At the same time that Inspector Bailey was grilling Father Anthony in his own church, Sebastian Gloom was leaving his museum in his steam wheelchair, accompanied by Benson, to see a contact that had provided useful information in the past.

     The young man wasn't one of the clairvoyants able to speak to the souls of the deceased. There were, so far as Gloom knew, none of these exceptional people within a hundred miles of Manchester, and they tended to be recluses, rarely if ever venturing from their homes. Consulting with them required a train journey, usually followed by a lengthy ride across rough, unmade roads, something that the investigator only did when there was an exceptionally urgent reason, such as a life at stake.

     There was no great urgency in the case of Father Anthony, though, and even if there had been, the church was always on the lookout for such people, deeming communication with the dead to be one of the worst possible sins. They named them witches and warlocks and arranged fatal accidents for them, while wishing for the return of what they called ‘The Good Old Days’ when they could be publicly burned at the stake. Putting a stop to this practice was the only significant victory the secular authorities had achieved against the church in the past hundred years.

     With this threat hanging over them, Gloom could not have visited any of them so long as he was being watched no matter what the urgency, but there were a few lesser talents around that the church tolerated, suspecting that their dreams and visions were given to them by angels, both fallen and otherwise, for the guidance of man. Timothy Grenfell was one such man, and Gloom knew that the church already knew all about him. The worst that would happen to the young man was that agents of the church would visit him later to make him reveal what he'd said to the investigator. Since Gloom was at something of a dead end in his investigation, therefore, he thought it might be worth visiting him, to see if he could point him in the direction of some new leads.

     As they left the museum, he looked across at the cafe to see to whom the church had given the task of watching them today. Taking note of the frequency with which they changed shifts, and of the total number of people who took turns watching him, would tell him how important and dangerous they felt he was, which in turn would tell him how close to a vital, incriminating clue he was getting. It was, he thought with a smile of amusement, a bit like searching a room while someone told him that he was getting hotter, or getting colder. He was a little disturbed, therefore, to see that the table they normally used was empty. Had they decided he wasn't worth watching any more? Did that mean they no longer considered him a threat?

     Then he saw a team of road workers just a little distance away. One of them was digging a hole in the road with a pickaxe while another was smoking a pipe and looking around at the passers by with what he was trying to pretend was bored disinterest. Watching him from out of the corner of his eye, Gloom thought he looked like one of the men who had been in the cafe yesterday. He had the same splendid moustache, connecting with parts of a beard on either side of a shaved chin, and the same bulbous red nose. This was a common look among Manchester’s working classes, though, and so as the steam wheelchair drew closer he tried to make out the other features of his face. At that moment the man turned to look on his direction, and before Gloom could look away their eyes met. It was indeed the same man, Gloom saw, and when he realised that he'd been spotted the man flinched guiltily and looked away. It was too late, though, and Gloom cursed under his breath. The watcher knew he'd spotted them, and would report the fact to their master. Gloom had lost a valuable handle on his enemies.

     “Is everything all right, Sir?” said Benson, sensing his master's frustration.

     “Fine,” the investigator replied. “Just got a cramp in my leg, that's all.”

     He massaged the numb, withered, useless limb that occasionally produced these ghost sensations and Benson nodded, turning his attention back to the way ahead and the crowds of pedestrians who had to keep moving aside for them.

   ☆☆☆

     For an hour after the inspector left, Father Anthony paced and fretted around the church, his mind in turmoil. How had Bailey learned of his involvement in the Cranston affair? He’d been lying about the eye witness. If there had been one the inspector would have arrested him, so he had no proof, but he knew nonetheless. Somehow he knew. How?

     He was certain he’d left no clues at the Cranston house. It would be easy to deduce that that two murders were connected, that Doris Kettle had been killed by someone who didn't want to be linked to the killing of the manservant, but that still left the entire population of Manchester as suspects. Why would Bailey think of him? Everyone who knew, or could deduce, that he had hired Gideon was dead. Everyone except...

     Sebastian Gloom. The priest's hands clenched in fury. It had been Gloom who had recovered the Solomon Bottle from Gideon's strongbox. He didn't know that for certain, but he was certain of it nonetheless. Gloom had been seen in his ridiculous steam wheelchair in the street in which Gideon had his hideout the day before the church had detained Gideon. That couldn't be a coincidence. Could the two men have spoken? Maybe one of Gideon's henchmen, people of low intelligence and morals, he had no doubt, had said something that Gloom had heard at second or third hand. It didn’t matter how Gloom had learned of it. Learned of it he somehow had, and he had then passed the information on to the inspector.

     It would mean the end of his involvement with Exercitus Dei, of course. He didn't dare take part in any more of the organisation's activities if there was a chance the police might be watching. That was the bitterest part of the whole thing. He'd taken great satisfaction in pursuing and punishing the enemies of God. The thought of spending the rest of his life doing nothing but sermons, weddings, baptisms and funerals, consoling the grieving and counselling the weak of faith... An empty, meaningless life that would be forgotten five minutes after his death. Other members of Exercitus Dei would use his name as an object lesson in how not to arrange a simple theft. Students and acolytes would laugh as their tutor recounted the long list of stupid mistakes he'd made...

     “None of which were my fault!” He cried out loud. It was true, he consoled himself. It had been Gideon who had made the mistakes. It had been him who'd killed the manservant, without which the theft of the bottle would have been a simple, unremarkable burglary, forgotten before the week had been out. Well, Gideon was dead. He was in Hell now, and soon Gloom would be as well. Anthony would have to wait until the investigator had been admitted into the Resistance, of course, but then he would have great pleasure in torturing everything he knew out of him. Gloom would come to know the wrath of God.

     The thought consoled him a little and he busied himself with the routine, day to day business of looking after the church. He did all his own cleaning and tidying, believing that God would be pleased to see him being modest and humble, cleansing his soul with honest manual labour. The work eased his thoughts a little more, although the thought of his imminent demotion still rankled. When be thought he'd done enough he went into a back room and opened a bible, looking for some inspiration for the Sunday service. He found himself turning to the second book of Kings, verse 2, chapters 23 to 24. It told the story of a group of children who taunted a prophet for having a bald head. God had sent a bear to punish the children, killing many of them. The passage made the priest smile. That was a passage that really needed to be more widely known, and that Inspector Bailey in particular needed to read. Show disrespect for a man of God and God will punish you.

     The door of the church opened and one of his agents entered, one of the man he'd sent to keep watch on Gloom. “What are you doing here?” the priest demanded.

      “I just came off duty,” the man replied. “Josh and Sid took over. I thought you ought to know that he's on to us. He knows he's being watched. You want us to go on watching him?”

     Father Anthony cursed under his breath. “Keep on watching him. Do him good to know just what kind of trouble he's in...” His voice broke off and his guts shrivelled up with fear as a new thought struck him. The Resistance would never admit Gloom to their ranks if they knew he was being watched by the Church, and Gloom had been the Church's best lead to that nest of sinners and blasphemers. He'd told Cardinal Bertone that they were going to leave the investigator alone until he was well established in the Resistance and he'd already had men watching him even as he said it. This wasn't an incompetent hireling. This was his own screw up. Rome would blame him, and they had ways of making their displeasure known. He’d be transferred to some backwater on the other side of the world to preach the word of God to a village of naked tribesmen in the jungle. If he was lucky.

     “How did he spot you?” he snapped furiously.

     “I don't know, he just did. He's an investigator. He spots things.”

     “All you had to do was sit there and watch him. How incompetent do you have to be...”

     “And follow him. You said we had to follow him.”

     “Get out! Get out of my sight!”

     The man fled, leaving the priest shaken to his core for the second time that day. Of course he spotted them, he thought. He's an investigator, and I knew that. How could I have been so stupid? Now what do I do? In his panic his mind conjured up awful possibilities. Stories were told in the priesthood of dreadful things happening to priests who screwed up in some spectacular fashion. Sometimes they just disappeared. The official story was that they'd fled to some far off corner of the earth to escape retribution (although no-one can escape the justice of God), but some people whispered that the church had had them quietly killed to stop them taking revenge by revealing Exercitus secrets.

     He paced back and forth like a caged tiger, his mind in a turmoil of terrified anxiety. Through it all, his hatred of Sebastian Gloom burned like the fires of Hell, and along with it came the realisation that, if Gloom was no longer joining the Resistance, there was no further reason to leave him alone. If Anthony was finished in England, if he was faced with exile or worse, then he would take care of Gloom first. He still had Benefit of Clergy, until Rome stripped it from him. If he acted before Bertone found out what had happened he could send Gloom to the Hell he had so richly deserved and his soul would remain spotless in the sight of God. It was practically his duty.

     His mind made up, he was feeling much better as he marched out of the church and called a cab.