City of Sins. Daniel Blake

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      ‘You got it. I’ll be back in a few hours.’

      ‘Gotcha. Good work, Franco.’

      Patrese hung up. A young uniform poked his head round the door.

      ‘Agent Patrese, there’s someone in the lobby who wants to see you.’

      ‘Who’s that?’

      ‘Says her name’s Marie Laveau.’

      Plenty of people in his position, Patrese figured, would have refused to see Marie. It never occurred to him to do so. Whatever she wanted, whatever she had to offer, she’d come all the way from New Orleans for it. That alone meant something.

      The riot of colors on Marie’s kaftan would have seared the retinas of a blind man, and she flashed teeth and eyes at Patrese as though he were the only man in the world.

      ‘Agent Patrese,’ she said, sitting down opposite him without being asked. ‘You know who I am, of course.’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘This is a terrible thing. Anything I can do to help, just say. I ain’t no fan of the Bureau, but I’m even less of a fan of people who kill my friends.’

      ‘News travels fast.’

      ‘Don’t insult me. I didn’t get where I am now by not having my finger on the pulse. News does travel. Faster than you’ll ever know.’

      This at least was true. In Patrese’s experience police departments leaked like sieves; police chatter was picked up on scanners every second of the day. Someone like Marie probably knew what cops were doing before they did.

      ‘Anything I can do to help,’ she repeated.

      Am I being played? How much should I tell her? Risk nothing, gain nothing.

      He took the plunge. ‘We found a tape in Rooster’s room. Footage of you and him at a ceremony. And then him talking about a human sacrifice cult. The Secte Rouge.’

      ‘The Secte Rouge don’t exist.’

      ‘You sure?’

      ‘It’s a myth. Rooster was obsessed with it. Making a damn documentary about it. I told him not to waste his time.’

      ‘On the tape, you’re chanting something about a zombie.’

      Marie laughed; a touch condescendingly, Patrese couldn’t help but feel. ‘Li grand zombi. It’s the name of the snake.’

      Patrese again wondered whether to stick or twist; and again figured that the only way was forward.

      ‘Rooster was murdered in a way that appears … ritual. And he wasn’t the first. A young lady was killed two days before in just the same way. I’d like to show you some pictures of their bodies, and you tell me if you think … if you think that what the killer’s done to them is voodoo. Or even could be voodoo.’

      Marie looked at him, unblinking. Exactly like a snake, in fact.

      Patrese bit down on the temptation to fill the silence.

      A beat, perhaps two; then she nodded, as if he’d passed some sort of test.

      ‘OK,’ she said.

      Patrese handed over a thick brown envelope. ‘They’re pretty shocking.’

      ‘I’m a big girl, Agent Patrese. I’m sure I’ve seen worse.’

      Maybe she had done. She didn’t flinch or wince as she went through the photos; not once. Examined them properly, too; didn’t flick through like many people did. Went all the way through them twice, in fact, before putting them back down on the table and looking at Patrese again.

      ‘You asked if they could be voodoo,’ she said.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Then yes, they could.’

      The snake is very important in voodoo, Marie said. Voodoo gods are called loa …

      Patrese didn’t stop her, but he was thinking furiously. Loa. The last word Cindy had said to him at Varden’s house had been ‘Noah.’ At least, that’s what he’d thought she’d said; it had been a little indistinct, what with her being drunk and slurry.

      But what if it hadn’t been ‘Noah’? What if it had been ‘loa’?

      Loa, and sacrificing people?…voodoo gods are called loa, and the father of them all is Damballah, the primordial serpent deity of new life and fertility who created the world. When the first man and woman came into the world blind, it was Damballah who, as the snake, gave them sight. Another snake loa is Simbi, the water snake. Loa of rainfall and fresh water, he oversees the making of charms, and speckled roosters are sacrificed to him.

      In voodoo, snakes are not seen as symbols of evil as in the story of Adam and Eve; rather, they are a symbol of man, and women often dance with snakes to represent the spiritual balance between the genders, as Marie had been doing in the ceremony on Rooster’s footage.

      The snake also represents fusion and transformation; as the snake sheds its skin, so man can leave his corporeal self and transcend into light and knowledge. From the snake flows wisdom and power, making an oracle of those who channel its spirit. That too was what Marie had been doing; a snake dance to celebrate her link to the ancient knowledge.

      The snake transmits that which is known intuitively. It is the beginning and the end, alpha and omega. It stretches itself out as a bridge across the various levels of consciousness, allowing man to travel freely to the realm of his ancestors, and to the astral plane.

      This travel is also the role of the mirror, one of the symbols of the loa Legba. Beyond the mirror in voodoo is the place between what has been, what is, and what will come. Two magicians can use a mirror like a telephone, transmitting information to each other.

      Marie began to sing. Salue’ Legba, Ai-zan vie, vie, vie Legba, Creoles sonde miroi Legba, Legba vie’ vie’, Creoles sonde miroi Ati Bon Legba.

      She translated for Patrese: Salute Legba, Ai-zan, old one, old one, old Legba, Creoles sound Legba’s mirror, Legba old one old one, Creoles sound Ati Bon Legba’s mirror.

      The axhead is a symbol of the loa Chango. In voodoo myth, Chango hurls bolts of lightning at those chosen to be his followers, leaving behind imprints of a stone ax blade on the Earth’s crust. Altars to Chango often contain a carved figure of a woman holding a gift to the god with a double-bladed ax sticking up from her head. The ax symbolizes that this devotee is possessed by Chango, and the woman’s expression is always calm and cool, expressing the qualities she has gained through her faith.

      That Rooster’s body had been found near a crossroads was also significant. In voodoo, the crossroads is where the earth and spirit world meet. Virtually all voodoo acts begin with the acknowledgment of the crossroads. A murderer can evade capture if he goes to a crossroads and takes nine steps backward down the road opposite to that which he СКАЧАТЬ