‘Intact?’ said Blake.
‘Once the skin is cut, its form will be lost,’ Sullivan answered impatiently. ‘We really must get started.’
Blake steadied himself as he imagined the effects of a 0.40-calibre bullet shot in the face at point-blank range. The pathologist lifted back the sheet to expose Vittori’s naked body up to the neck.
‘My god!’ Blake took a few steps forward to get a better view.
‘Obviously, it’s been photographed from several angles already,’ added Milton, in an attempt to break the spell of morbid interest that had come over Blake’s face.
‘It looks satanic, don’t you think? Some kind of sign of the devil?’
‘Can I get more light?’
Sullivan tugged gently at a white cord hanging down from the ceiling. Immediately, a block of powerful spotlights lit the cadaver from above and showed the full extent of the tattoo that extended over Vittori’s chest.
‘I wanted you to see it because I know you’ve studied these kinds of things before.’ Lukas was referring to a case that Blake had spent years trying to forget; a case that had started as an investigation of a break-in at the British Museum and the theft of several wax discs dating back to Elizabethan times. Blake had later discovered that the seemingly innocuous circles of wax had been used for casting spells. The case had ended in the uncovering of a satanic network spread across Greater London.
The design tattooed across Vittori’s chest looked distinctly homemade and recent, but the motif was unmistakable: the two overlapping equilateral triangles of the six-pointed star had been carved into the skin. An uneven line of black tattoo ink ran across the corpse’s upper body from nipple to nipple. This formed the base of the downward pointing triangle, whose apex terminated at Vittori’s navel. The tip of the upward-pointing triangle ended at the very top of the sternum, just below the collar line. Each of the six smaller triangular compartments that formed the outer wings of the star had a single tattooed symbol; each different, but all prominent against the cadaver’s white skin.
‘God knows what Father Vittori was into, but it looks bad. This devil stuff freaks me out,’ said the detective. He took a step away from the body, feeling that although its host had died, the tattoo somehow retained a life-force all of its own.
‘What do you make of it?’ Milton asked Blake.
Blake was now copying the design of the tattoo as best as he could on the palm of his hand. He studied each of the symbols in turn.
‘Lukas, you’re right in some respects. This has to do with the devil.’
‘I knew it.’ Milton started to rock from foot to foot.
‘I didn’t know you believed in all that,’ said Blake.
‘My cousin got into some bad shit as a teenager in Jamaica. Really bad things happened; things that couldn’t be explained,’ said the policeman.
The pathologist looked on as Blake and Milton stared at each other, hoping that they would both soon leave so he could get on with his work.
‘Lukas, I don’t think this is a symbol of the devil. If I’m not mistaken, this is the Magen David, or the Shield of David. It’s meant to protect the wearer from the devil. The same design crops up time and time again in Jewish amulets. It’s also sometimes referred to as the Seal of Solomon.’
Milton looked blank.
‘According to some Jewish legend, the Seal of Solomon was a magical signet ring possessed by King David’s son, Solomon, which gave him the power to control demons. I’ve heard stories of exorcists tattooing this symbol onto their bodies to protect themselves against inhabitation by expelled evil spirits. It looks like Father Vittori might have been concerned for his safety.’
‘Well it didn’t save him from a bullet through his head,’ said Milton. ‘And the symbols around the edge?’
‘I’m not sure, but some of them are in Hebrew. Email me the photos and I’ll have a look at them when I get back to London.’
‘Have you gentlemen finished?’ asked the pathologist.
Milton threw Sullivan a nod and the pathologist snapped down the visor of his face mask. After selecting the largest scalpel from the trolley stationed next to the wall, Sullivan leant over Vittori’s body and made a long vertical incision down the chest.
The seal had been broken.
Chapter 40
The Bedford Hotel was located in the middle of North London’s fashionable borough of Islington. A friend had recommended it to Sabatini, and on paper it appeared to be good value for money; a rarity for a London hotel. She had made the reservation for her and Nathan to spend several nights there after their visit to Cambridge. They had hoped to do some leisurely sightseeing in the city before flying back to Rome. But since making the reservation several weeks ago, her entire world had collapsed around her.
‘And your guest, Mr Vittori, is he checking in with you?’ asked the hotel receptionist before her eyes returned to the computer screen.
Sabatini stared up to the lobby ceiling, blinking rapidly and fighting down the emotion rising up from within.
‘No, he isn’t,’ she said finally, her hand squeezing tightly the handle of her trolley bag.
‘Not to worry,’ said the receptionist, not looking up from the screen. Fingers tapped loudly on the keyboard.
Moments later, Sabatini received her door card key and directions to the lift to her sixth-floor room.
A wall of stifling warm air met Sabatini’s face as she entered her room. She opened the window and then ordered a pot of coffee and sandwiches from room service. Carefully, she slid her laptop from her bag and placed it on the small writing desk at the foot of her bed. She opened the computer and its processor began to whir. After calling down to reception for the password to the hotel’s Wi-Fi, she settled into her chair and logged into her email account. She picked out several emails from the large number of condolence messages she had received from colleagues, all shocked by the tragic news of Nathan’s death. It was all too much. She closed the mail application and clicked open an Internet search browser window.
For a while, she just stared at the empty search panel. Finally she typed in two words, ‘Vincent Blake’, and then hit enter. In a fraction of a second, the first page of some half a million possible matches was returned, which she scanned through. The first three pages were mainly entries concerning the messy break-up of a Californian film director, nicknamed Blakey, and his glamorous pop star girlfriend, but the last entry in the list stood out from the rest.
Displayed in the short description of its contents was the title of a news article: ‘Dr Vincent Blake receives award from the Vatican’. Sabatini moved the cursor over the web link, quickly pressed the return key and waited for the page to build. Flicking from left to right, Sabatini’s eyes scanned the article written two years before.
The latest winner of the Julius Prize was announced on Thursday by the Holy See Press Office. This year’s winner was a surprising and somewhat unusual choice. Dr Vincent Blake was honoured today by the Vatican for his role in recovering priceless stolen manuscripts belonging to the Vatican archives in Rome. As reported in the international media, the documents were stolen by a Russian criminal gang whilst in transit from the Vatican archives to a document preservation laboratory in Orvieto. Through his resolute detective work and speedy actions, Dr Blake managed to trace the documents to the United Kingdom. At considerable danger to his own life, Dr Blake tracked down the gang to a cargo plane heading for Saint Petersburg. The plane was stopped by the British authorities on the runway at Heathrow airport and, after a stand-off that lasted more than twenty-four hours, the gang was finally apprehended and the documents recovered.
Dr Blake will be officially presented with the prize next month at a private ceremony in the Vatican City by Cardinal Giuseppe Andretti, President of the Document Committee in Rome. In a Vatican Radio interview, Cardinal Andretti spoke of the committee�
��s reasons for awarding Dr Blake the prestigious prize: ‘Through Dr Blake’s tireless detective work, priceless documents that have been part of the Vatican’s collections for centuries were saved. The award is a tangible way for the Pope to express his thanks. Today, we unfortunately experience multiple threats to the work of the Holy See. For this reason it is very important to constantly acknowledge people who have helped protect the Church’s legacy. We are all very grateful to Dr Blake.
Sabatini scrolled down to the footnote of the article.
Dr Blake has written numerous scholarly articles in the field of document authentication and is also an expert on religious iconography and the history of the Royal Society, Great Britain’s learned institute of science. He is the first non-theologian to win the Julius Prize.
A knock at the door jolted Sabatini from her thoughts. She stood up and walked over to the door. After squinting through the spy hole, she opened it and was greeted by a tall French Algerian waiter in a well-worn white jacket who was carrying a large flask of coffee in one hand and balancing a large tray of sandwiches in the other. The hotel attendant deposited the tray and flask on the small luggage table next to the door, requested Sabatini’s signature on a slip of paper, and loitered momentarily for a tip. Sabatini obliged on both counts and shut the door firmly behind her.
Quickly Sabatini returned to her laptop and clicked back to the search results. Directly under the news article summary about Blake’s Julius Prize was a short description of an obituary.
Nomsa Blake: Obituary
Internationally Respected Human Rights Lawyer
Nomsa Adimu Blake, who died tragically at the age of thirty-eight after a hit-and-run car accident, was an internationally respected human rights lawyer and academic. She had recently taken up a visiting lectureship at the London School of Economics and was a leading adviser to Amnesty, Africa. Nomsa was a practising barrister and brought many human rights cases before the Europe Commission and Court of Human Rights.
She was born and lived in Bulawayo before moving to the UK to study law at Cambridge. After completing a master’s degree in criminology, she joined the Civil Rights Association, of which she became an executive director. None of her high-profile activity diminished Nomsa’s commitment to her family and students.
Sadly, the accident that took her life also critically injured her daughter, Sarah.
She is survived by husband Vincent and daughter Sarah.
Sabatini got up from the desk and walked over to the window. As she stared out across the city, her thoughts started to form like the freezing fog gathering over the London rooftops.
Chapter 41
Sunday 29 November
‘This is a security announcement. Unattended luggage will be removed from the platform and destroyed.’ Blake sat in the shopping concourse of London’s Paddington railway station sipping his espresso. He liked his coffee piping hot. This particular cup of coffee, however, was rapidly losing its heat in the cold London air, and he decided to abandon it to the vacant table next to his.
He had spent the hour-and-a-half trip back from Cambridge researching the background to the stolen library exhibits and making calls to his contacts in London’s antique market. Perhaps one of the fences that owed him a favour might have heard something on the grapevine. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try.
The station was busy and the sound of the passing commuters echoed high in the magnificent glass-and-steel Victorian roof, which covered the fourteen platforms in a single span. He noticed a figure standing perfectly still on the other side of the concourse, like an island in the middle of a fast-flowing river. From where he sat outside the coffee shop, Blake couldn’t make out whether the figure was male or female, but he guessed by the state of their clothes that they were sleeping rough. Any of the usual visual clues suggesting the gender of the individual—the curve of the hip, the length of the hair, the size of the frame—were all hidden under layers of shabby clothing. The person was constructing a cigarette from a bag of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers. From his seat, Blake studied the figure rolling the shredded leaves into a thin uneven tube of paper ready for lighting. Something about the tramp was vaguely familiar. Then, like a footprint on a beach being washed away by a wave, the figure was lost in the crowd of passengers decamping onto the platform from a train that had just arrived.
Blake’s mobile began to ring. If he hadn’t been expecting a call from Milton, he would have probably ignored it, but Milton was a stickler about people answering the phone, day or night.
‘Is that Dr Blake?’ said the voice. It belonged to a woman.
‘Speaking.’ Blake couldn’t quite place the voice on the other end of the line.
‘Thank goodness! Dr Blake, I need to see you urgently.’ The voice took a breath. ‘It’s Carla Sabatini. I’ve found something, something of Father Vittori’s. I don’t know who else to go to.’ Sabatini sounded desperate.
‘Okay, what exactly have you found?’ said Blake.
‘I can’t really explain. I need to show you. It’s very strange; something of great importance.’
‘Have you talked to Detective Milton about it?’ asked Blake.
‘I don’t really want to get the police involved. I need to protect the memory and reputation of Brother Nathan.’
‘Reputation? What do you mean?’
‘Dr Blake, are you a religious person?’ asked Sabatini.
‘Religious? Is that relevant?’
‘It may be,’ said Sabatini.
‘I used to be, but not anymore.’
‘You don’t believe in God?’
Blake sighed. He was getting irritated.
‘If you mean, do I believe in a god that intervenes in the world, then the answer is no. I haven’t seen any evidence of it. I don’t want to be rude, but how can I help you?’
‘Dr Blake, I believe Nathan had become obsessed with something very dangerous; something that his Holiness would have found abhorrent. If I go to the police, I know it would be over the front pages within hours.’
‘Are you still in Cambridge?’
‘No, I’m in London. I have a flight tomorrow back to Italy. I am going to see Nathan’s sister in Rome to start making funeral arrangements, but I need to see you. I know it’s short notice, but can I meet you this afternoon?’
Slightly taken aback, Blake tried to remember his appointments for the day. He could possibly meet Sabatini after his visit to Sarah at the hospital.
‘Okay, how about two o’clock? There’s a pub close to where I live …’ Blake immediately corrected himself, ‘where I used to live. It’s quiet and I know the landlady. We’ll be able to talk undisturbed. It’s called the Jerusalem Tavern, close to Farringdon Tube Station. I’ll text you the address.’
‘The Jerusalem Tavern?’ said Sabatini strangely.
‘Yes, is that okay?’ said Blake.
‘Yes, that’s fine. Thank you so much.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you later,’ said Blake before terminating the call.
Blake sat back in his chair and gazed blankly across the station concourse. Before long, he started to get an unsettled feeling that he was being watched. He spun around in his chair to locate the source of his unease.
Despite being some distance away, the eyes that finally met his from across the busy platform made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The vagrant that he had spotted minutes before was now staring directly at him, the face vacant and absolutely still. Blake became aware that the shadows around the figure were shifting as the clouds outside moved across the sun. Like a giant spotlight being turned on from above, an area of the station concourse was illuminated in brilliant sunlight. A disc of light travelled quickly across the platform floor as the clouds were blown across the sky high above the glass roof. Blake watched as the floor surrounding the vagrant became bathed in sunligh
t. As the perimeter of the white disc passed over the vagrant’s body, the network of tattoos covering the person’s forearms became visible. As quickly as the sun had appeared from behind the clouds, it was lost again. So was the vagrant … lost in the crowd.
Blake twisted around on his chair to locate the tramp, but failed to spot her. He thought for a moment and then dialled Milton’s number. The line took a long while to connect. Finally, Milton’s deep baritone voice echoed in Blake’s earpiece.
‘Milton.’
‘Lukas, it’s Vincent’ said Blake.
‘You got anything for me? Any leads on that watch?’ asked Milton without pausing for breath.
‘I’m still looking into it.’
‘You’d better hurry up. I need it back tomorrow. The library is getting twitchy about it being away. Not that they know how to secure their exhibits by the look of those display cabinets they had in there,’ said the detective. ‘One thing though, I just got a call from the forensics boys. It looks like they might be able to enhance a couple of CCTV pictures taken in Dover. We might yet get a mug shot of the bastard who killed those immigration officers.’
‘Okay, that’s good … that’s good,’ said Blake. ‘Anyway, the reason I called is that I wanted to let you know about the design of the tattoo on the priest’s chest.’
‘Go on,’ said Milton.
‘I was right. It’s the Seal of Solomon. It’s a talisman. The design is meant to give the wearer protection against evil forces. The seal is formed by two interlocking triangles, the top one representing the Trinity in heaven and the bottom one the Trinity working on earth. It shows that changes in one world can be reflected in the other.’
‘Okay, anything else?’ said Milton.
‘Yes, there is something. You remember that the priest had carved symbols in the spaces formed between the triangles?’
‘Some kind of magic writing, right?’ said Milton.
THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1) Page 16