Free The Lazarus Prophecy by F. G. Cottam Page B

her early 20s. He went into local government in their home city of Hull. She transferred from the Humberside force to the Met when the marriage failed after a couple of years. She was already a rising star at the time of the transfer.
    There was nothing tokenistic about her rapid promotion through the ranks. It clearly wasn’t motivated by political correctness. She had an outstanding conviction rate on the robbery squad. It dropped, understandably, when she was seconded to the anti-terrorist unit of the service for a couple of years.
    She’d been heading up murder investigations for three years, since the age of 28. She’d covered an awful lot of ground for someone so young. He’d thought her funny and human and warm, but wondered whether that wasn’t just a persona she found it convenient to adopt. It would make civilians assisting feel comfortable around her. She was obviously clever and single minded and nothing got in the way of her nailing the bad guys. He sensed she’d give a cosmic bollocking to any of her own people ever guilty of fucking up. She was more than slightly intimidating.
    He rolled his eyes, thinking about what he’d said to her about the Marlene Dietrich film. Jane Sullivan would have assumed the obvious: that Elaine Page and Barbra Streisand featured heavily in his CD collection and that he couldn’t get through The Wizard of Oz without a box of Kleenex to hand.
    He’d known that it was Helen Mirren in the 70’s version of Miss Julie because he watched far too much television. He also held the personal opinion that the ninth round of the 1987 encounter between Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard was one of the greatest ever contested in a ring. But she hadn’t asked him about boxing. She’d referenced Miss Julie and got totally the wrong impression about him just because he was good at remembering trivia.
    Jacob had tried to do as Jane had requested and frame a realistic academic background for the Scholar. His principle areas of expertise were ancient languages and the Bible, with particular reference to the Gospel of St John. His knowledge of the scriptures was impressively comprehensive. And particularly in the last message he’d left, he wasn’t just quoting biblicalpassages and references. He was making blasphemous claims and propagating beliefs that were heretical.
    One order above all others in the established Church shared the intellectual credentials and taste for apocalyptic subject matter demonstrated by the Scholar. And they were the Jesuits. The more Jacob thought about it, the more plausible it seemed to him that the killer’s background involved the rigorous theological training and debate of the Jesuit priesthood. There were universities where he could have acquired his obscure knowledge and linguistic skills. But they suggested more the seminary. The fierce dogma of his beliefs hinted at faith once deeply held and now foully corrupted.
    It was a good theory until it came up against the victims. It worked neatly for the messages. It didn’t comfortably fit the actual crimes. There was a tradition in some religious faiths of trivializing or denigrating women. There wasn’t in Christianity. Catholics particularly revered women because of the crucial part Mary had played in the birth of Christ and his journey to maturity. Culturally, Catholic countries were overwhelmingly matriarchal. Put at its simplest, all the boys loved their mum.
    Plenty of women had been burned and hanged and drowned as heretics and witches and the practice had continued until a few hundred years ago. Retrospectively, many of these women were seen by the Church as martyrs. Some, like Joan of Arc, had actually been canonized as saints. Even a renegade Jesuit would not naturally be misogynistic.
    The first three victims of the Scholar had been prostitutes. Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute and Christ had forgiven her with no recorded qualms. The