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.One rainy day, a day not unlike this, a couple of the owners were returning the soaked Magpie to its stable when a passing bus driver asked what it was.They replied that it was a trotting pony."Trotting pony?" mocked the driver."It looks more like a bleedin' water rat!" From that remark was born the Grand Order of the Water Rats, a show-business brotherhood presided over by Prince Philip and Prince Charles that performs charitable works irrespective of race, creed or colour.Not bad work for a run-down boozer behind a railway station.''Perhaps it's important that someone should remember things like that,' said May.'Indeed.So long as somebody remembers, the city remains alive.''I've been thinking about the PCU all week,' May admitted with a sigh.'It's the others I feel sorry for.Where will they go? I don't suppose the Met will want any of them back.Why are gifted individuals always forced out by the mediocracy?''True.If you're a woman, or senior, or Muslim, you'll only ever get so far.They make sure of that.But we've done all our best work in our later years.Men only come to their senses in their fifties, around about the time that most housewives go mad.They realise what they've lost and what they can still achieve.''On the way over here I was thinking about the years we spent in the rooms above Mornington Crescent tube station.''I'm going to miss the place.We had some fun there, didn't we?''You mean when we weren't blowing it up, hiding wanted criminals in its cupboards, freeing groups of illegal immigrants, burying evidence, falsifying documents and telling dirty jokes to members of the royal family?''It was all for the public good.' Bryant was wide-eyed with innocence, but it was a look that would have fooled no-one.'Although I'll admit I'm quite surprised that the ministry didn't pay someone to knock us off, simply for being a constant source of embarrassment to them.''I heard you took Dan Banbury back to the supermarket in Whidbourne Street the other day.''Yes, I thought I'd search for signs that the pub had been installed there.He told me they were pretty easy to spot once he knew where to look.Screw-marks, scraps of tape and paint-stencil marks.Of course, the building had originally been converted from a pub to a shop, so it required very little effort to turn back time for an evening.They simply placed painted flats over the lower half of the extended shop windows and whacked some plant-holders on top.We can't press charges on the store owner, as it seems he was pressured into co-operation by people from Theseus.Some kind of bureaucratic error to do with his immigration visa.I'd love to have seen the look on Harold Masters's face when Pellew told him what he wanted next.Masters was over a barrel by that time.What could he do but comply with Pellew's request?''He'll take the fall for all of this, you wait and see.He's the perfect scapegoat.A dazed, embittered academic, trapped into compounding a series of crimes by proxy.How convenient for everyone.''I can't feel too sorry for him, John.He chose his path long ago.I shall enjoy writing up the case for my memoirs.'And to think we would never have uncovered any of this if you hadn't decided to wander home half-sloshed,' said May.'I just wish I could remember what happened to Oswald Finch's ashes,' said Bryant, 'because that was really where it all—oh, my God.''What's the matter?''I've just remembered what I did with them.' 'What you did with them?''I'll admit I was a bit drunk.I was standing at the bar staring at that ghastly cheap urn, thinking about how much Oswald would have hated being in it, and decided he should have a better home.''Oh no.' May clenched his teeth, preparing for the worst.'I unscrewed the lid and took out the contents.The ashes were in a plastic bag.I was going to transfer him to Alma's tulip vase.I thought he'd be happier in there.''Why didn't you just take the urn home with you?''I hated it.I threw it into the bin behind the bar.''What did you do with his ashes, Arthur?''I put them in the only bag I could find.The one Janice had bought for the office.' Bryant tried to suppress a laugh, but it escaped and grew until May too understood what had happened, and found himself joining in.49The colour of bloodArthur Bryant stood before the illuminated glass case containing the holy relic, and knew that he had discovered the answer to an extraordinary conundrum.His hands shook with the knowledge of something so incredible.'I'm the only other one who knows,' he told May, 'the only other person to figure it out, and it's all because of some-thing Harold Masters said.'They were back in the British Museum, far beneath the sound of pattering rain, in chambers filled with artefacts few tourists bothered to examine.'The mythic ancient pubs, like The Jerusalem in Britton Street and the Rose and Crown in Clerkenwell, they don't reveal the secret.What I'm looking for isn't hidden in either of them.The Crown isn't a crown of thorns, just regal adornment.The so-called clues are mere puzzle-games for students of folklore.Harold knew all along, you see?''No, I don't see at all,' May admitted.'You're being a very confusing old man.You told me you saw him to ask about the blood of Christ.I knew the subject had been bothering you ever since we investigated that street gang, the Saladins.How—what—did he know? And why on earth would he agree to tell you?'As Bryant had predicted, the bewildered Masters now found himself in the dock for crimes he had not committed, but with the weight of Britain's security forces behind his prosecution, he did not stand a chance in hell of being vindicated.With the PCU closed down and disbanded, its investigating officers could give him no help.Bryant turned his attention back to the glittering relic.'Masters has probably known about this for quite a while; that's what started his extra-curricular research projects and brought him to the attention of Theseus in the first place.What a terrible burden of knowledge he faced.He'd discovered the fabled blood of Christ, and knew he could never bring it to anyone's attention [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]