Acid Lullaby (35 page)

‘In what ways have they been used?’

‘A variety of ways. In the nineteenth century, Western European visitors to Siberia observed Koryak tribesmen ingesting the Fly Agaric before going hunting. They believed it actually increased their physical strength and reflexes. There is also evidence that in certain ancient cultures the Fly Agaric was used to induce religious visions. It also made the takers susceptible to mind control, of course. Religion has often been used as a means of exerting social and political control through history, so that makes sense to me.’

‘What about ancient Hindu religion? Have you heard of something called the Soma?’

‘Absolutely,’ Miller replied. ‘I’m impressed! You’ve done your homework. The Soma was a Hindu god: the God of plants and the moon, I think. There was a famous piece of research by a guy called Gordon Wasson which equated the Fly Agaric mushroom with the god Soma.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Look, I’m no expert on this stuff but as I recall in the Soma story the God is synonymous with juice of the Soma plant. If you drink the Soma you live forever, that kind of thing.’

Underwood looked back through Jack’s consultation notes. ‘An elixir of immortality?’

‘That’s it. If you drank the Soma you passed through the gateway to the Gods.’

‘Thank you, Adam,’ Underwood said quietly. ‘Very helpful.’

‘No worries.’

Underwood dropped his phone back onto its rest. He could see Dexter had entered the CID department. She stopped to talk to Harrison and Sauerwine. Underwood looked out of the window. It was a clear night, the moon glowed powerfully through the darkness. Miller had said the Soma was the god of plants and the moon. Something was niggling at the back of Underwood’s mind.

‘Sauerwine!’ he called out. The PC broke off from his
conversation with Dexter and hurried over.

‘What’s up, sir?’ he asked as he arrived at Underwood’s desk.

‘When we were at Mary Colson’s house you said something about planets. Something to do with horoscopes.’

‘Not exactly horoscopes, sir. It was a joke. I used to moan to her about not having a girlfriend. She liked to wind me up. She said there was some planetary alignment this week and that it was good for the sex drive. You know, it’s supposed to improve your fertility. As I say, it was a joke really.’

Underwood felt a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He found a newspaper on an adjacent desk and flicked through to the horoscopes page.

He ignored the absurdly generalized selection of predictions and scanned down to the note at the bottom: ‘
Remember
tonight
at
11.27
GMT
the
five
inner
planets
come
into
orbital
alignment
with
the
sun.
This
is
the
first
major
astrological
event
since
the
full
planetary
alignment
of
2000.’

It couldn’t be a coincidence. He looked at his watch. He had less than two hours to find Rowena Harvey. Dexter joined him at his desk.

‘What news?’

Underwood looked at her closely. ‘Your eyes are red.’

‘I’m knackered,’ she replied.

‘I’m not an idiot, Dex.’

She ignored his comment. ‘What’s all that?’ She pointed at the papers in his hand. Underwood handed them over.

‘I found them at Jack’s house, buried in the garden. They’re his consultation notes on our boy. No names unfortunately. He thinks he’s become some Hindu god called Soma. I spoke to Miller. The Fly Agaric mushroom was apparently seen as containing the essence of this Soma.’

Dexter read through the notes at speed.

‘He is one sick puppy,’ she observed quietly. ‘How did Jack get involved in all this?’

‘Money,’ Underwood said bitterly, ‘twenty-five grand by the looks of it. Whoever this fuck-up is he’s got some wealthy connections.’

‘How did the SOCOs miss this stuff?’ Dexter asked, her eyes never leaving the page.

‘It was under a paving stone. It’s forgivable.’

Dexter shook her head. ‘Not by me.’ Her eyes fixed on a piece of information.

‘What’s this “YXH” reference mean?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a short form of the killer’s name. The notes seem to imply it represents a person or a place.’

Dexter bit her lip as she tried to concentrate. It seemed vaguely familiar to her.

‘If it is a place,’ she reasoned, ‘then the “H” could stand for Hotel.’

Underwood nodded. ‘Or hospital. Maybe even “House”.’

Dexter looked back down at the page. Her mind was frantically sifting through the litter cluttering her consciousness: Mark Willis, her flat, her ruined shoes, Adam Miller, Thetford Forest, Feltwell and Hockwold cum Witton. Then she suddenly saw what she had been looking for; like a little girl finding a photo in a cluttered drawer or recognizing a face in an unfriendly crowd.

‘Bloody hell, John,’ she said simply, ‘I know where he is.’

The God Soma sat, naked and cross-legged in the woods near the front entrance to his driveway. He enjoyed the damp pressure of the soil against his bare skin. He was the Soma. He licked the red and white cap of a Fly Agaric mushroom as if he was tasting his own blood. The lights were beginning to creep at the corners of his eyes like insects crawling out from under stones. He wasn’t afraid. The moment of his incarnation was approaching, rumbling across the heavens with a pirouetting inevitability.

He had brought his watch outside with him. It would be essential that he did not lose his sense of time. He had set the
alarm for 11.15. That would give him adequate warning to marshal his thoughts and return to the library in time to penetrate Rohini at precisely 11.27. He had already moved her downstairs from their bedroom. It had been a tricky process: she had kicked and fought against him but ultimately he had secured her to the wooden table in front of his eager disciples. He had brought a knife with him to free her of her bindings; to allow her to succumb to his touch freely. Now he had only to enjoy the rotating heavens until the moment arrived.

Alison Dexter’s Mondeo raced north out of New Bolden just ahead of the spinning blue lights of the police squad car that she had requested as back up. Underwood gripped his armrest nervously as they passed ninety miles an hour.

‘I’m still not sure that I understand how you figured this out,’ he said, his eyes never leaving the onrushing road.

‘Miller and I found a site in Thetford Forest this afternoon. There were a bunch of mushrooms that matched the ones used by the killer. They had been dug up recently. The site is on the edge of the forest and faces west across fenland. From that point you can see, three or four villages. One of them is Yaxford. Look at your map.’ She tapped the Ordnance Survey map Underwood had resting on his lap.

‘Yaxford Hall,’ he noted.

‘Y,X,H.’

‘We shouldn’t really go charging in without a warrant,’ he observed.

‘You want to explain that to Rowena Harvey?’ Dexter asked.

‘I know.’ Underwood checked his watch. ‘We haven’t got long.’

‘Look, we’ll just knock on the door and see what happens.’

The two cars roared through the Cambridgeshire night, splitting the silence of the vast and sombre fens, throwing blue and yellow light into the void.

The Soma found himself at one with the soil. It was a profoundly beautiful experience, the white wash of the stars above him, the gentle rushing of the wind against his face. He saw that his limbs were fizzing and disappearing, his
corporeal form was vanishing before his eyes. He was becoming the essence, the very juice of life itself. He was melting into the soil like rainwater and erupting forth into the red and white beauty of the plant god. He sensed his erection grow from his body just as the plant god grew from the soil. The lights were strong in his eyes: spectacular spirals of blue. He could hear the rushing of the ocean that had been his amniotic fluid. Shapes began to emerge through the kaleidoscope; hard edges appearing from the cornucopia of formless elements. The shapes became recognizable to him. The Soma felt fear and fury rise from the ground and engulf him.

Dexter turned into the gravel driveway of Yaxford Hall and pulled up. The squad car stopped behind her. She unlocked her door and stepped out into the cold night air. PC Steven Evans, the driver of the squad car, wound down his window.

‘I want you two to wait here,’ Dexter told them. ‘Keep your car parked on the drive. You’re blocking the entrance so he won’t be able to make a bolt for it.’

‘Would you like one of us to go in with you, ma’am?’ asked PC Dawson from the passenger seat.

‘Inspector Underwood and I will go up to the main house. Stay sharp. If we call you, come running.’

‘No problem.’

Evans and Dawson unclipped their seat belts and climbed out of the Volvo. Dexter returned to her car. The old house loomed large and impressively above them as they drove up to the main door. It was an eighteenth century country manor house with a flight of stone steps leading up to the front door which was flanked by two crumbling stone pillars.

‘Jesus,’ Underwood breathed. ‘This place is huge.’

‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s at home,’ Dexter observed peering through the windscreen. ‘There are no lights on.’

Underwood looked up at the crumbling stonework façade of the house. ‘The front door’s open,’ he said.

Dexter nodded. ‘There’s torches in the boot.’

They got out of the car, nervously checking the blackness around them for any signs of movement. While Dexter
removed two power torches from the rear of the car, Underwood noticed two vehicles parked at the side of the house: a Porsche 911 and a Toyota Land Cruiser.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ he asked.

Dexter shone her torch at the jeep. ‘Yep. It’s a Land Cruiser.’ She unclipped her radio and leaned against the side of her car.

‘Evans, this is Dexter.’

‘Go ahead, ma’am,’ came the crackling reply.

‘This is the place. Get onto control and have them send a SOCO team and some extra plods.’

‘Will do.’

‘We’re going to check the building. Check in every five minutes.’

‘Understood.’

Underwood was facing the black mass of the building apprehensively.

‘You ready?’ Dexter asked.

He checked his watch. It was after 11p.m. He hoped they were in the right location.

‘Let’s get this over with.’

The torch beams illuminated the steps and the gaping dark mouth of the doorway. Underwood and Dexter approached cautiously, watching their footing on the cracked and uneven stonework. Stepping inside the entrance hall Underwood immediately noticed the smell of death and decay. It made him shudder. They surveyed the gloomy hall with their torches. Underwood tried a light switch. Nothing happened.

‘I don’t fancy this,’ Dexter muttered suddenly. ‘This nutcase could be anywhere. Getting ready to shoot us full of that mushroom shit.’

‘I know.’ Underwood took a step forward. ‘But we haven’t got time to piss around.’ He jumped slightly as his torch beam illuminated a stag’s head mounted on the wall. The two shaky circles of light drifted across a series of oil paintings that stretched up the stairway.

‘You think we should split up?’ Dexter asked without enthusiasm. ‘We’d search the place more quickly.’

Underwood didn’t fancy the idea of creeping about in the dark by himself, nor stepping backwards onto a loaded needle. ‘No. Two sets of eyes are better than one.’

Dexter was relieved. She shone a torch down the stairs that led to the basement. ‘Shall we start downstairs then?’

PC Evans called through Dexter’s message to the control centre then rejoined Dawson outside the car. His fellow officer was shining his torch into the dense clump of trees and hedgerow that ran parallel to the driveway.

‘You see anything?’ Evans asked.

‘I thought I could hear something moving around,’ Dawson replied.

‘Probably a badger, mate.’

Dawson swung his torch in a sweep across the lawn. ‘This is a big gaff. Must be twenty acres.’

‘Easy,’ Evans agreed.

‘Bugger to maintain, though.’

Evans turned away and looked hard into the woods. ‘Can you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘A kind of beeping.’ Evans craned his neck in the direction of the sound. ‘Coming from over there.’

Dawson could hear something too, a vague electronic noise. ‘What is it? A mobile phone?’ he whispered.

Evans shook his head. ‘That’s a watch alarm, mate. You go down the drive and cut back into the woods. I’ll go in here, flush him down towards you.’

‘Shouldn’t we call in?’

‘Just get a fucking move on,’ Evans hissed.

Dawson jogged down the drive for about thirty metres then vanished into the trees. Seeing him disappear, Evans lit his own torch and stepped into the trees. He could hear the beeping ahead of him. Twigs cracked underfoot as he approached. He strained his eyes to see into the darkness either side of his torch beam. Something slammed into him from below and to his right. Evans felt the breath squeezed suddenly from his lungs as he was driven hard into a tree. The Soma rammed his knife into Evans’ abdomen and savoured
the warmth of blood as it entwined his wrist. The policeman fell wheezing to the ground, fumbling for his police radio. The Soma picked up the handset himself and retreated into the woodland.

Dawson could hear the beeping more loudly now; he pushed his way through the dangling branches and leaves, tracking his torch across the ground. After a moment, he saw the watch lying amongst the grass clumps and dirt. He knelt and using a pencil from his pocket lifted it from the ground. It was a digital diver’s watch. The time was 11.01.

‘Stevo?’ he called into the woods. ‘I’ve found it.’

No reply came. He unclipped his radio. ‘Stevo, can you hear me?’

The Soma brought a rock down against the back of the constable’s head with ferocious enthusiasm. Dawson slumped forward, face down in the dirt, blood trickling from a dirty wound on the crown of his head. The Soma removed his police radio.