Chapter 1: Water Flowing Uphill
Holy places can be found across the globe as well as across time. Holy places for the good, holy places for the in-between, and holy places for evil. As long as there are sanctuaries for the righteous, there will be feeding grounds for the wicked. A can of worms for every sacred spring; for every Bethlehem a Golgotha; for every Bodh Gaya a Whitechapel.
There were people who said that the bad never rested in Whitechapel, and that the pavement was soaked with the blood of the innocent. To those who said that Simon Stark’s usual reply was that there were no innocents in Whitechapel.
Simon Stark had been born in this part of London, the son of an influential policeman and a reformed prostitute. When their only son was five years old, Stark learned that there
