‘You stumbled on a trail first trodden by Archibald McLintock. He must have discovered something that the gangsters really want. Someone suspects you and Hannah and… sorry, you and Nina. They suspect that you know something. But you don’t. But they don’t know that. It is confusing, taken at face value.’
‘Confusing, and terrifying.’ Adam closed his eyes. ‘It was truly terrifying. I pissed myself. I did. I was sitting by that radiator chained to that radiator and I actually wet myself. Isn’t that pathetic?’ He opened his blue eyes and stared, intently, at the wall. ‘He was going to rape and kill Nina, after he raped and killed Hannah. And then he was going to kill me. And there was nothing I could do about it and so I wet myself like a baby. Jesus.’
Ibsen shook his head, feeling real pity. ‘It’s a reflex. Don’t be ashamed. They say the landing craft at D-Day were like open sewers because of men voiding themselves with fear. It’s only human. You tried to tackle him straightaway, which was brave. Remember that.’
Ibsen glanced at the window. The December afternoon was falling into darkness outside. Larkham was waiting for him around the corner, parked inconspicuously. They had some more leads to attend to. He had been here two hours and he needed to shift things along. ‘I have to broach a painful topic, Adam. I’m going to tell you something crucial and difficult because…’ He glanced at the door, behind which Nina McLintock was sleeping. ‘Because you are probably closest to Miss McLintock right now.’
Adam looked at the policeman, thoughtfully, as if he was digesting this: he was the person closest to Nina McLintock. ‘Tell me.’
‘Hannah McLintock wasn’t raped.’
Adam stared at him. He shook his head. ‘No way. I can’t believe that… I saw… I heard-’
‘I’m afraid it’s true. We have had the report from Pathology.’
‘But I watched, Mark. I saw! He dragged her in there at gunpoint. It’s crazy.’
‘I know, I know.’ Ibsen raised two pacifying hands. ‘I know. It seems impossible, but the evidence is clear. When a woman is raped, especially if it is a very violent rape, there is nearly always bruising around the perineum, and there are usually other marks of similar trauma in the area. We have found none on Miss McLintock’s body. None. It seems she was aroused. And maybe quite receptive. I am sorry.’
‘But…’
‘We also have evidence that she possibly orgasmed. Forensics have analysed the bedsheets.’
Adam Blackwood said nothing; then he said, in a slow, bewildered voice, ‘This is horrible. Just… totally… horrible. And yet… some of the noises. It did sound, a little like…’
‘A bit like sexual climax?’
‘I don’t know. Christ. Yes. No. Maybe…’
‘I understand your perplexity. But the facts, horrific as they are, are the facts. We also believe — again you must prepare yourself — that she had anal sex. And, even more astonishing, she slashed her own throat. Ritter didn’t do it. She reached around with a cutthroat razor, that he gave her, and she slashed her own throat. The fingerprints and the bloodspatter and the angles of incision all point this way.’
Adam Blackwood looked down at the ground as if he was going to vomit. ‘But she was plainly terrified. I saw her face, when he dragged her in there. It doesn’t remotely add up.’
Ibsen sat forward. ‘I have a theory. It’s only, ah, the faintest theory at the moment.’
‘Tell me. Tell me something. Anything.’
‘We are thinking along these lines: that there is some kind of hypnosis in play, maybe involving a cult. And we think this hypnosis or autosuggestion stimulates the libido.’
‘A cult? Hannah McLintock?’
Ibsen ignored this. ‘It is likely that the hypnosis or trance state leads to autoerotic, or perhaps hypersexual, arousal. But this also leads to a desire for self-mutilation, and the consequent sadomasochistic rush that comes with the pain.’
‘You’re talking about those horrible suicides?’
‘Yes, the horrible brutality of the suicides. Self-mutilation that generates a rush. A suicide that gives an orgasmic rush, perhaps the ultimate buzz.’
‘So this guy Ritter hypnotized her! And she cut herself.’
Ibsen paused, and shook his head. ‘It’s not as simple as that. Experts say you can’t just hypnotize people into killing themselves in a few minutes. That’s just nonsense, stage hypnosis, rubbish.’
‘So…’
‘What you can do is inculcate a kind of hypnosis over weeks and months, sessions of it, perhaps in a sacred or ritualized setting, so that this hypnosuggestion can be turned on by a trigger word, some time later, even years later. That is possible. It seems.’
Adam downed the last of his whisky. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Nor did I. At first. But all other explanations are coming up short, and in the right setting, of slowly and steadily ritualized hysteria or hypnosis, we think you can induce people to kill themselves. Like Jonestown. Guyana.’
Adam Blackwood shook his head. ‘But that means Hannah McLintock must have had… must have been…’
‘Connected with the other suicides. Yes. Perhaps in some sex club with strange rituals, and initiation ceremonies. Hannah and her fiance, they are — they were — a rich young London couple. Correct? Not entirely unlike our other victims. So we need to know more about her. Which is why I want you to ask her sister…’
‘No!’
‘Adam. We will question her ourselves. But you are close to her.’
A very long silence ensued. The muffled sound of traffic was restive, stirred in its dreams. Ibsen filled the silence. ‘I also think that this cult stuff, this sexual hypnosuggestion, might be linked to Archibald McLintock’s researches — his discoveries.’
‘Why?’
‘He committed suicide himself. In a fairly unusual way. Serenely. As if he was mesmerized. I have spoken to the Scottish police, read your own interview notes, Adam — you said he had a certain air of serenity that morning in Rosslyn.’
‘Archibald McLintock? A sex cult? Absurd. It’s surreal. He was seventy years old!’
Ibsen began to speak, but suddenly Adam interrupted.
‘Except… there was… something…’
‘What?’
‘The pots. The strange ceramics. He went to Peru. And brought them back. They are macabre, from the Moche culture. And some of the Moche shit, in the archives, is weird and bloodthirsty. I got a book and read up. See-’ He crossed the room and returned with a hardback book bristling with bookmarks.
Ibsen read the title. Sex, Death and Sacrifice in Moche Religion.
‘I got it off Amazon.’ Adam stared down at the book. ‘I’ve been reading it all week. It’s all in here. The Moche were very strange. Obsessed with bestiality. And sex with the dead. They were possibly into self-mutilation. I don’t know what the link is, but there must be a link.’
Ibsen was already scribbling in his own notebook. Noting the title of the volume. ‘Yes. The pots! I saw them in the photo. Thank you. We will look into this too.’ He put down his notebook and glanced at his watch. ‘OK. Adam, as I say we need to get cracking. I appreciate your help, and I understand your scepticism. But before I go I should say I also have one more hunch, which is a little more substantial, and relevant, which you should know.’
‘Yes?’
‘I believe there might be rival gangs after the McLintock discovery.’
‘How come?’
‘Differing descriptions. Remember the man you saw in McLintock’s flat, the intruder?’
‘Of course.’
‘That wasn’t Ritter. Was it?’
‘I guess not… I only got a glimpse.’
‘The man you saw in the flat had tattoos on his hands, right?’
Adam nodded.
‘But Ritter had tatts on his arm. So that means we probably have two different burglars in the flat in the space of a few weeks. The first intruder, the American who confronted McLintock, that was probably Ritter. It
