Sharpe had not exaggerated Crider's gift for magic with film. The maps were sharp and clear and easily read. They took them in hand at 8:26 p.m. and left the Yard without anyone but Crider having known they'd been in the archives.
Sharpe made a detour along the route back to the Marylebone district, stopping off at the RIBA in search of someone familiar with the locks and canals of London. Someone who had the right know-how and tools to open a locked grate covering an ancient canal below the city, someone who knew a clapper bridge when confronted with one.
As luck would have it, Donald Wentworth Tatham turned out to be the ready “soldier” on the spot, as Sharpe referred to him. Together, Sharpe, Jessica, and Tatham traveled toward the far northern border of Marylebone, at the terminus of a canal no longer in use, serving only as a drainage ditch and locked away from the sight of men for some forty-eight-odd years.
Sharpe dug out large, powerful flashlights from the boot of his car, along with the Wellington boots he'd scavenged for the three of them. “The Wellingtons,” he told Jessica, “are the same as used by veterinarians when mucking about pigstys and cow sheds. You'll be glad you have them.” Now they approached the silent, sealed grate which had grown over with vines, weeds, and vegetation for birds to build nests in. It took a good ten minutes for Tatham to locate the lock in order to insert the key, and even unlocked, the grate, sealed now with layers of rust and tightly bound by tenacious, stalky clinging vines, refused them entry.
“Bloody 'ell,” moaned Sharpe. “It'll be dark before we're a foot through.”
The three of them, using their combined weight and strength struggled for some time, standing in the drainage ditch, to pry the grate open far enough that they could squeeze through. Skittering eels played about them here in the water.
“Well done,” gasped Richard. Turning to Tatham, he added, “Your job is done then. Off with you, Dr. Tatham.”
“You'll be lost inside an hour and never find your way back without me,” Tatham firmly declared. “Don't be a fool, Sharpe. I think I should accompany you and Dr. Coran to your destination… Which would be…?”
“Where's the map?”
Jessica, who held the map out of the water, said, “Here you go, Richard.”
“We want to come out below St. Albans, the church, somewhere about here, I should think.”
“The church, really? You suspect the church somehow involved in the murders?” asked Tatham.
“Not the church, but perhaps a churchman?”
“Never. You can't seriously suggest that Father Luc Sante of St. Albans the Crucifier!”
“More likely his soon-to-be replacement, but again it's all speculation until we find some concrete evidence.”
Tatham remained incredulous. “Such as?”
“Such as a resurrection cross, some large spikes, an altar of sacrifice perhaps, whatever we might find,” Jessica impatiendy filled Tatham in.
Tatham's eyes lit up like a Boy Scout's when he said, “Quite the expedition then, really.”
Sharpe leaned into Jessica and whispered, “I rather wish Coppers was with us.”
She couldn't agree more, and nodding, her flash indicating her movement, as it bounced off the ancient, cobbled walls, blackened by shadow and age. The trickle of water, moving with their swaying step, reminded them all of where they stood. “Well, Guv', let's shove off then, shall we?” Jessica suggested in her best attempt at a Cockney accent. “Dr. Tatham, lead the way.”
NINETEEN
Has it become human nature for the individual to forfeit his or her ethical judgment (moral judgment, identity, personality, mind, and soul) to the leader, to the cause, to the fanaticism? Unfortunately, we are witnessing the result of this weakness in the human fabric with increasing numbers giving themselves over to cult beliefs.
Jessica and Sharpe-now determined to literally look under Luc Sante's rug, to see if anything might be hiding below St. Albans-continued through the black tunnel, following the canal, sloshing the stagnant water ahead of them, sending vermin racing ahead of them as well.
“This dungeon passage looks like something out of a horror novel or Tolkien,” Jessica complained.
“Watch out for the little people,” agreed Sharpe.
“Gnomes have been known to inhabit underground passageways,” Tatham joined the fun.
Jessica felt strange here, out of time and place, the very walls so ancient they must have seen the Dark Ages. In fact the air here felt sodden with age, perhaps the odor of time itself. Whatever she might label it, it felt palpable and alive and smelling like the grave. The odor mutated as they stepped deeper and deeper into this damp abyss until the stench smelled like rancid meat put over a flame. The odor clawed at her, choking her.
She hated their having to be here like this, skulking about below London streets for the subterranean regions below St. Albans. She hated herself for the fact she had to be deceitful and lying to Father Luc Sante, that she had to have such dark suspicions of the man she so admired. She genuinely liked this old man of the cloth, who held the hope that all mankind might read their own dream-talk in order to find solace and happiness in a pitiless world. She had earlier delighted in Luc Sante's presence, respected him, admired this follower of Christ and Jung, and yet there appeared something amiss, something afoot, something evil that passed for good wandering Luc Sante's church corridors, peering out the cathedral windows, making friendly with the gargoyles that perched over St. Albans.
The Houghton twins still disturbed her, the fact they were from the same town as Luc Sante's first ministry disturbed her. As Luc Sante's own admission had revealed, he had once practiced his ministry and psychotherapy at Bury St. Edmunds, the place from which Katherine O' Donahue, the first victim, had hailed. Sharpe agreed with Jessica that the coincidence could not be ignored.
“I made further inquiries into Luc Sante's past,” Richard told her as they trekked onward through the dismal tunnel that appeared to be-and felt as if- it were on a slight incline, as the water level rose with each step, now spilling over the tops of their Wellingtons.
“So, what did your further inquiries tell you?”
“He has spent time at the parish of every victim on the list.”
She visibly blanched. “Then we must be pointed on the right track. That's a bit more than coincidental, I'd say, as much as I hate to admit.”
“And there's something more.”
“Yes?”
“Father Strand… He's the one who prompted my inquiries to begin with, and believe me, just try to get information on a clergyman in this town. In any case, Martin Strand was bom in Bury St. Edmunds, into the very parish where Luc Sante preached to Katherine O'Donahue. He was one of Luc Sante's choirboys.”
“Then Strand has known Luc Sante all these years, even as a boy.. How large a congregation might it have been at the time? Enough for Luc Sante to have forgotten Katherine O'Donahue?” Likely seven, perhaps eight hundred tops.”
“He may not have recognized the name after all these years,” she countered.
“And Strand? What excuse do you provide for him?”
She had none.
“Young Strand appears indoctrinated, I should hazard a guess.”
“Or rather, Strand believes himself gone beyond the master?” she challenged. “Might he have gone from choirboy to prophet of the Second Coming?”
Richard stopped to stare into her eyes, bringing his light up to her face, asking, “What do you mean?”
“I've seen the way the two interact. Strand condescends to the old man. He's anxious to take over at St.
