Mark Pearson - Murder Club

‘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!’