And across these mean Dwellings of Black Step Lane, where as a Boy I dwell'd for a while, the Shaddowe of my last Church will falclass="underline" what the Mobb has torn down I will build again in Splendour. And thus will I compleet the Figure: Spittle-Fields, Wapping and Lime- house have made the Triangle; Bloomsbury and St Mary Woolnoth have next created the major Pentacle-starre; and, with Greenwich, all these will form the Sextuple abode of Baal-Berith or the Lord of the Covenant. Then, with the church of Little St Hugh, the Septilateral Figure will rise about Black Step Lane and, in this Pattern, every Straight line is enrich'd with a point at Infinity and every Plane with a line at Infinity. Let him that has Understanding count the Number: the seven Churches are built in conjunction with the seven Planets in the lower Orbs of Heaven, the seven Circles of the Heavens, the seven Starres in Ursa Minor and the seven Starres in the Pleiades. Little St Hugh was flung in the Pitte with the seven Marks upon his Hands, Feet, Sides and Breast which thus exhibit the seven Demons -Beyde lus, Metucgayn, Adulée, Demeymes, Gadix, Uquizuz and Sol. I have built an everlasting Order, which I may run through laughing: no one can catch me now.
AND HAWKSMOOR laughed at this. 'You can see things in whatever order you want, Walter, and we'll still catch him.
He's cunning, though.' Then he pointed at his own head.
'He's very cunning.'
'Time will tell, sir.'
Time will not tell. Time never tells.' Once more he raised his arm involuntarily, as if in greeting. 'So let's start again. Where were the bodies found?'
They were found at St Alfege's, Greenwich, and at St George's, Bloomsbury.'
Hawksmoor noticed that the sky had cleared quite suddenly, going from grey to blue like an eye which had suddenly opened. 'And what was the order again?'
'One after another, within a few hours.'
The report said that it could have been minutes.'
'Minutes is impossible, sir.'
'No, we can't deal in minutes.' And yet what might happen in a minute, when his back was turned? He looked down at the pattern of dust on the carpet and, as he did so, he heard the noises within his head like the sounds of a crowd roaring in the distance. When he looked up, Walter was talking again.
'What I can -well I can't -1 mean, we have nothing positive off the paperwork.' And they both looked at the documents scattered across Hawksmoor's desk. 'I can't believe,' Walter continued, 'I can't believe it.' And he picked up the forensic report on the two most recent murders. Both victims had been strangled with a ligature which had not been tied -there was no mark of a knot, at least -but had been held tight for at least fifteen to twenty seconds at an unusually high level in the neck. The ligature was evidently a folded hard cloth of some kind, set in four distinct lines across the front of the neck. The marks extended around the sides, especially the right, but faded at the back, showing that both victims had been strangled from behind on the left.
In spite of the closest possible examination of the cuticle, the pathologist was unable to detect any weave or pattern that would reflect the actual structure of the ligature. Exhaustive forensic tests had also failed to identify any prints, marks or stains which might be connected with the perpetrator of these actions.
Two days before Hawksmoor had crossed the Thames in a police launch to Greenwich, and as he came up to the dock he leaned forward over the side and allowed his index finger to trail in the oily water. He walked from the harbour and, catching sight of a church tower, turned down a small alley which seemed to lead in that direction. Almost at once he found himself surrounded by small shops in which there was very little light: they were of an old design, leaning forward over the pavement, and in his confusion he hurried down another lane only to stop short when the stone wall of the church apparently blocked off the end; but this was an illusion since a child then walked across it, singing. And at last Hawksmoor emerged into the street, just in time to see the church rising above him. He calmed himself by reading the gold script painted upon a board by the portico: This church was built on the traditional site of the martyrdom of Alfege. It was rebuilt by…'. His eyes wandered down the elaborate scroll, but such things bored him and he was distracted by a flight of birds returning to the branches of a single tree, each bird distinct against the winter sky.
He walked around the side of the church where a group of police officers waited for him -from the way they stood, self-consciously talking in low voices, Hawksmoor knew that the body was behind them on the grass. He walked over and, in those first moments when he was staring down at it, he wondered how he would look to the strangers who encircled his own corpse; and would the breath have left his body like a mist, or like the air evacuated from a paper bag which a child blows up and then explodes? Then he returned to the others: 'What time was he found?'
'At six o'clock this morning, sir, when it was still dark.'
'Do we know '
'He might have fallen from the tower, sir. But nobody knows.'
Hawksmoor looked up at the spire of St Alfege's and, when he blotted out the sun with his right hand, he noticed the white dome of the Observatory which was half concealed by the dark stone of the church. And he remembered that there was something here which he had heard of many years before, and which he had always wanted to see. Eventually he was able to break free from the others, muttering his excuses, and when he came to the foot of the hill he began to run, bounding over the short grass until he reached the summit.
There was a guard by the iron gate in front of the Observatory and Hawksmoor stopped in front of him, out of breath. 'Where,' he said, 'where is the zero meridian?'
The meridian?' The old man pointed to the other side of the summit. 'It's over there.'
But when Hawksmoor came to that place, he found nothing.
'Where is the meridian?' he asked again, and he was directed a little way down the hill. He looked around, and saw only dirt and stones.
'It's over there!' someone else called out. 'No, over there!' was the cry from another. And Hawksmoor was bewildered for, no matter how he turned and turned about, he could not see it.
Walter had put down the forensic report and was grinning at him.
'And so we're stuck,' he said. And then he added: 'As sure as eggs is eggs'- Hawksmoor smoothed the pages of the report which had been creased by Walter. 'Where does that expression come from?'
'It doesn't come from anywhere, sir, not as far as I know. I mean, everyone says it.'
Hawksmoor paused for a moment, wondering what everyone said about him. 'What was it you were asking me just now?'
Walter no longer tried to conceal his impatience: 'I was asking basically, sir, well, where do we go from here?'
'We go on. Where else should we go? We can't turn back. No one can turn back.' He had heard the annoyance in Walter's voice, and now he tried to console him. 'He's at my fingertips -don't worry, I can reach him. I feel it.' And after Walter had left him, he drummed his fingers on the desk as he contemplated new aspects of this problem: at the same time as the body of the child had been found in the grounds of St Alfege's, another body had been discovered propped against the back wall of St George's, Bloomsbury, where it runs alongside Little Russell Street. Hawksmoor had visited that spot also, and to those officers already working there he had seemed almost indifferent; it was not indifference, however, but agony. The pattern, as Hawks- moor saw it, was growing larger; and, as it expanded, it seemed about to include him and his unsuccessful investigations.