Robert Walker - Blind Instinct

“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.”

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. Albans. Suppose… Might we not suppose that Strand, and not Father Luc Sante, is masterminding the crucifixions? As a student of Luc Sante's logic, Strand, twisdng it, may well have taken the uldmate step in the ultimate search to… to …”

'To ultimately end all evil in the universe by working through a twisted faith?”

“You do see the possibility, then, don't you? The disciple, taking the words of his master, buckling them to his belief, his faith… twisted faith. And so enter the cult mentality. Hell, anyone might take Luc Sante's plan for a psychotherapy of evil to go seek it out and defuse it, but a minister of the Christian faith, believing it his mission, that certainly might put a spin on murder neither of us, Richard, have seen before.”

“One for the courts, anyway,” he mused. “Still, suppose the two of them, Strand and Luc Sante, are together in this? We know that it requires at least two men to hoist another onto a cross and nail him there.”

'Two able-bodied men. Have you looked at Luc Sante, lately? He's failing, a weak old man, while Strand looks as if he'd just stepped off the pages of Billy Budd.”

“Do you rank him with Billy Budd?”

“No, yes, not really… in a curious way, perhaps, but no,” she finally decided. “But returning to my point, if Martin Strand has a cult following behind him, he won't lack for muscle.”

They came to a T-intersection. Tatham-who'd been earnestly listening to their conversation, which even when whispered, reverberated about the sepulcher here-stood deciding which was east and which was west toward St. Albans.

“This way,” he finally said. The torches-as the two British men called the flashlights-bounced off the water and the blackened walls as they now entered what was once the actual black mine shaft. Their lights wildly reflected giant shadows ahead of them, dappling reflections and a startlingly black sheen to the walls. The shadows at play ahead of them startled Jessica, until Tatham pointed out that the black images would prove their own. Jessica thought it like watching one's own astral projection.

The silence and the chill of this place seeped into the living bone, feeding every childhood phobia and every adult irrational fear.

“Afraid the coincidences building against Luc Sante in this case can no longer be rationalized away or ignored,” Richard commented as the floor beneath them began a sharper rise.

“Naturally,” she agreed, but added, “however, being a cleric and being a psychotherapist, Father and Luc Sante is likely to be surrounded by the walking wounded, remnants of man's inhumanity to man, such as the Houghton twins, and possibly Burton, O'Donahue, Coibby, and others like them. Simple people leading simple lives that, for one reason or another became complicated lives, too difficult to handle alone, without professional help.” She drummed her fingers along her cheek, thinking of a time when she, too, had found her life spinning out of control, when she needed the help of an outsider in the form of Dr. Donna LeMonte, now a lifelong friend and confidante. She wondered if it had been the same with Katherine O'Donahue, Burtie Burton, Coibby, Woodard, all the crucified victims.