Читать книгу The Whispering Gallery - Mark Sanderson - Страница 13

Chapter Six

Johnny, pushing his luck, stuck his head round the door of the switchboard room. It was stifling. A dozen young women, plugging and unplugging cables, intoned “Daily News, good morning”, “One moment, please” and “Connecting you now.”

“I’ll be out of the office for a couple of hours, girls.” He was answered by a chorus of wolf-whistles and cat-calls.

“Hello, Johnny!” Lois, a suicide blonde old enough to be his mother, winked at him. “When are you taking me out for that drink you’re always promising me?”

“The next time I get jilted.”

“And what, may I ask, d’you think you’re doing?”

Johnny jumped. He could feel hot breath on the back of his neck. He turned round. The basilisk eyes of Doreen Roos locked on to his. “Mr Steadman, I might have known it was you. You know very well that reporters are not allowed in here.”

“As you can see, I haven’t actually crossed the threshold.”

The supervisor tut-tutted in irritation. “Why can’t you phone down, like everyone else?”

“I was in a hurry.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.” She stood aside to let him pass.

“Bye, Johnny!”

“Bye, girls. I’ll bring back some lollies.”

“Oh no, you won’t,” said Mrs Roos. Food was strictly forbidden in the exchange.

Johnny slung his jacket over his shoulder and, with a nod of sympathy to the doorman sweating in his long coat and peaked cap, went out into the swirling heat and noise of Fleet Street. No one wanted to walk in such oppressive weather. It took him five minutes to find a cab. The breeze coming through the open windows as it trundled up Ludgate Hill – St Paul’s straight ahead – provided scant relief.

He got out of the taxi across the road from The Cock and entered the courtyard of the hospital by St Bartholomew-the-Less. A father fondly watched his child playing in the fountain at the centre. Such scenes moved Johnny. Would a father’s love have made him turn out differently?

It was cool in the basement. A tunnel connected the main block to the mortuary at the back. Before it was built, the dead would have been wheeled across the courtyard with only a sheet to protect them from prying eyes.

As he approached the double-doors of the morgue the pungent smell of disinfectant grew stronger. Johnny peeped through one of the round windows and saw the back of the duty pathologist, bending over the naked body of an old man. Hughes, his assistant, looked up and blanched. He said something to his superior, pulled a curtain round the dissecting table, and, with a scowl, came out to join Johnny.

“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I was hoping I’d seen the last of you.” Hughes tossed his lank, greasy hair away from his face and wiped his bloody hands on his apron. “What you want?”

“Don’t be like that. Haven’t you missed me just a teensy-weensy bit?”

“No.”

“I bet you missed my money, though.” Johnny nodded towards the pathologist. “Does he know about your little sideline?”

Hughes ignored the question.

“I haven’t got all day.”

“Be like that then. I just came by to thank you for your little gift.” Johnny studied the lugubrious thug carefully.

“Dunno what yer talkin” about.”

“So you’re not short of a woman’s arm? Nothing’s gone missing recently?”

“Dunno what you mean.”

“Someone sent me the forearm of a woman this morning.”

Hughes curled his lip – in amusement rather than distaste. “Well, it weren’t me.”

“Sure about that?”

“Sure as eggs is eggs.”

“OK. I believe you.”

“Why would anyone do such a thing? It’s sick.”

Johnny suspected the attendant was no stranger to midnight perversions. “Indeed. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Hughes – get back here this minute!” The pathologist rapped on the door and glared through the porthole. Whatever he held in the palm of his hand dripped on to the black-and-white tiled floor.

“I assume I can count on your discretion,” said Johnny. “I don’t want anyone else stealing my thunder.”

“Your secret’s safe with me. And if I hear anything about missing body parts, I’ll give you a bell.”

“Thank you. I’ll be more than generous.”

The butcher’s boy slipped through the doors and disappeared behind the green curtain that hid the outspread, opened corpse.

Johnny blinked as he re-emerged into the sunshine. A dust devil made him sneeze. He’d never get away with taking another cab – the top brass were enforcing one of their periodic clamp-downs on expenses – so he would have to walk.

As he emerged from the shade of the gate-house into West Smithfield he saw an instantly recognisable figure in the distance. He immediately turned on his heels and dived into St Bartholomew-the-Less. Had he been seen?

The church was empty: no one – not even an anxious parent, bereaved lover or just a lost soul – was seeking succour from above at this moment. He entered a pew, knelt on a battered hassock and lowered his head as if in prayer. The phrase whited sepulchre came to mind.

Johnny licked the sweat off his upper lip and waited. It was so quiet he imagined he could hear his heart beating. Dust motes danced in the slanting sunbeams. A plaque on the wall stated that Inigo Jones had been christened here in 1573. A few seconds later Matt’s heavy footsteps echoed off the vaulted ceiling of the covered gateway.

The police had clearly got their act together – assuming Matt was here to enquire about any missing pieces of a human jigsaw. And why else would he be here, in person? He had sounded so busy on the telephone. The fact that both uniformed and plain-clothed officers were already involved suggested they were taking the case seriously. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have stayed in the office. His guilt at disobeying his friend was now mixed with relief that he had not bumped into him – literally. It would not have been a pleasant encounter.

Johnny got to his feet and re-entered the real world. At the end of Little Britain he crossed Aldersgate Street and cut through Falcon Square where John Jasper stayed in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The public house that gave its name to the square was still shut up. Johnny licked his dry lips: a swift half would have just hit the spot.

Addle Street eventually gave way to Aldermanbury. The police station, home to A Division, came into view on the corner of Fore Street and Moor Lane.

When he saw who was standing on the steps outside he broke into a run.