*ALCHEMY*
PROCESS OF GRADUAL TRANSFORMATION MATCHED TO ASTROLOGICAL CONFIGURATIONS
/ SYSTEM OF TURNING LEAD INTO GOLD HAS PARALLELS WITH CLEANSING OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT
/ PURIFICATION IS SAID TO PRODUCE LATENT SUPERNATURAL ABILITIES
POSS DERIV/ AL KIMIA (Arabic)
/ CHEM (Egyptian)
/ CHYMIA (Greek)
FIRST RECOGNIZED ALCHEMIST/ CHYMES
‘Now I request more information on the Egyptian derivation of the word meaning “alchemy” and look what I get.’ Hargreave tapped the keys once more. Janice rested her arm on his shoulder and watched as the screen cleared itself and began to scroll down new information.
CHEM = BLACK/‘LAND OF THE BLACK SOIL’ BELIEVED TO BE REFERENCE TO COLOUR OF SILT ON BANKS OF NILE RIVER
‘The first process in alchemy requires the death of a substance via its “blackening”.’
‘The boy who died in Piccadilly Circus….’
‘…With a shovelful of Egyptian mud in his mouth. Suddenly everything else begins to fit.’ Hargreave’s fingers flew across the keyboard. ‘Each alchemical process is associated with a certain symbol, just as each metal represented in alchemy has an association with a particular planet. So we get…’
*ALCHEMICAL RITUALS*
THE BODY MAY BE PURIFIED BY THE RAVEN AND THE SWAN REPRESENTING THE DIVISION OF THE SOUL INTO EVIL (BLACK) AND GOOD (WHITE)
/ THE IRIDESCENT FEATHERS OF THE PEACOCK OFFER PROOF THAT THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION IS UNDERWAY
/ OTHER BIRDS ASSOCIATED WITH ALCHEMICAL PROCESS INCLUDE PELICAN (NOURISHMENT THROUGH BLOOD) AND EAGLE (VICTORIOUS SYMBOL OF COMPLETED RITUAL)
‘Our killer has reinterpreted an ancient text. The steps to alchemical purification are being taken in the form of ritual slaughter.’ Hargreave sat back and lit a cigarette. ‘He thinks it’s going to grant him supernatural powers.’ He switched the computer into Print mode and began to reproduce the relevant sections of the file onto paper.
‘All right,’ said Janice, ‘so we know why it’s happening. Somebody still has to find out where these people are operating and bring them in before anyone else gets killed.’
Hargreave rose and separated the paper which was spewing from the back of the printer, tearing it into single sheets. Carefully he folded them into his overcoat pocket. ‘We only have until tomorrow—at dawn,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’
‘It ties in astrologically, doesn’t it? Look at the date.’
Janice twisted her wristwatch around and read it. ‘I don’t get it.’
‘No, but somebody else will if we don’t wrap this up in the next twenty-four hours.’
‘What’s our next move?’
‘We’ve got to get more men up there and start sweeping the roof areas I’ve marked out. But before that I’m going to have to find a way of stalling the press conference for a few hours.’
‘Why stall them?’ said Janice. ‘We could just feed them a little misinformation. Let’s be honest, Ian, you couldn’t lose any more face than you’ve lost at the moment.’
‘You know I don’t approve of dishonest working methods.’
‘And I know that your ass is on the line.’
‘You have a point there. Can I leave it to you to come up with a reasonably plausible theory?’
Janice’s face broke into a grin. She gave him a broad, salacious wink. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to think of something,’ she said.
Chapter 40
Into Focus
This time, the dream was different. The face was there, of course, and so was the implicit feeling of danger, but now there was something else as well. The empty grey eyes were smiling benignly, the lips moving in a half-heard singsong litany that faded and fuzzed beyond the edge of sleep. Robert could feel himself moving closer to the figure in the hopes that, finally, it would impart some knowledge to him, some kind of revelation. The face belonged to someone who knew much more than he, a higher intellect, a sharper consciousness. The face beckoned, the voice dipping and swaying until its sound surrounded and penetrated his soul. He moved closer and closer still.
And suddenly it came into focus—the face, the knowledge, the revelation, as if someone had moved a camera lens to its correct setting.
In his dreams he beheld the visage of a man who was everything that he was not, a man devoid of conscience and emotion, a man capable of endless cruelty in the name of righteousness. It was the new face of Universal Man, it was the face of the future….
Robert awoke with a start. He lay naked on top of the bed, the pores of his body glistening with sweat. Sitting up suddenly, he cocked his head to one side and listened. Someone was trying to get into the apartment. He looked across the darkened room with the curtains tugged shut, at the luminous hands of the bedside alarm clock. After his narrow escape Robert had returned to the world below, to his apartment and to disturbing, dream-filled sleep—despite Zalian’s earlier warning that it would be dangerous to do so. Now it was nearly midday. Silently he slipped off the counterpane and pulled on the old black jeans which lay in a bundle beside the bed.
Straining to hear, he was aware of the outer hall door clicking, as if someone had managed to open it, then close it again very gently. Robert crept to the bedroom door and peered through the narrow crack at the hallway beyond. An indistinct figure stood motionlessly in the unlit corridor, listening. Satisfied that there was no sound forthcoming, it tiptoed to the first doorway in the hall and let itself into the room beyond.
Robert smiled to himself, aware that the ‘intruder’ had mistakenly entered the toilet. Some intruder. It was bound to be Rose performing her ‘renegade plumber’ routine. Stepping into the hall, he clicked on the overhead light. ‘OK, Rose, flush, rinse and come out with your hands up. I could tell it was you from the moment…’ A face peered around the door frame. It wasn’t Rose. It was a wild-eyed skinhead with yellow teeth and the word ‘DEATH’ tattooed on his forehead and he was carrying a cricket bat in one hand. It took Robert a second or two to collect his thoughts before he darted back into the bedroom and locked the door from the inside. He was an idiot to have come back to his apartment to sleep. He should have known that they might come looking for him. He only hoped that he could warn Rose before she was harmed.
With a triumphant bellow the skinhead hurled himself at the door with such force that the top half of it immediately split away from its hinge. There was a moment of silence, then his cricket bat burst through one of the wooden panels in a cascade of splinters. Robert yelped as he grabbed his leather jacket and belt-line from the floor and ran for the window, fumbling with the stiff burglar bolt before finally managing to throw it open.
Outside, on the narrow steel fire escape which his landlord had been forced to install by the council for the safety of his tenants, Robert stopped for a moment and listened as Chymes’ scullion continued to try and smash his way into the bedroom.
Robert looked down. Whereas his old instinct would have been to head quickly for the ground, now his first reaction was to continue upwards. But if he did that, he would quickly be caught by someone who was far more adept at travelling above the streets than he. Halfway towards the floor above he paused and returned until he stood just above the bedroom window. There was another crash and he could tell that the skinhead was in the room. Heavy footsteps fell, aiming for the far wall. Robert stood poised above the open window frame. Suddenly the shaven head appeared looking out into the street and Robert brought the open half of the window down on it as hard as he possibly could. The bottom of the frame hit the nape of the skinhead’s neck and, continuing down, slammed his head on the concrete ledge.
Robert held on tight to the top of the frame, pressing down with all his might. Reaching around, he placed his bare foot on the lower lip of the window and bounced up and down on it experimentally. The skinhead gurgled and howled as his bruised windpipe was repeatedly
closed. Behind the glass his limbs thrashed about, unable to seize upon the cricket bat which had fallen to the carpet. Eventually he smashed through the pane above with his coiled fist. At the sound of the breaking glass, people in the street below began to look up and point.
After one last mighty shove of his foot Robert moved his leg away just before the skinhead managed to seize it in his bloody fingers. He glanced down at the would-be attacker who now lay sprawled across the window ledge gasping for air, then ran for the roof, praying that this time he would not be followed. If Rose had also returned to her apartment the previous night, she could be in great danger.
—
Rose was still in bed when he rang her number from a battered, frosty telephone booth in Camden Town. He had run there from the apartment in his bare feet, figuring that it was best to put a little distance between himself and the skinhead, just in case Chymes had any more of his men hanging around the area.
‘You’re not making any sense, Robert,’ she said sleepily. ‘Call me later. I’m hanging up now.’
‘Put this phone down, Rose, and I swear that if I don’t kill you somebody else will.’
‘Then speak more slowly.’
‘I’m saying that you have to get out of there and right now. They came for me and it’s a safe bet that they’ll be coming for you too.’
‘OK, OK…’ She sounded as if she was about to fall back to sleep at any second. ‘Just another half hour, then I’ll get up…’ The voice began to tail off.
‘NOW, you have to get up RIGHT NOW!’ There followed a moment’s silence. When Rose next spoke, she sounded much more alert. ‘All right, Robert, Jesus. I’m up, OK? I’ll meet you. Just tell me where.’
‘Fine,’ said Robert, relieved. ‘Is there a back way out of your place?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’d better use it. And can you bring me a sweater or something? I didn’t have time to find my shirt or my shoes. And bring money. I can’t go back to my apartment. Meet me at Chequers Coffee Shop in Chalk Farm. If you’re still tired we can check into a hotel for a while.’
‘Sounds sleazy. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’ The line went dead.
—
Robert was sure that people were mistaking him for a tramp as he paced about in front of the coffee shop. The buckles of his line-belt were cold on his bare chest. He pulled the leather jacket a little tighter as he saw Rose alight from the bus and run towards him. She was wearing the black jumpsuit that Zalian had given her, with a heavy black scarf around her neck. For someone who had been in bed twenty minutes earlier and had spent the previous night on a roof, she looked appallingly attractive.
‘God, Robert, you look awful!’ Her hand flew in front of her mouth as she released a snort of laughter. Robert made a sour face. ‘I always look like this after I’ve been attacked by a cricket-bat-wielding maniac,’ he muttered. ‘It’s not safe on the ground. We have to go back up and stay there until this is over.’
‘After all the fuss I made about being allowed back down,’ said Rose, tutting. ‘I could have slept at headquarters.’ Robert had the distinct impression that she would have been happy to stay up there for as long as Zalian wanted her to remain.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he admitted. ‘I guess I’d rather fall off a building than be bludgeoned to death in my sleep. Where’s the nearest roof station from here?’
—
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Rose as they walked into the freezing wind which swept along the desolate pavements of Euston Road. ‘If you were Chymes and you wanted to mock Zalian by creating an order which was the reverse of his, what would you choose as your foundation?’
‘Well, Zalian’s borrows its lofty ideals from the Greek gods. A heaven filled with mythical deities.’
‘…While Chymes’ men were found on the roof of the London Metal Exchange. Sounds a little more down to earth, doesn’t it?’
‘You’re using that tone of voice you seem to reserve for announcing weird theories.’
‘This isn’t weird, it’s logical. Think of an ancient art which stems from the very earth itself.’
‘I don’t know….’ Robert threw up his hands, unable to think. ‘Black magic. Witchcraft.’
‘Oh, come on. The thought of bank managers and postmistresses dancing around naked in the forest is so unappetizing. I was thinking more along the lines of alchemy. You know, base metals and stuff. I vaguely remember reading a book on it, full of symbols, like Charlotte’s notes.’
‘I thought alchemy was all pointed hats and pots full of boiling lead,’ sneered Robert. ‘Be a bit out of date now, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not at all. There are still alchemical societies—hermetic orders—operating in England today.’
‘But what would Chymes stand to gain from such an arcane practice?’
‘A supernatural advantage, perhaps.’ Rose thought for a minute. ‘Power over the weak, that’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it? There are still people who see the world operating on a vast plan which can be mastered providing you possess the right knowledge.’
‘If we’re going to have a fight about religion, it can wait until another time.’
‘Ah yes, religion,’ said Rose, narrowing her eyes menacingly. ‘White missionaries training uneducated blacks to mouth hymns they don’t understand in order to save them from their own heathen deities. A perfect example of “Your God isn’t good enough, have mine instead.” ’
‘Look,’ began Robert, exasperated, ‘religious worship has helped a lot of people to come to terms with themselves….’
‘And it’s started an awful lot of wars. Perhaps Zalian’s is just the latest in a long line of religious battles.’
‘Go back to what you were saying about the symbols in the notebooks….’
‘OK. Has it ever occurred to you that the most enduring symbols are all interconnected?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Robert.
‘You know, the sun is always regarded as male and it’s equated with gold, and the right-hand side of things and fire….’
‘Right, and the moon is always female and left and silver….’
‘And is associated with water.’ She gave him a quick smile. ‘All part of the grand plan.’
‘Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting we apply this to Chymes and Zalian….’
‘I’m just wondering what you get left with if you pair them off against each other. Two sides of the same coin?’
‘The ideas that run around in your head never cease to astound me,’ said Robert as they reached their point of ascent. ‘I’m surprised you get to sleep at night. Maybe you should be running the Roofworld instead of Zalian.’
‘Maybe I should at that,’ said Rose, half to herself.
Chapter 41
Police Manœuvres
‘He says we just have to take a look around,’ said Butterworth over his shoulder. ‘What he means is, he’ll have our gonads if we fail to come up with something.’
‘I don’t give a stuff,’ said PC ‘Mad Dog’ Bimsley. ‘He’s your boss, not mine. Are we at the top yet?’
‘One more floor. Pick your feet up.’
The fire escape opened onto an acre of flat tarmac. Butterworth looked at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. Around them the lights of Piccadilly shone in dazzling Morse, like a landing strip for a millionaire’s private aircraft. The roof of the Ritz was, unsurprisingly, much nicer than any of the other roofs in the area, swept clean by the winds rustling through the bare tops of the trees in Green Park.
The press conference earlier that day had been a joke, with Hargreave not even present on the platform and only Janice Longbright preventing the investigating officers from being crucified by the journos. Whether they bought her cock-and-bull story about a lone gunman now being held for questioning would remain to be seen. The boss really seemed to be going out on a limb with this one.
Butterworth wiped the sweat from his forehead and lef
t a sooty black smear in its place. In the past two hours, he and Bimsley had climbed the fire escapes of half a dozen buildings, to no avail. Butterworth looked back at the hulking police constable, who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, despite his apparent inability to walk in a straight line without falling over. In a way it was hardly surprising, because the man was so enormous. He reminded Butterworth of nothing so much as an upended navy-blue interior-sprung sofa. Grasping the railing of the fire escape, his hand closed over it and pulled his body up like a creature rising from the depths in some terrible fifties monster movie. Butterworth failed to feel protected, however, as Bimsley’s vast bulk seemed to be offset by the smallness of his brain. His monosyllabic sentences and stumbling footsteps conjured an image of a driverless juggernaut searching for a place to crash.
Butterworth walked out across the tarmac and looked down into St James’s Street, where idling hacks had once collected customers from Lock’s the hatters and Lobb the bootmakers, where Wren and Pope and Byron and Walpole had lodged, where the half-mad caricaturist Gillray had hurled himself to his death and where now only taxis passed before sterile car showrooms and empty airline offices. He sighed, wishing for a London that was no more, wishing he could return to being a student instead of being forced to follow in his father’s famous fingerprints. Perhaps he would crack this case with a feat of extraordinary deductive expertise and, having provided proof of his inherited abilities, retire at once.
Behind him, ‘Mad Dog’ Bimsley slipped on a dead sparrow and fell over. What would Father have done? Butterworth gave the matter careful thought, attempting to spin lines of reason between the outcropping facts. Time for a recap. Why did all the murders occur from above? Because the murderers hid out on the rooftops. Murderers plural, because no single person could have managed to inflict such horrendous wounds, let alone hoist the bodies into such bizarre positions. What else was it that Hargreave told him? To watch for a gang, an internecine war, a vendetta against rivals. But could anyone really exist up here? How would they move around without being spotted, for God’s sake? Butterworth scratched his chin, turning slowly on the roof, wondering what on earth to do next. It was no good. He simply didn’t have his father’s aptitude for this sort of work. He’d give it up and go back to pottery. Ceramics weren’t life-threatening.
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