A Gathering of Saints

by A Gathering of Saints (retail) (epub)

  A dozen fires were already blazing. Flames were spreading across the roofs of the cramped buildings around Ludgate Hill and the ornamental trees around the main west entrance of the cathedral were alive with gushing, white-hot light that threw dancing, grotesque shadows across the high stone walls of the church.

  More of the bombs were raining down, cracking loudly as they slammed into the buildings all around him. Every few seconds there was a larger detonation as high-explosive bombs found their marks. Black pressed himself against a wall and closed his eyes, seeing Coventry again, feeling the heat blasts and the terror once more.

  For an instant he considered turning back to seek the welcoming shelter of the underground station but then he opened his eyes again and forced himself to go on. A moment later he crossed the road, dodging the blinding beacon of an incendiary, half-buried in the street. He ran up the broad set of steps leading to the imposing, multi-columned entrance and pushed open one of the massive doors.

  The cavernous interior of the cathedral was dark except for a few faint winking lights and the bright, wildly moving beams of torches being carried by running men. All along the enormous nave, Black could hear the sound of pounding footsteps and yelled instructions, meanings lost in the roundabout echoes scattered back from the arches, vaults, and semi-domes above.

  A torch beam struck him in the face and he put up his hand quickly, almost blinded.

  ‘There’s no shelter here. You’ll have to go!’

  ‘Put out the bloody light! I’m not looking for shelter!’

  The light clicked off and in the gloom and dancing motes in front of his eyes Black could see the short figure of a woman, tin-hatted, bundled up heavily. She had a book in one hand and a huge electric torch in the other.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Her voice was both harsh and sensual; a rusty nail wrapped in silk, an East Ender Marlene Dietrich.

  ‘A policeman. Detective. I have to see the person in charge immediately.’

  ‘In charge of what? We’ve got a dozen or more in charge here, more’s the pity.’ She snorted. ‘Sadly, not one of them’s in charge of the lights. Power’s down. All we have is the jenny now.’

  Black bent over wearily, hand to knee, trying to catch his breath. There was a sudden huge explosion and he was rocked off his feet, thrown into the woman’s arms. They fell to the floor in a tangle. Black pushed himself away.

  ‘I need to speak to someone in authority,’ he insisted.

  ‘You’ll be speaking to my authority unless you get your hand off that particular bit of goods,’ the woman snapped. Black realised he’d been clutching the woman’s stocking-clad thigh. He stood up, helping the troll-like warden to stand as well.

  ‘I really must see someone. Now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s bloody important!’

  ‘Isn’t everything these days?’ She shook her head. ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘Follow me.’

  The little woman in her gnomish costume and flat tin hat led Black along the towering main aisle towards the high altar, a football field away. The chequered marble floor was awash in lengths of dripping canvas hose and lengths of flex and rubber cable ran everywhere. They reached the edge of the dome, its yawning upper reaches lost in the smothering dark. Black’s guide turned to the left, bringing him to the foot of a broad spiral staircase. From outside, the dull explosions of more bombs shook the air within the cathedral. Hell without and seeking death within. Black could actually feel the edges of his sanity begin to fray like a rotting paper tissue. All he wanted now was sleep and freedom from the terrible noise. Rest from it all.

  ‘Up we go, darling,’ said the woman. ‘His deanship’s in the library.’

  Eventually they reached the top of the staircase, a hundred feet and more above the cathedral floor. Stepping through a small, bare vestibule, they entered the library of St Paul’s. Both the lower and the upper gallery shelves in the high-ceilinged room were bare.

  The Very Reverend Walter Robert Matthews, Dean of St Paul’s, stood in the middle of the room, sorting through a pile of stirrup pumps, counting them into piles. He was a small man, although not as small as the woman beside Black, white-haired, pink-cheeked, stripped down to a flannel undershirt and flopping, too-large trousers held up by braces, cuffs tucked into rubber Wellingtons. He looked up as Black and his guide entered the room.

  ‘Good Lord, Helen, don’t tell me you climbed all those steps just to pay me a visit?’ Black leaned on the doorpost, fighting for breath after the long climb.

  ‘All one hundred and forty-three.’

  ‘Keep that up, my dear, and you shall do yourself a mischief.’

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ she muttered under her breath. In a louder voice she introduced Black. ‘Constable’s come to see you.’

  ‘My name is Detective Inspector Morris Black.’

  ‘I’m Dean Matthews. Come to help?’ Matthews beamed; he looked more like someone’s dotty grandfather than dean of the largest church in England.

  ‘Someone means harm to the cathedral,’ said Black, still fighting for breath. ‘Terrible harm.’

  ‘Other than our friends up there?’ asked Matthews, looking up towards the ceiling. Overhead, the droning bombers were clearly audible, a great vibrating roar that pounded in their ears in a thundering maelstrom of sound.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re sure of this?’

  Black nodded. ‘He’s insane. I think he means to burn down St Paul’s. He has the ability to do it. He calls himself John Martin. He was a bell-ringer here.’

  Matthews stared. ‘You must be joking!’

  The detective fought to keep his tone calm. There was no time for explanations now. ‘I’m afraid not, sir. He may already be in the building.’

  ‘This fellow round the twist, what’s he look like?’ asked the short woman in the tin hat.

  ‘I’ve only seen him once. I’m not really sure.’

  ‘Your age? Year or two younger? Small, wears specs? Thin on the top?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ the young woman muttered. ‘I knew there was something wrong with him.’

  ‘You’ve seen him?’

  ‘Hour and a bit ago. Clerkish type. Soft, weak little voice. Carrying a briefcase.’ She shook her head. ‘And I asked him if he’d brought his supper in. Jesus bloody Christ!’ She flushed brightly. ‘Sorry, Reverend Matthews. Just slipped out.’

  ‘Quite all right, dear, under the circumstances.’

  ‘Where would a man like that do the most damage?’ Black asked quickly. ‘If he had a firebomb with him?’ Matthews didn’t have to think. ‘The dome. Without question.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘There are two domes. The inner one, which you can see from the floor of the cathedral, and the outer one, which you see from outside. The outer dome is relatively thin lead supported by an inner framework of wooden beams. A brick cone above the inner dome supports the lantern above and the ball.’ Matthews knew the brief lecture by rote; he’d obviously explained it many times before.

  ‘What would cause the damage?’

  ‘The wooden beams. There must be thirty or forty tons of timber between the lead dome and the brick.’

  ‘Old? Dry?’

  ‘It’s been curing peacefully for the last two hundred and forty-three years,’ said Matthews calmly. ‘Dry is hardly the word.’ He paused. ‘It’s been our biggest worry since all this began. If the beams ever caught fire, the lead dome would almost certainly melt. It would be the end.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Precisely,’ the dean responded blandly. He paused again. ‘What do you propose to do?’

  ‘Catch him.’

  ‘You’ll need help,’ said Matthews reacting quickly. ‘Wait here and I’ll—’

  ‘There isn’t any time, sir. It’s too late for that.’ Black took a long shuddering breath. ‘How do I get up there?’ The dean stared hard at Black, worry visible on his face. W
orry and something deeper. He nodded. ‘From the whispering gallery. I’ll take you.’

  ‘I can do it, Reverend,’ said the woman.

  Matthews shook his head firmly. ‘I think not, Helen. This is my responsibility. Go down and fetch as many volunteers as you can from the crypt. Explain the situation to them and tell them to meet me here.’

  ‘Right away, sir.’ The woman turned and left the library the way she and Black had come.

  ‘This way, Inspector,’ said the dean.

  Black followed the white-haired man through a small door to the right and down a long, narrow corridor. The huge stones on either side were cool to the touch and Black found it hard to believe that such strength could be destroyed at the hands of a single man. They reached another door, stepped through and Black found himself standing in the whispering gallery.

  Half a dozen small, curved doors were set into the wall around the gallery, each one giving access to a series of narrow corridors and staircases that ran up between the inner and outer supporting piers as well as to an entirely separate group of passages leading up the circular ‘drum’ of the dome and then outside to the open roof. From Matthews’s complicated description it appeared to Black that the dome and the drum supporting it were honeycombed with hidden passageways.

  Matthews took Black to the fourth door around the gallery. It stood open, snaking hose running up into darkness. ‘Useless,’ said the dean, kicking the hose. ‘The Nazis picked their time well enough. Lowest tide of the year. The hydrants are all dry or spitting mud.’

  ‘Is there any other water?’

  ‘Just what we’ve got on hand. Buckets and tubs spread all around. Anything we do will be done with stirrup pumps.’

  ‘Are there any of your people up there?’ the detective asked, gesturing towards the doorway.

  ‘Not yet. Betjeman and half a dozen others are on roof sentry duty outside but that’s all so far.’

  ‘Keep it that way for the moment, Reverend. The man is horribly dangerous. He’s killed. Many times. For years.’

  The dean paled. ‘Are you armed?’

  ‘Yes.’ Black unbuttoned his jacket. The revolver was jammed securely into his waistband. He’d already checked the chambers; the weapon was fully loaded.

  ‘And what about the man you’re after?’

  ‘I have no idea. He might be.’ Black thought about the weapon Queer Jack had used on Trench in the Magpie and Stump, again saw Spilsbury fishing for the metal barb in Jane Luffington’s back. The silent scream of the dead man in the chair.

  ‘Perhaps you should wait,’ the dean said quietly, seeing Black’s expression.

  The detective shook his head. ‘No. He has to be stopped.’ He turned towards the doorway but Matthews put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘May the blessing of God and this church be upon you, Inspector.’

  Black managed a weak smiled. ‘I doubt your blessing will have much effect, Dean Matthews; wrong faith, if I’ve got any left to speak of. I’m a Jew.’

  The old man shrugged. ‘So was St Paul.’

  * * *

  The flights of bombers continued to march across the sky, dropping their bombs into the growing pall of smoke and flame. Within the first twenty minutes of the raid more than a hundred tons of incendiary bombs had been thrown into the flaming cauldron, and by the time Morris Black entered the first passageway leading upward to the inner dome two hundred separate fires were burning across the One Square Mile.

  More than eighty incendiaries dropped into the tinderbox of Paternoster Row, no more than a hundred and fifty yards from the cathedral. Unattended, the concentrated books and papers of a dozen publishing houses began to burn as roofs collapsed and glass exploded. The flaming debris from these fires was carried aloft on the gusting wind, tossing firebrands across entire city blocks. Night became day and in the centre of it all the dome of St Paul’s could be seen for miles in every direction, surrounded by boiling clouds of smoke and flame rising like a fuming maelstrom hundreds of feet into the air.

  At street level, piles of brick and timber blocked the narrow streets, making it impossible for the men of the Fire Service to reach the flames. Even had they been able to do so, it would have made little difference; the Thames was a streak of mud and the long pump hoses were mired and clogged. There was no water and The City was left to burn unchecked.

  Two hundred feet above the street, Morris Black finally reached the end of the dimly lit lower stairways and pushed up through the small wooden hatch that led into the space between the inner and outer domes. His ears rang with each explosion outside, the sound magnified by the amplifying outer skin, and Black could feel the heat as well, pouring in through the stone vents ranged around the dome’s base and pressing through the scalloped openings of the light well another hundred feet above his head.

  Closing the hatch behind him, Black stood up cautiously and stared. It was surprisingly bright. Light from the raging fires poured into the well and shone, hot white and flickering, through the circle of inner-dome windows. More light came through age-old widening cracks in the lead sheets where they met the rolled-metal ribs and iron-string courses of massive cable that gave the dome its shape.

  He was standing at the base of the dome, one foot on a gigantic link in the iron chain that circumscribed the tall brick cone, rising at an angle above him. By craning his neck, he could see through the complex pattern of timbers to the light well and higher still to the spreading massive piers that served as the lantern mounting, that structure rising another fifty or sixty feet into the raging sea of fire. There was no sign of Queer Jack.

  He began to climb up through the scaffolding of timber, slowly edging around the tall brick beehive of the cone. Pausing for a moment to catch his breath, he reached out and touched the skin of the outer dome, expecting to feel metal.

  Instead his hand brushed over thick wooden planks, black with age and terribly dry. A single incendiary, unseen, would be enough to turn the space between the outer dome and its hidden counterpart into an inferno. He remembered a vague statistic, forced on him at school. The dome weighed seven hundred tons, as much as a small ship. Seven hundred tons of melting lead and blazing oak. Hell’s forge, hot enough to turn diamonds into steam, hot enough to finally cleanse a madman’s soul. This was Queer Jack’s madness and his savage dream – the entire dome was a single, gigantic bell.

  Black moved on, circling the brick cone and always climbing, shuffling across longer and longer timbers that stretched across to the thin, sheet-lead outer dome. He glanced down once and almost lost his balance, slipping on the beam beneath his feet. Squeezing his eyes shut, he gripped an upright timber and waited for the dizziness to pass.

  As he reached the upper regions of the scaffolding, a small movement caught his eye. Moving slightly he saw a figure, twenty feet away and fifteen higher up – a small bent figure eyes down on something he was doing. Drawing in his breath, Black eased the revolver from the waistband of his trousers. He cursed silently. He was a less than adequate shot at the best of times and with all the uprights and beams there was no way to get any remotely clear line of fire.

  He moved again, edging forward until one foot and his free hand rested on the crumbling brick of the cone. The figure was still bent low, now no more than a dozen feet away and just above him. Black held his breath again, raised the revolver and sneezed.

  The sound reverberated incredibly in the confined space, rising above the roaring of the flames. Queer Jack looked up, firelight sparkling on the lenses of his glasses. He saw Black and in the flickering half-light the detective was almost sure he saw bared teeth. A mad smile or the sudden rictus of fear and rage? Listening, Black thought he heard a wild-animal howl rising above the furious din of the exploding bombs.

  Queer Jack scooped up the foot-long tube he’d been wiring to a joint within the wooden structure and stuffed it into the pocket of his long grey coat. He moved swiftly upward, dancing wildly across the beams, gripping the overhead sup
ports, swinging over the dusty, empty holes in the air with the agility of a monkey. Black fired, the detonation cracking across the space between them, but it was far too late. Queer Jack was gone, lost in the twisting shadows.

  The detective jammed the revolver back into his trousers and gave chase, keeping close to the brick and using it to guide him. Less than a minute later he found himself at the top of the cone and saw the man again.

  The tip of the tall brick inner structure was built of stone, broken by huge curving panes of thick, leaded glass at its summit, inserted to allow natural light to reach the inside of the cathedral. Queer Jack crawled across the skylight windows, nothing more than the thickness of the panes between him and a spiraling descent, three hundred feet to the marble floor and the circle of Wren’s epitaph. He paused, then looked back over his shoulder. The glasses flashed again, then he scuttled off, the long wings of his coat beating around his ankles.

  ‘Loudermilk!’ Black yelled. The spitting roar of the fires and the booming passage of the bombers was much louder here, so loud in fact that Black could feel the last timbers of the scaffolding vibrate beneath his hand. ‘Loudermilk!’ he yelled again but the man kept on. Directly ahead of him, at the summit of the cone’s stone cap, Black could see a metal ladder, bolted both to the cap and the footing of the lantern overhead. Queer Jack crawled the last few feet across the glass, stood and began to claw his way up the ladder. A few seconds later he was gone.

  ‘I’ll have you, Jack,’ Black groaned aloud. ‘Oh, yes, I bloody well will.’ For Rudelski and Talbot and the others. For Gurney’s lifelong pain. For the child Bernard Timothy Exner. For Katherine and for himself. With a last burst of effort he threw himself forward, keeping away from the glass, following the thin ribs of stone that lay between them. Halfway up the glass cap of the inner dome, a thunderclap of noise suddenly threw the detective painfully to his knees. He shook his head to clear it then stumbled to his feet.

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tip of a high-explosive bomb poking through the lead sheeting of the outer dome, the rounded nose of the canister painted an idiotically cheerful blue. A creaking noise came from no more than twenty feet above his head and a huge slab of lead and timber broke away, tumbling down to the window on his left, smashing it and falling through.