James Craig - Time of Death

Reaching the bottom of the fire escape, Carlyle opened a metal gate and stepped out into a short passageway filled with waste bins and bags of rubbish, which led out on to Great Russell Street. Noting the familiar stench of rotting food and urine, he lengthened his stride and held his breath. He was about ten feet from the street itself when a large black sack in front of him started moving. Assuming that it was disturbed by a rat, Carlyle kept moving. However, his further progress was impeded when the mound of rubbish stood up in front of him, yawned and let out an enormous belch. Unable to hold his breath any longer, Carlyle was forced to inhale an eye-watering mix of curry, eggs and Special Brew. Taking a step backwards, he watched the tramp shake himself fully awake. The guy was dressed for winter, with at least three layers of clothing under a heavy black woollen overcoat. He wore a pair of grey slacks that looked as if they had not been cleaned during this century, and some fairly expensive-looking but heavily worn tan shoes. A blue Chelsea beanie hat rounded off the ensemble nicely.

Belatedly realising that he was not home alone, the man looked Carlyle up and down. He spent a few moments trying to work out what to make of the policeman, his eyes widening all the while, as if he had never seen another human being before. Finally, his mouth opened. A couple of seconds later, some words crawled out.

‘Got any money?’

It look Carlyle another moment to realise who he had standing in front of him, larger than life and ten times as smelly. ‘Dog?’ he said, puzzled. ‘I thought you were dead.’

Walter Poonoosamy thought about that for a moment, as he looked around the alley. ‘Maybe I am,’ he sniffed.

Stepping away from the pile of rubbish from which he had emerged, Dog continued to block Carlyle’s exit from the alley. If anything, the smell was getting worse, and the inspector was keen to be getting on his way. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, with as much fake bonhomie as he could manage, ‘it’s good to see you are still with us. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you at the station some time soon.’

The tramp grunted and looked down at the mess from which he had emerged. Tentatively, he began poking at one of the bags with his foot, in case there was some tasty morsel that he had missed. Taking this as his cue to leave, Carlyle eased his way past, heading for the bustle and the glare of the street beyond.

‘Excuse us, please?’

No sooner had the inspector emerged on to the street, than a couple of Chinese tourists thrust a street map in his face and asked him very politely – and in the kind of perfect English that no one in England had used for as long as he could remember – for directions to the British Museum. Resisting the temptation to send them in totally the wrong direction, he pointed at the massive building just across the road and forced himself to smile. With a cheery ‘Thank you’, the pair stepped off the pavement and almost walked straight into the path of an oversized tour bus. Once they had finally made it safely across the road, Carlyle watched them negotiate the pavement artists and the hot-dog sellers and safely reach the museum gates. Turning away, he decided to head for home.

He had barely gone twenty yards, however, when an idea popped into his head. Turning round, he retraced his steps back towards the alley. When he arrived, the tramp was still there, sitting serenely on a mound of rubbish sacks, as if surveying his kingdom. In his hand was an anonymous-looking bottle from which he carefully sipped a brownish liquid.

The tramp gave no indication of noticing the policeman’s return. Trying once again to ignore the smell, Carlyle stepped towards him. ‘Dog,’ he asked, when he thought he might finally have gained the tramp’s attention, ‘do you come here often?’

Walter didn’t even look up, but took his lips far enough from the bottle to mumble, ‘Sometimes.’

‘At night?’

Nodding, Dog stuck his lips back on the bottle and sucked out the remaining dregs.

‘Were you here a couple of weeks ago?’ Carlyle persisted.

Dog scratched himself behind his left ear, like a man trying to come to terms with the concept of time. Finding it too much though, he gave Carlyle a look of infinite weariness. ‘Dunno.’

‘The last few times you were here,’ Carlyle persisted, ‘did you see anyone else?’

Dog did another excellent impersonation of a man thinking for a long time. ‘No,’ he said finally.

Damn! Carlyle thought. ‘No one?’

Another pause.

‘Just the man with the beard.’

‘The man with the beard?’

Dog tossed the bottle over his shoulder and stood up. He looked at Carlyle. ‘You don’t have to repeat everything I say,’ he grumbled. Reaching into an inside pocket of his overcoat, he pulled out what looked like a slice of beef. Tilting his head back, he dropped the morsel into his mouth. Resisting the urge to gag, Carlyle waited for the man to chew his food, swallow and then let out a satisfied burp. He willed himself to show some patience. After all, he had caught Dog on one of his more lucid days – maybe coming back from the dead had helped sharpen up his thought processes – and knew that he should now be prepared to wait it out.

Finally, Dog wiped his hand on his belly. ‘Came down the stairs back there, just like you. I asked him for some money. He said somethin’ foreign.’

‘In Spanish?’ Carlyle asked.

‘Mebbe.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Had a beard,’ said Dog, his eyes returning to the piles of rubbish; his mind doubtless wondering where he was most likely to find something else to drink.

‘Okay,’ said Carlyle, realising that the wino’s mind was beginning to wander and that he wasn’t going to get anything else from him right now. ‘Thanks.’ He fished a ten-pound note out of his trouser pocket and offered it to Dog. ‘Here, get yourself some Diamond White or something.’

Mention of the demon drink instantly got Dog’s attention, but he eyed the money suspiciously. ‘Will it work?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Carlyle, ‘if you drink enough of it.’

‘No,’ said Dog, still not accepting the banknote. ‘The money, will it work? They wouldn’t take the other one.’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ said Carlyle, instinctively asking the wrong question.

‘The bloke in the newsagent’s,’ Dog said, as if that was obvious. ‘He said my money was no good.’

‘What money?’

Dog started rooting around in his pockets. ‘The money the man with the beard gave me.’

Carlyle watched as Dog pulled out various crumpled pieces of paper from different pockets, looking at each one carefully, before slowly returning it to its original hiding place.

The fourth or fifth scrap that Dog extracted looked a bit like an old one-pound note. He waved it at Carlyle. ‘This.’

‘I tell you what,’ Carlyle said, still holding out the tenner. ‘I’ll swap with you. My one here will work.’

‘It better had,’ said Dog, pulling himself to his feet and exchanging the notes. After carefully considering both sides of the ten-pound note, he reached a decision and quickly shuffled out of the alley, in search of suitable refreshment.

When the wino had gone, Carlyle stood there examining the piece of paper Dog had given him. It was a worn, thousand-peso note in a colour he could only describe as aquamarine, with the legend Banco Central de Chile printed on both sides. On one side was a picture of a statue, on the other a Victorian-looking military gentleman, with a battleship behind him. After much squinting, Carlyle made out the man’s name: Agustín Arturo Prat Chacón.

Smiling, Carlyle thrust the note into his trouser pocket. He had no idea how much a thousand pesos was worth, but he knew this was evidence that could prove priceless for his investigation.