the robe slipped again and the whole of her right thigh was exposed.

  'Can you name me some of the organisations who might use the Tarot?' he said. He looked at the carpet as he said it.

  'The Lord Chancellor's Office. The European Union. The Masons. The board of the Bank of England.'

  'You're making that shit up,' he said.

  She smiled and held her hands out to her side.

  'I'm just answering your questions, Chief Inspector, to the best of my knowledge. If you found out that some respected financial institution based some of its decisions on the outcome of how certain cards were placed on a table, would you think it the most bizarre thing you'd ever heard, or would you think, well, I've heard of weirder shit than that in my life?'

  Jericho took a drink. He was staring at her feet. Her skin seemed to be perfect all over. Maybe she bathed in some sort of animal blood.

  'That's a fair point…' he began.

  He didn't finish what he'd been going to say. He held the wine glass to his lips, keeping his eyes on her feet, as she stood and let the robe fall off her shoulders to the floor.

  'You can ask me some more questions now,' she said, 'or else you can take me to bed, then ask your questions in the morning over breakfast.'

  His eyes drifted up her body. Beautiful and slim, perfect skin, perfect breasts.

  He fell forward onto his knees, clasped her buttocks with his hands and thrust his face into her pussy, breathing her in, sucking her pubes and lips deep into his mouth. She gasped and thrust herself against him.

  31

  His name was Lewis, although Durrant hadn't taken the time to learn that yet. Nor would he. The guy on the table would just be the black kid who was the subject of his latest experiments.

  His previous incursions into the world of pain had been thirty years earlier, and he'd had his paperwork confiscated, but he could remember every word that he'd written, every figure that he'd taken down, every tweak and poke and pull and scratch that had caused pain, every eyelid removed, every testicle crushed, every piece of skin stripped away, every bone broken, every fingernail prised off with a knife.

  Concentrating on his work, and not on the body in the bag in the corner, he was curious to see how his latest subject would react to some of the same levels of pain that had been directed at his previous victims.

  That seemed an interesting and exciting area of study, although he would have to be careful not to bring his preconceptions to the table. Were today's generation softer, much less resistant to discomfort and pain, than previous generations?

  The answer seemed obvious to him. Of course they were. Nevertheless, he had to test it with an open mind. The one main important variable would inevitably impact on the study; that everyone is different, that all individuals could countenance different levels of pain.

  Nevertheless, introduce a large enough field of study, as he had done all those years previously, and you could overcome the variations inherent in the individual.

  Lewis had proven to be disappointingly abject. A poor case. If Durrant had actually been torturing him to get information, rather than for scientific purposes, he would have extracted what he needed within the first five minutes.

  There had been a lot of tears and whimpering. He had fainted four times in less than two hours. Durrant had found it tiresome constantly having to revive him. At various points he had thought of putting him out of his misery, but previously it had been part of the experimentation to see how a subject reacted to extended punishment and so it would be again.

  Lewis slept uneasily, on and off through the night, and in his waking moments he felt nothing but pain and panic. He knew that there was something hanging behind him, but could not quite turn his head to look. He felt them though, as much as he felt Durrant's presence when he walked into the room. He felt their dead eyes looking at them, and he waited for their touch in the night.

  *

  Jericho was woken by a soft voice at some time after three in the morning. He woke up slowly, unaware of his surroundings. He felt a hand resting upon him and looked to his left. There wasn't much light, but he could make out the face of Newton.

  The evening came back to him. Unusually for him he must have been asleep not much later than eleven. Newton was fast asleep, and in an instant Jericho was wide awake.

  He stared at the ceiling. He heard the voice again. Singing softly. What was it singing?

  Two Sleepy People. The song was Two Sleepy People. A woman's voice. Sounded like Amanda. Amanda didn't come to him in his dreams when he slept with other women. But Amanda did used to sing sometimes.

  He stepped out of bed and through into the sitting room. The small table lamp was still on, the wine glasses were where they'd left them.

  Amanda was sitting in the
same chair that Newton had sat in earlier. She was wearing Newton's kimono.

  She stopped singing. She did not smile, but her look was not judgemental.

  'I'm sorry,' said Jericho. 'I didn't expect to see you.'

  'That's all right,' she said.

  'If I'd known you were here.'

  Now she smiled, although her lips looked sad.

  'I'm not,' she said.

  Jericho nodded.

  'It's coming,' she said.

  Jericho wondered what she meant, but he didn't ask. Perhaps he already knew but didn't want to think about it. He didn't have to ask her. He just had to concentrate.

  'How long can you stay?' he asked.

  She was gone.

  He stood in silence in the living room for a while and then turned back to the bedroom. He thought it would take him a long time to get back to sleep, but when he laid his head on the pillow he drifted off within seconds.

  *

  'You are a piece of fucking work.'

  Claudia was waiting in Jericho's office, which was of no great surprise to him. If she had taken herself back to London, he would have been surprised. Sitting once again behind his desk was pretty much where he had expected to find her.

  'We were here and set up before eight.'

  Jericho stood looking at her, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a croissant in the other. As it happened, he hadn't had time to question his witness over breakfast; although he had had time to go home to shower and change.

  It was well after nine o'clock.

  'Get away from my desk,' he said bluntly. 'I'm going to sit and have a cup of coffee and something to eat,' and held them both up for her to see, 'and then I'll put a call down to you when I'm ready.'

  She held his gaze for a moment, a look that was impossibly smug flirted with her mouth, and then she rose and walked past him. As she walked out the door she left it open and almost immediately a constable tentatively stuck his head into Jericho's office.

  'Superintendent Dylan wishes to see you, Sir,' he said to Jericho's back. Jericho didn't turn. 'As soon as you got in,' he added.