Revelation

I left the room. He did not follow me. I remembered him listening at the door when we were talking of the murders. I thought, Guy might be kind, but you are not. You are cold and calculating, like a predatory animal. You have some hold over my friend, and I will discover what it is.

NEXT DOOR, Guy was still reading his book. He offered me a glass of wine and asked to look at my arm. He nodded with satisfaction. 'Piers has done a good job.'

'I do wonder if he possesses the human sympathy one would hope for in a physician.'

'He has had little chance to develop it. His parents died when he was young. And my late neighbour, Apothecary Hepden, worked him hard and taught him little.'

'He told me about his death. He seems to have thought little of him.'

'Yes, Piers can speak harshly. But I believe he has the capacity for sympathy, I believe I can teach it to him.'

'He says you are a father and mother to him.'

'Did he say that?' Guy smiled, then his expression turned sombre.

'What are you thinking?' I asked gently.

'Nothing.' He changed the subject. 'I have been to see Adam Kite again. You know, I think there is improvement. That woman keeper, Ellen, she works hard with him. She forces him to eat and clean himself, tries to pull him away from his obsession with constant prayer.'

'Did you know she is a former patient, and is not allowed to leave the precinct?'

'No.' Guy looked taken aback. 'That surprises me.'

'She told me herself.'

'She is gentle with Adam, but very firm. It has had an effect. The other day he even talked of normal everyday things for a minute. He said the weather is getting warmer, he did not feel so cold. But still I cannot get him to explain why he feels such a sense of sin. I wonder what brought it on.'

'What do his parents say? I saw you leave with them after the court hearing.'

'They say they have no idea. I believe them.'

'Thank you for doing this. Adam cannot be — easy to work with.'

Guy smiled sadly. 'He touches me, yet intrigues me too. So like you with Bealknap, my motives are not all pure.'

'I ought to visit Adam again.'

'I am going to see him again tomorrow morning. Would you like to come?'

'Very well. If I can.'

'You do not sound as if you want to.'

'I find it distressing. He is in such pain. And religious madness makes me think of the man we are hunting, and who has been hunting me.' I looked at my arm. 'How can he believe that what he is doing is inspired by God?'

'Have we not seen enough these last years to know that men may do cruel, wicked things, yet believe they have communion with God? Think of the King.'

'Yes. Belief in God and human sympathy can be very different things. Yet the killer is something different again. That obsessive savagery.' I looked at Guy. 'He still has three murders to commit. And if he succeeds, I, like you, do not think he will stop. I told Cranmer so today.'

'No. Such a momentum would have to be carried forward. Till he is caught, or dies.'

'How will he feel if he pours out the seven vials of wrath and the world does not end?'

'There have been many in these last years who thought they knew when the world would end. When it does not they go back to Revelation for the clues they have missed. And that is easy. It is not a story in sequence but a series of violent narratives giving alternative ways in which the world will finish. So they find a new formula.'

I nodded slowly. 'Does he suffer, I wonder?'

'The killer?' Guy shook his head. 'I do not know. My guess would be the acts of killing are a sort of ecstasy for him, but perhaps, that apart, he lives in a world of pain.'

'But he conceals it — he is able to live a normal life or something like it. Without standing out.'

'Yes. I think among the many things he is, he is a good actor.'

'Is it Goddard?' I shook my head. 'I don't know. Harsnet still thinks he is possessed.'

Guy shook his head. 'No. He is an obsessive, and all obsessions come from some maladjustment of the brain. Not the devil.' He set his lips. I thought, why are you sure?

We were silent for a moment. Then I asked, 'What happens after the vials are poured out? In Revelation. What comes next?'

Guy rose and went to his bookshelf. He brought down a New Testament and turned to Revelation.

'The seven vials of wrath are in Chapters 15 to 16. Already before then there has been another version of the end of the world, disasters coming when the seven angels blow their trumpets.' He turned the pages with his long brown fingers. 'Hail and fire, a mountain falling into the sea. But there is not such concentration on the torments of men as there is in the story of the seven vials. Perhaps that was what attracted the killer.' He paused, turned the page. 'The judgement of the Great Whore comes after.'

'When I read them, those passages seemed more obscure than most. Who is the Great Whore meant to be?'

Guy smiled sadly. 'It used to be thought she symbolized the Roman Empire, but now the radicals say she represents the Church of Rome. And after that, war in Heaven and Jesus' final victory.'