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“There are three messages.Each one consists of three pairs of letters, linked by these lines here – see, the Z-shapes? If it’s what I think it is, it’s the distance between each pair of letters that’s significant.”
“What distance?”
“Within the alphabet.Like, A and H are seven letters apart.”
Marcus nodded.
“So each Z gives me three numbers.”
“And you do what with them?”
"That’s where I’m stuck.The code relies upon a key – a chunk of text.The numbers are coordinates telling you where to go in the text, which might be a word or several words."
“So what’s the text?”
She shrugged.“I thought it could be the hymn book.It’s got to be something I could be expected to know or have access to.So connected to me, or connected to the victim."
“Or the killing… I mean, like the church.”
“Or the church.Like I said, I tried the hymn book.I can’t think what else would be in the church.I guess that’s another reason to search the house.”
“Um, a Bible.”
“Say what?”
“A Bible.That’s another thing in a church, right?”
Kate could have kissed him.She felt various things: relief, excitement, sheer embarrassment at not seeing the obvious answer.
“Marcus, you’re a genius.”
"I’m glad you recognize that."
Within three minutes, they had three Bible verses in front of them.
And he laid the fire upon my mouth and he said Lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
And it may be a witness between us, and you and our generations after us.That your children may not say to their children in times to come: you have no part in the Lord.
And I will come to you in judgment.And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and the adulterers, and the false swearers and those that oppress.
It had happened, as she’d known it would.The confusion gave way to clarity.The fragments drawn together, a picture formed, partially, at least.A well-loved priest who stood among his flock rather than above it.Who was perhaps a man first, a spiritual leader second.And someone who saw that as sin, as falsehood, as an insult to the faith.
And sought to wipe it out with fire.
But why did the killer want her to understand this?Did they see her as a confidant, deliberately encrypting their message because they knew she was a cryptanalyst, specializing in codes and cyphers?Could they be trying, in some twisted fashion, to say that they were equals? Or were they toying with her, sending her a puzzle to solve as part of a warped duel?That thought depressed and sickened her in equal measure: not just the idea of treating a human life – a human death, of the ugliest, most pitiless kind – like a parlor game.But also the intimacy of it: this sick stranger talking directly to her, breathing his or her secrets in her ear.
Saying what, though? The quotes were all from books of the Old Testament: Isaiah, Joshua, and Malachi.Each one reflected some concern with being a “witness.”Though the word wasn’t used directly in the first quote from the prophet Isaiah, Kate knew that it was a central theme of that particular book.Given the painful gift of prophecy by God, Isaiah bore witness to God’s design for the people of Israel, from defeat and exile to purification and salvation.The same preoccupation was obvious in the other two books: the leader Joshua witnessing God’s plans for the twelve tribes of Israel, the prophet Malachi warning people that they had strayed too far from God’s laws.
Did the killer see himself as another witness, a prophet with an uncomfortable message?Or was it about Father Thomas? Could he have seen something, quite literally been a “witness” who had to pay the price for what he’d seen?
Kate’s phone rang.Winters.The boss.
“Look at CBYN.”
Assistant Director Victoria Winters didn’t do hellos, goodbyes, how’s-your-fathers.Not at work, anyway.Down at Delaney’s for team drinks, sipping mojitos at the summer picnic, she could be different.But today was no picnic.
Marcus got the local news station on his laptop.An anchor with dazzling teeth was standing in front of the blackened shell of St.Andrew’s.
