“It is time,” their leader pronounced. “It is time to select a fifth Chosen One.”
FIFTEEN
Evil creates labyrinthine power, layer upon layer, and begins to weave bonds of dominion over its followers, creating a web of monstrosity from acceptance.
Richard's hangover had him in the bathroom, praying to the porcelain god, while Jessica, sympathetic but exhausted with her own headache, tried to recall just how many pubs they had crawled to and from the night before. Sharpe had been in a foul mood, and his anger and sullenness came out in this manner-drink and everything else be damned. But he proved to be fun and even hilarious when, in a crowded pub, he drunkeniy and loudly explained the game of cricket to all “foreign-bom immigrants and tourists.” Climbing onto a bar and bellowing out the explanadon of the game, he had said, “It's all quite simple, really! You have two sides, one out in the field, one in. Do you understand so far? Good!”
“So far, yes,” volunteered someone from the crowd.
Richard continued, adding with a flourish, “Each man on the side that's in goes out, and when he's out, he comes in, and the next man goes in, undl he's out. When they're all out, the side that's been out in the field now comes in-they come in, you see? And the side that's been in goes out to try to get out those coming in. If, however, the side that goes in declares, then you get men still in, not out. Then, when both sides have been in and out, including not outs, twice, that's the end of the match. Now do you comprehend?”
The crowd, Jessica included, roared while Sharpe shouted, “What? Don't you get it now? Shall I explain again?”
“No, no!” Jessica had pleaded.
She had watched Richard Sharpe put away an amazing amount of booze, his mood and the occasion calling for it. She had once been there herself. She sympathized with his need to wash the images of the victims, whom he feared to let down, from his brain.
Jessica had come with Richard to his home, a chalet-bungalow, basically a one-story house with an extra room in the eave-space. The exterior brickwork recommended it as a pleasant place, but the interior felt as dark and cramped as a cave.
Jessica feared her friend and lover was on the edge and teetering there. She knew she could not count herself a friend, if she failed to talk to him about it. These thoughts bombarded her now to the chorus of his nausea.
When Richard emerged, his eyes shone bright, his smile pervading the room. He showed not the least sign of injury or suffering, but rather appeared refreshed. A mask, a disguise, she thought.
“Richard, are you aware you are an alcoholic?” she asked point-blank.
His response came out as a hefty laugh, and he asked, “Are you the least hungry? My cupboard is near bare, but I have some breakfast cereal, some breads, a handful of eggs. Do you care for an omelet?”
“I don't think I could eat right now, no. And I don't know how on Earth you could. No, thank you.”
“1 hope you won't mind if I throw something together for myself.”
“After what I just heard? You must have a cast-iron stomach.”
“Speaking of which, I am given to understand you are pursuing a lead regarding coal and dung?”
“Dung and beetle, but how did you learn of that?”
“You forget. I am an inspector with Scoutand Yard. I know how to get people to talk,” he said with a smile. Then he freely added, “Heard you took a resounding ribbing from Schuller on the topic.”
“Is nothing sacred?”
“Not in questions of murder, no.”
She nodded, knowing this old truth of seeking the truth. “All right, yes, I've got the lab looking at any and every minute clue we have. The fact her hands, even after the water soaking, had the coal dust in them, got me to wondering, and it all tickled Dr. Schuller's funny bone.”
“And rightly so, my dear Jessica.”
“But suppose she and all of the victims were kept hostage somewhere before their being crucified, and suppose it was an underground someplace where coal abounds?”
He gave this a moment's thought, and brought his shoulders up before he replied, “England and London in particular are dotted with old coal mines, but only a handful are still in operation. Most have gone under.”
“I see.”
“Literally used to be hundreds within the city itself, if you consider the city one city; you see, London is in fact a sprawling bear, and all the separate little villages about the city proper have been swallowed up by the bear with each new bridge and roadway built over the years. But at one time, each small municipality had its own coal mine. So, there's the problem.”
“Problem?”
“Even if you were certain the coal dust under Woodard's nails-”
“No longer just her nails. We went back for a closer examination, and Raehael and I found coal dust embedded in her wounds as well, in the palms and feet.”
He slowed to digest this fact. “Even if it had come from someplace she had been held hostage, where do you begin? Not likely at the few still in operation. And there are hundreds not in operation, you see?”
“There ought by now to be results on the carbon-14 dating. Let me ring the lab.” She knew Richard meant only to humor her.
To her dismay, she found that the phone lay off the hook. She picked it up, rested it on its cradle and frowned, realizing that they had been out of touch with the investigation for nearly fourteen hours. Saying so to Richard resulted in a mutter of indifference from the man.
“I only hope nothing's happened and no one's missed us,” she replied, wondering now if he'd intentionally taken the phone off the hook.
She telephoned for Dr. Raehael at the Yard's crime lab, her face giving way to surprise, which Richard read as, “Another body's been found, hasn't it?”
“No, no,” she reassured him. “Yes, Dr. Raehael, I did hear you. Thank you, and please, let's keep this bit of news between us, please.”
Richard stood over her as she dropped the phone onto its cradle. “What news have you?”
“Raehael dated our dung beetle sample back to Roman times.”
“My word… my word… So it was formed in Roman England.”
“Now where shall we begin?”
“You sound like Alice-through-the-looking-glass, Jessica.”
“And you, my Mad Hatter, have you the time?”
“It's late, it's late,” he sang out an alteration of the rhyme, “it's very, very late.”
“And have you a direction?”
He gave a moment's thought to this, his hand rising with an aha notion playing about his features. “You know, there is a little frequented museum, an industrial history museum inside the RIBA. Rather buried in the basement there. A-”
“Where?”
“Royal Institute of British Architecture near Regent's Park in Marylebone area on Portland at China. They-RIBA, that is-built all that stands in London, you see, over the years. They're quite proud of their bridges, railways, mines, the tube-underground rail lines and their daft factories. They might have something on the mines, and perhaps someone there might be expert and helpful.”
Jessica only half heard what he'd said beyond Royal Institute of British Architecture and Portland Street. “I was once a member of the elite army corps of engineers of which we British are so proud. That makes me a tad more familiar with how London is laid out, and where all of her underpinnings and underground niches, nooks, and crannies lie. Still it's a complicated mess. I need to locate a moldy old institution dealing with the layout of the city to find my own way about.”
“We haven't left yet? Let's give it a shot. Who knows? Perhaps we can locate an underground kill site, a site from before the time of Christ.”