Lynch inclined his head. ‘Certainly, or it could have been the Papal Nuncio, or Himmelfarber, or the Bureau or the Nuwe Orde. So many suspects, so many motives. No good to go down that road. Perhaps the answer to at least part of the mystery is staring us in the face, providing we read the writing on the wall, providing we know how to read the writing. For has it not occurred to you that the letters ASK 3 might not have been left there by any of the persons or groups we have mentioned?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Van Vuuren. ‘I don’t understand. If they didn’t write the letters, who did?’

‘Why Ferreira himself, of course,’ said Father Lynch.

Well you can imagine the impact of this revelation. They fell to whistling and clicking their tongues in admiration and Van Vuuren sufficiently forgot himself to utter a few choice oaths, of which ‘Well, I’ll be fucked’, is the only one I recall, and followed this with an apology.

And Lynch accepted their compliments with that curious little smile which made his jug-ears lift and the corners of his mouth twitch as they always did when he was pleased. ‘No, no! Merely part of the training of one who has read deeply in the history of the Church’s relations with the State, where murder cannot always be allowed to blight an otherwise intelligent, well-meaning policy. It is possible for martyrs, poets, inquisitors, poisoners, canon lawyers, bankers, cardinals to connive, plot, campaign to arrive at a mystery which will thrill the devout and balance the books. Well in this case, never mind the devout, and as I’ve told you before — examine the books. Have the courage to face what stares you in the face.’

Then Lynch read to them from his favourite book, withdrawing it from an inside pocket of his cassock with a fluid movement, Further Memoirs of a Boer President, the familiar bible, the mysterious tome edged with gold in a red leather cover.

In the mountains above and somewhat to the left of the town of Montreux we found the place we sought and kneeling down with my valet, Happé, supporting me, I gave thanks when I saw it; dead though its chambers now lie, still its voice, it shall live again when our people come, as over the years they shall assuredly come, sick for home, to this home from home…

Then Lynch warned them again that his time was short, and so was theirs. They were marked men and one of them, he could not say which, would not see another sunrise. And when they protested that he could not possibly know this for sure, he said nothing, just stepped back into his taxi and tapped on the glass and told the cabbie to drive on. When they ran after the cab as it gathered speed demanding to know how anyone would find them in London, he rolled down the window and asked them how they thought he had found them so easily. It would be no trouble to their enemies, they could find them whenever they liked simply by looking in the right place, just as one found characters in a book, simply by looking them up.

CHAPTER 14

Blanchaille looked at Soho with big eyes. Van Vuuren looked hardly at all, turning his gaze inward, as if he knew what was to come.

So they went, the priest and the policeman, the egg and spoon, through the little streets, this once great mixing place of European peoples, now all gone, leaving behind them only their tourists and their restaurants and a profusion of continental erotica. He looked at it with professional eyes, Blanchaille told himself, trying perhaps to explain his interest, as a centre dedicated to sin. It looked to him, Van Vuuren replied, like a dump — over-rated, over-priced, dull, tawdry and sad. Blanchaille stared at the hawkers, the barrow-boys, the suitcase salesmen. A fat man with one sleeve rolled up offering gold watches strapped to his arm like chain mail flashing in the sun, was trumpeting the bargains of a lifetime and waving the highly coloured guarantees like flags. Arab men with pot bellies and tight, flared tailored trousers walked around with their hands in their pockets, staring boldly at single women; a girl winked at him from a balcony; in the dull entrances of crumbling buildings he saw the name-plates of cheap cardboard inscribed in shaky ballpoint — MYRA, MODEL, WALK RIGHT UP. He peered through the bead curtains across the doorways of the ‘adult film parlours’ which gave them an oddly oriental look. A striptease club displayed pale cracked photographs, faded by infrequent suns, showing a female chorus line presenting their buttocks to a delirious audience. Blanchaille was ashamed to find himself hesitating fractionally, drawn as it were, downwards.

THE BARE PIT — SIX LOVELY LADIES IN FANTASTIC COMBINATIONS/DAY-NITE NUDES NON-STOP!!! Some had pound notes tacked to their pubic mounds. One carried a whip. Another was wearing nothing but an iron cross. Two oiled female wrestlers grappled in a miniature ring. A largish and very pale redhead was immersed, for some mysterious reason, in what looked like a giant goldfish bowl. But it was an empty black leather chair in the centre of the stage which looked truly obscene.

A burly and very black man blocked their path and invited them to step below and see for themselves the loveliest things in the universe, at the same time introducing himself to them as Minto, their guide to the pleasures of The Bare Pit. Van Vuuren attempted to brush him off but Minto was persistent and took his arm in what was clearly a very persuasive grip and, as Blanchaille realised when he saw pain succeed annoyance on the square handsome features, one that succeeded in its intentions.

‘Run, Blanchie, run!’ said Van Vuuren.

But there was another man, taller, very wiry, who declared himself to be Dudley from Malta, with a little black moustache and no less fierce a grip.

Of course Van Vuuren would have flattened them both, one, two, bang, bang, in his former life. Perhaps the clerical garb restrained him because he put up no struggle as they were marched downstairs.

It was dimly lit below stairs, a bar at one end and a stage at the other, the twenty or so rows of seats between furnished in red plush, redolent of ancient excitements of old men: of tobacco, sweat, aged underpants, hair oil, disappointed hope, stale beer, old socks, bitter anger, and various unidentifiable, recent stains. In the front row sat several large gentlemen.

Blanchaille remembered what he had read of such places, of the old men who came down here to watch women strip and masturbate beneath their plastic raincoats. One had read of such accounts since childhood, they were a part of the contemporary portrait of Britain, where all the people not on strike were on the dole, or on pension; where child murder was widely practised; few people bathed; income tax was 19/6d in the pound and nobody ate meat any longer. The Regime taught this in its schools. His French mother confirmed at least the last: ‘The roast beefs,’ as she used to call the English contemptuously, ‘have no roast beef any longer.’ Blanchaille’s mother had never been to England, but then that hardly mattered. England was a repository, a store of rumours of decline from which the world could draw at will for stories to frighten children. It had no other use but to remind one, horribly, of what your country might become if the Total Onslaught succeeded.

Minto and Dudley from Malta introduced Blanchaille to the proprietor, a small and stout individual with black hair gleaming lushly in the concealed lighting around the bar. He was called Momzie. Without hesitation he poured Blanchaille a Scotch and soda and patted the bar stool beside him. ‘May as well make yourself comfortable while those gentlemen over there have their little conversation with your friend.’

Minto and Dudley marched Van Vuuren up on to the stage. The props the girls used in their show were still there, the black leather chair, the wicked whip of grey rhino hide, the giant goldfish bowl of rather milky water, the wrestling ring. Van Vuuren was roped to the black leather chair.