Page 59 of Troubled Blood

“From the police file. It says: ‘And that is the last of them, the twelfth, and the circle will be closed upon finding the tenth’—and then there’s an unknown word—‘Baphomet. Transcribe in the true book,’” said Strike, “and I was wondering whether that meant anything to you?”

At that moment, there came a particularly loud crash from overhead. With a hasty “excuse me,” Gregory laid the paper on top of the tea tray and hurried from the room. Strike heard him climbing the stairs, and then a telling-off. It appeared that one of the twins had overturned a chest of drawers. Soprano voices united in exculpation and counter-accusation.

Through the net curtains, Strike now saw an old Volvo pulling up outside the house. A plump middle-aged brunette in a navy raincoat got out, followed by two boys, whom he guessed to be around fourteen or fifteen. The woman went to the boot of the car and took out two sports bags and several bags of shopping from Aldi. The boys, who’d begun to slouch toward the house, had to be called back to assist her.

Gregory arrived back at the sitting-room door just as his wife entered the hall. One of the teenage boys shoved his way past Gregory to survey the stranger with the amazement appropriate to spotting an escaped zoo animal.

“Hi,” said Strike.

The boy turned in astonishment to Gregory.

“Who’s he?” he asked, pointing.

The second boy appeared beside the first, eyeing Strike with precisely the same mixture of wonder and suspicion.

“This is Mr. Strike,” said Gregory.

His wife now appeared between the boys, placed a hand on their shoulders and steered them bodily away, smiling at Strike as she did so.

Gregory closed the door behind him and returned to his armchair. He appeared to have momentarily forgotten what he and Strike had been talking about before he had gone upstairs, but then his eye fell upon the piece of paper scrawled all over with his father’s handwriting, dotted with pentagrams and with the cryptic lines in Pitman shorthand.

“D’you know why Dad knew Pitman shorthand?” he said, with forced cheerfulness. “My mother was learning it at secretarial college, so he learned it as well, so he could test her. He was a good husband—and a good dad, too,” he added, a little defiantly.

“Sounds it,” said Strike.

There was another pause.

“Look,” said Gregory, “they kept the—the specifics of Dad’s illness out of the press at the time. He was a good copper and it wasn’t his fault he got ill. My mother’s still alive. She’d be devastated if it all got out now.”

“I can appreciate—”

“Actually, I’m not sure you can,” said Gregory, flushing slightly. He seemed a polite and mild man, and it was clear that this assertive statement cost him some effort. “The families of some of Creed’s victims, afterward—there was a lot of ill feeling toward Dad. They blamed him for not getting Creed, for screwing it all up. People wrote to the house, telling him he was a disgrace. Mum and Dad ended up moving… From what you said on the phone, I thought you were interested in Dad’s theories, not in—not in stuff like that,” he said, gesturing at the pentagram-strewn paper.

“I’m very interested in your father’s theories,” said Strike. Deciding that a little duplicity was called for, or at least a little reframing of the facts, the detective added, “Most of what your father wrote in the case file is entirely sound. He was asking all the right questions and he’d noticed—”

“The speeding van,” said Gregory quickly.

“Exactly,” said Strike.

“Rainy night, exactly like when Vera Kenny and Gail Wrightman were abducted.”

“Right,” said Strike, nodding.

“The two women who were struggling together,” said Gregory. “That last patient, the woman who looked like a man. I mean, you’ve got to admit, you add all that together—”

“This is what I’m talking about,” said Strike. “He might’ve been ill, but he still knew a clue when he saw one. All I want to know is whether the shorthand means anything I should know about.”

Some of Gregory’s excitement faded from his face.

“No,” he said, “it doesn’t. That’s just his illness talking.”

“You know,” said Strike slowly, “your father wasn’t the only one who saw Creed as satanic. The title of the best biography of him—”

“The Demon of Paradise Park.”

“Exactly. Creed and Baphomet have a lot in common,” said Strike.

In the pause that followed, they heard the twins running downstairs and loudly asking their foster mother whether she’d bought chocolate mousse.

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