It had all made for a long and tiring day. Now Jessica said good night to Raehael, who had, unlike Schuller, stayed dll the very end of the postmortem examination. Raehael and she discussed the strange findings with respect to their Roman beetle. Dr. Raehael told her, “I informed Dr. Schuller of all result, which he do not at first believe until he look over my findings-that same coal dust was embedded into the wounds of the victims, not just Woodard-and that he should look for himself. I told him then, Doctor, that he owes apology to you.”
“ 'Fraid I got none.”
She thanked Raehael and they shook hands, and he waved her off to what he hoped would be a good night. Alone now in the scrub room, she stripped her surgical gloves and gown away, reached over and tore off paper booties protecting her shoes from blood and fluids, tossed all recyclables in one bin, all garb in another, and stretched, using a yoga position that relaxed her back and neck muscles. As she turned to leave the operating theater, she came face-to-face with Luc Sante's disembodied head framed in the surgical doorway. “God-damnit,” she cursed inwardly at her sudden fright. He smiled in at her and waved her forward.“I came as soon as I could get away,” he explained. 'Tragic, a fifth victim. Is it possible he is planning to kill seven? Seven is often a number people fixate on, given its biblical connotations, its mystical history.”
“At this point, I haven't a clue, and I'm extremely, extremely tired, Dr. Luc Sante.”
“Obviously, yes, and with good reason.”
She almost thought he meant something by the remark, he'd heard of her tryst with Sharpe and was attempting a small, secular joke. But no, her mind told her to think better of his remarks than that. Then she recalled Richard's words about tmsting one's own intuition and sense of jeopardy, that the subconscious often knew more than the conscious mind, and this led her to recall the remarkable workings of FBI psychic investigator, Kim Desinor, who would not allow a red-legged crow, a DIVERSION sign or any other “signal” to get past her conscious self, because a psychic like Kim Desinor kept in tune with her subconscious.
“You must be anxious for a shower, something to eat. I have my car. Allow me to see you to your hotel, and there I will wine and dine with you, my dear Jessica.”
She could find no reason to say no. He offered precisely what she needed at the moment, and she had truly wanted to speak with him again regarding the latest aspects of the case.
“Yes, yes,” she told him. “I would like that, Dr. Luc Sante, Father.”
“Good, very good, indeed.” His smile left a small gap in his teeth, and his teeth were yellowed from years of smoking, which he'd obviously given up. Likely due to doctor's orders. His wispy hair flew about his cranium where he stood below the air duct in the surgical scrub area. He reminded Jessica of Scrooge, looking as if he'd stepped out of that bygone era, despite his modem cloth and the cut of his vestments.
“I am told the latest victim was left like the others, in water?”
“Yes, St. James Park.”
“Dear me, close to the Queen's little cottage. This will have a ripple effect, indeed.”
“Let's get out of here, Father.”
Before leaving Scotland Yard, Jessica dropped off her postmortem report in the ops room with Copperwaite and Sharpe. The two men now were working under a cloud. She told Richard of her plans to spend the evening with Father Luc Sante, and after an initial frown bom of disappointment, he accepted this, wishing her a good night. Copperwaite added a “Cheerio,” while sdll studying her autopsy report. Once back at the York Hotel, Jessica scanned a brief message left at the desk for her by first Richard Sharpe, saying he missed her terribly, and one from J. T. in America, which simply read: Tattoo Man's case heating up. Call you when I can.
Jessica, with Father Luc Sante waiting in the lobby, needed her own heating up, so she showered to cleanse the sad postmortem of the day from her fingers and nasal cavities as well. She very much wanted to enjoy her time now with this fascinating “Father,” and she felt a desire to confess to him, or at least to bare her soul to him. She felt some senseless worm of guilt eating away at her regarding this case, the fact that it seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. Not to mention that while she and Richard had made love, another victim had been staked to a cross somewhere, her body thrown into a lake.
Still, if she could tell anyone of her painful doubts and fears, it would be Father Luc Sante.
As she showered for the second time this day, she decided that Luc Sante was a man of great magnetism and charisma, due in large part to the kindness of his eyes and the kindness with which he imparted information, even on the most gruesome of subjects. In fact, his eyes stroked those he reached out to help.
After showering and dressing in evening wear, Jessica met Luc Sante in the lobby, the priest telling her that he'd already taken the liberty of booking them into the York's exquisite lounge. “My treat this time,” he assured her. Quickly seated, they soon found themselves sipping a fine rose wine, a 1979 vintage, something Luc Sante had selected previous to their having actually been seated. “They know me here,” he whispered in her ear.
After a few sips of wine, Luc Sante asked pointedly, “Why do you seem so melancholy in this place? We have comfort, wine, music, good company…”
She instantly apologized, realizing he must have read the melancholia from her features. “I am sorry, Father. It's… it's just that… Well, it would appear that all my scientific skill has been of little help in actually pinpointing these killers, Father.”
A waiter stood in a nearby comer, and from time to time he rushed the table, refilled the wineglasses, and disappeared again. Something of a faceless, nameless penguin in his black and white, she thought.
The elegant restaurant at the hotel filled with music from a piano now being played by a gifted young black woman. She played Chopin, moved to Bach, and then settled on one of Beethoven's lighter moods.
“1 do not mean to mock or disparage your attempts or what you do for a living, Dr. Coran, but…” He hesitated.
“But?” she encouraged.
“But experience has taught me.” Luc Sante's voice, so deep, rich and full, rose above the music. He spoke around sips of his wine. “What is paraded as scientific fact is quite often mere rhetoric.”
“Rhetoric?”
“We know what we know. We don't always need a scientist to tell us what we already know.”
“All right, but we-people-don't always know what we need to know.” She tried to counter his logic with her own.
“So they need you? They need to be told what is what? They need to follow the precepts of some current belief held by a mere handful of scientists searching for truths beyond the scientists' reach in the first place?”
“Not unlike our investigation, you mean?”
He lightly laughed. “I hadn't thought of it in quite the same terms, but yes, you might say so,” Luc Sante added, snatching up the roll of bread between them, offering her first a piece and then taking one for himself. “Perhaps, it is time to abandon your scientific goggles for a pair of intuitive eyes. Your instincts have saved you in the past, and they will again in the future if you let them,” he attempted reassurance. “If you get out of the way of your own instincts, Jessica Coran.”
“Maybe it's this place, London. It's dizzying and romantic.”
“Thank God for romance! But Jessica, we both know you are gifted, and you must feed your gift at all times.”
“But I trust in science, and-”
“Blindly? To the detriment of answers, solutions, truths? 1 should hope not.”
She continued to argue, “Well… as for current belief, we scientists-as blind as we may be-“Call it tunnel vision rather than blindness. Comes from staring down too many microscopes, perhaps,” he joked and chewed down his food in barbarian, hedonistic fashion, like a man who'd just stepped from the thirteenth century. He saw her staring at him. His hands and his mouth were full of bread. Choking it down, he laughed like Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV. “My table manners, I should warn you, are atrocious, but then I have the excuse of being French!” He laughed more. “In France, everyone eats with his hands and his heart. You should try it! Handle your food and it tastes supreme. I have spent my life in service here in England, but I spent my youth in France. I return only for the air nowadays.”