Offering to the Storm

‘But why involve me, why this provocation?’

‘I can only think that it’s connected with your mother.’

Amaia took a photograph out of her bag and passed it to him.

‘This is the inside of the cave where Berasategui and my mother were preparing to kill my son, Ibai.’

Sarasola studied the image, looked at Amaia for a few seconds, then at the photograph again.

‘Doctor, I suspect that the tarttalo killings are the grisly tip of an iceberg aimed at drawing our attention away from a far more horrible crime. Something connected to these sacrileges that would explain the clear symbolic use of bones belonging to children in my family, why they wanted to kill my son and didn’t, and, I believe, the Church’s response to a desecration, which on the face of it wasn’t all that shocking.’

Sarasola looked at them in silence, then examined the photograph once more. Amaia leaned forward, touching the priest’s forearm.

‘I need your help, please. Tell me what you see in this picture.’

‘Inspector Salazar, you’re aware that you share the name of an illustrious inquisitor. When the witch hunts reached their apogee, your ancestor, Salazar y Frías opened an investigation into the presence of evil in the Baztán Valley, which spread across the border to France. After dwelling among the population for over a year, he concluded that the practice of witchcraft was much more deeply rooted in the local culture than Christianity itself, which although firmly established, had been bastardised by the old beliefs that held sway in the area prior to the foundation of the Catholic Church. Salazar y Frías was an open-minded man, a scientist and investigator, who employed methods of inquiry and analysis similar to those you use today. Of course, many of the people questioned were undoubtedly driven to confess to such practices to avoid being tortured by the Inquisition, the mere mention of which sent them into a panic. I admire Salazar y Frías’s decision to put a stop to that insanity, but among the numerous crimes he investigated, many remained unsolved, in particular those involving the deaths of children, infants and young girls, whose bodies subsequently disappeared. Such stories appear in several statements; however, once the cruel methods of the Inquisition were abolished, all the statements taken at that time were deemed unreliable.

‘What I see in this photograph is the scene of a sacrifice, a human sacrifice, the victim of which was to be your son. Human sacrifice is a heinous practice used in witchcraft and devil worship. It was the appearance of children’s bones in the desecrations at Arizkun that raised the alarm; it is common in devil worship to use human remains, especially those of children. However, the sacrifice of a living child is considered the highest offering.’

‘I know about Salazar y Frías. I understand what you’re saying, but are you suggesting a connection between the practice of witchcraft in the seventeenth century and the desecrations in Arizkun, or what nearly happened to Ibai?’

Sarasola nodded slowly.

‘How much do you know about witches, Inspector? And I don’t mean witch doctors or faith healers, but rather the ones described by the Brothers Grimm in their fairy tales.’

Jonan leaned forward, interested.

‘I know that they’re covered in warts and dwell deep in the forest,’ said Amaia.

‘Do you know what they eat?’

‘They eat children,’ replied Jonan.

Amaia laughed.

The priest turned to her, irritated by her sarcasm.

‘Inspector,’ he cautioned, ‘stop playing games with me. Ever since you walked in here, I’ve had the impression that you know more than you’re willing to let on. This is no laughing matter; stories that become folklore after being passed down through generations usually contain a grain of truth. Perhaps witches don’t literally eat children, but they feed off the lives of innocents offered in sacrifice.’

Sarasola was shrewd enough to have figured out that, as a homicide detective, she had more reasons for asking him about this subject than those she was prepared to admit.

‘All right, so what do they get in exchange for these sacrifices?’

‘Health, life, riches …’

‘And people actually believe that? I mean now, as opposed to in the seventeenth century. They believe that by performing human sacrifices they will obtain some of these benefits?’

Sarasola sighed despairingly.

‘Inspector, if you wish to understand anything about how this works, then you must stop thinking about whether it’s logical or not, whether it corresponds to your computerised world, your profiling techniques. Stop thinking in terms of what you think a modern person would believe.’

‘I find that impossible.’

‘That’s where you are mistaken as are all those fools who base their idea of the world on what they see as logical, scientifically proven fact. Believe me, the men who condemned Galileo for suggesting that the Earth revolved around the Sun did exactly the same thing: based on their centuries-old understanding of the cosmos, they argued that the Earth was the centre of the universe. Think about this before you reply: do we know, or do we believe we know because that’s what we’ve been told? Have we ourselves tested each of the absolute laws which we accept unquestioningly because people have been repeating them to us over the centuries?’

‘The same argument could apply to the belief in the existence of God or the Devil, which the Church has upheld for centuries—’

‘Indeed, and you are right to question that, though perhaps not for the reasons you think. Find out for yourself, search for God, search for the Devil, then draw your own conclusions, but don’t judge other people’s beliefs. Millions live lives based on faith: faith in God, a spaceship that will take them to Orion, the belief that by blowing themselves to bits they will enter paradise, where honey flows from fountains and virgins attend their every need. What difference does it make? If you want to understand, you must stop thinking about whether it’s logical, and start accepting that faith is real, it has consequences in the real world, people are prepared to kill for their beliefs. Now consider the question again.’

‘Okay, why children, and what is done to them?’

‘Children under two are used in ritual sacrifices. Often they are bled to death. In some cases they are dismembered, and the body parts used. Skulls are highly prized, as are the longer bones, like the mairu-beso used in the desecrations at Arizkun. Other rituals make use of teeth, nails, hair and powdered bone made by crushing up the smaller bones. Of all the liturgical objects used in witchcraft, the bodies of small children are the most highly valued.’

‘Why children under two?’

‘Because they are in a transitional phase,’ Jonan broke in. ‘Many cultures believe that, prior to reaching that age, children move between two worlds, enabling them to see and hear what happens in both. This makes them the perfect vehicle for communicating with the spirit world, or obtaining favours.’

‘That’s correct. Children develop instinctual learning up to the age of two: standing, walking, holding objects, and other imitative behaviour. After that, they start to develop language, they cross a barrier, and their relationship with their surroundings changes. They cease to make such good vehicles, although similarly, youths of pre-pubescent age are also prized by those practising witchcraft.’

‘If someone stole a corpse for such purposes, where might they take it?’

‘Well, as a detective I imagine you’ve already worked that out: to a remote place, where they can perform their rituals without fear of being discovered. Although, I think I see where you’re going with this. You’re imagining temples, churches or other holy places. And you’d be quite right if we were talking about Satanism, whose aim is not only to worship the Devil, but also to offend God. However, witchcraft is a far more wide-ranging branch of evil than Satanism, and the two aren’t as closely related as you might think. Many creeds use human remains as vehicles for obtaining favours; for example, Voodoo, Santería, Palo and Candomblé, which summon deities as well as dead spirits. They perform their rituals in holy places as a way of desecrating them. And, of course, Arizkun is situated in the Baztán Valley, which has a long tradition of witchcraft, and of summoning Aker, the devil.’

Amaia remained silent for a few seconds, looking out of the window at the gloomy Pamplona sky to avoid the priest’s probing gaze. The two men said nothing, aware that behind Amaia’s calm appearance her brain was working hard. When she turned once more to Sarasola, her sarcasm had given way to resolve.

‘Dr Sarasola, do you know what Inguma is?’

‘Mau Mau, or Inguma. Not what, but who. In Sumerian demonology, he is known as Lamashtu, an evil spirit as old as time, one of the most terrible, cruel demons, surpassed only by Pazazu – the Sumerian name for Lucifer. Lamashtu would tear babies from their mother’s breast to feed on their flesh and drink their blood, or cause babies to die suddenly during sleep. Demons that killed babies while they slept existed in ancient cultures too: in Turkey they were known as “crushing demons”, while in Africa the name translates literally as “demon that rides on your back”. Among the Hmong people he is known as the “torturing demon”, and in the Philippines the phenomenon is known as bangungut, and the perpetrator is an old woman called Batibat. In Japan, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is known as pokkuri. Henry Fuseli’s famous painting The Nightmare portrays a young woman asleep on a chaise longue while a hideous demon crouches on her chest. Oblivious to his presence, the woman appears to be trapped in a nightmare. The demon has many different names, but his method is always the same: he creeps into the rooms of sleeping victims at night and sits on their chests, sometimes clutching their throats, producing a terrifying feeling of suffocation. During this nightmare, they may be conscious, but unable to move or wake up. At other times Inguma places his mouth over that of the sleeper, sucking out their breath until they expire.’

‘Do you believe …?’

‘I’m a priest, Inspector, and you’re still thinking about this in the wrong way. Naturally, I’m a believer, but what matters is the power of these myths. In Rome, every morning at dawn, an Exorcism Prayer is performed. Various priests pray for the liberation of possessed souls, and afterwards they attend to people who come to them asking for help. Many are psychiatric cases, but by no means all.’

‘And yet exorcism has been shown to have a placebo effect on people who believe themselves to be possessed.’

‘Inspector, have you heard of the Hmong? They are an ethnic group that live in the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, and who collaborated with the Americans during the Vietnam War. When the conflict ended, their fellow countrymen condemned them, and many fled to the United States. In 1980, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta recorded an extraordinary rise in the number of sudden deaths during sleep: two hundred and thirty Hmong men died of asphyxia in their sleep in the US, but many more were affected; survivors claimed to see an old witch crouched over them, squeezing their throats tight. Alerted to what was happening, parents began sleeping next to their sons to rouse them from these nightmares. When the attacks took place, they would shake them awake, or drag them out of bed. The most terrifying part was that, trapped in their waking dream, the boys could see the sinister old woman, feel her crooked fingers on their throats. This didn’t happen in a remote region of Thailand, but in places like New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles … All over the country, every night, Hmong men suffered such attacks. Those who didn’t succumb were kept under strict surveillance in hospital, where the invisible attacks, in which the victims seemed to be strangled by some invisible creature, were witnessed and videod. Doctors were at a loss to diagnose a specific illness. The Hmong’s own shamans concluded that the demon was targeting this particular generation of Hmong because they had become distanced from their centuries-old traditions and protections. Requests to perform purification rites around the victims were mostly refused, because they involved animal sacrifice, even though in cases where permission was granted, the attacks ceased.

‘In 1917, seven hundred and twenty-two people died in their sleep in the Philippines, suffocated by Batibat, which translates literally as “the fat old woman”. And in 1959 in Japan, five hundred healthy young men died at the hands of pokkuri. It is believed that when Inguma awakens, he goes on a murderous rampage until his thirst is quenched, or until he is stopped by some other means. In the case of the Hmong people, the phenomenon that claimed the lives of two hundred and thirty healthy boys remains unsolved to this day.’ His eyes fixed on Amaia. ‘Even science could offer no explanation: autopsies were carried out, but the cause of death could not be determined.’

14 (#ulink_184d2e8b-c361-5464-b62a-d688ca036562)

In accordance with Amaia’s orders, Dr San Martín had started the autopsy without them. When she and Etxaide approached the steel table, at the centre of a room filled with medical students, the pathologist had his back to them, and was busy weighing the internal organs on a scale. He turned, smiling when he saw them.

‘Just in time, we’re almost done. The toxicology tests show high levels of an extremely powerful sedative. We’ve identified the active ingredient, but I won’t hazard a guess as to the name of the drug. As a doctor, Berasategui would have known which one to use and how much to take. Most are injectable, but the small abrasions on the sides of the tongue suggest he took it orally.’

Amaia leaned over to examine through the magnifying glass the row of tiny blisters either side of the tongue, which San Martín was holding up for her with a pair of forceps.

‘I can smell a sweet, acidic odour,’ she remarked.