“I have been trying to discover more about the sacred sites of King’s Cross and Pentonville, but there is very little reliable reading material available on the subject. These names – Brill, Somers Town, Euston, Agar Town, Pentonville, so many names for one tiny area – it is confusing,” the archivist said.
“Well, Pentonville was founded in the mid-1770s on the estate of a Member of Parliament called Henry Penton,” said Bryant. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Not so simple, I think. His name has a meaning, no? Mr Potterton tells me that the Penton was at the – how you say – peak? – of Pentonville Road, but nobody knows exactly what it was.”
“Actually, I can help you there.” Bryant was pleased to be able to put his arcane knowledge to use. “A
“A sacred stone.”
“That’s right.
“Then you should see this,” said Potterton. “Mr Kareshi uncovered it a few days ago, and the diocese is in a bit of a quandary about reporting the find. I think our reverend feels very uncomfortable about the building’s pagan origins. The building is on the heritage register and can’t be disassembled, but there’s clearly something of major historical importance under here. If it predates the Christian site, it’s been buried for more than two thousand years.” Potterton stepped back from the excavation, allowing the lamplight in.
Bryant peered into the hole. He found himself looking at an elongated chunk of pockmarked grey granite. “What is this?” he asked.
“I know it’s difficult to see clearly. Let me adjust the lights.” Kareshi moved the tripods closer. “How is that?”
The elderly detective could just make out a pair of eye sockets, an aquiline nose, the partial line of a jaw.
“There is no more of him. I mean, we have not found it attached to a body,” said Kareshi.
“This part was just inside the wall?”
“Yes, but there is another, from the main chamber. Come and see.” Kareshi led the way through panels of dusty plastic sheeting, into a wider hole of fractured brickwork. “There was a spa here that connected to the well behind the church. Such places were constructed like temples. You can see the remains of a main circular chamber with a domed roof. This is why the crypt was built in the same shape.”
A narrow alley of damp brick had been lined with lamps. It opened out into a circular stone room just over three metres high. On the opposite wall was the faint painted outline of a robed woman in a crown. She was holding chains attached to a pair of dogs.
“The spa was opened to the public in 1760 – we have this from parish records – but the wells had already been popular for more than half a century by then. It is recorded as being a fashionable meeting place, with pump rooms and a House of Entertainment, which means skittles and bowling, the drinking of beers and teas. And there was a garden with – how you say? Exotic animals.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” said Potterton, “the church being stuck between the Adam and Eve tavern and the pleasure gardens. The spa had royal patronage but eventually fell into disrepute, although it took forty years to do so. Prostitutes and gangsters moved in, and stayed right up until recent times. Nell Gwynne’s house is still clearly marked, you know. There’s a stone inscription set into the wall of number sixty-three, King’s Cross Road.”
Bryant stared at the greenish-brown spa walls and breathed in the wet air, lost in thought. “Tell me, Austin, do you believe in evil spirits?”
“Odd question. No, I suppose not. Why?”
“The word
“Why would that be?” asked Potterton.
“It’s the sign of a sacrificial site. This was intended as a warning to the curious. What else have they found?”
“Some small iron symbols, very degraded, but they seem to match up to other markings in the undercroft. A face shaped by tree branches, typically Hellenic in appearance.”
“The horned king of the hilltop,” muttered Bryant. “The great god Pan is back. Perhaps he never really went away. Of course. I’m beginning to see now.”
“See what?” asked Potterton, curious.
“A connection between gods and mortals,” replied Bryant mysteriously. “Well, I mustn’t detain you any longer; I have work to do. But I’ll be back, Austin.” He nodded to both, and took his leave.
He wasn’t quite ready to return to the temporary residence of the PCU. Bryant stopped outside, looking up at the back of St Pancras station. He tried to find the statue of Boudicca that supposedly looked down on the street, but misty rain was now falling too heavily to see.
He turned his mind to a piece of history so distant that no fact could be verified, and myths that were considered ancient a millennium ago. Boudicca, the Queen of the Iceni, had inherited the kingdom after the death of her husband, King Prasutagus. But the Romans, under Suitonius Paulinus, had pillaged their own protectorate, slaughtering over 80,000 and defeating the Warrior Queen in battle. Brutalised, defeated, her daughters raped, Boudicca had committed suicide in despair. Some said she had been transformed into a hare, to flee into the thick woodlands surrounding the site of her final battle. But, as Bryant knew, the grimmer historical reality had not survived the burnishing of her legend.
Could such mythologies really maintain their grip on the present? There were those who believed they did.
? Bryant & May on the Loose ?
24
The Two Delaneys
Rosa Lysandrou slowly opened the door of the Camley Street Coroner’s Office like Mrs Danvers beckoning a visitor into Manderley. She examined the man standing before her with a glum stare that could have brought a corpse out in a sweat.
“Is Giles in?” asked Dan Banbury, in the manner of a schoolboy asking if a friend could come out to play.
“Can I ask who is calling?”
“I’m Dan. We work together.”
“He already has one visitor. I’ll have to see.” Rosa’s grey eyes narrowed in faint disapproval. The door closed again. Banbury took a look around. Rain was mizzling lightly against the grassy banks on either side of the entrance. The only sound came from the wind in the reeds that grew beside the canal. It really was the most forlorn, depressing – the door opened again.
“Dan! Hullo! Sorry about that – Rosa is insisting on screening my callers. Come in.” Kershaw clapped a hand on the Crime Scene Manager’s broad back and drew him into the gloomy corridor. “Apparently that’s what she always did for the professor, her previous boss. He came here from the Hospital for Tropical Diseases just up the road. Have you heard, some absolute doombrain wants to make the place a containment area for unknown serious infections? The press has been speculating about what would happen if it became a terrorist target. Can you imagine the disaster scenario we’d have on our hands? At present such things are dealt with up near Mill Hill. They have PCs from Haringey and Barnet guarding the place. Anyway, the Disease Centre moved out of that weird old Gothic building you can see from the road in 1999, and the professor came here. By all accounts Rosa was dedicated to him, but there seems to be some kind of mystery about how and why he left that she won’t talk about; disgrace, a nervous breakdown, it’s all very – Ah, here we are.”
Bryant was standing in the main room, having just arrived from the church next door. He grinned. “What do
