‘Mr Wade, you could have written this yourself. How do I know this isn’t another of your hoaxes?’
‘The TNT and the napalm. I checked. Nobody mentioned it, either on TV or in the newspapers. I assume they don’t yet know about it. If you can confirm that was the cause of the explosion, I think that’s sufficient proof.’
Russell had said this to Vivien, who was pale and didn’t seem able to speak. All three of them were thinking the same thing. If what was written in the letter was true, it meant they were at war. And the man who had started this war had, on his own, the power of a small army.
‘And there’s another thing. I don’t know how useful it might be.’
Again Russell Wade put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket. This time he took out a bloodstained photograph. He held it out to the detective.
‘Along with the paper, Ziggy gave me this.’
Vivien took the photograph and stared at it for a moment or two. A kind of electric shock seemed to go through her.
‘Wait a moment. I’ll be right back.’
She disappeared into the corridor, barely leaving Russell and Captain Bellew time to wonder what she was up to. There was only one flight of stairs between the captain’s office and her desk, so it didn’t take her long to pick up the yellow folder and get back. She closed the door and approached the desk.
‘A couple of days ago, during demolition work at a site on 23rd Street, a body was found inside a cavity wall. According to the ME, it had been there for about fifteen years. We didn’t find any significant clues, apart from one thing.’
Assuming that the captain already knew most of this, Russell realized that Detective Vivien Light’s presentation was for his benefit. That meant she was respecting their pact.
‘On the ground next to the body,’ she continued, ‘we found a document holder containing two photographs. Here they are.’
She gave the captain the black and white enlargements that were in the folder. Bellew examined them for a few moments. When Vivien was certain he had digested them, she passed him the photograph Russell had shown her.
‘And this is what Ziggy gave Mr Wade.’
As soon as he saw it, the captain couldn’t stop himself crying out, ‘Holy fucking shit!’
He continued looking from one photograph to the other for what seemed like for ever. Then he leaned across the desk and held them out to Russell. In one, there was a young man in uniform standing in front of a tank: an image that looked as if it dated from the Vietnam war. In the other, the same young man, in civilian clothes, was holding a big black cat up to the camera, a cat that seemed to have one leg missing.
Now Russell knew why Detective Light had behaved the way she had, and why the captain was so surprised. The young man and the cat in the photograph found next to a body that had been dead for fifteen years were the same as those in the photograph Ziggy Stardust had put in his hands before dying.
CHAPTER 19
Ever since Father Michael McKean had opened his eyes, those three words had been echoing in his head as if they were on some kind of endless tape loop. Up until last night there had still been, somewhere inside him, a small hope that it was all the ramblings of a madman, ramblings that hurt no one but the madman himself. But reason and instinct, which were usually in conflict, told him it was all true.
And in the sunlight everything seemed clearer and more final.
He remembered the end of that strange conversation in the confessional, when the man, after making that terrible declaration, had changed his tone and become soft spoken, conspiratorial, uttering words of menace in a voice that artfully combined guilt and innocence.
‘Now I’m going to stand up and leave. And you won’t follow me, or try to stop me. If you did, the consequences would be very unpleasant. For you and the people who are dear to you. You can trust me on that, just as you can trust everything I’ve said.’
‘Wait. Don’t go. At least tell me why-’
The voice interrupted him, once again firm and precise. ‘I thought I’d made myself clear. I have nothing to explain. Only announcements to make. And you’ll get them before anyone else.’
The man continued with his ravings as if they were the most natural thing in the world.
‘This time I reunited darkness and light. Next time, I will bring together earth and water.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You’ll understand, in time.’
The voice was full of a calm, inexorable menace. Terrified that he would disappear at any moment, Father McKean asked him a last desperate question.
‘Why have you come to me? Why me?’
‘Because you need me more than anyone else. I know that.’
There followed a silence that, coming from a man who claimed to be the master of eternity, seemed infinite. Then he uttered his final words. His farewell to a world that was doomed.
‘Ego sum Alpha et Omega.’
The man stood up and left, almost noiselessly, a rustle of green beyond the grille, a glimpse of a face in the semi-darkness. Father McKean sat there alone, breathing with difficulty but devoid of fear, because what he was feeling was so big and so nameless it left no room for anything else.
He left the confessional white faced, and when Paul came to find him he was startled by his pained look.
‘What’s the matter, Michael, aren’t you feeling well?’
He didn’t see any point in lying. In any case, after what had happened he really didn’t have the strength to celebrate the noon mass. Mass was a moment of joy and togetherness, and the thoughts he had inside him could only contaminate it.
‘No. To tell the truth, I don’t feel well at all.’
‘Okay. Go home. I’ll take the service.’
‘Thanks, Paul.’
Paul had had some visitors from outside the parish, and he found him a ride back to Joy. A man Father McKean didn’t know introduced himself as Willy Del Carmine and pointed to a large car. He could barely remember the colour. For the whole of the brief journey he was silent, looking out the window, emerging from his thoughts only to give directions to the driver. He didn’t even recognize the road he had travelled along a thousand times.
When he was in the forecourt, hearing the noise of the car as it drove away, he realized he had not even thanked or said goodbye to the man who had been so kind as to give him a ride.
John had been in the garden when he saw the car pull up, and now he joined Father McKean. He was a man of uncommon sensitivity and a keen ability to read people’s moods.
Father McKean knew he would realize something was wrong. He had already sensed it in the tone of his voice when he had phoned from Saint Benedict to say he was on his way back. As if to confirm the opinion he had of him, John approached him now as if afraid he was being intrusive.
‘Everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine, John. Thank you.’
His colleague did not insist, confirming another of his qualities, discretion. They knew each other too well by now. He knew John was confident that, when the time was right, his friend Michael McKean would open up to him. He wasn’t to know how different things were this time.
