The Whispering Gallery (8 page)

Johnny would have called Stella had she been at home. He'd given her a key in May, not that she'd ever had cause to use it. He usually came to meet her. Fortunately Matt had a key too – there were times, usually after too many toasts to yet another boxing victory in the police league, when it was either too late to return to Bexley or he was in no fit state to sleep at the station-house. Appearances had to be maintained: his authority would be undermined if his subordinates saw him the worse for wear. He had been drinking more since December.

Johnny always did his best to be there for Matt – during and after the match – but, inevitably, a breaking story would sometimes take precedence. On such occasions Matt would make his way back to his old stamping ground, let himself in and crawl up the bare wooden stairs. He didn't mind that Johnny only had one bedroom and a double bed.

Johnny, knowing that Matt started work at 6 a.m., had left a message with the desk sergeant saying that he had been attacked, had spent the night at Bart's and now needed some cash and a change of clothes. However, a different policeman was sitting by his bed when he next opened his bleary right eye.

“Been meeting your adoring readers again?”

“Constable Watkiss. What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Don't sound so disappointed. Matt sent me. I've brought you what you asked for.” He nodded to a brown paper carrier-bag with string handles. “Nice place you have. Live alone, do you?”

“For now.” Why hadn't Matt come? Was he still angry with him?

“Any idea who did this to you?” The copper's sloe-black eyes bore into him. “Any idea why?”

“I didn't see them coming – literally. I was running down a passage off St Andrew's Hill. I turned a corner and the next thing I knew, a fox was licking my face.”

Someone – Watkiss? – had pulled the curtains round the bed. To all intents and purposes they were alone. The policeman leaned forward and poked him in the ribs.

“Ow! Fuck off! What d'you do that for?”

“I don't believe you.”

“That's your lookout. Pass me that glass of water.” His tongue felt like pumice stone. The policeman did as he was told. “Thank you.”

“Need some help?”

“No.” Watkiss knocked his elbow. The stale, lukewarm liquid slopped out, soaking the front of his pyjamas. Johnny threw the rest of it in Watkiss's smirking face. The curtains swept back.

“What's going on?” A portly doctor, flanked by the matron and a younger, flaxen-haired nurse, stared at the dripping copper. There was no sign of Millie.

“Nothing, Doctor. It's like a Turkish bath in here,” said Watkiss.

“Wait till you get outside.” The medic stood back to let him pass.

“I have a few more questions for Mr Steadman.”

“I trust you're not going to arrest him for assault.”

“No point. My sarge wouldn't stand for it.” He dabbed his face with a chequered handkerchief.

“Very well. Please wait over there by Sister's desk.” The doctor turned his attention to the patient. “Well, John, if your temper's anything to go by, you seem to be rallying swiftly. The concussion will make you feel rather wibbly-wobbly, so take it easy for a couple of days. I'm probably wasting my breath, I know, but only go to work if it's absolutely necessary. Whatever you do, avoid strenuous exercise. Your ribs need time to mend. The swelling round your left eye should soon subside. You've taken quite a kicking. Anything else?”

“Only wounded pride.”

“Not going to write about your misadventure then?”

“Depends if it's got anything to do with the stories I'm investigating. There's nothing intrinsically news-worthy about a reporter being roughed up.”

“Even when it's by a City of London policeman?”

Johnny looked into the pill-pusher's bloodshot eyes. Was he referring to Watkiss or someone else? He chose to overlook the doctor's question.

“May I leave now?”

“You may. Sister has kindly telephoned your newspaper. They are aware of the situation and have agreed to pay the outstanding five guineas.”

“Thank you.”

The white coat, closely followed by the bumptious matron, continued on its rounds. As the nurse closed the curtains she gave a grin and whispered: “Millie said she'll see you next Tuesday.”

Johnny immediately got out of bed. His legs felt stronger now. The light-headedness had gone. He had just removed the damp pyjama-top when Watkiss appeared through the curtains and picked up the carrier-bag.

“Looking for this?” He made no attempt to avert his gaze.

“Why are you being such a prick?” Johnny held out his hand.

“Not so fast, Steadman. I'll stop playing around when you do. A straight answer gets you one item of clothing. What were you doing in St Andrew's Hill?”

“I was interviewing someone.”

“If you want these” – he held up a pair of off-white cotton drawers – “you'll have to do better than that.”

If it weren't for his wounds, Johnny would have launched himself at his inquisitor.

“Colleagues of Graham Yapp, the chap who was killed by Frederick Callingham.”

“There you are.” Watkiss threw the underwear at him. “I'm afraid I couldn't find the frilly ones.”

Johnny ignored him and, feigning nonchalance, slowly started to get dressed.

“What time was this?”

“I arrived around six thirty p.m. and left about twenty-five minutes later.”

A shirt came flying over the bed. “Why are you so interested in Yapp?”

“I'm not convinced his death was an accident.”

A pair of trousers followed the shirt.

“And what did you find out?”

“Not much. Yapp seems to have been something of a saint.”

“That's suspicious in itself.” Watkiss, losing interest in his little game, sat down and tossed the well-used bag to Johnny. It contained a pair of socks and a jacket. He only owned two suits so he would have to find out what had happened to the one he'd been wearing.

“The coroner hasn't released either body yet.”

“Check your facts, Steadman. It was announced at nine o'clock this morning. An open verdict and accidental death.”

“Not suicide? That's a bit premature, isn't it?”

“There's no evidence one way or the other, so the coroner didn't have a choice. Besides, he doesn't want to hang on to stiffs any longer than is absolutely necessary. People are dropping like flies. The mortuary was flooded yesterday: the fridges can't cope with the heat.”

“So I was wasting my time.”

“Indeed – and yet someone took the trouble to try and stop you sniffing around.”

“It doesn't make sense.” Johnny retrieved his shoes from underneath the bedside table. He sat down and wiggled his feet into the scuffed black oxfords. Bending down to tie the laces produced a grimace of pain.

“Penterell thinks your secret admirer might be behind the attack. Need some help?”

“I can manage.”

“No, you can't. Here, let me.” The copper, apparently keen to make up for his churlish behaviour, knelt down and grabbed a foot.

“My secret admirer, as you put it, is trying to attract my attention, not warn me off. Besides, how could he have known where I'd be?”

“He followed you, of course.”

Johnny felt stupid: the dope must still be running through his veins. The thought of being shadowed made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Then again, if that were the case, the person who followed him would surely have been outside the front of the house, lurking in Wardrobe Place. Even if they were aware of the back entrance they would have no reason to think that he would leave by a different door to the one he had entered. Maybe there were two of them . . .

Watkiss stood up and patted his knee. “All done!” He took out his wallet. “Matt asked me to give you this.”

“Thank you.” Johnny slipped the crisp new oncer into his pocket.

“He said you can pay him back when you see him tomorrow.”

“Absolutely.” A wave of relief swept over him. Matt had not cancelled the invitation so he couldn't be that angry – and, if he knew that he was fit enough to travel, he must have enquired about the nature and extent of his injuries.

Watkiss opened the curtains. There was no sign of the old biddy. The adjacent bed had been stripped.

“Keep your eyes open, Steadman. Well, the right one at least. Your attacker might try again – and do a better job next time.” He pointed at the table. “Don't forget your watch.” It lay next to the mysterious key. He started walking out of the ward.

The dial was cracked – which explained why it hadn't been stolen. Twenty past ten. Stella had been at work for over two hours.

Johnny stood up and nearly fell over. Watkiss had tied his laces together. The policeman, loitering in the doorway, gave a cackle and vanished.

The bells of St Bride's were striking the eleventh hour as Johnny got out of the taxi. The traffic had been nose-to-tail all the way down Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street. The smell of petrol did little to mask the medieval stench of the drains.

“Ain't you got nuffink smaller?”

“Sorry – that's all I have.” The driver, muttering under his bad breath, produced a pocket ledger from beneath his seat. He slipped off the rubber band that kept it closed and swapped the pound for a ten-shilling note. He fished the rest of the change out of a dirty calico bag then laboriously counted it out into Johnny's outstretched hand. It was quite a performance.

“That's for your trouble.” Johnny returned one of the shillings. “Don't forget the receipt.” This prompted another bout of muttering. “What's up? The cat got your budgie? Look around you: the sun is shining and all's right with the world.”

The cabbie snorted in derision. Johnny diagnosed an irony deficiency. “I 'ate this fuckin” 'eat.” He let off the handbrake and stuck his bonnet out into an imaginary gap between the two cars that were crawling by. Both drivers immediately put their hands on the horn and kept them there.

Johnny, instead of ignoring the din, laughed out loud and waved at the idiots. Why was he suddenly in such a good mood? A side-effect of the morphia, or plain relief that he had survived to see a new day? His rumbling stomach reminded him that he had not eaten since the previous afternoon.

His eventual arrival in the newsroom, clutching a bacon sandwich from the canteen, created a gratifying stir.

“Blimey!” said Dimeo. “What did you say to Stella?”

“You can't be that bad if you've got an appetite,” said PDQ.

“You've got another postcard,” said Patsel, mopping his brow.

“Would you like me to contact the police?” asked Timothy Tanfield.

“No, thank you,” said Johnny. “I'm quite capable of doing it myself – when I'm good and ready.”

The cub reporter meant well but his unbridled ambition often made him overstep the mark. Although he was a foot taller and at least six inches broader, Tanfield reminded Johnny of his younger self. His grey eyes seemed to glow when, for no reason other than to show off, he would call out the number of letters in any particularly long word that cropped up in conversation.

If PDQ, for instance, were talking about the disproportionate response of Franco's thugs to a press release from the International Brigades, Tanfield would cry “sixteen” and earn himself a nod of recognition. At odd moments Johnny would test his remarkable ability by simply shouting out a word – “honorificabilitudinity” – to see how long it took him. A couple of seconds was usually enough, even for the longest word in Shakespeare: “Twenty-two!” He had managed to stump him just once with “floccinaucinihilipilification”, the longest word in the
Oxford English Dictionary
, and that was because Tim didn't know how to spell it – or what it meant. Johnny had explained it thus: “If I were performing the action it describes I might say:
I estimate your talent to be absolutely worthless
.”

He sat down – carefully – at his desk. “Did you empty my pigeonhole?”

Tanfield shook his head.

“I did,” said Patsel. “I wasn't sure you were coming in.” Dimeo, behind his boss's back, put an index finger on his upper lip and goose-stepped back to his own desk. The hooting stopped as soon as the news editor spun round. As usual he was too late to catch the culprit.

The postcard was a black-and-white image of the Venus de Milo in the Louvre. A single stanza was written on the reverse:

Aphrodite was not revered by the Catholic Church: so much for the hypothetical alphabet of saints. The significance of the statue must lie in its missing limbs, but only one arm had turned up – so far.

“You must write up the story today,” said Patsel. “We don't want anyone else breaking the news. This pervert will contact another newspaper if we don't give him what he wants. Loads of colour, Steadman, if you please. The Venus de Milo is immediately recognisable. She will make a good illustration.”

“Better than the decomposing arm, at any rate.”

“We can use that as well. I took the precaution of having it photographed before the police arrived yesterday.”

Johnny's lip curled in distaste. “You're the boss.”

“Yes, I am. Thank you for reminding me. Describe your escape from death as well.”

“But that's got nothing to do with the story!” Johnny looked to PDQ for support.

“You are sure?” Patsel pushed his glasses back on to the crook of his shiny nose. “It is something of a coincidence, no?”

“The attack might just as well be connected with his digging around the suicide in St Paul's,” said PDQ.

“I agree,” said Johnny. “After all, I'd just come out of the house where the dead churchman lived.”

“No matter,” said Patsel. “The violence enhances the story of the postcards. It adds menace to the mix. The only people who can contradict you are the offenders themselves.”

“The attack places me at the centre of the story,” said Johnny. “I thought the whole idea was to give the Looney Tune a spot in the limelight.”

“Such bashfulness isn't like you, Steadman.” Patsel laughed humourlessly. “You have had the stuffing knocked out of you. Six hundred words by one p.m.”

PDQ shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing he – or Johnny – could do.

As soon as he was left alone, Johnny snatched up the receiver and gave the Hello Girl the number for C. Hoare & Co.

“Good morning. Mr Dismorr's office.”

“Stella! It's me.” Her distinctive huskiness made his heart swell. He had feared that he'd never hear it again. Her voice had changed though. A hint of steel could be detected beneath her usual seductive tone.

“Everything OK?”

“Yes.”

“Have a nice time in Brighton?”

“Not bad.”

“Why didn't you let me know?”

“There wasn't time. Look, I've got to go. Come round tonight.” She didn't even say goodbye. Johnny stared at the receiver. She was usually grateful for any opportunity to chat on the telephone; being a secretary was far less fun than she had expected. Something had happened. What though? He wasn't going to wait till the evening to find out.

He had an hour before Stella's lunch-break began. Ninety minutes before his deadline. He got up stiffly.

“If anyone calls, I'll be in the library, Tim.” He needed to find out the significance of the postcards.

Apart from the librarian there was no one in the stuffy chamber that stretched across the rear of the fourth floor. Some journalists only pushed open its frosted glass doors to sleep off a long lunch in one of its secluded, cosy carrels. The section on religion was not a large one. Johnny quickly found a dusty, broken-backed volume with the title
A Catholic Martyrology
. He sneezed as he opened it – immediately wished he hadn't – then sneezed again.

Saints Anastasia and Basilissa shared the same feast day: 15th April. They were Roman matrons who, during Nero's persecution of the Christians, retrieved the victims of torture and gave them reverent burial. When the emperor learned of their ministrations he had them sent to prison where they were scourged with whips, had their skin scraped by hooks and had their bare flesh branded with hot irons. Nevertheless, the two women refused to renounce their faith in Christ and were eventually beheaded with swords.

The very word “torture” paralysed Johnny's mind. Not only was he unable to imagine such agonies – the overwhelming, unremitting pain; the humiliating loss of bodily control – but he also couldn't comprehend how one human being could subject another to such maltreatment. He was aware that it did go on – people were at the mercy of others in prisons the world over – yet could not explain why it happened. The usual motives – revenge, hatred, insanity, political necessity – seemed too petty for such enormous evil. Now it appeared likely that some poor girl was suffering a similar fate today. He fervently hoped that it was nothing to do with him.

The reference section was much larger.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
– the title always amused Johnny; if they were familiar why would you need to look them up? – revealed that the inscription on the back of the latest postcard was taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson's
Painting and Sculpture
. Perhaps the sender was a religious maniac, or an art lover, or both: a crackpot Catholic aesthete.

“So there you are, Steadman. Looking the worse for wear as usual, I see.”

Victor Stone, the editor of the
Daily News
, may have been short in stature but he still exuded a powerful physical presence. His restless nature often made him forsake his suite on the seventh floor and prowl all over Hereflete House. His staff never knew where he might pop up. He liked to think it kept them on their toes. The librarian made no attempt to tell him to lower his voice.

“I'll survive, sir.”

“What did you say this time?”

“Nothing! I didn't get the chance.”

“Well, I look forward to reading all about it. I believe Herr Patsel has charged you with producing a picturesque piece. Only a maniac would send someone an amputated limb. Take care, Steadman. You know where to find me if you need help with anything – including Herr Patsel. Don't let him bully you into doing something stupid.”

“Thank you, sir. I seem to have done that already.”

“Maybe. We'll decide that when you've found out what started all this.” He turned on his rather thick heels and, with a cheery “good morning” to the librarian, swept through the swing doors.

Johnny returned to the newsroom. Forty minutes later the article was written.

“Laid it on a bit, haven't you?” PDQ raised his eyebrows. “Your injuries sound positively gruesome.”

“If Pencil wants colour, I'll give him colour. The readers should know how much we suffer for our art.”

PDQ smiled indulgently. “Where you off to?”

“Just going to get a bite to eat. I won't be long.”

“You've just had a sandwich!”

“So? I've got to keep my strength up. In my book, suffering for your art doesn't include starvation.”

The lunchtime editions had already hit the street. Boys in flat caps, large satchels round their narrow shoulders, yelled out the headlines: “MINIMUM MARRIAGE TIME CUT FROM FIVE TO THREE YEARS!”

“JAPAN ATTACKS CHINA!” The heat made the bandage round his head feel like a tightening iron hoop. He slowed down, aware that his fellow pedestrians were giving him a wide berth. His bruised, unshaven face was enough to cause anyone consternation, but he was unprepared for Stella's immediate reaction when he touched her arm. She screamed.

“I'm all right. It looks worse than it is.”

“I didn't recognise you.” She turned to the mousy girl in thick glasses. “Go ahead, Myrtle. I'll catch you up. I'll have tongue and cress.”

Her colleague looked Johnny up and down with a mixture of pity and disgust before marching off towards the Royal Courts of Justice. At this rate there wouldn't be a patch of grass left in Inner Temple Garden.

“What happened?” Stella's annoyance at being ambushed gave way to genuine concern.

“I was jumped on last night.”

“Anyone you know?”

“Of course not. At least, I hope not. What sort of question is that?”

“You must have asked yourself who would do such a thing. What were you up to?”

“What else? Chasing a story.” Stella, torn between affection and irritation, hesitated. Johnny continued: “I've missed you.”

“It's only been four days!”

“What about our date in St Paul's?”

“I'm sorry. I should have let you know. There really wasn't time though. It was all so last minute.”

“You haven't got a tan. I thought you'd be as brown as a berry.”

“Don't want to look like a gyppo, do I?” She glanced at her watch. Johnny was pleased to see she was wearing it. “Why are you here? I thought we'd agreed to meet tonight.”

“Do I need a reason?” A wave of exhaustion swept over him. Why was she being so difficult? “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“Is there anything wrong?”

“No.”

“Who was the man you were with?”

“What man?” Her green eyes flashed. “Been checking up on me, have you?”

“I was worried about you. Who was he?”

“No one!”

“Stella, look at me. I might have had my head kicked in, but my brain's still working. What's going on?”

“Nothing! Just let me be.” Her eyes filled with tears. Johnny went to embrace her but she pushed him away. His complaining ribs made him groan. “Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“Your lies hurt more. Something's up. Are you in trouble? Let me help you. Whatever it is, the two of us can sort it out.”

She laughed bitterly and wiped away her tears. “It's too late for that.”

“What is?” Panic began to stir in his stomach. For some reason she wouldn't say what was on her mind, but that didn't mean he had to keep quiet too. “I love you.”

“I know you do. Sometimes, though, love isn't enough.” She looked at her watch again. “I must be off. Forget about this evening. Let's meet up later in the week.” She turned to go.

“Hey! What about a goodbye kiss?” She looked at his swollen lips, hesitated, then pecked him on the cheek.

She might as well have slapped him across the face. He knew then that it was all over.