Blind Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “I could do nothing to harm him. Yet here I am taking his one love, St. Albans, from him in a matter of weeks.”

  “He seems to have made his peace with it, and he ... Well, I daresay he couldn't have selected a better successor. Will you also be doing the trick cyclist's work?” she quipped.

  “I have some certification papers to finish up, but yes, as a matter of fact, I will. Regardless of what some think, the Vatican is interested in our carrying on as usual here at St. Albans.”

  “Good luck to you then, and I'm sure we'll see one another again.”

  “I'm sure.”

  He waved her off, the handsome Billy Budd of the place, looking like Richard Chamberlain in his youth, a regal and muscular young turk, she thought. The man was at extreme odds with the old man of St. Albans, so filled was Strand with rich life, earthy color, vigor, and power. He waved to her as she dashed down the walk doing her best to remain dry with­out an umbrella.

  The midday drizzle had turned the sky a gunmetal gray, and the gargoyles far up overhead, guarding St. Albans as it were, wept under the steady drenching they stoically took. Yet, many of the gargoyles enjoyed the wet, even ciphoned off water from the roof, their tubular interiors acting as wa­terspouts, a utilitarian use of art if Jessica had ever seen it. On the one hand, the statuary stood as sentinels between two worlds, on the other, as sediment-filled drainpipes—quite the concrete opposite of the otherworldly symbolism attaching to the grim-faced stone monsters, and an oddly disproportionate thing to behold, she thought. But then, each day she discov­ered something new and queer and fascinating about London, England, and with this final thought on the matter, she climbed into the police car left behind for her “transport needs” by the ever thoughtful Inspector Sharpe.

  -EIGHT-

  Evil is not only a presence; it infiltrates mankind as the ultimate disease.

  —Father Jerrard Luc Sante, from Twisted Faiths

  Jessica and Sharpe spent the rest of the day in a frustrating effort to gain access to the recently buried Frank Coibby. When they were finally able to get the paperwork, it was learned that Coibby's body had been misplaced. “By order of the Crown that no bodies be buried in the realm,” due to the terrible overcrowding in British cemeteries. It had been for this reason that O'Donahue's body had been cremated into uselessness. Now Coibby simply appeared misplaced, as mor­tuary after mortuary was being checked.

  “I thought you said there'd be no problem with this,” Jes­sica asked, her rising voice telegraphing frustration.

  Frowning, Sharpe replied, “I ordered the body be held in­tact, funeral service or no, and—”

  “Funeral service?”

  “Thrown together affair by the estranged family, out of a sense of duty, I suppose. In any case, the mortuary paid by the family for services rendered, such as they were, simply shipped the body out to another mortuary, I am now told.”

  “Odd, isn't it?” Jessica wondered if there might not be some hidden agenda in all this.

  “A falling out over the billing costs, I'm told, caused the second mortuary to return the body here, but they have limited storage facilities, just as we do at the Yard.”

  “And so?”

  “The mortician here has the body at his ... home.”

  “His homeT

  “In a full-sized freezer there. Bugger figured to leave it there until such a time as someone came asking for it back.”

  “Well, now we're asking,” she huffed.

  “Mr. Coibby's body will be returned to the mortuary by 8 a.m. tomorrow,” came back the promise from the mortician, a Mr. Littelle.

  And for tonight, Jessica found herself having dinner with Richard Sharpe at the Trafalgar Square's famous Rules res­taurant, known for having fortified English stomachs since 1798. They ate quickly so that Sharpe could show her some of the sights and the famous area within walking distance of her hotel room at the York. Richard offered to take her to see Soho by night as well, and that invitation she found far too enticing to turn down. She planned to return another day to take in the nearby National Gallery.

  “We will have to motor to West End, but my car is close at hand,” he informed Jessica.

  “Yes, wonderful... Soho. I've heard so much about the area.”

  Soho didn't disappoint. Jessica was delighted when she found herself on Oxford Street, London's number one shop­ping street, which history told her had been a road since Ro­man times. From there, Richard took her through Soho Square, a brooding place, laid out in the 1680s. “See the church there?” asked Richard, pointing to a spiraling steeple.

  “Yes.”

  “French Protestant. French Huguenots formed the first wave to settle the district, followed by a melting pot of other nationalities, giving the place its international flair while maintaining a villagelike appearance.”

  “Much like Greenwich Village in New York,” she replied. “Exactly. That cosmopolitan flavor.”They strolled Frifth Street to Old Compton Street and on to Charring Cross Road, a place lined with fascinating and quaint bookshops. At Cambridge Circus, Richard pointed out the restored Palace Theatre, a fascinating sight, and soon they were on Gerrard Street, a pedestrian-only area in the heart of China Town. Richard asked if she cared for anything to drink as they stood outside the Dragon Inn.

  “Yes, a drink would do me well,” she agreeably replied. “But only one.”

  “My limit as well,” he warned with a smile. “What would you like?”

  “A whiskey sour, perhaps?”

  “Hmmm ... lovely. My preference as well.”

  Richard waved to the bartender, someone he knew from past visits, the moment they stepped through the red doors and into the dark interior. The Asian bartender smiled and nodded, knowing what Richard meant by his two fingers in the air. They found a table where Jessica put down the few small bags, her purchases amassed during their trek.

  “I trust you found some real treasures to take back to the States with you,” he commented on the bags.

  “Yes, in fact, I have.”

  “Good. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself in my city.”

  He said my city as if he'd given birth to it; he stated it with pride and passion.

  Jessica had never felt so passionate about a place as this man obviously felt toward London, but she could well un­derstand it.

  Along their stroll, he'd pointed out places of historical sig­nificance and interest, such as the House of St. Barnabas, a 1746 structure that reminded all Londoners of Soho's aristo­cratic beginnings. He had also pointed out a now charming small hotel named the Hazlitt on Frifth Street, where essayist William Hazlitt died. Richard noted a nearby inn where once Karl Marx and his family lived in abject poverty as well. The area, now cleaned up for the tourist trade, still somehow con­veyed the feeling of a place where starving artists and idealists came to die. This lent a melancholy mood to the place, like that found in a cemetery, despite the modem veneer.

  When Jessica voiced her feelings, Richard laughed and said, “Are you interested in visiting Soho Cemetery? Quite a few famous chaps buried there.”

  Their drinks had arrived, and seeing no ice in either of them, Jessica recalled the custom. Liquor in London was taken at room temperature. She stirred her drink with a swiz­zle stick, staring into the brown liquid. 'Truth be known, I do enjoy a good cemetery search,” she confided, “but—”

  “Cemeteries abound in London, some with quite impressive permanent Londoners as we call them.”

  “Which do you suggest as the best, if I've only time for one?” she asked.

  “That's difficult to say. St. Marylebone, perhaps. Westmin­ster and the Tower of London have, of course, the most to see, but they've become such traps for the tourists. Although there are magnificent carved stones and statues to see. But for the real enthusiasts, they should see Bunhill Fields.”

  “Bunhill Fields?”

  “Probably a bastardization of bone field.” He laughed lightly and sipped at his drink.
>
  “No doubt,” she agreed with his assessment.

  “John Wesley's buried there. An enormous likeness of him as you enter the gates. John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake—”

  “A regular writers' colony!”

  “John Milton is entered at nearby St. Giles Cripplegate.”

  “Charming name, Cripple-gate?”

  He raised his shoulders. “Not sure how a gate can be crip­pled, you mean? Likely as not a busted affair.”

  The terms busted affair and Cripplegate made Jessica again think of James Parry and her crippled relationship with him. Their busted affair.

  “Is there anything wrong?” he asked.

  She realized he'd read the dark shadow that'd eclipsed her features as she'd given thought to James and their beleaguered love, a love beset and plagued by problems of distance and practicalities, a love tormented and besieged by loneliness. When last she'd spoken to Jim Parry, he wanted her to mull over the idea that they begin to see other people. He had needs that she could not fulfill from half a globe away, he'd com­plained. To Richard now, she simply said, “Nothing, really. Just... a memory.”

  “I see. Yes, I have a few bad memories of my own.” She forced a smile, realizing that he must be well-attuned to people to be the inspector that he was.

  “I'm not one to pry, but should you wish to talk about it, about anything at all, you'll find me a good listener.”

  She smiled in return. “Thank you, Richard. I may take you up on that someday.”

  They parted at Jessica's door with an exchange of hand­shakes, eye contact, and smiles, Richard ever the gentleman. Jessica spent the rest of the evening alone with her longing to telephone James Parry. Her emotions ran the gamut from wanting to rub Parry's face in the fact that she had just spent the day with a wonderful British gentleman to whom she felt attracted, to hoping against hope that James had had a change of heart, that he would reconsider their relationship and the decision to end it. Richard Sharpe had awakened feelings in her she had suppressed for too long now. She needed James's reassurance that all between them would and could be worked out. But her analytical side, her unemotional scientific side knew that any reconciliation with James Parry was unlikely at this point.

  Sometime later—in a nightgown that James had purchased for her in an exotic little shop their last time on Maui—Jessica lay on her back, unable to sleep, thinking intently about the last time she had heard James's voice. She wondered if it would prove to be the very last time she would ever hear his voice. That telephone call had been a connection made be­tween Quantico, Virginia, and Honolulu, Hawaii, during a rushed moment before the trip to London—typical of her life­style. Even in the midst of trying to hold on to James, she was packing and racing away.

  She thought now of Hawaii, where they had first met in 1994, six years ago, and where they had continued a long­distance love affair since. It had been a good run, she now told herself, knowing that the intensity and passion of their feelings had waned to the point of estrangement, the kind of deeply sad estrangement only former lovers who still felt warmth for one another could know. Through no fault of Jim's or her own, things had gone the way of so many rela­tionships. Given the distance between them, given their egos, given their high-powered careers—he a field chief special agent with the Bureau, she a much-in-demand medical ex­aminer—the oddsmakers in the FBI family had them down for a year, two at best. But such people didn't know James Parry, nor did they know Jessica Coran, not really.

  Even so... Even accepting the fact that their love had cooled, creating an emotional chasm between them larger than the miles separating them, Jessica found herself in a quandary. She didn't know whether to cherish or to fend off all the myriad and power-filled memories of this love, the memories of this man, memories of them together. She still battled with the feeling of abandonment and emptiness, so bitter and gut-wrenching; still fought the needs, the tugging pull like an invisible cord in her abdomen somehow still connected be­tween them.

  'Talk about physical pain,” she told herself and the empty room. She still felt—if she allowed herself to feel—his breath in hers whenever they had made passionate love. She still closed her eyes and saw the patterned beauty of his salt-and-pepper hair up close, while her chin lay against his forehead. She still felt the soft warmth of his gentle touch against her skin, the sweet smell of him lingering in her mind along with the way his laughter filled her with a giddiness she'd not known since childhood, and the thousand other small mem­ories that went into building the whole memory of him that she so cherished. Let it go? Give it over to the grave? Bury it? Put it by with mourning? The sad irony in such intense passion remained at once to hold firm to that rarity, and at the same time control it. “So it does not destroy you,” she pleaded with herself again. Control it, control it, control it. An internal memo she had to resend to her heart, back to her brain, then relay again to her soul, with the intent of gaining acceptance and balance in the trio of spirit.

  Try as she might, it all came crashing back. She recalled that last, unfulfilling conversation....

  Jim came on, asking, “Jessica? Is that you? How are you? Where are you calling from?” He sounded groggy as if climb­ing from sleep. She realized too late the time difference be­tween them. I'm home, but I'm off to London. I was hoping that per­haps you could join me there for a few days?”

  “I'm actually in the midst of one hell of a political shake-up in the islands at the moment, and to add to my troubles, we've got a serial killer stalking striptease dancers over here.”

  “I see.”

  “He's already killed four without any sign of giving himself away. Uses a garrote to practically cut their heads off. Full of rage, this one.”

  “A garrote? Rather a specialized weapon. Have you con­sidered the possibility it's a woman doing the killing?”

  “Why do you say so?”

  “Garroting is a backdoor approach, and one has to gain the near total acceptance of the victim, make her feel there's noth­ing whatever to fear. Of course, a Ted Bundy could talk a victim into completely relaxing around him, but the Bundy type is rare. Most women do not feel threatened by other women.”

  “Well, there's no sexual contact, no lust-murder elements, merely a clean, thin, cut line around the entire throat.”

  “It's entirely possible the murder weapon could appear as a harmless necklace. Garrotes are as thin as wire.”

  “Amazing,” he muttered. “Some of us here have given thought to the possibility it's a woman doing the killing.”

  “No signs of struggle? Nothing under the victim's nails? No way to get at the killer if he or she approached from behind,” she said.

  “That's exactly what we've got. The killer leaves a scented handkerchief at every scene, a feminine touch.”

  The conversation shifted to their relationship and to pre­cisely what they both knew they must talk about.

  “All right, James. Time for the truth. Truth is we aren't talking about what's really on our minds anymore. Not like we used to talk ...”

  He had agreed, saying, 'Truth is, we're ... we've drifted apart, Jess, and I. .. I've become involved.”

  “Involved? With someone else?”

  “You know how it is. Working late hours on an intense case. Only natural to turn to someone, someone close at hand, not thousands of miles away.”

  “I can't say that you didn't warn me.” She dared not ask how long Parry had been seeing this new person in his life.

  James finally admitted, “I could no longer maintain our— my—side of our relationship, despite all my attempts to make it work.”

  “Greece, the Mediterranean, that was a beautiful attempt, James.”

  “It's over, Jess. You made the choice for us, not me.”

  “What choice are you talking about? I've had no... It seems to me that you're the one who has made the choices here, James.”

  “You chose your work over everything, Jessica. Over me, over us, over
your own happiness. And that's where it's at for you, isn't it? Isn't it?” He'd begun to shout.

  “I've done all I could to maintain an exclusive, long­distance relationship with you, James. I've done that and more. I have committed to you.”

  “Well, Jess, you have a funny definition of commitment. I can't accept what you call a commitment any longer. I'm forty-eight years old, Jessica, and one day I want to have children. I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore. Not any­more.”

  “James, let's hold on, all right? Give me time to come over. We'll talk. We'll work something out, we'll—”

  “No, I'm sorry, Jess, but—”

  “What's the harm in giving it more time, so that we can discuss it like two intelligent adults faced with a problem. So we can find a solution?”

  “Jess, you made a choice—your career over me. It's that simple. Problem resolved.”

  “You want me to give up everything—my job, my friends, everything I know—to join you in Hawaii, but you're not willing to give up a single thing.” Love makes fools of us all, she thought.

  “We've had this argument before, Jess.” He spoke in a near-whisper. She could feel his pain coming through. She whispered in return, “What are you willing to give up for me, James?”

  “What we had ... while beautiful, Jess, it's now clearly ... over.”

  Jessica had felt all her inner resolve and strength drain from her body through bare-knuckled hands and fingertips that wrapped themselves tightly about the solid phone receiver, as if they could hold back James's determination. Her fingers lingered over the phone as if independent of her. Her hands felt and looked like someone else's. She calmly studied the flawless white skin and hardly noticed when her right hand simply dropped the phone on its cradle, her eyes filling with remorse and bittersweet tears. She was apart from herself, unable to feel a thing.

  She hadn't even said good-bye; nor had he. Fitting ending. She felt angry and frustrated. There seemed no pleasing him. While he offered no compromise, Jim expected her to com­pletely overhaul her life and lifestyle on the altar of their spoken bond. It would be easier to give into mad emotions now. Make demands of her own. Simply to say Fuck Jim Parry, and to hell with all his ultimatums. She was no one's property, goods, assets, belongings. “I'm no man's belong­ings, nor will I ever be,” she told herself.