‘Sure as I can be without forensic evidence.’
‘Where’s Spicer’s wife now?’
‘No, listen, I’m telling you for clarification only. If she didn’t report it then, she isn’t going to say anything now.’
‘Why didn’t she report it?’
‘Because she knew how Syd would react and what that would do to his prospective career in the Church.’
‘You’re saying that, like all these other guys, Jones lost control?’
‘No, that’s the-He didn’t lose control, that’s the whole point. This was a rape in cold blood. I think Byron Jones raped Syd’s wife as an act of violence against Syd himself.’
‘And Spicer… did he know?’
‘It’s a good question.’
‘All right,’ Howe said, ‘tell me the rest – very briefly, we’ve been away too long. Tell me about the taking of bulls. I really can’t imagine that would be easy, unless the bull was sedated.’
‘I’m told that even in Roman times it would be sedated. Maybe it was even done in the field, if it was remote enough, I don’t know. Any kind of blood sacrifice is senseless and sickening to me, but it was done. And it looks like it still is.’
‘Only one man wields the knife?’
‘That would seem to be the idea. He emerges completely covered in the bull’s-What?’
Annie Howe had the door held back, her eyes wide open to the lights.
‘We’ll go back.’
65
The conference room was still half-lit, with the city murmuring below. Byron Jones was telling Lockley about the archaeology. The pattern from the sky.
‘How did you know?’ Lockley asked.
‘Discoloured ground. Paler grass in the shape of a rectangle. I kept very quiet about it, of course I did.’
‘Individual skills are crucial in the Regiment,’ Lockley said to Howe, ‘and Byron went on a photography course.’
‘Got the chopper pilot to go back over it,’ Byron said, ‘give us a closer look. Took some decent pictures, and later sent them to an archaeologist I knew – in Germany, as it happened – without identifying the location. He thought it was probable.’
‘So that’s why you went after the land. What did you use before that?’
‘We improvised. Caves, a disused reservoir. But to have the remains of an actual mithraeum…’
‘Exciting.’
‘Took everything I’d got, but I knew I’d never get another chance like this. Put the digger to work initially, but most of it was done by hand. Spent three months on it. Sifted all the soil, kept everything in little trays. Didn’t find much – bits of masonry, and a stone tablet, very worn. Handful of Roman coins. But that didn’t matter. It was confirmation, of a kind. And there were other pointers I won’t bore you with showing that this was part of a ritual landscape.’
‘You mean Credenhill and Brinsop Church.’ Merrily sat down. ‘And the alignments with other churches and ancient monuments.’
‘You have been doing your homework, Mrs Watson. I’m impressed. It’s not a Roman ritual landscape, we’re probably talking Neolithic. The Romans fitted in. In the way Christian churches would be built on Neolithic ritual sites. Pragmatic.’
‘So where is this mithraeum?’
Byron tapped his nose.
‘Need to know,’ he said. ‘You don’t.’
‘Was there much left?’
‘Some reconstruction was required. Another good reason to keep quiet about it.’
Merrily glanced at Howe, who nodded.
‘Is this where the bulls are sacrificed, then?’ Merrily asked.
Byron laughed. Leaning back from the table, his jacket open. Merrily thinking that, however old he was, he was still very fit, no paunch under the leather belt. And relaxed. Too relaxed for this situation.
‘Popular farmer murdered by former trooper off his trolley?’ Byron said. ‘How can we ever trust them again?’
‘Excuse me,’ Annie Howe said. ‘Am I missing something here?’
‘Byron’s been putting two and two together,’ Lockley said. ‘And making seven.’
‘That’s your big inquiry, isn’t it? Doesn’t take a genius.’
‘Perhaps,’ Howe said, ‘you could tell us about the bulls you took.’
‘Rustling, too, eh?’ Byron said. ‘Is there no depth to which this scum won’t sink? Tell me, do you have any evidence of that?’
‘Do you deny ever taking a bull?’
‘Absolutely. It’s ridiculous.’
‘But central to the practice of Mithraism,’ Merrily said. ‘Surely.’
‘It was, two thousand years ago. In the days before the slaughter of livestock was subject to regulations. Even then, there’d have to be a compromise as, according to the legend, Mithras personally hauls the bull to his cave.’
‘And how do you get over that problem?’
‘Meditative visualization. Do I need to explain that? All right, I will. The candidate is summoned to the mithraeum. He travels from wherever he lives, books into humble accommodation – or brings a tent – and spends a day in contemplation of his role, during which he’s permitted to drink water but must eat nothing. He bathes in a river, usually the Wye. He’s brought, blindfolded, to the mithraeum, where his comrades are gathered. The ritual begins.’
‘His comrades.’ William flipping him a glance. ‘Just so we know, anyone from the Lines involved in this?’
‘Not any more. Like I said when these ladies were powdering their noses, none of this need concern you, William. It started in the Regiment, just a few of us, now it’s moved on. I’m not saying it won’t come back one day, as long as the camp sits on Magnis.’
Lockley glanced towards the window. He seemed unsettled, as though the world had skidded out of his mental grasp.
‘What does that mean?’ Merrily said. ‘“As long as the camp sits on Magnis”? When you were talking about a ritual landscape… with its own god. The god of the Regiment?’
‘By your rules, I’m an atheist.’
For a few seconds, nobody spoke. Down in the city, a car horn blared.
‘It’s about mindset,’ Byron said. ‘You don’t know what I mean, do you? None of you. Not even you, William. Communism in your day, and the IRA. Now it’s men driven by religion, who don’t care what happens to them in this life or how they leave it. We could lose it this time, because we ain’t got the mindset.’
‘Byron,’ Lockley said, ‘we don’t do holy wars any more.’
‘You think the Crusades were holy, William? The Crusades served man’s need for extreme warfare.’
‘Mithras coming through,’ Merrily said.
‘Call it what you want.’
Merrily put her head on one side, holding Byron’s electric blue gaze, hands clasped under the table.
‘Do you ever think you might be dealing here with something so powerful that while experienced soldiers like you might be able to handle it, civilians-’
‘Mrs Watson, you’re in no position to make any kind of qualified assessment.’
‘-might just become a little crazy?’
‘Come back to me when you’re better informed.’
‘Can I just ask… when did you last see Syd? Did you see him again after he came to Credenhill as chaplain?’
No reply. Merrily thought she glimpsed a flaring rage in his eyes, blue lights in a ravaged landscape.
‘I’ve been wondering if you were the main reason why Syd felt he had to come back. Mithras and you, the demons from his past that he had to deal with.’ Merrily glanced at Howe. ‘Maybe he thought something still lived in him. Something repugnant that was buried so deep inside himself that he couldn’t reach it. Something he had to come back and deal with.’
Winging it now. She felt quite dizzy, the room tilting, a throbbing in her chest. Byron was still looking at her, his hands either side of the chair ready to launch himself out of it. And in his eyes…
He can enter you without moving, that man, one of the nurses had said.
And then it was gone.
Byron didn’t move.
‘Chief Inspector, why don’t I just give you a DNA swab, so you can compare it with whatever you found in Mansel’s yard?’