'They used to dress up in leopard skins and masks, didn't they?' he said. 'They lay in wait for people and killed them with the metal claws.'
'Yes, in some areas there was a ritual robing. There were many regional variations. In the Western Congo, for example, where the tradition came from Gabon, they would tear off their victim's thumbs with their bare hands, and all the flesh between the eyes.' Suddenly he had the look of a teenage girl squirming at her first horror film.
'The important element seems to have been to tear out the heart while the victim was still alive.'
Why did Alan feel nervous? 'You mean they were cannibals?'
'So we're led to believe. Only the Leopard societies, of course, not the cultures in which they occurred. Supposedly they devoured their victims as a way of achieving power. Some cannibalism appears to be based on the belief that by consuming the victim you take on his powers, but it seems the Leopard Men were trying to reach back to some older form of magic, one that demanded human sacrifice and cannibalism. I mean, of course,' he added primly, 'that is what they believed.'
Alan now realized why he was nervous: because he didn't know what he was afraid to hear. Outside, the sound of the clipping continued. The blast of a horn on the road seemed so loud that he jumped, almost spilling the tea.
'The tradition seems to be traceable back to the Ju-ju men of the nineteenth century,' Hetherington was saying. 'Before that, there is no documentation. That was David Marlowe's task, to trace it back to its origins. It seemed an impossible task to me, but he was a brilliant researcher. I wonder,' he said sadly, 'if the research affected his mind. The way he seems to have become obsessed with the claw that he gave you, for example. Heaven knows how many people it may have killed. Certainly I should never have given it house room.'
And yet he had expected Alan to do so. Still, it had been Alan's own decision to put it on display. Now, presumably, it was Hetherington's, whether he wanted it or not. Alan sipped his tea automatically, though it seemed to be making him hot and light-headed. The clipping of shears felt as if it was nipping at his brain.
'David set out to interview surviving Leopard Men, and I understand that he succeeded,' Hetherington said. 'We shan't know until we see his notes, and we'll have to wait until the Nigerian police have finished with them for that. Perhaps it was the interviews that caused his breakdown – the strain of having to be polite to such men. I could never have done it myself. I don't believe in treating murderers like normal human beings – and these men were worse than murderers. Presumably each one of them must have gone through his own disgusting initiation ritual.'
'What was that?' Alan said, though he wasn't sure by any means that he wanted to know.
'Why, the killing of the child. One can only hope that some of them refused when they found that was what they were required to do – even if refusing meant being killed in their turn. You'd have thought that a man who had the courage to face those who'd chosen him would also have the courage to make them remove the compulsion. But of course these were superstitious savages. They would have been too scared to refuse.'
Alan was gripping the mug so hard he thought it might shatter, thick as it was. 'What did you mean about killing a child?'
'Each man had to give his young daughter to the cult before he could be accepted – a girl child of his own or his wife's blood. They would send the child running down a path through the bush at night. When they caught her they would tear her to pieces and eat her.'
Alan managed to set down his mug on the carpet, though he could hardly see. He was blinded by a flood of memories – the dream of chasing Anna and bringing her down with the claw, his feelings about her since he'd brought the claw home, the dream which suddenly came flooding back to him – the chase dream he'd had on the plane out of Lagos. It must have started then, the influence on him. He groped for his briefcase, snarling under his breath. He had to control himself, or when he got hold of the claw he wouldn't be able to stop himself flinging it at Hetherington, this small intolerably smug man who had let the influence gain such a hold on him.
He shuddered as he groped in the briefcase, for the touch of cold leather made him feel for a moment as if he were groping inside a corpse. He must calm down, he must shake off his fears in order to be able to look. But he'd already felt the contents of the briefcase, and that was why his fears were worse. He wrenched the case wide open, thinking sickly of Joseph tearing open the goats, and peered in. He couldn't believe it, even when his vision cleared. He hadn't brought the claw with him at all.
Fourteen
He must have lost it somewhere between here and home: in the pizza parlour or in one of the taxis, perhaps. But that made no sense: he hadn't opened his briefcase since before he'd left the house – not even at lunch with Teddy, for he'd thought that there was nothing in the case except the claw. Could it have been stolen on the train while he was asleep? The possibility wasn't even worth considering. 'I haven't got it,' he muttered, hardly aware of Hethering-ton. 'It isn't here.'
'I don't understand,' Hetherington said, rather snappishly.
'Do you think I do?' He was trying desperately to recall when he'd put the claw in his briefcase. He'd been drunk last night when he'd left the hotel – he thought he'd drunk so much to celebrate being about to get rid of the claw -and Liz had had to drive. As soon as he'd reached home he'd taken the claw from the mantelpiece. No, that couldn't be right; he'd carried Anna to bed, managing to tuck her up without waking her, and then there was a vague memory of his drunken attempt to make love to Liz. Then he had stumbled downstairs, while Liz got into bed. He'd gone to the living-room mantelpiece and reached out for the claw. Now he had located the moment, he could no longer be deceived. He'd reached out drunkenly and knocked the claw off the mantelpiece, behind a chair. After that there was a blank, until he remembered lying in bed.
He must have dreamed he'd put the claw in his briefcase – but was there more, and worse, to it than that? He'd forgotten that he had the claw while he was approaching the Customs barrier at Heathrow; he'd forgotten to call the Foundation to begin with; he'd forgotten for a while that he had agreed to bring the claw. It felt very much as if his thoughts about the claw had been manipulated. In that case, could he have been made to think he'd brought the claw so that Liz and Anna would be left alone with it? 'It must be at home,' he said tightly. 'I'll have to phone my wife.'
'Is that really necessary?'
'You're asking me if it's necessary?' He wished he had the claw in his hand right now, to use on Hetherington. 'You let me keep that thing in my house, around my wife and child, when you knew what it was, and now you're begrudging me the cost of a phone call? How much do you want? I'll write you a fucking cheque.'
'That won't be necessary under the circumstances.' Hetherington had turned pale as an elderly virgin confronted by a piece of hard-core pornography. He pushed the phone across the desk, then withdrew his hand nastily, as if he couldn't bear the thought of touching Alan.
As soon as Alan had dialled, he turned his back on Hetherington, who he sensed was fuming, and listened. For a few seconds there was silence except for the measured clipping of shears, a sound that seemed to fill the room. Alan thought of sharp metal, and the thought made his fingers writhe. The next moment a woman's voice came on the line.
It wasn't Liz. Of course – Liz was having her at-home. One of the others – Gail, Jane, Rebecca – must have answered the phone. But why couldn't he understand what she was saying? Because she had begun at the end of a sentence. Only when she repeated her message, and then again and again, did he realize that it was a recorded voice, telling him that all lines to that part of Norfolk were engaged.