The Lazarus Prophecy (7 page)

She had limped half a block, lame and soiled when she staggered as something seared her synapses and a single word was branded into her mind. She saw it there. It was spoken too in a rusty, sardonic chuckle it chilled her skin into gooseflesh to have to hear.

The voice was very deep and impossibly old, a bass croon of amusement. ‘Kismet, my dear,' it said,
‘Kismet.'

‘We had a report of an odd incident earlier tonight.'

‘How was it odd?'

‘Why are you still up?'

‘I'm involved with stuff. I never go to bed before midnight. I'm not a child.'

‘Have you heard of a woman named Charlotte Reynard?'

‘She did a tightrope walk across Cheddar Gorge for charity last year. It was televised live. She used to be a dancer with The Royal Ballet. I've seen her children's books in the remainder bookshop on Lower Marsh. She hasn't been killed, has she?'

‘I wouldn't describe a murder as an incident, Jacob. I'm a plain speaker.'

‘No new message?'

‘No.'

‘So why are you telling me?'

‘I'm telling you to keep you in the loop. She seems to have had some kind of premonition outside her front door when she arrived home not long after dark. She was found
in a distressed state on Vauxhall Bridge Road. Officers have examined her home but have found nothing out of the ordinary. She can't be persuaded to return.'

‘She didn't look the nervous type on that tightrope. She did it without a harness or a safety net.'

‘Have you heard of a play called Miss Julie? There was a televised version you'd be too young to remember. Janet Suzman, I think; maybe Glenda Jackson.'

‘It was Helen Mirren. Donal McCann played the valet, unless you're referring to the version with Janet McTeer?'

‘Stop showing off, Jacob. All you're telling me is that you don't get out enough.'

‘Sorry.'

‘Julie Longmuir was preparing to play the title role in Strindberg's play when she was murdered. The play was written in 1888.'

‘Theologically, it's an insignificant year. The Seventh Day Adventists held their Minneapolis General Conference. I'll check for sure, but I very much doubt the subject of the End of Days came up for discussion.'

‘Charlotte Reynard was planning a comeback. She'd chosen a fairly esoteric vehicle for doing so. I get the impression she wanted to regain lost credibility, re-establish her credentials. Ballet audiences aren't as militant as opera lovers, but they can still be a bit sniffy.'

‘Go on.'

‘She chose a Russian ballet entitled The Vestal, choreographed by Petipa, with music by Ivanov. She was to play the role of Amata.'

‘And The Vestal premiered in 1888.'

‘You're learning.'

‘No, I'm not. I'm completely in the dark.'

‘It's the year of the Whitechapel Murders.'

‘He doesn't think he's Jack the Ripper, Jane. He thinks he's someone far older and more important than that.'

‘A belief the Whitechapel killer might have shared?'

There was silence on the end of the line. It went on for so long that Jane began to think the connection broken.

‘Jacob?'

‘I'm thinking about what he said in the last message. He said that the next killing would be a cause of grief. No doubt Charlotte Reynard was a world-class ballerina in her day, but what she's mostly famous for is raising money for children's charities. She's amassed millions for good causes, hasn't she? She's practically a what-do-you-call-it?'

‘She's practically a national treasure. That thought's occurred to us, too. I think that she had a very lucky escape tonight and has her intuition to thank for it.'

‘Blimey.'

‘You said you were going to subject the messages to proper scrutiny. Have you done that yet?'

‘I'm doing it now. But he's offering you clues beyond the messages, isn't he? There's a causal link between Julie Longmuir and Charlotte Reynard, isn't there? It isn't just that they're not prostitutes or that they have high public profiles. He's telling you something.'

‘He's goading us, or trying to, because tonight, it seems he failed to accomplish what he'd boasted he'd do.'

‘Does that give you any satisfaction?'

‘None, frankly, Jacob, it just makes me more fearful about what he might do next.'

‘You used the past tense just now, talking about Charlotte Reynard's comeback. Has she had a change of heart?'

‘She's damaged her ankle. I don't think she'll be doing any dancing for a few weeks.'

‘Have you spoken to her?'

‘I'm about to. She's here in an interview room. Can you do something for me?'

‘You mean as a reward for keeping me in the loop?'

‘I mean as part of a major murder investigation.'

‘Sorry, of course.'

‘Have a think about what kind of individual might be in possession of the academic credentials the Scholar has. Have a think about how and where he might have acquired them. I
want to narrow the field. I want a precise picture of who we're looking for and you can help provide that.'

‘Do you ever stop working? Do you ever sleep?'

‘I'll go home and grab a few hours after I've spoken to Charlotte Reynard. I really don't think this setback will discourage him. I'll rest once he's caught.'

‘Good luck.'

‘One more thing: what do you think of when I say the word ‘kismet'?'

‘It's a Hollywood film starring Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich.'

‘You need a hobby, Jacob. Something like sailing or hiking would be good.'

‘It's an old word from the Muslim cultural tradition. It's Arabic in origin and refers to a predetermined course of events we'd describe in English as fate or destiny. You find the same word with the same essential meaning in the Persian and Turkish languages.'

Charlotte Reynard was a smaller woman than she expected. Television cameras made everyone bigger than they were in life. And ballerinas had bodies with lots of detail because there was no fat to conceal it. But they were petite as a breed, weren't they? They had to be shorter than the male leads sometimes lifting them. They had to perform precise and dainty steps without it seeming comical.

She looked younger, too, than her age. Jane was a good and practiced judge and would have put her at no more than about 28. She had pale blue eyes with almost a transparency about them. Her face wore the grey paleness of a freshly inflicted bruise. Her lips were full but almost bloodless. The lower lip was swollen on the left side from its earlier impact with the pavement. She wasn't far off a state of shock.

She wasn't alone in the room. There was a family liaison officer Jane assumed was responsible for the sweet-smelling mug of tea on the table at which the dancer sat. Tea was a marvelous restorative beverage in some circumstances. It wasn't going to work, though, on this occasion. She nodded at the officer to leave and, when she'd risen from her chair and done so, sat down opposite the nearest person the case had so far given them to a witness.

She introduced herself.

Charlotte smiled, or tried to. It was a brave attempt but the result was more like a wince. She said, ‘You're the detective in charge of the Scholar investigation. I caught the midday news.'

‘How long have you possessed your psychic gift?'

‘The police don't believe in that sort of thing.'

‘You'd be surprised. Could you answer my question?'

‘You can't make this public.'

‘And you have my word that I won't.'

‘I'd been vaguely aware of it since my teens. I could do the tombola at the school fete and I'd know which numbers would come up. Not always, but more often than not. More than the law of averages would allow.'

‘Then what happened?'

‘I ignored it. It got much stronger after my children were born. They were born quite close together. Hunches became certainties.'

‘Go on.'

‘I knew that my son was ill. There were no visible symptoms when that came to me. He was playing happily with his building bricks on the rug and the pile came tumbling down and I knew.'

‘It must be disconcerting.'

‘The early diagnosis gave him a fighting chance. And when Nick was having chemo, when he was wasted in a hospital bed all tiny with drips and his hair all fallen out I knew he'd live. So it works both ways. I believe it saved my life tonight.'

‘I believe it too.'

Charlotte sniffed and pulled a piece of tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her nostrils, which were raw. She said, ‘That's just bizarre. You're a senior police officer.'

‘Psychics help us from time to time. We don't advertise the fact and the ones who believe they're genuine don't seek publicity. Some of my colleagues are unconvinced. I've always kept an open mind.'

Charlotte reached for her tea. Jane thought she was keeping it together remarkably well but that any questions about the night's earlier events risked provoking an episode of real trauma.
Fingers trembled across the table towards the mug and gripped its handle. It wobbled on its way to her mouth but the tea didn't spill. She slurped and gulped and Jane felt a stab of sympathy so strong for the woman it felt like a wound.

‘Where are you planning to stay the night?'

‘Your liaison officer booked a hotel room on my behalf.'

‘Would you feel safer with a police guard?'

‘It isn't necessary. He won't come for me again.'

‘Why won't he?'

‘I don't know, Detective Chief Inspector. I just know that he won't.'

‘I'd like you to call me Jane.'

‘That might change, though, mightn't it, if I provoke him?'

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘I mean I can't help you, Jane. Even if I could, I'd be afraid to. Do you think that's cowardly?'

‘I think you've already been very brave. I think it was courageous of you to agree to talk to me at all. I'll arrange a car to drop you at your hotel. If you need anything from the Pimlico flat I can arrange to get that to you.'

At the mention of the flat, Charlotte grew even paler. Her eyes widened and the tiny blue veins at her temples beat against the skin. She tried to stand and the weight on her damaged ankle caused her to gasp in pain and she sat down heavily again. Jane stood and went across and opened the door and gestured for the liaison officer, waiting outside, to come back in.

‘If you remember anything else, Charlotte, I'd be grateful to hear it.'

‘There's nothing else,' Charlotte said, her voice made weak and tremulous by the rude assault of events.

Jane nodded and left the room.

She was very tired. She could barely focus on the bland furniture lining the long corridor, the noticeboards and heating radiators and the strip lights illuminating her way from
above. When she got to the lift she punched the button she wanted by touch because her eyes couldn't clarify the brightly lit display.

She thought she had just been given an important if reluctant clue. She felt an intuitive faith in the authenticity of Charlotte Reynard's gift. The Scholar would not come for her now and the reason was nothing to do with her talented feet or her pretty face or her estimable charity work. They had together combined only to provoke him.

Her knowing he wouldn't come for her informed, perversely, the very reason he wouldn't do so. Did he admire her for her psychic power? It was something that unsettled people generally, something usually considered sinister. How did he even know about it? It was strange to regard as an attribute something thought of until recently as an element of witchcraft.

She called Jacob Prior.

‘This has to stop. I'm in bed. I'm asleep. This is basically harassment.'

‘When was the last witchcraft trial in Britain?'

‘During the Second World War, when a Portsmouth woman revealed the sinking of a Royal Naval warship the intelligence people were keeping secret from the public.'

‘What happened?'

‘She made it known to the grieving families she could communicate with the dead crewmen. HMS Barham, it was. Churchill intervened personally. She was convicted and sent to prison in 1944.'

‘The court thought her powers real?'

‘Obviously they did.'

‘But they didn't think them God-given.'

‘No, I'd say quite the opposite.'

‘I think the Scholar might approve of witchcraft.'

‘Yeah, well, even I'd worked out that he's a very bad man.'

‘Goodnight, Jacob.'

‘You've got nothing, really, have you?'

‘We're looking for someone physically strong, familiar with London and expertly versed in theology. It's fair to say he's got a grudge too against the established Church. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're in the frame. Night, Jacob.'

‘Sweet dreams, Jane.'

Father Cantrell was scheduled to meet the Cardinal in the afternoon at Bayonne. He had spent the night in San Sebastian where he attended early morning mass and then decided he would rent a mountain bike and ride along the coast. The salt air and sunshine would invigorate him. He craved somewhere bright and clean and unambiguous, after his brief dip into the murky London world of the Irish adventurer Daniel Barry the previous night.

He breakfasted at a street café in a square in the pretty Basque port town. There was a smell of freshly brewed coffee and Spanish tobacco and eucalyptus. The iron wheel rims of a cart laden with fruit clacked, hand-drawn across the cobbles. Street vendors barked and bantered with early good cheer. He had a leaflet from the hotel he studied as he drank his espresso and ate a sweet almond croissant. There was a tennis court with a ball machine he could rent for an hour. He was a good player. He considered himself too good for the baseline lottery of a borrowed racket. Those he owned were custom-weighted to his own game.