Blind Instinct jc-7

by Robert W. Walker

  “As I said, it's been true of past '90s, from 1490 to 1890. There's ample evidence in the history books that turn-of-the-century fears have brought on revolutions and wars, or have accelerated wars, as in both the 1690s and 1790s. The French Revolution began in 1789, and by the 1800s had turned into the Napoleonic wars. Early twentieth century wars from St. Petersburg and Constantinople to Vienna and Berlin began in the tumult and terrorism of the 1890s.”

  “Luc Sante told you all this?”

  “No, he simply got me thinking, and I rummaged about my memory of what I've read. History's something of a fascination for me. It's so littered with stress-anxiety in general but characterized mostly as panic before the turn of the century.”

  “We've already seen plenty of tumult and terrorism in our own wounded, hurting decade,” she readily agreed. “The 1980s to the 1990s have been filled with horrors of all sorts.” Jessica looked deeply into Richard's sea-green eyes, losing herself there for a moment. She thought how he proved as sharp as his name. In the light of day, even where they were in the morgue below the crime lab, Jessica felt her fleeting suspicions and doubts surrounding Richard were so foolish that she wished to die at having ever entertained them even for the flashing moment. She wondered if there could ever come a time in their relationship when she could jokingly tell him about her paranoia. She rather doubted it. She also wondered what it said about her. How had she become such a suspicious shrew?

  “I shall hope to see you at end of day, then. It appears you have your hands rather full here,” he said, looking on as she had lifted the viscera from the rib cage.

  She half smiled and said, “I'll look for you after I've closed.”

  “And I shall look forward to it.” And he was gone.

  James Parry could take himself and his newfound love and go to hell, she thought. At the same instant, she chastised herself for the uncharacteristic thought. Once again she thought of lines from Shakespeare's Mid-Summer Night's Dream and how rankled and insane love had made her. Still she did not wish Richard Sharpe to be “revenge” for Parry spuming her. She wasn't about to play that part. In fact, her mind actively fought the notion. She simply wanted to appreciate Sharpe's company. Richard Sharpe, a former colonel and a Scotland Yard inspector, courting her. Now that was something to write home to her therapist about. A smile serenely danced across her lips, for the thought made her momentarily dreamy-eyed: just long enough for Schuller's man, Raehael, to quizzically wonder what had gotten into Dr. Jessica Coran.

  Jessica determined that her affinity for the Scotland Yard inspector to be completely genuine, and not some facile remnant of anger toward Parry. In fact, she felt nothing glib, cursory, trite, superficial, or insincere with regard to Sharpe; nothing elementary, apparent, simple, or obvious. Instead, a plethora of complex and confusing feelings proved to culminate in a pleasant acceptance of her admiration of Sharpe. She quieted her thoughts of Richard, returning attention once more to the fourth victim of the Crucifier's cross.

  As she did so, Jessica wondered if new DNA testing with laser light to detect trace elements of DNA left on the victim's body from someone in close contact might be of help here. It had recently been shown that humans indeed secreted far more DNA through touch alone than believed, leaving trace elements of DNA on telephones, pens, desktops, anything they touched. She asked Dr. Al-Zadan Raehael if he had the capability at the Yard to run such a test, supposing they could locate and lift the killer's DNA off the dead woman's hands or feet, where the killer had held them down to stake them, or on her lips, for example, where the killer, using the micro brand on her tongue, would have left DNA traces, had the killer failed to use surgical gloves. The killer knew about Brevital and he used precision. Might he be a doctor himself?

  “We have the laser equipment and the DNA testing equipment, yes. DNA testing began in Leicestershire County, not far from here, Doctor. Where that fiend killed all those little girls in Narborough, Littiethorpe, and Enderbury.”

  She recalled the famous case. Author Joseph Wambaugh chronicled it in his book The Blooding, which not only recounted both the discovery of genetic fingerprint testing through DNA analysis in Dr. Alec Jeffreys's laboratory in 1986, but the first official use of genetic fingerprinting to resolve a murder investigation and put a killer away for life.

  “In that case, let's test her hands, feet, and lips for any traces of DNA not hers.”

  “At the point of each wound, that's clear enough,” replied Dr. Raehael.

  “How soon can the tests be run and results had?”

  “We'll put it on first burner. Several days is the best we can do, but even then, without a matching-”

  “Oh, I realize that. But if and when we determine who the Crucifier is, we'll have it on record to nail him-no pun intended.”

  “If,” Raehael cautioned Jessica. “Big if, like you Americans say… If he's left any DNA on her.”

  TEN

  If evil were easily recognized, identified and managed, there would be no need of forensic medicine.

  — from the casebooks of Jessica Coran

  After dinner at the Savoy, Richard, with tickets in hand, announced that they were going to take in King Lear at the Globe Theatre.

  They drove to the theater, located at a wide bend on the River Thames on the opposite shore to that of St. Paul's Cathedral between the Southwark Bridge and Blackfriar's Bridge.

  The air felt thick with an electric intensity as the crowd grew and took on a rambling, monstrous life of its own. The madding crowd, Jessica thought. The public anticipation of the performance in the open-air, outdoor, Tudor theater had created an intensity in the impatient audience. Jessica took in the replica of the Globe Theatre, a painstakingly reconstructed edifice down to the oaken steps leading onto and off stage. Even the bard himself would recognize the theater as his home. The place did, in fact, represent an exact likeness of the theater in which Shakespeare's plays had been performed in his day. The only change Shakespeare would feel was that of time, for almost four hundred years had gone by.

  “It's been a boondoggle, some say, reconstructing the great Globe,” Richard informed her. “Not everyone is happy with her.”

  “Give me one reason why,” Jessica protested, staring at the beautiful stage, its circular shape and the two-story, surrounding building.

  “It opened in 1997 at a cost of forty-six million of your American dollars. Having remained closed since 1613, purist and taxpayer alike didn't relish paying for it.”

  “Then it came into being through government funding?”

  “Matching funds for a wood and thatch construction on the south bank of the Thames, some two hundred yards from the site of the original? Imagine the fire insurance alone.”

  Jessica's eye wandered to the concession stand where plastic pullover raincoats could be had for two pounds, about three dollars American.

  “The original wooden O, as many call it, as Shakespeare himself called it in Henry V, was built in 1598 or '99 by a pair of well-to-do brothers, Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, using timbers from a failed theater in nearby Shoreditch. They wanted to place the O centrally, you see. Later, Shakespeare himself became a shareholder.”

  “I suppose the original, being made of thatch and timber, rotted of old age?” she asked.

  “Fate has never been too kind to the Globe, no. In 1613, the thatch was put alight by two cannons fired during a performance of Henry VIII. King Henry's ghost's revenge on Shakespeare for depicting him as he did, some say.”

  Together they laughed at the jest.

  Since there was no assigned seating at the Globe, further simulating Shakespeare's day, they made their way toward the stage, to locate seats as close to the action as possible. Richard now added, “History books say no one was hurt in the fire, except for one poor chap who, and I quote, 'Found his breeches afire so that it would have broiled him if he had not, with benefit of a provident wit, helped himself to some bottled ale to quench the flames.' “

&
nbsp; Jessica laughed even harder at this image.

  “The theater was rebuilt sometime after the fire, but again it came under destruction when in 1642 the Puritans, finding it offensive, demolished her as the breeding ground of the Devil that she is, you see.” Guiding her to her seat, he added, “If you look closely, the reconstruction is not entirely complete. There's still scaffolding at the rear and some finishing touches are being applied. Only last year did the plywood stage get replaced with the oaken one we now have. Still, even unfinished, the theater has enticed some 150,000 visitors annually, a figure that

  is expected to triple by the year 2001.”

  In a balcony built overlooking the stage, an actor began hurling insults at the audience, his own patrons. “Ya've paid full fair to sit on a wooden bench to hear buffoons wail out their sorrowful lives here? Are ya' daft, ya' citizens of London? 'Aven't ya' a telly for that, the telly and soap operas? Are ya' daft?” he venomously shouted and tossed confetti at the front rows.

  A female, acting as his wife, came out on the balcony to scold him, telling him to leave the paying customers alone and to come away with her, to help her prepare for the show.

  “Ya're all daft!” he called back. “Ya' could be sittin' at the Coat of Arms down the street having a pint!”

  “Shut that big hole of yours!” replied the wife.

  “I'll not be aggrieved by ya', woman, not in public and not in private!”

  And off they went, arguing, only to be replaced by an aged man with a white, flowing beard who talked to himself about the alignment of the stars, the heavens, and the meaning of life there on the balcony.

  “It's a tradition with the Globe, the stage balcony rows,” explained Richard. “Keeps the audience entertained and in a good mood before curtain rise.”

  “How many people does the theater seat?” asked Jessica, curious.

  'To cover the cost of an opening, ticket sellers have to fill the seats, some 1,394. Five pounds buys the rights to be a groundling.”

  “A groundling?”

  “See those people up front, all on their feet in the pit ahead of us?”

  She nodded.

  “Groundlings. They have a right to space on the floor, standing or sitting. We, by comparison, have tickets for a seat in the terraces, a bit more costly at sixteen pounds, but well worth it for these seats.”

  They had found their seats and settled in. Richard said in her ear, “The season began in May with the Globe ensemble of actors performing four plays in repertory. Performances run till late September. Playwrights other than Shakespeare are performed here from time to time as well.”

  “Such a splendid idea… to revive the Globe.”

  “We Britons can't take all the credit in reviving the Globe,” Richard confessed. “One of your American actors, Sam Wanamaker, established a trust to raise funds for the project. Construction began in 1993, the year Wanamaker died at age seventy-four in fact.”

  “I've seen Wanamaker on the screen and on TV.” Jessica pictured the ruddy-faced, tall Wanamaker.

  “The project is still several million dollars short, and was ten million short when the Globe opened in '93.”

  As if hearing Sharpe, and as if on cue, a new character atop the theater at the balcony yelled down to the patrons to open their pocketbooks. “You critics among you who said the theater would never survive! You dig the deepest and pay treble for those seats you now have! Come along, out with it! There are jars and wretched fellows milling about who will take your donations!”

  “We're still paying for her, but she is grand, isn't she?” asked Richard. “Right down to her Norfolk reed roof, the oak beams, the hand-turned balustrades.”

  “Yes, it's a fantastic recreation,” Jessica agreed when suddenly thunder roared all around them, yet the source could be traced to crude sounds being created behind the stage.

  “Even the sound effects are authentic to their time,” he explained. “That's heavy metal shot, cannonballs, rolled about in a metal washtub to simulate the sound of an approaching storm.”

  “So there's actually no sound equipment?”

  “None but what human hands and minds can create. There's no electricity, no lights, actually. Look around you.”

  “So that's why we're here so early.”

  “The performance ends with nightfall, just as in Shakespeare's day.”

  “It's a totally 'rough' experience.”

  “Exactly. The only thing not authentic is that we, the audience, aren't allowed to bring in overripe fruit and vegetables to throw at the actors.”

  Jessica's behind already felt sore on the hard wood “terrace” seats. Taking her mind off the lack of creature comforts, Jessica noticed other buildings standing about, also with Tudor construction and thatch roofs. “What goes on there?” she asked, pointing.

  “Just opened the final phase of the project, two museums, or rather one an educational center, and a three-hundred-seat small theater designed from blueprints left by Elizabethan architect Inigo Jones. Plan is to have them all operational by 2001 and have a gala millennium party alongside the 401st performance on the Globe stage at the same time.”

  “What an undertaking! It's magnificent,” she conceded.

  “The theater itself is fully operational now, and will support the cost of its operation. I firmly believe that, as a member of the board of trustees.”

  “Ahhh, no wonder you know so much about it.”

  “It's become a passion, something to give myself over to so that I am not wholly swallowed up by my job, as in the past.”

  She thought momentarily of how her own work had swallowed up relationships, such as her and Jim Parry's irreconcilable problems, which prompted her to say, “Something all of us in law enforcement must… guard against.”

  “Something indeed… When I allowed my job to consume me, well… for my troubles my wife gave me my walking papers.”

  “Divorce. I'm sorry.”

  “You see, too much time devoted to my work, not enough to the ones I love.”

  “I'm so sorry for any pain you've been put through, Richard.”

  “Pain, depression, you can say the whole gamut came down around me. Had to take some time off, get back my focus, regroup. The Globe project, when it came along, well, it worked as a lifesaver for me.”

  Jessica settled in comfortably, excited at the same time. Then the curtains, faithful to history, were hand-pulled back to reveal the opening scene in Lear. She soon learned that Richard hadn't exaggerated in the least about the method of “special effects” here. Sounds and sights were indeed faithfully reproduced, even the firing off of a cannon like the one that burned down the original Globe.

  King Lear had always held a great fascination for Jessica. Especially interesting to her was the tragic tyrant who, when he had eyes, could not see, and when blind, could see. The play, she believed, actually represented a metaphor for all mankind, the blind lives we all lead.

  At the close of evening, walking from the theater, Sharpe asked if she'd like to see the Thames from Blackfriar's Bridge. She accepted, and they made the short stroll to the center of the bridge overlooking the river and nearby massive St. Paul's Cathedral by moonlight.

  While there he reached out, took her hand in his, telling her, “You are an extraordinary woman, Jessica Coran. I've not met anyone like you before.”

  “Funny,” she replied, squeezing the hand that he'd placed in hers. “I've been thinking the same thought about you, Richard Sharpe.”

  “Perhaps we should do something about our feelings?” It came out as a question. He added a warm smile.

  She dropped her gaze from his. “Perhaps. If you feel it won't jeopardize our working relationship.”

  “We won't allow it to.”

  “Are you sure? It often changes things.”

  He kissed her under the pale lampposts of Blackfriar's Bridge. She eagerly kissed him back. It had been a long time since a man had made her feel light-headed, giddy, and wan
ted all at once.

  “Let's go to my place,” he suggested. “I can make you breakfast there.”

  “Why not enjoy the York? We'll order room service,” she countered.

  “I have no other reply than… Yes, why not?” With Richard Sharpe's deep, rhythmic breathing a soothing anthem alongside her, Jessica studied his peacefully dozing countenance. Unfortunately with her evil friend insomnia also in bed with her, Jessica took only fitful breaths of air; at the same time, she brought back the images and the wonder of Sharpe's and her intermingling. They'd meshed effortlessly, naturally, intuitively in their lovemaking; the two of them in sync, in symbiosis. How truly free and extraordinary.

  Unable to sleep, Jessica cautiously pulled herself up to a sitting position, not wishing to disturb Richard. She sat contemplating the feelings within her, stirrings which Richard had left rummaging about inside her. Jessica carefully brought her legs over the bed. She searched through her purse on the bedside table, and from it, she pulled forth the last letter she had received from James Perry.

  Both she and James had tried to hold on to the unraveling shreds of a long-distance relationship. Trying to make love work from across oceans and continents was hard to do in any time zone, and in any historical era. Was it an impossibility in the late 1990s, she wondered, or simply an impossibility for the likes of Dr. Jessica Coran? At any rate, their long-nurtured, long-distance affair had proved impossible, no matter whose fault, hers or Jim's or theirs.

  Perhaps, she simply hadn't the determination required to maintain any close relationship. “So what do I do?” she muttered to herself. “I intentionally seek out relationships divided by continents and pernicious seas. Ultimately, safer that way,” she finished with a disdainful moan. She then stared down at Richard, whose catlike serenity irked her; she so envied it. A part of her, a large part of her, wanted to simply cry her eyes out, here and now. She wanted to cry for James, cry for the death of their love, cry for the confusion she felt, cry for Richard and herself, for what they had now undertaken together, cry for the future of their obvious long-distance relationship-the one that could come of this night, if she let it. She wondered if it would simply be a great deal easier and wiser and cleaner and better if she told Richard they had no future whatever together. That he must immediately forget any thoughts along those lines. She wondered if she ought not to simply lie to him, tell him that she could never love him as she did James. “Would certainly make things simpler,” she mumbled aloud.