Clear enough what side he was on, then, Ben thought. Hed never heard of this Lucas guy. From the brief resume the presenter gave of the man, it seemed that the sudden runaway success of God? What God? had propelled him out of academic obscurity and into the realms of minor celebrity, as something of a figurehead for the growing pro-atheist lobby.
As the debate opened, Penrose Lucas went straight in like a greyhound leaving the gate. Pointedly refusing to refer to his opponent as the Reverend Arundel and insisting on Mr, he began a rapid-fire tirade about the centuries of slaughter and persecution and senseless warfare carried out in the name of religion.
It was hardly a new argument, but it was one that many Christians found difficult to refute, and Professor Lucas clearly intended to milk it to its full crushing advantage. He was eloquent and passionate, his case compelling. Religious belief was the most devastating of all the follies ever dreamed up by humanity. Without its destructive influence, mankind would be able to co-exist in a blissful state of utter peace. A new age would emerge in the wake of its long-awaited banishment to the dustbin of history, like young green shoots growing up in abundance on a fire-blighted landscape. An age of reason. An age of secularism. An age of scientific enlightenment.
Having rapidly reduced two millennia of Christian tradition to rubble and its followers to gullible imbeciles, Penrose generously ceded the floor to Simeon. Ben watched his friend on the screen as the cameras zoomed in, and felt his throat tighten with sadness.
The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science, was Simeons opening line. The presenter seemed taken aback by his statement, and Penrose Lucas eyebrows shot up in delight, as if even he hadnt expected to win the debate so quickly. Yes! Exactly! he interrupted, nodding, eyes gleaming. Then Mr Arundel concedes the point that-
I wasnt conceding anything, Simeon said calmly. I was quoting from a well-known figure from history. One who knew something about war, I might add. Im sure my learned friend, with his deep knowledge of history among his many other accomplishments, must be aware of who spoke these words that he so enthusiastically seems to embrace?
Seemingly, Penrose Lucas wasnt aware of anything, except that hed possibly just walked into a horrible trap. He flushed scarlet under the studio lights.
That quote comes from Adolf Hitler, Simeon said. An ardent atheist who, if Nazi Germany had won World War II, planned to eradicate Christianity within his empire just as he planned to eradicate the Jews. But Im sure my learned friend wouldnt try to argue that the war was fought over matters of faith?
Lucas wisely chose not to expand on the point. Having got his opponent on the ropes, Simeon didnt let go and began plucking more examples at random from history: Vietnam, a conflict fought over ideologies far removed from religion; the American Civil War, ostensibly fought over the issue of slavery, not faith. And on, and on, though Simeon was being careful not to lose his audience in a welter of information. Each new point seemed to hammer Penrose Lucas down a little further behind his rostrum and turn his face a little redder. Just a few minutes into the debate, and his studied composure was already coming apart at the seams.
In fact, Simeon challenged him with a winning grin, can the Professor name a single major conflict of the last three centuries that was even remotely connected with Christian ideology?
It doesnt matter, Penrose yelled. Anyone who believes in the very notion of a god is suffering from a serious mental delusion. These people need treatment.
Speaking as a qualified psychiatrist as well? Simeon asked, still smiling. With all due respect, I hope your knowledge in that field is better than your understanding of history.
The debate turned away from the issue of warfare and raged on, though all the raging was done on Penrose Lucas side and Simeon preserved his cool impeccably. Ben watched another few minutes, smiling to himself at the way Simeon was able to run rings around his opponent.
By the time he stopped the video playback, the rolling script at the bottom of the screen was already giving the results of the TV phone-in. The vote was running 76 % in favour of Simeon.
If Professor Lucas book is as well-argued as his effort in this debate, said one of the scrolling quotes emailed and texted in from viewers, I wont be buying it. Others said much the same thing.
It was highly entertaining stuff, but Ben wasnt in the mood for entertainment. He turned off the TV. Suddenly the room was quiet and still and dark. Simeon was gone again, for the second time that night.
Chapter Fifteen
Professor Penrose Lucas stepped out onto the balcony of the clifftop villa and gazed out from the rocky coast of Capri across the still, dark waters of the Gulf of Naples. His migraine was throbbing, and he was still quaking from the nightmare that had racked him for what seemed like hours before hed eventually managed to tear himself away from it, sitting bolt upright in bed with a gasp, drenched in sweat.
Even now, his fathers roar continued to reverberate in his ears.
Hell rip and roast you for a bastard, boy! Whack.
Penrose shuddered. He could still smell the dreaded leather belt that the old man had kept coiled ready for use in a jar of vinegar, the filthy sick sadist. Penrose wouldnt ever forget the sting of that belt on his skin. The lashing crack of the leather. The sound of his own screaming, still sharp in his memory after thirty years.
Remember me, boy. Those who are tainted shall drink the wine of the wrath of God, and they shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels! Whack. Whack.
Penrose watched the white crests of the waves in the darkness until his fathers voice receded to nothing and his migraine began to ease.
How he had detested that man, with a burning force of hatred whose violence had never abated, from his earliest youth to the time hed left home, to the day of the old mans death eleven years ago. Standing there at the graveside surrounded by those forlorn, snivelling mourners whod lacked the wits to see through the tyrants veneer of charm, Penrose hadnt been able to restrain himself from cackling out loud as hed watched the coffin descend into the ground. His only regret had been that the Reverend Gerald Collingsworth Lucas, Deacon for the Diocese of Winchester, had now been released from the agony of the cancer that had been eating him away, one wretched cell at a time, for over a decade.
By the time of his fathers long-awaited, infinitely relished passing, Penroses academic career had been well on track. A sparkling talent, hed been set from early on to become one of the youngest university professors of his generation. Hed never married, never formed any serious relationships with women and had few friends, devoted instead to his work and to the first glimmers of what had eventually evolved into his first book. When he hadnt been buried in the rapidly expanding manuscript of God? What God? hed been nailed to his desk writing hosts of long, impassioned online articles about the evils and corruption of organised religion, most especially those of Christianity.
After the completed book manuscript, all one hundred and eighty thousand incendiary words of it, had unexpectedly sparked off a bidding war between major British publishers and Penrose had found himself suddenly in possession of a six-figure advance that he didnt really need, hed immediately begun putting the money to good use. Thus had begun the second stage of his war against the church and his fathers memory.
Penrose secretly paid seventeen thousand pounds to a firm called Hardstaff amp; Baldwin Ltd, a shabby little private investigation outfit in Darlington, to dig up as much dirt as they could on members of the clergy, of any Christian denomination, across the north-east of England. Within three months, H amp;Bs diligent sleuthing had managed to produce video footage of a well-respected pastor in Leeds, one Reverend Tobias Bateman, sneaking away from his wife at night for regular visits to the notorious Water Lane red light district in Holbeck, where he was reported to enjoy being tied up and beaten by a lady wearing only a shiny leather mask.
Penrose swiftly closed in for the kill. The ensuing media furore led to the defrocking, disgracing and divorce of the good Reverend Bateman. The source of the information remained a secret, naturally. Penroses money had been well spent, and he had a lot more to burn now that his book was selling like hot cakes. Having tasted blood, he now enlarged his operation to include the whole of England, an initiative that cost him the remainder of his publishing advance and then some more. To his horror, his investigators turned up nothing for months. No church sex romps, no internet poker-addicted bishops or lesbian nuns, not a shred of scandal or intemperance to be found anywhere. Penrose began to realise he was going to have to become more creative.
It wasnt long afterwards that he hit paydirt, in the form of a highly esteemed and well-known psychotherapist called Dr Nora Gibbs, shrink and hypnotist to sports personalities and television celebs. Purely by chance, one of Penroses growing network of investigators stumbled across an old legal case and happened to report it back to his employer. It appeared that two decades earlier, when Nora Gibbs had been Nora Jamieson and a student at Sussex University, shed been arrested in possession of amphetamines, cocaine and a quantity of magic mushrooms, which shed been distributing to her fellow students one of whom ended up hospitalised as a result. It had been a minor scandal at the time, but nobody had ever before dug up the connection with the famous Dr Gibbs.
Two days after Penroses tip-off, the celebrity shrink received an anonymous letter giving her very specific and clear instructions on how to avoid revelations about her past being leaked to the national media. Some time later, a very well-known male TV presenter, whod been receiving hypnotherapy treatment from Dr Gibbs for stress and depression, suddenly recovered deeply repressed and hitherto undreamed-of memories of serious sexual abuse at the hands of the nuns and priests at the Catholic boarding school hed attended in his youth. The TV presenter, shaken and angry but eternally grateful to his shrink for having made him aware of his forgotten past, went public with his allegations. Despite the lack of a single shred of evidence, the ensuing storm was enough to bring about the closure of the school. A retired priest called Father ORourke narrowly avoided being lynched by a mob that gathered outside his home, and died soon afterwards of heart failure.