"I figure it's the same man. You can't see his face, but you can see what's hanging above him."

Thorn studied the picture, his eyes filled with confusion.

"It's a little more pronounced this time," continued Jennings. "If you envision the size of his face, you can see it's just about making contact with his head. In the ten days between the first picture and this one, it moved down. Whatever it is, it came closer."

Thorn stared, dumfounded; Jennings removed the photo and replaced it with the one carried on the front page of the newspapers; the priest impaled on the spearlike pole.

"Begin to see the connection?" asked Jennings.

Thorn sat stunned. Behind them an automatic timer went off and Jennings flicked on another light, turning to meet Thorn's troubled gaze.

"I can't explain it either," said Jennings. "That's why I started digging."

Taking a pair of tongs, he turned to a vat, lifting out an enlargement, waving and letting it drip before moving it to the light.

"I've got some friends at the police. They gave me some negatives that I made enlargements from. The coroner's report showed he was riddled with cancer. High on morphine most of the time, injected himself two, three times a day."

As Thorn's eyes fell on the enlargements, he winced. It was in three separate panels, each a different death pose of the priest's naked body.

"Externally, his body was completely normal," continued Jennings. "Except for one small item on the inside of his left thigh."

He handed Thorn a magnifying glass, guiding his hand to the last panel. It was of the priest grotesquely spread-eagled, his genitals and thighs exposed to view. Thorn looked closely, seeing the mark. It looked somewhat like a tattoo.

"What is it?" asked Thorn.

"Three sixes. Six hundred sixty-six."

". . . Concentration camp?"

"That was my thought, but a biopsy showed it was literally carved into him. They didn't do that in the concentration camps. This was self-inflicted, I'd suppose."

Thorn and Jennings exchanged a glance, Thorn completely at a loss.

"Bear with me," said Jennings, and he lifted another photo to the light. "This is the room where he lived. Cold-water flat in Soho. Filled with rats when we entered. He'd left a salt-beef half-eaten on the table."

Thorn examined the photo. It showed a small cubicle with only a table, a bureau, and a bed. The walls were covered with a strange texture, like crumpled scraps of paper; large crosses were hanging everywhere.

"The whole place looked like this. The papers all over the walls are pages from the Bible. Thousands of them. Every inch of wall space was covered with them, even the windows. As though he was trying to keep something out."

Thorn sat stunned, gazing at the bizarre photograph.

"Crosses, too. There were forty-seven of them nailed to the front door alone."

"He was . . . crazy.. .? Thorn whispered.

Jennings looked him directly in the eye.

"You know better than that."