“Clubland?”
“St. James's-an area of London that includes the palace of the same name. Houses many of London's most famous clubs.”
“And you wish to do this for me? With the express purpose of getting the both of us loaded?”
“Stinking. Boulte and the public prosecutor would love to learn of it. They might well have one of the Q-Division staring at me right this moment for all I know.”
“Public prosecutor? Q-Division?”i
“A division of the Yard, internal affairs. As for the P.P., that'd be Ellen Sturgeon, what you would call the district attorney. You met her briefly at the meeting of all the citywide officers, didn't you?”
“No, I didn't. No one formally introduced us, but I do recall a stem-looking broomstick in the comer.”
“That's her. She's moving so fast on the rat brothers, you'd imagine the Thames is at Floodgate Street. Boulte and she have it all worked out, you see, and if they can control me, then they haven't a bother. Typical upper-level thinking usually means no-thinking.”
“Then perhaps we should go to a museum instead of doing a pub crawl, is it?”
“I say we rave-up. Take in some dancing. Either that or a drive into the regions?”
“The regions?”
“Home counties, the provinces. See the countryside.”
“Sounds lovely. I'd like that.”
“So, what looks good on the menu?”
She stared down at a list of sandwiches, soups, and meat pies. Coming across one called Spotted-Dog Pie gave her the strangest image of Dalmations all skinned and cooked in a stew. She pointed it out to Richard in a half-singing voice, “See spot ran, see spot die, see spot as a Christmas pie.”
“The dog is rather tasty, actually, a dessert pudding. It's a roly-poly pudding with suet, raisins, and currants, and not a Dalmatian, I assure you. May I suggest number thirteen, however?”
She glanced quickly to the number and read aloud, “Resurrection Pie…”
“Apropos, I should think,” he finished.
“What is it?”
“Resurrection… created from leftovers, you see.” She flashed on a mental image of the leftover lives of the many victims of the Crucifier, wondering if the rat brothers could be considered vicdms in this bizarre case as well. “Suddenly, I'm not so hungry,” she pleaded.
“Fine, then let's have at the shove-halfpenny.”
“But I don't know how to play.”
“You're quite better off not knowing. It's quite possibly the most frustrating game in the world.”
Soon they were shoving well-polished old halfpennies with the flat of the hand along a board separated into horizontal secdons, each with numerical value, a kind of miniature shuffleboard. With each halfpenny came laughter from them both.
As they played, Jessica began telling Sharpe of her last visit to Luc Sante and their conversation. She felt inept, however, in restating the man's words. She feared her retelling of his remarks on the Crucifier fell flat.
“Slut's wool,” he replied.
Taken aback by this, she asked, “Whatever do you mean?”
“It's the stuff collects under the bed, behind the bureau, and other hard-to-reach places. Half or more what the old shrink says is slut's wool. I know. I went to him when I'd become depressed over my divorce.”
“Really?”
“I had worked with him on many occasions. I learned that he was good with divorce, and he was, but he also likes to hear himself talk.”
“But I thought you thought him of excellent reputation and help in police matters.”
“Of course he is, but I'm on my way to being smashed tonight, so there you have it.” Freshly cleaned and scrubbed and prayed over, the holy cross awaited its next supplicant. All about it and all around the pulpit placed here by their leader, the followers of the Church of the New Millennia and the Second Coming, bowed their heads in prayer and supplication. They did so amid the squalor and degradation of a church that must shun the light of a society that condemned it, in a place where rats infested, where an ancient floor lay buried, and where a long forgotten mine shaft and a putrid, unclean canal sat dormant for generations.
The unclean water meant they had to take the bodies elsewhere for cleansing, which was part of the ritual. They had to be cleansed in God's lakes, ponds, and rivers.
Below their feet, Roman stone floors reminded them with each footfall of the persecution they would face, should they too soon make known their teachings and practices, should they step forth into the light without the Son of God clearly beside them.
At the moment, however, they felt a collective and profound disappointment. It proved so deep that for some time they in sum felt a sense of loss: loss of direction, loss of identity, loss of purpose, loss of rationale, loss of meaning, loss of self and God. All they had done, they had done in the name of Christ for the greater glory of God. So why had they failed?
“It's a test, a cosmic quiz, my friends. Not unlike God to create His own brand of dark humor, now is it? His design, we cannot know, cannot ever hope to touch or so much as stand near. He is inscrutable, the enigma of all enigmas, a mystery within a mystery within a mystery added to a grand mystery more complex than any puzzle mankind can ever hope to piece together. There we shall not attempt. There we shall not go. We know only what His Son gave us in His word. That He would send His Son once again to purge this horrid world we ourselves have created, purge it of all the evil, all the ugliness, all the inhumanity, and all the humanity required to cleanse this Earth.”
The leader wore the heavy ancient robes of the early church, something one might expect to see dangling from a wax dummy in the historical fashion section of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The heavy vestments, dark and grim, gave their leader the image of large and powerful shoulders, a straight and tall appearance, and a solidness he would not otherwise have had. The coat made him appear stout and oaken, wooden like the huge cross beside him. “We must not fail. To give in to despair now is certain to lead to failure, assuring that the Second Coming simply will not be in this millennium, and then what is mankind left with but another thousand years of darkness and ruin? We must not lose sight of our collective will and purpose.”
“But we've sent four innocent people over. We've crucified the wrong people. We've made mistakes fourfold!” replied the most vocal of the followers. An Iranian named Kahilli who had brought Burton, one of his patients, and more of the Brevital they required.
“None are innocent, and all who went before our final choice went as sacrifices to a greater good. Burnt offerings, you might say,” countered their leader from on high at his enormous oak pulpit, where he stood above them all.
“Their sins washed clean,” muttered another of the fold, a weak old woman.
“When do we make our next selection?” asked another elderly female.
“Soon, very soon, this temple shall come into the light, and soon, very soon, a new history of mankind will begin and this world will never be the same after…” replied their leader where he stood in the hidden cathedral where stagnant water stood unmoving like a snake without life.
One of their fold, no longer with them now, had once asked where the water came from. No one could tell him. Then he asked where the water might be leading to. No one could tell him this, either. But their minister had assured him that what must be most important is the here and the now of a thing, that their concern must be on the small strip of water in their temple, and not its source or its confluence. “God grants us but one view of the whole,” their leader had said to the wayward member whose questions seemed never ending-until he was silenced altogether.
Others in the fold recalled those questions now, because a sudden rumble and gurgle and bubble below the surface of the water rose up, and the silent strip of green liquid, like ancient lacing around a giant Christmas package, rippled and belched almost on cue to what their minister spoke.