“Oh, you don't know Strand. He's something of a magician, that one. Had me fooled, and I'm the supposed expert. Let's face it. For all these years, his choirboy looks have gotten him by. He simply is not what he appears to be.”
Jessica began the search through this street-comer madhouse of electric energy, a kind of Sodom and Gomorra of bartering. Every item imaginable could be purchased here, and one of the shops Jessica now stood before must be where Strand purchased his ancient altar. At the same instant Jessica's eyes fell on the incredible array of oaken furniture made to appear ancient. Father Luc Sante, growing excited, pointed it out as well, saying, “This is the shop on the receipt for the altar I told you about, Jessica. This is where he purchased the missing oak altar.”
On entering the shop, Jessica saw that it was filled with an array, indeed the enure spectrum of religious icons and paraphernalia, including crosses as large as the beams on ancient firehouse ceilings. She immediately wondered if Strand had also purchased an ancient cross here, with spikes thrown in to seal the deal? Jessica asked the question of Luc Sante who puzzled it out.
She followed with, “What about having a custom-made brand for the underside of the tongue made here?”
“There is a shop for every taste at this street bazaar,” he assured her. “No doubt there is a shop where this sort of branding is routine, like tattooing now! Or body piercing. Trust me, on this street, anything can be had for a price.”
Jessica could easily imagine it possible here from the evidence of her eyes. For here, staring from every tabletop and street vendor's booth, lay black market items from rhino homs to human skulls, ancient swords too heavy to lift to entire table and chair sets that appeared to have been taken from royal homes, the workmanship that fine and intricate. Here Jessica saw the arcane and archaic, the bizarre and fantastic, including a fellow whose entire stock comprised of branding tools Branding irons, both large and small, even miniature in size to create ready-made tattoos without the wait for those able to withstand the pain.
Jessica wondered if the tongue branding iron had not come from this collection of knockabout junk. Jessica saw real family crests for sale, stamps of office, royal seals, extraordinary candles, canes, boxes, paintings, artwork, and sculptures from around the globe; she saw mantels, clocks, children's toys, portmanteaus, chests, armoires, cast iron stoves, kitchenware, pirate ware, fantasy ware, warfare ware, and pinned insects of the most exotic nature, followed by an array of colorful African, handcarved coffins, and beside these, Old World headstones made to order, all this and more within walking distance of St. Albans, and all the variety of wares displayed within feet of one another. Many of the outdoor salespeople had covered ancient doorways, alleyways, and stairwells leading up this way, inviting down that way. The street vendors had built their makeshift booths, like any flea market, wherever they found space, and this section, where Jessica and Luc Sante found themselves, sat squarely in a run-down area of old warehouses that had fallen on hard times many years before, long since abandoned. In other districts, particularly along the Thames, property in ill repair had become fodder for real estate developers following the lead in America to build condominiums and time shares out of old buildings via judicious refurbishing. But this blighted area would have none of that.
So where had Strand disappeared to?
They came up blind at every turn. Every doorway locked, every alleyway empty, every stairwell leading to yet another locked door. Until Jessica found one stone causeway leading gently downward. “This could be where he disappeared to,” she suggested to Luc Sante.
“We should not attempt to go any further alone,” Luc Sante warned. “There's a dark side to Martin that I—forgive me— fell blind to. Me! Me, the so-called expert on evil, and yet I could not recognize it all this dme in my presence in its pleasing form,” lamented Father Luc Sante who suddenly looked old, frail, small, defeated, sunken.
“Exactly right. I saw a pay phone about a block back. Go there and call Sharpe and get the troops here. We may well be onto something.”
“I will not leave you alone here, and you cannot go any further, Jessica,” Luc Sante near ranted. “Do you understand?”
“I'll just wait here undl you get back, in case he shows up again.”
“If you're promising me you will stay put, then I'll make the call, otherwise ...”
“I promise. Now, go!”
Jessica watched as Luc Sante disappeared into the crowd around the bazaar. She turned back to the stone walls and stairwell that so caught her attention and curiosity. It was remarkably old, these walls, this stairwell going down into a dark and gloomy place where there might be yet another locked door, but one she could not see. She lifted her penlight from her pocket, the same as she used in the tunnels with Sharpe. She had used it at St. Albans as well, and now here, but the light, as powerful as it was, revealed no door at the long, downward spiral below her feet. Instead, it appeared to be a bend, a cornering which meant the shaft continued onward in a zigzag fashion.
Luc Sante would be some time, she thought. He seemed as genuinely amazed at Strand's sudden disappearance in the area as she had been. He had been certain that this exact area had swallowed Strand up before when he had followed the man here yesterday.
Jessica wondered if she hadn't stumbled on a passage of Roman architecture in the city. She stepped down into the passage which led invitingly, hauntingly into a labyrinth of walls—still Roman in appearance. From here she located another passage going off in yet another direction with its own set of stairs. Strand could be anywhere among the dark corridors of this ancient place.
All the stone stairwells led downward into the bowels of this place. “Damn,” she swore at herself, “why didn't I have Sharpe come along with me?” She continued one step in front of the other, while at the same time thinking, “I've got to go back, let Father Luc Sante know I'm all right and that these walls and stairwells lead somewhere.”
She turned full around, taking a step back toward the direction from which she came, anxious to reenter the bustling world above, to return to street level and the life that abounded there, to see Father Luc Sante's kindly face searching the entryway for her, but a noise from behind distracted Jessica. It seemed the sound of a falling foot, followed by another. Strand? she wondered.
In the dark distance, she could barely make out the form of a man, his back to her, moving steadily onward, downward into this Stonehengelike place.
A rat scurried past, followed by another, each no doubt carrying enough fleas and disease to infect anyone they might bite. She returned to the lip of the opening where she had first stepped into the Roman walls, scanning for any sign of Luc Sante. On seeing the old man tottering back, his cane held high, she cautioned Father Luc Sante, pleading, “Please, remain aboveground and direct authorities when they arrive. Watch for Sharpe.”
“I could only locate Boulte. Sharpe and his partner were unavailable. Listen to me, young woman, you promised me you wouldn't trek down in there alone!” Luc Sante protested.
“No, I promised you I'd wait until you returned before I did anything else.” She whipped out her .38 Smith & Wesson from her shoulder holster, and she felt the comfort of the more compact Browning automatic strapped to her ankle below her pants leg. The .38 police special alone should be enough to assure Luc Sante of her safety. She said, “I'm not entirely alone!” as she hefted the .38 between two fists for him to see. “I know what I'm doing. I'm a marksman.”
The gun made the old man start, as if he suddenly saw her in a new light. Perhaps he had never thought of her in relation to a weapon, despite the work she did.
“I'm going ahead with my investigation,” she declared. “Direct authorities when they arrive.” She could hear Luc Sante behind her, still cautioning her to wait, cursing her for being so stubborn and impertinent, a cute word to use under the circumstances, she thought and continued forward into the gaping darkness that rushed up t
o meet her.
The stairwell dropped incrementally below her feet as she went deeper into the recesses here, and then the stone floor began a sharper spiral, and the walls narrowed in and in, as if moving in on her, wanting to crush her. Soon—her flash signaling each new step—the walls began scratching at Jessica's shoulders like ghouls reaching from vaults to tear at her clothing.
She could no longer see Strand or what had in the blackness appeared to be Strand, but she continued to hear noises, peculiar, odd sounds: the swishing of a robe, the scratch of a heel, the hum of some sort of machine, perhaps the reverberating noise from aboveground traffic, traveling through the rock here. She heard the distinct sound of seeping water, and for the second time today, she saw walls that bled with moisture. Her clothing had long been stained with the mineral-rich water.
The odors assailing her nostrils were those of ancient crypts and dungeons, stagnant places where only things requiring no light grew and festered, died and decayed. Her thoughts continued worrying her with each new step. The noises coming from above and through the rock, like the pulse of electricity—like the blood fuel that drove all of London—calmed to silence now, but sounds rising from below her rose up like awakening gnomes. She imagined the walls coming to life; she imagined the stairwell turning to Jell-O, slick and thick and slimy. She imagined spiraling into an Alice in Wonderland world below her ankles or coming out on the moon and stars, finding herself inside a bell jar. But none of this happened. The walls and stairs held even as she slipped on the now slick surface.
If this is the way to crucifixion at the hands of the Crucifier, she mentally whispered to herself, then how did those older people make it along this passage? Were they carried, dragged along in their chugged state? She recalled no serious bruising that would indicate such a scenario, so then how ... A moan, human and low and guttural and pained escaped from somewhere ahead, and at her feet the inclined stairs ended, leaving her on a bed of rock.
Jessica, hearing distinctly human noises—the sound of more than one man—wondered whom Strand had met in this awful place? What was the meaning of the low, animal-like but human wail? Was she at last in the lair of the monster, on the Crucifier's ground?
She hesitated taking another step, but in the near distance, she saw that the tunnel opened on light, flickering, flaming, dancing light. She feared investigating further on her own, but she felt drawn to see precisely what lay at the end of the tunnel.
She inched forward, praying that by now Sharpe, Copperwaite, and an army of police were this moment taking direction from Father Luc Sante as to her whereabouts.
She believed now that she had long since left the rim of this peculiar hell, and that she now stood in the belly of the beast. This horrid place called to mind the rungs of hell in Dante's Inferno, the rungs to which a killer the year before promised to send Jessica. It appeared Satan had had his way with her after all, she now mused, for the Devil had brought her here, full circle, in a sense. Was the same evil that stalked her a year before still at her heels now? she wondered.
-TWENTY-ONE -
Man's latent talent for group evil is so attuned, so polished and honed today, that we fear any microscopic study of this uniquely human quality.
—Glenn Hale, DR O
Richard Sharpe had waited for Copperwaite just down from St. Albans, scanning for any acUvity in and around the church as he did so, but the place appeared at this late afternoon hour, silent, abandoned even. No one in or out.
With Stuart Copperwaite finally joining Sharpe, they together started for the huge stone stairs and the oaken doors. Richard, familiar with the church corridors, went directly for Luc Sante's office. Not even the secretary was present. He called out several Umes for Luc Sante by name, gaining no response.
He next tried Strand. After finding a speaker to the PA system that fed into the altar and main congregational room, he called again for Luc Sante and Strand. They waited to see if this had any effect, but no one responded. Nothing moved in the enormous church.
Richard wondered about Luc Sante's patients, but then it was late. He wondered about the Gloucester twins, and as he did so, he studied the paindng of the Gloucester parish, looking closely at it for the first dme and seeing the artist's name. It read in spiking letters: M.S.
“Could it have been painted by Martin Strand?” he wondered aloud, pointing to the painting.
“Strand, the other minister?” asked Copperwaite. “It's just possible he wants more from Luc Sante than St. Albans.”
“Where to from here?”
“Get an army in here to search through the catacombs below. There may be something afoot here, and if so, it may be in the bowels of this place.”
“But have we the right to defile the—”
“We have cause to fear for lives here, Stuart. That's enough reason alone. We're acdng under suspicion someone may be in danger of life and limb. Now do it.”
Jessica inched forward and found a small room with a Roman arch, light filtering through from ahead of this room. She found a series of such small rooms, before she came upon a wide open vault from which the firelight originated. The source of the light, torches in the walls, not unlike unused ones she'd seen in St. Albans' corridors.
No longer did the walls close in; rather, they expanded, and here a stagnant pool of water, part of a canal, similar to the one she'd seen in the company of Sharpe and Tatham the day before, lay like a fat, green, sleeping boa constrictor. Here she stood, circling, taking it all in when her eyes fell on the altar no doubt purchased with St. Albans' funds by Martin Strand, just as Father Luc Sante had said. She stood back of and behind a huge oaken cross, its front facing out to the cavern beyond. Then her eyes went beyond the wide beams of the cross to the huge, thick oaken altar, until a dull moan brought her eyes straight up to the cross. She saw first the feet, and as she inched closer, the length of the dying man's legs.
She gasped, standing now before the ancient cross—finally found—the killing ground of the Crucifier. To her astonishment, she saw someone still living, and not Jesus' carved image, squirming on the cross. He was nude and dying of his wounds, blood trickling down.
From her vantage point, below and behind the huge cross, she saw a scaffolding in nearby shadow, a scaffolding used to take the victim up to the cross. Shadow played across the writhing figure on the cross, deep shadows thrown up by the fire burning in thirteen torches and one small fire at the altar where oil and incense burned; beside the incense fire lay the hardware for the branding of the tongue. Jessica moved toward this highly important piece of physical evidence when droplets of blood from the person on the cross stained her blue suit jacket purple. Realizing this, she looked up to see the nude man's form dangling there, chin on chest, struggling to breathe in the semidarkness.
Jessica wanted to call out to him, tell him to hang on, but then that sounded foolish in this context, and she feared being found out. She dared not shout, wondering where Strand might be, if he were watching her from one of the deep shadows across the cavernous hall.
Jessica haltingly raised her flashlight to the dying victim left here on the cross, her fear rising to a crescendo she had never known before. Her flash shakily played now over the features of the dying man on the cross, and she realized almost instantly that the victim returned a familiar image, that of a blond Christ with a familiar face: the near dead man, his eyes gaping back at her before rolling back in his head, was Father Martin Christian Strand.
“Oh, Jesus! Luc Sante!” she moaned just before something hard and flinty struck her in the back of the head, sending her into darkness.
“So now what?” Copperwaite had asked Sharpe after the cathedral was torn apart in an effort to locate Jessica, Luc Sante, Strand, anyone, but Sharpe's first instinct had been right, the place had been deserted.
It was then that Sharpe said, “Back to the clapper bridge.”
“Clapper bridge?”
“Yes, I'll
inform you along the way. Let's go!” That had been fifteen minutes earlier. The twosome now stood at the lip of the tunnel which Sharpe, Jessica, and Tatham had scoured the day before, finding nothing. By now, Sharpe had explained to Copperwaite what this place was and how they had come to find it.
“But if you've already searched it and found nothing, Richard,” moaned Copperwaite, “why the deuce are we searching it again?”
“I know no other way to go than to attempt the other corridor, the one Tatham said would only lead us away from St. Albans, and perhaps it does lead away from St. Albans as indicated on the map, but then, we found no underground debauchery in the dungeons there, so perhaps the killer's lair has no direct connection with St. Albans, at least not the place.”
“Did the RIBA guy tell you where the other tunnel led?”
'Toward Oxford Street and the tourist area.”
“Old Crown's End bazaar? Good, I have to find a gift for my nephew anyway. So let's push on through this muck,” replied Copperwaite, frowning at the horror and sludge before him. “Smells bloody awful.”
Sharpe pushed through the grate and into the pipe that led to the tunnel, the water higher today but no less filthy and stagnant for it.
Copperwaite complained as he sloshed through in his good shoes, Sharpe's mendon of three sets of Wellington boots in the back of his car not easing his suffering. “I just bought these shoes. Italian leathers.”
“Best kind. They'll clean right up.”
“But they'll retain the stench.”
Sharpe agreed as he trudged ahead of his partner, saying, “Aye, that's-struth, all right.”
“Cost me a week's pay on the black market.”
“Quit your complaining, Coppers. I'll buy you a new pair, and you can resell these to the marketman.”
Blind Instinct Page 37
