Bristol House (5 page)

Jennifer put a pass with an orange border on the table. The one she’d given Annie previously was edged in green. “This new one will get you in on your own. You’ll be able to access most of this material, but the goodies in that cupboard”—she pointed to the place where she’d locked away Richard Scranton’s map—“won’t be available until I come back. I’m not permitted to leave the keys with anyone who’s not a member of the London Archives staff. Since the collection is only visiting here, there isn’t anyone I can delegate.”

Annie said not to worry and added her thanks, then gathered up the pass with the orange edge. The one clipped to the other woman’s blouse was rimmed in purple. Color-coded bureaucracy.

Jennifer was making neat piles of the papers on her desk. “Did you want to see anything else today?”

“No thanks. I’ve decided to take an afternoon off. Maybe do some sightseeing.”

“Sounds like fun. Where are you headed?”

“The National Portrait Gallery.” Annie was almost out the door, her head filled with portraits of monks, quite possibly one who looked like her ghost among them. “Have a great vacation. See you when you get back.”

***

It occurred to Annie, while she made her way to Trafalgar Square, that her initial hope was probably misplaced. Unless a monk came from a wealthy family and his picture was painted before he entered a monastery, the Portrait Gallery would have no record of him. The collection did not chronicle the important events of the day, only the important people—and only those wealthy enough to have sat for a formal painting. Still, she had to start somewhere.

As it turned out, the Gallery had an entire section devoted to the Tudors, including three rooms given over to Henry VIII and his times. Fully eighty-seven portraits of the king, seventeen of Anne Boleyn, and twenty-four of Thomas Cromwell were on display, among a great many others. But of the monks of the London Charterhouse, there was not so much as a sketch.

She’d taken the tube to get to the Gallery, but when she came up empty, she decided it would be more fun to go home by bus. A man feeding pigeons at the foot of Nelson’s Column told her she wanted the number ninety-one. “Just over there, love. Goes straight up Southampton Row to Euston Station.”

She was on the top deck, lost in the scenery, when her cell phone rang.

“Hi, glad I got you. It’s Geoff Harris. I hope you remember me. Jenny Franklin introduced us the other day at the museum. I threatened mayhem, and she gave me your number.”

***

He wanted to ask her something, he said. Might be important, though he wasn’t sure. Would she meet him for a drink? “I don’t drink,” she countered. “Coffee?”

“Of course.” Then, after she said where she was—on a bus heading north on Kingsway—“Get off at the Holborn tube station and turn left. You’ll see a short little street called Sicilian Avenue. Chloe’s. You can’t miss it.”

She did not. And Chloe’s wasn’t simply easy to find, it was delightful, a candy box. The walls were covered in flocked red velvet, and there were gilt sconces, fresh flowers on the half-dozen tiny marble tables, and a showcase full of delicious-looking chocolates and sinfully rich pastries. She ordered a
citron pressé
—fresh lemon juice in sparkling water—with very little sugar and sat where she could see the door. Five minutes maybe. Then he arrived.

When she met him at the museum, Geoff Harris had had on a suit and tie. Today he was dressed casually in cords and an open-necked shirt with a sweater tied over his shoulders. Nonetheless, he looked exactly as he did when she first saw him: tall, dark, incredibly good-looking, and unquestionably related to the monk she’d seen at Bristol House.

“I really appreciate your meeting me on such short notice,” he said. “Good of you.”

“You made it sound mysterious. I’m a pushover for mysteries. Particularly when they’re important.”

“Maybe only important to me.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “I hope I haven’t lured you here on false pretenses.”

The waitress appeared. Annie’s glass was still half full. Geoff ordered an espresso. It came in moments, dense and black and frothy with foam. He added some sugar and took a sip. “Annie, forgive me if this seems incredibly pushy, but the head of the organization you work for, this Shalom Foundation. What—”

“I don’t actually work for them. Not on any regular basis. I’m here on a research assignment.”

“Yes, so Jenny said. Doesn’t matter. It’s the head of the outfit who interests me.”

“Philip J. Weinraub.”

“That’s him. What do you know about him?”

Annie shook her head. “Not much. He’s . . . I guess the word is
insistent
.”

“Overbearing,” Geoff supplied.

“That too.”

“I presume you know Weinraub’s a billionaire. And that he’s deeply involved in Middle Eastern affairs, Israeli affairs to be precise. Any bearing on your research?”

“Not exactly.”

He smiled. “The cautious academic. I promise I’m not trying to beat you to some kind of punch.”

“I didn’t think you were. But I’m an architectural historian. What I’m doing for Shalom concerns Tudor London. That’s my period.”

“And that, I take it, is the connection to Jenny Franklin. All the same, your foundation is supposed to be concerned with Jewish affairs.”

“In this instance, European Jewry,” Annie said. “Nothing to do with Israel, or Palestine as it was then.”

“Hard to separate Jews from the so-called Holy Land,” he said stubbornly, “in any period.”

Annie had to work to keep herself from concentrating on the cleft in his chin. It was for some reason very attractive. “Are you going to tell me why this all matters to you?”

They had both finished their drinks. Geoff looked around. Every one of the little tables was occupied. He put a bill on the table. “Let’s get out of here.”

***

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, once they were sitting on a bench in Bloomsbury Square. “This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have overheard.”

Annie said she didn’t mind in the least. Then she waited.

“Yitzhak Rabin,” Geoff said. “Remember him?”

“Of course. Prime minister of Israel during the Clinton presidency. Actively involved in the peace process.”

“That’s the one. Assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli who despised the idea of a Palestinian homeland on the West Bank.”

She’d been a freshman at Wellesley College in 1995. Not yet what Sidney O’Toole would call a fully fledged lush. She studied—grades were never her problem—and was reasonably aware of the world around her. But she’d also sneaked off campus to hang out with bikers. That was how she met Zak and learned to do vodka with a beer chaser. “What does Rabin have to do with Weinraub?”

“The kind of money Weinraub has, the nature of his interests—it’s provocative.”

“Provocative how? A great many American Jews, wealthy or not, share Weinraub’s interests.”

“I know. I’m being vague because I don’t have proof. Usually when I set out to nail someone, I have my facts thoroughly documented.”

“And nailing people,” Annie said, “is what you do.” She hadn’t meant it to sound accusatory, but that was how it came out.

His reaction was matter-of-fact. “Nailing people is my job. At least my regular job. I’m on leave just now. Writing a book on the Middle East.”

“Does Weinraub have a role in your book?”

“He might.” Geoff hesitated, then apparently decided to trust her. “Rabin’s death was seismic in his part of the world. It left a hole that’s not been filled since. And right after he was killed, I came across a considerable number of unusual leads involving New York, Strasbourg, London, and Jerusalem, and possibly tying Philip Jeremiah Weinraub to the planning of the assassination.”

“I take it you didn’t say so at the time.”

“I couldn’t. I was working for the BBC back then. On the research staff. I had no show of my own and no clout. So given that I had no proof, the Weinraub story never went anywhere.”

“Maybe there isn’t any proof. Maybe you were wrong.” His eyes, she decided, were neither gray nor blue. They were hazel. “In any event, I don’t see how I can help you.”

“Probably you can’t. Still . . . will you tell me what kind of research you’re involved in?”

Annie shrugged. “Ancient Judaica. Someone called the Jew of Holborn. All to do with the sixteenth century, so it can’t have much bearing on your story.”

She knew she sounded defensive. She also knew why. She had tied herself and her future so thoroughly to Shalom’s goals that anything that threatened Weinraub threatened her.

Suddenly, without warning, a breeze came up. Annie had on jeans and a T-shirt. She shivered. Geoff untied the sweater from his shoulders and put it over hers. It was camel-colored, so soft it had to be cashmere. “You need to be a Londoner,” he said, “to know never to trust hot and sunny. Even in May.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Annie said.

“Look, I don’t think you—” He was interrupted by a sudden burst of music. James Brown’s “Soul Power,” Annie thought, but she didn’t hear enough to be sure. Geoff whisked an iPhone out of his pocket and glanced at it. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this.” He got up, took a few steps away from the bench, spoke softly for a moment or two, then returned. “Sorry,” he said again. “I have to run. I’ve been trying to get this interview for a month. People aren’t as anxious to talk to you if they’re not going to be on the telly as a result. Bloody Blair will only see me if I can be there in twenty minutes. I’ve got your number.” Waving the phone, he backed away. “I’ll call you.”

5

On Monday, four days after her meeting with Geoff Harris, following an early-morning run through cold and rainy gloom, Annie felt the need for coffee before she showered. She went into the kitchen and made a cup, then carried it into the dining room she’d turned into an office. Without actually sitting down at the laptop, she idly clicked the list of ritual implements onto the screen, looking yet again for a pattern that might shed some light on—

“
Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris . . .
”

A single male voice was petitioning heaven. It betrayed the slight tremulousness of old age, but still it filled the apartment, echoed down the hall, and bounced off the dining room walls.

Annie stood frozen, the mug of coffee still in her hand.

“
Te rogamus, audi nos.
”

The monk had brought reinforcements. The response—
Te rogamus, audi nos
, “We beg Thee to hear us”—came from a chorus of male voices, vigorous and young.

“
Ut cuncto populo Christiano, pacem et unitatem
largiri digneris.
”

“
Te rogamus, audi nos.
”

The ebb and flow, call-and-answer, was strong, insistent. She almost felt compelled to join in the responses.

She put down her mug and went into the hall. The chant surrounded her, seeming to come from everywhere. Not so. She knew its source. She walked toward the back bedroom.

“
Ut fructus terrae dare . . .
”

“
Te rogamus, audi nos.
”

Annie flung open the door.

The chant ended abruptly.

The room was empty of ghosts, whether one or many.

Everything was exactly as it had been, and the things she had put on the desk were where she’d left them. She heard nothing. Not an echo of the litany, not the traffic of busy Southampton Row, not a few notes of birdsong. Number eight Bristol House was deathly quiet.

She wondered if opening and closing the door was some sort of switch. She stood just inside the door and pulled it shut behind her, then opened it again. The chant did not resume.

Annie approached the desk. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to strike a match and light the candle. She picked up the brass bell with her left hand and rang it—tentatively at first, then with more vigor—and put her right hand on the Bible. She only had to bend her head to be able to see the words she’d copied out of
The Roman Ritual.
It occurred to her that she should have translated the excommunication into Latin. Too late now. “‘I separate him,’” she read, beginning very softly, the words coming with difficulty through an almost-closed throat, “‘together with his accomplices and abettors.’” Stronger now, with determination, and something like the conviction that had propelled her into her first AA meeting years before.
I will not continue to live like this. I will not be a victim
. “‘I separate him from the precious body and blood of the Lord and—’”

She heard the noise before she sensed the movement; rather like a giant inhale, then an exhale. The sound took shape. It became a floor-to-ceiling cone spinning toward her, seeming to travel a great distance despite how small the room was. The candle flickered, then went out, and the brass bell was yanked from her hand. It chattered madly before it disappeared. Annie was caught in the whirling mist, her body constantly turning as it was drawn into the vortex. For an instant it seemed as if she were revolving in one direction and the room in another. Then everything was gone, and there was darkness.

Dom Justin

From the Waiting Place

It is easy on the other side to dismiss this bleak but blessed antechamber to eternity known as purgatory, but since all must die, all will come to understand this place between before and after. For my part, here is where I find myself in this time out of time where yesterday, today, and tomorrow have no meaning. Bliss, they tell me, is assured, but only when I have made atonement.

To that end I am required to tell my story as it happened whilst yet I was in that state men call living, though it is but a shadow of real life. The telling is not difficult, since here one remembers in perfect detail each choice made during the testing time. But for the rest . . . how to atone for such sins as mine, I know not.

I am told I will find a way. Also that the woman has been brought to me to serve both my ends and her own. I am given to understand we go on together. Also, that there is for her true peril in the journey. Not as to the disposition of her soul, for that is a matter in which no mortal can have influence save her own conscience. Rather it is the length of her time on earth that has been put in my care.