

### More Spirit Than Animal

### by

### Divalde

Copyright 2020 David Lawrence

Smashwords Edition

## MORE SPIRIT THAN ANIMAL

\- the modern myth of reality

'What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?' W. Somerset Maugham

# THE APPLE OF DISCORD

The view was classic Oxford. The sun was rising over a rich landscape of spires and stone. And in Broad Street, where the martyrs died, the Sheldonian Theatre stands like an old actor in the wings, judging the passing shadows as the city is painted in light. But as the veil is lifted I see that the oolitic limestone walls are obliterated by wild primal art.

From the octagonal cupola above Wren's ingenious roof I watch the armed men on the buildings either side. The college parapets and crenellations provide perfect cover as they charge their automatic weapons. During a long and restless night I had neither seen or heard their arrival.

We have passed the point of no return. Dawn has come with an army.

Looking back I can recall the chink of ice and the mesmeric rush of the Thames as the last moments of what I would fondly call my previous life. Overlooking the wine dark stretch of English water it was as though it's very passing washed away the anxieties and the inconsistencies of an otherwise ordinary existence. A dreamlike idyll that turned out to be nothing more than another man's dream.

'What would you have my boy....you look like a malt man......allow me?'

Relaxed and presumptuous his voice invited compliance. The crystal glass and the smile obscured by the albedo of the man's own radiance or more accurately his power to absorb the light of another man's star. The gesture both contractual and passive. Taker and receiver. And yet it would seem so much less.

'Thank you sir,' I said

'Oh...Donald please...'

'Yes sir.....Donald.'

The convivial smile, an extended arm to lightly engage my shoulder. Reassurance and control.

'Walk with me son...'

Donald Zander, a man you could never imagine being alone with. As powerful as he was anonymous the enigma was overwhelming and it was all I could do to maintain any sort of poise. I guess he was a man who enjoyed the company of the receptive disciple, the conditional bon homie, the establishment of boundaries, holding my younger soul up to the light. He gestured with an understated sweep of the arm.

'What do you see Peter...?'

The balcony ran the entire length of the river side property, overlooking the long lawn fringed in willows, draping fronds in the water over the mooring site just a few steps down from the flood bank. Outbuildings right and left spoke of extracurricular interests that would for the moment lay beyond the scope of our conversation.

The grey stubble, the lithe angular body, the mellifluous voice and the ever-reasonable expression were disarming. Close up he spoke from a thousand miles away as if he were not actually there at all. It was a disconcerting experience to be physically close but disengaged somehow. He also had a way of glancing at you at unexpected moments as if you had said...or thought something he did not approve of. He was nothing but avuncular but the experience was disconcerting. How could a boy like me have anything meaningful to say to a man like Zander?

And yet there we were sharing a drink and the cool Thames air. To read a man is to see into his soul and Zander, showed you what you wanted to see... what he thought you needed to see. And that didn't include a soul.

'More than the river?' Peter wondered.

Zander nodded benignly.

'A sight many a man would pay a great deal for sir...Donald.'

'True enough, but look harder, think about what you actually see...'

'I really can't say....'

That rye avuncular smile and a sip of the rare Japanese malt. Were his lips even wet?

'A statement, which as you say, a man would pay a great deal for, and believe me when I say that in business you make sure it's the other man who pays.'

Twinkling eyes and that smile.

'The idea that a man could own a view like this, could own anything so natural is folly. This was here before the Celts, the Romans or the Saxons. Who next I wonder...?'

I reckoned that mild contention would be the appreciated response. Not too abrasive, just enough to show I was my own man.

'...and yet by any standards you have purchased this as real estate. The view is, however you want to slice it, yours...'

Zander chuckled as we walked along the wooden decking and leaned on the rail, the evening breeze welcome after such heat. A wall of sliding glass doors at our backs reflected the suns dying rays forcing their way through the riverside trees that lined both banks of the Thames sweeping in great meanders through the bucolic pasturelands south east of the city, running up to and past Days Lock. Behind the doors the women made their own conversation, untroubled by subtexts. Just a mother and her daughter reflecting on their men and the next stage in their familial evolution.

'It is a symbol of power,' continued Zander, his accent shifting like a flickering light between transatlantic, East Coast America and Oxford, '...its possession never the point...what would I do with a view, a river? It's not mine.'

'...aspiration then...'

'...for some maybe. For others, it's something to crave, to envy me for...'

'...avarice then...'

I would have said greed or fear but it was neither the time or the place. I wanted to ask what does it say about a man so thirsty for power but again...time and place! I realised he actually wanted me to envy him.

'It's the rocket fuel that makes us fly Peter. But for men like us (us??) it's family. Family is everything.'

A not so veiled threat? And why do powerful men always site family as their motivation? An acceptable peg on which to hang their true avaricious nature? Gain for gains sake. What else could it be? But I just smiled.

We turned as the sliding doors parted and the ladies arrived. I remember the feel of cold sweat running down my back under the loose white shirt Thalia had ironed for the occasion. I was relieved the reassuring arm had been removed. Thalia led the way to retrieve my stranded soul and I felt myself cling to her a little tighter than I intended.

'So, what have you boys been talking about....I hope you haven't been boring Pete with tales of poverty and street honour in the Bowery, when the world was so very young,' teased Hermione.

'....when men were men...' chimed Thalia.

Thalia hooked an arm through mine and watched her father glow with something akin to paternal joy. Hermione sipping her wine, gazing distractedly at the river, used to the undercurrents in the heart of her husband, the great Zander, chairman and joint founder of Pantheon Co and probably the richest man in the world.

Whisky and wine were sipped and topped up. The conversation stilted at first and meandering, the air stiff with nuance and every tic read like goat entrails in the agora. So little means so much in the first moments of any relationship, not least when there is so much at stake. So much more than a marriage proposal.

Breaking the unbearable tension of pre-dinner drinks, we were called down to the side lawns where dinner was served. Beneath spreading ash and beech trees a long table was dressed for four, the silverware catching the dying rays as a set of solar lights sprang to life, looping through the lower branches. The air here was stiflingly warm, trapped as it had been for most of the day. But a breeze was there as if on call, as if Zander himself had demanded it so.

Three courses were served by Anthony a Gallic gastronaut drafted by Hermione after a girl's weekend at Las Vegas. Not content with splashing close to $2 million at the tables she treated herself by purchasing the services of the Head Chef at the Bellagio. Was there more to their relationship? Some would speculate that it was obvious. Others, namely Donald never broached the subject and no-one else would within his earshot.

The loquacious Hermione held court and as the wine flowed so did she. Blonde/grey, open faced and in good shape albeit a little matronly meaning she could pass her sixty something years for something closer to forty something. She was the vocal counterpoint to the reserved Donald, incautious and fulsome. The girls...her daughters...her day in the city...the state of her orchids...(I'll show you later)...and plenty about her daughter, such a sweet little thing back in New York..and how all the boys loved her...(not sure I needed to know this)...although I never took to that other fella...(a Bronx twang mixed with what...Irish)...what was his name...Dom...too full of himself...not like you. Patting my hand.

Thalia was everything her mother was not. Short, slim, dark haired and olive skinned and desperate to bring me in, to head off her mother's tidal wave and to break her father's not so subtle interrogation between bouts of pensive and frankly unsettling silences. Her complexion, her deep brown eyes and a flair for overcompensation she had told me were something of a throwback to her great-grandparents, the original Zanders, fortune hunters from Italy (sic) of Levant stock reaching back, at least tangentially, to the Moors riding west, spreading the will of Allah by fire and sword along the Maghreb, migrating along the Iberian coast, living off the land and the sea as bandits and pirates before washing up in Naples, sometime in the 17th century. It was a myth that provided an exotic backdrop to the House of Zander, one which no one was prepared to question.

And Daddy was a fencer of words, the deft parry, the deflection and the sudden thrust second nature, an art form he excelled in and valued in others. It was the measure of the man to withstand the force of his presence. I know that Thalia worried about my coming into her parents' orbit. Did I have the mettle to live up to her father's expectations? How would I react to his world view, his politics and how would I fare when he asked for mine? Would I pass muster?

But Donald was a subtle one, never coming right out with the tough question. He danced around seemingly apropos of nothing but all the while teasing me to commit myself to something he could take away.

'You must give us a grand tour of the city sometime...you are a native are you not,' he asked.

'It would be my pleasure, although I'm not the most authoritative voice on the subject...'

'And yet you were born and raised here...who better...?'

'..well I know what I see of the city...I'm not so hot on the cultural side of things, historical Oxford.'

'Son if I wanted the historical Oxford, I'd buy a guide book...but the perspective that you would bring would be personal to you and so much more real..don't you think...?'

'I guess so...'

'And every man has his own perspective...as we have already discussed...the way we see things tells us a great ideal...'

The half smile and the inconclusive point just hanging there like a cup and saucer too close to the edge of the table.

'Daddy,' Thalia intercepted the conversation, 'don't put him on the spot...be kind.'

Donald the minimalist, little in the way of gestures and long on the barely perceptible facial tic merely absorbed his daughter's plea with a sip and a glance in my direction, as if he were telling me something. On our way there, taking the cross-country route skirting Abingdon and cutting through the villages, Thalia had become withdrawn a sure sign that she was worried. Whenever she had mentioned her parents and once we had agreed to marry, she said he hoped he would get along with them. She made the point several times. It was clearly on her mind. And then without warning she said something that I really wish she had kept to herself. She said that with Daddy you were either in or you were out. In meant you had utility beyond familial ties. Out...was at best collateral, at worst victim. She glanced across as I concentrated on the narrow lanes.

'...only joking...he's lovely once you get to know him...'

Still, I really wished she hadn't said it. As we passed through the automatic gates and swung up the long gravel drive to the faux Georgian red brick mansion set back from the lane, I began to wonder what was really worrying her. I mean was it for me...could I hack it, or was it for her father who she didn't want to embarrass? Watching them now I could see the hold she had over Donald. She knew he needed her love and respect more than anything...more so than anyone else in the world I'd say.

'So how are your folks?' Hermione ventured overfilling her glass and leaning back for Anthony to register that more were needed. She was the queen of excess, the harem's chosen one. Inadequacy and guilt a heady cocktail on the arm of the man who had given her so much and taken everything.

'Tolerably well,' I said

She pursed her heavily made up lips and offered a questioning frown, sharing a confidence of her own imagining, the way second rate actresses do on day time TV. Her unasked question referred of course to my mother; more of whom later.

So, what did I really know of Thalia's people? At the time I had been given the made-or-TV version, hardworking immigrant stock working their way up the greasy pole in the land of the free to amass indescribable levels of wealth. Over time I filled in the gaps and the picture darkened. For now though I was in the last throws of my naiveté.

Hermione was of Irish stock. She and her sisters had made it their business to play on the dark side of New York City, the offspring of hard drinking immigrant men and women marinated in alcohol, culturally self-reverential with that cruel misappropriation of the Bible that comes with easy to anger peasant stock. The early 20th century had been good to the industrial immigrant in New York, piling through Ellis Island and fetching up in the Bronx and eventually New Jersey. The big fish swam with the bigger fish and the Irish mob found meaning in a permanent war with the Sicilians. The early Zanders moved between the cracks, playing one against the other. Never take sides...my boy, Donald had learned at his grandfather's knee. Hermione's lust for power matched her husband's appetites if not his ambitions. She craved the rewards, the opulence of vice while he embraced the animal.

From floozy, shall we call it she once admitted, to gangster's moll a lie, to bank teller, secretary, part time model...partially true, Pantheon director and MD of Olympus, her pet publishing house, underwritten by Pantheon, and something over which she had full editorial and financial control. She was the quintessential consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales in waiting, the Minister without portfolio. I sensed a vacuous existence drained of meaning thanks to never having to take make black and white choices.

Pantheon, was co-founded by Thalia's great grandfather, Oliver, a bear of a man straight off the boat and culturally unaffiliated to prevailing gang culture, hell bent on the acquisition of territory and purveyors of self-serving honour. Daddy told her about some of the more colourful outfits that were still at large when he was a young man. The Irish White Hat Gang who ran the docks, the Yiddish Black Hand, Lower East Side fixers, and the Italian Five Points Gang, violent men all.

Oliver Zander was on his own and that was to his advantage. His veins flowed with the blood of convenience and his gods were many. Spanish Yid, Sardinian Mohammedan, West African JuJu he played them all. A true man of the world, but less a man of the people.

'A man will pay for what he wants. The trick is to tell him what he cannot do without and then sell it to him.' Oliver's mantra passed on along with the business, to his eldest, Donald's father Harry, forever called the Chief.

Legend has it the Chief bequeathed the business to his two boys sometime in the 40's on the back of war time exploitation, guns for cash, to both sides, all sides. But legend does not do the truth justice...as the editor of the Shinbone Star in Liberty Valence puts it, 'this is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.' Whispers persisted that the eldest boy did away with the Chief...his own father in some shady business in South America. Taking the helm and relegating his brother Percival to play second fiddle, Donald took Pantheon into Wall Street and millions became billions. In the noughties they had turned into trillions with holdings worldwide.

'I'm a broker...' was the standard response to any who would ask what exactly do Pantheon do? 'I facilitate need without favour.'

Understated and measured Zander made sure he got whatever he wanted..money, power, lust, violence, philanthropy, food, gold, diamonds, wealth, art, booze, fast cars, fast planes, and fast women. I can honestly say that the surface tension of Zander's true nature was something I chose to ignore at the start, even during that evening at the Boat House. Talk of power and illuminati were just hyperbole. But the language subtly changed from the day I met Thalia to the final reckoning when it became unceasingly clear that the vocabulary of business and crime overlap and I began to see what Zander was and did. And it scared me.

Zander is not a man easily described or characterised. He is not a media personality or an ego junkie. Don't look for the monuments, Rockefeller Plaza, Wrigley Building, Trump Tower, or redemptive charity causes in Africa. Some said that Zander's monument was the attention of the man in the street, his deepest desires, his petty secrets and his unrealised ambitions. You walk through his cities, down his avenues, disembark at his quaysides, offer servitude in his temples, put your money into his banks. You are his avatar.

Toward the end of the 90's Zander uprooted his family from their Long Island pile and relocated to their riverside property near Oxford, England. Publicly he sought a more restful sojourn to while away his senior years. No one believed a word of it. He was up to something. He always was. And only now can I begin to understand and yes appreciate this man's ability to play the longest of long games.

I ran into Thalia at the end of '99 a couple of years after her arrival in the UK, and as far as I am concerned it remains a chance meeting. I was part owner of a new art gallery in Jericho in the Bohemian side of the city, which me and an old mate, the beneficent 'Cheque Book' Charlie Logan had invested in. She swept in with an Aryan god on her arm called Dom, her Germanic/American boyfriend who had made the Atlantic crossing to be with her.

I was nervous enough at the opening not least because among the bevy of local artists I was showing my own. I first saw Thalia and Dom standing in front of one of my pieces and I sauntered over. He didn't like it...he called it infantile and who on earth would pay good money for that. She seemed non-committal. I walked away and found Charlie. He came over with me and slapped £2000 in fifties into my hand while the pair watched in horror.

'I'll take it now...no questions asked...how much?'

'Two grand,' I said.

He peeled off a wad of fifties and proceeded to take the picture off the wall, tuck it under his arm and march out. Thalia and Dom were open mouthed.

'People like what they like,' I said.

Dom leaned in to Thalia and whispered in a voice I was meant to hear.

'What a waste of money.'

'None taken,' I said but I was no longer looking at him.

When he went outside for a smoke, or to hide his embarrassment I fell in with Thalia to show her around. She said she had only recently arrived in the country and had a job at a legal firm in the High Street. I eventually told her what me and Charlie had done and she roared. I think the cracks were already there between her and Dom.

As we walked around, I found myself talking too much and even confessing that maybe compared to some of the other exhibits mine were a little on the immature side. She didn't seem to care and asked so many questions especially about the various British movements. She said that her family saw art only in terms of statement pieces, to measure success by. She had never tried to appreciate art aesthetically.

We moved past walls of local work and I tried to site influences from both sides of the Atlantic from the American Cool Modernists to the Camden Set and the Post Impressionists. Some installation art drew comparisons with the Bauhaus school. She was embarrassed that she had no vocabulary to express herself which I said gave her a perspective that may never be so fresh again.

Truth to tell she later said that her friend that day never stood a chance once we had met. She would joke that I must be some kind of surgeon on account of her arriving with a damaged heart and leaving with a new one. I confess I was enraptured from the start with this young smart American with looks and intellectual curiosity and I believe she found it refreshing to have someone actually listen to and respect her points of view. I remember asking her what she saw..no actually saw, without trying to say the right thing. I told her the dialogue is between the viewer and the artist and no-one else.

Did she leave with Dom? I don't think she saw him again...at least not that night.

Our casual relationship became intense until she moved out of the townhouse she had shared with Dom and moved into my garret just off Walton Street in Jericho. It was a loft on the top floor of a Victorian townhouse with its own fireplace and a dumb waiter. The Oxford light has always been quite odd in this part of town, a kind of wanness that leached colour out of the air or at least that is the way I saw it.

Nearby the canal ghosted through and the publishing chic thought they were something special in the bistros and the coffee houses. And yet despite the lack of space it became home with its forest of easels supporting a host of paintings in various stages. At first Thalia would try to admire them but I would remind her to speak her mind, something I would have reason to regret sooner than I knew.

The closer we got the more we learned and it wasn't long before she met the Captain of the Queens Royal Lancers. She found it irreconcilable that I could be an artist as well as a soldier. A clash of ideals she called it. Yes, she was well aware that soldiers could be poets and painters, but to her, in times of relative peace art was the antithesis and not the expression of man's violence. But over time she began to reconcile the two sides of me, until she said one morning that she realised she was in effect getting two men for the price of one.

I think she found the easy world view of my parents a refreshing change from her cloistered existence. Her time at Yale had been something of an honoury enrolment, which had tainted any sense of collegiate pride. Daddy's influence cut two ways when it came to personal integrity, but she had been happy to accept. Privilege brought its own perspective and values which after all must be the whole point of privilege.

But my upbringing could not have been more different. My folks, Colonel Aaron Rhodes and Alice were born and bred in the Cotswolds and embraced a world view that included the needs and wishes of others. Thalia struggled to reconcile my art with my commission as did my father. During Thalia's visits to our home my mother would not be drawn on the subject of my art, leaving the conversation to my father who was guarded in his approval of my artistic alter ego. Thalia and Alice never truly spoke and for this I remain forever regretful because looking back and knowing how things turned out, both women had so much to offer each other.

'They must come over...after the big day,' Hermione replied, her beneficence knowing no bounds.

'That would be marvellous, the six of us....on one of the yachts Daddy, what do you say?'

'All in good time dear,' said Daddy.

'And how is Alice....?' Hermione all sloping eyebrows and struggling to light a filterless cigarette from a case she pulled from a bag nearby. The glass and the cigarette competed for her attention, like errant children. I have seen this before, unnecessary multi-tasking bolstering a sagging sense of self-worth.

I have never been comfortable talking about my mother's anthropophobia with the dignity it deserves but Thalia had urged me to treat such moments as windows through which Mummy and Daddy might meet the real Peter, the one she knew and wished they would too.

''She finds things difficult as you know, it has to be said. Father keeps her close. Life....events of this significance can overwhelm her. But she finds relief in her love of opera and small things,' I said. This was not so much conversation as extraction of information. I made light of it, thankful for her concern...but I could not unload anything of worth, not to these people, not yet. In truth his mother, Alice slipped through the days afraid of the light and her own shadow. He was prepared to say no more. Intrinsically he understood more than he could express, sensing its errant genes in his own bones.

Respectful silence and requisite angling of heads in mute recognition of the poor woman's plight, before Donald asked me whether I felt the War on Terror was being won, referring of course to my two terms in the Gulf, leading a brigade of the Queens Royal Lancers in Operation Granby. Like Thalia's college career it was one-part nepotism and two parts talent. I made Captain with ease, much to father's undying joy and relief. Another warrior in the great Rhodes tradition. Patriotism was not a dirty word in the Rhodes household.

'By someone I guess.' I said before I could filter my answer.

Donald took another sip of his whisky.

'..you were there...what did you see...what is your opinion Peter. Are we wasting our time or are we winning? In fact...what would winning mean to a soldier...?'

'...defeating the enemy, keeping us safe, bringing peace, agreeing to lay down our weapons...'

'...anymore....?'

'...anything more is a politicians answer...you asked for a soldier's...sir.'

Somewhere along the line I seemed to have dispensed with Donald. I recall that I had my hands interlaced on my lap and was trying to maintain eye contact with him, but I was talking to a photograph, a hologram, and my answers were mere tests.

'You must have seen some dreadful sights...poor thing...' Hermione pulled a face that said she understood. I was more at home with this, the sincere but misguided sentiments of noncombatants. Thalia looked on proudly, Donald quizzically. Now was that a glimmer of envy in the old man's eyes, something unattainable in the simple courage of the selflessness of patriotic duty? Perhaps he knew that the veneration he saw in his wife and daughter's eyes would never be his.

The food was simple enough, the wine plentiful and the conversation animated and increasingly relaxed as Thalia steered me between the monosyllabic and the overelaborate as I am prone to do, and her family, especially Daddy between interrogation and ideological briefing designed to prepare me for the high table.

The evening breeze appeared to obey the house rules remaining unobtrusive and comforting. The sun kissed the horizon as dessert wine was poured and I experienced a fleeting moment of release. Deep inside my cerebral cortex, one synapse at a time brokered a sense of belonging. I confess I could get used to this. A seat at the highest of dining tables with the prospect of something greater and the woman at my side more intoxicating than this appallingly expensive wine.

Later Hermione gave me an arm in arm tour of the estate covering an estimated half a dozen acres of woodland and a stretch of gardens and nursery beds and hothouses. She showed off her rare orchids, a bed of extraordinary poppies of several hues, an ancient rose collection and a bank of Japanese wild flowers; the air in some pockets of the estate infused with a heady blend of opiate somnolence. Tending one of the beds was a wiry fierce looking man with huge hands and an unflinching stare.

'Good evening Miss Zander.'

'Working late Joey...?'

'Just finishing off ma'am.'

This man was a lot more than the gardener. He remained obtrusively within earshot as we paraded his beds. Hermione explained that the Boat House as they liked to think of it, had been built on an empty site once owned by some fallen billionaire, another victim of the dot com bust...she forgot his name. It was impossible to get a full view of the house given the irregularity of its design with small turrets, balconies and terraces as well as ancient trees masking the extremities giving the impression of something organic living in the woods.

'If you really look,' she pointed out between the trees to the right of the lawn, you can make out a large red brick wall...that's the end of Sir Michael Caine's garden...after that though it's stock brokers all the way down'

She was tipsy now as she took another great swill of wine and I felt her leaning against me. She began to expand and digress as the spirit took her.

"Thalia, she's a headstrong thing...but I guess you know that.'

"...spirited...'

She laughed...

'...that's it...spirited..she gets that from me...we're as open as books, mother and daughter. Not like Donald...you never know what's going on in that inscrutable head of his. My boy don't try and guess. But he likes you, that I can tell.'

'I find him a little intimidating Mrs Zander...How do you know he likes me...?'

'Oh...Hermione please...well for one thing he hasn't asked Joey to throw you out yet....'

I couldn't speak and glanced back.

'I'm only kidding.....'

Was she? She drained her glass and staggered on with my increasing support. Under the eaves of the ash and the beech father and daughter were sitting in watchful silence. As we approached, they spoke and although the words were lost the sentiment was apparent. Hoving into earshot I was able to catch,

''...family is all we ever really have.'

He was riffing again. Thalia took my hand knowing very well that I had heard, and Donald knew it too. Hermione was oblivious of the undercurrent and continued to peddle her brand of innocuous small talk, white noise demanding no reply. I can recall nothing more of the evening save Hermione placing a soft long fingered hand on mine and it was all I could do to not withdraw. She was flirting now. The wine.

'Thalia is very lucky to have you,' philosophical, her words dripping with significance, at least to her.

I dutifully acknowledged my good fortune. Hermione withdrew and I knew I had successfully negotiated the white waters. I loved the daughter, pitied the wife and feared the father.

But life away from all things Donald Zander was good. The Jericho Gallery became a centre of artistic activity as did our new home, a three story town house just off Walton Street and close to the canal. We enjoyed hosting and provided many a do for friends offering accommodation to those too comfortable or just too stoned to move. Most weekends bodies inert and crumpled would emerge from the spare bedroom, or crawl from beneath the old battered piano, or just groan in the morning light under the stairs. We became the art couple, the kids to have around or crash with, no subject out of the question, no artist too obscure, no music without its merits, no discussion off limits. In the cool time between dinner at the Zander's and the wedding, Thalia was imperious and we two were one. I think I saw her take a little from my world view, the one that saw potential in anyone, and merit in us all. She saw creativity for the first time as a positive enriching force. Her sense of organisation compensated for my fading interest in structure and the hard edges of life.

Charlie stayed in the background, happy to help fund increasingly ambitious exhibitions, taking a bigger slice than us of course. But he was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet and soon recognised the franchise of Rhodes and Zander as the locus and allowed us to buy him out. To be fair he was never so invested in the art as we were. Thereafter we found it more difficult to fund our ambitions and naturally I wouldn't countenance Thalia going to Daddy.

But The Ballad of Thalia and Peter was a song of uncertain meter balanced on a razor's edge and for any seminal event there is always the day before when the match that lit the spark finds its way into the arsonists pocket. And so, I remember us alone together one evening, she writing wedding invitations and me adding a yellow wash to an abstract piece called Elysium. The confluence at the heart of our Venn Diagram reduced a little bit more, our samsara less potent, the essence of our relationship showing the slightest of hairline cracks.

I know that she worried for me. That was so from the start and I was not immune to its consolation. She wanted what's best for me but Pandora's jar had remained firmly stoppered until she asked the question that would burn Oxford.

'Why do you want to marry a girl like me?'

She hadn't looked up, she was feigning a matter-of-factness, with stiff shoulders and a mannered poise as she checked one of the invites for accuracy.

'Is this a trick question?'

'What's tricky about it?'

Looking up now.

'For your money.....'

She stopped and looked up

'Not funny, every boy I've ever dated wanted a piece of the action...what's your excuse?'

'Did they propose?'

'No...'

'Doesn't that tell you something?'

'Then say it...'

'For love...now what's eating you?'

She smiled her dark smile.

'....just love?'

It was time to put down the brush and the palette and take her bellicosity seriously. I came across to the group of chairs and sofas set out as a living space where Thalia was working at a low coffee table. I sat down beside her on the long sofa.

'Your father has hinted.... no.... said as much, that a place at the board is mine as soon as we marry. I am nothing but flattered and honoured that he would consider a man like me to be of some corporate worth....but that is not why I'm here. That is his choice.....It is not my motivation....do you not see that?'

'I have to take your word for it don't I?'

I think I smiled.

'Well I guess you do.'

Thalia appeared to relent.

'Working with Daddy, it's what I want too, more than anything......but it's just you know....'

'...it should not be my motivation...I get it...'

I tugged a strand of hair away from her eyes and looked at her.

'...anyway.... who's to say I will accept...?'

That dark smile said something I couldn't read, coming from somewhere in the outer regions of the Venn diagram. Was she afraid that I would accept the role or that I would not? And what worried her more; me being out of my depth or her disappointing Daddy?

To the north and west stood the village of Church Hanborough, my home. Tucked in off the main drag behind the Hand and Shears, our honey stone cottage overlooked common land that ran up to one thousand-year-old woods in the east and a big sky to the south. It was literally within a stone's throw of the Norman Church of St Peter and St Paul with its octagonal spire piercing the sky like a threat. It was one of those churches that could only be British...no...English. Ancient, spectacular and the centre piece of any village that worships the old Judean deity.

And inside, like the Dying Gaul, I came to the altar to accept my fate with as much quiet dignity as I could muster. When I say fate I am not referring to my marriage to Thalia, but the army of observers, the feckless host and unreadable agendas, the self-interested and the curious. Absorption into the Zander machine was the price for eternity with this beautiful, insightful woman.

'Will you Peter, Alexander, Peter Rhodes......?'

'And will you Thalia, Charlotte, Andrea Zander....?'

I must have struck a contradictory figure. It would be the last time I would wear the uniform of an officer in the Queens Lancers but my visage is what some have described as a thing of casual insolence, something to do with the shape of my mouth and my vaguely disinterested expression. I am blessed with my father's pout as well as his full head of jet black hair and my mother's intense slightly bewildered features.

I drew Thalia into our watertight bubble, where the circus could not follow. In pure white, her veiled oval brown eyes understood. Best man Cheque Book Charlie, Donald a few paces back and the Colonel and my mother the divine and diminutive Alice, and Hermione sitting tearfully amongst the six sisters who drew the eye of every man, woman and child for all the right and wrong reasons. From teen to over thirty, two marriages, four affairs, a divorce, an underage dalliance that would come back to haunt a presidential candidate and razor sharp politicking that would raise at least one of their number to a cabinet post. A confused heady cloud of expensive parfum, hair lacquer, preening and self-loathing.

The Reverend H Thomas, alone now in the pulpit watched the congregation of no more than 200 settle back in various states of joy, resignation, disinterest, judgement and rapture. My family by rank and file behind my father the Colonel. Mainly military men drawn from the Lancers and with their long suffering soldiers' wives and their feral soldiers' children.

Flanking them across the aisle sat the cosmopolitan Zanders. Cousins of cousins, uncles and aunts, at least one silk suited gentleman who could not have been more Cosa Nostra if he had entered the church to the Sopranos theme tune. And jarringly a bedraggled individual arriving late to force his way onto the end of the rearmost pew, sublimely oblivious to the reproachful stares of his seated companions.

Immediately to Donald's right, prominent in the first pew behind close family and casting large oval eyes in my direction sat a tall ash blonde, a woman whose very presence seemed to suggest availability, her every look and gesture calculated to ensnare. Beside her, disengaged but impossible to ignore, an elegant man sporting a trim black Van Dijk and dressed in a black suit that could have come from a period drama.

'Pantheon,' Thalia had whispered.

More of these two later.

'Speaking of love how shall we define it...?' began the Reverend H Thomas

The venue and the slim, anonymous, barely, fifty something Reverend were my family's choice in an almost unfathomable act of acquiescence by Zander. Thomas had presided over all Rhodes events and was blessed with a voice that demanded attention. It was his gift, along with a platonic wisdom cherished by any who found it necessary to seek his council as I had on more than one occasion.

'I've known this boy his entire life and he is no fair-weather Christian. We have spoken often of frailties, strengths, fears and joy, his girl...his wife.'

A ripple of applause.

'Peter is the product of a loving and dutiful family. The Colonel....Aaron...and Alice value the bond of kinship and harbour a clear, healthy view of the world. You are the least ambiguous people I know and you should take that for the complement it is.'

Thalia clutched my hand as we reclined now in a pair of high backed thrones to one side of the pulpit like Celeborn and Galadriel.

'But what price love in a world where values mass in rank and file behind flags. And what price love when jostling for attention against the white noise of media scrutiny and social flagellation and the uncertain projections of financially motivated images. Where does something as prosaic as love find room to breathe? Indeed, here in the house of gilt and Guilt...' Laughter, 'what does love actually mean...is it this?

He waved a pocket Bible like Chairman Mao's little red book....

'Is it all of this...' gesturing towards the Gothic edifice,

'Doctrine and stone do not create love...they represent it. You see love, true love is in the heart. Our saviour spoke of it, but this....' the Bible again, 'is just a record of Judaism's rich and tortured history, a checkered relationship with Jehovah and the cruelty meted out to Yeshua the Nazarene, the son of God.'

'His work is not over. It begins afresh every day. You and me, we are the carriers of this glorious disease called love. These two young people go forth from this place to spread the word, that we; men and women, human beings, strange uncultured beasts that we are, with backs bent beneath this heaven sent burden, like Bunyan's pilgrim. But the load will only lighten the more we share it.'

'Look beyond the gates. Riders approach and we must learn to stand in the light. Don't hide behind the name of the messenger or the book it's written in....love is in here...and where there is love so there is God.'

To my mind the marriage ceremony was every inch the success that the wedding feast was not. And for that the responsibility must lay firmly with the man they called the exile, but later events would I think redeem him...you'll see.

Triumph turned to dismay, when Percival the Pretender, Donald's brother it turns out somehow made his way from the church to the feast itself. According to Thalia he had been for nigh on fifty years an irritant to the Zanders who could not be entirely lanced. Donald had, it was rumoured considered a most permanent of exorcisms but was, according to legend, prevented by the good graces of Hermione. But who's to say, as neither party will speak of how close the avuncular wastrel brother came to meeting the fate of Fredo Corleone out on the lake.

Suffice to say I learned that in the early 50's shortly after their joint accessions to the throne, Percival was easily sidelined by his sharper, smarter brother and gradually drained of any meaningful power by sleights of hand and redrawing of contracts that left him rich but excommunicated. The younger brother would make vain sorties upon the empire that was at least half his by right, his actions amounting to treason in the eyes of the Board who in retaliation for his retaliation forced him further into the wilderness. Over the years he had stirred up, invented, alluded to all kinds of scandal to separate the golden couple at the top, and each time visits were made in the dead of night and offers made that could not be refused.

Occasionally Donald would present a reconciliatory face, reaching out to his brother, dining together in some Oriental suite, a European capital or the palace of a friendly sheik, or one of the family outposts in the roof world of New York or a Ranch House in the heart of Wyoming or Montana. Percy was always convivial if not embittered company but any time a legal move was considered to get himself back inside the tent, his lawyers would drift away like the morning mist, burned away in the glare of gilt edged law firms employed by Pantheon.

'No matter,' Donald had whispered aside to Hermione during the choreographed post ceremony theatre when Thalia encouraged Percy to join the family photographs and the simple minded Percival had beamed at his niece's munificence and his brother's simmering helplessness.

Alone by the church door Joey kept a watchful vigil. Zander catching his eye shook his head.

The entire wedding party were flown in a fleet of private jets to London City Airport and decanted to Zander's rooftop penthouse suite in the six star Hotel Pelion overlooking the river and acres of Pantheon real estate. Dinner was prepared by none other than Masa Takayama prised out of his New York eyrie. Here we were joined by the rest of the Pantheon board, uniquely putting them all under the same roof at the same time. It was a show of force and a reminder that this was more than a marriage, it was my absorption into Zander Inc. The principle message being that the Colonel's only boy had fallen beyond his reach.

Percival had hitched a ride at his niece's insistence and was seated among the aunts and uncles, the cousins of cousins and the six sisters. Thalia would have had a place set for him at the top table, but Percival declined, saying he preferred to sit with the real people.

So what was on that wretched man's mind...much more than any would have given him credit for. It had taken a great deal of courage to show up like this, unannounced and I could see it was eating away at Donald. Looking back Percival was playing a clever game, or more accurately it was the woman in his life, the rarely seen Cassie. I later met her just the once, a wild haired Bohemian possessed of a ready wit and renowned for making heady predictions, anticipations she would call them, for which she was doomed to be perpetually ignored,

But the error made by Donald and the entire smug Pantheon board was to assume that because the one brother was smart, that the other was therefore stupid and with the wife a little mad. Percy had been outmanoeuvred all of his life but as Cassie constantly reassured him, you are not stupid, slow perhaps but not stupid. And the day they read it in the society papers, the wedding of the year they made their play. Here he was grinning like a fool into his soup under the sweet gaze of his beloved niece and the baleful glare of his elder brother. He savoured the moment as he engaged in small talk with distant cousins, some of the six sisters and some of the Rhodes' officers and wives.

When Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus kicked into the first few bars of St. Thomas to draw the guests led by Cheque Book Charlie, the six sisters and an array of beaus into the bar, the Board threaded their way against the tide to the top table where the immediate family made no signs of joining the jazz lovers next door. Chairs were pulled up as Thalia rose but her moment was cut short as Percival made his own move dragging his chair noisily across the room to sit at the end of the top table. Audacious didn't do it justice as he seized their collective attention. We were a table length tableau, a montage of repressed fury and irresolution.

I'd had Pantheon explained to me several times. By Charlie, Father and Thalia and eventually Donald. My summation is this. Pantheon are illusionists, manipulators of personal choice as if pre destination were their gift. Purchasing power is in the hands of the consumer, right? Wrong! You and everyone like you are steered into believing choices are personal and while the concept of option remains on the table then all thoughts of manipulation are banished. But the landscape within which you buy is not a given, it is a construct as are your tastes! Pantheon will see to that.

Real estate for instance is a very personal choice isn't it, the little must haves that won't be compromised, all personal...right. Like that car with the quantum fuel thingy...a must have..gotta have it. And the men behind the men behind the men you spoke to made sure that you not only knew what you wanted but you got it. And don't get the ad men for the food lobby started... sugar's bad for you, fat's bad for you, E numbers well what the hell are they, don't put them in you and there's too much packaging, think of the forests and follow the carbon footprints and don't stand under the ozone layer and no umbrella's gonna save you from the acid rain...what ever happened to acid rain? And global warming, they're all your responsibility so here's how we are gonna help. Your personal crusaders will arrive like buses on the dawn, to take you away to where the air is clear and the earth you would like is just a dream away. All at a price.

I had gathered the names of its principal architects, its nefarious purveyors of global control. It was in effect a holding board for a vast confederation of businesses across a broad range of industries; iron, steel, wheat, barley, movies, TV, gambling, sport, military, insurance, Wall Street, banking, narcotics, trafficking, gun running and politics. Pantheon was not a visible company with high street branches and a position on the Nasdaq, but you will have heard of the enterprises that benefit wittingly or unwittingly from their influence and patronage. The world's biggest fast food chain, two of the largest petroleum companies, the two largest automobile manufacturers, shippers, airlines and high street outlets, the two largest US TV channels, at least one media mogul, a bevy of Russian oligarchs and a flotilla of social networking sites.

Not all of these enterprises were wittingly affiliated to Pantheon, some it must be admitted were unaware of their very existence, while others paid lip service and others were fully paid up members. Pantheon's benefaction was engineering the environment allowing corporations to meet carefully orchestrated appetites and prejudices to kettle the consumer into preassigned ghettoes. It would be nigh impossible for anyone outside of the inner circle to establish the true worth of Pantheon.

No-one within earshot of me said the words criminal or illegal. It was just business.

At the far end of the tableau, out of position but chatting to the spectacular woman from the church, Anais, my father Colonel, Aaron Rhodes in uniform and animated. Bull headed, firm jawed, regulation army cut and threatening, accusative eyes leant his fifty odd years a youthful vigorous menace. Nevertheless, he knew the importance of social skills and the filters one adopts like a mask when engaging with non combatants. I watched him lean into the Pantheon Wealth Director, prey to the blonde, forty something's reverse psychology. The more he said the more she saw and the more she encouraged, the less he was discreet. Of course, he said too much and she stored it all away behind the kind of smile you hoped would last forever. Like most men he assumed the attention of a woman, an attractive one, meant so much more than just polite indulgence.

Having joined the Board from Elysium Imaginings one of the many 'entertainment' businesses that made up one strand of Pantheon, Anais of uncertain race, probably Norwegian had become an essential strategist for Zander. All men underestimated her and so all men paid the price. As she put it, all men of straw were ripe for exploitation which meant all men. Man, lover or man hater? Thalia said the jury was out.

At her elbow, David Parish, the genius Business Guru, witch doctor, as he was called by enemies who suspected more than met the eye and allies who worshipped the crystal ball, he gazed in. He reclined, attempting to achieve the power of invisibility. Unengaged with the Colonel and unperturbed by the sudden unplanned arrival of Percival he watched the guests receding with rye amusement, an expression he reserved for most situations. But as Thalia put it, when everything is rye, nothing is. The moustache and black pointed beard did nothing to dispel the sense of the supernatural, the sleight of hand. Always within a few hundred feet of Anais with no hint of impropriety beyond confederates in the sublime art of entrapment and exploitation.

We were flanked by Donald and Hermione, her drink fuelled soul bared to the world, as open a book as Donald's was locked behind impenetrable obsidian doors. Legacy was a word he had started to drop into conversation, plumbing the depths, testing the draft of the vessel until the echo rang back mark twain, mark twain. Was I the magicians apprentice? But when asked he would declare his intention to live forever, a Faustian pact struck in his imagination perhaps.

Listening to mildly diverting chatter from his daughter and analysing my silences he was probably pondering the words of his therapist...no she was more than that.... Was it true that she had called him a psychopath? Not borderline, but actual. An emotionless, non empathetic destroyer of others. It was, she said his only skill and brought him, less pleasure more release. Had I known that then I might have looked at the daughter, my bride with fresh eyes.

'There you are uncle......' Thalia greeted the grinning Percy.

Thalia beamed, and called for more wine for the booze sodden wretch rambling incoherently into an empty glass at the end of the table. Wilfully ignoring her father's stiff and uncomprehending glare, she was not about to let whatever it was between them ruin her day. I just held her hand tightly beneath the table, fighting mother's genetic urge to flee. The air crackled with surface tension and idle chatter as layers were peeled back in search of versions of the truth which come the dawn would appear so much less.

Mother herself had made it thus far. Shrinking back and oppressed by the malevolent glare of the rotund, unpleasant looking man leaning uncertainly toward her she held her prospective daughter in laws other hand. It was all she could do to be there, her chronic anxiety marginally ameliorated under an avalanche of medication, her eyes wide and her pulse racing, predators at her door, the air tightening like a sheet of plastic across her face. Pale, thin narrow features and diminutive of body dressed to disappear, I know she sought solace in the sublime Miss Callas, there before her, glorious in the warm rain of her imagination, singing the heartrending La Mamma Morta.

Next to her the youthful, hyperactive Montague Rivers, the smooth, thirty something ideas man without portfolio. A man of the times for whom globalisation was just another word for 1st class travel and 5 star luxury (was there any other kind) as he shmoosed and endeared himself to the good the bad and the ugly. A contact in every city, in every continent and one girl at least in every port, he was a true citizen of the world. Expensively coiffured and immaculate of morning suit he cut a dash, even here something of a lady's man, leaning inappropriately toward Alice who failed to register his presence. His Arcturian celebrity would dazzle elsewhere come the dawn.

Chair pushed back to allow room for a four string tambura, its sombre tone accentuating a sweet gossamer singing voice, Bengali-French Ashwin Baptiste was the incongruous, ageless, joyous, intense, ambiguous, Head of Global Integration - meaning what exactly? Dark of skin, white of sclera and picking with long elegant fingers the mournful drone of a Miyan ki Todi, portending the beautiful youth of woman and her fleeting anointment before the winter's dawning.

His trope was a lucid insight into the greenback hearts of obsessively myopic men having come up through the mean streets of Mumbai and Marseilles, running a nefarious trade in the legitimate and the less legitimate world of immigration. He was according to Thalia to put it mildly away with the fairies...some said literally due to an overactive interest in the occult, which on occasion brought him up against some pretty rum characters especially when dealing with the Cajun and the Bahá'i faith of Haiti of which some said he was a member, a preacher even. A complex man, difficult to keep in focus, broker and breaker of hearts.

Harry Guildenstern in the wheelchair chatted away amiably to Rivers before the mercurial coxcomb departed leaving him to hoist his glass to any number of toasts, enjoyed the patronage of Zander for his unparalleled understanding of the cyber industry, namely its manipulation. Expansively bearded, jovial of personality and yet fierce of will he had, despite outward appearances never come to terms with his congenital lameness, although he drew fire from anyone prepared to mock when they learned he was the husband of none other than Anais...her choice! Some said that the fuel for his interconnective dexterity was a desire to snare the big alpha male, jock fish, the men he would never be.

And next to him and taking the brunt of Percival's incoherent intrusion was the Hunter, the appellant most often attached to Grace de Marais, the black queen of the night as Zander also enjoyed depicting her. No one knew her true title. Amazonian in florid robes, tattooed blue hieroglyphs on each cheek she was some said the most dangerous member of the Pantheon board, rivalling Zander himself. It was rumoured that Zander's wariness of her forced him to bring her inside the tent. Sharp, apparently humourless and almost too focused she had shinned up the greasy African subcontinent pole, and kicked her way through the glass ceiling to run a bewildering number of cross border arms dealers. At her back when things turned sour, she had commanded a small loyal praetorian guard preconditioned to ferociously defend her honour however she defined it. Her pack, comprised some fifty warriors, behind masks and helmets depicting a variety of warlike beasts. Her dogs of war would not be reasoned with, negotiated with or pleaded with. Once let slip there was only one outcome. Some say she left them behind in Africa, some say not.

Percival blithely oblivious of the queen of the night's withering antipathy made his play with all of the empathy of a child bursting into laughter at a funeral. He knew his moment would be fleeting.

'There's a dark cloud on the way folks,' he said, with all the gravity of a poor joke in a Christmas cracker. He waggled a finger toward Zander. 'An' we all know whose cloud it is don't we....'

More wine arrived and as he imbibed splashes spattered down his tie and shirt.

'You are the man who makes the weather ...isn't that what you always said bro?'

'Come come Percy...' Donald smiled, the sing song voice incanted, 'let's not spoil things for the young people, 'what ever you've got to say can ether wait or we could pop into the lounge and chat it through...what do you say...?'

Donald made to stand up.

'Not so fast dear brother,' Percival's eyes beady bright, 'I've come a very long way to be here and what I have to say is for all of you.' He waved a desperate arm at the tableau, 'and especially you.'

He stabbed a chubby finger straight at me.

'Where are my manners? Congratulations the two of you.'

Slurring and unsteady he failed to reach Thalia's hand so she reached out and patted it mouthing thank you. The Hunter would have him removed. Her eyes said so. The Colonel rose, the warrior among them. Donald kept his council. By the door, Joey waited for the signal.

'And you Colonel...don't you know what awaits your boy once he's pulled inside the mothership? I'll bet papers are already drawn, awaiting signatures. A seat on the board and a mind reduced to ash. Is that not so dear Donald?'

'Is this Cassie speaking dear Percy?' Hermione furrowed brow of anguish, 'you shouldn't let her distress you so. Why not have a chat with your brother in the lounge eh...calm your nerves you know how you get when she poisons your mind like this. Did she send you? I bet she did.'

The tone mellifluous, gently chiding a child led astray, to be mothered back to the apron strings. He persisted with a look of incomprehension.

'Don't sign any of them,' gesturing, waving away the scene playing before his blood shot eyes, 'if you value your integrity, this woman, your dutiful parents, do not become another one of this man's FURIES!'

He was standing, swaying, shouting, spilling his wine and reaching for a bowl of fruit just out of reach. Guildenstein pushed it toward him. He grabbed an apple.

'Cassie and I we have our own spies. Out there. Watchers on the hill. Tracking how the armies move. And you dear brother. You move by stealth, under cover of the night. And somethings about to happen and this man and all of you leeches will be to blame.'

He went to take a bite from the apple but spoke instead.

'Peter my ol' son, Colonel...you cannot survive what is coming. A storm so violent it will leave no-one, and I mean no-one standing. Your souls will be sold long before you lose anything so....so....pros...prosaic as lives....and there will be plenty of them lost.'

Parish snapped out of his reverie and whispered into Zander's ear who made eye contact with Joey.

'Fly my pretties...while the weather holds.'

He swayed and again failed to take a bite then examined the apple, red and green. Joey in bouncer's tuxedo was suddenly by his side and slipped a fierce arm into Percy's guiding him away from the table. He made to surrender but made one more lunge tossing the apple toward me.

'Remember Snow White....before you take a bite....'

His feet barely touched the floor as he was hauled away to where or when the story does not say. But what the story does say is that three days later on a bright American morning two planes flew into two towers.

CASSIE I

There is so much to see if you know where to look. I do not possess a sixth sense but I am unusually sensitive, so call it intuition if you must give it a name. I watch and I disseminate, I have X-ray vision when it comes to society...you do too if you only knew how to switch it on.

The theme park assaults my senses, the sounds, the smells, the lights and the moods. I watch the casino owners, the floor managers, and the suddenly your best friend floozies bringing drinks so you needn't leave the table. And all the time the real whores, men on street corners pushing their trade, which if it was so bad, why would punters like you keep turning up? It's what the people want. Chattering faces at the gate peddling their special brand of self delusion. It's all about base desires, not restraint and moderation. It's what you want, it's what we all want.

'Listen, the war on drugs, gambling, larceny, pornography, bigamy, rape and violence was lost years ago; sometime when the first gods walked the Earth, so I suggest you climb back into your box, and play your goddam whale music and leave this to the grown ups.'

I saw and heard what Peter could only sense. A whisper in a corridor, a chance meeting, a favour, a debt, obligation and giri. A secret kiss and the reimagining of other men's motives, financial incentive where once there was principle, the wilful misinterpretation of the word of God, speaking on His behalf, received teachings setting agendas for serfs and their feudal lords, nationalised prejudices and bigotry that would seem patriotic, a docile public bated by a gullible media with all the forensic insight of the Muppets, Holy men buying and selling values to the highest bidder, secular worship and non-secular complicity underwriting the institutional obsession with competition, Left/Right, Red/Blue, East/West, Democrat/Republican, Allah/Jehovah, City/United.

Grist to the global mill, subversion and perversion in the name of democracy, a dirty word for the survival of the fittest, Darwinism verses the doctrinal misappropriation of the Chosen People's mythology, Jihad call and response, chorus and verse, mob justice with Cro-Magnon intelligence, Pavlovian chatter, ritualistic outrage, recreational grief, wilful ignorance masquerading as suburban truth, second hand credibility worn like a kevlar vest, and the weapons stock pile, the Achaean fleet musters off Aulis, the Priestess embracing her mortal fate on the altar, the powder kegs stacked in the cellar with the traitor seated on top, waiting.

All it needed was a match and the profits of war come tumbling out, Jackpot!!

# THE JUDGEMENT OF PARISH

The die had been cast as soon as the numbers had come in. Unclear on the exact sequence of events and how one thing led to another, I suddenly understood the correlation between war and profit. I had stepped back from the metaphorical brink understanding at last what it was the man who threw the apple had been trying to say. In the war on the moral abstraction of terror, fortunes were being made and I finally understood that international conflict is more about the harvesting of opportunity than it will ever be about fundamentalism and the clash of ideologies. Lines in the sand are not always where you think they should be.

Casino slot machines rattle every ten minutes, within earshot of the punters, giving hope. The perfumed air, the lack of natural daylight, the disorientated ambience like a narcotic seducing the unwary with the lascivious appeal of the take down, the bags of cash, the jackpot! The many arms of Pantheon gorged on the outpouring of investment in what would be one of the longest and least understood conflicts in history. With all the glee of a free lunch the message had been relayed to me, whose unwritten signature stayed resolutely within the pen hovering some two inches above the Pantheon Directorial Contract. Join us, be a man, wet your whistle.

I naturally fled.

A call from Donald, measured, compelling and eschewing any suggestion we were negotiating, a chance to redeem myself, think of your wife, your family, always family, and the soul searching with Thalia the piggy not so in the middle, pulling on heartstrings and struggling with an unequal love for two men. The opportunity of a lifetime, the envy of any man, take the plunge my son the water's fine. Their boy had strayed, not thinking straight, he'll come around, just takes time that's all, he's new to this game, everything will be alright.

The benefits of coming aboard were made quite clear. It would be the wise choice, an enhanced appreciation of the real world, it would be the strong choice, bringing power and wealth and it is the choice of all who love you, enriching the love of my wife. Wisdom, power and love, gifts offered by Zander, mine for the taking, if not for him then for his daughter. Thalia pleaded long and hard, but I just withdrew. My shadow self recoiled from the vivid neon reality of Zander's world.

Since serving I had turned my shadow self to the arts, painting and reading. I had always sought the enlightenment and wisdom of the writers; the great communicators. Moving from military exploits á la McNab, through Forsyth, Le Carré, Woolf, Joyce - couldn't make heads or tails of him; the elusive Victorians Elliot, Dickens and Tolstoy; then on to the great American classics, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Melville, Fitzgerald, Twain, Plath - yes poetry although I didn't pretend to understand what ever she had been trying to say, I just loved the rhythm of the words, like the songs of Hendrix, the Doors, Dylan, Radiohead, the Velvets, Bowie; who cared what they meant; the same could be said for Byron, Shelley and Keats; and then the Beat Writers, Burroughs, Ginsburg and Kerouac, the polemicists, Mailer and Vidal and contemporary new kids on the block like Franzen and Hitchens. Of late I had also enjoyed the eccentric Portuguese Jose Saramago and Haruki Murakami. But it was always the American voice I was drawn to. Perhaps it was less constrained by old world politics of behaviour. That pioneer spirit was still there for men like Twain, Kerouac, Steinbeck and Hemingway. Their voices captured a cultural honesty that would never pass this way gain.

In my studio which I located on the top floor of our home I brooded and painted and sank deeper into my small but significant library to ameliorate this pervading funk. Who could I talk to? Father? Mother? Thalia? I needed some truth. The choices held me in a state of stasis, paralysed into inaction.

Painting of course, at its most expressionistic is open to misinterpretation offering alternative perspectives of more than one moment in time like the light of Monet's Reims Cathedral series charged by subtly different lightscapes. The writer however offers a kind of certainty that words rarely deny. The pity of it is the perversion of the viewer or reader attempting to interpret what the creator was 'trying to say' sending it back home not quite the precocious child the originator sent out into the world, but it would have to do, there being no other way of relating to the brush or pen stroke. And by pen I now mean keyboard.

In my self imposed exile I ran the gauntlet of my father's spirited rant on the War On Terror. But I was unmoved at the immorality and futility, choose either, of slaughter for slaughter. For me this maleficence cultivated through self interest, warped indigenous morality (on both sides) meant the end game was unattainable. We say light you say dark, grey can never be the solution. There must be something better than stoking the flames and handing jerry cans of petrol to the fire fighters telling them it's water.

I talked about Zander the braggadocio and his sponsored wars, the bloody lottery, harvesting the convictions of men, women and children, piling up the gore stained cash next to the rotting corpses of his puppets. His own personal ant colony. The Colonel said it was madness to walk away from the Golden Goose, but it was Thalia's complicity more than the Zander war machine that hurt me the most. I was no more than a conduit through which an heir and therefore some kind of legacy would be maintained for the old man and by association his daughter. I ticked the right boxes, patriot, warrior therefore malleable, art lover, man of taste and breeding, but not over bred.

My personal Road to Damascus began with the inspirational talk, the sales pitch mapping out the long game and the rewards. Having returned the gold plated pen to its holder, my shadow self urged me to resign my commission as Captain of the Lancers, effectively burning both paternal bridges. At home the air shuddered with slammed doors, which I was advised never to darken, driven out by a shame greater than love.

Then came the coup de grace, Thalia 'needed time' and fled back home, 'for now'.

When no looked increasingly like no, it was time for divine intervention in the persons of Hermione, David Parish and finally Anais. They dropped by like mages to a manger, their theatre designed to clarify what I would lose by sleeping outside the tent. I in turn needed a device to separate the tangle of wires, to cut the right one without blowing the whole thing up. Hermione was the least convincing and easily dismissed. Parish pulled rabbits out of hats which despite his bravura remained steadfastly rabbits, and Anais? More of her later.

The Gift of Power: Enter the mother of the bride. I agreed to meet her at the Jericho apartment Thalia and I had been sharing, while we waited for our custom built wedding present from the Zanders, to be built in Highgate. I had made one visit and saw a steel and glass monstrosity designed to look designed. I relented at Hermione's request to 'have a talk.'

She was all business. Steely, stiff and wearing her offence like a new hat. I saw the unresolved anger in those heavily made up eyes as I let her in and offered her usual which she declined. I took her up onto the roof where a small flat area with a swing seat gave a panoramic view of that part of the city. No colleges just townhouses and the nearby canal. In the distance the dreaming spires and Oxford's roofscape gave a jagged edge to the afternoon sky. Here we sat shoulder to shoulder, anticipating and second guessing our opening lines. Hermione, in her pomp was impressive and in this incarnation I found much to admire. A fortune hunter without doubt, but the choice was hers, a woman with a soul for sale.

'You have upset my daughter Peter. She's at home now. She can't stop crying...'

Emotion not business, a daring gambit, as if that were the source of my sins. I hung my head and would have defended, even justified myself and confessed my sorrow for her sorrow, the grief of separation so soon, a misunderstanding over the 'terms' of the marriage. But alas the sorrow would be for myself. The Zanders' I would have said had engineered this inefficacy in which I was cast as villain and patsy.

She got to it.

'What do you want Peter?'

'Thalia.'

'Then be the man she thought she'd married. Not....' she wanted to indicate something as florid as his art, but there was none in the outdoor breeze and so she gestured vaguely over the city.

'Join us and there would be nothing in this world beyond your scope. Don't feel you must be like Donald or the rest of the Board, be yourself, and make of the world what you will, for you and Thalia. Paint and open as many galleries as you like. For you I can see it's not about money or politics or whatever it is you are afraid of. This is an opportunity, to live the life you want with my daughter by your side. Why deny yourself the means to excel?'

She turned to face me, closer now.

'The most we can ask for in life is the power to make choices. It's down to each of us what those choices are. It's about means to ends.'

She pointed to the city without taking her eyes off me.

'Don't tell me those out there are not better off than say ten, twenty years ago? Do you know why? You know why. Men like Don make choices. Difficult ones most men would not have the courage to make. Has blood been spilled? Yes. Do the rich get richer? Damn right they do, it's the rich who are driving the mothership, we're the ones on the bridge. Not them....'

She was good.

'I'm sorry Hermione. I believe you believe what you are saying and for some it would make sense. But, and I don't mean this unkindly, you have to justify it some way. How else would you sleep at night.'

'It's....'

'...and please don't tell me it's business and not personal...it's all personal,...at least for me...Pantheon are not some altruistic commune dispensing benevolence and good will, they are about taking without impunity and hang the collateral. Scratch that, enjoy the consequences of the collateral, the human cost in displacement and destruction. Fuel for the leviathan.'

'And for this you would throw my daughter under the bus!'

Her voice raised for the first time, sensing she was losing the exchange and whatever the Don had ordered her to fix.

'Hermione, she threw herself...here I am, open arms, waiting. Tell her to come back, take this off the table and we can live our life, complete with choices, our choices.'

'You always knew this was on the table...but you married her anyway? What did you expect to happen?'

'I expected to join something I could respect and grow into as a person and as a business man. And your husband, he over sold it and gave me a peek behind the curtain, the years of planning, lighting the inevitable touch paper stoking the inevitable consequences, provoking the righteous zealots to humiliate the great Satan. The pre-prepared, misty eyed reaction, standing tall next to Crockett on the walls, retribution, a Crusade I think someone actually said. And God knows what games were played in the past, Viet Nam, the Cold War, Kennedy...No ma'am, it's all too rich for my tastes.'

That was all I remember before her spirit evaporated and she was gone. Behind every good man was a woman like her, who valued power as much as her man. Power was a fuel, an end in itself. And Hermione had gone the extra mile in self deification by sugar coating the pill with love, but her love it seemed remained conditional which is not really love at all. Perhaps there was another sort. As it turned out there was.

The Gift of Wisdom: Parish had been the next envoy. He fetched up, chauffeur driven to the house. Anais was in the car but only Parish set foot on Holy Ground. This was so ill conceived for a man versed in the black arts of enticement, until I realised I was meant to think that and let my guard down. The old double bluff.

I offered tea that was taken but not drunk. We met in the studio and I watched Parish promenade the forest of easels without comment before praising my sense of self worth, so rarely encountered in his world. He made the point that the ersatz life of the martyr is as history would confirm, unsurprisingly short. Memorable but short. This theological insight hung there like Chekhov's Gun, 'If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.'.

'Thalia may move on I've no doubt, but I am not family and pardon me for treading where I should not. The question is, are you making the wise move? Wisdom to attain your every dream and here's the thing Pete - not even Peter-, to forego the chance to change things from within. The steady hand on the tiller to bring her home, the runaway barquentine of lost souls, bring her into port. For your children.'

Christ he really said that...like some grasping charity ad pressing the modern man buttons.

'Consider the business portfolio of your own choosing, the wise choice...nothing in the debit column,...financial security...the power game...not for everyone...force as a means to an end....welfare of the family and any offspring you may furnish the family with.'

I listened as I painted. Elysium letting it evolve as the words tumbled around me like puppies or shrapnel. I found myself laying dense and deep primary colours, throwing shadows and valleys across the canvass until the images became a series of changing textures revealing something new at every perspective. I kept layering as Parish talked. I was starting to appreciate the contract between artist and viewer, the artist's unresolved self refracted through the lens of the viewer's own prejudices. Slipping the skin of restrictive realism I was finding solace in a more expressionist world view, the shifting reality, the subjective; less an appreciation of perspective more a loss of trust. I was becoming suspicious of structure.

Since Thalia had gone, I had felt the stirrings of my old melancholia, my shadow self. I had lost the joy of waking to the clean slate of a brand new day, I distrusted time and its propensity for treachery. The future was a series of blank canvasses waiting, anticipating my input but whatever I painted all I saw was paint. What did anyone see except themselves, the winsome, opportunistic, pretentious, objectionable, lost souls parading through galleries. Lazy, passive watchers, voyeurs staring at rows and rows of creativity in the most artificial of viewing conditions. The whole artifice seemed preposterous.

Colours leaching like words flowing from one page to the next, stretching and remoulding their initial meaning so that you can no longer grasp what it was you thought you first saw. Dysfunctional tragediennes in gouache and ink, urging your appreciation and pity, insensitive to the dramas that coat your own lens. Looking for a way out you spot something familiar in the background. It redefines your position in terms you can understand. The viewer is free to enjoy whatever the artist is trying to say. To reflect upon his/her journey, safe in the arms of the confluence. At last the art speaks and you listen, but there is no reciprocation. No ears to pay attention to what you have to say in reply.

I hurled my brush to the ground, took the canvas and threw it wet across the studio forcing Parish to dance out of its way as it skimmed passed and clattered through another easel. I glared at Parish.

And when Parish saw fit to reference Plato, as if he were name dropping something an old mate said. I simmered at his appropriation of the great man's words.

'Raging at the moon for its control of the tides, he said as if he were teaching me something, 'like Platonic Forms wisdom is absolute, and it is wisdom to join your father-in-law's enterprise. (Is wisdom really absolute?) It's providential (Christ he's speaking for God!) A man cannot escape his destiny Peter. Someday, you will understand this and sign up.'

I had not expected condescension from the arch manipulator and my sense of insult was nearly complete. Was Parish addressing his 'ideological chatter' toward a lesser intellect, the runt of the litter, the artless ingenue, raw to the bitter winds of the big boy's world. Parish was painting his own picture, failing to appreciate that a lack of reflection does not a void make. The trial of Forms had come and gone with 2300 years of philosophical debate so I wasn't about to be badgered into submission through a blizzard of faux intellectual non-sequitur hair splitting. I had read his Platonic Socrates.

I took Parish by his narrow lapels and rammed his body against the wall, my face in his.

'Obfuscation is senseless,' Parish said feigning disinterest in my rage.

'...I am wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know....' I said and Parish swallowed.

'..meaning?' he cocked a knowing eyebrow, a challenge, a suggestion that to quote Socrates was not the same as understanding, which is true of course.

'It's easy,' I clarified, letting him go, 'to confuse wisdom with knowledge and information, is a simple man's folly. And as for wisdom being absolute, it is like any value judgement taking many forms, and even these may change day to day, hour to hour and person to person. Your definition of wisdom has nothing to do with absolutism. That is a delusion.'

Parish stayed where he was. He made no attempt to smooth his ruffled black jacket, his hair and goatee. Instead his appraising eyes had switched to X-ray, watching my synapses work their way toward something he could take back to Zander.

'It depends upon outcomes and experience,' I continued, 'are they in competition or just so many alternatives. Is this outcome more or less viable than that one? How can either be a reliable measure of anything much in so far as nothing is ever concluded. Wins and losses are transient. Just states of mind in themselves not absolute. A British statesman, Macmillan I think, said that he didn't believe in success or failure, just events. I think he was on to something don't you?'

'Hardly Wittgenstein's pictures of reality but eloquent.'

Parish had drawn a veil over our repartee and began to prowl around the studio again like a cat, watching but not seeing, hearing but not listening. I was prey? Food for thought? Or just food?

'Daubing your fantasies for money is one thing, but standing in the way, blocking your destiny is another and a man's destiny is not a wise thing to cross...in my opinion.'

I stared at him. It was a threat.

'...cross?'

Parish smiled his goatee, insouciant magician smile.

I spoke quietly.

'...we agree Mister Parish...to play games with another man's destiny or to cross me in any way would be a mistake for anyone...'

But Parish was done and bade farewell...rarely goodbye or see you or take care. I watched the space he had just occupied as if the air retained some trace of his essence, a stain. The man's hoodoo festered in my brain, shaking his gris-gris, weaving Acadian swamp spells like Dr John.

It seems that wisdom and power are indivisible in the eye of the gods. One may beget the other depending on one's definition of wisdom. But I was not a god and so I needed more than paeans to wealth and glory.

The Gift of Love: A week later I found myself staring back at Anais across a table for two at Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons at Great Milton. It had only been a matter of time before the woman who had stayed resolutely in the car got out and in touch.

Blonde, natural effortless Scandinavian beauty, carved from alabaster, almost casual she wore an expression of mild bemusement at the inability of others to convey the same super human radiance. The trade mark, eye catching, head swivelling tight red dress had been replaced by the more relaxed and therefore immediately approachable girl next door, white shirt and Levis.

This was a direct assault and I knew it.

We ordered something light and she asked me about myself and how I was bearing up without Thalia. She thought it best to meet here, art being such a private affair, she had no desire to intrude. I had sold a few pictures, some success, but not enough to make a living.

The Alice band in her hair, the shades perched on top, the mineral water and the salmon sandwiches set the scene for a confessional. Wide eyes and so little make up, she didn't need it. Once we had eaten she made her move and it worked.

'Tell me Peter, formal, your heart's desire, right now,' she clicked her fingers, 'there it is, go to it, what is it?'

'To live in peace with Thalia, to make our own way...'

'That's not the full story is it?'

She waved away the offer of complimentary drinks and pressed on to the accompaniment of cut glass, silver spoons and wine laced puffery.

'You need something more.'

'Distance...from Pantheon.'

'Or what you believe it stands for.'

I waited. Let her say it.

'Global opportunism...'

'You would call it that, I would say profiteering, exploitation is another word...'

'Peter.. not Pete.. it has ever been thus...'

A sip of mineral water, lips not wet.

'I can only admire your stance.'

Her stance was of proprietorial responsibility, guiltless enough to take the magnanimous high ground as if it were a gift, hers to extend. The coda, the extended fulsome branch, not olive so much as pagan wicker. She smiled and I fell in love, betraying my heart, I fought her out of my head, ashamed.

'I have a business proposition that should meet all needs, yours, Thalia's and her father. I cannot though speak for your father, that is between you and him.'

She took a small card from her purse and slid it across the white tablecloth.

'Luxor Imaginings... ' it read, 'your own business....'

'...is failing, profits down, defeated by Silicon Valley. We took our eyes off the ball and the race is over. It has no place in the Pantheon portfolio, but it has a place in my heart.'

I smiled. She leaned forward, not provocatively, no hand on mine, no beguiling eye contact, just sincerity and understanding.

'I know, does she even have a heart? I hear what they say and yes by and large I deserve it, but listen to me. I spoke to Donald and he agrees that I can give this business to you. For you to manage how you see fit. You may take comfort in the knowledge that no dirty money, as you would have it, has been used to prop it up. If it had, it would be more successful. We are about to shed it.'

'..and Thalia...'

'That's down to you...but in matters of the heart I have learned that the biggest step is the first.... by you in her direction?'

She smiled and pressed on.

'Luxor will remain a part of the Pantheon block, but will be run solely by you with no Pantheon investment. Just your own clean money. You may or may not want to join the main board. It's open. You would technically work for Zander, but in truth you would be on your own. If you like you can shut it down and make off with the profits, but you'd only be back where you are now.'

'And what exactly do Luxor Imaginings do....'

'Whatever you want them to.'

Like Anais, it was elegant.

'Let me sleep on it...'

_______________________________________________________________

Out of time and punching beyond its weight, leaning on long past glories, Oxford is both backwater and cultural pretender. Its heyday long gone, assigned to a semi mythical past that ended sometime between the war to end all wars and the next one. Through the ages the city and its university have played host to progenitors of all the great disciplines, music, art, science, politics and literature. Formative ideas grown, allowed to bloom and ferment in the hermetically sealed world of academia before issuing forth like politicians promises to lace the world for better or worse.

A day or so after the lunch with Anais I knew I was at the proverbial crossroads waiting for a Robert Johnson style intervention from the devil. I decided to search for answers and left home and walked along Walton Street, turning left and then left again until I pitched up at the door of my own personal church. At the crack in the barely open door the hollow eyes in the emaciated head of Jack the Weasel widened like the door. Like a vampire I waited to be invited across the threshold.

Jack the Weasel, a friend of a friend of a friend would set me up for the journey like no other, with his wise council, a bed for the night, a Jag and a packet of Nantucket Sunrise. The spectral half man owned a basement 'where the ragged people go.' In times of self doubt, self criticism and unwanted thoughts of the shadow self, Jack would provide a bed, tea and the means to escape, for as long as you need it, we'll talk about money later.

Secreted within the folds of the day I climbed into the Jag, turned the key and was off on a US road trip.

The man in the white suit, in the passenger seat of the open top red E-type, taking Route 98 out of New York City, following the coast road to New Rochelle. The white Panama steadfastly in place, the white fulsome hair flowing down to the spectacular walrus moustache and dark defiant eyes. Large firm hands leaning on the walking cane propped up to chin level. A man of distinction sitting for his portrait, studiously feigning indifference. A man used to being read.

Setting my eyes to the road I knew that my attempts at small talk would be as a peashooter to a tank. In silence we careered through the morning heat, pushing hard for the border, outlaws on the run. Eyes in the mirror I saw nothing obvious so I slowed down, enough to allow some kind of conversation.

'It's not the way I remember it,' he said, the rich voice marinated in southern liquor.

'It's the best I can do,' I said.

The older man looked over and nodded toward the red droplets on the backs of my hands.

'Paint....?'

'...or blood...who knows.'

'You're an artist?'

'I was a painter sir....'

'Was...'

'Pigment can never say enough.'

'...so you want to write?'

'...perhaps...or at least possess the writer's insight. So yes I think I would prefer to write..., like you.'

I kept his eyes on the road, why would I not.

'...the way that I write or as opposed to something else?''...

'...both...I don't know...'

'To write you must have something to say. Have something on your mind that simply won't wait.'

I looked up at the first murmurings of thunder rolling around the low Connecticut sky. My companion did not flinch.

'Do you have something to say?'

'I have more than I can express sir...more than my ability will allow me to put to paper...'

'...or paint?'

I nodded.

'You want advice?'

'...your wisdom...'

'...I'm not your man,' said Clemens.

'...its why I brought you here...'

'...you brought an idea of me. A man who fits your idea of a wise old man with more to say than to do.'

'...you have a doctorate from Oxford.'

'...Honorary Doctorate. You may not address me as doctor.'

'...why would Oxford do that?'

'...I talk too much and possess some wacked out talent for telling stories.'

Would Samuel Clemens really say wacked out?

'I have made choices that are questionable and options have been put my way that are no less than a tangle of conflicting ideals from which I can see no happy outcome. Sir I need good council.'

'Would these choices involve a woman? Does one road mean salvation but the loss of love while the other a life of bliss but at a cost, one that you may not bear? Would I be approximating the truth here...hmmm??'

'You would sir....'

'And further to these facts or choices as you put them; you are employed in the struggle between personal ethics, the moral highroad if you like and love. In essence are you prepared to sacrifice love, your woman on the altar of your own moral standards. Would I be zeroing in on the nub of the situation as you see it...Hmmm?'

'That you would sir....succinctly addressed...'

'And in your estimation it is wisdom that will guide you through the gloom, the obstacle littered path.'

'Yes and no sir....'

'Schrodinger's certainty?'

The parody of a principle beyond the lifetime of Clemens...oh well...

'...it has been put to me, that to accept the beatification of Company Director, with a portfolio of my own choosing would be the wise choice. There is nothing in the debit column if I was in any doubt about moral rectitude or compromising the Rhodes family name. Financial and social security would be the natural consequences. Mister Parish said he understood my reticence to embrace the power game, ...it's not for everyone...as a soldier I understood force as a means to an end, the last resort, a necessary evil, medicinal. Just be there, beside your father-in-law, knowing that your every decision will be for the welfare of the family and any offspring you may furnish the family with...'

'He said furnish?'

'He did sir...'

'Hmmmm.'

'My, our, future lies at the Board Room Table beside Daddy. Life with my wife has become a contaminated prospect, a zero-sum game, my soul for love.'

'Business is a subject that I am ill equipped to advise on son. My own business enterprises were spectacular failures, financially at least. The second half of my life has been spent paying off the debts accrued in the first half, publishing, inventions, speculation and other get rich quick schemes that brought me nothing but financial ruin. If it hadn't been for my verbosity and my writing which gave me enormous pleasure and wealth, I'd have ended up in the workhouse.'

The late morning sunshine was at odds with the prospect of a thunderstorm. Clouds were scooting in, driven by winds from all directions released with full force from the caverns of Aeolia.

'I do not want to re-examine my motives. That is a given....'

'I think that is all you want to talk about...nothing is a given as you put it. If it were then we would not be talking. What is very much NOT a given is your clarity of mind. To become a part of your father-in-law's business is to tarnish yourself, to become as he is. But why would that be such a terrible thing...to be on the inside, all of your needs taken care of, and with the woman you have chosen by your side?'

'I would not be the man I wanted to be...'

'You are talking about being your own man...well who in tarnation is ever their own man......?'

'You are....no one tells you how to think, who to compromise, to infect, to disrupt, to buy and sell, to subjugate and manipulate. You said so yourself, you make mistakes sure, who doesn't, but I'm talking about losing free will, running with the pack, thinking their thoughts, drinking their wine and laughing at their jokes. That is not the measure of a man.'

Clemens seemed to enjoy the reverie of the wind in his hair, the hat remained resolutely in position. Cruising past New Haven we turned north east onto Route 91 to Hartford and Clemens eyes lit up.

'It ain't changed so much after all.'

'You're not as I imagined.'

'I'm exactly how you imagined.'

'You have as I see it led a happy, full life. I would imagine there are few regrets.'

'...son I was blessed with travelling companions I wouldn't swap for the world, Olivia and so many other generous souls. Happiness is not the same as pleasure, as I'm sure a man of your sensitivity has learnt.'

Silence as we neared his home town. Not long now. I needed to bring things to a close, to tease out some resolution. Clemens was on message.

'I prefer to believe wisdom is knowing that happiness lies in the appreciation of what you have, not what you have not.'

'That doesn't help...

'I never said it would, but you already know this.'

'Do you believe good men can do bad things and vice versa?'

'I do, we all do. But evil trumps them both every time.'

'It's a matter of degree then, if we all share this capacity for good and bad.'

'I guess so.'

'And bad men can be happy.....'

'Maybe, sometimes....but a man like you, I don't think so...'

'...and evil men?'

'....less so, more a warped form of pleasure than happiness...but how would I know, I'm not evil. Naughty, ill mannered, conceited, riddled with faults, intolerant perhaps but not that bad. I'm pretty sure of that. It's to do with motive.'

The thunder rolled around like the low rumble of elephants and I pushed on to Hartford, where he planned to spend the night. I dropped my companion off at the end of Farmington Avenue and made my way to the parking lot of a small motel.

Refreshed over night I buckled up for the second leg of my road trip into power, wisdom and love, this time to Denver in the company of a rugged looking passenger, gaunt, chain smoking, preoccupied with far away eyes as if the next thing about to happen would change the world. I knew nothing about the capital of Colorado, in fact that was all I knew.

'It isn't though,' said my passenger.

'I'm pretty sure it is.'

Sal shrugged, the subject closed.

We were silent as we sped out of the city precincts across the New Jersey Turnpike and onto Route 280. Unlike silences with Clemens, pregnant with positivity, with Sal they were a force that pushed back. With little hope of anything resembling conversation I decided to come right out with it.

'They say you found God, out here, in America......' I left it there, provocative and open.

Sal dragged on the roll up and feigned indifference. The brown sports jacket, open necked shirt and cords and fingers yellow with nicotine. But the question worked its way in until a response seemed involuntary like a cough.

'...they say a lot of things that don't make sense. Second hand answers to second hand questions. But yeah...I guess I was after something more than every day survival, grubbing around in someone else's dirt...there had to be more somewhere and I guess I came back with a kind of hope. More that a man like me could realistically expect to find.'

'And you called it God?'

'...it's the nearest I could get to calling it anything. Hope and a sense of compassion in folks with nothing else to give, men and women looking past the shackles so many of us put round ourselves for fear we might get noticed, as if freedom were a dirty word. It was there all the time in the hearts of people on the fringes, prepared to free their minds with whatever came to hand, wisdom, hallucinogenics, booze, sex, travel.'

'Is there a difference between freedom and numbing the pain?'

He glanced over...good question.

'Maybe that's all God is, the great analgesic....'

I steered through a high wind that was building and thunder was in the air once more, I could feel it on its way, silent growling, judgmental with primal wisdom.

'So the message is that to follow the herd, to set limits on your minds potential to express itself is to deprive the soul of its true volition...'

'Pretty much...but I don't dig the idea of a message...more a state of mind, mine. You want to read it and follow me well that's down to you.... but who's to say you're not just following another herd into another box canyon....'

'...but he is there...Sal?'

'...listen kid, I don't mean to rain on your parade and to come over all prickly like some redneck stewing in his own self righteous juices, but there are two things you gotta know. One, you don't find god, he finds you and second, I ain't Sal.'

We were out in the sticks. The 287 now the 80, the Christopher Columbus Highway an anachronistically located honour, through Allamuchy and much later skirting the southern shores of Lake Erie. Sal's eyes were shut but he was not asleep. Detached from the here and now, reluctant to engage in anything as remotely self indulgent as self analysis despite his entire oeuvre being nothing but. His individuality, as he saw it, or as I saw it for him was based upon a deconstructed logic, riding the zeitgeist of a dozen propositions from like minded souls intent upon distancing themselves from the new consumerism and the objectification of the material. And in so doing hadn't they unearthed something divine, something stripped of all artifice, something they may legitimately identify with God.

I tried my luck again. If the sky is too dark and the light too dim, catch the star in your peripheral vision.

'What do you mean by Beat?'

He turned away and so from an oblique angle...

'You left the marines but why did you join in the first place?'

'...the marines left me and you got me there kid...that was me living up to my idea of what a good son of America should do. I'm a patriot, and love what America stands for, more than what it is. There was a war and I thought I better do something, not because I thought the other guy should die...never that, but so I could show my face later. Big men like John Wayne never did live it down...preach one thing, do another..I didn't wanna be no hypocrite. But I was unsuitable. All that regimentation...you'd think I'd known that before I joined.'

He may have smiled, a serious unindulgent smile, the merest flicker, then spoke to me direct, for the first time; spoke rather than responded.

'So what's plaguing you kid, women?....They ain't worth it...no that ain't right, of course they are worth it, but it ain't worth getting stressed over. Things have a habit of finding a natural level, don't force it.'

I told him about Thalia, Zander and his discordant brother. I mentioned the deal on the table, waiting for my signature. It came in a rush but Sal seemed invested.

'I say take it...nothing turns out the way you expect, but you can't spend your whole life not doing things. Holding back in case you get hurt. We are born in pain and you gotta find your way through it. Look for diamonds in the rough. No one knows what's down the road my friend. There ain't no plan the way they tell you, even if you're a God fearing man, its down to you to make the best of whatever He sends your way. He ain't no boss man driving you into a life you don't want and He sure doesn't plan on keeping you apart from the things you love. One thing the road taught me was its only people get you down, and the worst of them is yourself.'

He was a straight talker with strong Bronx to add a twist of gangster to whatever else he got mixed up in when he was young. He went quiet as if he'd said too much. He did not seem comfortable with conversation, his mind restless, unwilling or unable to make real contact, an itch to keep moving, experimenting, taking his body and wits to the edge.

It seemed unlikely I would have this man's companionship all the way to Denver so I pressed him, panning for nuggets in a stream that flowed in more than one direction at any given time. The patriot, renegade, non conformist peacenik, with a shady past and nebulous future, herald to a new kind of man, itinerant feasting off other men's tables, reluctant cult figure uncomprehending of the establishment, but protected by it's rules all the same. The irony either lost or ignored it was affirmation of the misanthrope's dilemma. Like most things there is rarely a clear cut answer. Like pilgrims we travel a road between principles and versions of certainty where understandings are less answers, more punctuation.

I turned to his art.

'...is it your philosophy that too much planning can blunt the artist's edge, the writer in particular?'

Surly non committal for several miles as they raced away from Pennsylvania, passing through Ohio chasing the sun toward Indiana.

'...it takes a lot of planning to come across as spontaneous and authentic. I guess it's like the movies, Fred and Ginger...free and easy...but weeks of blood and guts till their feet bled and tempers frayed. But if you dance from the heart without over thinking what they might think then you're half way there. And don't get self-indulgent, unless you can command the will of your readers, a fickle breed at best you should not confuse with friendship. I love Dylan Thomas, but sometimes.... One man's disciple is another man's stalker, a lost soul clinging to you for lack of anything else.'

Here at last was the man who used desire for freedom as a catharsis. The Beat Generation were largely men, who chose to follow unstructured lives but for whom anarchy was never a solution, just a reaction.

North now, skirting the shoreline we came to the fringes of Motor City. Sal had announced he wanted to take the rest of the trip by bus, no offence he might have said so we found the bus station and he got out. The Jag idled, he seemed reluctant to go. He leaned on the bonnet and lit up. It was evening now and images in the dark seemed to distract him. There was generosity when he spoke into the heavy city air.

'The truth......just keeps changing, moving...you can never grab hold of it. Just watch it go by and remember as much as you can. It won't be back and it's not even yours.'

'..like a river?'

'.. sunlight on the surface.'

'So what does Beat mean?'

'Sympathy.'

The 2500 mile last leg, alone to San Francisco brought a kind of solace, through distance or perspective or through Sal's reluctant council, I couldn't say for certain. What did lift my spirits was the experience of Sal's maudlin soul being able to grasp at something greater, reaching for some kind of salvation. It seems that the very act of following one's heart had its own kind of reward.

I picked up Mister Steinway and his pet poodle on the side of Highway 101 in Salinas Valley. The broad shouldered, plaid shirt alpha male who hopped in and put the poodle onto the back seat was everything Sal was not and even though I felt the point of the journey was materially over, I found the company enthralling and regretted nothing.

We chatted amiably about the road, America, real and sanctified and the threat to individuality in a nation that was beginning to value collectivism over independence. Mister Steinway had become despairing at the erosion of the spirit and the weakening of character, the fabrication of certainty. Impressionistic values like sparks from a bonfire.

'The trick as I see it is to acknowledge that all we can be sure of are our frailties and our ignorance.'

Then he laughed a great belly laugh and Charlie wagged his tail.

'I love Socrates as much as the next man...' I cut in unapologetic.

'Platonic forms being the immutable essence,' said Mister Steinway.

'Perfection being the God in all of us,' I was riffing now.

'I'd prefer a drink...' said Mister Steinway, and they pulled over to eat and drink at a small diner in Medicine Bow, north of Route 90, a god forsaken dirt road community of shacks, and if I had learned anything from watching Criminal Minds, the likely hideout to any number of serial killers.

Why Mister Steinway? His fusion of American maleness and all points between the strength of the human spirit and swaggering machismo. His articulation of the consequences of power and his erudition on its gross manipulation, that's why. The Depression, the Dustbowl and Civil War Spanish, ambulance driver Italian front, wholesale slaughter Omaha beach. First hand witness to the futility of glory and the talent to articulate its bloody essence.

The works of Mister Steinway made quite an impact upon this impressionable young man and they were doing so again. Much later in our kitchen garden I told my wife; Steinway turned his firm jaw and Clark Gable moustache to the wind and I saw the profile of America.

We talked about power and its acquisition, and its disease and its corrosion of the spirit.

'You spit the word power out like it was a piece of meat you can't swallow,' said Mister Steinway, 'of course power implies dominance and the diminution of others. But most people, these people, gesturing the men and women on the sidewalks, all they want is to make it to the end of the day. Power is not innate, it's an affectation that Cervantes saw as pomposity in the hands of fools infecting themselves, blood sucking some kind of proxy worth into their veins. Harnessing fear, subjugation, beneficence, feudal repression, broken spirits presented as aspiration to the rest of us.'

'You really believe that?'

'Not in so many words and not entirely. Power is also familial love, the power to heal, carrying your brothers and sisters, fighting repression, squaring up to the bully, habeas corpus, lawful expression of faith in the human spirit, the frailty of man and his reluctance to stand still. The human ant colony is too dynamic to draw an absolute conclusion. Power good or power bad?

'...for its own sake...'

'...bad,' he grinned.

By now I had turned the Jag around heading back East. Rising suns all the way. Lying in the back, enjoying the wind in his face Charley made a convivial companion too, a symbol of trust and yes...faith. Clear open skies left me refreshed, enjoying the buoyant liberating zest for life of my companion. He was not the personification of power, for that I would have chosen FDR, Churchill or Mao. Mister Steinway was a simple man in his insights and unapologetic in his tastes. Blood sports for instance reared their head and I admitted my abhorrence, but also saw that I was guilty of adopting an overly anthropomorphic position when it came to my fellow beasts. Never-the-less cruelty as sport never sat easy with me and never could. And worse, the paper thin justification by men...usually but not exclusively men, who couldn't see their self denial as evidence of an insatiable blood lust, where civilised men exercise the choice not to devolve.

Mister Steinway pressed on.

'But there is discrepancy isn't there between your.... fabricated existence and a man on the edge of the wilderness, far from the indoctrinations of a stifling social cluster. There is truth in the untainted mind invested only in the elements and one's own passions, don't you think. Dawn to dusk, breakfast to supper, birth and death, the only co-ordinates on the map.'

'Perhaps the noise and the voices off stage are there to deaden the pain as we crash through the gears and the hours, trying not to make fools of ourselves, trying not to bump into the furniture. Our principles have become conditioned to new normalities as the distance between us and the earth widens leaving us to experience it all through second hand senses, luke warm shadows of the real thing, like processed food and musak. Platonic shadows on the cave wall. The land beneath our feet is falling away until we confuse the shapes in the clouds for reality....which I suppose they may be.'

A neat rapprochement would not come as I began to experience an imperceptible shift toward a more visceral way of thinking. Later as we sped through the wind and the smell of the earth; tilled soil, America's granary I had to ask although the moment had probably gone.

'So power is choice?'

'...the ability to exercise choice, yes...how you go about that is also a choice.'

'So if you were offered power, you are given the opportunity to live a life of your own choosing.'

'...to be offered power, is to be offered nothing. Choice will always be the will of your benefactor...is that the way you see it...do you have this problem..is that why I'm here?'

Serious now, concerned, earnest. We had reached the heart of my companion's disaffection, the will of men subverted through the falsehood of other men's visions, too much reality makes your head spin.

'How can anyone be themselves in the real world...we are all living at the behest of others...are we not?' Mister Steinway seemed certain, '....and so power, true power comes from within, to exercise free will within the machine...society is no more or less than the coexistence of ants or bees trying to work something meaningful. The only power you can respect is that of the Queen, however you define that....otherwise you are on your own.'

Wasn't there some kind of contradiction here? Perhaps the Queen, isn't offering power, just stability. Didn't he say that offered power is the very opposite of real power? The golden path to the golden future to keep the woman and to defy the ramblings of his uncle-in-law weighed against the other side of Themis's scales, the unknown, but his own unknown....a known unknown perhaps. Either way I had learned enough not to trust Greeks or American oligarchs bearing gifts.

Mister Steinway chatted about his dreams for his beloved country and the faith he had in the young folk and their eye on the future America, the one he last saw in the rear view mirror.

'The land of the free must exercise the power to extend that freedom as a right and as defined by the young, not the old or the appropriated proselytising of the Founding Fathers, just men in a room at the beginning of an idea that must be given air to breath. America is a living thing that should be allowed to grow.'

Later, I told Thalia that I could have recrossed the country all the way back to New York in the company of this optimistic spirited collector of life's gems. But beneath the hubris of the open road, eye to the horizon philosophy there seemed to be two sides to Mister Steinway and I wondered how good they were for each other. The questioner and the acceptor wrestling with hidden despair at the futility of being, the emasculation by technology, pacification of the free spirit, frontiersmen no longer, the American Dream reduced to a Disneyfied white picket fence fable invented by a nationalised narrative.

Steinway and Charley bailed out in Chicago. He wished me luck and said he'd hitch his way to Idaho, he needed the rest.

__________________________________________________________

Clouds scudded in as others were clearing. Wasn't that always the way? Thalia, Thalia, Thalia...what do I make of you girl.... I understood her father more. A man without humility and so little regard for humanity. But the daughter, funny, intelligent, perceptive, she had been the first woman to get me...to see beyond the art lover and the stiff starched, by the rule book, straight as a die captain, a chip off the family block. The man with two sides, each defined by a morality so firm and untainted she confessed to being dazzled. It was so out of step with the Zander philosophy of dominance and power over all other life forms, in a world where everything, life, business, games, hobbies, real estate, were just arenas in which to beat the other guy, to put him down. To take the hill and defend it. So why had my stance so shocked her? What had she expected me to do? Did she think my sense of ethics was some kind of indulgence, a passing piece of frippery. I was being entirely consistent, true to myself, knowing no other way.

I wondered at the hold Donald had over her. Had it been all her doing, this return to the fold until I did Daddy's bidding. What provoked it? The conditional status of her hand was never assumed. I thought about turning the car around and heading for Hartford, asking Clemens how to master an uneven love affair where one party was the father. But his council would be to persevere my boy.

I returned the Jag and thanked Jack the Weasel for his help, and the half Chinese, half Choctaw, said he hoped to see me again, anytime when I wanted to leave everything behind. Money changed hands and I said I would but hoped such times were behind me and that my future was more set.

Power, desire and wisdom. My head wanted wisdom. It would seem the wise choice to embrace this golden opportunity, up in the eerie, observing what others will never see, imbibing knowledge in solid draughts, self generating further wisdom and luminous insights. It would seem wise to take the road that leads to wisdom. But wisdom was earned and learned was it not. This was knowledge and information. And Parish was wrong. Wasn't wisdom also the acceptance of what you have and not what you haven't? The wise decision then was to stay put and let Thalia go. But I could not. If I took the reins of Luxor Imaginings it would not be for some cockeyed, self contradictory notion of wisdom. It would be for gain, avarice even.

Another lunch with Anais, half girl next door, half vamp, the slip showing at last, power for powers sake. I thought of Mister Steinway and the power over other men that would come but even now, watching Anais drink her sparkling mineral water I thought of Hermione and her self righteous expectation that I would do the right thing by her daughter and the world would be at my feet. Save one thing...I would be at Zander's feet.

My attempt to free myself utterly from Zander's inexorable talons failed as I knew it would. The intoxicating allure of desire, to follow one's heart speared me to the sheet of paper until the ink flowed and the day was won and lost. The heart would be my guide on the open road, an elixir to salve my tarnished self worth leaving self-loathing to trail along behind like a pack of ravening jackals.

Just like that I was the CEO of Luxor Imaginings.

Her hand extended to mine, placatory, warm, the ink still wet and my wine untouched. She took the contract and folded it into her clutch bag.

'Congratulations Peter, to follow your desires, a wise move, a powerful statement. Thalia will be relieved and I am delighted. You should be too.'

It was the right decision, to jump start my marriage, to be with the only woman I had ever really wanted. A technical sacrifice, a gambit, was all it took for me to pursue my heart's desire. And yet my heart had not stopped sinking, the molecular weight of a dwarf star now, a black piece of shrapnel imbedded in my chest, reverberating to the voice of my raving uncle-in-law. His tales of doom somehow made sense. My hearts desire had come at a price. Zander alone on a distant hill, dark against the setting sun, implacable, unmoved; the Watcher.

In the apartment overlooking the wannabe poets and artists of Jericho, I waited, my stomach in knots. She had called to say she was on her way. I was sinking into a bottle of cheap whisky when the key was in the lock and she was there. She looked at me. She was as beautiful and spirited as I remembered. More so. Was the smile warm...I guessed so? No matter she was back, and I heard my heart beat once more and felt the stars realign.

We said nothing. But in that moment, as she took off her coat and just before she said, How are you, I knew for certain I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

# CASSIE II

I am alone staring into the mirror like some fairytale queen. I see so much more than my own reflection. Come the dawn my dreams become waking visions. It doesn't stop. It has been my gift and curse for sixty years, harbinger and angel, wife and exile on the arm of Gods own brother, Percy, dear Percy.

I was Little orphan Annie in the backwoods running with wolves and bears hearing the hoodoos chased down by the creaking of trees and the eerie murmuring of the swamp. And when the voices fade, caught in the throat of the wind it was always my curse to make my anticipations and to be ignored by the smirking and furrowed brows of the townsfolk and my loved ones. And now the Child's incoherent ramblings have weathered and aged in the mouth of the old bat bringing her tales of doom into town.

How about details, they say, when and where they stress, but they are a disorderly quarrel of impressions. Flashes of light, outtakes from a film, Rorschach tests, and a loop of déjà vu playing in the background infusing the whole with a sense of memory and inevitability all at once. Impossible to adequately light the words with meaning to give them weight and gravitas. Derealisation, imagery and a morbid sense of anticipation.

The future essence of Peter Rhodes lay thick and encrusted beneath my fingernails, like dried blood, my fingers grazed and torn, hammering on a brick wall trying to reach him. The voice screams the name of a man I have never even met. Smoke and ash on my tongue, retching and calling his name, tears for the boy but not so much the girl. Never the girl.

Now the woman in the mirror spoke out loud.

'I know you would have gone yourself to plead for the young man's soul but the world is deaf to you. Even the boy, already blurring at the edges, sliding into the spectral would find nothing persuasive in your warning, the jackal's laughter too potent to ignore. The die is already cast. All you know for certain is that if Peter signs away his future the butterfly will flutter its wings and the forests will catch light. The picture is misty, a tangle ..... Percy said he would try. The way Percy told it, did no good. I never thought it would. It is all now down to Peter alas, though you can already see his road and the direction he will take, if not at first, it will be eventual and tangential. There is no point in saying anymore. Not yet.'

The face in the mirror cannot respond. It never does. So I wait here in my room, alone, waiting...always waiting.

# THE PRIZE

The journey from rapprochement to happily married couple was work in progress, doors once cautiously held ajar were now thresholds to be crossed. But all the time the silk thread kept us attached to her father, both trip wire and marital lifeline, the sun glinting off its slender promise, caught in my peripheral vision. I understood she was her Daddy's girl but I had my pride.

'Daddy said this was one of the things he likes about you,' she said without looking up.

I didn't grasp her point.

'Your pride...so unlike the usual young men he meets...too eager to book a seat on the gravy train...but you....he admitted he had misread you.'

The rhetoric flowed easy between suppressed half truths to undeclared disappointment. But half truths no less than whole truths carry little sway when truths compete. For truth to be epistemologically incontestable there must be an a priori foundation....snow is white....true...well only if snow really is white.

Thalia spoke of ambition and familial unity and I of the soul's salvation as if the two were mutually exclusive. It was becoming obvious that we were moving further apart the more we presented our positions. And yet there was harmony in the realisation, an acceptance of how things really were.

I knew that our happiness depended upon our ability to at least understand why we did what we did. But my shadow-self could feel a cold wind coming down from the highlands where too much lay beyond my control.

So first things first, establish the base line

As a legal graduate, Thalia was working for St Giles Legal, a law firm in the High and a cycle ride from our new home. I declared my ambition to paint alongside the new business but my heart could not shake a sense of her being some sort of prize. And Thalia, continued as if the unpleasantness had never happened. As if wounds were healed and the scars disappeared. She said I brooded which was true. She said I had not let go...also true. Melancholia, the shadow-self does not just take a vacation.

And Oxford is like no other city. There is a schizophrenic quality, as if the patient were not fully conversant with the real world. It does not have the self confident swagger of more muscular cities and it is slow on the uptake like a bright kid with dyslexia and maybe a touch autistic. A transient population plays a factor too in destabilising any sense of permanence. Students out, tourists in, so the annual cycle goes. Oxford exists in some Georgian time warp.

There is a claustrophobic quality to the restricted streets unable to widen as the traffic increases. The university buildings built around a thousand year old town grid crowd in and loom over the life blood pumping through the narrow alleyways. The effect is of an intense mind restricted by an inadequate body. Hawking was at Cambridge but Oxford could just as easily represent the soul of such a man.

Arterial roads breach the old city turnpikes and bring you face to face with industrial Oxford, the evil twin who will not leave. Here is the other Oxford with its own anti establishment culture of hard labour, immigrant workers and all the grubby trappings of the working man. The tension has been there between town and gown ever since the sun first set on the ancient burgh town walls.

The shadows of the city were our attendants, watchers, spies and whisperers. Standing on corners and hurrying through the alleyways disappearing the moment we turned. When they came into our townhouse we agreed it was time to step away, to pack up our things and fly away to the rarified air of the Catskills in New York State. Of course it was to a cabin owned by Daddy but no matter, that was something I was having to get used to. We would follow in the footsteps of Thomas Cole and his quest for the wilderness paradise of pre-imperial America. A few miles out of Newburgh with breathtaking views over the Hudson we would weather the uncertain climate within and without.

She still dazzled me, sitting on the veranda, lost in a book, one of mine by Murakami, as I painted, the easel set against the horizon, the space between the sky and the earth filling with colours impossible to truly capture in paint, but an approximation would have to do. It always did. Long treks, just the two of us backpacking along the trails, sharing more with so much less. Thalia said she wanted me alone before I stepped through the door of Luxor Imaginings. She wanted me, us, to enjoy the bounty of God's rich earth, a sentiment that seemed forced. I took her hand as she made her sally to bridge the divide. I asked her how she was.

'Not that much to say...' she said as we marched with some energy along one of the many trails. She was reluctant to let me in further than was necessary I guess. Had it always been thus? Small talk was such a bad idea. Elephants in corners of rooms need feeding and this one was bellowing. She had come back it was true, as she was at pains to point out, but it was me who had strayed from the yellow brick road. First resigning my commission and then stepping away from unimaginable wealth and power. I had she said, let her down.

I wondered whether the writing had been on the wall right from the start. The rich Yale kid destined for the legal profession, on the first rung of St Giles Legal, a satellite of that traces its governance all the way up to a holdings group called American Law an umbrella conglomerate of some eighty law firms all under the chairmanship of David Parish.

I would never be able to separate the girl from the Zander/Pantheon brand.

'...so you would never have married the artist in me...'

'...I am a Zander, it would never be enough.'

'You sound regretful.' I said challenging.

She looked at me, the two of us plodding amiably through the backwoods, just a couple of kids over from the old country.

'...are you regretful?' I rephrased the point.

'Why dwell on this Peter...Peter...we're here now. That's enough for me, it should be for you.....but yes I was disappointed...I think that's obvious don't you.'

'Me too,' I was glowing with an inner rage now, '...it was never made so clear to me...this condition.'

We were there at last, the crux of it all, the crossroads. She barely concealed a contemptuous dismissal of my bald logic.

'....never will I understand you Peter.'

Thalia was angry but in her heart I imagined she saw me as a child in need of education...to be brought up to speed in a grown up world.

'Look...this crusading thing you have, you have to look at things differently. Without Daddy too much evil would remain uncovered, festering, anger without release. To bring tensions to a head when diplomacy has failed....understand me Peter...this is a man who would sacrifice so much for so many.'

I would have responded. Who was the naive one here?...she wasn't stupid, neither was I...so why couldn't she see...the rampant exploitation of latent international tensions, bringing war where there was none.

'Daddy is...a righter of wrongs...you can see that can't you? I mean you do understand that some of these head cases needed to be brought out into the sun, to be taken down...'

'...so many are dying,' I said, 'the Afghan War is a terrorists' charter to bring hell to the great western evil, ...and 9/11?'

'...makes the case.. shows you if showing were needed what is out there, that needs eliminating...for all our sakes...for yours too....'

'...you would say that the people get what they deserve...'

'That's a pejorative way to say it but yes, desires, greed, thirst for what isn't theirs...Daddy provides it...no one is forcing them..'

Like many caught in the vector of a liberalised world I am bent to see the other point of view. Dogma being such a dirty word these days. All I could say was...

'I guess we want the same..in the end...'

'But you would deny our power to intervene and to benefit....get our just rewards. It's called capitalism and Daddy's the best.'

It was as though I were talking with Hermione again. It was probably natural for her to defend, justify her family...I would do the same. How could I possibly challenge her? After all who was the real hypocrite here? She stopped and took my face in her hands.

'Listen you hippy,' she laughed, 'don't sweat it so much...'

'You're right...after all what have I done for a living...state sponsored murder...'

'And don't get so maudlin. You're the boss now...you can paint, and you got me...sounds like you won the lottery....'

I smiled back. Her's was infectious. And in the end did it really matter? I was minded to let time take the strain to lay down some new memories, to construct a new hinterland of our own making, not gifted or bequeathed or jaundiced by shadows too long to ignore. To this end I must prepare for something brighter and less restrictive.

And yet there were the ramblings of his uncle-in-law issuing Delphic warnings born out by the horror of war time profiteering or even worse, engineering. Her Uncle, or his wife by the sounds of it, had seen my fate and yet like me were vilified for it. Then as now, the High Table infects all who attend it.

I had married a woman I was only just getting to know. But I had shifted my position too hadn't I? I had laid it all out there in order to win my hearts desire...hadn't I? Did that not give me some credence. And she was back, wasn't she? So why didn't it feel like that? Because the slightest twitch of the silver thread would bring the spider running.

I had experienced first hand the ugly folly of men's rage. IEDs and landmines, gleeful slaughter in the name of barely understood causes. Men I had spent time with maimed and dispatched home like embarrassing holiday souvenirs. Where do we put the broken half men spurned by a society ill equipped to appreciate a life dedicated to their protection. It is said that rat catchers are not men you bring home to dinner.

The latest inter-racial/non-secular conflict unfolded as though the killing fields of Flanders, Iwo Jima and My Lai had never happened. The wars to end all wars...they were still saying it...at the Remembrance Day ceremonies...they keep saying it...so that it will never happen again...with men like Zander around and otherwise generous hearted people like his wife...buying into it...there would always be war and the carrion crows would always justify it for how else would they be able to feed themselves.

How could I ever be heard above the din of the hive's chattering machinery? Are there ears enough to even listen? Hope it seems is no more than a garland in time. Against the proud American sky I added more colour, greater texture and fluidity. Colour covering and obscuring the last colour, hiding mistakes and mis-strokes. The new for the old.

I knew what I must do. The past must burn so that the future may live. So a spark on the bridling forest floor, kindling white languorous flames to take a hold grabbing their way along the ground and through the branches and down into the roots of my dystopia. The fire was now at my heels, laying waste to guilt, regret and the connective tissue of rebel synapses. With the earth so scorched I need never look back again. It would be forward without a backward glance. It was the only way.

And when the dawn came to the cabin, it caught me painting alone on the veranda, above the world, lost in the reproduction of View On The Catskills, Early Autumn.

So why make the deal with Anais? Because it was my hearts desire to make it work with her, and as a captain of men I had learned to deal with what is directly ahead and avoid battles as yet unjoined. Recon the landscape, scope out your enemy, was Zander the enemy? I chewed over the uncanny a priori emergence of Luxor. There was a sense of impotence, almost too much providence in the wind. I was locked into the Event Horizon of a Black hole, unable to break free of the Zander's gravitational pull.

An easier 'win' than I imagined was the decision to abandon the under construction monstrosity in London and get the message to Zander that if he insisted on completing it, convert it to a shelter. Thalia offered no resistance as if it were her desire too. She was giving ground and for that I was grateful, hopeful even. It was never finished and remained half built for the next twenty years when in an act dripping with cosmic significance it was struck by lightning.

______________________________________________________

On our return I set to work on Luxor Imaginings. My lack of business credentials forced me to call upon the financial dexterity of Cheque Book Charlie Logan, a few years older than me and partner-in-waiting in his family's Financing Business. We flew out to the States, to Atlanta, to meet with the out going MD, Old Nat, the magnanimous octogenarian, gracious enough to step aside into the role of Vice President without rancour.

Old Nat gave me and Charlie the tour of the US businesses although as we discovered the vast majority were scattered across the world. They were what could only be described as second rate casinos and betting joints dotted across six states. I realised Imaginings meant gambling. In a lacklustre work force the eyes had it, lack of motivation in faces of bewildering indifference. In every casino it was a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It was a depressing experience watching the hamsters in their wheels, the street chancers and lethargic, blank eyed, punters with low self esteem and even lower bank balances. Watering holes for the lost, the degenerate and the wasted. Losers all.

Over warm beer in a seedy bar propped up by threadbare men in threadbare clothes being stalked by women so loose they rattled, Old Nat gave me and Charlie the low down.

'The first joint was built in Arizona by Navajo money back in the early 50's, somewhere for the tribe to seek sanctuary without harassment, but they fell foul of local gambling regulations and sold out to Cairo Joe, one step ahead of the Egyptian authorities he turned up with a bag of cash and bought himself a casino...then called the Golden Fleece, the Navajo not at home to irony...or maybe they were. Anyway he turned things around, paid off the law and made a mint. Now it was the Luxor, with everything a man with more cash than willpower could wish for. And this is years before the pyramid, casino and theme park of the same name, polluting the night sky on the Strip.'

'Sometime in the sixties the Nevada mob moved in, why wouldn't they, it was successful and Cairo Joe became their man, until he fell foul of some new boys on the block straight out of New York with no respect for the old days. A mob war ensued and Zander had Parish came out to take a look and to pick up the pieces, ..yes..Parish is much older than he looks... so out of the ashes as they say....'

'...like carrion....' I mumbled into my beer.

Old Nat smiled through his great grey beard and turned the brightest of eyes on me.

'Luxor went from strength to strength, hand in glove the US gambling franchise divided more or less without rancour between Nevada, Atlanta, Florida, Chicago and New York. We went overseas, we have fifty or so casinos and betting joints across the globe. Macau to Monaco, Nagasaki to Adelaide.'

'..so what happened?'

'Anais happened...She came ashore in New York like Ursula Andress, sweeping all before her, a European demi goddess, a speculator of extraordinary skill, she had amassed enough wealth to find favour with Zander and took direct control of Luxor as part of Pantheon's global entertainment portfolio. Luxor became a chain and branched into other forms of entertainment, some more or less legal, some definitely not. This was Luxor Imaginings now. There had been good times as the economy grew but about ten years ago the holdings board seemed to focus on bigger fish in bigger ponds in murkier waters at greater depths. Anais was rarely at her desk any more and forays into Silicon Valley generated too little too late. Traversing the super highway became the legacy of new kids on the block took control and so the slide began. Online poker, virtual casinos and front end gambling machines floated no ones boat on the holdings board and lacked the backing of Zander. Eyes were taken off the ball they said...but to my old eyes that was never the full story. It was part of a long term exit strategy none of us could understand...at least that's the way I read things....'

'And here I am....' I said.

I met the old man's eyes....

'...and you are Cairo Joe....'

'I prefer Nat.'

Books littered our home, unfinished, finished and reread. A library of landscapes on the dark side of the moon, theoretical, inaccessible and open to conjecture. I had to know what the greatest minds said about men caught between principle and practical and whether salvation was ever achievable. My shadow self kept asking me what I was actually searching for...who are you trying to be? It was a good question. I decided my fugitive self was after a new kind of god.

I read and devoured the preachings and the explorations of man's entire journey into thought. The mystics, the teachers, the philosophers from Classical Greece walking the agora, through the early church fathers, the Vedas, the Brahmins and the Evangelists and the fundamentalist atheists, the Vienna Circle, the Post Kantian Idealists. And the more I peeled back the more I saw elephants all the way down, a series of Matryoshka Dolls, never quite getting to the heart of things.

I had chosen desire which excluded the gifts of wealth and power and the kind of wisdom I was suspicious of, but I had still struck some sort of Faustian pact meaning I had not yet sidestepped Percy's warnings. The question was, had I crowbarred enough daylight into the god-sent offer to exercise my free expression. If I had then why did I harbour these doubts?

Perhaps there is always a price...and it got me thinking. Can freedom ever be adequately defined let alone achieved? Is freedom of expression a commodity like any other? Or is it a mirage toward which we kid ourselves we are heading but dread ever reaching?

Charlie confirmed Luxor was flat broke. On our return we met with Thalia at the house and made our plans. To draw up a new board of allies and stakeholders. With the input of the wise old man on Skype, we whittled down a rogue's gallery of some twenty existing directors, has-been entrepreneurs and leeches to a hard core gang of four, which with the Rhodes duumvirate made six. Charlie declined a directorship. The big news was that Luxor would become British. Its directors and its HQ would be located here in Oxford.

Phase two was to develop a fresh new brand uncontaminated by the past. I said I was inclined to a more philanthropic approach, less the big bucks, more provider than seller.

'Enough to tick over, to stay afloat.....money can be more valuable than its face value....' I declared pompously, which Thalia declared was...a bit hippy. But facing Charlie and Old Nat she just smiled a smile I wanted to believe.

'There are some tough decisions to be made that won't be good news for a lot of people,' Charlie said, 'you need capital before you do anything else.'

'Closures,' said Old Nat and nodded, 'so be it.'

Within three weeks the new board assembled in our dining room on the ground floor of our home. By now we had reclaimed our position as the Bohemian couple in a house that was three parts William Morris, one part William Blake.

'Welcome to the new world order,' I announced expansively.

That day we agreed many things, beginning with the change of name to Elysium Art....pompous perhaps but it had some substance, and referenced the worlds oldest city suggesting something fundamental. I know, I'm not that keen but what's in a a name in the end...it's what it comes to represent...after all...Beatles? Not that great a name for a pretty decent band.

The original Luxor offices, two floors on Madison, from where old Nat, Anais and the original board had been based had already been sold with much of the profits recompensing an army of underperforming but ousted directors. Reduced now to four persons, we were a New Model Army with the mettle to prosecute a dream.

We were:

Steve (Mac) McKinley of the girl repelling fringe, earnest, dull and short on interpersonal skills, but long on the law, especially property and rights issues. A Londoner making it a hop and a skip to relocate to Oxford. Mac's roll hitherto the mollification of the malcontent, the resolution of property and legal violations. He knew enough to separate sheep from goats, crooks from the merely shady. Largely non committal on a day to day basis he came to life when pointed at a problem that required debit and credit columns. His upper class plum in mouth haughty affectation irritated as much as it impressed. A man with an unknown private life, if he had one at all, and an intense humourless demeanour that was largely impenetrable.

Al (Big Al) Chandler the six foot six, bearded demi god was, despite it all, a people person, a man to follow, an inspirer of endeavour and fortitude. The erstwhile Dutch director of a European Luxor satellite based in Amsterdam had impressed Nat and I. Of all the gambling joints outside of the US, his were the best run, actually turning a profit albeit too little to be considered successful. He was a man to get blood from a stone, and for that we would find him a place at the high table. Affable and stern Big Al wore his heart on his sleeve and was the ying to Mac's yang.

Then the enigmatic, louche Colorado Smith, man of renown, of figure, gait and name, straight out of a John Ford movie, in washed out denim, his shirt always opened too low, untidy long hair swept back above a high forehead, restless, quizzical eyes and cunning aquiline features. A seat in the Senate lost under a cloud of scandal involving a woman and a land deal gone wrong, some said he came out of it as he intended, his role in the Senate a device, its race run. A man with fingers in pies and on pulses, ears to walls and eyes to horizons. The kind of man you felt knew what you were about say and was already disappointed. His cosmopolitan citizenship gave him access to any number of homes not least one he had bought in advance on the Thames - where else - near Lechlade, the head of the river. He was probably American.

And Old Nat made four. The grizzled beard, more white than grey, twinkling grey eyes to match and firm mouth in a face looking no more than late 50's, short, compact, no discernible paunch or jowls, he remained the epitome of vigour. Rich in heyday kudos, it was nevertheless under his leadership the ship ran aground giving me reason to dig a little deeper beyond the legend of Cairo Joe. Names were dropped and palms crossed to get a grip on who this puff of smoke really was and the word came back that Nathaniel Brown's reputation withstood Luxor's fall from grace which was put firmly at the door of his backers and especially that 'bitch'. Such was the integrity of his reputation a consultancy practice on the side still saw him in the boardrooms of nascent businesses, not all in entertainment. Would he need to relocate at his age given the joy of Skype?

'Yes...quite simply,' I said late one night and so Nat Brown moved his family to Broadway, high in the Cotswolds.

Cheque Book Charlie opted for a retainer as an independent watchdog, a direct line into my best man's financial team. Day to day Mac was the CFO. With Thalia's beside me I addressed them.

'I am so pleased that you have allowed yourselves to buy into my dream. I am not a natural business man...that's why I need you...but it must be said that Elysium will not be a normal business. Neither will it be a charity. I like to think of it as a movement. Since the Gulf I have like many vets found life in civvies unfathomable. I struggle to understand what causes so much unhappiness in men and women with nothing to fear. I have watched civilians bombed and soldiers murdered by fanatics but with freedom all but won it seems as though the human mind goes into a spasm self loathing, a repression of its own potential. In other words there is a fear of self expression and that is where we come in. The mission statement of Elysium is...'unlock your self expression...there is nothing to fear anymore.'

'So how do we get our people to express themselves, to understand themselves enough to know how, and who they could be, given half a chance? The truth is that the hive provides protection enough but also a set of prison walls that we must not cross. I will give folks that licence to step over that line...to go free...'

'If we only dance to other men's tunes then what are we but our own avatar! What others think of us has been a constant check on our actions, confirming insecurities and turning us off as people and on as machines.'

'Elysium will become a gallery for the people. An antidote to the Guggenheims, the National Galleries, the Louvres and the Prados and all those other institutionalised, landmark statement Museums. I want something visceral without elitist approval. I want art to be created here, art should be the soul, I want to bring out the man, woman and child who says...I can't paint...I can't, daren't express myself...what if they laugh what if I'm no good...how can you be no good at being you?? I will tell them. Art is you not them!!'

'And music too, a recording studio....build it and they will come. And for those who want to make a go of it, sponsorship, a small profit for us...a toe in the water to keep the machine running. Come out into the light...shine...stop pretending you want to be like them...the dawn has come...wake up and live!'

Thalia rested a hand on his arm and smiled at the others. I rolled out a set of floor plans to what would be the expanded Jericho Art Gallery. We would buy out all other businesses in the same building and turn a block of some three old houses into one. These would be knocked through to provide three floors of exhibition and a basement for recording. The ground floor would be a workshop too. Art would be created and exhibited there.....free!

Income would be a percentage of any sales... just enough to keep our heads above water. But the proposition did not catch fire. We did not win hearts and minds that day but I said their scepticism would serve them well as we made this work. It was a latent proposition of untold limits.

'I'm proud of my husband's dream....we only ask that you come with us and see if we can bring that dream to life?'

Colorado Smith's face said it all with his trademark smirk and dismissive eyes.

'Come with us on this wholeheartedly,' said Thalia fiercely...'you knew the score when Pete asked you here...this is not a get rich quick scheme...you all have licence to do your own things independently...but here your mission is to enrich the city's artistic lifeblood and the cultural health of the nation.'

'This is not some tin pot hippy dippy drug fest....I am on board and I hope you are too. I hope we can create something memorable and actually make a difference. Hence our profits will all be ploughed back aside from salaries. And if you want more then make more somewhere else. You have licence to do so.'

Old Nat put a grandfatherly hand on hers and smiled.

'Forgive us, we are cynical men...' he said, 'give us time to see how this unfolds...I can speak for everyone when I say we admire the stance and the message...but just give us time...'

'Thank you Nat,' she said.

'Now for Elysium to emerge, Luxor has to be dismantled and that is where you all have an immediate role to play.' I said.

Mac and I flew east into Europe where the bulk of the old Luxor casinos were. The state of these were no less decrepit than their US counterparts, worse in fact. Empty husks where the desperate seek company and release from their own degradation. But it was dirty work nonetheless. But on the whole the indifference of men and women with nothing to win or lose was met with a sagging resignation. Just another kick in the teeth for men already left with nowhere else to fall. These were not the high roller brigade with complimentary suites and a girl on every arm...this was not that kind of business. You either had money enough to lose or not enough to lose...neither made any real sense to me...but then I don't gamble...at least I didn't think I did as I entered upon the biggest risk of my life.

Nevertheless avarice resides in the breast of even the desperate, and so Mac and I ran up against the threats and the name calling and the we know where you live rich boys as we methodically closed everything down across every European country west of the Vistula. None were saved. Mac brokered deals on every property to fund eye watering settlements. I said no hoods, Mac said ok, and kept it clean.

At the same time Big Al and Colorado flew further afield stalking the Asian back streets for the detritus the pain of misspent lives. In Macau the big boys were pleased to see us gone, in Bangkok and KL they hardly even knew we were there. The threats still came because that is what men do, but when you have no self esteem there are no reserve tanks of energy to follow through. A few snarled words and sadness from croupiers and tellers but these would find work easy enough. Properties were sold and we began to stem the flow of leaking debit columns. Despite it all I still paid out more than I should have...I was not Zander I was me...and I wasn't in the business of peddling misery.

The threats were less from disenfranchised work forces and punters than from local hoodlums who smelt an opportunity for avenging infringed rights. There is nothing like the moral rights of other people, folk you've never even met to stimulate violence, to wake the slumbering bloodlust that resides in the breast of way too many.

We cut a swathe across the globe as far as Cape Town and Melbourne as well as the West Coast of the US where a few renegade joints had persisted we found ourselves fighting a rear guard action of law suits and counter suits, union aggression and even threats of murder. But the hornets ceased their rattle as befuddled, blank eyed men in pork pie hats and flat caps coalesced in downtown joints to drink their way into greater oblivion. Perhaps a time would come when I would be able to invest in something to insulate people with nowhere to go.

Colorado managed to assuage the bulk of the Asian and US threats. He knew men who knew men and I didn't want to know how he did it, but the hounds soon fell silent. I suspect he knew men with bigger guns and more muscle who owed him...perhaps...who knows except for him. I was however grateful and he just nodded that enigmatic smile and said nothing on the subject.

What we discovered was that despite negligible profits there were still whistles being wet and palms being crossed. And there is nothing like taking ill-gotten gains out of another man's hands to invoke the spectre of righteous indignation. But nowhere are they more vindictive than in the mean streets of Naples where there were at least three casinos to close down. Not something the Neapolitan Camorra were likely to take in their stride. Indeed their interests were not solely confined to local troubles. They had fingers in pies across much of the Northern Med from Marseilles to Nice, to Monte Carlo, through Sicily, Naples of course, Valletta and Cyprus. Rumblings percolated up through the pavements in a Greek chorus of union disquiet, press misinformation and some lacklustre street protests until one name kept coming up, the Camorra kingpin Hector 'the Toad' Di Lauro aka the Untamed. A man of uncertain origin, with no known photos in existence and resident some said of either Italy, England or the US, but who really knew? In fact the more the police and other investigators dug into the shady Toad, the more convinced they became that he may not exist at all. But more of the Toad later.

The deconstruction continued unabated until the dirty work was done and for me at least the $2 billion harvested felt more like contraband than capital. It would have been $1 billion more but what with pay outs and pay offs we had to bite bullets. Colorado's influence did not stretch to the European theatre and so when the Camorra or the Cosa Nostra came calling we paid up. For a good three months we were men with hammers knocking down everything we crossed. The cost in human misery was unbearable and at times, usually in the dead of night I wondered how I had let Anais talk me into this. Why hadn't she? Was I just her bag man? For the first time I detected the sound of whirring cogs in the distance as heavy machinery swivelled into place.

After a few months of this we regrouped at our house and turned in our guns as it were. It was a wretched reunion as we picked over the swathe we had cut across the world and the rich pickings we had left for the carrion crows...us. Was this what freedom feels like?

'But we have the money, and that is after all what we wanted,' said Colorado blithely cutting through any sense of sentiment or guilt.

Now it was time to articulate what we were building in place of so much destruction. My vision was known but when it came to its launch doubts resurfaced. I wanted to change things, not head some multi million dollar franchise. Where is the fulfilment there? If I wanted to make millions I'd have joined Pantheon and made billions. Elysium Art would be my attempt to get the world moving again and I would start with Oxford, the home to an intelligentsia at least by reputation.

We started small. Posters, local web sites, targeted mailings, word of mouth, talks by me at the Ashmolean and at the Jericho Gallery which would become the hub, not my house! BBC Oxford played host to me and Thalia bringing the message of personal expression to the masses. The newspapers too carried interviews of this young upstart, former war hero (their words not mine) turned art guru (their's again).

My message was simple. Bring yourself out into the light. This is your one shot at life, make it count and be the most you can...don't let imagined or otherwise critics stop you...they are the ones in the dark, don't let them pull you into their shadows. Thalia reined me in from the brink of coming across like some latter day evangelist preaching the word...or some mystical guru peddling half baked Buddhist/Hindu claptrap.

I wanted to see a tangible shift toward self expression and away from the fear and self censorship of our ordinary lives. Step up, rise up and be yourself. If you can't then who are you? Come to the newly renamed Elysium Gallery in Jericho and show us...and more importantly yourself what you're made of.

I printed up some 150,000 flyers, one for every home in the city.

So how did the people of Oxford react? We waited for the backlash. The muted mumblings of parents and teachers. Who does he think he is? The papers had their say of course. Acting as though they had their finger on the national pulse which of course they only do in their own hermetically sealed imaginations.

'You can guess can't you? In sleepy England a few wannabes with pretensions of greatness, some bored housewives, a troop of I need to be famous for something and some cranks afraid to be out in the cold of an unheated world. And the FOMO brigade'

Not a bit of it...there was a stampede!

There was no hesitation, no gestation period to acclimatise and wonder whether the ambition was just summer hubris. They came with their masterpieces, their sketches, labours of love, the ancient and the modern, children's drawings, pencil and paint dragons, mom and dad, my garden, the view, our kitchen, me, abstractions and interpretations of how I feel, black black black, streams of consciousness, hello welcome to my hell, I'm not a lover I'm a killer, god bless you all, here's me at my best. It was all there spilled onto the canvas like a dagger to the heart. It was salvation and catharsis. We were blown away by the intensity of it all.

They showed up at the weekends and the evenings before spilling out into the working day and the night. Hours of business became just hours. Children with their parents, teenagers on their own, freaks and their ecstasy infused daubings, the elderly with somewhere to go and something to do...I provided the equipment, yes there were the bored housewives, but bored because they had died internally not because they were unworthy. Business execs measured only by their ability to make large sacks of cash, and a whole mass of inbetweeners who wanted to find out whether they could draw or paint, which of course they could. Anyone can...just dragging a 2B across an empty sheet brings its own rush.

The studios became a second home, a self help group, conversation through canvas, the joy of the brush and the palette and the sketch pad. We provided the tools, the space, the company and the inspiration. We decided that we would fund anyone prepared to go to the next level. Just set up, bring a model, or we can provide, it's all free unless you want funding and then we'll take our share. Some brought their families, some food and drink for the journey, something to smoke, to help the scales fall away. Some joined me up on the top floor where I had set up an on site studio of my own. A few hardy souls made it onto the roof, to Studio Z and painted the cityscape as they saw it. I relocated my home studio to the gallery lock stock and barrel.

One evening my shadow self said let's go out and paint the town...and so I did. Banksie I am not, but I thought a little auto suggestion would be the order of the day. I brought a ladder and a pot of paint...no spray cans for a man like me. And there on the front of the latest defunct record store in Cornmarket I painted in six foot letters....STOP BEING AFRAID. LET GO AND LET'S GO AND PAINT.

Of course the newspapers disapprove of anything new until it has been endorsed by its readers then it is heralded as revolutionary and a breath of fresh air, the media being the equivalent of the dumbest person you ever tried to avoid. But we long for approval and to fit in, to know the same things, to agree the same things, to share opinions....to think the same thoughts...and this is where men like Zander come in.

At the beginning it was just the art, but we soon appreciated the link between the optical and the aural with colour and sound potent messengers of our inner and less inner thoughts. To that end Thalia took it upon herself to set up Leda Records in the basement. It was to start with a secret world known only to the cognoscenti painting upstairs. Come on down and see what you can do....so they did and it was remarkable.

In response to the graffiti and the mood of self expression pop up exhibitions sprang up in vacant shop fronts, campuses, village halls and remedial centres for the disadvantaged...who frankly were way ahead of the curve on this one. We swept out of Jericho and down the lanes through the arteries into Headington, Summertown, Kidlington and out to the villages north and south. To Otmoor, Brill and the Hanboroughs and along the Thames like an infection. Micro garage galleries, money for canvas, money for old and new rope, folks riffing on the joy of self.

The appetite/imperative of so much walled up creativity in the suburbs, the ghettoes and the offices, a valve on a pressure cooker, pent up energy fighting for release. So much internal damage, corrosion and rust. Redemption is a human need. THIS IS WHO I AM...NOT THAT!!! And the song went on and on, the same chorus new verses, let me out, look there I am...there I go...did you know...I'm not sure I did.

The switch of self from third person to first, substrates and vehicles from canvas and paper, through voice, thought and deed to the street corner poets, buskers, vents and writers. The media homaged the 60s counter culture, the explosion of youth oriented disaffection and the post war generation, that morphed from the summer of love into the civil rights disaster, rubbing an intransigent uncomprehending establishment up the wrong way, afraid of the unfamiliar and hell bent on its extinction. Now the children's children of both sides embraced a second wave, less polemic, more internalised as something to aspire to with a nod of parental approval, providing it didn't go too far, which of course it did.

Art took to the streets, graffiti became the voice of freedom and not just the disaffected. Murals on church and classroom walls, put the clergy and the teachers on notice, disturbing the corporate integrity of God Inc, God the great psychopath, God's merchants selling faith like cheap mugs and fridge magnets wrung their hands and rent their robes, sackcloth and ashes. The teachers and the parents wailed and gnashed their teeth for this was a charter for anarchy and freedom of throught was the last thing schools were there to encourage. Institutionalise the little blighters, isn't that the state message? Gothic cathedrals and university walls daubed in twenty foot high expressions of love and the aberration of UK Inc the unconstitutional experiment that endures as a tense compromise. Love what you have, love success, love excess, the joy of keeping your brother safe, the ecstasy of now.

My philosophy was simple. Art doesn't need boundaries, it is not in a box of paints or in 'the eye of the beholder.' Art is already there waiting to be uncovered, discovered and brought out into the light. We are its progenitors, Orpheus to art's Eurydice. Just don't turn around and question it otherwise it may fade and fall back into the night. Art is risk - Coppola, autobiographical - Fellini, a union among men - Tolstoy, so we don't die of truth - Nietzsche, the most intense mode of individualism - Wilde.

I encouraged something more than conformity to the populist definitions of art. I set up the Rhodes Challenge the rules preventing the use of canvas and paint. And the projects arrived, some half built and some assembled there and then in the studio that now needed an entire floor to contain instillation art. The sculptors and the metallurgists and the sewers and the tapestry weavers, and the scale model makers, and the audio visual extravaganzas, vague expansive and pregnant with suggestion and meaning. Provoking the mind and its eye, forcing the meditative to pierce the hard edges and sink down through the layers like a tripper on his way to nirvana. The longer to ponder the further to go, to experience what the artist has presented and your response to the medium itself and its capacity to stir and excite.

Despite the call to arms, I was not a respecter of the Art Galley which to my mind has always been a false vehicle for the presentation of creativity, all arranged in rank and file like a wall of bricks. The gallery is a false environment, a laboratory for the researcher and not the lover. A zoo in which to observe the actions of the inmate, a fish tank, a cage to say there is a man. Not so. Art as an extension of the individual, must step out, keep one step ahead of the posse and stay within the community, to be loved, cherished, hated, vilified as the people see fit. Artists in St Aldates and the High, on Christ Church Meadow, Port Meadow and Godstow Abbey, and along the Hanborough gravel shelf to the Cotswold escarpment.

And with art comes music and the spoken word as the minstrels and the troubadours and the jesters and the jugglers made their way into the light. It was summer and the sun drew the flowers toward the sun. In the south of the city the tribes kicked off with their cultural agendas. Where voices are so often raised in incomprehensible rage, fermenting fury through in-articulation as much as any root cause. Equality, racial and sexual benefited from the embroidery of the creative mind. Treat us the same but recognise our differences. Circles that needed squaring.

Expressive energy sees more than black and white. The shades reach off into the distance, like a host of rainbows, as transient as a forest in permanent transition. The colours and the words said this is what we meant not that swaggering thing we did on street corners unable to make the point without physical expression. Pouring so much into the air and across canvasses brought the soul of the city into the living world like Lazarus.

Art is not the opposite to science any more than religion is. It is there like science, under the skin and noise. Being alive does not need labels. Self expression is not the soft end of the syllabus, trapped in ivory towers above the real world. Art is as transformative and as natural as a tsunami. There's no escaping its primal swagger. Indeed the first unconstrained scribblings of a two year old are as honest and truthful as anything that won the Turner Prize. Aristophanes said....let each man exercise the art he knows.

And as the wave swept all before it through the days like the sea through sandcastles, so the schools and the colleges drew inspiration from the street. The kids made their way to Ledo Records and began their fusion projects. Not just the techno geeks but anyone with something inside that needed saying, where words would never be enough. And soon the audio and the visual passed each other on the stairs until the fusion consumed the senses. Expression was no longer confined to audience expectation, pouring out of the artist's heart as poignant as blood.

Commissions were assigned for municipal projects, installations in Bonn Square, St Giles and the parks. It became my goal to fund as many of these nascent Dalis from our war chest. You want to give your 9 to 5 a rest and put yourself out there then be my guest. But most were just content to come along with their easels and their brushes and charcoals and pencils and spend less time killing time. This wasn't escape it was coming home, returning to the well-spring.

A photograph on the front page of the Oxford Mail gave us the royal seal of approval...a princess (I won't say which one) at her easel wearing a t-shirt with the slogan LET GO AND LET'S GO AND PAINT. That was the national breakthrough and when things started to change, for me the boards, for Thalia and for my shadow self.

I was asked to appear on local TV, Meridian I think and the smiley hostess with the couldn't really care less eyes asked me whether my movement was spreading a form of anarchy. Glibly I said I hoped that freedom of expression could be seen as something other than anarchy, but it was so like the media to hijack the agent for their own pejorative agenda. She tried a get back stare but that would have required her having an opinion so I just smiled and said I hoped she would join us and paint who she was because there seemed to be a great deal of anger there..or was it indifference..who knew? She did and I watched a side of her emerge in my gallery that hated the woman she used to be.

The graffiti began to ride rough shod across the city becoming the tipping point for the establishment who began the inevitable backlash the media can't wait to enflame. The language of disaffected youth was taken up by, of all people, the older generation who were as disenfranchised as any adolescent wannabe. Shop fronts, churches and the municipal palaces where we are logged, filed, interpreted and rubber stamped became the battleground for the right to own our souls. Vandalism! Someone's gotta clean that you know!

But how do you wipe away what was always there?

The church fathers came down from on high, and coming unto me did beseech me to explain my doctrine, for it would seem blasphemous and anarchic to the foot soldiers of the supreme being. I told them there was no conflict with the mantra of self expression and the needs of a supreme being...in this case I argued that the Supreme Being was Man. I'm afraid I met with little appreciation on this point. The enlightened remained unenlightened. The debates became the stuff of legend, colourful and rich for misappropriation. I said I had no time for the concept of worship...it smacked too much of a totalitarian regime where dissent was met with violence. Less devotion more terror.

And I had been trained to shoot people for their stance...no less than Saul himself. This division of faith simply wouldn't do anymore. We have to come down from the pulpit and join the human race...you know the ones who've actually evolved since the mud plains of Sumer and the blood rites of the Ziggurat. Too many have just enough religion to hate but not enough to love.

I became quirky at best, dangerous at worst. Of course the extremist sees elimination and force more appealing than conviction. There were the usual quasi death threats on social media, but I do not subscribe, preferring to speak direct or not at all, social media being electronic graffiti no more serious than something scrawled on a lavatory wall. The invective of Twitter and Facebook and their degenerate cousins all voices are treated equally as if the right to hit keystrokes is a right to be read and that all voices are equal. In an equal world where values were equal and intentions equal then sure, but the twittersphere gives licence to the pig swill who would otherwise have stayed in their wretched little worlds and stewed in their fetid little bedrooms and wasted their lives with wretched one dimensional opinions that would shame the lowest piece of pond life. Not that I'm bitter by the way.

Freedom of expression is the release of one's better nature and has no place for the corrosive and the simple minded who think freedom is anarchy and abuse is a form of free speech. Rights can only be extended to those responsible enough to exercise them. Rights and responsibility can never be separated.

As the year wore on and the city became more colourful I became the media's darling. Come and tell us what you want us to do...can you paint...do you advocate all forms of free expression...how free is free...are their limits ...what if I don't like what you've done...am I free to express my displeasure at your art? And kids were now testing the limits. Peter Rhodes says express yourself so I've drawn this instead of doing my maths...is that wrong? I'm not going into school today...this is not graffiti its art...Peter Rhodes says so...don't oppress me with your fascist demands...I'm a free man.

And so I invented my philosophy as I went along. In schools I'm afraid I became a pariah pushing insubordination onto the curriculum so they said. Preaching that young folk should never be too shy to express themselves, and to not become embroiled in the useless and divisive aspects of competition. Individuality is the greatest gift the human will ever possess. Don't fight it in yourself or others. And the teachers said you cannot deter the young people from competing and I said if they compete that must do so on a quantitive not qualitative basis...I run faster, jump higher...not this painting is better than that one or this story is better written than that one. This play deserves an award and that one doesn't. This does not serve the arts well only that there is good and bad art.

The counter culture made hay by re-running the Prisoner on TV, Easy Rider and Woodstock the Festival at the cinema, Becket at the theatre and Pollock as the post modernists, Hopper and the like muscled their way to the front of the art house crowd. And in South Park and University Park the bands set up for free concerts and the people came and breathed in the open air frisson of peace and love.

I grew taller and an inner glow bathed the world in its albedo. Crumbs dispensed from the high table were devoured and collected as trophies. My friends increased exponentially as I became the man in his moment. I was even asked to sponsor a scholarship at the Uni, prosaically the Rhodes scholarship, but with more street appeal than the other one. The press and the TV drew comparisons with Apple, with Zapple and the Saville Row catastrophe, an apple with its own built in discord. Someone said Macca was jealous.

I painted more too, enjoying the rush of collective energy that consumed the three floored gallery plus the roof and the basement. They came to paint alongside me, in the studio I had made my own on the top floor. I was open for all to watch, advise, and question. I was competent, no more than that, but by the cut of my own thrust I felt a strange pride at my ability, such as it was. The act of projecting one's self gave me so much pleasure. I watched others too. feeding off their joy and mistakes...what are they...happy accidents? Ryuichi Sakamoto said a wrong note is a gift for me?

The Elysium offices were located next to my studio, a board room and a couple of offices for resident directors. The town house was now home only, keeping church and state apart. I spent my days in the company of increasingly idolatry disciples, who as an emerging apostolate took the word on the road and the cult began. To begin with I relished the thrill and philanthropy of the zeitgeist, fanning the flames, and developing a multi armed Ganesh of a business, funding some real talent, a few charlatans and more than one crazy. For a while the thrill was in the thrill, but cash began to haemorrhage, albeit from an almost bottomless money pit, but we were teetering on the edge of the other Apple, a cash dispenser....we had to step up our business practices and sort the sheep from the goats. That was the verdict of Smith and Thalia and the new messiah relented...saw the light even.

'Some of these jokers,' Smith said shaking his intense head as one more left, cheque in hand and an eye to the road and the main chance.

'Money is good for them...it gives them hope....'

'..for some maybe...but for some it's just money...'

I looked across from the easel on which I was trying to capture a setting sun behind a city scape, all in the mind where the shadow self was beginning to laugh, after all I knew what a sunset looked like...should look like... I would be the shifter of suns and creator of light. Smith watched awhile...and left.

I had been knocked down by a tidal wave no one had seen coming. A tsunami no less. It would be fair to say it brought me too much joy, it spilled out from my eyes like lights and my ability to contain its weight was transformative. How had so much been so lost for so long...it was all so simple. And the quiet storm ripped through the neighbourhoods, bringing the creative from their houses and apartments, a quiet revolution the government had no way of quelling. Revolutions must be suppressed, too much self expression can only lead to freedom of thought like children full grown falling beyond the parental grip.

Weeks melded into months and the city became a palette.

I embarked upon a series of paintings I liked to call my Journey Into The Light series. Each more vibrant than the last, less structured and more demanding of the viewer. I rarely felt disposed to discuss what was a personal endeavour for surely it would, like the dream, not withstand the withering glare of analysis or even a cursory description. The very conceit of the opus magnus as apogee will fade come the dawn. A Journey Into The Light was a work in progress reflective and contradictory. Only when I lay down my brush may the viewer stand back and say...there was the man.

The man in the mirror was rarely at home, too consumed by his alter ego, the man with a plan. My shadow self saw him once, high on the roof of the world, his own Sinai, his reflection gracing the aluminium cowlings beside the chimney stack. A tall, monument with scruffy locks over his ears and a mouth curled in a self congratulatory half smile. No wonder he cut such a dash with Thalia. But she wasn't in agreement. She came to me at night and urged me to watch myself as I drew from the well of shallow adoration. Soon the beard and some well needed weight draped in an Arabian kurta, flowing about my heels as I wafted through studios I was perfumed and rude of complexion. I was every inch the new Messiah.

But my shadow self was making waves and it took Thalia and Colorado Smith to come to my aid. I'm not sure I have introduced you to my shadow self ...he's the guy who talks to me, in my head, he says things that I listen to and it would seem like wisdom except everything he says brings me anxiety. A stalker with a promise. Where I go he goes. He's always been there, watching, commenting, judging, criticising, knowing better, pointing out why it will go wrong and the selfishness of my actions. He is my own worst enemy and he's inside me. He is me.

Some serious chat in one of our offices meant a transfer of power from me to them. Effectively I had been handing out commissions like confetti. I was sure Elysium and I were one and the same. I was all of the Muses in one and that would be fine if I was walking the hills of Olympia alone. It was agreed they should pick up the corporate reins while I attended to my responsibilities as the inspirational figure out front. They righted the ship, not that it was adrift but we were precariously close to reefs just under the surface according to Smith.

It is fair to say that we hit financial pay dirt as quality overcame quantity with Elysium offering more measured commissions to a talented slew of artists who were able to offer better returns. But the big money came out of the cellar, Leda Records, overseen by Thalia, settled into a life of production, A&R, scouting and management of burgeoning British talent. The Muses and the artists crossed on the stairs plying their talents at both ends of the creative spectrum. Leda Records were leaning on the open door of the club scene. Ambient, hip hop, R&B, dance floor product flowing out onto the streets like sprung leaks all across the city and along the M40 corridor to the capital. The rappers came too, street poets undeterred by populist credentials, a new kind of new wave eschewing the infantilised let's bring it all down, with let's put it back up, the way it should be. It brought young people less hypnotised by the shock realisation that their parents world was imperfect. This new breed seemed to understand that the world is always imperfect as long as there are people in it. Focus on the positives, the charity in most people's hearts, the social need to provide. Was it Voltaire who said that perfect is the enemy of good.

'Ask yourself what is the human mind even here for. What exactly are minds meant to do? Until we figure that one out we have had to put up with democracy, socialism, communism, dictatorships, plutocracies, autocracies, meritocracies...all wrong as long as the human spirit is alive to choices. ....democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others forms.... as Churchill is quoted as saying, in the meantime ...life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans....Lennon.' Wise words I peddled as if my own. I was Delphi.

Music and art are media of expression. But so are words and performance. Frustration builds when there is a block on any form of expression, which is usually an internal block based upon fear of what the other guy will think. Within 12 months the music scene in Oxford had exploded with talented youths and not so youthful purveyors of garage, grime, dub, rock of all kinds and stripped back folk funded by Leda going under and overground. The Leda label began to stand for something authentic, non corporate and 'street' currying favour with credible luminaries across the industry who made it their business to challenge their own labels, to 'see what you got!'

Smith and Thalia locked down the structured business increasing our stake from 10% to 20% of all earnings. We began to weed out the money grubber sand the clowns. This satisfied the doom mongers who prophesied a fall from grace once the self indulgent bubble burst. The City and the media sat back and applauded and it was only a matter of time before Peter Rhodes, business man, visionary, artist, war hero, life style guru and multi millionaire crossed the Atlantic to appear on Letterman and eventually the cover of Time Magazine. I had become international property.

The political cognoscenti sat up and took notice as the whiff of popular appeal blew through corridors of power and ripened the agenda for the up coming US elections. A gallery of American doyens, lawyers, financiers, celebrities and jokers who said anything on social media just to be on it and a trail of lesser lights jockeyed for position on the starting line. Barometers were tapped, sages consulted and soundings taken to verify which way the wind was blowing, for which Dylan once said, you don't need a weatherman. And I lined up with the rest. The man of the age.

# CASSIE III

Success, the drug. I can feel it coursing through the young man's veins. Not once has he or the people around him questioned where this success has come from. A free art gallery and studio do not make such an intoxicating offer. He will never appreciate or understand the concept of pre-ordination and providential winds fanning the flames. The poor boy will never see that it's not just him and so he won't see it coming. Boy...you are the citadel, the object and the cause of the coming war. And you will fall.

Percy is back at my side and we speak of the boy and his bride as little as we can. Investment in the fate of those who would see you confined to your own disillusions brings only weary indifference. Bless my optimistic husband, a man too humble to hate. He does not have this insatiable need to correct all wrongs. Is that a female thing? Imagine if you knew...absolutely knew what was about to happen and it wasn't good. Vigorous hand washing doesn't cut it.

The hallucinations are coming thicker and faster as if my psyche were in freefall. A sea of faces reflected in the flashing lights of a computer screen show the man in the wheelchair his fingers flying and his eyes flickering along the strings of digits. There is someone at his shoulder, taller, his face hidden, towering over him, his body alert. A sense of jamais vu as I look deeply into the eyes of the operator and the head of his watcher bends in closer and the sense of dislocation is complete. Do I know you? Are you real? The toad? Who said that?

The world has never been older than now and neither have I. But the big picture is never big enough when so much detail is a lie. But I am seeing enough to know that the cogs are grinding. I see Jabba the Hutt, I see an ugly, satchel jawed lascivious creature behind an expanse of mahogany waiting for the call and when it comes he guffaws until his bug eyes weep and his sides ache. A composite no doubt of a man I have never met, my imagination filling in the gaps. Perhaps I am watching the soul and not the body...who knows?

Then he is gone and I watch a tall grey suited silver haired god cross his rooftop suite and pour Peter a glass of something to the strains of Freeloader Freddie. He is making the boy an offer, but the face is hidden now and then we are back in the Hole of the Toad and the Cyber Man in the wheel chair rolls soundlessly over the plush carpet and into the office to flash his genial smile.

'We're in....'

There is more. What a fool I have been seeing so little of the picture. A line of men in the half light each one with his hand on the shoulder of the one in front. Their eyes are hidden but their intent is not. These are men of power. But here he comes, the elevator pings and the doors slide back to let the Man in. Here at last is the one who would bring Armageddon, the one who would clear the earth of its Titans and the Giants and the carriers of the mark of Cain. Here is the Man who would set more in motion than I can see. Clearing vermin away in a holocaust of fire and brimstone raining down upon lowlife amateurs like Di Lauro, who he has tolerated and used for his own ends long enough. But now they and the company they keep, their prey and the law and those in their pockets and the non combatants, legitimising and complicit have reached the end of their usefulness. Only Zander sees the bigger picture and only Zander will plan his very own Armageddon.

# THE GODS GO TO WAR

' _Is he willing to prevent evil but not able, then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing whence then is evil?' David Hume_

Excitement for the wolf and the jackal is catching the scent of the dead and the dying on the wind. But that is at the end of the cycle. Nature's true ravenous, brutal glory is in the heady scent of the living, the succulent, the young and vibrant, ripe for slaughter, feeding the carnal spirit. The primal urge to kill will order the pack to work together, the collective lust for blood, overwhelming the individual claim on his portion. They will chase, hunt, manoeuvre, entrap and run to ground until utterly exhausted the object of their slavering intent will turn to face its fate. This is the law of all jungles, the plains of Africa and the tundras of temperate lands and the deep misty streets of Thames side Oxford.

Pantheon was a restless wind and its perfumed charm was not lost on me. Colorado Smith was a man closer to more half truths than anyone I ever knew. He was always somewhere else when he wasn't with you. His entire life was a mosaic of interlocking images that fitted together into a picture only he could see. And so he would on occasion feed me what he knew and a picture of the Zander beast became a disturbing Greek chorus to my own enterprise. A sequence of chats, insights and outpourings from Smith to me were for what purpose? To educate me, scare me, intimidate me or was he a just a Man who knew things. And how much of what he said was even the truth? Whatever, the picture was consistent and I do not doubt the veracity of its broad truth.

By a pool somewhere in Riyadh, Montague Rivers signed an arms deal on behalf of the King, committing a host of UK arms firms to provide a not too small arsenal of automatic and semi automatic weapons along with several hundred hand held rocket launchers and new fighter planes so new that even the UK military were unaware of their existence. As the Saudi military consultant he had brokered the deal of a generation ensuring the King was able to extend his 'influence' and protect his own borders. There were in his world view no losers. Chief manipulator of other men's motives, the smooth charming likeable weaver of half truths and broker of all that was reasonable agreed it was in everyone's interest that the Saudis remained 'friends' with the UK and the deal had the blessings of Whitehall.

Rivers was the most visible member of the Pantheon board having the personal and political skills to cut the most sensitive deals supported by big business and the City. The key to a Pantheon negotiation is not unlike the rules of Fight Club....there is no Pantheon!! And by the poolside of a palace overlooking the Gulf, Rivers headed an international consortium of arms dealers who had brokered the deal for an eye watering profit. A cross discipline enterprise involving some of Grace de Marais influences securing the chain where ethics and personal squeamishness threatened to get in the way. Questioning voices were muted one way or another. It was a British deal but for the scales to be tipped in the right direction, the US had their foot on the right side of the scales. It was a multi national deal in the end, a deal without borders. Just men beside a pool.

If guns made their way across the Saudi border and along a new silk road north and then east through the Afghan hills to certain parties deep within the Tora Bora caves; and who aimed them at who and whose finger was on the trigger well...what business was that of a man like Rivers. And if those same guns made their nefarious ways back through Europe or on slow boats from China and into the hold of midnight planes on midnight clearings in forests in the state of Montana and onto the streets of New York. And if more of those same guns are toted across the Alps into the Trento Valley and then by truck down the spine of Italy and onto the mean streets of Naples where men like Hector Di Lauro then what price capitalism.

Meanwhile back in Oxford and London men move through the shadows loosening chains and waking dogs best left sleeping, giving easy access to the nefarious wealth of the underclasses. And rumours were rife like received wisdoms and urban myths lost in Gormanghastian labyrinths where Truth in her diaphanous gown and fluttering hair trips her way further and further down flights of worn stairs, disappearing into the deepest gloom until her echoes float up into the royal halls like a siren's song mistaken for allure.

The Huntress ordered her close cortege of flunkies to go forth and liberate and lubricate the wheels of the Dark Net, the black market and the dark black recesses where crystal meth and cocaine and the dragon were kings and the Taliban moved through western cities unabated, in and out of the bedroom doors of the kids until the protestors marched on city hall and the men in the shadows spent their drug money on guns and prepared for the war that was coming. And sickly rivers spread disease more lethal than cholera though the screens and the keyboards and the mice to men and children too numb and soporific to know...or even to care. You could smell it, the rain dripped it and the women looked out for the men who would still be standing tall when the day was done. The dogs of war laced the cities like a spiked cocktail...a date rape drug passed around until the walls all but shimmered with expectation. A quick look, a furtive glance, sensibilities on a knife edge. What reason do you need to take another man's life, if reason is needed at all, after all he's just a man.

But Rivers was the arch political animal versed in the multi faced hyperbole in the corridors of Westminster, the White House, the Kremlin and a dozen other seats of power. An advisor here, a consultant there he possessed the ready means of access to the political levers. To exploit the consequences of war is in itself a prestigious enterprise, one steeped in all the legitimacy and monetary authority of Wall Street or the City. To exploit is to anticipate and be in part progenitor. Opportunity is not always opportunistic; it has to be planned often years in advance along with a whole suite of projects coming on line in sequence like the writers of a TV series ...say the Simpsons. And there is so much more than subcontracting the reconstruction work to the rebuilders of ruined cities, there is the economic, regional fall out the feeding and stoking of the criminal networks just beyond the peripheral vision of the principle architects. The wannabes and the kings in waiting, creeping below the surface ready to sweep away the status quo and so on...until all there really is a sequence of new waves coming to shore without any sense of what it means to govern...only to take power.

There is an incentive to keep conflicts simmering, arms contracts and medical supplies. Saline solution, anti and probiotics don't come free. And don't get drawn into the age old cliché that the Americans are behind the exploitation of war for oil. Power is an international disease, an early example of globalisation.

The seeds of interfaith tensions are not new and so little work is needed to paint the other side as the aggressor. Of course those that do the stoking are nowhere near the surface, being subterranean creatures stewing in their own fabricated fury. The most effusive radicalisation goes on inside the head, the open door that needs the excuse of someone else's second hand grievances, holy abominations that are criminal in any law in any faith and in any age. Someone else's permission is all it takes.

Donald Zander and the Pantheon Board are men and women atop a range of conglomerates from the local to the multinational and to a person, creatures without an inner life, that voice in the head that provides the running commentary, the back story that summarises and conflates, in essence a conscience. Zander and his wife would never be able to recognise negative consequences in anything within the Pantheon portfolio. They do not have a shadow self. Self preservation, something for nothing, get one over on the next guy runs just below the surface of too many to be blamed on the criminal class alone, indeed most people are casual participants where they can get away with it... morality being no more than an archaic set of theologically based wisdoms to explain to the kids in the hopes they will just ignore everything they are told. How else can they expect to get on?

But the real perversions lie a rung or two down where the administrators and bureaucrats organise the cattle wagons and disperse the fated evenly between camps to ensure optimum use of the killing machines. True evil they say is found in the innocuous humdrum of the in and out trays of passionless men and women unable or unwilling to acknowledge their role.

The tiers of darkness begin with the executives, lieutenants and senior directors on the way up or down then the shock troops who follow orders and can see no further than the company values as pumped out by the PR gurus to obscure the one value that hardly gets mentioned...make as much money as you can.

Why make money... does the opulent house and the sense of luxury mitigate the extremes men go to create wealth...or is it the chase itself...is the venison really worth the hunt...for some no doubt it is, but surely for most it's the chase, the prestige of power, not least within ones own world view. It's the stags head on the wall that counts, not the venison.

Like war it is the violence that makes the prospect of living so exiting. Real living, faculties on fire, no time for little things; everything else is collateral and the non combatants who legitimise the fight sit back again in their new won freedom ripe for exploitation, and so it goes. This is the maw into which the grinder expels so much aggression.

Man's industry in times of peril outshines anything in peacetime. British factories churning out fighter planes as fast as they are shot down, weapons retooled, adapted, mechanised and constructed for the western front. Rich pickings and none more so than the financing of both ends of a war. The real victims in the end being the genuine patriots who believe their war is just and the enemy vanquishable. But what is victory and who would describe the outcome of industrialised murder as victorious...in what way? A war is a series of interrelated battles in which men...usually men are trying to kill as many other men as they can...so that the winner may advance some other body of men or ethical stand point lost on nearly everyone once revenge takes over from whatever the initial sense of idealism was.

If men didn't enjoy the act of killing there would be, could be, no wars.

The white flames licking at my heels swept me into the light. I allowed my brush hand to colour and interpret the choices mapping out new futures. But even as my star ascended so the detachment began. The Journey Into The Light now a triptych conveyed more than a sense of foreboding. The shadow self pointed to the darker shades and the layering, a sure sign of stagnation and uncertainty.

The first blow came from without, before I had any inkling of how things may spoil so badly. I was struck from behind without warning. It was innocuous really; the day before the first day. A couple of Bobbies popped into the Elysium Art Gallery to make sure everything was ship shape and we were not being bothered by some of the local rough necks. Coffees and a chance to put their feet up, our receptionist Miranda said everything was fine and that we had only enjoyed the friendly good wishes of everyone in Jericho.

The second visit passed with more intent. Questions raised about loud music late at night and the distinct odour of narcotics, nothing too onerous but could you please give some thought to the neighbours who it appeared insisted upon remaining anonymous. I was not there but Colorado Smith had come down from his office and pushed the cops for more information. There was little of substance but Smith saw the hand of the protection racket inching forward like the Beast With Five Fingers. Genial fatherly admonishments and the coppers were on their way. But it was enough for Smith, he knew what was coming next and called an extraordinary board meeting.

'It's a shake down."

'...call the police....'

'They are the police,...it's how it's done.'

'...who...'

'...there's no one in Jericho would have that influence. It's someone out of town looking to spread their territory. The smell of money carries the stench of fresh blood to some of the city's more malign characters. I'll put feelers out.'

I don't think I grasped the import of what was happening and just carried on as normal. I was not ready to accept the harsh reality that all bubbles must burst. But the shadow self said I must face it and that upset me more than I could say. I retreated upstairs to paint and I watched the blight worm its way onto my Journey Into The Light triptych, jarring against the free and easy style. Looking back I can see that undercurrents of avarice and hate are always there; black rivers paved over like Trill Mill Steam coursing beneath the pavements of Oxford. Maybe avarice was the natural instinct of god's creatures and I was pushing against a locked and bolted door. To take was man's first instinct to ensure dominance of nature and his fellow man. It happened immediately in the very first class wars of Mesopotamia. And it was still happening. No...I couldn't buy this cold cruel logic. I knew I was right. To embrace the cold cold darkness in the human heart through avarice, fear and worship had no place in my own. My emotions were raw and open to the elements, which was good and bad.

The gallery open 24/7 was trashed one night. No one was hurt but the message was sent and received. Visitors and artists fled as a group of youths swaggered in, brazenly unmasked, scattering easels and works of art, slinging paint up walls and finished works slashed, the offices and Leda Records remained untouched, but the intent was obvious. Property and mental damage only. There could have been more...so watch it next time. The police were called despite Smith's warning. True to form they could do little except step up patrols in the area and take descriptions which led to nothing. I offered to stay in the gallery and face them next time, but as Smith pointed out, that would end badly.

Later that same week, Miranda, our thirty something receptionist was walking across University Park with one of the accounts girls when they were robbed and relieved of their phones, handbags and jewellery. Pretty simple street punk activity, but the message was getting louder. The weaker members of the herd can be picked off at any time.

Gang culture is as British as pirating, racism and the rain. Peaky Blinders and the Krays maybe less obtrusive these days, but a malicious underground still held much of any city in the palm of its hand. The old time European emigre gangs had morphed into territorial warfare between black, Nigerian, Turkish, Albanian and Asian cultures fuelled by generations of inequality and mistreatment, and hell bent on sucking the system dry. In the end power feeds power and the criminal empires become de facto alternative cultures in which local values replace the white man's law. Like religious intolerance there is no appeasement. 'What do you want?' ask the authorities and the answer will always be...'your wallet.' Oxford like any other ant hill has its southern fiefdoms where the industrial money is. Local crime-lords have their hierarchies like the old Mafiosa and careers are born bringing respect, purpose, prospects and a future. A life of crime is a life at least. But when the nice shiny baubles of the academics and the Bohemians roll across palms like gold doubloons they find a way to come north and cut purse strings.

The men who joined Old Nat for lunch with his family were not men he recognised. At the bar, too nonchalant as only men with something on their mind can be. Old school courtesy, passive aggressive poses, their pleasures restricted to the fine art of menace. Out of place and out of time they stood out in their anonymity. Nat saw them the moment he walked in, but it takes two to be afraid and he was not playing.

New residents of the Cotswold Broadway Nat had taken his family out to Michaels, a Greek restaurant in beautiful Chipping Camden discrete in its own sleepy hollow, invisible until you actually drive into it. This was a lunchtime meet for the family and so after providing consultancy to a new enterprise not far away in Boughton-On-the-Water (were there more hyphens per square mile in the Cotswolds than any where else in the world?) Nat agreed to meet up with his wife Gloria and their two grown up sons, both men of the Bar and both with a day off. It was a rare opportunity since the Atlantic crossing to have the whole family together.

Cotswold towns and villages remain resolutely parochial despite their tourist credentials and the best eateries are hotels and country retreats. But the high street still punches its weight and this Greek Restaurant was friendly, well lit and full, with the bustle of energetic waiters and a balalaika player effortlessly harmonising the sensory pleasures. Was he Greek? Cypriot? Or further west? Central American? His voice silky smooth carried an old folk song called Aegean Sea, both familiar and alien, heard but not listened to.

I saw the souls

I saw the martyrs

I heard them crying

I heard them shouting

They were dressed in white

They've been told to wait

The sun was black

The moon was red

The stars were falling

The earth was trembling

And then a crowd impossible to number

Dressed in white

Carrying palms

Shouted amid

The hotless sun

The lightless moon

The windless earth

The colourless Sky

They'll no more suffer from hunger

They'll no more suffer from thirst

They'll no more suffer from hunger

They'll no more suffer from thirst

They'll no more suffer from hunger

They'll no more suffer from thirst

'Mister Brown,' the extended hand loosely shaken as protocol demanded, every inch the chirpy villain. Nat at the bar ordering drinks, the man in the floral shirt and shorts, the day was blistering, removed his shades and smiled the smile. Thin black greasy hair, cut erratically and an unshaven swarthy chin screamed Italian/American. His companion silent at his shoulder, a suit and tie, the Acquiescent Underling. Nat was clear on the details when he reported back to the Elysium Board

'What will you have sir?'

'Do I know you?'

'I know you, and that must be your family, beautiful wife and two strapping boys, you must be proud?'

The family at the table in the nook, not watching, deep in conversation. Nat waited. He recognised this game.

'I came to one of your seminars, my boss sent me, you know how it is? But fair's fair you made a lot of sense. You're a practical man, and I can respect that. I'm the same, like to get things done. Nat...may I call you Nat? Word gets around Nat,' the Southern Italian but not Sicilian accent, told him more than the man intended. He took a sip of tequila, Dutch courage, interesting. Nat later told me that if this guy was working for who he thought he was working for then his fear ran two ways.

'Listen, I hear you're having some trouble down in Oxford Town, at the gallery.'

'And you followed me here to tell me that?'

'You're lovely receptionist told me where you'd be. You see I work for a security firm, and it's an opportunity for us I guess you could say. It's unfortunate that society needs men like us but there you are. A successful new business runs into local trouble then I'd like to think we can help. I don't mean muscle for hire, just a presence perhaps, a way of making things go away.'

'We have the police for that...'

The Italian chuckled and shot a glance at his silent partner.

'You do at that, which is okay if you're asking for directions, but should things escalate well I'm not sure even they will give you the peace of mind you're looking for. I mean, the way I see things, Elysium Art is about freedom, folks finding themselves as they say, you wouldn't want them so anxious they don't want to come down there? 'I can hear it now, Too much stress, rather stay indoors with the old man, he may knock me about but at least he's the devil you know and he puts food on the table...' he paraphrased.

Grinning at his own familial insights, a man too smart to overstep the mark, and too stupid to get a decent job. Nat knew the sort. Non committal, Nat continued to order the drinks, the bar man reading the sudden tension in the air, eye contact made Nat discreetly shook his head. They were muscle sure, but messengers only, this time. He'd hear them out.

'My boss has an offer...'

Nat resisted saying ...that I can't refuse??? Italian handed Nat a card which he declined to take, so he leaned forward and slipped it into Nat's top pocket, the intrusive invasion of space, the message hammered home. He patted the pocket and took another sip. Nat faced the man. Not machismo, he was well passed all of that. He merely smiled as the troubadour played on, singing his unfamiliar song, gentle and sweet, a languid counterpoint.

'I'm in no position to discuss this, perhaps you'd like to make an appointment.'

Italian nodded in all reasonableness.

'You have to put it to the board, I see that. But I hope Mister Rhodes appreciates what's at stake here. He doesn't strike me as the practical kind...but Smith and you....?. No one wants to see you go out of business Nat. The world needs folk like Rhodes and his lovely wife. So, think of it less a fee, more a share in the business, a stake holding.'

Nat picked up the tray of drinks and turned. Italian made the slightest of gestures and his stone faced colleague stepped around and knocked the tray out of his hand, sending the contents spilling across the floor. Customers turned and Nat's two sons got up. Nat waved them back with a discreet sideways motion of the hand, then laughed out loud at these cartoon gangsters. He'd faced hard men before, and these two were straight out of the school for knuckleheads. The stone faced man frowned, laughter not on his recognised list of responses. He turned to Italian for guidance, who waved him back not this time...Instead the Italian banged a £20 note on the bar and gestured the barman.

'Another round for my friend here...and keep the change.'

One of the waiters was there, pan and mop, Nat knelt to assist.

'You'll do the right think Nat,' said the man getting up to leave, 'you always do. You're famous for it.'

Tequila drained, a glass raised to the onlooking family, and the appeasing balalaika played on. Nat tried to place the face of the minstrel; unfamiliar and yet.....

'Hector Di Lauro, the Toad' said Smith, twisting in his chair in the board room, above the gallery and next to my studio. He tossed the card back onto the table and rubbed his bristled jaw. The card carried the legend, Astyanax Security, a phone, email and web site address.

'His stink has been all over us ever since the shut downs...not just him but him more than any other...and this is one of his many sidelines.'

'Why him and why us?' I asked.

'Ask Daddy...' said Smith to Thalia, 'he must have some pull in Naples.'

Thalia glared back. She didn't like the implication. I put a hand on hers.

'What do we do?' I had stepped in from my Blenheim duties setting up the Great Elysium Celebration, a three day jamboree of art, music and self expression, All twelve Leda Record acts would be there, plus artwork shops, paint ins and a Mardi Gras atmosphere. To come back for this almost broke my heart. But Nat had been insistent.

'Why us?' I said, 'what are we to him?'

'It's his way. A man like Di Lauro stalks and waits, to see whether and when you are ripe for the squeeze, and we have in his eyes reached a point that demands his intervention. It's a free market success story, the Protection Racket and the M.O. is familiar. It's a shake down, gentle at first to see how we bite and then it gets more serious.'

'He's got to have bigger fish to fry than us..' I said.

'...bigger than picking off a Pantheon renegade outfit with Zander's own daughter aboard,' said Smith, 'Pete...you may believe we are sailing under a flag of convenience but slice it any way you like...we are still Pantheon and we are a long way from the herd.'

'What does he want from us?' I was having trouble processing this change of pace. I could feel myself detaching. The old warrior had left the building and it was all I could do to stay focussed. Time had become distended. I had been sleeping only when tired and painting and reading when awake. The hours had passed, carrying me away in pieces, dissolving into a glass of water. My new realism didn't need this..anger! I experienced a sense of derealisation as events conflated into themselves drawing the edges down into a tight knot until they became indistinguishable from the centre I was a neutron star. Was I loosing my mind or gaining it?

'If we pick up the phone. What will he want?' I asked, doing my very best to stay focussed.

'Protection money. Something we can afford, $20,000 a month maybe....for that the dogs are called off and business continues...' said Smith who knew more than I was comfortable with.

'We should do that shouldn't we...if you say the police are in his pockets...what choice do we have?' I said looking to the others for support.

'That won't be the end of it. Next year he'll want more, $50k,' said Al, 'I've seen these guys before...isn't that right Col?'

Smith nodded and looked across at Thalia.

'So is this happening all over Oxford?' I asked, 'wouldn't we have known about it? Mac...?'

'...not a whisper,' said Mac, 'nothing from other businesses. I'd know.'

'So where else is he active?' I asked.

'London, New York, Berlin, Rome, Chicago, Vegas.....' And that's just what my contacts can tell us.'

'....your contacts?' I asked.

'Pete...you got me on board not because I'm a freedom loving anarchist, but for fingers in pies..I run interference and walk roads you don't have to...relax...'

I recoiled and left it there.

'So this is Di Lauro's first foray into Oxford,' said Mac, 'but why?'

'We're being targeted!' Smith said, 'as soon as we stepped away from Zander, we became fair game.'

'The Neapolitan link?' Thalia now.

Smith shrugged.

'They must have been on each others radar for sometime now, especially in the killing fields of New York and any Mafia held province...and make no mistake when it comes to the Italian mob there are none more lethal than this man.'

'So why not go for direct, to her father....' I asked.

'He's done his homework,' said Smith looking at me, 'he knows the relationship is purely cosmetic and that you have a completely free hand. He somehow knows you do not want Zander's involvement, he's counting on that and seeing if you bite. He's rattling his cage...he wants you Thalia to pull the bell and bring daddy to the slaughter. He knows our soft underbelly....and it's you Peter.'

'So if we inform Zander he'll back off,' said Nat.

Smith looked to me and I looked at Thalia who just stared straight back. I shook my head

'I'd rather pay,' I said.

'Put it to the vote,' said Mac.

'Wait,' said Smith, 'this is not a democratic decision. We have two choices....we pay or we fold. If you want to brazen it out, believing the cops will protect us forget that. And if you care little for your own health then fine, but what about the people who have come to believe in this place, its ideals, in you, and spare some thought for the staff. Old Nat and Miranda are just the beginning. The curators, teachers, the cleaners and the recording staff, the folks who do the accounts. They'll come for them not us.'

'How....?' I asked

'Scare tactics at first, families...he knows them all, accidents on the way home, then he escalates. He wants us healthy to extract his pound of flesh, but if we defy him he will cross a line and change his objective to show the world he's not a man to accept contempt. He'll drive us out and to hell with the collateral.'

'The levels of violence?' I asked

'Extreme...' Smith said.

'Then I have to meet with him,' I said.

Thalia and I hosted an evening with Colorado who brought us up to speed and why a sit down with Hector Di Lauro was out of the question.

'So why is the water buffalo one of the most dangerous animals in the world?' Colorado mused in his laconic way as if he were hosting a pub quiz. We were sharing a decent malt sat in our sitting room with some Azam Ali playing in the background. We didn't bite and he gave us that angled grin.

"He has no poison glands, no vicious incisors and its speed is good but less than the cats...so what gives?'

'He doesn't look dangerous so people take risks...'said Thalia at last.

'.....exactly...never turn your back on him...and if he is on your case, even at a walking pace, he will never, ever give in.'

'How does this help?' I asked.

'...the first mistake is to think the Toad is a man to do business with...seeing a little of yourself in him. Pete, when you measure your own values against his and see something reflected back that is what he knows you will do...hence the chat with Nat. He's done his homework.'

'So what do we know?' I asked.

'You know the answer to that as well as I do and he knows you will not.'

Smith turned to Thalia who remained steadfast.

'Perhaps you will reconsider reconnecting with Zander...' he said.

'Tell me about the Toad instead...' I urged.

Smith lounged back and said yes to a refill before drawling out the tale of the slippery toad, Hector Di Lauro Junior, the Untamed.

'Nothing is known for certain. Rich and grotesque as the tale may be I cannot vouch for anything more than the legend. We believe what we are asked to believe.'

'The consensus is that the all but invisible Hector Di Lauro never stood a chance as a boy. His father was a knifeman for Enrico Alfano the turn of the century Camorran boss in Campania. Obese and indifferent to ambition, wealth and power the father rose up through the ranks on the strength of his trusty switchblade. A street thug from the age of seven Senior, was known as The Toad on account of his size, shape, bulging unappealing eyes and a mouth and lower lip hanging like a hammock in a state of permanent cruel amusement. That is according to one police testimony and one very faded photograph. He was born and raised in the Neapolitan back streets where the knife did all his talking. Friendless but feared he soon ran his own outfit, racketeering, strong arming and house invasions. Uncontrollable and despised by the Camorra themselves for disrupting any number of their own rackets and pipelines, he was forced to take a slow boat to Albania.'

'He continued to ply his trade in extortion and street robbery in the back streets of Tirana. The weak were his prey, what else were they good for? His murder rap sheet, if one existed, would list at least ten men and one woman who were alive when they first met him. But unlike most immigrants Di Lauro he did not seek safety among his own; they would have none of him. A lone shark he swam the entire country and sometime in '53 he fathered a son by a woman they say he paid and who didn't not live to see the boy's first birthday. Unlike most Mafiosa wannabes Di Lauro had no ambition to cultivate a successor, a chip off the old block or even go legitimate by laundering his ill gotten gains for legacy's sake.'

'The boy...Junior...was he even given a name?... just hung around him, obese and ignorant Toad Junior in every respect, augmented by fierce horn rimmed glasses, sporting jowls and weight from his teen years. His father's bloodletting washed over him in a pall of indifference. The Di Lauro way of life and death became the norm and the boy would never escape his father's world view that other men were mere fodder to the man with a knife.'

'The Italian education system served Junior well, a controlled environment in which to hone his trade. Exploiting weak willed classmates, getting something for nothing if you knew how, and to keep principals ignorant or too afraid to intervene. School taught him more than his wretched father could, a man he began to resent for the loser he was.'

'In the 70's as the old man showed signs of slowing down, Junior watched his petty soulless life come to nothing more than a run down bedsit in a back street that stank of mildew, soot and garbage. There was nothing to show for a life on the make. But the boy must have inherited something from his tragic mother, enough for him to understand the need to rise above all of this and make a name for himself. And so the legend of Hector Di Lauro, the Untamed began.'

'Uprooting back to Naples he began a life of crime that would eclipse his father and equal anything that had gone before. Starting humbly he made his name in any number of gangs working his way up the food chain until he won his own territory. His own gang formed alliances and played one mob against another until he had secured a foothold too strong to dislodge. He understood the meaning of strength in numbers, empire building and the power of a man prepared to lead and enrich any who followed. He allied when it suited him, he went to war too. The enemies of Hector Di Lauro Junior fought each other for the scraps left by the toad who sat back and watched the alleys flow with the dark Italian blood of his rivals. Local businesses fell like dominos and the opposition was liquidated until the Toad became the King of Naples. And sometime during the 90s Toad senior, departed this world, unmourned. Discovered a week after his throat had been slit in his Tirana bedsit, the police had their suspects and the son made no comment.'

'You can see can't you Pete. A sit down with this maniac is out of the question.'

Thalia and Smith waited for my response in the pregnant silence that followed. Sure I could see that a one to one would not wash with such a man, but I also saw the folly of twitching the silken thread to bring the spider running. There had to be another way. I said that I needed time but they said there was none and that we had to make a decision for the sake of our people. With Thalia's indignation burning a hole in my soul and Smith's parting shot I heard my shadow self roar back,

'Are we not all spirits...in the end...are you not more spirit than animal?'

Is it something in a persons aura that projects their dishonour? Does the air change colour or does their image blur like the states of mind and body are out of sync? Whatever, I knew and I heard voices tell me that I had to do this alone. I am it seems always alone. So it became clear the next time I saw Smith at Blenheim Park when he and Thalia joined me that I knew they had made the call to Astyanax Security. I said nothing. What was there to say?

Back home we were on the roof, just Thalia and I watching and listening to the sounds of a city ticking over, the wheels in spin. We watched the clouds scud across the moon, passive and as quiet as smoke. When I eventually put it to Thalia all she said was that when the wolf's at the door you don't let him in, you feed him while you think.

'Mac reported it first, the discrepancy in funds, a shortage in the takings. The accounts had been hacked, illegally breached and a cool £25000 syphoned off. A late night board meeting confirmed that Smith had made the call. Big Al had risen in fury, Old Nat shook his head and Mac said they could sustain it for now. There was little push back. You were away somewhere painting scenery or arranging the lighting on the Main Stage but here are the minutes...'

I read some of the back and forth.

'We just roll over to this guy?' Al couldn't buy it, 'we got a stake in this too Col.'

'...and your plan is what?' Smith faced him down.

'Boys, boys...we fold or it's my father....'

'And what is so bad about getting your father involved? It worked before...' said Al

'...you know Peter will never buy it....' Thalia

'...Peter wanted to talk with the guy...' Al

'...reason with the Toad?...' Smith, 'never gonna happen Al. We buy ourselves the time to think'

'...the fact is, we pay the piper...it's the only way...' Nat

'...it's not my way...' Al sat back down, out of options, but the subject still very open.

'...and what does Peter say?' Nat

'He doesn't know,' said Thalia

I stared at her trying to find the words. I was tangential in my response, a sign of my frustration and my impotence in not being able to bring her father in.

'You know there are times in the dead of night when I wonder what is really so bad about your father. And then I think about the piles of dead on both sides of the world who would still be walking the streets had he not flicked them over like so many toy soldiers. Just because the Devil appears to be the saviour doesn't make him the Christ...he is still the Devil and you would do well to remember that!'

Thalia stared back and made the very obvious point that they had not gone to Zander, instead they had taken what was by default my route. I immediately regretted my outburst...and said I was sorry and that I was in fact grateful to her and Col for taking what must have been a tough decision.

Had I really called her father the Devil?

'We had to,' she said, 'if my father is not an option then neither are indifference and ignorance...'

'Smith said so?'

'Col said so.'

'...Christ, Thalia it shouldn't have to be this way....'

Preparations for the Great Elysium Celebration distracted me from the ugliness of our situation. The arrangements with the Blenheim Estate were exhausting and should have been exhilarating except all I could see was that we were paying the Toad, asking his permission to continue. And with a direct line into our system we were fodder for his greed. Sure it was in his interest to see us succeed but not like this. I was all for packing it all in. Then Al gave me a call and asked to meet. He had an idea and he would like to bring Charlie in.

So we three sat awhile by one of the Blenheim lakes fed from the all but invisible River Glyme. We were silent in our bucolic reverie. The grass was cool to the touch and for a moment I let nature have the day. But the moment was broken soon enough.

'Thanks for seeing me,' said Al

'Here we are,' I said drinking in the lush air and extravagance of the great estate, bequeathed by a grateful nation to the first Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill, victor of the Battle of Blenheim fought to prevent Vienna falling during the war of the Spanish Succession.

'Just three guys, enjoying the late morning sun in deepest Oxfordshire,' Al continued, 'it should be a good day...a day for high hopes and reasons to feel optimistic...instead we have this toad leeching off us, sitting in the middle of his lily pad croaking his bile and poison,' He turned to me and Charlie who lit up as he always did when he was being asked to think.

'We strike back...we play this toad at his own game...' said Al

'We......?'

'Actually Charlie and I with some help from a few friends.'

'You two have already spoken?' I said

'We have and we think you'll like it,' said Charlie

So Al set it out and Charlie took over the narrative as it would be him leading the attack. I said that it could work but if the toad was as smart as we thought he was then we better watch our back. They seemed hell bent and determined to push back where I had been warned not to. But the cyber world was off limits to a man like me so all I could do was take their word for its efficacy. As we parted we shook hands pleased to be doing something, not knowing of course how this would end...not least for Charlie who would pay the price for all of our sins.

First things first we set up a hub, a control centre from which we would operate. Having purchased an industrial unit in to Witney on the very edge of the Cotswolds Charlie and Al made contact with a crew of cyber men. We gathered in the unit and waited.

Across the county, peripheral men on the edge of things, made their ways toward us as we sat at the centre of the web. Bicycles, buses and trains, threading between the lighted places, drawing nothing but the vacant stares of the ragged people with only themselves on their minds. Like actors avoiding the limelight they came; off stage men in off stage clothes, irregular of gait and social graces. Three men eventually pitched up at the Unit door and were buzzed in. The early morning sun turned them to wraiths as we three sat on plastic chairs facing their approach. Hard boots careened hard sounds off the hard concrete floor. At our backs the work stations winked and blinked in welcome, an island in a sea of unfolding greyness

At odds with urban tactility the three young men became a part of the interior, conjoining with their workstations, plugging in and becoming whole again. Two on one side and one to the other of the central screens where Al and Charlie Logan would be masters of ceremony. The city came no closer, checking in at the door, a virtual cocoon. I stood back and became observer. Briefs were already understood and the five got to work.

The Rasta tall and angular grinned across at his partner, short tattooed sleeves and a hoodie that stayed defiantly in place...uniform, costume, mask or weapon...eyes firmly unlocked, the screen his only friend. The third one, the other side, bespectacled and bantamweight in frame, edgy and a-twitch with anticipation at the promise of circuitous codings ahead.

Focussed impersonal and myopic cavemen, an outlet at last for a generation of young men with high IQs and low self esteem, for whom the world a few years earlier would have had no place. They were the new Shamans communing with the nether world that floats between realities, the cracks between the solid and the metaphysical, the spaces in the walls where no one else goes. Numbers and their algorithmic families are their art, discovered not invented, having lurked in the air for all this time; even in the days of Hesiod and the ancients when the original theogony was no less potent.

Voices mute to the threat of hidden ears as only men who would know how to establish such ears would know. These were industrial hackers of an almost mythical status, employed to bring my world back from the brink. Charlie and Al were committed to its very rashness, to push data back down the line to the toad. The pipe can be made to run both ways they had said and I had said yes and here they were with their very own Myrmidons.

Jacob, the Caribbean emigre had developed the support systems for several online casinos, fixing odds and payouts, dangling carrots then hitting with sticks not so barbed as to draw blood but just enough for punters to enjoy the pain and come back for more...after all what's so wrong with a little flutter. It had paid well until Al closed down the online offshoots in Bruges, exposing the young man's necromantic skills, ratted out as he was by bitter pit bosses. Charges were dropped, and favours granted, and now was that time. That moment we talked about...and Jacob came running with Hoodie a partner in crime, known to each other by reputation and glad to pool their nefarious skills in the bringing down of a man like Hector Di Lauro, giving little thought to the Toad's reputation, confident in their anonymity as backroom boys. There was no sense of justice or a line that divided the good from the bad. There was only the work in hand, which should be enough for any man...

Hoodie and Jacob reached in and set to their preassigned tasks finessing the virus they were cultivating like some ravening golem, chained in the cellar, craving release and the blood of men, a creature to send scuttling back down the wire. All three men had come with their homework preassigned when Al had made the call. This was the day when the code, nicknamed Achilles would leap the wall and drive Hector back from the ships. Bantamweight joined them to finalise the coding for transmission. Felix, looking 13 pushing 30, had come to Charlie's attention via a series of investigations regarding a siphoning programme that was grazing the gains of a few pit bosses, meagre as they were. The boy was smart but careless...too careless...word was that he wanted to get caught and lowered some of the firewalls to come to Mac's attention...and here he was...mission accomplished...back in the game and masterminding one of a number of 'special projects.' He was it was said the smartest of them all. If there were any better in his field Felix was not saying....indeed he made no reference to the Vulcan, the man or woman, the savviest of the savvy, the phantom he had never met...but out there they surely were.

Sixteen hours later the moon was in its high and the lights were on, angled low, away from prying eyes and passing cars...although they had rented the space quite legally what they were doing was....less so. The order of events was quite simple. Make a clone of the Elysium banking system and put a trace on the hack from Di Lauro...quite simple said Felix...and it was done. Next to infect the hack with a virus especially made for the occasion...Felix himself had used such a beast before and even though it had been prototyped he insisted on modifying it here and now, to ensure maximum impact and minimum signature. The hackers paradox, keen to be anonymous and recognised for their work.

The unchaining would send the Worm Ouroboros back along the very pipe used to draw down the funds and set upon Hector's system ravaging his files, deleting, expunging, killing and distorting, ransacking and pillaging, infecting the bloodstream that would course out along his arterial byways into the hearts of every one connected including the toad's own business associates. The Myrmidons gave birth to the virus, but it would be our job to unleash it. At midnight we handed out envelopes as thick as bricks to muted thanks. Above and beyond the necessary...an incentive to keep mum...for all their sakes.

'Thank you gentlemen,' I said. Charlie Logan sat back, eyes glazed in a 1000 yard stare. Al was itching to press send.

'Thank you sir....' Caribbean courtesy...and the Myrmidons were gone. The iron door clanked shut...now it was time...The Myrmidons would not be implicated, that was the deal.

Charlie Logan at the keyboard and Al and I alongside sat in silence, wax works in the peculiarly erudite light, unforgiving and transient. Here in the cocoon we were safe. Watching them working I had moments of lucidity considering the potential for revenge. But my blood was high and the hour late. Too late to pull back.

I was invited to press send. And so I did.

Two days later Al called around to see me and Thalia. His face was drawn, his expression fearful...most disquieting for a man of his formidable presence and size. Thalia let him into our town house and he glanced passed her to me. His eyes were seeking permission to speak. Thalia had not been appraised of what we had done. My wife caught the exchange.

'Come in Al and say your piece...what is it?' I said.

I hung my head as Al spoke.

'Charlie is fighting for his life....that is the good news.'

Thalia and I waited.

'Fiona called....heroin overdose, found wandering, bloodied and confused behind Christ Church Meadows by the river. She says in a bad way. She says he may not make it.'

Thalia looked at me.

'We had to do something...and a virus into the toad's engine room seemed proportionate,' I said, trying to sound defiant as if any other logic made little sense. But my wife silence and incomprehension asked...what were you all thinking?

She turned back to Al.

'There's more isn't there? This has nothing to do with chasing dragons does it? Tell me everything Al'

'The police say he was beaten by experts, and then drugged,' Al's teeth were bared in an animal inflection. 'Fiona said he'd been missing for two whole days since....we....sent the virus...The doctors did a full examination and saw that beneath the skin, there was evidence of something quite savage..how's it even done...a beating with weapons and fists that leave no mark...but do interminable damage....shattered ribs, ruptured spleen and dislocations throughout his joints...how the hell was he even moving...the drugs...some kind of tranquilliser nulling the pain..allowing him to walk on broken feet....And then the heroin, injected an hour or two before they let him go...'

'But how..?' I mused, unwilling as yet to engage with the full horror of Charlie's plight.

'I know, I don't get it,' said Al, 'the coding was perfect, the system was watertight, the programmers beyond reproach, the virus carrying the punch of a nuclear strike Hector should be fighting for his life. The disease was to be terminal for him and anyone who touched him. His own contacts should have done this to him. It's Hector who should be on life support...'

'And there's something else...Mac called and £25000 has become £50000. The virus has been messenger and Quisling, spilling the beans before upping the stakes. I called Felix who said that the only hacker capable of this goes by the moniker of Vulcan. He must be working for your man....'

Later that night I was alone beside Charlie's bedside at the JR, signs of life were strong but the brain seemed to have taken the brunt of the assault. There were hushed conversations about the unlikelihood of a full recovery, with full cognitive powers. Thalia had come and gone, as had Al. Smith and Mac arrived and avoided unloading the recrimination so violent in their eyes. Fiona and some of Charlies kin came and I went for a walk. I stayed all night.

Dozing I encountered a procession of elderly men, and women...some not so elderly as they drew near. I seemed to be sitting alone in a wicker chair atop a low grassy hill and they were perambulating, chatting politely in their Sunday best, some arm in arm, friendship and respect. Joyce with Beckett, Miller just behind, Thomas, Plath and Woolf an unlikely threesome, Whitman and James earnest and animated, the rotund Chesterton and Belloc with Shaw and Ruskin in earshot. Some I could not place as the pageant processed and the faces became less distinct, Marlowe perhaps was one but I couldn't be sure, and would I really know Shakespeare...apparently not. I did not catch their eye, I may as well not be there which of course I was not and neither were they.

Fiona woke me gently and I left. Writers but not painters had walked though my head, their collective intellect leaving me with a sense of overwhelming guilt at the hopelessness of our lives. Why guilt? Because this was down to me and I was found to be the wastrel I always was. Drunk on my own omnipotence I think I wept as I walked. No truths came though because it was my dream...how can I/they? I thought of the road trip with my muses and how I had pitched up here. I was a long way from home...and all for the love of a woman.

So I returned to the painters who held a higher truth than mere words.

I made my way home via public transport and tried to imagine what the Toad expected of me now. I realised that his triumph was that he probably wasn't thinking of me at all, while I festered and became increasingly embittered. At home I finally understood that the price I was paying for keeping Zander away from the hen coop was the foxes joy...and for that I had no one to blame but myself. I would cancel the Great Elysium Celebration...celebration of what... corruption and lack of backbone?

Thalia was at home and to her credit said nothing of what we had done. What was there to say? I think she may have harboured some grudging approval of my attempt to strike back but she knew that it had been wrong headed from the start. I've no doubt she had called Colorado straight away to share their mutual disappointment in my naïveté. It was another nail in the nuptial coffin.

I raged and raved. I called myself pariah, bringer of doom to everything I touched. Had I achieved anything worthwhile since my marriage and the founding of Elysium? All I had caused was tension, corruption and the broken body of my friend.

One night the call came from Al who had spoken with Fiona...Charlie would live but would never be Charlie again...the brain was damaged beyond recovery. Charlie would be confined to a wheelchair needing 24 hour round the clock care for the rest of his life.

Honestly if I had had access to my old gun I'd have blown my brains out.

In the darkest hour, just before dawn...the madrugada as the Portuguese poets call it, something quite unexpected broke through. Warmth penetrating the lace curtain; a rapprochement of sorts. Smith called round and said he had something to ask me. I was short with him and the self destructive predilections of my fellow warriors. But Smith persisted and I said okay let's hear it.

Thalia joined us and they sat beside one another on the sofa and I knew they had already spoken and were in this together. My heart took another direct hit. Fine malts were poured but I have never found solace at the bottom of a glass. It was a miracle I had not popped along to Jack the Weasel, maybe later. I watched them talking in whispers. It was a familiarity I had let slip through my fingers. It wasn't intimacy as such, they were not lovers I don't think, but there was a growing bond, a relationship that would never be mine again.

Our lamps cast the room in a series of recesses and arenas, shade and light across our faces. There was a sickening disquiet in my soul I had never felt before, not even in Iraq. I had scorched the earth of my past so well I began to wonder whether I had ever actually been a soldier. I didn't know what they wanted or why they were even bothering. I had nothing left to give. Whatever was coming the decision had effectively been made. Just do what ever you want...I may have said out loud....

'Peter dear, listen to Colorado. He has something that may help.'

I glared across at the two of them looking like lovers caught out, feigning innocence.

'I have a suggestion,' he said, the languid body denim clad, straight out of a Texan road movie, stubble and long sly features amused by something you wouldn't understand. And that penetrating stare.

'I've reached out to a man I rubbed shoulders with in the twilight of my own political career. John T Stone,' he announced as if I knew him...I didn't.

'The US elections...the Republican candidate....??'

He still didn't ring any bells...why would it?

'He's over here, in London and he wants to meet you Pete...'

I felt as though I had opened the door to an unwanted rather slick salesman trying to sell me something I would never want, despite the look on his face suggesting I'd be a fool to turn my back on him.

'He's running on an anti-corruption, clean up America ticket. He means it too. Pete it might be worth your while getting in touch...'

I didn't respond. How could I? What was he talking about? Suddenly I felt a million miles away.

'You're a famous man Pete...a global phenomena...I know you don't like to think of yourself that way but there you are...and Stone would like some of your magic to rub off on him...he wants you at some of his rallies...he wants your endorsement Pete...'

I heard my voice responding, perhaps more harshly than I intended. After all he was only trying to help...wasn't he?

'What the hell do I care who wins the US elections? And if you say this guy's a Republican I should care even less...I really don't know what you're driving at here...the pair of you.'

'A man like you would be quite the vote winner. I'd like you to meet him...some photo ops...a line or two endorsing his stance on organised crime...his promise to clear the streets of New York, of America, global crime, corruption and terrorism...men like Hector Di Lauro.'

'...I'm not interested...'

'John is...I've set it up...a meet between the two of you tomorrow evening at his Chelsea residence in Cheyne Walk. He's a serious fellow with considerable resources....a man with influence.'

I glanced over at Thalia who smiled and nodded. I had been ambushed

'Peter, Col has contacts and they have brokered this meet. He's a man with power and has gone on public record that he loves what you are doing and his determination to bring men like Di Lauro to heel.'

She turned to Smith.

'So how would this stop Di Lauro Col?' asked Thalia, playing devil's advocate.

'Stone is not a man you go up against lightly, he carries weight legally and institutionally as well as access to the best legal machinery,' said Smith, 'for men like Di Lauro you have to make the shake down more trouble than it's worth. He is a coward and preys on the weak both here in Oxford and globally. His unstoppable rise needs to run into an immovable object until his crimes become too much effort. And Stone could be that immovable object...'

'So where do I fit in? I'm just one more victim. What's wrong with the FBI or Scotland Yard, Interpol...those guys..men like Stone don't interest me.'

'Look, there are no guarantees here, Stone's not an easy guy to rub along with. It's his way or no way. But he could do with some curb-side appeal. You've got fans across the globe especially in the States. You know how receptive Americans can be to new crazes....'

I raised an eyebrow but let that go.

'You would have a solid platform in the States, to spread the word...'

'...let me stop you there,' I said, 'you're referring to the word that's gotten me in the cross hairs of a psychopath?'

'Think of it as a Trojan Horse...a means to an end. I don't see a better plan right now do you? This is a golden opportunity, something Di Lauro will not have counted on, and it means we don't go running to Zander. It's a win win. Listen...this thug won't stop...so get on board and talk to this guy. We have to push back somehow. Paying out is a holding pattern.'

He leaned forward, his face filling my vision.

'My man we all know how your crazy planned panned out. You of all people should want some payback...if only for Charlie. We need a plan C Peter and here it is on a plate....Meet with him...if you don't like what he's got to say then walk away. At least we will have tried.'

'Listen Peter,' said Thalia, 'we haven't bothered you with everything that's been going on...you've either not been here or you've not been listening. And given what happened to Charlie? Mac says he's been fire fighting across the globe, a string of co-ordinated protests outside new galleries. The ringleaders are disaffected ex casino employees with axes to grind, stirred up and ripe for running interference. Di Lauro's name is all over it. Planning permissions are embroiled in red tape, finances are failing and the right people are being scared away and some well meaning benefactors are failing to materialise. It would take physical courage to work at or attend many of the new international galleries. Di Lauro is draining the well dry. He doesn't plan to stop any time soon.'

I still could not understand his motives...why me?

'Why me?'

Smith sighed.

'We've been here before Pete..its Thalia and her father he's prodding. He couldn't care less about you.'

'Some Neapolitan thing I guess..' said Thalia who shrugged.

'They have hacked our systems...they will take whatever payments they want...' Smith said.

'You made the deal, why the hack...? I asked.

'It's his way...instead of used notes delivered to one of his men every Thursday, he will take what he wants...and increase the take whenever he feels like it...'

'So he could have hacked us anyway?'

"Yes but better with our permission. Think of it as contractual.... Right now he wants you to stay in business, to make him money...as soon as you step, out of line or he gets tired of the game...he ups the take. Happens again he takes the lot...'

I had followed my desires mesmerised by the fragrant Anais and the hollow braggadocio of Kerouac. I seriously considered throwing in the towel...to ask for Zander's help...Maybe Zander's way was always the way.

'Help me Thalia. Should I talk to Stone or your father,' I said at last.

Thalia moved across and sat beside me...a mother to a child!? Her sympathies seemed fleeting, her comfort polite. I knew then I was no longer in control. I had to accept the Trojan Whores of America. Colorado Smith, a man who always had another agenda, stretched his arms across the back of the sofa and I saw Birnam Wood advancing, like some pagan curse, cutting off my options, isolating me until I was down in the brambles hiding from predators

I was clinging to the wreckage of my wife's reluctance to call her father and my own to call Stone. But it occurred to me as I looked into my wife's eyes, she and Colorado had already talked to her father when I was looking the other way. And he was watching the situation develop, just waiting for my call. That made my mind up.

'I'll meet him.'

'Who?' said Thalia giving the game away.

'Stone, I'll meet Stone.'

Thalia embraced me but I did not feel her...something, someone...but it was not the girl I had met at the gallery and lost at the altar. She seemed blurred around the edges, as if her own avatar was breaking up and drifting away into the air. She was Lilith in her wanton glory, wrecker, and succubus to my Adam. My mind was made up. So it seemed was my Cressida.

My shadow self was speaking now and he made some sense. When the gods speak don't argue back. I kept the voice down and away from my eyes and their ears. If I should decline Stone's self interested advances I will shut it all down and walk away; from the art, the music, the word and the woman.

Smith and I took the train into Paddington where we were met by Stone's driver who chauffeured us in his dark blue Bentley to Number 6 Cheyne Walk, one of the most exclusive residences in London. I wore a suit, brushed my hair and made every effort to meet this man on his terms. I was a ship travelling east with no bearings and with a captain I honestly didn't trust. I was an actor, an extra in my own life. I was already detaching from Elysium and Thalia and Zander. Did we even speak...we did. Smith was one of those men who surfed effortlessly between the waves, companionable and evasive all at once. I was going along for lack of options.

Inside a hall of Numidian marble and gold leaf filigree, a glamorous young black woman, flawless of face, figure and fashion, spotlessly groomed and attentive in the perfunctory manner of the air stewardess, the maitre'd or high end escort click clicked her way across the floor à la Rachel's entrance in Blade Runner. The doorman made himself scarce carrying away hats and coats.

'Its wonderful to meet you Mister Rhodes, and to see you again Mister Smith. Will you follow me....Mister Stone is looking forward to meeting you. Everyone else is here.'

I shot Smith a glance but he did not bite. We followed her along the hallway and through an anti chamber of polished oak and steel and through a pair of white doors into the vast lounge.. A compact crystal chandelier dominated the high ceiling walls of white gold that shimmered in the glimmer of recessed lighting. The first thing I saw was a view of the Albert Bridge through vast picture windows that made up much of the front wall. The furniture, decor and walls were pristine white contrasting with three dark shapes like rocks in snow, two ensconced in armchairs and one on the long sofa that extended the entire length of one wall and one corner.

The man on the sofa was already up and offering his hand as we descended the couple of steps into the well of the lounge. John T Stone was a bear of a man, large of bone and body, not obese, just BIG boned and large featured with the patrician's brow and jawline, and a mouth built for proclamations.

At fifty three he was in his pomp, running Stone Law, an empire of legal wizards and grooming himself for power. Open necked white silk shirt, tanned body, pearlescent teeth and a smile with an albedo exceeding that of pure snow for radiance; blonde/silver hair, platinum cufflinks and a handshake to grind bones.

Smith had brought me up to speed on the ride over. The son of Texan farming stock he had defied his father's wish for him to inherit the business and followed his star to Yale and as a young intern he did the rounds of New York's law firms revealing a witheringly forensic mind able to dissect any point to quantum levels of hairsplitting analysis, and with an eidetic mind he had absorbed most of LexisNexis.

At the age of twenty three Stone, middle name Tiberius after either the legendary Starship Enterprise Captain, James T Kirk or the Roman Republic's second emperor, his father was vague on the matter, was a much sought after presence in the law courts and was savvy enough to go it alone, naming his own price and attracting cases that 'interested' him. At thirty three his fortunes rivalled any in New York and his philanthropy became legendary. The Stone Home Sanctuary for battered and single mothers with nowhere to go, the Stone Arts Foundation, the funding of any number of art exhibitions and Stone Start Up Inc, a motivational school for young wanna be entrepreneurs needing some quick start up capital and sage advice to get their product/skills/ideas up and running.

Intelligence had it that his family were estranged across the Atlantic. That story would unfold much later with consequences Stone would live to regret. For now he had his eye on the highest office in his land, potentially the world and he apparently needed something from me.

'Gentlemen, single malt isn't it?'

He swept us across the floor to the others who also stood. As Stone fussed with the drinks cabinet, a silver and steel monstrosity comprising more than a thousand shimmering bottles and cut glass decanters. He found what he wanted while he made the introductions.

'Captain Dominic Rudiger...once one of New York's finest, now running his own private police force. A man I'd like you to get to know Pete...'

The tall Aryan extended a wide firm smile and a long fingered piano players hand. I took it and wondered where we had met before. He and Smith shook...,

'I've heard a great deal about you Mister Rhodes...glad to meet you...,' the accent American/German, the diamond chip eyes penetrating and quizzical. I felt like a puzzle he needed to solve.

'....and Mister Parish I think you know...yes?'

The goatee beard widened as Parish attempted a sincere smile. I froze but managed to extend my hand. I turned to Smith and could not contain an accusing glare that he chose to ignore.

'David is CEO of American Law and wedded to our cause,' said Stone, 'we have worked together for years and I owe him more than I can ever repay. Stone Law and American Law have an arrangement, not so much partners as allies...the best kind of relationship in my line of work. More profitable than butting heads and less trouble than a formal merger. Sometimes it's better for my own legal issues to be handled outside of my own business....any way all I ask is that you hear us out Pete, I don't think you will be disappointed.'

Stone was back with two glasses of forty five year old Dalmore and my mind was back on Zander's balcony overlooking the very same river. Smith went to sit in one of the armchairs taking a backseat role while I was waved to a place next to the main man. I was in two minds whether to just go...but Stone was quick to allay my fears.

'I'm sorry that Col has been so...er...pushy getting you here but we really do have to talk. Colorado and I have only your best interest at heart.'

Who aside from parents say that?

'...maybe our best interests...' corrected Parish in response to my frown.

'....David's right...it's of mutual interest that we have this sit down...and afterward you can weigh things up and decide to come with me or not...'

I took in the room, the stark lighting, the art, Remingtons and Pollocks clashing violently with the walls. Power art to intimidate. Once we had stopped moving the lights dimmed and we five were marooned in a pool of off-white while the first strains of Miles Davis oozed seductively from hidden speakers. More Kind of Blue than Bitches Brew.

No staff or middle men in sight. He was all charm and bon homie, but it wasn't Stone that preoccupied my mind but Parish as he leaned back with his thin lips on the rim of his glass as if he were divining something in the golden depths. And as Stone spoke he would raise his head and tilt it like some mynah bird.

'You are a rare man,' Stone began, the rolling Texan vowels turning each syllable into a paean to everyman charm, the deceptive ring of home spun philosophy, the stock in trade of LBJ to Reagan.

'Now me and Colorado go back aways; locked horns a few times but when he tells me you're a man of rare vision, then I sit up and say let's take a look. I don't mind telling you I don't get what you're doing with the Gallery and the Palace and the music but you got the common touch and folks beating a path to your door means you doing a lot right and yeah I could learn something.'

I glanced around. I had not and did not put the malt to my lips.

'You don't seem like a man who needs advise...' this was the first time I had spoken since arriving. Stone flashed that imperial smile.

'It doesn't happen to me often these days I'll admit, but you know I'm running for President and I could do with something you got, and unless I'm mistaken you could do with something I got.'

Stone began to regurgitate his manifesto as if this British citizen would give a damn. Smith intervened.

'John...love to hear the political broadcast but save it for CNN...this kid's got no vote...and he needs you to cut to the chase...'

'Force of habit,' Stone grinned and continued. I could not deny the man's natural charisma and force of personality. He had the arrogance of certainty on his side but that clearly wasn't enough. He said he had little personal appeal, humanity or humility...everything in fact that he said I had. A gold plated lawyer said nothing to the man on the street. He said that power was a language that turned off as much as on. But he appeared, beneath the Texan shuffle, to have real aspirations to serve.

'And then there is Hector...'

I listened as Coltrane did his bit on Freddie Freeloader.

'A man like Di Lauro has no right to wield so much power... Colorado told me the moves he's been making on you and I can tell you I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. Now I'm not saying hard men ain't got there place, hell no one pulled me up the greasy pole, I cracked heads, but men like Hector and they're a dime a dozen across the US have a free ride, folks too afraid to stand up to them. I seen his type, a little extortion here, some intimidation there, switchblades in back alleys. It never stops it only escalates and that my friend is why Col reached out to me. Men like Di Lauro they don't face folks down, they keep in the shadows avoiding personal and direct confrontation. So a toe to toe showdown with a man like me...I'd like to see it.'

'How's the drink Peter...' Parish now and I wondered what the hell business it was of his. He was not hosting this...was he?

'So here's the offer Pete, you get on board the Stone battlebus and vouch for me on the world stage, and we make medicine in getting this scumbag put away. I'm going after him and his kind anyway, but I guess I'm trying to leverage something out of your position for myself....always the politician eh? You help me and I promise to make Di Lauro my priority.'

He waited for my reply. My eyes said continue and Stone held my gaze. He wanted push back, questions, but the gig was his. Him to speak and me to listen. I don't find it easy to plug into another man's world view...all I had were his words and that firm handshake...I was not in the company of trustworthy men...

'Now I know you're a law abiding man and I can respect that. You want the law to handle this and in most cases that would make some sense. But you gotta understand that this guy's beyond the law...ain't that so Dom?'

'He's got every law enforcement agency in his pocket,' said the ex cop, 'can't be touched conventionally. Not by the NYPD, the Met, Scotland Yard, the Polizia di Stato, Interpol and even if they did he's got the judiciary too.'

That germanic drawl. And those flashing blue eyes?

'They won't touch him, and there's an army of jokers like him all across the US and Europe.,' said Stone, 'terrorist groups allowed to ferment, radicalisation and subversion polluting the kid's brains until they are making bombs and spreading the word of a god they never even heard of. Why...because they have no sense of self...they are a part of some global machine...where the individual is not more than a cog, a bullet for higher cause. And that's why men like Di Lauro hate you Pete...you got folks thinking for themselves.'

Stone never mentioned Zander but he didn't have to. Parish watched me over the rim of his glass.

'But we got form when it comes to stamping out corruption, haven't we Col,' said Stone, 'back in the day. You remember the fights we had in El Paso?'

'Sure do John...we deputised Dom and his privateers to run a root and branch audit on the local police force, kicking out a good fifty percent, before recruiting an army of ambitious rookies to take down the bad guys.'

'And regards the Toad I have men on the inside Peter,' said Rudiger,

Stone read me and raised his hands...in the submissive gesture.

'Pete...what Dom is saying is that we need formal authority to go after men like Di Lauro. We have the will and we have the means. I need to dismantle the existing judicial system and get men, good strong incorruptible men in place to rise above his intimidations. It's a passion of mine, I hate corruption even more than I loathe men like Hector. I intend to bring them all to heel Pete and I would like...need a man like you at my side....to get me through the door.'

But that wasn't the full picture was it. This deck was rigged...

'I just want you on the ticket...'

Miles and Bill Evans in the Lydian mode of Blue In Green, soothing and authoritative. Growling night traffic crossing the river like the hum of a Greek chorus, biding its time, anticipating the big day, the child of reason.

'....will you join me Pete...?'

No more was said. I didn't have the words. Smith said we'd think about it.

Smith and Thalia called for a meeting of the board and the offer was discussed. I said little. My energy had been drained away by Di Lauro so easily I now realise. Was I really that fragile, that weak? My urge to create was still there but all this peripheral stuff...the extortion, Smith and Thalia scheming, Zander and Parish and then this Toad from Naples. What had any of that got to do with me and my vision for a better world?

I drifted in and out, watching Thalia and realised as the meeting progressed it wasn't the Toad but my wife that was on my mind. Villains are easy, it's wolves in sheeps clothing that bring you down. I tuned back in as Mac described the union troubles we were having across Europe and the States. Big Al talked about the final arrangements for the Blenheim Event and Old Nat endorsed Smith's advice that we cosy up to Stone. With Thalia's endorsement the board were unanimous that this was the best way forward. It would send Di Lauro a message and it wouldn't compromise my abhorrence at using Pantheons dirty money to bail us out. I should have been thankful.

'Parish was there...' I said at last. 'which means Donald has a hand in this.'

'He has a hand in many things...' said Thalia, 'it doesn't make this the wrong move. It only means we have a common goal, to bring down Di Lauro. Can that be so bad?

'You have the freest of hands Pete,' said Smith, 'the offer is from Stone alone. Besides even if he is tangential to this it will not need his dirty money as you would see it. As far as I know he isn't bank rolling Stone, he's wealthy enough.'

'So Parish?'

'..an associate of Stone for as long as I can remember...look Peter....you gotta realise that Pantheon are everywhere. The movies you watch, the coffee you're drinking right now, the banks we use, the cars we drive...

I couldn't buy the casual rhetoric. The golden thread was as fine as silk and as strong as steel, tethering me to the man who would feast from the carnal harvest. Di Lauro was a thug but Zander was the greater pariah, Death in the Seventh Seal, a game of chess for the soul, which Death only had to win once.

'So how long is Stone in the UK for?' asked Old Nat.

'A week...' said Smith and glanced up at me.

'Give me five days,' I said, which would see me clear of the Great Event.

I dove deeper into the Journey Into The Light painting my way to a decision. In my studio, at home my mind bred sickly offspring, hybrids and malformed sentiments, diseased passions of the shadow self. Whenever my defences fell they always fell too far leaving me open to the slightest infection. By realising my inner desires I had laid too much open to the elements. I hadn't appreciated the vulnerability of the naked soul.

I knew that Thalia was slipping beyond my reach once more. Was she ever in it? Alone at the easel my paintbrush brought the dead pigments and the blank canvass to life, a calling to what once lay unbidden. No words now, just the outward expression of an inner life where words had ceased to have any serious currency. The writers and the seers had let me down. My wife had and I knew deep down I had let myself down. I was out of my league playing with fire.

Thalia was a new country inviting and promising. Having landed and come ashore I had pushed on in fear and trepidation and delight. Lawns and water, heady perfumes and the touch of a breeze, honey soaked and sweet. Access roads soon turned to off-road tracks, unbeaten paths and animal tracks threading through unchartered lands, forests and fields. Skirting the banks of fresh blue water I painted on until the bristles found the leaves falling and the way treacherous under food, tangled of bramble and hawthorn and I struggled to make headway. Meadowsweet for creepers and silvern woods for dense withered forests and wetland, singing brooks for brackish swamps, a harsh unfamiliar terrain, forbidding and filled with shadow. I looked for a way out. I tried to paint it. I seemed trapped, too far from the road and the coast.

She had said that I was drifting away and she was right. It's true to say I was no longer the man she married and for that I must take responsibility. I had projected my own values onto hers. I had taken all of her certainties, her ambitions and our future together and scattered them like birds from a tree. The sanctity of her father's love and loyalty had become the ties that separated us, the truth was that I was and always had been Zander's man, and with the father came the daughter.

And yet there was hope. She had not gone to him overtly, instead she was prepared to pay up and accept the cost. She was devising another way. Surely there was hope in her determination not to call in Daddy. I painted a red glow where the ocean kisses the sky and in the radiance I watched her walk over the waves back toward me. I finally saw that she wanted me on my terms...how had I been so blind. I put down the brush and went to find her, to tell her about my revelation, the lantern in the dark, beckoning my sorry blind eyes...but she had gone. She had taken a step in my direction and I had rejected it, and for that I was sorry.

The shadow self said she had gone for good, but I knew that could not be. But as I ruminated I saw that I had opened my front door and I had stepped outside and as the nightingales wished me good evening I followed my feet along Walton Street turning left and left again. Jack the Weasel said high and lent me the keys and for three days and nights I saw the Nantucket Sunrise, declining the road trip for the spiral staircase I followed down through the mantle and the Matmos, passed Alice and plumes of tectonic fire to the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears like waves on an underground shore.

Did happiness really have to be paid for? Was joy passive or reactive? If I was just the sum of the consequences of my actions where was I in all of this? And what place the celestial constructs that say virtue is absolute and here are the exemplars in Plato's Forms. Were my values hard wired or the result of a drip drip feed of the ancient Jewish Covenant, closing the gap between HIM and him.

The cleansing continued, leaving the tactile and sensory, the anger and fear of impermanence, through the ring of light where words may not follow until only essence is left merging with the absence of awareness. In the void there is one true reality, my own existence.

An affirmative shift in my world view revealed no god in the biblical/qur'anic sense of an omniscient deity, a force, a metaphoric super conscience but more a symbiotic relationship with the earth and primal man's organic roots. CHURCH, mere flotsam to be clung to, a distorted, bloated construct, a brutish substitute, a surrogate truth. The German declared we had killed God...but for that he must have first lived.

The people needed a new exodus, back into the light, the one that glows, dimly perhaps, in all of our hearts. Cold turkey from the celestial narcotic. The curtains open to a dazzling new dawn. And then it came to me.

'....the truth is, I am god.'

Panic at Blenheim Palace as Big Al introduced the first act, the electro/grunge band Quantum, just right for kicking off a three day festival of free reined spirit and inclusivity. I was a no show leaving the prep to Thalia, Big Al and Smith. Mac and Old Nat had reported back to Stone, a meeting at the Bear Hotel in Woodstock where the great man had come to experience first hand the phenomena that was Elysium. The festival had been publicised in the national and international press, on all social media networks and TV channels. Cameras were here from the BBC, Sky, CNN , NHK, France 24 and significantly Rai News 24 funnelling international news into Neapolitan homes.

The strap line was leave your old self behind and heed the call. Be there and bear witness to the new dawn, the new Woodstock, this time for real at the duke's manor in old Woodstock. It had been a simple piece of negotiation with John Churchill's descendants desperate to claim some positive publicity having sold off so much of their land to local builders. It was a time of redemption.

The people came in their thousands from all points and from all cultures. All to watch, listen or participate. The roads to West Oxfordshire were blocked and cars were abandoned as drivers took to their feet. The 2000 acre site was filled from corner to corner.

Art studios in tents, marquees and a forest of stand alone easels in the fresh spring sunshine prefigured an outpouring of civic creativity. I had decreed the weather would hold and it did. Vendors dispensing food from every culture, local musicians hunkered down in remote woods and secluded glades, or beside the painters, adding colour and sonic texture. Home spun songs, new old folk songs, voices of protest and love, voices made of sugar and treacle, clumsy riffs, unready and unsteady, smokers unabashed in their grassy habits as the air sparkled and the guitarist with the second band, the Timescale, said 'The walrus is back.'

That evening I returned. I arose that morning and left Jack for the last bus to Woodstock. I had no cash but the driver recognised me and I said he should bill me but he said it's on the house mate. I had changed into some gear I had stashed at Jack's, which I always changed out of when I came back home. Today I just left as I was in a startling blood red kurta.

I entered the park by a side gate and as the sun was going down I threaded through the crowds. I heard the murmur rise like surf on a beach. It crashed and roared with a compelling siren song infusing the minds of sailors to lay down their burden and join them. Distant and very much there I felt the hands of those who would reach out and touch me. The hollow eyed and hopeful, they stroked my long hair and my beard and I let my arms drag like a man through a field of corn. Did I smile...of course.

I remember my legs carrying me onto the main stage where one of Thalia's discoveries were waiting to play. I think it was the Krest, already a million seller and about to go global. Thalia was at the mic and I joined her to impromptu rapturous applause. For me or for her, or for the day. The stage was set up against the majestic backdrop of the Palace and I remember looking out over the heads of a sea of faces to the column on the hill a memorial to the first Duke of Marlborough himself. I remember thinking how odd to build a memorial to oneself like that.

Looking back I don't think I really knew why I was there or what I intended to say. I think I was on fire with so much understanding and a kind of love that I just needed to share. I was overflowing and could have sworn that I was radiating light. So I just stood there and Thalia was at my side. Big Al was standing back with the singer of the band and we were like warriors on the shore, looking out to sea waiting for something to come over the horizon.

There was cheering but for the life of me I didn't connect with it. I was not in the thrall of adulation. I did not have a messiah complex, I did not have any illusions on that score. I think they could tell I was no longer a man but a spirit, perhaps more spirit than animal. For many it was the first time they had seen me in the flesh. Sure I had made numerous TV appearances and had been available to the fourth floor elite at the gallery, but here I was, the living embodiment of a newly awakened age. I think they identified with the ex soldier emerging as the artisan with an eye to the horizon and into their hearts. They were not mine to teach, they were teaching me. I was disciple and apostle to their energy. Isn't that when God is born, at the realisation of man's true nature? And here I was the physical embodiment of a glorious new sense of euphoria, the joy of life.

Any mind that is cut loose from the herd has something to say as it parades its brash new clothes. You are at the centre of a world that had always been there. A fellow of the indivisible id as Freud would have it. The emerging soul that lay dormant in Peter-Lava, anew in Peter-Pupa and alive as Peter-Butterfly, the carrier of dreams. I was a man who had scraped away the rust of the metaphysical.

Krest leaned on their guitars and waited. I don't think I had met them before.

'I've seen things,' I suddenly said. I remember my voice was barely audible. I was still in my head where dreams don't have volume instead you depend upon feelings that require no translation...after all you are the author, lead actor and director. Speak up someone shouted and so I did.

'I can't tell you everything but it seems to me that in art as in life, we invent ideas, of ourselves and the people we know, and people we don't know. They are like this and they are like that, until it's a fog of second hand nursery rhymes and fables. It's just us looking for patterns in the clouds and other peoples eyes. So many voices, some we recognise but most are strangers we choose to let in and tell us what to think. We never stood a chance.'

I stopped and focussed on some of the faces. The people were quiet, trying to get me...I was overcome with the responsibility and nearly fled. They were not expecting this. At the best of times I was not a natural speaker. Thalia had said as much and now I could feel her nervousness, standing beside me willing me to say something cogent. She didn't know where I had been and the journey I had made. I became scared and grabbed for her hand. It was a little boy standing up at assembly. The wind in my hair told me I should return to Jack's but there would be no better time than this to bring things to a head. I ploughed on.

I heard and then saw Ashwin Baptiste, the elegant Pantheon Head of Global Integration sitting cross legged in the wings, a balalaika across his knees. Soft words and soft strings lilted out the spoken words of a traditional old song called Altamont. I looked at Al and Thalia...could they see him?

This is the sight we had one day

On the high Mountain

We saw a lamb with seven eyes

We saw a beast with seven horns

And a book with seven seals

Seven angels with seven trumpets

And seven bowls filled with anger

Those are the pictures we had one day

Of what was

Of what is

And what has to come

We are the people

The rolling people

The why people

The waiting people

The wanting people

The tambourine people

The alternative people

The angel people

To the somnolent back drop I continued.

'I saw this man, standing in a crowd, waiting for his time and I thought it was me. All he wanted, he said, was liberation and self respect and freedom from personal tyranny, its servants and masters, its imaginary games, the halls of mirrors, the godless theocracies, the personal anocracies and too many roads too badly lit to trust.'

I was animated now, blind to the faces, deaf to their silence.

'He asked me about the feudal system and its feudal thinking, the cultivation of the powerless by the empowered like farm animals. He asked me why we extend power to the aristocracy and the church. Without our acquiescence they would have nothing. Power is ownership he said and this was never of our choosing.'

I paused now.

'Yet here we are, endorsing the mistakes of the past. Saying they were right to hold us back, to numb us with lies and drugs and TV. We have been sleepwalking through the day and sleeping through the night. History is the great narcotic.'

Up turned faces in adulation or confusion?

'Then I saw the face of Hector Di Lauro.'

A few non plussed, who's he, a few frowning. But a few knew the name because I watched them whispering to each other...he's that gangster...American, Italian or something...and one or two remained resolutely silent because, I assumed, they were only alive because he had spared them. He was under the surface even here in Oxford, his name whispered in the shadows of the dreaming spires.

'I've never met him but I came across him. A man of power and of straw. A weak man who confuses violence with persuasion, fear for deference, gain for riches. He forces it, a prostitute's love, for hard cash.'

I looked into the lenses of a fleet of TV cameras, staring like aliens in my direction, relaying every hesitation, word and doubt. I felt Thalia's hand grip mine, I saw Al glaring at me and I saw Krest look at each other. The faces below wanted more.

'They say I should fear him, to do as he says. But how can I fear a man who walks in his own shadow. A man so weak he hides from the light, ravenous for approval but as lonely as any stray dog? How can I fear someone who I pity? Hector you demand your slice, a cut of. I pay you to stay away from my door? If you want my money, then you shall have it. But like any beggar I invite you in...to ask what else is it you need.'

I surveyed the sea of faces, the young and the old, the rockers and the passers by, the artists in waiting and the artists in residence, the searchers...

"Will you help me?' I beseeched the crowd.

'Peter...' Thalia began to tug me away from the mic. I raised my voice and called out. I called him out on global television.

'Hector Di Lauro...you are called the Toad, the untamed but you are only a man and I pity you...' I cried out as if he were a distant figure in the crowd. Did they know what I was talking about? Uncertainty at first but a sustained roar of approval lifted me. They were rallying to my cause...I think they got it.'

'Hector are you here?'

I shaded my eyes and scanned the crowd dramatically. Murmurs of trepidation. On the raised platform in the centre, the one reserved for the less mobile and their minders, I saw the tall black woman with the tattooed cheeks and the floral dress, and her smiling wheelchair bound companion. Did he actually wave?

'I want you to do something for me......'

A rise and a buzz.

'I want you to help me bring Hector Di Lauro out into the light. Hector...if you ever hear this....I beg you to join us and be at peace for the first time in your life.'

The crowd agreed as crowds will, warming to my every gesture, taking it for the truth without considering the implications of talking a tiger down from a tree, confusing its elevated position with helplessness. The woman and the smiling man in the wheelchair left the platform, disappearing over Vanbrugh's bridge, slipping through the pockets of shade beneath Capability Brown's trees and on to the main gates.

'Hector come into the light'...the chant rocked the crowd and like the rushing tide swelled and subsided until the beach shifted under its waft and weft.

I turned for the first time toward the Palace and caught the long lugubrious visage of Colorado Smith in the nearest ground floor window. I had challenged him. I had found a third way. Thalia had the same look...of paralysed horror....why? The people had spoken..they endorsed my sentiment.

When I stepped down from the stage Krest kicked into their best known song...The Hour of the Wolf and its incendiary beat pulsed up through my feet until it became another heart beat. Instead of leaving via the people Thalia led me gently off the stage like Sinatra in his dotage, uncertain where the wings were.

As we walked gingerly back stage and out to her car I saw her glance over to Smith as he cut his way trough the back stage liggers. They shared something in that look....an understanding, pity, fear, apprehension? No...I'd seen that look before....resolution of what must be done...and it would be without my consent. The glance depressed me more than I can explain.

Day Two kicked off with the ambient synth ensemble known as Reluctance, the perfect tonic for the campers making their ways to the food stalls and the early morning artists intent upon capturing the Palace in all its Day-Glo glory. The graffiti workers had set about embroidering the Georgian walls much to the horror of the estate but endorsed enthusiastically by the Marquis himself who was seen adding his own spray can signature. Among the artists came the photographers too, the neglected poor cousin to the tactile painters and sculptors, but legitimised by gods like Hine, Stieglitz and Strand who captured the soul of progressive and derelict 19th century America.

Poetry too broke through to find its own place at the Great Event, sheets of paper, laptops, projections and readings, the outpourings of all night introspective exposition being clutched in shaking hands, having never read in public before, or handed to one of the troubadours anxious to try their hand at lyrical interpretation, the libretto.

I was taken with a sudden fear of reacquainting myself with the crowd, like a man who feels that he may have said too much the night before when the world was a kinder place. By midday I was in my studio, not at the gallery but at home. I never returned to the Great Event. I just couldn't. My exeunt meant that I missed the Untamed response to being called out.

A late morning rally was organising a march into the south east of the city where it was rumoured the Toad's local enforcers had their base. How did they know? I never found out. It seems that there were voices on the wire, like birds in the evening, twittering with malevolent certainty. Placards were made and the artists went to work with paints, felt tip pens and spray paints and stencils.

'HECTOR, COLOUR YOUR SOUL COOL'

'HECTOR, FEEL THE SUN AND PAINT WITH US'

'EXPRESS YOURSELF HECTOR'

'WE LOVE YOU HECTOR'

'DON'T BE AFRIAD OF THE LIGHT.'

Florid, late 60s purples and smiley faces, the message was clear for all to see. And so they went to embrace a lost soul ripe for recovery, for resurrection if you will. And they gathered and smiled their self reverential smiles and made ready to head south east.

But riders were on the wind, carrying messages through the lower sky, into the lair of the great white hope of the west, the untamed abomination who slavered in his nest. The first confirmed that Elysium would in all faith endorse the next US president. By hook or by crook the republican cause would have its sponsor. And in the deep south west of the long boot the word was dispatched back to Cowley. The message had been received and the reply eloquently transcribed and delivered to Joe Sarpendon the Albanian affiliate who had provided the muscle who knocked over the girls in the park and turned over the paint pots in the gallery. A charmer who leant his unsavoury mind to the highest bidder.

And so the love squad gathered at the grand ornate gates of Blenheim Palace and piled into a chartered private bus to take them into the city, through the centre and onto Sarpendon's lair on the eastern side of Cowley, the industrial quadrant of Oxford. Joe Sarpendon was squat, unsavoury with a hook nose, a long belligerent face and thin greasy hair and a temper that brooked no opposition. Like his Neapolitan pay master he rewarded loyalty and men prospered. At the same time once your utility was used up you were disappeared. The trick was to fit in, be one of the boys and to read the runes in time to split. He was a known face around the back streets of the south and east city and a regular attendee at the Crown Court, not as the accused but a member of the public intimidating the witnesses, making sure they knew he knew and that there would be consequences if they spoke out of turn.

They came in their bus like the Magical Mystery Tour, with their infantile slogans, to stand before the shopping parade above which the thugs had their premises, being the local landlords of all of the adjacent real estate. From his window the angry visage watched them gather and chant his bosses name as if he were actually there. What were they thinking would happen? What else could happen? When the case went to court his options were put to him...call the police, gently move them on, humour them. What happened next was unnecessary and disproportionate.

At midday a truck pulled up on the far side of the road with its central island for pedestrians, creating a wide thoroughfare. The protesters were gathered together, chanting and blocking one complete lane. Traffic was backing up and the road was polarised into peace and love and a towering, pitiless rage. I knew none of this was happening and only came to know of it later when my mother's involvement was made clear to me.

The truck idled for a minute or two as if the driver was waiting for something. Then a dozen buzz cut, musclemen poured out of the back. Puzzled eyes and furrowed brows turned to face the wall of leather and iron, unable to comprehend their ferocity. But for one diminutive woman, clutching her own homemade placard, there was sanctuary in the plaintive imaginarium of Callas's Casa Diva. My mother faced the rush of the tide and the horror of it will never leave me.

The police arrived to a sea of smashed limbs and pulped faces, broken placards, bloodied curb-stones and the beaten bodies of men, women and children. The flash assault had been merciless and indiscriminate. No-one had fled or ducked the savage beating, no one was left standing to lay witness to the desolation and the only voices raised were the groans of the still conscious against the silence of those who lay very very still.

Reports say that a tall, rugged man of angular Germanic features, blond Aryan hair and the bluest of blue eyes detached from the police to enter the block he knew Joe Sarpendon owned. The way was barred as he flashed a badge. Still barred he withdrew and as I understand it he would report back to his handler and long term acquaintance John T Stone. Now I don't know what Rudiger intended that day but as he walked away, threading between the broken limbs and the blood, and given the way things unfolded I now realise there was more on his mind than Joe Sarpendon and Hector the Toad Di Lauro.

The Journey Into the Light had my complete attention remaining. I was ignorant of the wildfire sweeping through the streets and my dreams. I was back on the top floor of the gallery as the people reeled when the truth made its way back to the Palace, like a wounded hero, staggering back from Thermopylae. A pall of horror stifled creativity as the news sunk in. First whispers and shock, rumours and disbelief, then anger and calls for retribution. The stage became the voice of grief, the crowd fermented retribution. Peace and love fell at the first fence.

At the Gallery a man forced his way passed Miranda and thundered up to the fourth floor. I turned to the Colonel standing at my door like some god of war, framed by his rage, frightened to enter for fear of what he might do to his errant, wastrel son.

'Your mother is in hospital, fighting for her life, what have you got to say about that son?'

I had had no meaningful contact with my father since bringing shame upon the family and words did not come easily at the gunpoint of my father's wrath. Mid brush stroke I turned to face the raging force, his knuckles white in balled fists.

'I couldn't stop her...she wanted to be there, to see you and be a part of everything you thought you were doing. But you know your mother, too afraid to step into her own shadow...but she drew strength from your positivity she said, you were making the world a better place, one she felt safer in, she talked about going to your freak show, I said don't be led astray by all this hippy dippy nonsense, but she stole herself, pumped herself up with her 'medicines' and set foot outside. I was proud and appalled son...do you get me...and I said why don't I take you, but she was single minded, determined that this was hers to do, to express herself, to be the woman inside, so she caught the bus and was there in the crowd yesterday when she saw you in god knows what you were wearing, and the love as she put it, pouring from you and the crowds adoration and today when she saw them preparing to leave for that....monster, she...can you believe this boy, Alice was there, with them, keen to express herself,...isn't that the message of the moment?...and they came...and I don't know whether she will ever regain consciousness.'

I sat down and the light and the life drained away. They had found my weak spot, more than father, or even Thalia. My mother, the one unconditional white light in a world that seemed to defy colour. I sank to the floor and let the brush go and the tears came. The father went to the son, and the fists of fury became comforters as we became two men consumed by the same grief for which there is no jurisdiction save love.

Day Three of the Great Event was a defiant, tremulous affair. Some would have called it off, guardians of sensitivity, bastions of social etiquette. Thalia and the rest of the board declared they would continue in honour of the victims and in defiance of men like Di Lauro. The consensus was to rally again and call the Toad out...again. There was fear but there was something else, a Dutch courage as if the light could be worn like armour. This would not be some knee jerk recreational grief this would be a wall of honour...a kind of truth.

New placards sprouted like weeds thorough cracked flagstones and the air simmered with a sense of injustice and holy righteousness. Men came to the Palace armed, tough guys, best mates happy to help, a gun was seen and everyone thought of Altamont and some went home afraid.

Voices rose and fell like notes on a piano, running wild, unfocussed like hares across a wide open meadow, thoughtless and blind to real events. It was as though everyone's inner voice, their shadow selves, met in secret to construct an artifice of defiance. That inner world is where no one is king and everyone is imagining what everyone else really wants. The outer world was probably no-ones actual idea of a way forward but there they were, intent upon turning my words into something they could rally around...a call to arms.

The bands took to the stage with something to play for, and the hardy applauded and drew and painted, and their imaginations drew inspiration from the dark colours of the day and many paintings went on to become some of the most studied and expressive in British art, inspiration being the foundling of dark hearts. Performances became legendary, poignant reminders of the enduring power of music and its ability to convey more than notes and words. The Blenheim Event became the new Woodstock...ironically at the old Woodstock. Were you there? Did you play?

I didn't go. Only Big Al and Thalia mc'ing some of the best music to come out of the Leda Cellar. The evening ended in a blistering no holds barred set from Lilac Wire a drum and base trance art and music installation, a full blown weave of acid, trance, death metal and grunge. The intensity cut the atmosphere like a knife, brain surgery for the angry.

Either side of the woman we both loved my father and I sat in silent prayer. But this was not within the province of gods, at least not the kind you read about in fairy tales. Inert and diminutive my mother seemed weighed down by too many tubes and bags and screens offering statistical updates on the state of her body. Waiting and watching held little value save to accompany her body as it fought its one sided battle to contain the mind and the soul of our little bird.

Old Nat came and joined us for a moment before asking to talk to me. Father said it was ok and we stood in the corridor.

'It looks as though Di Lauro's thug, Sarpendon will face no charges. A guy called Captain Rudiger came by and made the claim that there are too many standing between him and the courts to make charges stick. No-one in Cowley is prepared to step out of line.'

'It's just the way Stone said it was,' I said, 'what should I do Nat...?'

Old Nat grimaced as he told me the decision had been made for me...that Colorado and my wife had already reached out to Stone to say yes you would stand with him....He looked at me and waited for my anger. I heard my shadow self declare myself betrayed again. I looked to Nat and he looked back. I would have spoken but he held up a hand and stopped me.

'Peter...listen to me. We are all men who have bought into a dream, your dream. And some of us have had experience of men like Di Lauro. We either maintain the status quo and continue to take the hit and ride things out and hope Stone comes through in some way, or we call it a day. I know men like Di Lauro, they do not respond proportionately. He is a killer who sees weakness where you see honour and strength, he sees opportunity in consolation and olive branches. He has no use for gestures of peace and friendship...he only wants your blood.'

I hung my head.

'Don't be so hard on Colorado and your wife...they saw this immediately...we all did....'

I felt tears in my eyes and Nat took me by my arm.

'You have made a difference to so many lives Peter and sooner or later a man like Di Lauro was bound to come along...you recall the mob moving in on our good thing in Arizona. Stone is still in town...I suggest you and Colorado find the time to break bread again. You've done something rare Peter. Somehow you've gotten through to the Toad... you got under his skin, rattled his cage. He has over-reacted to your calling him out. Perhaps he will get sloppy...who knows, but Stone's on his case and he needs you.'

I went back in to mother and father. The way ahead remained conflicted. I seemed to be in a play where most of the action was taking place off stage. The machinations whirred and clanked, actors pointing into the wings and declaiming events beyond the horizon. Perhaps this is how Cassie felt, isolated in a sea of predetermined events, beyond her control and glimpsed only in part through a veil.

Stone, Colorado and this guy Rudiger seemed as thick as thieves. Parish? What do I make of him? Zander's man there in Stone's lounge. I should have confronted him. I would become their puppet, no worse than that, a tethered goat, waiting on the edge of camp where the mountain lion and the untamed walk.

I sat in silence as father watched me. I wanted his advice, his help...but my shadow self said no...the next step is for you and you alone my boy, which turned out to be the truth.

# CASSIE IV

I went to the studio, late one afternoon. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I have to make one thing clear to you, I am a harbinger. I cannot SEE the future. There's no spectral dimension, I'm not a medium or a prophet...although I may have some overlap with the Delphic Oracle...where pronouncements spill from the lips of some hallucinating young girl both suggestible and drugged.

To me it seems as though the mindscape we all inhabit is just that...a place where memories flow like water. Somehow I know what is coming down the line...images and a reverse kind of deja vu.

I have no SCIENTIFIC basis for why my senses are joined by the waters of other minds, flooding my own with unwanted thoughts in fine-strokes, oils and water, raw emotions on canvass. I see images and I hear voices in tongues. They have to be my voices....who else could they be...memories of other voices? Your voice? I don't see how...do you?

To make matters more confusing these abstractions begin to fade in the telling, like any nocturnal dream. I'm left with just so much smoke and little fire, although the embers smoulder on, providing just enough warmth and just enough evidence that someone was there.

And here's a question. Is it the telling that makes dreams come true? Some Hawthorne Effect where the observed changes through the act of observation or telling.

Percy reminded me how upset I always am when my warnings go unheeded, as they always are. Cursed and blessed in equal measure since childhood, the voices inside struggle to order themselves into something coherent, flashing between the senses, out of time and sequence, so that I ramble and they cry lunatic, hysteric....she's plain nuts. The journey from mind to voice does me few favours.

So how do we know you're not some sad old chancer who sees coincidence as providence? Good question. Well my advice to you is just ignore me and see what happens...

# THE FATE OF GODS

Urban myths: Walt Disney's body lies in some deep freeze, cryogenically preserved, despite a well documented cremation and interment in 1966; only 10% of the brain is used despite neurologists knowing for years we use all of it; and Sir Walter Raleigh laying his cloak down for Good Queen Bess just didn't happen, and as for Nero fiddling while Rome burnt, he wasn't even in town at the time; ok so how about the apple tempting Eve to take a bite, Genesis makes no mention of any type of fruit, except that it's forbidden; and the ox and the ass witness to the nativity, no animals are mentioned at all, and as for animals going in 2 by 2...well yes some, but the majority were 7 by 7, and please don't try and spot the Great Wall of China from the moon, you won't see it and 'Ringo the best drummer in the world, he's not even the best drummer in the Beatles' so said an uncharitable John Lennon although in truth a good gag from Jasper Carrot; and as for Elvis Presley spotted on the grassy knoll, completely true.

As a god I knew my responsibilities. Risen from the ashes of the man I was enriched with all the zeal of an evangelist. To this end the sacrifice of my soul in the name of all that is celestial brought me here behind the wheel of a green Mustang north of the city, waiting for the call. Eyes to the western horizon I knew the fight for my soul was nearly over. My citadel had been built on an honest predication that man is more than his hominid ancestor, more than an atomic anomaly and more than a genetic construct designed to run the jungle until the final sunset. My mistake, if there was one, must have been to assume that deep down we all want the same, self fulfilment, self expression, joy and peace. The joy of life should have run like a well spring, sating our unfulfilled thirsts, the answer that had been there all along.

It had come to this, the sacrifice not unlike the sacrifice of one far greater than I all those years ago. With the fortress surrounded and the portcullis splintering before the heft of so many it was my duty to lay waste the battlefield and commit my soul to the dust. All of this I now recall and the path had been a rough one littered with every opportunity to put aside so much malign ambition and the brute need to best our fellow men. The cast was classical and the tale as old as time itself.

My reading habits had ventured further and further back in time and I was now in thrall to the ancients, the orations of Cicero, the works of Caesar and the great historians Tacitus and Plutarch, the Aeneid of Vergil and the social commentary of Josephus. And further back still to Hesiod and the Homeric world where the lives of gods and men were still intertwined.

They say that the Odyssey was the very first novel although Homer is a disputed inventor let alone author. But it is the Iliad from which we learn more. The Trojan War itself is there but the set pieces we are all aware of, are not. These are derived from a variety of sources including the Cypria, the Little Iliad and the Aethiopis. From these we learn of the obligations of the Greek Lords to avenge the kidnap of Helens, of the sacrifice at Aulis, the death of Achilles with the arrow in his heel, and the Trojan horse with its subterfuge and resultant slaughter of the Trojan people and its aristocracy. The Iliad has nothing to say about any of these or of the flight of Aeneas carrying his ancient father on his back destined to set in motion the antecedents of Romulus himself. And the entire unedifying spectacle set in motion by Zeus enraged by the folly of man and engineered through the temptation of Paris the aftermath of the wedding feast of his daughter.

Were there parallels, if so who was I? Zander above us all, Alice caught up in the dreams of madmen, the Pantheon out of heaven to seduce, encourage, entice and bewitch, Hector Di Lauro no less a puppet than I, Thalia the pawn in a tug of love with Stone another hapless chess piece doing the bidding of the great Zander and then there is Rudiger...what of him and where do I know him? I hope to find out before the day is ended.

It was only a few months ago when it seemed there was hope, for me at least. But first there was America. Thalia and I flew out on Stone's private jet with Mac who also had business in the US. There was Parish but no Smith who stayed at home. Having tipped my hat in Stone's direction I made every effort to engage as sincerely as I could, his right wing credentials not withstanding. His entourage and aides embellished his appeal with a mixture of sycophancy and genuine commitment.

At JFK Mac departed for the east coast flying on to meet with union leaders to hammer out something they could swallow. But the pitch was uneven and we knew the trial of strength with the Toad would only go one way...for now. Fear is the greatest negotiation tool after all.

A night over in Stone Towers with all of its opulent glory, its gold encrusted lobby, its waterfalls and marble, and its symbol of the worst kinds of excess; Thalia and I differed on our response. I recoiled but she was at home and her slow almost metaphysical drift from my artisan principles to Stone's two fisted frontier philosophy was a source of great pain for me. She and John T Stone hit it off from the start and not just because they are both phenomenally attractive but they were cut from the same sense of privileged entitlement where power is king. Having bridged the gap between us, having seen the light and her genuine love for what I stood for she became dazzled by a new light, a new star.

In the meantime while the cracks in the sky were barely discernible I witnessed first hand the veracity of Stone's commitment to the cause and I relaxed in my endorsement. Know a man by his enemies they say which I discovered were the Supreme Court and a range of federal law enforcement agencies. The mood was that Stone should keep his hands off things he didn't understand which was code for protecting vested interests. I realised the man who owned so much of New York was actually onto something. I also learned during a number of briefings that intelligence from Rudiger's men would prove critical in any root and branch overhaul.

We had three rallies where I would put my credibility on the line to get this man through the door and begin the push back on Di Lauro. The razzmatazz of the US political system is such a turn off. To put so much faith in other humans, to all but idolise and deify something that is in the end only an aspiration as if the last guy was the anti christ and the new guy is the Christ. Politics is a heady mix of self interest, a genuine desire to serve, and towing the party line however that is defined. And by all accounts the day to day is a cocktail of improvisation, reaction and personal chemistry. The democratic/republican split is often overwhelmed by events on the world stage that lay beyond party lines.

On the whole my performances at the side of this man brought a flood of supporters otherwise disengaged from the electoral process. I spoke of Stone's determination to facilitate a nation where free expression would be an integral part of the education curriculum. This was something I had insisted he included as a part of a quid pro quo arrangement. I also asked for greater funding for the arts and a relaxation on performance licences. All of these he conceded and so I became the great reformer taking our cause to the man.

Auditoria filled with Stone disciples and hippy wannabes made for a heady cultural mix giving weight to Stones logic in having me there at all. We had made him cool and with it came the cool vote. US hyperbolic mania toward their politicians is nothing short of comical. Little kids in a park over excitedly rushing to their toys, to play resolutely before tiring of the whole enterprise and wanting the next big thing in the shop window. Political naïvetés all. Selective memories and institutional amnesia generation after generation...but I guess that is the only way it can ever be. Tribalism is the elixir of life whether it be the flag, the Mets, the Dodgers, Manchester United, Labour, the Greens, the Democrats and the Republicans A proxy set of credentials in recreational warfare, which is better than actual warfare...so...fair enough.

Stone had twenty ports of call on his whistle stop tour, but I would not attend them all. I was not a Republican after all. At three staged appearances in New York, Detroit and LA I would glad hand and do my speech about building a world where we can be ourselves which is not anarchy because it is predicated upon a silent contract endorsing law and order as a prerequisite to a functioning democracy. The rally at Queensbridge Park, New York was were followed by a CNN interview.

Watching myself on the monitors I had lost sight of my appearance and its contrast with the suited politicos. Shoulder length black hair, full beard, a golden kurta over baggy silk trousers incongruous against the American landscape, but a cultural icon nonetheless. I was a bird poised on the lip of a building and the drop was formidable whenever I thought about the man with the apple. Someone called out Jesus and I said...not so much, he would have been a swarthy Jew perhaps with shorter hair and clean shaven as was the way back then. I was someone's idea of a Western Jesus, that's all.

Wrapping up I caught movement at the edge of the studio. Parish was there in the shadows talking in that conspiratorial way some men do. Arch manipulator aware of his reputation. The in joke the hand on the back, the quiet word. He detached from Stone and headed my way, his face earnest and steely. He came straight to me and took me by the hand.

'We should go somewhere private,' he said and guided me into a side room devoid of technicians and home to any number of cables, monitors and flashing lights. And then he said it.

'I just heard at the hotel and came straight here...it's your mother Peter....she's dead.'

I didn't react. Was it the news or the messenger that most upset me?

'They were trying to contact you so I said I would...'

I don't carry a phone so this was plausible.

'I've spoken to John who says his plane is at your disposal...go home Peter...'

The incongruity of the message and the messenger created a void where my true emotions should have been. Why not Thalia or even Stone...why this man...Zander's man? I believe I thanked him for the news as I left the room. Before the full impact of what he said could hit me there flashed the third conspirator's knife. Thalia was not with me either bodily or spiritually. I did not see her before I departed assuming she was extending her stay to rally Elysium to the Stone flag. I knew then we were irreversibly doomed but there was too much betrayal in the air for me to even care. There were voices in my ear and on the wind assuring me of Thalia's utter loyalty and her commiserations at my loss. I enquired of her whereabouts as we taxied onto the runway and the voices said that she was in the company of Mrs Stone. Given the consequences of two failed marriages I could only imagine the discourse.

My shadow self and I watched the earth recede and the wheels retract, before we pitched and turned east. The thrust against the earth's gravity put distance between me and the world I had inadvertently created. Nearby voices assured me I was not alone but how else could I describe my predicament. I know I wept for the first time and it was as though hands comforted me, ethereal non corporeal hands, mothers' hands. It doesn't take much to corrode the certainty of a clear road, to undermine confidence, to distrust the road signs and the false patronage of fellow travellers.

Father and I all but collided outside our home in Church Hanborough. I alighted from the taxi and he was there. Words seemed unnecessary, we hugged and then separated to go to mother at the funeral home, to say goodbye to the shell of the woman we both loved. I knew how much father had protected and insulated this fragile, china doll and for that I would always love him. For the first time, in those petite features and sad expression, I saw peace. I regretted our lack of conversation and how we had never taken the trouble to get to know one another and I swore I would not let this happen between myself and father. Like a bird in a cage Alice had found the bars comforting and restrictive. And I had flicked the catch and let her hop out, only...for ...this...I wept. Father did not ask after Thalia which told me I was truly home.

In the taxi coming home father's eyes spoke of the shame of my turning my back on Zander and the lunacy of all this hippy lovey dovey nonsense that drew mother, this credulous, woman out of the shadows and into the path of an oncoming truck I might as well have been driving. His eyes asked how could I not know that baiting this worthless, ruthless, animal in public, would end any other way.

Then his voice broke through in a torrent of bile.

'Who do you think you are Jesus Christ...well next time make sure they nail you up, not the Virgin Mary!!! Her death pure chance? An accident, collateral? Well as far as I know she was the only death. You son are an accessory to the murder of the most beautiful fragile little bird.'

Tears came as he ran out of vitriol he just sagged and fell against my shoulder and we both cried because nothing would bring her back and I had nothing to say because father was right. I almost longed for Iraq where road blocks were blown away and the enemy identified and engaged. For now though as we separated and I went back home I was at ground level utterly bereft and wishing I could believe in something; something certain and immutable. I could see why we reach for something higher, a commanding presence, an omniscient someone in the next room with a finger on the pulse, a firm hand on the wheel, a parent, a navigator and provider. And because there has to be more, so more is invented. As Voltaire said, If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Armed warriors poured through every breech in the citadel I had erected. I withdrew further in, fighting a rear guard action, slamming and bolting doors until I was in the inner most chamber where I waited, listening to the clamour, and knowing it would come for me eventually. And in my dark room my shadow self raged and slept, and urged bloody vengeance and pleaded the case for peace but was shouted down. The clamour overwhelmed rational thought until only emotion and reaction remained. The die was cast, the sword unsheathed that could never be returned until it had tasted blood. The citadel on the hill shook and stones were loosened. Where once the beacon shone bringing the people over the fields to my door to drink from the same well and to sing the same songs, there was now desolation and the sound of grinding rock and metal.

Thoughts of Stone, Elysium, Thalia, Di Lauro and mother became just so much jetsam on a rough uncrossable sea. On the top floor of our house I took a new trail into the wild, one that would bookend the Journey Into The Light. Return to the Night was a mood concept shed of structure and direction, constancy and purpose. It was a visceral malaise. I painted continually, received no visitors, I apparently cooked my own food, I washed and I changed my clothes because I will never suffer the indignity of squalor. My studio became the planet and my easel my place in it. I needed a world to control and obey my rules and not those of the cosmos.

One day, over the rim of my canvas I saw Old Nat, a face and name from the world outside and he was speaking. He said that Stone was set to become the next president of the US. Time it seemed had contracted. I asked after Thalia but intelligence was incomplete for he could not elaborate on her whereabouts or her relationship with Stone. I asked if they were now an item. Were they seen together at the hustings and the talk shows? Nat would not commit instead saying that my mental welfare was her only concern, which I of course didn't buy. Is it in poor taste for me to admit that I drew comfort from the certainty my marriage was over? She had followed her star, the man who would bring her the riches she desired, a man so like Daddy it was embarrassing.

Old Nat said the business was booming due to my high profile in the US and he had appointed two new men. The first new director was Indigo 'Indy' Ramos, a long time acquaintance of Smith and a cousin to the Alphonso Brothers, who would later play a pivotal roll in the destruction of Hector Di Lauro. Ramos was a man who knew how to bang heads together. A tall, angular specimen with a pronounced stutter due to a traumatic past probably at the hands of his long imprisoned father. He said the unionists would fear him more than Di Lauro. I doubted that but the attempt was welcome. But the coup de gras was Frank Telemann, a loud, black, hyperactive former Stax man keen to extend his credentials by turning Leda Records into something really special. Nat assured me that Leda Records was becoming the well spring for so much creative return and would in all likelihood eclipse the profits of Elysium Art.

I said that I did not approve the appointment of a man like Ramos and said as much but Nat said that Mac and Al were no longer able to stand up to the insidious pressures of Di Lauro's men who still stalked the perimeter of all things Elysium, cajoling, leaning, intimidating. I confessed that my heart had turned to lead and there would be no circumstances that would permit me to keep paying my mother's killer. I had lost interest and I figured that to all intents and purposes I was out. Nat said they would hold the fort for my return which I assured him wouldn't happen.

'Elysium must fold, to protect the people,' I said and Old Nat withdrew to consult the board.

The funeral came and went. I recall the church, father standing beside me like the God of War, his wrath and his grief indistinguishable. Glad hands and the two handed arm grip, the hand on the shoulder...all hands, extensions of the mist that swirled and eddied around the gravestones and the mourners. Faces leaned out of the maw. And for a moment I thought I caught the fragrance of Thalia's perfume on the breeze, a lingering remnant of so much optimism. There was Charlie wheeled across my field of vision and a legion of aunts and cousins, a despatch of battered protestors witness to the assault, and Smith who came no where near me. The unknown woman on his arm seemed to occupy his full attention. And in the throng, just a face in the crowd was Hermione, perhaps the only acceptable envoy from Pantheon or was it Olympus.

Mac was there, the Elysium money man now that Charlie was down and out. Taking me to one side, seemingly oblivious to my back seat directorship he explained that my finances were good and that Thalia didn't seem to be drawing down from them. I said we should keep our money in one pot which he questioned but I would not deprive my wife of what was rightfully hers. I could not demonise her as some sort of Harpy. She was only one more errant wife disappointed in a husband who was not the man she supposed.

I asked whether there was news and Mac would only say that she and Stone were stepping out together, sharing political platforms. I asked after Clementine Stone and the kids and were the rumours true of her appearing in the media and swearing bloody vengeance at such brazen disregard for his family and her unconditional support all these years. Mac said he was not the man to ask and that Colorado was so much closer to events on the ground. Of course he was.

I despised everything to do with Elysium and made my excuses. I gave no eulogy, I lingered and I glowered at the absence of Thalia made all the more toxic by the wafting of her fragrance somehow lingering on the breeze like an old memory.

Brushstrokes embroidered the Return of the Night in all of its sombre glory. It seemed as though the Toad was glaring back at me from the pigmented canvas into which I was pouring my soul. I could feel him still, in the middle of his lily pad, croaking and lashing out with his tongue on the far side of the city. When Old Nat came by he said that the board would hold my position open as they didn't want me gone to which I shrugged.

Nat reported that Dominic Rudiger had come by asking after me and especially Thalia which was strange. Characters lurking at the edge of my peripheral vision increasing my sense of isolation and my role as conduit for other men's ambitions. If Stone was Zander's man did he even know? Of course he didn't. Stone was a self obsessed sociopath unable and unwilling to work another man's dream, but with Thalia on his arm I guessed there had to be more going on than even Stone knew. Had he, like all of us, bitten off more than he could swallow. Had I really seen the Huntress and Guildenstern at the festival? What was Zander's interest there? Was he pitting both ends against the middle where I stood? Had I already served my purpose or was there more to come? Guilderstern that jovial cyber freak....was he Vulcan? The dice were loaded in a long game of predetermined moves? Someone said only worry about things you can affect and so I declared my indifference to the shade of Nat who had already left.

Despite it all I could not subscribe to 'it would be better not to exist'...Schopenhauer had to be wrong to advocate non existence even in the face of cosmic pessimism. Alice...my sweet sweet mother never stood a chance stepping straight into the path of the hurricane I had unleashed. It was my arrogance that got her killed. To dance alone in the sunshine was always going to attract spirits forged in the night. My certainty that latent creativity, stifled in the breast of so many would lead us all out into a sunny upland was like most versions of the truth just another conceit. The hive was a collective, an entity without purpose. I had been a fool for ever believing in the existence of the individual.

John T Stone was elected as the 44th President of the United States of America and I was asked to attend the inauguration ceremony. I declined along with anything remotely resembling a position within the White House. How could a man like me become an agent of the New Rome. My focus was the Toad and his festering presence. To my knowledge there had been no authenticated sightings of this creature causing his reputation to grow; a shadow cast across the city like Shelob intent upon the hapless Frodo. I watched the inauguration on TV and saw my wife in the crowd of hangers on. Her fragrance broke the fourth wall, but I remained resolute. My blood was too cold to burn with hate. The past was ash, burned by the white fire of a caustic and corrosive mind.

Uber cool à la Steve Jobs with the head mic and the self deprecating, self reverential, self regarding myth making posture, Stones was in his celestial element, marshalling the changing of the guard in the imbroglio of politics. It was a sweeping victory giving him the Senate and the House of Representatives. Rome was his.

The outstretched hand was tempting to grasp, like the tentative beginning of a fledgling affair that could go anywhere and nowhere. But unlike the affair, I was unable to embrace the fiction of allegiance. The dogma would betray me. I would fall from grace unable to take the king's shilling. I could only aspire to what was right not what was expedient. I was no doubt my own worst enemy.

I understood at last why Thalia had jumped ship. HMS Stone would ply a fierce water and keep her safer than I ever could. She would get as close as she ever could to that land she imagined lay just below the horizon. Maybe it was the hope and the ambition that she wanted, not the reality of the dream that fades in the dying light. She was her father's daughter and would always sail his ocean. And I was comforted at least by her authenticity, that deep down she was convinced she and Donald were right...no more than that, righteous!

But the lights were changing and with Thalia and Alice fading I needed the truth more than power, but more than ever, I needed to be myself.

Stone immediately nailed his declarations to the church door and began the expunging of all that stood in the way of the Democratic right to the full protection of the law. Grass roots America applauded while the self interested and the men who wear power like a new suit fought back via the courts, Congress and the streets. Crack teams were dispatched to overhaul the police, a formidable body of proud men and women committed to the badge. But loyalty to the warped protection 'looking after our own' crumbled soon enough as officers were forced to retake their oaths or face dismissal.

'We are no longer a frontier state,' was the message from Stone, 'Wyatt Earp is long dead. The law is not above itself and neither are its practitioners. Those in the pay of the lawless, you will be found out, you will be prosecuted and if necessary jailed. Make your peace with your paymasters and yourselves before we come in and take you down. Looking out for our own will not cut it anymore.'

New legislation was crow barred in using executive powers to bypass Congress, giving Captain Dominic Rudiger's men all the powers they needed. The judiciary were the focus of another battalion of cleaners sent in to bring the judges and the legal profession back into line. Habeas corpus was put back on the agenda...for all! A team of politicos with reputations beyond question began a root and branch sweep of both Congress and the White House. Protected by a battery of new laws the power of Stone's dogs of war sent the establishment into a tale spin and gave the mob due warning that there would be no where to run once their people on the inside were behind bars.

Witch-hunts, lined pockets, blind eyes, doctored crime stats and de facto watchmen, ensuring this take down and that hijack and that terrorist plot went unreported were tossed out into the streets like so much dirty laundry. Stone became the most revered man in America, saviour and devil forcing black white and grey into the light and under the hammer. Small time hoods, street corner junkies, the projects gangs, big time drug barons, the gun lobby, mob warlords and the stench of judicial corruption were met with wailing sirens and men with boots, guns and battering rams.

Lives were threatened, force met with force, violence with violence as stones were lifted and horrors exposed. Of course the media suddenly became guardians of the moral high ground but they did lend weight to the zeitgeist that bad was no longer cool or exciting or anti establishment. The law put rights back into the hands of the responsible.

The blond self made Captain Dominic Rüdiger was ubiquitous, breaking heads, talking men out of their self made fiefdoms that had become no go areas, rogue nations instead of backwater apartments and tenement blocks. They were revealed to be no more than just disaffected chancers. Rüdiger's hard men fought from room to room flushing out the wastes and the strays, the pimps and the knifemen, the pushers and the pullers, scum and vermin all. Civil rights activists hit the streets, hearts bleeding for the rights of the rabid dog, the methed up sadist, the defenceless crack dealer, the hapless dependents unaware of any other life than living off the fat of other men's folly, what of them? What are their crimes? All decent socially conscious concerns. All to be taken account of...but not this day. Scenting blood in the water this was the Day of the Shark when the pathetic and the vermin and the parasites who used the law they spurned as a shield would be taken down without quarter. Bleeding hearts looking for love would find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun. This was the law as it was meant to be, meting out justice, free from its blasphemous grotesque offspring, the pariah's rights charter who would leach off hard won legislation creating a diseased abomination of its purest self.

America being the global brand pushed its agenda overseas so that to do business your own house had to be in order. And so it was that in the glow of a brand new day the Toad was put on notice.

I had slashed the original triptych to pieces, as if the death of my mother had been the death of all art. Whither the expressiveness of the broken man if not through violence and the eclipse of his sun. Thalia was suddenly there like a chink of light seeping through the clouds, to the quantum man deep down. We talked into the night there on the roof above the city. For five precious hours she returned to the woman I had always wanted, the one that had teased my senses captured within the lingering memory of her perfume. She said she had never left me and always been here but I wasn't listening.

I didn't raise the issue of Stone. What was there to even say? She was here. I trembled with the churning of new emotions as if all my soul ever needed was the elixir of her love. A love that came with conditions I could suddenly live with. Under the fresh clear air in the grip of an all seeing secular sky, merciless in frozen impotence I reviewed my credo to deconstruct man's ingenious folly. There was no science of the soul and my conceits like any perversity held no water beyond its foolish beauty, no more than a garland in time.

It was as though the last few years had been swept away and we were quite alone with nothing more than Oxford, art and a future stretching out ahead for us, ours to fill. Did we have to leave here at all? But as the stars turned and we drank deep from a shared bottle of tequila I wept for my mother. The shadows shifted and the constellations, cruelly impervious to the dramatis personae below forsook their heavenly responsibilities and betrayed my sense of hope by reminding me that the dawn was coming and in its fresh light I would see the world as it was. A truth of sorts. And my heart would turn black and gangrenous, and I would know what I had to do.

And as if to put a seal on things, to precipitate the next Act, the scene, this scene here in the Mustang had to play out. It was reckless, foolhardy especially in the face of the best and the worst of nights. At five o clock I gave her Elysium. I had already drawn up papers and they were signed....it was hers. Thalia continued to drink and seemed resolute in her understanding. Perhaps too resolute? In a single heartbeat Thalia slipped from loving and comforting to the appearance of same. Not a hairs breadth between each Act but I saw her slide out of view and my heart broke to the sound of a golden thread snapping.

He was there...Stone flanked by Smith and Parish. Thalia stood up and finished her drink. She took the contract and slipped it into her purse. I saw Agamemnon, Odysseus, Athene and Briseis. And I saw that the odds were too stacked, their combined strength too much even for Paris or was I Achilles now? I don't know when they left or whether any of them were ever there. But I knew that Troy was falling. The sack was underway.

I turned my gaze to Hector!

As the weeks passed and Elysium bled, father and I began a discourse over Skype and the phone. Father appeared to warm to my equitable view of life and maybe I saw the naiveté of my own ambition through his straight forward unpretentious eyes. There was common ground of course, Alice and the military acting as honest brokers. We talked about ethics and discipline under fire, the immorality of warfare, the inhuman slaughtering of one's own species and the legality of state sponsored murder. Father's liberal view of human conflict and its endemic place in man's tribal heart revealed a side to Aaron Rhodes I had never imagined. The Colonel confessed a thawing of 'might is right' and the British imperial right to civilise. I said that even under fire there was a moral compass and we would do well to heed its sense of direction. Father said he agreed.

Where Thalia was I couldn't say...was she back in the states in the arms of her Agamemnon? Whatever, I was grateful to be left alone now. I was invited home and so I went. New memories were made in the family home, malts drunk and tears shed and during the uneasy respite, I saw something tangible in the remains of the day. On the anvil, pulled from the white fire of grief a weapon of cold steel was forged and there was fire in father's eyes. We agreed that something had to give, something had to happen to Hector Di Lauro. I had gotten to him that was for sure, but why? Was he Zander's pet, was the head of Pantheon so unprincipled as to sponsor the death of my own mother? To bring hell down on my head? No of course not, Zander did not think of me at all, save as some kind of trip wire. No this was a bigger game than just messing with my head. Neither Zander or the Toad were thinking of me...but father and I, that evening on the edge of the city had them both front and centre of our minds.

A few nights later father came to our...my Jericho home and I took him up to the studio. He looked around with something akin to interest and confessed he had never truly appreciated his boy's talent and for that he must apologise. But I said there was nothing to apologise for, taste being subjective.

'The viewer brings as much to the viewing as the artist, and tastes change, and who's to say that even an artist's most accomplished piece is to anyone's taste...who's to say?'

And I could see that father was trying to get into his son's mind, my way of looking at the world, but I could see he was struggling to find any sort of key. Nonetheless the effort on both of our parts was enough to build bridges to castles in the air? We would see.

Over tea I said that Thalia was gone and Aaron hung his head.

'She should be at your side boy,' and that was him saying yeah...I get it now...between you and her...Neither of us found it necessary to demonise her, instead we talked about Alice and how Stone was true to his word but Di Lauro would remain for too long beyond his reach. I mentioned Rudiger and his peculiar interest in the Toad and I was hoping he would make his move. Father congratulated me on my work with Stone and getting such a tough son of a bitch elected. But we were still left with unfinished business. In the early evening gloom, candles were lit and Aaron asked,

'So where next?'

A parting of the ways with a handshake, the sealing of an unspoken contract I turned back home. With a Journey Into the Light smashed and slashed in the corner of the studio and Return to the Night in two pieces under the chez long I yearned for the simplicity of form, something I could depend upon. Alone with my thoughts and desires, the horizon unclear and a diminishing sense of self worth, I found myself drawn toward the domestic formality of the 17th century old masters, Flemish, Dutch and Spanish. And in so doing I had stumbled upon a latent talent for replication and as I turned out passable reproductions my weakened self respect saw potential in the clandestine art of counterfeiture and forgery. It had been this way now ever since I returned from the States. At first it was a mild recognition that my eye for exactitude had a nefarious appeal. I began upping the precision of my reproductions by researching and acquiring the authentic materials used by the Masters themselves. My paintings were not only facsimiles of the real thing but were exactly the same. So whither the art? The appeal was the creation of another form of reality. The eye should derive the same pleasure as if it were gazing upon the original...but once the brain knows that illusion is afoot the artistry is diminished...why? And that is where my pleasure came from, the knowledge that my reality may at last be taken for the real thing.

I became a connoisseur of hog bristle brushes, walnut oils, pigments, carmine lake red, Naples yellow, vermillion, ruby sulphur, umber as well as aged linen canvasses all available if you knew where to look. I realised I could reinterpret reality and make them pay for it.

And I was fast! Half finished paintings tripped off my easels, each a little closer to its forbear. For reference I acquired any number of top of the range art books and in some cases I had gained photographic reproductions from the originals themselves.

My first sale came through the Elysium Gallery, unbeknown to the rest of the board. It was a Frans Hals look alike, privately viewed and then sold in the knowledge that it was a forgery that could provide some lucrative business for the anonymous buyer or collateral perhaps in some shady transaction. It put a hefty £5000 into my back pocket which I kept off the books and away from Smith and the others. By now I had extended responsibility for Elysium to Nat who handed the baton to Smith. Sly and manipulative Colorado Smith had a seat at too many tables and the ear of too many kings for liking, but Nat trusted him so I acquiesced.

The Stone Age as the media dubbed it was a series of violent convulsions as the US establishment and the underworld fought back. As yet it seemed very much a US project with little effect on the European criminal infrastructure....but then how would I even know? But slowly it did become apparent that US criminal interests were being supplanted to Britain and that was when Scotland Yard and the security firms began to fight back...things became bloody as men of power turned into men of straw and soon Rudiger and his force came over and I heard him speak on the BBC and I must admit I applauded his zeal. But that face, those eyes...

My waking dreams were a malaise of interconnected thoughts that would supplant the day to day cogency of my daylight hours. I was experiencing a kind of drawn out deja vu that permeated my memories until I couldn't tell truth from reality. It was a form of derealisation and rendered me exhausted. Mundane flickerings of alternative realities that converged into a tidal wave of disembodied emotions and sense distortion. Not the stuff of nightmares perhaps but certainly the stuff of chaos. Lathes of Heaven, shaving time and space into wafer thin layers. Was it a kind of epilepsy? Or was my mind sliding out of view?

It came and went of course otherwise I would have been confined to my armchair. I sat at home, I painted, or at least I applied paint to canvas. I kept asking for mother as Thalia flickered in and out, her perfume lingering on the breeze somewhere beside the sea, then Smith, Stone and Parish my new best friends telling me the war is lost unless I join them on the battlefield. And there was Charlie sent out in my stead, wounded almost to death now...still smiling at me and speaking in another man's voice. And then there was Rudiger obscured by gun smoke, his aryan jaw set and his blue chip eyes boring holes in the air.

At an unexpected hour providence came to call. A small, grey haired woman with fierce eyes was at my door. She announced herself as Cassie. She said that we must talk...or she must talk and I must listen. And so that night she said a great deal...enough for me to know where I should go next...

Now here's the thing. Was I inspired by what she said she saw me doing...or would I have done it anyway? I guess I will never know. But what I do know are the consequences and the blood that flowed through the streets of Oxford as a result.

The call finally came...the Toad was on the move...I gunned the Mustang into life...it was time for me to go.

# CASSIE V

So why Peter? Why anyone? Proximity and intensity? Something to do with death in his essence. It's always death. Friends, slight acquaintances, my own mother. I was always forewarned.

And so to dear Peter, a young man I barely know, my prospective nephew-in-law, you come to me every night like a secret lover,..., six weeks now, driving me to the edge, the same cavalcade of broken thoughts, unbidden. And you are there all the time, at night and in waking dreams, vivid in reds and blacks you're my Greek Chorus of atonal voices raised in anger, fear and pain. Deadening whatever thoughts I have, demanding attention, 'look at me, listen'....the voices are uncomfortable and tremulous at the inevitability. A cold razor's edge grazing fresh new skin, the thorn crushed by the angry fist, a stoppered bottle full of angry bees clawing at the air, captive and suspended between the past and the future. Stasis. And all the time the thunder rolls around my head like white noise, a skeletal hand resting on the tiller as I stand with Charon creeping over the Styx to a shore I never want to see.

I see them all, like a ghost in the machine, life sized chess pieces, alabaster avatars, the beautiful love goddess, the huntress, the Cyberman, the minstrel, the schemer, the messenger and the wife who sees no more or less than she wants to see. I can see them all. And prowling behind them all, the silver furred wolf, moving the pieces, ill bred and no stranger to the sulphur taint of the devil's breath and the devil's gift for deception.

And you dear Peter you watch and you listen but you cannot say whether you are player or pawn, or whether you are black or white. And look how the white pieces dazzle but the black pieces draw your gaze in their plausible grace and elliptical language and values, demons as emissaries of the night using their beauty, bravery, kindness and culture as alternative truths until you see their inverted world as more real than anything your fevered mind will ever be able to conjure. Whither evil then?

Insane with insomnia, I call out and Percy comforts me and the doctor was called but he prescribed even stronger anti depressants, but I was not depressed.

I went to the Gallery, then to his home and his studio. It took me a few days to locate this elusive soul. I introduced myself and Peter bless him recalled Percy. He is the perfect gentleman, elegant, effusive and courteous and I said I was sad to hear of his mother's passing even though we had never met.

Peter was at a large easel applying an ochre wash to the crag below Rembrandt's Mill. He welcomed me into his private domain, strewn with the detritus of the working artist and the single man. Finished oils discarded in heaps like jetsam in a storm. Older works smashed and broken. His oeuvre was clearly the Masters of the Dutch Golden Age. He remarked upon their precision, richer in truth than histories, martyrdom and philosophical hagiography. He had come late to their significance which he felt reflected a coming home of sorts which I took to mean his heart, chasing away the Kindly Ones, the Furies that bait us until we react against our own nature. But I learned later that home for Peter was something deeper still, a finality.

Small talk stilted and courteous gave way to the reason for my visit as we drank tea in the seating area he had marked out by a large carpeted section and threadbare sofas and chairs. I think he lived in his studio now.. He listened with admirable restraint without pity or incredulity. Pain and image are inseparable from my phantoms but the retelling is short on continuity and devoid of their original visceral menace. I prayed he would find some order in the chaos. Sitting close on opposite armchairs, knees to knees, he bowed his head and listened until I had finished.

Extracting prophetic meaning from delirium is more than merely recounting a series of cut and paste events. The retelling relies as much upon the profundity of the listener, piecing the vignettes together like acts in a play making sense of its random flights, improvisational, free jazz, more Patty Waters than Ella.

This is what I told him, or at least this is what I tried to tell him. Were these the exact words? I doubt it.

'Images and sensations slipping back through time start with fire in the distance, on high ground, black smoke pluming like steel wool across a blank sky, fierce flames below, intense and noisy. Below and still, the sea glimmers calm with promise, the horizon bending into the sun, a new country beckons. Geese arrow West unconcerned by the sudden screams, lancing through the air. Someone moving in the smoke, in the flames. A woman, and soon a woman no more.'

I sip the tea and get to the heart of the matter. Peter all concerned concentration. I was precise this time, the telling was cogent and detailed.

''I can see you at the wheel of a green car and a body bloodied beyond recognition dragging behind, twisting and turning skittering across the rough gritty road surface, lacerating the flesh until pulp replaces a familiar face. Rapid gunfire either side, shells ricochet from the frame of the car, and penetrate the interior and you. Men in suits, all around, kneeling behind parked cars, lying on roof tops, at high windows and dashing through the streets in ones and twos. Some fall, some keep coming and some flee. The Battle for Oxford is beginning, fanning out through the streets like water finding its natural level, turning into war as the days turn to weeks and months. So much pain as lives wink out like ancient suns, all that warmth and fire gone from the night sky.'

'Now there is a lullaby played by a man outside, a busker at his guitar. Twinkling eyes show me he knows what is happening, and this is the accompaniment he has written, fit for purpose. You know him I think...or he knows you as you catch his eye like a loose understanding snagged on a sharp corner.'

'I go back in time now to a sterile room, poorly lit, two women, and the man between them, impassive at their music. Then crimson lava splashing the walls and your eyes turn black, embittered, soulless, vacant...lifeless. The ladies play on, as the blood hits them, and the man between them doesn't even acknowledge the brutal scene playing out behind his back. Air thick and black like treacle, thunder rumbling overhead and you look up. But you are not afraid. How strange? And a body lies face up, drifting, his head blown apart, the face gone. A life lost and another forfeit.'

'This is the man in the charcoal suit, tall, magnificent and malevolent. He laughs loudly, in mockery, his features unexpected and arrogant, his hubris untroubled by empathy. I don't know who he's meant to be, although his features...I can never really see them, they hold your attention. You know him...he knows you and yet there is a reticence to your recognition....'

I put my hand on his.

'Peter you are the man at the wedding feast. I saw you months before you met Thalia, such is the curse of the Oneiroi. And now you drift away, as the pyre burns and the woman in the flames cries out, Dido to your Aeneas. A rhythmic ocean, hot sand and a wet sun. And the clouds roll in like bruises under the sky. There is finality in their wake. Olympus at peace, the city fallen. But whither you Peter? The shades have flown, the city ruins smoulder. I cannot tell you how the world ends Peter. I cannot even tell if the man looking back from the ocean is even you. But there is a glow below the horizon, something better, sweeter on its way? The Earth has a way of making another dawn.'

Peter allowed the silence to fill itself. My burden shifted onto his shoulders, the telling being something other than selfless.

'The woman in the fire?'

I had nothing...but there was only one woman in this narrative. It didn't look good.

'There is one more thing Peter. A gift...'

'Your visions?'

'No, no...beware the gift...'

'Gift...from who?'

'From you...'

'..for who?'

I couldn't see who or what, except to say that a gift need not be an act of generosity. Some can be deadly.

'And what happens to me... in the green car?' he asked.

I said I had no more...but there were forces at play that would have him meet this fate and my prayer was that he put aside acts of vengeance on behalf of his mother or for Thalia's adultery. Did he understand any of it...let alone believe it...believe what? I didn't know...at least not then. Later of course...it became clear he understood every word.

We drank tea and he laced mine with something for the nerves. I could see why Thalia had fallen for him but the eyes told me she was gone for good. What a fool she was not to stand by him when the demons came. Thalia it seemed had moved in with Stone, who had abandoned his family for this parasitic, dissociative, capricious woman. He said nothing about Rudiger...I learnt of him later and the part he was fated to play.

'So what do they want from you? Is there a plan?'

Peter shook his head.

'I have no second sight Cassie, I barely have first sight. I only believe what's in front of me, and that includes you.'

We sipped tea.

'If there is a plan to any of this ask your brother in law,' he said.

He said it was not his intention to let so many down, going from golden boy to pariah. He was only following his hearts desire. Did he resent Stone or the prodigal Thalia? He couldn't find the words. He was sad but not invective. He said that Colorado Smith had lit the fuse having read the writing on Balthazar's wall so much better than either of us. That's what he said, but he didn't seem able to apportion blame. His soul was resistant and for that my heart bled. He tailed off, conscious I think of laying so much on a woman he barely knew.

'So what next?' I asked.

He just shook his head and I put a hand on his arm and watched him until it was time for me to go. But seeds were sewn that afternoon and the future I had described unfurled as his future of choice. Some roads it seems cannot be untravelled.

# THE FALL OF TROY

The Mustang was a nice touch...I could see the attractions of speed and style. Smith said he had a garage full so I might as well take one. I never owned a car but I had driven in the army. Di Lauro was on his way, he was actually on the move, somewhere in the air between Naples and Oxford. I fired up the beast and let it roar before releasing it into the city. The Elysium Gallery would have been the venue but the day was being brokered by the Alphonso Brothers, of Cretan descent and legendary fencers of clandestine art or treasures of dubious acquisition. Looters, robbers and forgers beat a path to Antonio and Raphael Alphonso's door, secure in their discretion and their blue chip customer base. Smith had crossed palms with silver and they were waiting. They had suggested New York...Long Island to be precise. I said Oxford ...we agreed that if Oxford it should be the Sheldonian Theatre, right in the heart of the weary old city.

I sped down Banbury Road and parked up in the centre of Broad Street, a long island of vehicles between two lanes of meagre traffic. The road was permanently blocked at one end giving vehicles access only. It was gone six and workers were leaving so I found a slot easily. I didn't put a ticket on the car. I wasn't sure I'd be needing it again. Broad Street, the Tudor killing ground for the Kings traitors, burned to ashes just outside the city walls, martyrs to a heavenly cause.

I was met by Colorado who took me up the steps to the horse shoe shaped theatre mellow in Cotswold stone, beyond the faux classical heads grinning and gurning atop a row of stone pillars, monolithic witnesses of uncertain origin. On the back of one of their heads was carved a small bird, a wren, commemorating the genius architect of this singular construction. The man brought to the door was the elder of the Alphonso brothers, Antonio, rotund, shabby and oily, bewhiskered, rheumy eyes and beaming the crocodile grin of the overfed but avaricious. Hands shaken. The brothers were legendary in the world of clandestine transactions, brokers to the underworld. Scrupulously efficient they were trusted as long as the price was right. They were men who knew too much, making them dangerous and powerful deal brokers. I noted an armed presence outside and in the theatre itself.

'It's all set, confirmed Colorado...as we entered the main theatre. There was no stage, just a small arena before rising banks of seats set in an arc. The grand piano that normally dominated the space had been pushed to one side, making way for the easel with the covered painting, the gift horse.

'Signore Di Lauro is expected at Kidlington within the hour,' the oily sanctimony of the elder of the brothers did little to endear me to him...why should it...he was bring well paid by me or was it the Toad...Colorado never made it clear to me...no matter this wasn't about money, this was about blood.....

I felt no compulsion to remove the cloth, to take one last look at perhaps my greatest work...or at least my last.

By the time Cassie had left, the germ of an idea was fermenting. Now, did Cassie foretell what would unfold next or did I lift the idea from what she told me? I don't think I will ever know now. All I know is that when the white witch departed I immediately abandoned Rembrandt's The Mill, and started on The Gift, my own watery Lorelei, my Trojan Horse to be dragged up to the very walls of the city. First things first, the choice of a subject that cannot fail, selected from a parade of the damned. As master forger of the Golden Age of Dutch Masters I had become uniquely prepared to fabricate the studied allure, common and essential to all Trojan Whores, the blue print of guile indeed. All I needed now was to analyse an original as much as fate allowed and begin. The secret of getting ahead is to get started as the man from Connecticut once said. And so I chose my prodigal child and got started.

On St Patrick's Day night in March 1990 two thieves disguised as policemen walked into the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, overpowered security and tore from their frames thirteen of the greatest works of art ever stolen. The cream of the crop was the 17th century domestic idyll the CONCERT by the Dutch master JOHANNES VERMEER, now valued at an eye watering $200,000,000, to who no one is prepared to say.

So what's the point of art thievery? Who will part with money to purchase a known stolen painting? There are some who would, but this kind of treasure would most likely become collateral or a make weight in a transaction, probably involving narcotics. Or it may be sold on, not at top dollar to an art collector who would trade it on, everyone taking their slice, until it ends its life on the run on some tycoon's wall or festering in a dumpster, its value faded, its allure gone.

Dogged work by the Boston PD over the quarter of a century since the initial heist had deduced without the necessary evidence to sanction arrests, that the original had been taken by local thug, David Turner, latterly incarcerated for other offences, at the behest of the Patriarca Family overlord, Robert Donati. Fenced and bequeathed down the generations and across Eastern board families, each dying in their turn, like Isildur's Bane, they let the original pass out of sight. To this day the Vermeer has never been recovered, the trail going cold somewhere in Philadelphia a few years ago.

It was time to present the Toad with an offer too good to resist, too good to be true. But power always trumps truth does it not. The first rule of forgery is not to try and replicate what the artist intended. Time had put paid to that by rendering the original bright masterpiece a tired and faded shadow of itself. I was referencing photographs taken pre heist enlarged and pinned up at the top of my easel. Ultramarine Ash, for instance, a vibrant blue pigment extracted as powder from the lapis lazali mineral and widely used by the Masters, had faded now giving some of the replicated fabrics a washed out effect, not least the prominent image of the singer on the right whose dress, now blanched to a ghostly grey giving her an ethereally detached presence.

And the startlingly rendered orange/red of the chair back is to some tastes overdone by Vermeer, and so it is for the forger to also overdo what is a centrepiece, perhaps suggesting something to the viewer since lost in time. Is it signalling the nefarious relationship between the man and the two women, after all on the wall hangs another picture of a man with two women? Prostitutes? Lovers? Pupils only? Is Vermeer passing judgement or merely showing us without fear or favour, something for the viewer to rationalise and play out their own fantasy? The tale of The Concert remains unresolved, as is the status of the man in the centre, playing the lute to his female harpsichord and vocal accompaniment. Anonymous and ambiguous he has his back turned to the viewer. Who is he? Vermeer avoids telling us what to think and where to look, just accept. Hopefully Di Lauro would feel the same way.

I had brought Smith into my confidence. He was master of the gift horse and the long game and for what I had in mind I would need the sardonic ex senator's help. Smith was all ears, happy to oblige. I said that he should play master of ceremonies, broker and run point. A man like Colorado Smith never truly takes sides, he forms alliances at best, exploiting competing truths for whatever may be to his advantage. I outlined the broad premise which Smith seemed to accept, despite plot holes and an ambiguous end game. Smith was content enough to accept a degree of plausible deniability in the entrapment of Di Lauro.

I said that if he came through then Elysium was his. Smith said that to make this work my name and any connection to me must be avoided. So I formally resigned selling my share to him. So why did he not just walk away...and leave me to my schemes? Well he said that it was in his interest now for me to succeed.

Alone in my gallery I worked on recreating Vermeer's great lost master, perhaps the most valuable piece of missing art in the world. The lure should be a string of breadcrumbs leading the way through the Black Web and by word of mouth. I left this to Smith and suggested a few Myrmidons he might want to speak to. I don't know whether he did.

I was close to finishing when I took a trip over to see my father. I brought him into my confidence and told him I was searching for the last piece to my jigsaw. I said that the Toad would come to me and I would make amends...for everything. I told him about the visit from Cassie and Thalia's defection and the man I now knew as Rudiger somehow infiltrating proceedings, inserting himself into affairs. And I said that Smith was the only one to set things up so he was in...to a point.

'No-one else knows,' I said, 'Smith is in deep but not that deep. Stone and Thalia are out completely. Nat and the others nothing. Charlie.....well...you know..'

'So what did the clairvoyant see?' Father poured us whisky and we sat opposite each other in Church Hanborough, overlooking fields and the space between us and the woods.

'Too much,' I said.

I watched my father evolve into the Colonel before my eyes. He sipped the grain and we talked long into the night. About my intentions, about me and Thalia, of Zander and his fellow Olympians, of the diminutive Alice and the substantive Toad without whom...

Then he asked me about Anais...that woman from the wedding feast.

'I have seen and heard nothing from her since Elysium became mine,' I said.

'...she's as much a part of this as any of them,' he said, 'she knew what you were walking into...this is not providence boy, this is cold and calculated. They got you son, Zander, Stone and Di Lauro...a three headed monster....and make no mistake Zander's pulling the strings even if the other two don't know it.'

'Parish in the Stone camp and the Huntress and the guy in the chair working with the Toad...'

I was being worked from all sides... to do what? But slipping into a whisky stupor took me nowhere. Father said come with me, and we took the stairs down into the converted basement where he flicked on the light and suggested I select what I needed. And further into the night the son and the father discussed many thinks relating to Hector Di Lauro, Donald Zander and Cassie's warnings. Come the dawn my plan had its denouement and we were bonded now in chains of love and hate.

We set to work.

I kept Smith and father apart. While Smith employed the Alphonsos who knew Di Lauro, so father and I worked on the small things. An invite was hand delivered to a single address in Cowley, placed in the hands of Joe Sarpendon for onward transmission to Naples. Who the postman was has never been adequately explained, but the contents became the subject of police scrutiny and would be used as evidence much later still. All I could recall here in the Sheldonian was the collective calm and steely determination to begin the long walk into the lion's den.

Hector Di Lauro - you are cordially invited

to the private and very personal viewing

of the art event of the century, this or any other,

the unveiling of the meisterwerk

VERMEER'S THE CONCERT

That which was lost is now found

Call Raphael Alphonso at XXXXXXXXXX

All Di Lauro needed to know was that Vermeer's Concert had resurfaced and he was being given first refusal. Smith and possibly the Myrmidons created enough traffic on the Dark Net to suggest other buyers were circling. My fear was that the owner of the original would rear his head, but they remained dutifully silent.

Around this time Smith came to see me and said it was time I died!

'I suggest suicide...' he said as we sat looking at each other with Vermeer's two ladies passively looking on from the easel in my gallery.

'Giving up Elysium is not enough...we need you gone for the Toad to bite...the Net is a quagmire of incestuous chat and the rumours regarding this 'sale' speculate that this is some kind of trap...'

'So how will my death make the sale any safer? The Alphonsos must buffer the deal...'

'Well first things first we have the authentication to manage...and for that some good men will need paying, to give us the answer we want...and second we chose a venue...not the Toad.'

'Which must be the Sheldonian Theatre...I have my heart set on that...' I said. It was perfect for what I had in mind.

Then I added,

'Listen Col...there is no way this thug will see me as anything but a weak, hippy with no back bone and little in the way of guile. He will no doubt come with his bully boys and feel secure wherever he goes. Frankly I'd be surprised if he is thinking of me at all. I'm really not that memorable..'

Colorado shrugged and said he would set things up with the Alphonsos, How much the Alphonsos knew I never truly established. Were they knowingly fencing a fake to one of the most dangerous men in the world or were they under the illusion this was the real thing? If the former then surely they were putting their reputations on the line as well as turning a blind eye to any impropriety on the part of the authenticators. If the latter, which I hoped, in order to keep the delusion going they were as credulous as Di Lauro. Either way it seemed to me that it was the money doing the talking.

Smith set up the authentication at the Sheldonian with the Alphonsos present. How much changed hands that day, I'd guess a cool £20 million for them to say what we wanted them to say. I knew because it drained the war chest I had set aside comprising my severance money. It seems the truth is open to the highest bidder.

The theatre itself was rented for a month paying the box office more than they would ever make during a musical season. The authenticators reported back through the Alphonsos that this was the real thing and the brothers began to spread the word on the Dark Net. Sites known to be patrolled by the Toad carried the news that the Concert had risen to the surface. This was the most nerve wracking part of the plan, leaking the information apparently randomly but actually we only wanted one man to take the bait. Apparently some algorithmic sleight of hand made it look as though the information was more widely available when in fact Di Lauro was targeted exclusively. I only hoped the Vulcan was not to hand to cut a swathe through the smoke and mirrors

Smith stayed in the background to avoid any link with me. It was the Alphonsos all the way. It was what they did. Raphael and Antonio were able to slip between the legal cracks via a network built up over many years enabling the trade in all manner of real and less than real artworks. Not just paintings but a treasure chest of diamonds and precious stones, sculptures and ancient manuscripts. I never met them until I came to the theatre. They didn't know me from Adam. All that Smith had said was that I was the seller...and they were being paid well enough not to argue or reveal this to anyone. Smith had agreed with the Alphonsos, as per their contractual insistence, 15% of the sale price, which if it did reach the giddy heights of $200,000,000 would line their pockets with a cool $30,000,000.

Rumours were planted that Smith hated me for walking away from his brokerage with the current President of America. So if ever his name came up, the distance between us was obvious. I would never come into the equation. And to throw more petrol on the fire he would be vocal in his determination to cash in Elysium and move back to the States and work with Stone.

I don't know when exactly the Toad's attention was diverted by the Concert, but diverted it was. And sometime in the hiatus between the verification and the Toad making his move I was visited by the last person I ever expected to see...Anais. There she was at my door, swathed beneath a thick white coat and shades...it was the Autumn and the sun was low. At first I didn't register this vision but she peered over the sunglasses and said.

'Good morning Peter...may I come in?'

The Vermeer was already at the Sheldonian and so I asked her in. Anais is one of those people with whom conversation will never flow smoothly. Her magnetism is enough and despite her overt intimacy she was quite removed too. An impersonal goddess of love. At first we adjourned to the lounge and I offered to get her some tea. She remained standing, a little discomforted by what was for her less than rarified air.

'Actually...do you mind if we take tea on your roof...' she was suddenly behind me in the kitchen.

'....the roof...how did you ...?'

But she was gone leaving me to follow once physics had deigned to boil the water and the tea bags doused and a jug of milk poured and it was carried up onto the top of the city where she was sitting somewhat formally in one of my outdoor chairs. There was no hint of lounging, preening, languid ennui...I was not and never would be her type.... Indeed I was grateful that she was making no attempt at her inordinate seductress schtick which she employed anywhere within 100 yards of any male. She was playing this straight...which I recall from our meetings at Le Manoir...was designed to put me off my guard. She sipped and smiled and I waited.

'A little bird tells me you are no longer head of Elysium....my baby...' she sounded disappointed.

'Did the little bird tell you why? Of course it did...'

'David called...he told me about Thalia and John....you let her go Peter...'

'I did no such thing....' I resented this unsolicited ambush...to what end? What was she after? She sipped more tea and looked around the city scape...was it my imagination but did her eyes hesitate at the rooftop cupola on the roof the Sheldonian, an eight sided feature that overlooks the city streets and the college quadrangles.

'You know I wish you would have come to me when the untamed made his move on you....you wish him ill....I don't blame you...but you are way way out of your league here. You could have called my Peter...I have resources you cannot imagine...and not everything I have is owned by your father in law.'

I looked at her and I wanted to believe her...who wouldn't.

'What do you know?' I asked.

'As you know David is thick with the president...I am not...I never could stomach his type of machismo...but I have to say he's a man of his word...the rats are on the run...or turning to fight. David tells me Thalia is the First Adulteress...'

I smiled despite myself.

'What are you asking me Anais?' It was the first time I had ever used her name. It was one of those words that never sounded right to say out loud, as if it would bring bad luck....but how much more bad luck could I get.

'I'm asking you to back off Di Lauro for your own sake Peter...there is no world in which you will ever get the better of a man like him...' She leaned across and put her hand on mine and looked at me with those eyes...and for a while I lost myself as if the roof had gone and there was just us...but I don't think that was her doing...it might have even been a form of sincerity.

'Step away from the brink Peter...this will not end well....'

'What do you think is going to happen?' But I felt foolish in playing games with a woman with so much under her gaze. She would know..somehow.

'Peter there are other forces at work here...you probably believe Donald is behind so much of what is happening...and you'd be right...he is the great schemer, the Thunderer and he will have his Armageddon and you will be his tool. If you hadn't messed with him and his daughter he would have found another way but you came along, you did what you did and he saw his Trojan Horse his suicide squad. By going up against Di Lauro you are exactly where he wants you to be...he has always known where this would end and I am here to tell you that it isn't too late...for you..'

First Cassie and now Anais...did they both know where I was headed? Did they really know? She finished her tea.

'There is a fly in the ointment Peter..something even Donald didn't anticipate...he knows and he doesn't care...but I do...you're a good man Peter...step away before its too late...you will never survive what's coming.'

'I don't think you realise that I really don't care...since Alice and Charlie and Thalia I have nothing left. Don't you see?'

She appraised me, deciding what to say next.

'Peter...you have already met the man who will kill you....You know him and this whole sordid venture of yours will end one way. I'm talking about Stone's henchman...Rudiger...'

I stared at my feet.

'He was never part of the mix Peter...when we hooked you up with Thalia, we overlooked the wrath of thwarted love...Rudiger has had you in his sights ever since she left him for you at the gallery....'

'...hooked me up...?'

'Oh Peter...did you think that all of this was a series of chance encounters? Donald anticipated every move, every pang of conscience, every encounter, even your board members...of course most of the detail was down to you...he didn't know exactly how you would go it alone but once you made your move you were never going to fail...how did you think you got this far...on the cover of Time and making speeches alongside the future president of America....'

'Why are you telling me this....'

'Because unlike Donald I care how this ends. I brokered Elysium...I knew where we would end up....right here...but Rudiger was not on my radar...neither was your death....

'...and mothers...?'

'...there was always going to be fallout...violence follows power and there are always casualties....I know that doesn't help.'

'And it's not an answer....don't you see....killing her was killing me...I'm already dead.....'

'... the toad....? It was either him or one of a dozen squalid mud crawlers...whatever gives Donald his scorched earth...his flood...You're the spark Peter that will set the earth on fire....and once lit...there will be one man standing...welcome to the new king of the world...the new God.'

There was too much to take in and yet it all made sense...I had felt impotent for so long now. Anais sipped the dregs of her tea...and placed the cup on the saucer and rose to take in the city.

'He doesn't know I'm here Peter...I have a soft spot for you. I care how this ends....and that is something you can avoid...'

She laughed a laugh that suggested this surprised her as much as it did me...

'I'm the goddess of love Peter...I know its power and its capacity for violence, Rudiger has you in his sights....and as for Thalia...she was never right for you and for that I can only apologise.'

At the head of the narrow stair she turned and smiled that smile.

'...well now you know.'

Then she was gone. I went to the edge of the roof and watched as she left and climbed into a trim red sports car...hers...not Parishes and pulled away into the city.

Cassie and now Anais...it made no difference...Troy had fallen some time ago and someone had to pay and that had to be the Toad.

It was time. Antonio, Smith and I alone in the main theatre.

'Mister Di Lauro should be here tomorrow morning, around 9 o'clock,' said the Cretan, so if you would come back then perhaps and we can broker the deal.'

I smiled at him.

'I'd like a few moments with the picture....this is quite an emotional moment for me...' I said and Smith went along.

'If you don't mind me asking...where did you find it...Mister Smith was...coy..'

'I asked him to be...I'm afraid that it would be dangerous for my contacts to reveal how and where I obtained it...just look forward to your cut Antonio..' And I shot him a mild smile.

We stood awkwardly in silence, me waiting for Alphonso to leave and he not prepared to leave us alone with the painting. That was when we heard the armoured trucks in Broad Street, men calling out, assembling noisily, making their presence clear.

'Excuse me,' said Alphonso and finally left us to check on the fuss.

I went to the painting and whipped off the cover. Including the frame it was just over 27 inches high and 24 inches wide. I gave it one more inspection, and took my time on the back of the canvas where most forgeries let their guard down. Smith was effusive.

'I gotta hand it to you Pete...you got some talent there. Don't think I didn't check out the original photos.'

I set it back and left the painting at an almost imperceptible angle. Did Smith notice? Did he care?

The two women and the man played on.

The outer door crashed open. Hard boots on wooden floors. A squat figure, unshaven and already furious swaggered in, eyes darting, hand twitching on an old army rifle and two gorillas at his back...men looking to do harm...men who had probably killed my mother.

'Search the place...top to bottom..' he snapped.

A tall bearded man in the doorway to the wooden attic steps did not move. He clutched a well oiled machine gun across his chest and glared at the approaching thugs and their battered rifles. He glanced over to Antonio who shook his head.

'Mister Sarpendon, gentlemen, there is no need to turn the place over. Please assure Mister Di Lauro that the painting is in safe hands...as you can see.

'Mister Di Lauro.....' Sarpendon was all bile and fury.

'.....has not bought the painting and so it is not his to protect, and I can assure you my men are perfectly capable of guaranteeing it and his safety...'

For a few seconds I wasn't sure he was going to back down...his gorillas certainly wanted to do some damage to the man at the door...but others drifted into view. In the top row of seats banked steeply in an arc a young lank haired man levelled his automatic directly at Sarpendon. Another emerged from a side door and chewing on an old match noisily put a shell into the breach of his pistol.

Antonio Alphonso brokered the peace strolling into the arena, all reason and light. Smith and I were unregistered statues between Sarpendon and the easel.

'...Mister Sarpendon...you only made it this far as a courtesy to Mister Di Lauro...now please leave...' Alphonso was firm, he was confident and in charge. He reached into his waistcoat making it known he too was armed. Sarpendon reluctantly called off the dogs and then seemed to see me for the first time..

'Who are you?'

'He's with me,' said Smith...'Smith...how do you do.'

The outstretched hand was ignored.

Sarpendon went to Alphonso..

'We have our eyes on the lot of you.'

'I should hope so...'said the Cretan.

We watched them leave. Alphonso turned to us

'Such a revolting little man...'

'He worries me...' said Smith..'not him exactly but if he is acting on orders Di Lauro can't be far behind...I'll wager he's already landed and is on his way...now....excuse me...' He slipped out.

Alone now Alphonso confirmed our arrangement...I would be sleeping in the cupola that night...I didn't want my painting too far away from me. Smith had made the arrangements and so I made my way up the stairs passing men in the recesses. Hard white eyes and the odour of dust and metal. How many...Alphonso didn't say...but he was with me as we climbed the 65 steps to the attic...an amazing structure designed by Wren to cover the 70 foot span of the theatre. An ingenious web of vast oak trusses and beams give the space a private feel, secluded and warm. A second set of steps takes you to the cupola itself, with its eight windows and enough space to put a simple camp bed provided by Alphonso. Here I would stay until I was needed below.

Alphonso asked me to raise my arms. He frisked me, apologetically...

'I have guaranteed Di Lauro's safety,' he smiled and left.

The view was classic Oxford. The sun was rising over a rich landscape of spires and stone. And in Broad Street, where the martyrs died, the Sheldonian Theatre stands like an old actor in the wings, judging the passing shadows as the city is painted in light. But as the veil is lifted I see that the oolitic limestone walls are obliterated by wild primal art.

From the octagonal cupola above Wren's ingenious roof I watch the armed men on the buildings either side. The college parapets and crenellations provide perfect cover as they charge their automatic weapons. During a long and restless night I had neither seen or heard their arrival.

We have passed the point of no return. Dawn has come with an army.

I had watched the stars and the clouds scudding passed my eight windows. I had risen to watch the city close down, save where the students were at play. I saw men in doorways, by the Whyte Horse tavern opposite, at the entrance to Holywell Road, Broad Street and patrolling the quads leading to the Bodleian Libraries. The main library was to the south west while the book stack housing the bulk of their books was opposite next to the pub. Tall monolithic buildings of some grace and majesty, all witnesses to so much, not least the burning of martyrs...the most notorious being the deaths of Bishops Latimer and Ridley, and later Cranmer....out there in the middle of Broad Street..the site marked by a wooden cross inset into the tarmac...a macabre reminder of the zeal for death harboured by the early and not so early men of god. Only the devout can mete out so much horror and intolerance...it was as though they had not understood a single word of what Jesus was telling them.

I was accompanied for a while by a lone bird on the sill of the north facing window. A nightjar? A nightingale? Romantically I wanted it to be one of these...it was probably a sparrow blown off course. Fully awake and calmer than I had any right to be I watched the shooters prone on the roof of Exeter College to my left...I assumed these to be the Cretans, Alphonsos men...or were they Sarpendon's...then I saw the evil looking wretch on the roof of the Science Museum to my immediate left...west I think, between the Sheldonian and Exeter College. Definitely Sarpendon's. It made sense, the Toad would have demanded safe passage in and out of the city. There were lone gunmen patrolling the entrance to the Sheldonian immediately below me as well as figures ensconced within the quadrangles that linked the Bodleian with Radcliffe Square beyond. To my immediate right above Hawksmoor's Clarendon Building, the Bridge of Sighs that spans New College Lane bristled with gunmen at its every window.

In Broad Street below the swarthier skinned men employed by Alphonso patrolled the two gates that led from the street to the theatre...the iron grill gate and the side door which had been locked. Behind the theatre...to the south east I think stood the Divinity School and from my position I could see more hardware, men in prone positions, ready to rain hell down onto the quadrangle between the theatre and the school. Sarpendon? Alphonso? Someone else? I realised I didn't really care...what a strange feeling it is to see the day stretched out ahead knowing that the chances of living through the next 24 hours are next to zero...and not minding at all. In fact I was filled with a sense of euphoria...this was THE day...a day of reckoning...the final day...

Back at the north facing window I saw road blocks being erected at both ends of Broad Street...there was already one at the west entrance, now men with weapons patrolled it to stop pedestrians...Alphonsos or Sarpendons...I couldn't tell them apart anymore.

It was nothing new for well loved roads to be cordoned off. Oxford was one of the most used film locations these passed thirty years, including Morse, Lewis, Endeavour, A Discovery of Witches, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, Killing Eve and even Transformers. The public were used to celebrity spotting before moving on unphased.

It heartened me to see all of this against the backdrop of the graffiti daubed college walls. Despite all that was going on the artists had never left the streets alone, colouring the city in like a child's colouring book. Most city centres these days were multi colour events, sending the dull earth browns and brick work flying. Sombre metropolitanism had fallen as the message continued to embroider people's lives so that every sight was a thing of beauty. William Morris said it, 'Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.'

It took an age for my watch to creak round to 9 o'clock...in fact it didn't have to. At around 7.30 I saw Colorado Smith arrive, he'd been given permission to enter by foot from the north. He was alone.... He was met by one of Alphonso's goons and suddenly there was Alphonso, gesturing him in...Only then did I wonder where Raphael was...That was answered with a flurry of activity as men became alert to the approach of a large black Cadillac coming from the north along Parks Road. It nosed into Broad street and pulled to a halt at the curb side...in front of the open iron grill gates, under the blank absurd stone heads.

A slimmer version of Antonio slid out of the passenger seat and made his way around to the back door....this had to be Raphael. A man got out and stretched his long limbs...he was dressed in a long fawn camel skin coat and he turned to face the theatre.

It was a shock. It was not Di Lauro...it couldn't be....but Raphael's fawning said otherwise. I began to panic. It was agreed that he would come himself, the Toad, the untamed, Di Lauro himself and no other, no vice de capo, no consiglieri? Smith was there and hands were being shaken.....what the hell....He was tall, silver haired and tanned, his charcoal grey suit and open necked shirt beneath the open coat. Every inch the CEO, disarmingly relaxed and full of the instant bon homie of the visiting royal

Whither the bulging eyes, the flapping mouth, the slavering monster..the imbecilic low life? I physically reeled.

By the time Smith came up to the cupola I was in two minds....

'Good morning...how did you sleep?'

'...is that him..?'

It was all I could blurt out. Colorado gave me that languid smile that was beginning to annoy me...

'...the very same...'

'...but the Toad...the legend...'

'The art of deception...he'll tell you...come on down...the sale is about to begin..'

'..did you know?'

'Of course...'

How did he know...and where was he last night?

As we made to leave I glanced out of the cupola, across the city just in time to see the armoured troop carriers moving into position a few blocks back...a small army....Rudiger! We made our way down the narrow steps to the attic where a couple of machine gun toting hoods, including the tall bearded one who had stared down Sarpendon's men, watched with little interest as we crossed beneath the roof of oak, down the loud steps to a short corridor that brought us into the light airy theatre. There were three men already there, waiting with restrained courtesy for the seller to arrive. All eyes turned to me.

Raphael Alphonso to the left of the uncovered painting and in the centre, directly facing the easel the tall debonair man in the camel skin coat. His face broke into a dazzling smile of capped teeth as he contemplated me framed in the doorway. I crossed the performance space with Colorado who took the lead and shook Di Lauro's hand...I still wasn't convinced. At my back Antonio closed and locked the door following us across the polished wooden floor to stand on the right of the painting. Cretan bookends.

'Mister Di Lauro may I introduce you to the seller...Peter Rhodes...'

The smile stayed and the eyes did the talking. Diamond blue chip eyes bored holes in me in an unnatural stare. Monolithic intensity set back in a long Teutonic skull, a high forehead and perfect blond hair. The smile remained fixed but he made no effort to shake my hand.

He watched me approach like a hunter assessing his prey, unafraid, knowing the odds were forever in his favour. The jaw tensed and he turned this eyes to the Concert.

'An exquisite piece, don't you think?' the timbre mellifluous and rich. The eyes focused with nothing in his body language to suggest surprise that I was the seller. I smiled. I should have known. Smith had told him...or did he know anyway...either way here we were and I was intrigued that his confidence had allowed him to enter the theatre without his armed retinue.

'More refined than exquisite...' I added.

I stopped a few feet from him perusing the sublime study of domestic harmony figurative and literal. One of several in the Vermeer catalogue set exclusively within the four walls of a single house in the provincial town of Delft, enshrining real and fanciful vignettes of mid 17th century Dutch middle class life.

'Well I don't care for it...'

'Yet here you are.'

I resisted the urge to look at the man, determined to affect a sense of indifference. Which was a lie.

'All alone.' I said.

He grinned again...it was something he did in response to everything, a self satisfied realisation that he was in charge and you were there at his bidding...and alive at his say so.

He shrugged..

'This is an art sale...not a heist...are we not all honest men here...'

I took in the Alphonsos, Smith him and me and laughed.

'Yeah I know...it's a figure of speech...' said Di Lauro with infectious charm.

'Peter...you don't mind if I call you Peter...my father was a man of wealth and taste. He taught me the true value of things.'

'Quite the philosopher your father...'

'He was a fool....'

Then the head swivelled and the eyes bored into the side of my head. I did not reciprocate...

'Power is what good art provides....something most people do not understand. Men like you can't see it. Power is more than a free lunch Peter...you may call me Hector by the way.'

'...is that what your daddy taught you...Hector?'

The bank of white teeth and the monolithic bulwark, lofty and intimidating, a face to watch torture, to harbour joyous rage at the fate of others. Hector Di Lauro, the Untamed, the Toad; what did he actually see when he looked at the world, at other men, at me? Something to be extinguished, the cat and his new mouse? I read uncertainty, just a flicker. I realised he could not see fear in me. He had not expected that. I was well beyond that. And there was something else like an old memory, of being here before. I wondered how long ago it was, as a boy I had come here with mother and father...what did we see...oh yes...the fabulous Labeque Sisters. Two pianos, one sister studious and introverted the other exuberant and chatty. And now in that spot stood the Vermeer forgery with one of the most dangerous men in the world bandying words with me. The greasy Alphonso brothers remained mute during our strained exchange. Smith stayed back.

The Aryan mouth was moving, expelling the sound of burning oil on water, igniting fear. Suddenly I wanted to embrace him and say that it was alright....he didn't have to act the way he did. We all love you anyway. Even now, despite it all you can leave this place. Hatred and love entwined now into one tangled helix. I just stood and stared. Then I thought of Mother and Charlie

'You have something on your mind...' said Hector. I glanced back at Colorado and then the Alphonsos; courtiers in waiting observing the cut and thrust of two men they would feed off. Their free lunch.

It was time.

'If you don't mind?'

I passed by on his right hand side, walking up to the easel. Hector gave a Gallic shrug and slid a hand into the jacket pocket of his immaculately cut charcoal grey suit. I wrapped a hand round each side of the thick filigreed gold frame to make the slightest of adjustments. Eyes in my back like bullets from the handgun Hector was caressing in his jacket pocket. I kept my hands in position and reviewed the work at arm's length. Satisfied I stepped back, hands dropping by my side.

'Better don't you think...?'

'It's in the detail they tell me....'

'So they say....'

He came to my side, just a few feet away from the painting now. Comrades shoulder to shoulder. The lighting in the theatre was exceptionally good even at this early hour, but close up I knew I had done a good job..

'...speaking of value, what price that scam by your computer lizards? How is Mister Logan...enjoying baby food I hear...things have come so far haven't they...he's in good hands I hear...that devoted wife of his..'

I could feel my fists clenching and slipped my hands into my pocket. We were dancing now...the painting no more than an idle witness to our own personal drama.

'Tell me...have you worked with Zander long...I mean Vulcan is his man is he not?'

'Well played Peter...well played,' he had his hands behind his back now...Prince Philip to my peasant.

'...such a genial fellow. A good man to have around, although I can't say the same for his minder...you know I like a woman to behave like a woman, to have backbone sure, but that tattooed dyke....no more than an animal.'

'...and Donald?'

'Mmmm, arms length is as close as you want him, which reminds me... you are estranged from his middle bitch. Pity, she's a feisty one...but may I say with all due respect, not the woman for a man like you'

'Like me?'

'....a failure....'

I glanced to my right and Smith was impassive.

'...at everything you touch...military career, love, business, family.....worthless...'

'And yet here we are...in front of this.'

'Which intrigues me...how did you....?'

'You're sources came up empty?'

'Yes they did.....'

'I know people....'

Hector now contemplative.

'Well, congratulations you did it...you brought me out into the light.'

'They say that if you stare into the abyss for too long the abyss stares back.'

'Ah...you know your Nietzsche...what a card...did you know his sister was visited by Adolf Hitler and the two hit it off famously...'

My hands crossed in front of me, Hector's arms behind his back, caught in the reverie of a moment. There we were, just two men admiring one of the great lost masterpieces and contemplating the fate of the other.

'....who says I needed drawing out? I've never been in...' he was grinning again, 'I may have walked down you street anytime...would you have known?'

Hector contemplating me, I could feel his vastness, his black hole of a heart.

'A psychopath standing in the light.' I smiled.

'Ah yes your sweet mama.....'

Hector took a step toward the painting as if he had spotted something. He frowned and glanced back, acknowledging Smith for the first time. Why? Smith saw it too.

'Psychopath? Unfriendly and may I say not entirely accurate. You see, a man without emotion cannot experience the pleasure of pain or death...your mother's for instance...'

'...and Charlie my friend?'

'...he was no friend of yours. He did you no favours that day....what did he expect? Anyway I let him live.'

Later, when the wars had subsided and the bodies counted and courts convened to determine how and when and who was responsible for so much destruction much was said about this moment; the moment before THE moment. Depositions swore to my demeanour, my emotional restraint and bridled fortitude in those final moments. Smith said there was a void where Peter Rhodes once stood, an absence deeper than his presence ever was. The theatre became an arena a stage onto which came the bull and the picador, Frank and Harmonica, the dualists, Shakespeare's hapless ungallant murderous Achilles and the stoic resolute Hector or Homer's vengeful Achilles and the fated Hector. I had never wavered. Smith didn't know, no-one knew beside father.

Smith later said that the air turned sticky, time a burden and life a commodity. Hector the cruel schoolboy sticking pins into worms, not because he hated worms but because they were there...and no I'm not entirely convinced he experienced pleasure even at others pain...I sensed a blank indifference.

'Congratulations with the Krest by the way...my kind of music. Your wife's doing I understand. But here's the thing.....,'

Conversational, reasonable, educative.

'...Layla by Derek and the Dominoes, basically Eric Clapton and some of the greatest session men of their day....'

He continued thrilled by his own abstractive abilities. Something akin to culture. Hands behind his back, the clever lecturer and his arrant pupil, the penitent apostle.

'A paean to Pattie Harrison the old rascal....Anyway the second half coda...was written, apparently, by the drummer Jim Gordon? He had spent a life in the recording studio backing Glen Campbell, Frank Zappa, Andy Williams, the Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, Traffic, you name it....anyway, Eric caught him playing it one day on the piano and said son, we can stick that on the end. A few years later Jim heard voices in his head, they told him to murder his old ma. And he did. He's still inside apparently.'

The Alphonsos looked at each other. I said nothing as the Concert buzzed louder now in my head, I hear the harpsichord and the flute intoning discordantly, the players nervous. Hector came across to me and pushed his lascivious head closer to mine, aggressive now, blocking my view, invading my personal space. I could feel his breath, sweet but tobaccoey and an expensive cologne both heady and decadent.

'But at least poor old Jim had the temerity to do the job himself...with a hammer I understand...whereas you my friend...you get a man like me to do your work for you, eh Pete? You stand there in the middle of the city and call me out...ME!! What the hell did you expect to happen. Too busy being Jesus to think about anyone but yourself. You and your ma...your weakness I'd say....is this why we're here?'

The strange thing was that I was barely listening. Smith later remarked upon my catatonic state, unwilling to effect acknowledgement, even a rise to endorse his presence, to enrich his fetid words with credibility. Except..

'...the Toad?'

"Hmmm,' he smiled that smile, 'my own artistic creation,....a form of expressionism you might say. Do you approve?'

'....are you even Italian?'

He shrugged.

'I am who the papers say I am. Don't think, just read, it's a lazy life.'

I turned around to catch Colorado. Was I saying goodbye? Hector was suddenly restless, the voice impatient and forceful.

'We could chat all day but it's time for business....your price.....?'

'The value is around $200,000,000....' I said.

'Your price.....?' repeated the Untamed

'Pull your dogs off the Gallery, no more protection money and it's yours.'

'Gratis......?'

'No more extortion...'

'No seriously, your price....?' Hector irritated now, failing to understand.

'I mean it...give me your word you'll leave the Gallery alone....'

'My word?!'

Irritation and anger.

'I could just take it, to auction or to keep I haven't decided, but something like this needs a clean bill of health. I told you about power, a life your enemies can only dream of. To exert more control. Its a choice...'

Where had I heard this kind of talk before?

'And don't be so petty minded to think I couldn't burn the gallery and this theatre to the ground with everyone in it...So for the last time Rhodes...your price!!'

I took a moment to examine the pugnacious self satisfied Gloriana unto himself, the fulcrum of all of our lives, and the gun was suddenly there in my hand, for Hector to see. No-one moved.

'...your life......?'

I paused long enough for Hector to register his mortality, his folly and arrogance. His miscalculation, his smug self satisfaction at a life devoted to deception and the dispensation of misery. And for the needless crippling of Charlie and the cold recreational murder of dear Alice.

A flicker, something behind those defiant eyes, inert, too slow to pull his own gun, consumed by an inner fury, uncomprehending, unable to recognise contrition, unable to regret. Close up I pointed the gun at his broad brow and pulled the trigger twice.

# ROMAN MORNING

BEING A SUMMARY OF THE AFTERMATH OF THE CITY WARS, IN PARTICULAR THE TESTIMONY OF JOHN 'COLORADO' SMITH

As CEO of Elysium Inc and principle surviving witness to the City Wars, Colorado Smith entered Court Room 1 at the Old Bailey. The press and public galleries were standing room only as the surly figure made his way into the witness box. He was at once the centre of attention and a magnet for the glossies fascinated by his louche demeanour and easy charm. In attendance were Ramos, Big Al and old Nat, and the current deputy CEO Anais dressed in scarlet and attracting every lens as she made her way in.

The events of the day that lit the fuse became the subject of conjecture and counter conjecture, constructed from the testimonies of police, bystanders, Rudiger and Smith. Each speaker/witness came from a unique perspective, forged in the heat and disorientation of a violent struggle. Individual narratives turned on their own axes until the stars realigned forming brand new constellations. The accumulation of perspectives rivalled the Warren Commission's analysis of the Kennedy assassination leaving the redoubtable Judge Holland with a box of jigsaw pieces and no picture lid. She was the most senior judge known to be uncorrupted and incorruptible and was placed at the head of the commission to establish what had happened root and branch. It was at this point less trial, more enquiry. Apportioning guilt would come later.

The key matters were, in order, the circumstances of the murder of Hector Di Lauro, the fate of Peter Rhodes, the location of the Vermeer, the role played by key actors in the ensuing battle and the immediate aftermath that laid the city of Oxford to waste. The battle itself accounted for some two dozen or more souls but afterward...just think of a number. And beyond the city...who knows. Someone said 10000, someone else said much more.

The Hearing recounted hundreds of acts of heroism, even more acts of unspeakable cruelty and the desolation of a million acres of real estate. And as if that were not enough, in the days and weeks that followed, copy cat fires broke out along fissures stretching across the country like lay lines. London, Cambridge, Reading and into the central and northern ganglands of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

Of course the US took up the gauntlet Stone had already thrown down and according to the hoodlum bosses in New York...it was pay back time. How the events were linked by anything other than opportunism remained unclear although there was way too much coordination for it to be just a wildfire out of control.

The facts gradually coalesced into a flat pack reality that became known as the prevailing truth defining the Battle of Broad Street.

By now a series of uneasy truces brokered by private militia and the remnants of law enforcement agencies held the streets of most major cities in a state of lock down. But under the layer of grey ash the cinders still glowed ready to catch at the slightest provocation.

The prevailing truth emerged as follows, beginning with the immediate aftermath of the sound of two shots. Voices outside, anger and confusion; Sarpendon's loudest of all. Smith said he immediately made the call to Rudiger.

The order of events was the courts principle concern. Who fired on who first? It would appear that on Smith's mark Rudiger dispatched a brigade of some dozen Special Police, in full body armour, moving as a single unit, hugging the near side of Broad Street in the shadow of a row of artisan shops, crossing Turl to Exeter college and slipping in front of the Science Museum immediately next to the Sheldonian. There they halted awaiting instruction.

So who fired on who first? Rudiger made the case that his men were fired upon as soon as they entered Broad Street. Snipers on the rooftops kept them pinned down.

'What were you intending to do?' The judge questioned Rudiger's and Smith's motives.

Rudiger said his mission with full presidential authority was to take Di Lauro's men dead or alive. It was a rare moment to actually pinpoint the Toads location and even though he had been shot down his death was not yet confirmed and his men were still at large.

'And yet it would appear that the snipers as you call them died with gunshots to their back...shot from behind and above,' said Judge Holland.

It transpired that Rudiger had dispatched a contingent of marksmen onto the roof of Divinity School to the rear of the Sheldonian with higher elevation than the surrounding roofs. As soon as Rudiger's men entered Broad Street he gave the signal and his marksmen rained hell down onto Exeter College and the Science museum, raking the rooftops, taking out half a dozen men before they could attack the men below.

It was a strategic piece of military surgery, one shot per sniper. Sarpendon himself appeared to have eluded the raking shots and made his way down to Turl Street just off Broad Street and radioed up the rest of his men, holding back from the centre in a series of trucks. Engines burst into life through the surrounding streets and they came in force...some ten trucks with half a dozen men apiece. Men who wanted to fight, who lived for the kill.

The first three trucks burst out of Park Road, to form a wall of iron out of which the men poured. They ran straight into Rudiger's Broad Street brigade and a pitched battle began. Some men fell straightaway while most just dived for cover among the cars parked in the centre, into doorways and behind walls. The street became alive to the thunder and rattle of automatic gunfire echoing off the multi coloured college walls shattering the bucolic idyll. Gargoyles, crenelated embellishments and soft Cotswold sandstone splintered and shattered, raining down on the flagstones below. Parked cars acting as barricades soon caught fire and began to pour fuel across the wide road until the explosions began. Casualties at this point remain unconfirmed.

Reinforcements kept arriving for both armies, the Toads men principally from East Oxford and Rudiger's from the west where the centre had been closed and turned into a make shift military camp. At this point Sarpendon's militia were fighting to get to their leader, although it would soon turn into an exercise in self preservation as the Special Police made their way to the theatre backed up by new men in half tracks breaking through the barricades at the west end of Broad Street. Sarpendon's militia quickly secured most of Broad Street with more coming in behind the theatre, across the cobbles of Radcliffe Square. Protected by the wall with the odd heads Rudiger's men held the theatre perimeter while the rooftop snipers picked off the rear assault through the Bodleian Library quads.

No-one was quite sure when the Cretans inside the Theatre made their move, but they immediately realised they should throw their lot in with Rudiger's men. And having seen the advancing thugs moving between the grand edifices of the Bodleian Library to the rear of the theatre they broke out of the south door. The Battle of Broad Street now spilled through the Bodleian Quads as Sarpendon's men were caught in a pincer movement from the front and above. The Cretans were a mean fighting force, flushing out the advancing thugs, driving them back into Radcliffe Square. Some went for the rotund Camera but rooftop snipers on the Divinity School roof had turned about and dropped them where they ran. The bearded Cretan was their de facto Captain and signalled his thanks to the men on the roof.

In Broad Street the phosphorous bombs changed everything, tossed wildly from behind the growing barricade of trucks. Rudiger ordered the use of grenades and the centre of Oxford began to explode. Trucks burst into flame taking direct hits from rocket launchers, some from the troop carriers coming in from the west of Broad Street and some from the roof of Divinity School. Thugs fled into the colleges, Trinity and Balliol which were targeted by more rockets detonating men into the light from behind decimated walls to be cut down as they staggered through the rubble.

Rudiger's men gave chase. The rout was on.

But what happened inside the theatre, the scene of the murder, the fatal gunshots that started a war. Smith's testimony was that the Alphonso's shrank back fearing they were next but Peter paid no attention to the greasy Cretans, instead he remained static, standing over the body of Hector Di Lauro, pointing the Apache Revolver he'd palmed from the recess in the rear of the canvas at the lifeless face, willing it to twitch. Smith confirmed that the Vermeer was splattered with blood.

Exhibit A, the Apache Revolver recovered from the floor of the blood stained floor became the subject of Judge Holland's next witness, Colonel Aaron Rhodes.

'It was YOUR gun that fired the first shot...the Battleship Aurora...if you like....' said Judge Holland.

What part had the father wittingly or unwittingly played? Were there grounds to link him to his son's murderous intent premeditated as it clearly was. Rhodes said the part his gun had played was as mysterious and as upsetting as it was for everyone, and denied any involvement. The Colonel said he had always been a defender of the principles of the law and order. He said he regretted the way things had turned out...everything that is except for the death of Di Lauro. He regretted that it was his son who had to pull the trigger and not himself. The judge professed some sympathy but said she had not done with him yet.

Judge Holland was right to suspect the colonel's involvement. On his son's last visit to the family home they had gone to the basement to make the selection. Aaron Rhodes gun collection was legendary. Frontier weapons, flintlocks, front loading muskets and breechloaders were always the Colonel's first love but he also enjoyed the tactile allure of an arsenal of Navy Colts, Winchesters, Smith and Wessons, and early repeaters, semi automatics and fully automatic weapons that take life on an industrial scale. Mainly American his collection included a smattering of Lugers, Makarovs and Glocks.

But the Colonel was no gun lobbyist having little sympathy for anyone foolish enough to believe that to hold a gun is some God given right. He had first hand experience of the brutal harvest of young men dying for reasons they never really understood. He was a vocal critic of those who misappropriated the second amendment which was nothing to do with guns, more to do with the inalienable right to protect oneself, especially in the face of hostility from people whose land and way of life was being stolen. The early firearms were the only means to defend the stockade, not to attack one another within the stockade. But the gun lobbyists pretend not to know this.

The weight and smell of gunmetal, the ease with which death may be dispensed or life protected, held for the Colonel a macabre fascination. Between floor to ceiling racks, glass fronted cabinets and deep drawers were the small handguns, Saturday night specials, principally for concealment in ladies' bags, beneath clothing and discretely placed holsters. With his father at his elbow Peter found what he wanted among the Derringers, Beretta TomCats and BobCats, a single Queen Anne flintlock and a host of so called hammerless devices designed for personal protection.

'Perfect..may I?'

He picked out the Apache Revolver and rolled it across his palm. Part knuckle duster, part blade and part 7mm caliber pistol, less than four and a half inches long with the blade retracted and once the weapon of choice for the 18th century backstreet Parisian tough.

'He must have taken it....' said the Colonel to the court's disbelief and residual sympathy.

Back to Smith, it appeared the ex senator had prepared well prior to the Rhodes/Di Lauro face off. Without Rhodes's knowledge and with no foresight regarding Rhodes's murderous plans he was exploiting a rare opportunity to bring the Toad to justice. At least that was what he said. The sticking point was how complicit he was in the death of Di Lauro...murder was still murder regardless of the victims' morality.

Smith said he called Captain Rudiger, Special Police Captain as arranged, although the death of Di Lauro accelerated the timing. As soon as it became clear Di Lauro was coming into the light Smith had contacted Stone's people who put him in touch with Rudiger and so the gameplay was drawn up...when the Toad left the theatre his men would swoop. There could have been a fight sure...but in the current climate the world had become used to streets being cleaned up at the point of a gun. Aside from the liberal bellyachers, as Smith put it, the public were in favour of these brave men putting a stop to so much corruption and fear. If corners were to be cut for the common good then go ahead said the majority.

And Di Lauro had brought a small army to mitigate any chicanery. Smith said Di Lauro was over confident and not a little mesmerised by the prodigal Vermeer, the Sphinx of Delft. The Judge condemned entrapment and the clandestine transaction that was always going to lead to bloodshed on the streets of Oxford. A staggering disregard for human safety and the sanctity of another country's sovereignty was breathtaking.

Where were the British Police in all of this!!

A representative of the US executive agreed they could have handled it better...but had left everything to Rudiger's discretion. Smith said that the priority had always been to bring Di Lauro and his men to justice. This had been achieved had it not. The actions of Rhodes could not have been anticipated and Smith and Rudiger were confident that without the warning shots things may have turned out differently.

'Continue Mister Smith...what happened next...in the theatre?'

'No-one made it into the main theatre, thanks to the special police and the Cretans,' said Smith.

'But Rhodes made it outside didn't he...?' said the Judge, 'tell me what happened...and if you can...how?'

The gunfire outside pulled Peter Rhodes out of a catatonic state. Di Lauro. He seemed to see the body for first time spreadeagled on its back. He said nothing, he acknowledged no-one. He dropped the tiny pistol he had palmed from the picture and his eyes took on the manic look that stayed with him till the end. Suddenly he grabbed the scruff of Di Lauro's suit jacket and began to drag the deadweight across the room streaking the smooth polished boards in tracks of blood dripping from the Toad's broken face. Unconcerned by the maelstrom outside, he dragged the body to the north facing door and carefully unlocked it. No one stopped him.

The sound of battle, men shouting, explosions and the chatter of gunfire crashed into the theatre like sound effects stage left. The Cretans had broken out of the back door and so no-one stopped him. No-one cared.

'You could have stopped him..' said the Judge to Smith.

'If I'd have known what he intended I probably would,' said Smith but I had no intentions of running outside after him...'

It became one of the city's enduring myths. How did Peter Rhodes get from the killing zone around the theatre to his Mustang in the centre of Broad Street some thirty yards away, unscathed. Certainly the tide of battle was turning and the thugs were being pinned down in the rubble of Trinity and Balliol while the Cretans were forcing them back at the rear of the theatre. Hand to hand fighting was now in progress all around the Bodleian and beyond as far as the University Church of St Mary's. Broad Street remained a battle zone thick with the fizz of shells striking the pavement, soft Cotswold stone, the thin steel bodies of a hundred or more cars and the weak flesh of men.

It was scarcely believable that Peter Rhodes made it as far as his bullet ridden Mustang, but Smith testified that it really happened as did Captain Rudiger. Reports stated that Rhodes continued to drag the dead weight of Hector Di Lauro out of the Theatre and across the flagstones to the steps down between the odd heads and Rudiger's fighters into Broad Street. Men hunkered either side down firing small bursts of gunfire across the street to where a group of burning trucks sheltered a pocket of Di Lauro's men. The ruins of the colleges beyond still harboured fugitives fighting a rear guard action. The battle front was becoming ragged, pushing into the rest of Oxford.

How was Rhodes not hit? Not even scratched? Suffice to say he negotiated the blazing guns until he reached the Mustang. Bullets were sparking off the tarmac all around him. Some clattered into the car. But in the cut and thrust of battle, precision shooting gave way to pure survival. And it stood to reason that when prioritising matters of life and death Peter posed no threat to anyone, although the Judge did wonder that the presence of the dead body didn't focus their minds on vengeance.

It was suggested by a team of eminent psychiatrists that once it was confirmed Di Lauro was dead, the only thought running through his men's heads was survival. In their world loyalty counted for nothing once the covenant was broken. Smith said that he got to the door of the theatre but saw little merit in going any further.

Rudiger takes up the testimony, ensconced as he was in a troop carrier parked at the entrance to Broad Street. Rhodes lashed Hector's feet to the rear bumper of the Mustang and slid into the driver's seat. He must have brought the rope for this very purpose. He said that even he was taken aback at what he realised was going to happen. As shots penetrated the bonnet and shattered one of the back windows, Rhodes gunned the car into life and put his foot down, dragging the twisting corpse over the tarmac. At first he shot east swerving around the trucks...four of them...shocking the men who fired wildly until he made a hand break turn at the junction with Holywell and Parks Road before hitting what must have been sixty, to pass in front of the trucks, heading straight for Rudiger's men strung across the Western end of the street. They were on foot, in jeeps and in troop carriers. Men began to part as he bore down, the body leaving a trail of bloody pieces, spinning and dancing a macabre jig.

Rudiger said that at first he fired at the tyres. Two exploded into rubber fragments but he kept coming, barely able to control the wheel. Then he knew he must make the kill shot. He said it was never his intension, he understood Rhodes rage although he could not condone this. He was also a threat to his own men, the abomination had to be stopped. He said he stood up in the front of the troop carrier, exposed to incoming fire and took aim with a rifle. Two shots took out the windscreen and the driver. The car skidded, no longer in control and rolled over and came to rest with its roof on the wooden inlaid cross where the martyrs had died. The wheels were in spin. The car and its driver would go no further. The abomination was over.

Facts were gathered like a phantom harvest.

Of the murder of Hector Di Lauro there was little to prevent a verdict of guilty in the ledger against Peter Rhodes. However it could be taken into account the provocation and standing of the victim, a man it is widely agreed was behind some of the worst crime sprees in the world. Any trial in absentia would take account of Rhodes as victim, to weigh against his behaviour that day although everything pointed to a suicide mission.

Colonel Rhodes and Colorado Smith's involvement remained moot and of little interest to the judiciary. At worst co conspirators at best active by standers.

The conduct and bravery of Rudiger's men attracted much praise despite a blatant shoot to kill order, a necessary precaution with so many innocent lives at risk in Oxfords town centre. At least that was Rudiger's justification. The US President and his special forces still had much to answer for. There was no investigation into Dominic Rudiger's fitness for duty or state of mind that day beyond the heightened professionalism of a special forces commander. Details of his past life lay outside the bounds of the hearing. The kill shot was never thought to be anything other than pragmatic.There was no suggestion or inference that the actions of Captain Rudiger had been motivated by anything more than a desire to bring a suspected murderer on the run who was without doubt a danger to the public.

And there was certainly no suggestion that he was blinded by the light of a day when his girl, the love of his life left him for Rhodes at an art exhibition so long ago. None at all.

The cruel flight that had ended on the martyrs wooden cross left the remnants of Hectors body in a bloody heap under the overturned car. An obscene testimony to the day and the tragedy of Peter Rhodes. Riflemen from the troop carrier made their way forward at a crouch. Rudiger stayed where he was. Nearby Colorado Smith, despite what he said earlier was making his way gingerly along the edge of Broad Street toward the man he had worked with and for.

There was a reported lull in the fighting as men tried to understand what had just happened. The battle of Radcliffe Square continued unabated acting as a wake up call until the bullets flew again.

And Antonio Alphonso? His death was never adequately explained, and in the crossfire and the nature of street guerrilla fighting there seemed no easy way of reconstructing everyone's movements. The most likely candidate as it turned out was his own brother! Smith did not witness the death of Antonio, his body found later with two gunshots to the chest, in the attic above the theatre.

The fate of the Vermeer also remained obscure. The painting left the easel during the height of the fighting with no witnesses able to confirm the identity of the thief.

And Peter Rhodes' body was never recovered.

'It was then that I saw them' said Smith, 'the people coming out of the city centre, the nearby shops, the college buildings still standing. Along Holywell and Park Road, along the Turl and beyond the Bodleian they came. Heedless and courageous individuals brought out by the man in the Mustang. In ones and twos at first, risking everything, fearless, men and women, and yes children, like a third world militia. Nervous, wary, frightened but resolute, a glowing fortitude in their faces. Defiantly as if planned they came to the hissing Mustang buckled against the armoured police truck, steam bellowing from the hood.

The riflemen were eased away as the people surrounded the car in their hundreds, the doors were prised open and hands reached in. Smith and Rudiger confirmed that the body of Peter Rhodes was taken from the car, until all that remained was the lifeless disfigured husk of what had once been Hector Di Lauro, ignored, stepped over, his place in history a footnote, an irrelevance.

During the hiatus men fled for their lives. Rudiger's grand sweep through the streets of Oxford became a house to house fight, hand to bloody hand. But something else had erupted as the splintering of Di Lauro's empire continued. Rival gang lords seized their opportunity to break out and take what had been denied them. In the Battle of Broad Street Sarpendon saw the writing on the wall as his men were pushed further back by Rudiger's Special Forces. The Cretans who had held the line behind the theatre evaporated as their roll diminished. Reportedly they took no losses apart from Antonio.

Joe Sarpendon was caught in an ambush as he made his way back to Cowley. He died in a hail of bullets outside their old HQ.

The death of Di Lauro triggered more than the fragmentation and rise of the Oxford underworld. Across the world his empire became the target for a thousand wannabe's desperate for a piece of the action. Like the death of Marshall Tito heralded the disintegration of Yugoslavia into warring fiefdoms, so the global structure imploded and uncontrollable fires swept the established order aside. As for his own empire, his death opened the way for his lieutenants to carve things up like Alexander's generals but unlike the Diadochi no new dynasties arose; it was more the squabbling daughters of Lear.

The British war spread along the Thames corridor to the capital and out to the rest of the country. The dead strewn through the burning ashes of the dreaming spires was as nothing compared to the rest of the country. New alliances were made as small time players saw their opportunity to align themselves with new hard men with an eye to the main chance and an opportunistic future. Anarchy in its purest form.

For forty days and forty nights the Battle for Britain raged, spilling from town to town while the streets of Oxford continued to run red with the blood of bad man and the good ones who stood between them and the people. In the lawless parts of every town no one was safe. The bystander was dragged onto the front line, the looted shop keeper took up arms and manned the barricades with his family, the sans culottes standing together precipitated a new frontier of townsfolk, as vehicles burned and barricades blocked off entire communities. Oxford became Belfast, Sarajevo and the LA riots. Battle lines were drawn, gang v gang, looter and shopkeeper, black and white, opportunism of the teenage chancers, the fast buck, the something for nothing brigade.

The Special Forces dispensed violent justice until blood red replaced Oxford blue as the city signature colour and the mother's and the children and the men of justice wept Apache Tears.

Of course the rest of the world sank to the bottom of the barrel which is after all where so many want to be...despite their crocodile tears. Inner city rioting became the new game...nothing on TV, the internet now a weapon of choice, spreading bile like a disease. It was the age of abuse. Hate not love. Me not you...I want what you got...and lying being the new reality.

The truth was whatever you wanted it to be, but wasn't it ever thus. The death of Di Lauro had been the great shining centrepiece for Stone and Rudiger and yet it released so much more than they had prepared for. The winds behind the new forest fire were far stronger than they had prepared for. The new judiciary and the incorruptible lawmen could only cling on as the winds and the fires swept over them. They were overwhelmed and outgunned as Pandoras Jar poured out the ills of the world, but unlike the original, hope escaped too.

The Colonel who it transpired was not too far away from the Battle of Broad Street was asked to confirm he had not spirited his son away. He had nothing to add. And Stone under pressure with a failing marriage and corruption charges brewing swore he had no knowledge of where Rhodes had gone, and Thalia, still a resident in Stone Towers but increasingly disillusioned said that she had no idea or understanding of what her husband had been up to or where he now was. Across a Skype Link Judge Holland enquired after the First Mistresses distracted air and asked of her mental health which she said had never been better. The President apologised for their over eagerness and for any breach in international protocol.

In the meantime Stone went to the American people and announced a time that will live in infamy and turned out the National Guard who in their time honoured tradition in the fine art of escalation, enflamed flames and tried to stem the flow of blood with an increased body count. The Stone Age had overreached itself. Every city caught fire, the new breed tore down bastion walls and some even rode the zeitgeist of self expression to justify what was pure anarchy. The international fall out was never adequately quantified beyond a body count in the hundreds of thousands and not all from the underworld. Too many innocents were caught in the cross fire of a million local wars.

And in a house on the Thames Hermione and Donald toasted the flames of a new order burning away the old world. The new anarchy reset the power base in every major city, ripe for Pantheon's retooled ambitions, their stock in trade the exploitation of the human quandary of what to be.

Rewiring the economy and civic infrastructure became the catalyst for a new order to replace the one so successfully expunged by Stone's international crusade. So much death, so much left as ash. It's what happens when you remove the ties that bind. Take away what seems to be an endemic human need for the illusion of power and the burden of wealth and everything falls down. What a legacy!!!

Despite the enquiry led by Judge Holland in Britain and US and European equivalents there was little in the way of prosecutions. Most of the antagonists were dead and the shock troops sent in to drive them out, to clear entire city blocks were in effect fighting a war and there was little appetite for judicial intervention. President Stone and Prime Minister Dean of the UK were censured for their cavalier approach to sovereignty and the wanton use of violence and entrapment as a reputable means of meting out justice. But the global fight against all forms of corruption trumped any attempts to bring Rudiger and his men to book.

In the years that followed Pantheon instigated the rebuild arraying an army of puppets and avatars to rest control from the incapable and the weary, in the process shaking loose unspeakable levels of income. It was of course ever thus but Zander's Armageddon elevated the world to a new level of utter dependence upon Pantheon. It was said at one point that Donald Zander personally owned 1.5% of the world's wealth. That said his board and family were all independently wealthy with fortunes amassed between them to equal his. Down the chain his daughter and her new husband hoovered up enough to finance a long future in politics. What price a multi millionaire with humility issues as president?

Oxford and another 100 British cities lay in ruins. Rockets, grenades and tank shells had reduced the walls of Balliol, Trinity, Exeter, Christchurch, Worcester and Magdalen to piles of ancient rubble. The rest were damaged, as was the whole of the city centre. Every night shots rang out across the smoking rubble. Creatures without hope crawled between piles of rubble until Oxford became a refugee state unable to manage itself. Of all the cities in Britain, the world, Oxford was hit the worst. It barely existed as a coherent spot on the map.

Unreported was an extraordinary board meeting somewhere in the roof of the world. Hermione, Pinot Grigio in hand, basking in her husband's glory, the gorgeous Anais radiant as arch deceiver and manipulator of desire, David Parish the perverter of wisdom silently absorbing the potential of new honey pots in which to sleight his hands. The perma-genial man in the chair and the Hunter, stoney of face and eye, the airily distracted Rivers and the one man Greek chorus, Baptiste, a picture of Mount Rushmore intensity.

There they were, mission happy, eyes on prizes, pawns sacrificed, and not a few knights and bishops, and the odd king. Ambrosia was not consumed but may as well have been. The air appeared to sparkle, the low thunder clouds giving the Earth a curious luminosity setting the Pantheon Board in sharp relief against the eddying winds and the English meadows outside.

'Freedom is a word that should strike terror into all of us,' said Zander. 'Freedom from constraint is a state the beasts of the earth enjoy, without rancour and privilege, without guilt and envy. But give one ape more food than the others and let another find a pointed stick and we're off and running ladies and gentlemen. The jealous mind is ripe for exploitation and order which is just another word for control of the unprincipled mind. Why think at all when the politicians have all the responsibility and the media have all the opinions? Raise your glasses to a new world. Our world! But Zander had not reckoned on the ape that shared.

# CASSIE VI

The citadel was down, the town sacked, a smouldering ruin. The black arrow of Peter's fury, piercing the skin, getting to the heart of his weakness, his mother's sense of rightfulness, his mother per se, with unerring accuracy. It would seem the end of all things. But I began to see that it was not an end at all. I foresaw it all, clearly now, a final surge of colour and sound. A reckoning clearer than day and as crisp as an autumnal night sky, the new constellations depicting a new order for the next future. So much, so possible, so real.

The snorting minotaur of Zander's rampant criminal class will continue to stand in rank and file behind implacable Pantheon banners peddling mammon as a religion, reinvigorated, resurrected. Sermons of fire and brimstone, blood and thunder, milk and honey in the ear, gossamer slightness. But below the parapets where only the ragged people go, there is a new resolve, a seed, a germination, a pin's head on which the angels dance. A tremor less than a single point on the Richter scale, it is the sound of the angels pushing back. Ethics questioned, values dragged out into the sunlight to wither and howl like vampires. I can see it here in my heart, my mind's eye, my third eye.....battle lines drawn up across human hearts.

New life finds a way of breaking through, tilling the mind, cultivating self expression, blossoming in the darkest dankest places. Flowers breaking through the cracks in the worn and bloodied pavements, distilling the heady perfume of hope. Against the worst of men gleam the very best as art fights back, erecting its walls higher and higher, protected by its own self worth and optimism. Art as expression, as music, jazz thinking, bebop writings, poetry, august language to be savoured, neither despised or mocked, intelligence not intelligentsia.

The art of living and the art of dying. The agents of Pantheon, tall in the cool breeze of opportunity, will begin to whither, dissolving in the rain, their nihilistic preternatural obsessions revealed as nothing more than an incapacity to develop as adult human beings.

Winds fanning the flames of civil strife will find their apotheosis in the simple shop keeper and his children, the students and the quiet majority, the edificatious, the enlightened of heart, the purveyors of aesthete over rapaciousness to whit there are millions, fireside warriors unconvinced by political discourse and the rhetoric of the socially, verbally and physically violent. The Rhodes philosophy will take root, and entwine the hearts of the angels, leaving the shades to run back into their own night and the absence of light. Despite or perhaps because of his fall, Peter's message will ring louder and with more resonance than anything the disciples of Pantheon will be able to muster. The bells will call us home at last.

I see and hear the fever spreading like a cure through minds ready to receive. And for every ape with a stick there will come ten with bread and love to spare. And as the fires subside and the ashes smoulder the new anarchy and its apostles will falter at the knife's edge. The seraphim and the cherubim will turn their backs on the corporate and the avaricious, unresponsive to their feckless poetry. This is the old way, they will say, this is no longer our way.

'And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.'

Then the angels will walk openly, the adherents of the divine nature of true men, the human being that sits where they say the soul should be. Stripped of the metaphysical trappings of two thousand or more years of sacrilegious subversion of the human spirit by men...yes men...devoid of any sense of real humanity, humility or how the human animal works. Liberation is a concept of choice and choice is all we need. There will always be the bad as well as the good and the ugly and for that there will be a strong and fearless law, the manifestation of civilised, generosity and mindfulness of the heart.

I cannot tell where this takes us, the mirror is too cloudy, and my powers fail me, but I cannot see a return to the hunter gatherer, only their solid altruism stripped of artifice, where horizons were real, closer to the earth, to ourselves, less artificiality, no gods just the glory of the real earth, and no religion save the worship of what is right and pure. Passivity not weakness, ambition not degradation, law and order, honour over avarice, self above projected self and the cultivation of a rich inner life.

And finally on the distant clifftop above the bay where the ships set sail for a new Rome, the black smoke billows like steel wool across an open sky, the bitter taste of ash in the wind, as the last man climbs aboard the last ship and leaves the shore. A cry of betrayal rings out, confusion and fury at the fall of the old ways. Betrayal and personal shame almost indivisible. A woman? An idea? Dido? The last man does not look back, he cannot even hear it. His eyes are firmly set on the horizon as a new city beckons, a city of divine yet secular possibilities. Noocracy? Timocracy? Meritocracy? Who can say where the freed human spirit will lead or what it will build. I surely cannot, but the spirit must be allowed to blossom and fulfil whatever it is that angels have inside them.

For we are all angels.

# EPILOGUE

Some fires never truly go out, but turn to ash and the heat my die but the cinders radiate a vectored breath, the memory may linger and the stench of smoke and fear may permeate. It would take generations to exorcise the global civil war, with battle lines less cavalier and roundhead than grey and grey. Britain's infrastructure hung, suspended, paying lip service to its responsibilities, cheerleading individual tenacity to set things aright.

New leaders came forward, to replace the complacent and the power hungry, the career politicians who rode the Zeitgeist of other men's concerns, slipping between the man in the street and the man at the top. Interpreters of God fell further from view, their church consumed by its own soul, vexed at its arrogance and muddle headed peddling of the myths of a long dead society about a creature that demands worship, speaks in riddles (at least as far as its representatives on earth would have us believe) without ever having made itself known. Only the passing of generations would ameliorate such primitive rhetoric and in the meantime it would fall to the wise and the resilient, the teachers of restraint and conductors of tolerance to light the way. For every night there is always a dawn and a chance to put right the things that kept you awake.

So whither the principles in the immediate aftermath of the new Anarchy leading into the tremulous dawn? The newly empowered, and accumulator of considerable wealth, Colorado Smith with Anais by his side led Elysium into what was a smooth and enriching future. But as the winds changed and the playing field lost its lustre Anais disappeared back into the east, to Europe, they said. There was talk of retribution, with Anais admitting even to herself a soft spot for Peter Rhodes a man she had drawn out and set on the road to what was his own destruction. She had gone to Rudiger some days earlier to learn more of his intense interest in proceedings and how he had inserted himself so easily into Peter's final hours. In conversation he said he would be paying a visit to the father, to conclude all unfinished business, to establish the extent of his guilt and to dispense what justice was still open to him. But it was never to be. Before he went to Colonel Rhodes a confrontation may have ensued between himself and Anais. It cost her they said, whatever she did or said to Rudiger she would leave the stage to lick her wounds. Of Captain Dominic Rudiger there is nothing more to be said.

Colorado Smith took sole ownership of Elysium and it's is fair to say underwent a long bitter journey toward fulfilment. A man not unused to demons he faced them all as he led his business out of the shadow of Peter Rhodes and onto a more commercial footing. Having lived in the slip stream of other men's dramas for so long he underwent a purging of the self, whatever that is. The time had arrived when he would facilitate his own life. Did he make it? Legend has it that he did at least find solace in his own worth and not the grasshopper opportunism that had rendered his true self all but indefinable against the grey values of others.

Leda Records relocated to a customised unit on the West coast of America, in LA, run by Telemann, and was fast becoming one of the most successful label/studios in the world as a thousand new acts across as many genres beat a path to its naturalistic spirit. Music as music, not industry.

The art galleries returned as did the civil display of wanton defilement of public spaces, repainted in a thousand new hues, driving out the grey and the worn. The world's first "Art label" found a rekindled spirit in every western city with a huge pick up in the Far East. Private art centres sprang up, paint ins, festivals of light, art and musical, spiritual love-ins.

Encampments grew out of the rubble of Oxford enriching the spirit and the town encouraging the rebuild of a New Oxford, dedicated to Peter Rhodes the great progenitor of a new age.

And whither Mayor Stone and his Cressida? The pageant of unrelenting rat catching saw his popularity rise and fall in equal measure. Smoking out the leeches, no prisoners now, this was war and the only way out is to lay down your guns and swear allegiance to the flag...Stone's flag. Stoker of blood lust and self beatification or the last lawman standing, it really depended on where you stood and who told you. But the barricades were manned and Lady Liberty took her place waving the flag of a new morning. No-one could argue that the man had not fulfilled his podium promise.

But the long term prospects for a man like John T Stone would be, they said, his just desserts. Sacrificing the family who had been supplanted by a dream and another woman tainted his legend with the shame that a man in his pomp would never see. But a wife sacrificed is a woman biding her time, and as her man milked the crowds and waited for his second term in office Clem Stone brought the hammer down. Corruption in high places, embezzlement and low demeanours which in the face of overwhelming embroidered evidence which someone said fellow councillor David Parish had a hand in, Stone was brought to his political knees and locked away for twenty years.

Twenty years was too long to indulge the art of loyalty so Thalia walked out of Stone Tower, looking for her men in the fog. In effect she self emolliated on the hook of an overweening sense of ambition, her sense of right and wrong up in smoke, the rules of business and survival proven to be a searing myth peddled by men like her father. Leaving for a world of shadows, a million shades of black and grey, she became invisible, a wraith on a foggy plain in the aftermath of battle, where the dead give up the ghost, she walked alone, a line here and a trick there, looking for her Man...he was out there...he had to be out there. The answer and the glory.

She is there still, the bag lady of the Lower Eastside...haunted and red of eye.

Years later, somewhere on the East Asian subcontinent, China probably, a bitter fight broke out between rival gangs claiming to own the original Vermeer's The Concert. Whispers began to leak out of the Orient, as friends of friends spoke of it hanging on the wall of a Triad overlord, a man of virtually no taste but an understanding of the tools of power. When a second claimant entered the market it's fair to say he saw red. Its footprints back to the Sheldonian Theatre were undetectable, covered with all the grace and skill of Apache hunters. Whoever had taken it down from the easel and whoever had spirited it out of the gallery, the image of three musicians, the ménage à trois was stolen for a second time.

Ironically any blood reportedly spilt on the canvas of the copy was not in evidence. In time the two paintings fell into the same hands and in all the wrestling for the right to own which, more blood was spilled, more lies told, more authentications subverted, and men who couldn't even pronounce Vermeer never saw the dawn rise again.

Which identical painting was the ONE? Reality it seems will always be in the eye of the man who says he knows.

And one bright morning in Church Hanborough, Colonel Aaron Rhodes rose and drove to Folly Bridge in Oxford. He hired a row boat just for the day. He clambered aboard lying the long shoulder bag down under the seats and turned to row down stream, following the Thames as far as the red bricked mansion set back among the trees. He moored under the willows at the end of the long lawn and alighted, shouldering the long bag.

Already the wiry Joey was on his way. The Colonel smiled and waved. He slipped the bag to the ground and unzipped it to take up the automatic rifle he had loaded earlier. It was time for that one to one with Zeus himself.

And elsewhere I turned to my companion in the e-type heading West and asked him if he was well. The man in the white panama and the white walrus moustache pursed his lips in reflection and said he was happy to be back out on the road and I said I couldn't agree more.

