hours that she was done in, then I would have been here."
"It's Abney Park," Isabelle informed him. "North London. Stoke Newington, to be precise, Mr. Druther."
"Wher ev er. I would have been here. From half-past nine until half-past six. Until eight if we're talking about a Wednesday. Are we? Because as I told you in the beginning, I don't read the papers and I've no idea - "
"Start," Isabelle instructed.
"What?"
"The papers. Start reading the papers, Mr. Druther. You'll be amazed by what you can find inside them. Now tell us again where Paolo di Fazio might be found."
HE WONDERED IF they were seraphim. There was something about them that marked them as different. They were not mortal. He could see that. The real question, then, was what type were they? Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities? Good, bad, warrior, guardian?
Archangels, even, like Raphael, Michael, or Gabriel? Archangels that scholars and theologians as yet knew nothing of? Angels of the highest order, perhaps, come to make war with forces so evil that only a sword held in the hand of a creature of light could possibly defeat it?
He didn't know. He couldn't tell.
He'd assumed guardian about himself, but he'd been wrong. He saw that he was meant to be Michael's warrior, but when he saw it, it was far too late.
But watching over has power ...
Watching over is nothing. Watching over is watching evil, and evil destroys.
Destruction destroys. Destruction begets more destruction. Learning is meant. Guarding means learning.
Guarding means fear.
Fear means hate. Fear means anger. Guarding means love.
Guarding means hiding.
Hiding means standing watch which means guarding which means love. I am meant to guard.
You are meant to kill. Warriors defeat. You are called upon to war. I call upon you.
Legions upon legions call upon you.
I guarded. I guard.
You killed.
He wanted to strike his mind where the voices were. They were louder today than they'd ever been, louder than shouting, louder than music. He could see the voices as well as hear them, and they filled his vision so that he finally made out the wings. They were hidden angels but their wings betrayed them, and they watched him and bore witness from above. They lined up one right next to the other with their mouths opening and their mouths closing and celestial singing should have come from those mouths but what came instead was wind. There was a howling upon it and after the wind came the voices that he knew but would not listen to, so he gave himself to the warriors and the guardians and their determination to win him to causes so unlike himself.
He squeezed his eyes shut but still he saw them and still he heard them and still he kept on and on and on till perspiration wetted his cheeks, till he realised it was not perspiration but tears, and then the sound of bravo coming from somewhere but not from the angels this time, for they were gone and then so was he. He was stumbling, climbing, making his way to the churchyard and then to the quiet that was not quiet at all for there was no quiet, not for him.
LYNLEY WASN'T BOTHERED by the part he was playing in the investigation, something between chauffeur and dogsbody to Isabelle Ardery. The role allowed him to ease his way back into police work, and if he was going to return to police work, it definitely had to be a gradual movement.
"Bit of a wanker," was Ardery's assessment of Jayson Druther once they left the tobacco shop.
Lynley couldn't disagree. He indicated the route they needed to take to get to Jubilee Market Hall, across the cobbles from the main area of Covent Garden.
Inside the hall, the noise was ear popping, coming from hawkers, from boom boxes set within the stalls, from shouted conversations, and from buyers attempting to broker deals with sellers of everything from souvenir T-shirts to works of art. They found the mask maker's stall after elbowing their way up and down three aisles. He had a good position near a far doorway, making him either the first or the last stall one came to but in any case a stall one would unquestionably see, for it sat at an angle with nothing on either side of it. It was large as well, larger than most, and this was due to the fact that the mask making itself appeared to go on within it. A stool for the artist's subject sat beneath a tall light, and