Rigorously, he avoided the rookie blunder of epistemological fudge, whereby the observer ignores small discrepancies that throw out the potentially lovely patterns in the thing observed. Instead, Tom logged every discrepancy with meticulous care. Every time a path of power was a foot out or a yard out of perfect alignment, he included the error.
It took him forty-five minutes.
When he was finished, he took off his goggles. And closed his eyes and tried to get his normal vision back. Then he switched off the two holos and projected a new holo in the air. And thus was revealed the real hidden pattern of the sigils of London.
As he had suspected, it was awry; and eerily familiar.
The perfect spheres of the St Paul’s floor plan were mutated and distorted when translated into the City itself. Buildings weren’t quite were they ought to be. Rebuilt ancient churches were a foot out of place or a hundred yards from where they needed to be to create Hopkinson’s sublime symmetry. Instead of glorious discrete Spheres, what you had was spheres colliding. Spheres crashing into each other. Chaos in the skies.
Except, as Tom realised, that wasn’t quite true. It was not chaos. It was ordered chaos.
Tom measured the hundreds of intersecting spheres implicit in the lines of power in the skies above the City; he found them to be utterly symmetrical. There were no oblate spheroids here, no rugby balls. In other words, each Sphere was a perfect Circle, cast in three dimensions.
But Tom could see that the colliding spheres of the City of London had an additional pattern of staggering consistency. In geometrical terms: each sphere intersected every other sphere precisely so that the centre of each circle touched the perimeter of the other. Forming a kind of lozenge, in a unique shape that Tom immediately recognised.
For this was the Vesica Piscis. One of the oldest and darkest of occult symbols.
Skip back. To the time, not so very long ago, when Tom was a rookie detective just starting out in Five Squad. In the hours after the Breach of Ildminster Square; briefing the team in the Blind Beggar pub on Roslyn D’Onston, and the numerology of murder.
‘Tell them, laddie,’ Dougie said.
Tom faced Five Squad. Dougie was sitting at the bar. The team were arranged on bar stools and chairs around tables still bearing beer mats. Taff was sipping whisky from a bottle with an eerie rhythm. Gina stood beside the guvnor and was quietly respectful. Tom’s mouth was dry. He commenced his briefing:
‘As you know - ’
‘Skip the “as you know” shit,’ advised Dougie. ‘Tell us what we don’t know, Detective Constable Derry. Tell us about numerology and occult sigils, and similar such bollocks that we are now obliged to take seriously.’
Tom cleared his throat. He started again. He forced his voice down a register, to sound calmer and more authoritative.
‘Roslyn D’Onston,’ Tom said, ‘the former inhabitant of the Gogarty house, was a student of the occult, and there are without a doubt occult patterns to be found in the Ripper case. There are numerological patterns, which you’ll have read about in my report, so I don’t need to - and there are geometric patterns too. The murder locations when viewed on a map form an occult sigil, you see. According to one theory, that is. The arrangement of the bodies, the choice of murder locations, are - so this theory claims - quite deliberate, and they are Jack’s way of drawing upon the map of London in actual blood.’
‘What sort of sigil?’ Catriona asked. And so Tom drew it on his tablet, creating an image that was projected up on to holo board. It took a while, using a compass with a smart tip and an electronic pencil.
Each Ripper murder location was the focus for the pin of the compass; then he drew arcs from each of these foci. Teasing out the implied shapes.
For just as three dots imply a triangle, and many dots equidistant from a single point imply a circle, so these murder locations on the map imply a geometric shape.
As he sketched, Tom wondered: Was he finding patterns that didn’t exist? Like a cave man finding gods in the stars? Or was he uncovering a hidden sign deliberately concealed in a pattern of a bloody murders, for a malign or superstitious or literally diabolic purpose?
That was for the team to decide. Tom’s job was just to outline the theory.
As he worked, Tom was aware that Dougie was growing restless. But he carried on methodically, doing all the measuring and compassing work himself, even though he could just have scanned the illustration in the paperback true crime book that was the basis for this hypothesis. He sketched, he arced, until he had drawn a pattern on the Paint software that he then rendered manifest as a holo in the air:
‘This is the sigil created, allegedly, by the Ripper,’ he said. ‘It’s called the Vesica Piscis.’
Tom. Outside the lantern of St Paul’s.
Realising that he had seen this pattern before. Not just in his Ripper books, and in his black magic textbooks. He’d seen them at Gogarty’s house. At 13 Ildminster Square. All around him. In plain sight, yet unnoticed.
The wallpaper. That hideous wallpaper, that was the same shade of shocking orange as the clown’s wig in the movie It, embossed with a pattern of intersecting orange circles.
Tom flicked through his photo gallery on his e-berry and checked the photos he’d taken at the time. No doubt about it. The double-bubble circles in the wallpaper weren’t randomly intersecting at all. Rather, each circle intersected every other circle so that the centre of each circle touched the perimeter of the other.
In other words, the entire house was decorated with Vesica Piscis icons. Which meant -
The Gogarty house also was a hyper-sigil.
Tom felt giddy. Nauseous. His world was tumbling around him. He remembered:
Skip back two days.
Double bubbles circumspice look around you perfect spheres which do not touch magic city my arse Barnaby Barnaby you big fake you measure it measure it measure it measure it
Tom woke from his dream having forgotten it completely. Every image, every moment, every strange thing that had occurred in what had been, he was sure, a truly wonderful dream, was gone, totally erased from his mind.
Apart that is from one memory; the memory of a voice in his head; a voice that was muttering, muttering....
And suddenly, he knew what he had to do. He had to - he had to -
Tom knew that he had cheated. As a copper he was a fraud.
For he had dreamed this insight, this great discovery. He hadn’t deduced it, with brilliant acumen, from the scantest of clues of a kind that mere mortals would have missed. No, he’d simply woken up one morning knowing. Knowing that the secret to everything was within his grasp. As his eyes had opened, he’d realised with blinding clarity that all he had to do to solve the case was -
To accurately chart Barnaby Hopkinson’s London Spheres.
The sky was black now. The stars were out. Tom had taken off his goggles. He let the wind billow his hair. He tried to assimilate his discovery. He reached the necessary conclusion. It was insane, but he knew it was true.
The City of London was built by Jack the Ripper.
Or more precisely: the warlock who eventually became the Ripper had lived and worked in the seventeenth century, and had played a major role in the reconstruction of the City after the Great Fire. Perhaps he was Wren, or Evelyn or Hawksmoor; or, more likely, he was an assistant or an adviser to one or more of these men. A Mason of supreme skill whose judgement on matters occult was heeded by the eager architects. The mastermind behind the Kabbalist rebuilding of the City of London, who had subverted the symbolism to create an altogether more sinister pattern of sigils.
Tom’s mind raced, putting it together. Questions bombarded him. Questions he should have asked himself a long time ago. Questions about -
He stared out at the vista of London as the sun set, and as the lights of the City came on. Canary Wharf’s far distant tower winked red to warn away low flying aircraft and aerial demons. The Lucifer Tower and the Mammon Tower and the Walki
e Talkie were luminous giants in his foreground. And the narrow pyramid of the immense but distant Shard near London Bridge was lit up as a beacon that surely was visible from space, dazzling Tom.
And at that moment, one hour and five minutes after he had left Gina, Tom heard the screaming.
Chapter 16
Skip back twenty minutes.
‘Cat,’ said Dougie into his e-berry, on speakerphone. He’d driven as fast as he could from Sean Gogarty’s house, and he was keen to be back in the Incident Room.
‘Hi Dougie. Where are you?’
‘In the car. Coming up to Whitechapel Road.’
‘Ah yeah, I’ve got you on my screen now. Did you know there’s a road works –’
‘Yeah yeah, I know about the road works.’
‘If I were you I’d take the second left, third right, then –’
‘Cat! I do have my own satnav you know.’
‘Sure. Sorry.’
‘How are you getting on?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Foster mothers.’
He’d briefed Cat and the team on his meeting with Sean Gogarty soon after Tom had lost his e-berry connection. Dougie was expecting numerous Actions to have been issued by now. He was expecting urgency, energy, and news. Instead there was a strange pause.
‘Um,’ said Cat.
‘Ah yeah, right,’ said Gina, on the other line. ‘I’ve only been back in the MIR a few minutes, guv. I’ll get on to – sorry, Doug, got to –’ She vanished off the line.
‘Foster mothers. New line of investigation,’ Dougie prompted.
‘LOI-Four-Two-Three-Four,’ Andy Homerton chipped in.
‘That’s the one,’ said Dougie.
‘Sure, we’ll get round to it,’ Cat said reassuringly.
‘Get round to it?’
‘Hi Dougie.’
‘Hi Gina.’
‘Just needed to, ah, check some stuff. Quick update. Basically, we’re waiting on Herneith.’
‘Great, fine. Meanwhile –’
‘Once Herneith tells us where the demon is, we can get to work,’ added Catriona. ‘On the - other, other avenue you’ve proposed.’
‘Sure. Got that. Cat?’
‘Yes?’
‘What are you doing, Cat?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Talking to you.’
‘Before that.’
There was a strange pause.
‘Um. Catching up, well, on foldering. I’m way behind. My In Tray is –’
‘Sean Gogarty said his father had visited a foster parent of demons in South London. Find that person and we find Gogarty.’
‘Doug,’ said Cat.
‘Find the foster mother, and we find Gogarty,’ Dougie repeated.
‘Guv, we’re not looking –’
‘What’s that, Cat?’
Cat went silent.
‘Dougie, we’re not looking for Gogarty,’ said Gina, nicely. ‘Even if hasn’t been dumped by the demon, which he almost certainly has, he’s not our target. He’s just the vessel, and he has no value now the creature is corporeal. We’ve discussed all this. Gogarty is almost certainly dead. The creature will have –’
‘Find the foster mother,’ Dougie said stubbornly. ‘Find her, and we may find -’
‘We’re not looking for bloody Gogarty! We’re looking for the demon!’ Gina snapped. ‘Naberius. The demon! Come on, Doug. We’re wasting time chasing –’
‘Find the foster mother.’
‘Sure sure, on it, guv,’ said Cat, placatingly.
‘Do you have a problem here?’ Dougie said warily.
‘No problem.’
‘No problem, guv.’
‘But the thing is, Dougie –’ said Gina.
‘What? What?’
‘The thing is, guv, it’s hard to see how or why the demon would have any links with Gogarty’s former contacts. So it’s difficult to apprehend the – efficacy – of this particular line of enquiry at this particular – juncture in time.’
‘Do the words, “Because I say so?” have any resonance?’ Dougie said.
There was petulance and sullenness in his tone. He hated that.
‘Well, since you put it like that, I am the office manager, sir,’ Alliea Cartwright chipped in, in tones as sharp as steel. ‘And it’s my job to – and with respect, sir –’
‘With respect what?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
Dougie braked abruptly, almost tailgating a Fiat Punto.
‘Careful,’ Cat said, who was still watching his progress on Google Earth.
Dougie hung up. Then he switched his e-berry off.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered to himself.
He knew he was being stubborn. But something made him sure the foster mother lead should be pursued. Even though he knew, with all his coppering experience, that the Herneith avenue was a much better bet. Clearly though he was out of kilter with the rest of Five Squad. And that was bad. Very bad.
And yet, he thought – so fucking what! He was the fucking guvnor wasn’t he?
But Dougie had recognised the tone in Gina’s voice, and in Cat’s voice too.
It was the tone he’d once employed with Roy Hall, back in their Carter Street days. After he had realised that his boss was a drunkard and an oaf who wasn’t up to the rigours of his job. It was an ‘I’ve lost confidence in you, you sad fucker’ tone of voice.
Dougie wondered if he was losing his grip. This had never happened to him before. Authority came naturally to him. Even when he was doing something stupidly wrong, his troops were loyal to him. If he led them off a cliff they’d clamber up again so they would be ready to fall off a second cliff.
But it was three weeks since Gogarty escaped. Three weeks since the station was blown up, since Phil Matthews and Eamon Thomas and Martin Jobold and Lem McCoy and the rest had died. And in all that time Dougie had not left a stone unturned. He’d pursued every lead, every line of investigation, he’d used criminal profiling, geodemographic analysis, CCTV analysis, he’d paid informants, he’d even used illegal wiretapping data.
However Dougie had refused to use supernatural means to solve the case. Other squads used Herneith routinely. Gina knew her well through her work with the London Crime Squad. But Dougie never used dead or demonic snouts. He never had and he never would. It was for him a point of principle.
And now his stubbornness had cost him the confidence of Five Squad.
Fifteen minutes later, after enduring a series of ghastly gridlocks, Dougie was pulling up at Bethnal Green station. He parked out front and got out of the car. He looked up at his new temporary home. He wondered if it was even worth him going back in.
His e-berry rang.
Herneith screamed a second time. Louder, and with even more anguish.
During all those millennia in the hell dimension, she had never once screamed. For to show weakness is a defeat, and she was not prepared to be defeated. But this searing agony came unexpectedly and savagely, tearing at her from her eyes to her groin. It was a pain like nothing she’d ever known. She realised that the demon Naberius had a protector. A powerful protector.
And she realised too that her memory had in some way been wiped. She no longer knew where Naberius was or how to find him again. He was lost to her.
The pain was a knife in her guts and it was also like drowning face-first in acid. Finally it manifested as scalding heat. Her body glowed. She began spitting fire and weeping flame. Her body became a furnace.
This would not kill her – few things could - but the simultaneous existence in her body of so many different kinds of pain was overwhelming her mind’s ability to endure.
And so she screamed. And screamed. And screamed again, as she realised the final vicious twist in this cruel tale: that her pain was not temporally defined. It was lasting for what felt like an eternity, even for someone as ancient as herself.
Beset and Hathor watched their
mistress’s torment helplessly. They glanced at each other. And then, in a single fluid movement, the two slaves turned and fled.
By now Herneith’s entire body was a pillar of flame at the heart of which was her agony. She was a living candle, within a cathedral lit by candles.
Tom answered his phone, and saw it was Gina.
‘What the fuck is –’
‘Gina – ?’
‘ – going on there?’
‘You heard the screams?’ he asked.
‘What? No. We didn’t hear any screams. But St Paul’s is on fire. The heat sensor just transmitted a signal to the fire brigade and it’s on every e-berry in the Met Net. Andy’s on the line to the guvnor who is hoofing his way up the apples and pears as we speak. So get back here as soon as – actually where the fuck are you, Tom?’
‘On the roof.’
‘Of St Paul’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah. Okay. What the – never mind. Can you confirm if there’s a fire inside the cathedral?’
Tom looked at the surface of the cathedral dome. He realised it was glowing like a sun. He held out his hand and felt no heat. But when he tried to touch it, his skin started to blister.
‘Roger that,’ said Tom into his e-berry. ‘It’s mystic fire but it burns like the real thing.’
‘Then get the fuck away. The whole place is lit up like a Roman candle according to the sensor graph.’
‘Have you tried correlating –’
‘Stop talking, you fucking - go!’
Tom hung up. He took out his Glock semi-automatic pistol, inhaled and exhaled to build up his confidence. And he went through the doorway and began to run down the stairs.
The screaming sound did not stop. He wondered if it was a scream at all. Was it a machine of some kind? Or a demon, baying? But whatever it was, it was scaring him.
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