‘Lewis is about to land.’
Chief Constable Peter Lewis was Milton’s boss. The two men came from different worlds. Milton was a seasoned detective, his reputation built on years of sweat at the hard coalface of police work in the capital. Not only had he battled some of the country’s hardest villains, but he had also fought decades of institutionalised prejudice to move up the ranks of the Metropolitan Police Force. Powerfully built and thick set, he wore scars on his face from a life dedicated to crime fighting. A prominent gash, sustained during a drugs bust in Brixton, ran through his eyebrow and along the flesh of his cheek.
Lewis was a career professional. His meteoric rise in the police force was well documented and had more to do with classroom learning and political astuteness than walking the beat. A master’s degree in criminology had secured him a foothold in the Force’s prestigious fast-track programme, and his intelligence, ambition and determination had soon marked him out for accelerated promotion. He was shrewd, clever and ruthless: traits that assured him success within a force that had lost the public’s trust and was under renewed pressure to show results. Formerly the man in charge of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, Lewis had recently been promoted to a senior position in the London Metropolitan Police. Few doubted that one day he would get all the way to the top of the greasy pole, and rumour had it that he might eventually run for political office. It was only a matter of time before he was hoisting his name aloft at the top of the mountain.
‘Shit,’ scowled Milton, banging the steering wheel with the palm of his hands.
‘If this situation wasn’t bad enough. In ten minutes, I’m going to have Lewis breathing down my neck. As soon as he got the message about the body, he excused himself from the mayor’s gala dinner. If only I hadn’t given the order to divert the unit over to St Anne’s church. I’ve been played like a fool. Goddammit.’
After retrieving shoe covers from Milton’s boot, the two men strode off in the direction of a portable lighting rig that was being set up at the side of the church, gravel crunching under their bagged shoes. A huddle of three uniformed constables parted as Milton arrived at the scene.
‘Don’t you think you should be cordoning this …’ Milton immediately felt the words drain out of him at the sight that met his eyes. For several seconds the group remained perfectly silent. Even the sound of the traffic rushing by seemed to be hushed in reverence at the horror of the scene.
An explosion of red shocked the whitewashed exterior wall of the church. Curving trails of dark red pushed out in all directions, like some grisly work of art. At the epicentre of the explosion lay the body of a naked woman, her ghostly pale skin covered in long, thick smears of blood. Her face had been mutilated, eyelids cut and cheeks punctured in triangular shapes. As before, the throat had been cut. Inspecting the pool of blood under the body, Blake could see that the killing had happened just minutes ago, the surface of the pool still trembling due to the engine vibration of the lighting rig.
Blake’s eyes tracked down the body. At first the incision above the victim’s navel was partially hidden by a mess of splattered gore around the midriff, but as he crouched lower, he saw it. From this new angle, he could also make out the circular edge of an object under the skin.
Blake only muttered two words, but it had the effect of breaking the wall of silence.
‘Another coin,’ he said.
The uniformed constables looked at him quizzically.
‘Forget it,’ said Milton, gesturing in the direction of the main road. ‘Can you please get this crime scene cordoned off,’ he scowled. ‘This has just happened. Maybe interviewing some of the public milling around might be a good thing too,’ he added pointedly.
The three officers didn’t need any more encouragement and moments later were hurrying back up the path.
‘Bloody idiots,’ Milton said in a voice loud enough to be heard.
His gaze returned to Blake, who was now repositioning the lighting rig with his shoulder. Blake’s attention had moved away from the body and had returned to the wall. The greatest profusion of blood was centred on a block of stone set into but protruding several inches out of the base of the wall. A small, blood-spattered plaque was screwed into the wall to one side of the block. At first, the plaque’s inscription was hidden in the shadow cast by the stone standing proud from the wall line. With the aid of his phone flashlight, Blake made out the simple dedication it contained and read it aloud.
This foundation stone was laid by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1715.
Blake stood up, his eyes still fixed upon the plaque, its inscription now returned to shadow. He stood almost in a trance for several seconds. Cocking his head to the side, Blake backed up a step from the wall and considered the position of the body. A constellation of points suddenly linked up in his brain, quickly joined by a surge of adrenaline into his bloodstream.
‘I should have realised. Shit,’ he said in frustration.
‘What?’ said Milton, his eyes appraising his friend.
‘These killings are sacrifices, like the animal sacrifices in the Jewish Temple.’
‘What?’
‘The priest is to splash the blood against the altar of the Lord. Leviticus 17:6,’ quoted Blake.
Milton tried to keep up. ‘And that means …?’
‘Animal sacrifice was central to Jewish worship. Various kinds of animals were slaughtered in the temple precinct and their blood splashed onto the altar. To atone for the sins of the people.’
‘You think this foundation stone was used as an altar?’
‘Look at the blood spatter. It was the same at St George’s and the Servant Church of London. The blood was all concentrated around a particular stone in the side of the wall.’
A spark of recognition flickered across Milton’s eyes.
‘Now look at the body,’ Blake instructed. ‘This poor woman has suffered a monstrous attack, and yet her body has been laid out in a particular direction, her hands placed by her side. The other victims were the same, all lined up in specific directions relative to the churches. Like the needle of a compass.’
‘A compass?’ said Milton, his eyebrow arching upwards slightly.
‘Christian churches were often aligned along the cardinal points of a compass. The bodies have been aligned as well. And they’re not the only thing.’
‘What do you mean?’
Blake motioned the DCI to move closer to the body.
‘The incisions next to the navel, they follow the same pattern. They’ve all been cut at different positions around each of the victim’s navels. Each one is marking a point in a pattern.’
‘What kind of pattern?’
‘If I’m not mistaken, they are following the four points of a cross. The victims’ bodies have been moved to align themselves to the same cross-like pattern.’
Blake’s thoughts rushed ahead, and Milton was trying to keep up.
‘The coins that Hart places under the victim’s skin—’
‘Old Jewish coins,’ said Milton, not remembering the name.
‘Tyrian shekels,’ added Blake. ‘These coins were minted specifically to pay the Temple Tax.’
Milton’s eyes pinched forward.
‘At the time of Christ, the Jewish authorities required the population to pay a special tax to worship and sacrifice at the great Temple in Jerusalem. The law dictated that the tax could only be paid with these coins. If you didn’t offer Tyrian shekels to the temple authorities, you couldn’t offer a sacrifice.’ Blake began to tap his forehead with his curled index finger. ‘Hart is making some kind of offering in human blood, using the foundation stones of these Hawksmoor churches as the altar for his sacrifices. In his twisted mind, he is authenticating each killing with a payment exactly according to the laws of the old Jewish Temple.’ A clear mental progression was opening up in Blake’s mind. ‘Blood offerings to coincide with the incredibly rare occurrence of the tetrad of blood moons during the high Jewish feast days. The pot
ency of these horrific offerings is being amplified, time and time again, with the lining up of these events.’
Blake heard gravelly footsteps coming up the path behind them. Both men turned to see the outline of Chief Constable Lewis, dressed in a dinner suit, marching towards them. His expression was hard as stone. Blake read Milton’s face in an instant.
‘I’ll give you a call in an hour,’ said Blake, understanding that he needed to make himself scarce. Ten seconds later he was passing the Chief Constable on the path. Lewis shot Blake a hard stare without stopping. His friend was about to feel the full force of his boss’s dissatisfaction.
Chapter 37
As he walked to the road in search of a taxi, Blake looked back up to the unsettling profile of Christchurch, which many considered Hawksmoor’s master work. It gave him goose bumps, its strange, overpowering presence drilling a dark root deep into his brain.
The site on which the church was built had a macabre history. No area of London was ravaged more by the plague than the surrounding parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel. To dispose of the bodies, huge pits were dug to receive thousands of unfortunate victims. Hawksmoor’s church was built on one such plague pit, and the foundations of the church cut deep into this reservoir of disease. Christchurch’s association with death continued into the 19th century, as the dark streets around the church turned into the killing fields of Jack the Ripper. From Blake’s research, he remembered how the police had often established the time of events surrounding the murders via witness statements that referenced the time on the well-illuminated clock of Christchurch.
A barking dog brought Blake back into the present. He glanced up at the source of the noise. He couldn't believe his eyes: on the other side of the road, separated by a fast-flowing river of traffic, stood Mary, the homeless lady, and her black dog. He suddenly felt breathless, as if a heavy weight had just been placed on his chest.
The last time he had seen the homeless woman was at St Paul’s Cathedral on that fateful day in late November when he and a Vatican academic, Carla Sabatini had nearly lost their lives at the hands of two Eastern European hit men and a deranged industrialist called Ema Mats. The Times had described the incident as ‘a treasure hunt for an ancient relic that had turned into a blood bath.’ There was so much about that day that was unresolved in Blake’s mind. One thing he knew for certain was that the homeless woman on the other side of the road was intimately connected with the events. She had met him on the steps of the cathedral and spouted some hocus pocus about the end of the world and a prophecy still to be fulfilled. He got goose bumps thinking about how she took hold of his hands and said that he had been chosen by God to do His will. Her eyes had bored into him with such intensity that they could have punctured two holes in the back of his head.
After finding the entrance to a previously unknown passage in the foundations of the cathedral, Blake and Sabatini discovered the existence of a religious staff, a sacred relic dating back to biblical times. During the ensuing confrontation, Blake came close to losing his life. Wounded and losing consciousness, Blake’s final memory was the grainy recollection of the homeless woman and her dog praying over him. DCI Milton wanted to bring her in for fingerprinting, convinced that her prints would be all over a weapon found at the scene. Blake wanted to track her down for another reason: he was convinced she had somehow saved his life. During the subsequent months, Blake had scoured every homeless shelter and rough-sleeping haunt in London, all to no avail. But now, there she was, standing less than thirty feet away.
The woman looked distressed, almost as though she were chiding herself. She rocked back and forth on her feet, her back turned away from him. Blake could feel his heart beat faster in his chest. The traffic was hectic on both sides of the road; one wrong move and she would melt into the shadows and into the crowd of onlookers that had congregated outside the church. With his senses straining, Blake tried to scope out his options. But almost immediately the decision was made for him. She was on the move, and he started to follow, paralleling her on the other side of the street.
With the black dog trotting by her side, Mary set off at full speed down Brushfield Street. Half walking, half running, Blake tried to keep up and shouldered his way through a crowd of office workers who had spilled out of a nearby pub. Through the jostling, he momentarily lost sight of his target but he emerged from the horde and caught sight of a shadow disappearing down a dark alley off to the left. Jogging, he crossed the road and followed in Mary’s direction. His footfall stalled at the murky entrance, but as his eyes readjusted, he made his way down the alleyway. His feet gained pace, and then the path suddenly broke off into two branches, one right-angling to the left. He stuttered to a complete stop. Panting in the semi-darkness, his senses looked for some clue as to which route to take. He didn’t have to wait long for the answer. The sound of a dog barking some distance off to his left was all he needed to make the turn and move as fast as he could down the narrowing passage. The sound of traffic was getting louder in front of him. Suddenly, he exited the alleyway into the glare of bright streetlights and a pavement thick with pedestrians. Through blinking eyes, he took several seconds to work out where he was: Bishopsgate, the major road cutting through the northeast corner of London’s main financial district.
He spun around, desperate to locate the woman. Then he caught a glimpse of Mary and the dog weaving their way through the crowd southwards down Bishopsgate. Spurred on by the adrenaline rushing through his veins, he turned on his heels and gave chase. Less than a minute later, he had caught up the distance.
Mary and the dog moved quickly, striding forwards with intent. The dog went first, like the bow of an icebreaker cutting through the pedestrians coming the other way. If a large black dog advancing purposefully along the pavement wasn’t reason enough to step aside, the sight of Mary, with her blackened face, dishevelled appearance and electrified hair, quickly sealed the deal. Without warning, the dog veered down Cannon Street with Mary in tow. Blake followed a safe distance behind.
Several hundred yards further along Cannon Street, Mary’s footsteps slowed. Initially, Blake thought that he had been spotted. He darted to a nearby ATM machine and made out that he was typing numbers into its keypad. He waited a brief moment before glancing back up along the street. Mary’s attention had changed, but not in Blake’s direction; instead, she was now fixed on an ugly iron grille set into the frontage of an unassuming office building.
Cautiously, the woman edged towards the grille. With every tentative step, Mary’s posture tightened, as if she were pushing against a strengthening wind. Looking on, Blake could see that her emaciated frame was shaking within her heavy woollen coat. It was as if the iron grille were generating some kind of magnetic force repelling Mary back.
Alarmed, Blake stepped off the pavement and weaved his way through several parked cars to a position some twenty feet away. Advancing slowly, he tried to get a better view of the grille. From this new angle, Blake peered through the wrought iron latticework to what lay beyond the grate. What he saw sent a deep furrow of curiosity across his forehead. A rectangular block of pale stone, no bigger than a portable TV set, was set in a glass display case. Lit from above by several spotlights, the case and the iron grille gave a view of the object from the street, as if it were an expensive diamond necklace in the front of a jewellery shop. His eyes locked onto the weathered metal plaque set into the top of the grille. Even though the lines of citation were hidden in shadow, the title heading could be clearly read.
THE LONDON STONE
Chapter 38
Suddenly Mary’s spine arched, sending a tremor along her rigid muscles. A strange guttural sound ripped upwards from deep within her. It was soon joined by barking from the dog, who was now pacing a circle around her. Mary collapsed onto the pavement, her limbs shaking and flailing violently. Blake shot forwards. Immediately the dog turned on its feet and growled up at Blake, its glistening eyes flashing with threat. It stood there, taut
as a tight spring next to the convulsing woman. Blake edged forward and as he did so, he could see Mary’s eyeballs disappearing upwards inside their sockets.
In the corner of his eye, Blake could see people crossing the street to avoid getting caught up in whatever was going on. He pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in the number for the emergency services. Before he could tap the green send key, the squealing sound of an engine filled his ears.
He turned his head just in time to see a red off-road motorbike mount the pavement further along up Cannon Street, hurtling in their direction. A plume of smoke billowed from the bike’s back tyre, which etched a criss-crossed pattern of dark rubber behind it. Deftly the rider hauled the motorcycle around a tight arc, the front wheel now facing directly towards Blake.
The rider was dressed from top to bottom in black leathers, a tinted helmet visor obscuring the person’s features. On the rider’s shoulders was slung a small backpack. Blake watched motionless as the black figure slid the pack off and, with force, hurled it into the air. It whistled past Blake and came to rest in front of the metal grille with its top flap gaping open.
Quickly the rider twisted the throttle, and the massive torque of the bike’s powerful engine instantly transferred to its back wheel. The machine snarled into action and accelerated hard back along the pavement, sending whirlwinds of litter into the air and a trail of burning rubber behind it. Blake followed the progress of the machine up the road until it dipped into a side street, leaving only the sound of its engine roaring in its wake.
His eyes returned to the backpack. Something was flashing inside it. Still wary of the dog, he circled around the animal, stopped, and then continued on to the bag. He lifted the flap of the pack’s main compartment and froze. A digital display unit taped to a small block of yellow plasticine-like material was counting down from the number eight. As his eyes travelled down the two wires connecting the digital readout to the block, he made out the words printed on the label attached to the yellow surface:
The Devil’s Architect: Book Two of the Dark Horizon Trilogy Page 14
