‘At that point yes. Probably.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate your honesty. Where were you during the crucifixion? Where did the disciples go?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bartholomew says, ‘I’m busy.’
The people of Lincolnshire keep on coming, and Gallio feigns an interest. With Claudia’s help he hands out hot meals and financial advice to people who believe in Jesus instead of understanding the macroeconomic pressures of a global civilisation. He makes crutches for the lame, and forces himself to be patient with children, because if Bartholomew trusts him he’s more likely to confide his secrets. Gallio shows him the photos of Jesus on his phone — he’s a late starter, but he’s committed to finding Jesus.
‘Is that him?’
Bartholomew should know — Jesus sad but tough, with a crown of thorns, by Antonello da Messina.
‘Yes, that’s him.’
Jesus muscular but wary, again with thorns, by Peter Paul Rubens. ‘What about this one?’
‘I’d say so. The likeness is certainly apparent.’
Gallio swipes again: Jesus frail and wide-eyed, bent-backed beneath the weight of the cross, by El Greco. ‘Jesus?’
‘What a fantastic picture. Yes.’
Jesus angry but in control, under the weight of the cross again, by Titian. ‘Is this one Jesus?’
‘Oh, very good. Maybe my favourite. See how he captures the mouth.’
And so on. Bartholomew asks to see more, and for once Gallio has an internet connection so the pictures keep on coming, and Bartholomew swears that every image is recognisably Jesus. Gallio starts to protest, they can’t all be Jesus, but the slideshow is interrupted by a boy from a travellers’ camp near Market Rasen. He has an open sore on his forehead, like a lozenge of red stained glass. His mother is carrying a baby with maggots in its eye.
That’s enough compassion for Cassius Gallio, for one day. Bartholomew can manage on his own.
It is raining. Outside the window of the White Hart pub the cone of rain lit by a street light changes the orange beam into a showerhead. Gallio and Claudia sit on the twin beds, notebooks in hand. They have a report to draft, but neither is confident about where to start. Simon, Baruch, Bartholomew. Line or curve. Circle or square. Stay or go.
In an effort to hurry them up, Valeria has forwarded the latest forensic results. She insists that the death of Simon doesn’t negate the threat of an attack by Jesus or his surviving disciples. The security level remains Orange, High. And even though Baruch killed Simon, with a witness present, the assassins who murdered the other disciples haven’t ceased to exist because of Baruch’s lapse into madness.
Bad Luck. Cassius Gallio writes the heading in his notebook, underlines the two words twice. Joins up the underlines to make a long thin rectangle. Valeria can worry away at Jesus and his disciples all she likes, but the Complex Casework Unit can’t correct a random universe. They’re wasting their time. This is what the report should say, and it explains why Gallio doesn’t know where to begin. His adult life has been wasted, if the universe turns out to be random.
According to Valeria’s lab results, the saline solution on the glass from Joseph’s bin conforms to the salt composition of human tears. The DNA extracted from this trace matches blood on the piece of wood from Babylon, found by Gallio beneath Thomas’s bed. Mementos. Someone collected the tears of Jesus; Thomas kept a splinter of the True Cross as a reminder of the man he agreed to follow. They have scientific confirmation that Jesus existed and that he suffered, but even with modern forensic techniques no more information than that. Jesus existed. That doesn’t mean he exists. There is no obligation to go looking for him, or to believe that he’s coming again.
Claudia makes some dots on her empty page, joins a few of them at random. Gallio sketches a cartoon Roman nose. She leans over to look at his drawing. He moves across the bed making room for her, and she shifts across the space and sits beside him, puts her hand on his knee. That’s new. Cassius Gallio should offer a gift in return. ‘Thanks for staying in Caistor. Was worried you’d leave me to it.’
‘Operational reasons. Bartholomew will trip up sooner or later.’
‘Or he might potter about until the end of time. Be honest. I only half believed Jesus survived the cross, either by my switch theory or through carefully administered pain relief. He probably died.’
‘We may never know.’
‘There’s no devious plot here, the product of a brilliant mind.’
‘You mean no god.’
‘I suppose I do.’
They hear the murmur of Bartholomew’s voice in the neighbouring room. Prayers, always the praying, but like his fellow disciples he’s trapped. Basic psychology. If Jesus is dead, and therefore an ordinary human being, Bartholomew left home for no good reason. To justify the arc of his life Bartholomew has to keep Jesus alive, and the more logically anyone protests the more forcefully he and the disciples resist. Jesus is alive, they say, and this fact explains their unemployment, their unfashionable taste in clothes, their hard exile from Galilee. Jesus is the son of god, so no devotion is excessive.
Bartholomew mumbles on. Gallio could pop next door and kill him. Bartholomew, disciple of Jesus, smothered with a pillow. Baruch, if he’s looking down, would be disappointed: a pillow over the airway can’t compete with a chainsaw, so Jesus will remain unmoved. Gallio doesn’t bother. He guesses Bartholomew won’t fight and he won’t run, a stupid combination invented by the followers of Jesus.
‘Let’s talk about something else.’
Which can work, for a while. Talk about something other than god for the next two thousand years. Try. Gallio tests Claudia on the labours of Hercules, and she can remember seven or eight, and as they’re doing this they make each other laugh. Gallio turns more towards her. He doesn’t love her. Maybe her husband back in Rome loves her, and surely she is loved by her children. She turns more towards him, and smiles often enough that he’s impressed by her perfect teeth. He can touch her, if he wants, on her hip. He will start at the hip, on the iliac crest. There. Bartholomew continues to pray. His god does not warn Gallio off.
So there’s the sex. But also Gallio can imagine the framed photograph he’ll place on his desk. The two of them smile against a pure white background, in the studio of a parallel universe.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you.’
Lies are good; lies make it worse. Is this how he started with Valeria? He can’t remember. Claudia touches his cheek, and her fingers on his skin could mean anything, though he never stopped his version of praying, projecting his desires inside her mind, imagining her projecting desire back out at him. He expended effort in making that connection, and brainwaves of such purpose can’t simply dissipate. Besides, they’re a long way from home. No one will ever know. They are lonely, and life is preferable to death.
At the White Hart in Caistor Live Music Night starts now, and the 4/4 beat of classic rock thumps through the floor. Hits from the ages drown out Bartholomew’s prayers, fill up another evening in Caistor of not looking for Jesus, as does Gallio’s hand on Claudia’s hip, and from her hip into the dramatic indent of her waist. This is one of the loveliest available shapes, Cassius Gallio thinks, in an empty random universe.
Try not to lie, be kind to people, live for ever. Gallio concedes that Bartholomew has tempting ideas, but he resists temptation.
When the music stops, hours later, some time after midnight, Claudia insists she has no regrets. She’s glad it happened. But please, she says, let’s not do this again.
By now there’s no visible police presence in Caistor. The town is a Co-Op, a Spar, and a timeless sense that nothing significant either good or bad will take place here ever again. The people of Caistor carry on doing what they’ve always done, overpaying for the lottery and looking for love. It is complacent to live like this, but life at least is bearable.