IX
To help him along I said in my calmest voice: “Of course I’d realised Mrs. Mayfield’s groups mainline on sex.”
But he seemed untroubled by this statement. “The groups’ activities are well within the law,” he said. “But the big advantage of them is that Mrs. Mayfield makes sure they’re secure. There’s never any trouble with blackmailers.”
“How often did you—”
“I never went back to the group after I met you.”
“But that night—the night when you said you went to say goodbye—”
“I didn’t go. The story that Mandy and Steve were trying to get me back into the group wasn’t true. I just floated it to make it more plausible that Mandy should phone me. It would have looked odd if she’d called out of the blue.”
“Then what were you doing on the night you were supposed to be saying goodbye to the group?”
“I was with Mrs. Mayfield. I thought it would be politic to take her out to dinner at a nice restaurant—and no, I didn’t take drugs that night! If I seemed woolly when I got back it was only because I’d had a lot to drink and I was dead tired.”
I made no comment but pushed the conversation forward by asking: “How often did you see the group when you were married to Sophie?”
“Hardly at all—you’ve misunderstood what was going on. I’ve only been involved with a Mayfield group twice, and on both occasions my involvement lasted no more than a year. Mrs. Mayfield prescribed the groups as therapy, not as long-term recreation.”
“How did you actually meet this woman?” I was trying to keep my tone neutral, as if I were a lawyer questioning a client about some ethically dubious facts. I reckoned this approach would be the most likely to produce good results. Now was not the time to sink into my customary verbal abuse of Mrs. Mayfield.
“I met her just as I originally told you,” he said. “I happened to see her card in that Soho bookshop. But as I admitted at the Rectory, this meeting took place much earlier than I’d previously disclosed and she was living in Lambeth then, not Fulham. When we met I was only four years into my marriage, but Sophie had found out about the sterility, and by that time my guilt was so great that I was unable to perform either with her or with anyone else. Well, I didn’t mind not sleeping with Sophie, but I certainly minded not being able to make it with other women—”
“I bet.” I found myself unable to stop the neutral mask slipping.
“You’re thinking I’m callous, aren’t you, but don’t jump to conclusions! I was very fond of Sophie. However, we never hit it off in bed so after the VD disaster she was more than happy to switch off her sex life—and who can blame her for that? I certainly didn’t. And I didn’t want to leave her. She was still exactly the kind of wife I needed at that time, and anyway . . . I felt justified in living with her.” He paused as if reconsidering this sentence and realising, as I did, that it was off-key.
I nailed the neutral mask back in place. “Justified?” I repeated, careful to sound non-threatening, but he seemed to have trouble working out how to explain himself. At last he said: “She gave me the well-run, beautiful home I should have had—the home I did have before my parents emigrated and went to pieces. Sophie had such taste and class and style.” He hesitated again but added abruptly: “A woman like that was owing to me after all I’d been through with my mother.”
“Could Mrs. Mayfield understand that?”
“Of course. But don’t forget that when I first consulted Mrs. Mayfield, the topic under discussion wasn’t how I could renew my sexual relationship with Sophie but how I could get going with other women again. It wasn’t until years later, when my marriage finally broke down as the result of the blackmail, that Elizabeth—Mrs. Mayfield—advised me to marry again in order to get my personal life into a safer groove. Until that time she’d quite understood that Sophie had to stay in my life.”
“Did Mrs. Mayfield have a wife in mind for you?”
“Yes, that was the second time she directed me to a group for therapy. The woman was already a member.”
“God, not Mandy!”
“No, she was already married to Steve.”
“And did you decide straight away that the bride-to-be was unsuitable?”
“I knew she’d be unsuitable even before I saw her,” he said drily. “I certainly wasn’t going to get permanently involved with any woman hooked on group sex. However, because Mrs. Mayfield had helped me at the time of the blackmail I felt I couldn’t dismiss her suggestions about marriage out of hand. I played along with her plan for a while—until I met you and drew the line.”
I heard myself say very casually, as if attending to a barely relevant thought which had just chanced to drift into my mind: “I suppose Mrs. Mayfield never fancied marrying you herself? After all, you’re much the same age as she is, aren’t you, and if you met her when you were a lot younger—”
He raised an eyebrow to convey sardonic amusement. “Mrs. Mayfield has long since figured out that the last encumbrance she needs is a husband!”
“But how did you feel? If she were to ditch that grey wig, which I suppose she thought gave her a passing resemblance to your description of a frumpish Sophie, and if she were to tog herself up in black satin with plenty of cleavage—”
“Well, of course I screwed her,” he said. “That was all part of the treatment when I first sought a cure for impotence. But marriage? Good God, no! Can you seriously imagine me marrying anyone who has that kind of suburban accent?”
“Lucky I learned to talk acceptable English then, wasn’t it?” I said, automatically attempting to conceal my horror with humour, but I was hardly aware of what I was saying. On some level of my mind I believe I had faced the possibility that he had slept with Mrs. Mayfield. But I had never faced the possibility that he might consider her worst flaw was her accent.
Meanwhile he was saying casually: “One can’t pretend accents don’t matter. Well, as I was saying—”
“You screwed Mrs. Mayfield.”
He suddenly became aware of my true reaction, the reaction which implied criticism. Moving away from me again he wandered over to the silver fruit-baskets and checked one as if he were looking for tarnish. “After my impotence had been overcome,” he said levelly, “Mrs. Mayfield sent me to a group—that was the first time I went. She said it offered a way in which I could get my full confidence back by using a variety of women.” He put down the fruit-basket. “I didn’t sleep with her again,” I heard him say. “We both had other fish to fry, and besides . . . it was a question of power. Mrs. Mayfield would never have wanted to give me that much control on a continuing basis.”
I found this plausible but still had to ask: “What about the night before the stabbing when you bedded down at her Fulham house?”
“By then I was quite definitely not Mrs. Mayfield’s flavour-of-the-month. Nothing happened.”
There was a silence.
“Well, as I was saying”—he had clearly decided to skate away fast from this awkward topic—“the first time I sampled the group was when I was recovering from impotence, but after a while I got bored and wanted to drop out. I thought Mrs. Mayfield might be annoyed, but she explained that this kind of group therapy usually had a limited timespan and all that mattered was that I was now fully cured. She then said”—he paused to gulp down some champagne—“she then said she had a much more interesting group for me to sample, a group which would engage me mentally and spiritually as well as physically, and would I be interested in giving it a try. So I said: ‘Fine—tell me more about it,’ and the first thing she said was: ‘Well, it’s not really a group. It’s a society.’ ”
I drained my glass and at once reached for the bottle in the ice-bucket. “A secret society?”
“Very secret. Sweetheart, I hate to admit I lied to you about this, but—”
“You were up to your neck in the occult,” I said, and at last began to believe I had never really known him at all.
X
“The word ‘occult’ has unfortunately acquired a very pejorative meaning,” said Kim fluently. “Naturally you’re going to be alarmed in case I’ve been involved with a bunch of socially inadequate weirdos who believe fairies live at the bottom of every garden, but surely you can accept that a man of my intelligence isn’t going to dabble with anything which doesn’t chime in some way with reality? Mrs. Mayfield recommended the society to me because she knew how interested I was in harnessing and mastering the Powers. Well, how close to reality can one get? The Powers had smashed up my early life and haunted me ever since! Of course I longed to know how I could control them.”
He paused as if expecting me to argue with him but I could only wait numbly for him to continue.
“The occult,” he resumed smoothly at last, “is a word referring to a system of hidden truths, known to a few. The more you know, the better placed you are to control and manipulate reality for your own benefit because the system provides a spiritual empowerment by means of an expansion of consciousness. The Powers are essentially Spirit but exist as archetypes in the unconscious mind, so if you expand your consciousness you can encompass them, subjugate them and use them for your own purposes . . . In other words, what I’m really talking about is a modern version of the old Gnostic heresy which the Christians have spent so much energy trying to liquidate in the past. No wonder Mrs. Mayfield always sees Christians as the enemy!”
“No wonder. Are we talking witchcraft here?”
“Certainly not! Strict occult practice is quite different from either respectable Wicca rituals or the witchcraft fantasies peddled by the ignorant media. Genuine Wicca practitioners are concerned with nature and the environment—with natural forces. We’re interested in the cosmic, in the different levels of reality which exist beyond this world altogether. Wicca practitioners are basically uninterested in Christianity, whereas the Gnostics . . . well, Gnosticism and Christianity are like two brothers who shared a nursery but fell out in adolescence and have been enemies all their adult life. They both had a common bond in mysticism, and in the early centuries there were actually Christian Gnostics and Gnostic Gospels, so you can see what a confused philosophical melting-pot it was, but after Christianity got hyped up on dogma—”
“Forget all that. Just get back to brass tacks. What did this occult society of yours actually do?”
“The first point to grasp is that this isn’t a spiritually undeveloped group focused primarily on hedonism. This is a serious society using sex as a mere tool to open up the mind to spiritual enlightenment.”
I somehow managed to stop myself saying: “Oh yeah?” but it was becoming increasingly hard to maintain anything resembling a neutral professional manner.
“There are different kinds of Gnostics,” said Kim, “and many forms of Gnosticism. Some Gnostics starve and deprive the body in order to open up the mind but some Gnostics choose to indulge in every sensual experience available. But in the end the body’s of no importance. So long as you have the right spiritual knowledge—the right ‘gnosis’—you’re on course for salvation.”
“Uh-huh. And what do the Christians have to say about that?”
“Oh, they’re very sentimental! They believe the body is the temple of the indwelling Holy Spirit and as such should be treated with reverence!”
“You’re saying they don’t approve of sexual abuse.”
“I—”
“That’s sentimental?”
“What I meant was—”
“Sure. By the way, I’m getting sceptical about your alleged non-use of drugs. I’d have thought drugs were essential in this kind of mind-expanding get-together.”
“I repeat: we’re not talking about mindless hedonism here. This is a serious society dedicated to spiritual enlightenment, and no matter what may go on in lesser occult societies I can tell you that Mrs. Mayfield is very opposed to drugs being used.”
“Because she’s keen to operate within the law?”
“Another important reason is that drugs always wind up affecting sexual performance—if not in the short-term, then in the long-term. Look at the havoc alcohol can cause! I’m not saying I’ve never seen drugs taken at the meetings, but the serious spiritual seekers will prefer to get high on their own adrenaline. Mrs. Mayfield always says that the chemicals the body manufactures are far more potent than anything a chemist could concoct in a laboratory.”
“Cheaper too. But let me ask you this—and I apologise if it seems a dumb question: what’s so bloody spiritual about all this sex, with or without drugs?”
“The theory is that you satiate the body to keep it quiet. Then the mind is liberated. The unconscious is opened right up, and all the archetypes become accessible, moving in patterns which can be understood and mastered—”
“I’m sorry, can you just run all that past me again?”
“Forget it. All you need to understand is that the society gave me a map in my quest to stitch up the split in my consciousness.”
“What split?”
“The one the Powers were always trying to get through to destroy me. I always felt so dislocated . . . alienated . . . restless . . . But the society helped me, it gave me an intellectual framework to operate in, it made me feel more in control of the Powers—”
“Just by having sex?”
“Well, of course there was more. There were psychic procedures, rituals—but I’d better not go into detail. I’ve taken a vow of secrecy, and you wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“But are you still an active member?”
“Not sexually active, not since we met. But I’m still a member because I’ve never been able to work out how to sever my links without suffering reprisals. Lewis says the people at St. Benet’s would give me every support, but—”
“Why wouldn’t the members of the society just accept your resignation?”
“Because I’m too damned important to them! I not only look after the society’s finances but I bring in rich contacts, people who have considerable power and influence. If I try to resign I’ll be subjected to heavy psychological pressure, and although I’m attracted to Lewis’s offer of help I don’t feel strong enough right now to cut myself loose.”
“Would they try to blackmail you?”
“If you mean in the strict legal sense of extorting money, no. As you just said, Mrs. Mayfield aims to keep within the law.”
“But does she always succeed? What about all this sex?”
“I promise you children are never involved. Mrs. Mayfield screens out the paedophiles.”
I found I dared not pause to ask myself if he was telling the truth. Nor could I pause to ask him about other illegal activities. I could only blurt out: “Don’t the other members object if you don’t take part in the sex-stuff ?”
“They believe I’m going through a phase and they’ve decided to allow me a certain amount of leeway. Mrs. Mayfield’s told them the problem’s my marriage but it’ll inevitably break up.”
“God . . . But if you abstain, don’t you miss out on all that mind-expansion which turned you on?”
“To be honest, I’d lost interest in that even before I met you. And after I met you, of course, all I wanted to do was abstain.”
“So while the sex-stuff was going on, you just—”
“Watched.”
I found I had to press him again about the activities; I had to test his veracity by probing further. “But what did go on? Just what were these sexual rituals?”
His self-control cracked. In a sudden burst of despair he exclaimed: “Sweetheart, surely all you need to know is that I’ve been faithful to you since we met? Surely all that matters is that I’ve never, never involved you in any sex which isn’t thoroughly acceptable and normal? Okay, I know that on that last occasion I let out the throttle, but everything was still on the right side of the line, wasn’t it—although to be honest I did feel afterwards that I’d gone too far. I’ve got a horror of doing with you anything which would trigger the wrong memories and make me relive some of the shit I waded through with those people—”
“Yes, I see. Yes, I understand.” My self-control was cracking too, and in an effort to maintain my grip on it I backed down from demanding graphic information. Instead I said shakily: “If you saw Mrs. Mayfield regularly at these society meetings, even after we were married, you’ve been lying in saying you were estranged from her.”
“No, it was the truth—we weren’t on speaking terms. I did see her but there was no communication.”
“But if she’s the boss and you’re the finance manager—”
“She’s not the boss. She’s a consultant. The chief executive is someone else, and she advises him. He’s the one I report to at the inner circle meetings, not her.”
“Excuse me . . . Did you say ‘inner circle’?”
“I meant the management committee. But Carter, when I contacted her to ask for her help in defusing Sophie, I assure you it was the first time we’d been in direct communication since my marriage. So when you first brought up the subject of Mrs. Mayfield, I really did feel justified in saying: ‘Oh, she’s someone I don’t see any more’—all right, I admit I couldn’t have said anything else then, since I didn’t want you to know about the society, but—”
Unable to bear this hair-splitting I interrupted: “How much did Sophie know?”
“We had a big showdown at the time of the blackmail. I admitted my involvement in the occult and told her about my association with Mrs. Mayfield, but I didn’t go into detail about the society and I gave the impression that both the involvement and the association were recent.”
I was confused. “But you still haven’t told me what this blackmail was all about! Did one of the members try to blackmail you about your behaviour at the meetings—the general meetings where the sex-stuff went on?”
“No, the actual incident which gave rise to the blackmail had nothing to do with the society and nothing to do with Mrs. Mayfield.”
I felt more confused than ever. “Then what was it all about?”
“It arose out of a hobby I used to have.”
Seconds slipped by. At last I said: “Hobby?”
He drank a third glass of champagne straight off but afterwards muttered: “God, I’d better go easy on the drink! I’m forgetting I’m not used to it.” Abandoning his glass he moved restlessly to the far end of the room again before saying: “In the end I found I couldn’t control the Powers after all—they bloody nearly destroyed me. I suppose that was when I became disillusioned with the society; I was already disillusioned before I met you.” The tension emanating from him by the time he finished speaking was so acute that I could almost hear the air crackle.
“Kim—”
“I had this hobby,” he interrupted, staring out of the window. “I’d had it all my adult life. I had it long before I met Mrs. Mayfield, and I kept it up until the time of the blackmail. It was just something I did occasionally, not often, just every now and then—I was like a drinker having a binge, seeking refuge in something which would relieve the tension and ease the split in my personality. To be honest it worked better than the occult practices, better than the sex therapy groups, but Mrs. Mayfield always said I had to try to find an alternative way to heal the split because the hobby was too damn dangerous. And she was right.”
I tried to speak but failed. I could only listen as he added: “It was such a shock. I never thought I’d ever be blackmailed because I was so discreet, so careful.”
I put out a shaking hand. I raised my glass and drank. Only then was I able to say neutrally, the model lawyer handling the client with kid gloves: “And the hobby was—?” I paused, waiting.
“I liked to screw men,” he said, and after that there was a silence which lasted for a very long time.