Murder Club (7 page)

‘Yeah, well, we’re here now, missus,’ said Bob Wilkinson, trying to be placating, but his gruff tone did little to assuage the indignant old woman.

‘Yeah, you here now!’ she continued, spluttering with rage. ‘Then you let him out, and then he come and piss on my window. People eating dinner here! How you like him to come and piss on you when you having your roast beef and gravy?’

Bob looked down at the man lying near his feet for a moment, and then back up at the woman.

‘I don’t think the wife would approve,’ he said.

Dr Laura Chilvers knelt down and put her hand to the unconscious man’s neck. She felt for a pulse, somewhat unnecessarily, for at that moment he made
a
wet, slapping sound with his lips and grunted. His eyes remained firmly closed, however, and his stretched arms still stayed wide and immobile. Laura looked up at the sky again. Maybe he was welcoming aliens from space. It wouldn’t be the first time a mentally ill person had ended up on the street. Not by a long chalk, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

She looked down at the man again, wondering what his story was, and then shrugged and nodded up at Bob Wilkinson, who stood with a couple of tall, uniformed police constables that she didn’t recognise.

‘He’s alive at least, I can tell you that much,’ she said. ‘He’s got a steady heart rhythm. Lungs seem to be functioning fine too.’

Bob Wilkinson glanced across at the now-broken and empty bottle of whisky and grimaced sourly. ‘Take more than a cheap bottle of Scotch to kill Bible Steve, I reckon,’ he said.

‘You know him?’ asked Laura.

The sergeant nodded. ‘Don’t know his real name. I’m not sure even he does any more. Everyone calls him Bible Steve. He’s always quoting the scriptures or preaching at people. When he’s not falling down drunk, that is, or pissing on Mrs Lucky Dragon’s window.’

Laura glanced back at the man sprawled on the pavement. He looked like an actor, she thought, but couldn’t remember who he reminded her of. Hard to tell under all the grime and the greasy, matted hair. Maybe an older version of Mickey Rourke in
The Wrestler
, when out-of-his-face on booze. Maybe Oliver Reed in his hell-raising heyday. This man’s hair was dark at one time, she could see, but it was
mostly
grey now, tangled, long. Impossible to tell what he would look like when he was shaved, shorn and cleaned up. Either way she knew for certain he wasn’t Oliver Reed and was pretty certain he wasn’t Mickey Rourke nor likely to be getting a call from Hollywood any time soon. Cricklewood maybe.

‘Bible Steve we’d call a bit of a nut-job,’ continued PC Wilkinson. ‘But what you medical types would probably classify as having mental difficulties.’

Laura didn’t smile. ‘Whatever he is, he shouldn’t be left out unconscious on a cold night like this. Is he violent?’

‘Not particularly. Harmless enough most of the time. But when he’s had a drink in him, he has been known to swing his fists. No different from most of them on the streets, when they’re out of it on drugs or booze.’

‘He’s pretty much dead to the world now, but you better get him back to the station. So he can’t harm himself. Or anyone else, come to that.’

She stood up and sprayed some antibacterial, disinfectant into her left palm and rubbed her hands together.

Bob Wilkinson gestured to the two uniforms to pick up the sleeping man, his nose wrinkling. The drunk continued groaning, muttering half-formed obscenities, his hands twitching, but he didn’t waken. PC Bob Wilkinson scowled and looked down at the homeless man as they manhandled him to his feet. ‘And for God’s sake put that thing away, and zip him up.’

DR LAURA CHILVERS
had only been back at the station for a short while, but had had to see to a couple of forty-year-old businesswomen who had got into a fight in a male lap-dancing club over one of the dancers, and needed minor treatment before being booked; a nineteen-year-old woman who was cycling the wrong way up a one-way street dressed only in her underwear, a feather boa and a Santa Claus hat on her head; and a seventy-year-old retired army general who had become convinced after several bottles of Dom Perignon that he was living in the nineteenth century and that the head concierge at Claridge’s was a Russian cavalry officer, he’d led his own Charge of the Light Brigade with an empty luggage trolley and had fractured one of his shins.

Laura was coming round to Bob Wilkinson’s way of thinking as he led her to one of the holding cells. Nut-jobs. The guest in number-two cell was awake, according to the sergeant, and she could hear it for herself as the sound of his drunken shouts reverberated from the locked room.

‘Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I
have
a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken!’

Bob Wilkinson opened the door and held it wide for Laura Chilvers to enter. ‘All right, calm it down, Bible,’ he said. ‘You’re not in Kansas now.’

Bible Steve stood up from the bench-bed, casting his eyes heavenwards and spreading his arms wide, and shouted, ‘It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.’

Lowering his arms, he looked at the doctor, then squinted his eyes. ‘I know this harlot!’ His finger jabbed towards her chest and Laura took a step back.

‘No, you don’t, Bible. She just moved down here.’

‘She is a Jezebel! Satan’s spawn.’ He continued to point, saliva running into his beard.

‘She’s a police surgeon from Reading,’ said PC Bob Wilkinson.

‘I think you must be mistaking me for someone else,’ said Laura Chilvers patiently, and smiled at him, trying to calm him down.

The drunken man clasped his hands over his ears. ‘That voice,’ he said, almost reverentially. ‘Are you my angel?’

‘No, like the constable said,’ she replied, ‘I’m just a police surgeon.’

He opened his raw eyes and looked at her, tears welling up now. ‘Are you my guardian angel?’ he asked.

‘I’m nobody’s angel!’ she said. ‘He’s still drunk, Sergeant. Get him some tea and I’ll check back later.’

‘What about—’ the sergeant started to ask her, but Laura was already moving away, her heels clacking on the stone floor.

PATRICIA HUNT STOOD
by her bedside window looking out, just as her husband had done earlier in the evening, at their garden below her.

It was late. Past midnight. A few hours into a new day that she was dreading. Had been dreading for years, even though she didn’t know what the day would bring. But, just as her husband felt the ache of arthritis in his bones, so in her bones she knew that their time was coming. Sometimes you can run for ever, but justice is always there ahead of you. Waiting patiently for you.

Her husband behind her mumbled something and turned over in his sleep. He would be awake soon, she knew that. And if he did manage to get to sleep again, it wouldn’t be for long. It was the same for her. Neither of them had been able to sleep properly for days now. The strain of it was carved into their faces, like bark on a tree.

Outside the snow had finally come. There was no wind to speak of and so the snow seemed to fall in straight lines. Like an illustrated picture from a Victorian children’s book, she found herself thinking. Mysteries in the Secret Garden. There was moonlight shining through the cloud now, and the frost on the
ground
had hardened so that the snow was settling. There was an oak tree in the corner of the garden with a flowerbed beside it and a high hedge running around all sides. A stone slab was laid into the lawn in the opposite corner to the oak tree, and an ornamental birdbath sat in its middle.

Beyond the hedge, in the distance, Patricia could make out rooftops gradually whitening as the snow settled, and in the midst of them a tall spire rose. The weathervane atop it was unmoving. Patricia gazed at the spire for a while and then looked back down at her garden. The snow had completely covered the green of their lawn now. She looked at the birdbath. And thought about what was buried beneath it.

‘Come back to bed,’ her husband said.

LAURA HAD LOCKED
the office door and was changing into her outfit for the evening at the new club – putting on a pair of stockings with black suspenders before slipping into a pair of cami-knickers. A short black leather skirt, with a matching stud-fronted, plunge-style basque and a black leather jacket over it. Dominatrix by Gucci. She’d sort her hair and makeup later. Meanwhile she slipped a pair of killer heels into her large shoulder bag together with a small riding crop and a Catwoman-style mask. Time to party.

She put a full, almost shoulder-to-heel leather overcoat on top of her outfit, buttoned it up and put a Russian military-style fur cap on her head.

She turned the lock in the door and went into the reception area, sticking her head around Kate Walker’s door to say goodbye, but she had already left. As she headed for the exit, the desk sergeant, Dave Matthews, called her back.

‘Hold your horses a moment, Dr Zhivago.’

Laura turned back, not particularly amused as she saw that he was with another PC, leading the drunk they had collected earlier from the Edgware Road. Bible Steve. He was a lot quieter now and quite
passive
as the young constable walked him forward.

Laura looked pointedly at her watch. ‘I’m out of here, Sergeant.’

‘Just take a minute. The cells are full back there.’

‘Are you going to charge him?’

‘You bet! I want him charged and out of here as soon as.’

Laura’s nostrils quivered. ‘I can see why.’

Bible Steve looked up at her. ‘I am here, you know!’

‘No doubting of that, Mr Bible.’

‘What are you going to charge me with?’

‘Putting people off their sweet-and-sour pork balls,’ said Dave Matthews, and Laura laughed despite herself.

‘I did nothing of the sort!’

‘Wagging the weeny at the window, Bible. It’s not the sort of entertainment the diners at the Lucky Dragon were expecting. I don’t know …’ The sergeant wagged his hand himself. ‘Maybe a fortune-cookie.’

‘The call of nature must be answered, Sergeant. No man can ignore it.’

‘You could have gone down the alley, Bible. Spraying the shop window like a territorial Great Dane – it’s hardly being discreet, is it?’

‘I was making a protest. My Christian duty. This city is rife with its worshippers, like an apple rotten with worms. They dine as others starve so that the seventh prince of Hell be worshipped!’

‘I haven’t got time for this, Dave,’ said Laura.

Bible Steve held his hands aloft again. ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth, where moth and
rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.’

‘Right,’ said Laura with a sigh and looked at her watch.

‘
Matthew six, nineteen to twenty-one
,’ said Bible Steve.

‘Shut it now, or I’ll put you back in the cell and leave you there till Christmas.
Sergeant Matthews, White City nick
,’ said Slimline Dave.

Bible Steve lowered his hands and looked at Laura. ‘Lead on MacDuff.’

‘This way.’ Laura gestured for the constable to bring him to her office. As they walked towards it, Bible Steve turned and looked at her.

‘I know you,’ he said.

‘No, you don’t.’

Bible Steve looked across at the constable. ‘She interfered with me, the last time I was here.’

‘She wasn’t even here the last time you were brought in, Steve.’

‘Interfered, I tell you!’

Laura opened the door to her office. ‘In here.’

Bible Steve saluted and followed her in. The constable nodded to her. ‘I’ll be just outside, if you need me.’

‘Thanks, I am sure I’ll be fine.’

Back inside her office, Laura checked his eyes, his pulse. Then looked at his hands, which were bruised, scarred and had dried blood on both sets of knuckles.

‘How did you hurt your hands, Steve?’

Bible Steve spread his fingers wide. ‘But I hae dreamed a dreary dream. Beyond the Isle of Skye. I saw a dead man win a fight, and I think that man was I.’

‘The Bible?’

‘The Battle of Otterburn, mid-sixteenth-century.’

‘Are you a time-traveller?’ asked Laura gently, as she cleaned his knuckles up as best she could with a tissue and surgical spirit.

The bearded man nodded his head. ‘I have been.’

‘And how did you hurt your hands in this millennium?’

Bible Steve looked down at his hands again and made fists of them. ‘Doing the Lord’s work,’ he said.

‘Fighting?’

He nodded. ‘The good fight, yes.’

‘Who were you fighting with?’

‘I fight the Devil, Doctor. Where I find him.’

‘On the streets?’

‘The Devil is in the hearts of men,’ he said angrily and glared at her. ‘In the hearts of men and women and in the corruption of children!’

Laura looked at him, concerned. ‘Have you hurt children, Steve?’

Bible Steve shook his head, then tilted it to one side. ‘I am just a vessel. No more than that.’

Laura put the cap on top of the bottle of surgical spirit and placed it to one side. She would have stood up, but Bible Steve grabbed her hands and pulled her
towards
him, an intent look in his red, sore eyes. ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said again.