“Aye, I mean, yes.”
“What's a never-never?”
“An installment plan, and in the case of politicians, a never-never is a committee to study the problem. They have a committee to form committees. Lewis Carroll was right, you know, about us, aye.”
She laughed. She knew he felt relaxed. He used “aye” instead of yes when he relaxed, reverting back to the “sound of Bow Bells”-the easy slang of his upbringing. She liked knowing he could relax around her.
“They have a saying in Ireland: 'Will the last person leaving the country please switch off the politicians?' “
She laughed uproariously in response. She then asked, “You seem to be coping with divorce well? Copperwaite tells me it hasn't been that long.” He laughed hollowly in response, shook his head, sat up taller, and took in a deep breath. “Well, I do have a potted lecture on the subject, anyone cares to listen. Frankly, I had so many inquiries about the divorce, the children, how I was holding up, how she was holding up, that the standard talk had to be formulated, as defense. I mucked the divorce up as I mucked the marriage up, I suppose. Very parliamentary of me, really. Spent some time in therapy, and while it's now off the boil, as they say, at the time, I felt parboiled. I felt pain in my being so intense, a depression so deep, I fear going near that part of me ever again.”
She laid her hand over his. “I'm sorry. Didn't mean to open old wounds or to stick my nose in.”
“Oh, you've hardly opened any wounds, and as for being a prodnose, well, that's another term here for detectives. And since I work with the lot at the Yard, there's little hope for privacy on the issue, really.”
“But you still have wounds. A divorce is a war no one walks away from unscathed.”
He nodded, but stiffly. “Wounds remain. Tell you one thing about a divorce…”
“Yes?”
“Only one who wins is the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.”
“Threadneedle who?”
“Bank of England. It's on Threadneedle Street.” His eyes shifted. He brought her into focus and suddenly changed the subject entirely. “Copperwaite's somewhat upset with us- the two of us-but mostly me. He believes me over the moon about you, in raptures.”
She blushed and lifted the menu to cover her face, pretending hunger and thirst, but asking, “Is Copperwaite right?”
“Right? I can't say. just yet.”
She quickly returned to her menu and asked of a drink, “What's a pink gin?”
“Gin and bitters with water added. Would you care to indulge?”
“Only if you'll join me. But perhaps another beer, or a pint as you call it over here, would be wiser?”
“I'm off the ticker. Either way is fine with me. As for a pint, if a Briton asks for a pint, he means a pint of bitter. It's a unit of liquid measure, the pint in question is an Imperial pint, twenty ounces.”
“A beer in America is only sixteen ounces!”
“Half a pint is ten ounces. That may be what you want to order. It's what I carried over here for you.” He indicated the now empty glass in front of her.
“I see, I think…”
Jessica gave him a bemused smile which he took to mean “go on,” which he did. “As for whiskey or scotch, when you want a decent drink in London, you must ask for a double, but not even the bravest or thirstiest lad would dare ask a British bartender for a triple.”
She laughed loud enough to alert the tables around them. He continued on, “If you want to go easy on yourself, you might try our vintage cider. Goes down too easily, actually.”
“Really?”
“With the consistency of good sherry and at least as strong.”
Row after row of glasses in two sizes, pint and half pint, gleamed in the light just above the bar, tethered upside down on hooks like crystal bats.
“Next,” Richard continued, “you must decide between ordinary bitter and best bitter, when ordering a pint.”
“What's the difference? Which do you prefer?”
“The best, of course. It's stronger, aged longer.”
“Is that what we've had already? It was delicious.”
“Yes. So what will it be?” She settled for the pink gin. He called for two.
“So, I take it that Boulte doesn't like you. Inspector.” Already, the half pint of bitters worked to slur her words and thoughts.
“Boulte would like to make me a points man.”
“Meaning?”
“A policeman on point duty is a traffic cop.”
She asked him about his time in the military. He evaded the question, beginning a spiel on England's pubs instead, pointing about the place as he did so. “Pubs-public houses- like this one are an institution in England. Everyone in Britain has his pub. Some call it the local. Each pub has two bars, generally, the public bar and the private or saloon bar where you're apt to find a carpet on the floor and linen tablecloths on the tables. Drinks in the private room are a bit pricier, of course, but the dartboard, the billiard table, and the shove-half penny board you'll always find out here. If you want, tonight, we could do a pub crawl, that is make the rounds as you Yanks say. In fact, we could go to Clubland.”
“Clubland?”
“St. James's-an area of London that includes the palace of the same name. Houses many of London's most famous clubs.”
“And you wish to do this for me? With the express purpose of getting the both of us loaded?”
“Stinking. Boulte and the public prosecutor would love to learn of it. They might well have one of the Q-Division staring at me right this moment for all I know.”
“Public prosecutor? Q-Division?”i
“A division of the Yard, internal affairs. As for the P.P., that'd be Ellen Sturgeon, what you would call the district attorney. You met her briefly at the meeting of all the citywide officers, didn't you?”
“No, I didn't. No one formally introduced us, but I do recall a stem-looking broomstick in the comer.”
“That's her. She's moving so fast on the rat brothers, you'd imagine the Thames is at Floodgate Street. Boulte and she have it all worked out, you see, and if they can control me, then they haven't a bother. Typical upper-level thinking usually means no-thinking.”
“Then perhaps we should go to a museum instead of doing a pub crawl, is it?”
“I say we rave-up. Take in some dancing. Either that or a drive into the regions?”
“The regions?”
“Home counties, the provinces. See the countryside.”
“Sounds lovely. I'd like that.”
“So, what looks good on the menu?”
She stared down at a list of sandwiches, soups, and meat pies. Coming across one called Spotted-Dog Pie gave her the strangest image of Dalmations all skinned and cooked in a stew. She pointed it out to Richard in a half-singing voice, “See spot ran, see spot die, see spot as a Christmas pie.”
“The dog is rather tasty, actually, a dessert pudding. It's a roly-poly pudding with suet, raisins, and currants, and not a Dalmatian, I assure you. May I suggest number thirteen, however?”
She glanced quickly to the number and read aloud, “Resurrection Pie…”
“Apropos, I should think,” he finished.
“What is it?”
“Resurrection… created from leftovers, you see.” She flashed on a mental image of the leftover lives of the many victims of the Crucifier, wondering if the rat brothers could be considered vicdms in this bizarre case as well. “Suddenly, I'm not so hungry,” she pleaded.
“Fine, then let's have at the shove-halfpenny.”
“But I don't know how to play.”
“You're quite better off not knowing. It's quite possibly the most frustrating game in the world.”
Soon they were shoving well-polished old halfpennies with the flat of the hand along a board separated into horizontal secdons, each with numerical value, a kind of miniature shuffleboard. With each halfpenny came laughter from them both.
As they played, Jess
ica began telling Sharpe of her last visit to Luc Sante and their conversation. She felt inept, however, in restating the man's words. She feared her retelling of his remarks on the Crucifier fell flat.
“Slut's wool,” he replied.
Taken aback by this, she asked, “Whatever do you mean?”
“It's the stuff collects under the bed, behind the bureau, and other hard-to-reach places. Half or more what the old shrink says is slut's wool. I know. I went to him when I'd become depressed over my divorce.”
“Really?”
“I had worked with him on many occasions. I learned that he was good with divorce, and he was, but he also likes to hear himself talk.”
“But I thought you thought him of excellent reputation and help in police matters.”
“Of course he is, but I'm on my way to being smashed tonight, so there you have it.” Freshly cleaned and scrubbed and prayed over, the holy cross awaited its next supplicant. All about it and all around the pulpit placed here by their leader, the followers of the Church of the New Millennia and the Second Coming, bowed their heads in prayer and supplication. They did so amid the squalor and degradation of a church that must shun the light of a society that condemned it, in a place where rats infested, where an ancient floor lay buried, and where a long forgotten mine shaft and a putrid, unclean canal sat dormant for generations.
The unclean water meant they had to take the bodies elsewhere for cleansing, which was part of the ritual. They had to be cleansed in God's lakes, ponds, and rivers.
Below their feet, Roman stone floors reminded them with each footfall of the persecution they would face, should they too soon make known their teachings and practices, should they step forth into the light without the Son of God clearly beside them.
At the moment, however, they felt a collective and profound disappointment. It proved so deep that for some time they in sum felt a sense of loss: loss of direction, loss of identity, loss of purpose, loss of rationale, loss of meaning, loss of self and God. All they had done, they had done in the name of Christ for the greater glory of God. So why had they failed?
“It's a test, a cosmic quiz, my friends. Not unlike God to create His own brand of dark humor, now is it? His design, we cannot know, cannot ever hope to touch or so much as stand near. He is inscrutable, the enigma of all enigmas, a mystery within a mystery within a mystery added to a grand mystery more complex than any puzzle mankind can ever hope to piece together. There we shall not attempt. There we shall not go. We know only what His Son gave us in His word. That He would send His Son once again to purge this horrid world we ourselves have created, purge it of all the evil, all the ugliness, all the inhumanity, and all the humanity required to cleanse this Earth.”
The leader wore the heavy ancient robes of the early church, something one might expect to see dangling from a wax dummy in the historical fashion section of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The heavy vestments, dark and grim, gave their leader the image of large and powerful shoulders, a straight and tall appearance, and a solidness he would not otherwise have had. The coat made him appear stout and oaken, wooden like the huge cross beside him. “We must not fail. To give in to despair now is certain to lead to failure, assuring that the Second Coming simply will not be in this millennium, and then what is mankind left with but another thousand years of darkness and ruin? We must not lose sight of our collective will and purpose.”
“But we've sent four innocent people over. We've crucified the wrong people. We've made mistakes fourfold!” replied the most vocal of the followers. An Iranian named Kahilli who had brought Burton, one of his patients, and more of the Brevital they required.
“None are innocent, and all who went before our final choice went as sacrifices to a greater good. Burnt offerings, you might say,” countered their leader from on high at his enormous oak pulpit, where he stood above them all.
“Their sins washed clean,” muttered another of the fold, a weak old woman.
“When do we make our next selection?” asked another elderly female.
“Soon, very soon, this temple shall come into the light, and soon, very soon, a new history of mankind will begin and this world will never be the same after…” replied their leader where he stood in the hidden cathedral where stagnant water stood unmoving like a snake without life.
One of their fold, no longer with them now, had once asked where the water came from. No one could tell him. Then he asked where the water might be leading to. No one could tell him this, either. But their minister had assured him that what must be most important is the here and the now of a thing, that their concern must be on the small strip of water in their temple, and not its source or its confluence. “God grants us but one view of the whole,” their leader had said to the wayward member whose questions seemed never ending-until he was silenced altogether.
Others in the fold recalled those questions now, because a sudden rumble and gurgle and bubble below the surface of the water rose up, and the silent strip of green liquid, like ancient lacing around a giant Christmas package, rippled and belched almost on cue to what their minister spoke.
“It is time,” their leader pronounced. “It is time to select a fifth Chosen One.”
FIFTEEN
Evil creates labyrinthine power, layer upon layer, and begins to weave bonds of dominion over its followers, creating a web of monstrosity from acceptance.
— Geoffrey Caine, Bloodstreams
Richard's hangover had him in the bathroom, praying to the porcelain god, while Jessica, sympathetic but exhausted with her own headache, tried to recall just how many pubs they had crawled to and from the night before. Sharpe had been in a foul mood, and his anger and sullenness came out in this manner-drink and everything else be damned. But he proved to be fun and even hilarious when, in a crowded pub, he drunkeniy and loudly explained the game of cricket to all “foreign-bom immigrants and tourists.” Climbing onto a bar and bellowing out the explanadon of the game, he had said, “It's all quite simple, really! You have two sides, one out in the field, one in. Do you understand so far? Good!”
“So far, yes,” volunteered someone from the crowd.
Richard continued, adding with a flourish, “Each man on the side that's in goes out, and when he's out, he comes in, and the next man goes in, undl he's out. When they're all out, the side that's been out in the field now comes in-they come in, you see? And the side that's been in goes out to try to get out those coming in. If, however, the side that goes in declares, then you get men still in, not out. Then, when both sides have been in and out, including not outs, twice, that's the end of the match. Now do you comprehend?”
The crowd, Jessica included, roared while Sharpe shouted, “What? Don't you get it now? Shall I explain again?”
“No, no!” Jessica had pleaded.
She had watched Richard Sharpe put away an amazing amount of booze, his mood and the occasion calling for it. She had once been there herself. She sympathized with his need to wash the images of the victims, whom he feared to let down, from his brain.
Jessica had come with Richard to his home, a chalet-bungalow, basically a one-story house with an extra room in the eave-space. The exterior brickwork recommended it as a pleasant place, but the interior felt as dark and cramped as a cave.
Jessica feared her friend and lover was on the edge and teetering there. She knew she could not count herself a friend, if she failed to talk to him about it. These thoughts bombarded her now to the chorus of his nausea.
When Richard emerged, his eyes shone bright, his smile pervading the room. He showed not the least sign of injury or suffering, but rather appeared refreshed. A mask, a disguise, she thought.
“Richard, are you aware you are an alcoholic?” she asked point-blank.
His response came out as a hefty laugh, and he asked, “Are you the least hungry? My cupboard is near bare, but I have some breakfast cereal, some breads, a handful of eggs. Do you care for an omelet?”
“I don't th
ink I could eat right now, no. And I don't know how on Earth you could. No, thank you.”
“1 hope you won't mind if I throw something together for myself.”
“After what I just heard? You must have a cast-iron stomach.”
“Speaking of which, I am given to understand you are pursuing a lead regarding coal and dung?”
“Dung and beetle, but how did you learn of that?”
“You forget. I am an inspector with Scoutand Yard. I know how to get people to talk,” he said with a smile. Then he freely added, “Heard you took a resounding ribbing from Schuller on the topic.”
“Is nothing sacred?”
“Not in questions of murder, no.”
She nodded, knowing this old truth of seeking the truth. “All right, yes, I've got the lab looking at any and every minute clue we have. The fact her hands, even after the water soaking, had the coal dust in them, got me to wondering, and it all tickled Dr. Schuller's funny bone.”
“And rightly so, my dear Jessica.”
“But suppose she and all of the victims were kept hostage somewhere before their being crucified, and suppose it was an underground someplace where coal abounds?”
He gave this a moment's thought, and brought his shoulders up before he replied, “England and London in particular are dotted with old coal mines, but only a handful are still in operation. Most have gone under.”
“I see.”
“Literally used to be hundreds within the city itself, if you consider the city one city; you see, London is in fact a sprawling bear, and all the separate little villages about the city proper have been swallowed up by the bear with each new bridge and roadway built over the years. But at one time, each small municipality had its own coal mine. So, there's the problem.”
“Problem?”
“Even if you were certain the coal dust under Woodard's nails-”
“No longer just her nails. We went back for a closer examination, and Raehael and I found coal dust embedded in her wounds as well, in the palms and feet.”
He slowed to digest this fact. “Even if it had come from someplace she had been held hostage, where do you begin? Not likely at the few still in operation. And there are hundreds not in operation, you see?”
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