Night Sisters. John Pritchard

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СКАЧАТЬ shrugged, didn’t reply. His eyes hadn’t left my face.

      ‘Can I help you?’ I went on: quite formally, but with no politeness at all.

      ‘You’re really welcoming tonight,’ he muttered.

      ‘We’re busy: have you got a problem or … ?’

      I felt his gaze drop to my throat, and the crucifix I wore there.

      ‘You a Christian?’ he asked suddenly.

      I blinked, and almost said None of your business; then nodded.

      ‘You could have fooled me,’ he said evenly.

      That stung.

      For a moment I was really tempted to say Well sod you, mate – even if not in so many words. I was in the wrong, and knew it, and buggered if I was going to admit it. So it took quite a struggle before I was able to draw breath, manage a smile, and murmur, ‘Sorry.’

      He held up one hand, palm outward, revealing an oozing gash. ‘Did this on some barbed wire.’

      I nodded. ‘Looks nasty.’ I picked up a casualty card from the front desk and came back. After a moment’s hesitation – I knew he’d noticed – I sat down beside him.

      ‘Don’t smell very nice, do I?’ he said drily, and glanced across.

      I met his gaze. ‘You were right: it shouldn’t make any difference, should it?’

      But it had, of course. And still I hadn’t bloody learned.

      The Sunday bus service being what it is, I decided I’d walk at least part of the way home. I knew a few shortcuts, and it was still light enough to take them – though the sun was getting lower and colder all the while. From Milston Road I took the footbridge over the ringway, and on through the Stoneham Estate towards the town centre; scenting a foretaste of dusk frost on the air, along with the cooking smells of Sunday tea that wafted out from warm bright kitchens. I missed the bus at the corner of Clarke Street and had to cut across through Lamborn. That’s one of the older parts of town: a lot of the houses are empty, boarded up. But I was halfway down Stone Road before it dawned on me that yesterday’s murder had happened here – in one of these derelict buildings I was passing. The realization brought me up short.

      I don’t think it was fear I felt, even though the shadows were lengthening on the street. Rather, it was a macabre curiosity. The news reports on last night’s TV had taken every opportunity to emphasize the gruesome nature of the killing: apparently the poor bloke had been cut to pieces. I tried to remember if they’d actually mentioned which of the empty houses the remains had been discovered in – number eighteen I decided, after a moment – and here it was just coming up on the left. I stopped again.

      It was getting chilly. There was no one on the street. I knew I should be pushing on for home, not hanging around; especially when I was lingering in the fresh footsteps of a murderer. But the house exerted its own grim fascination. Two storeys high, with slates missing from the roof and windows blocked off with chipboard: one empty slum in half a terrace of them. I stood there before it, scanning its impassive façade; trying, almost despite myself, to visualize the darkened rooms within – and what had happened there.

      And then the front door swung gratingly open, and I almost jumped out of my shoes.

      A uniformed policeman, buttoned up in his anorak, appeared in the doorway. The surge of adrenaline had left me feeling sick and giddy, and I could only stand there getting my breath back as he eyed me with some disdain. Obviously he’d been detailed to keep the place secure until the forensics and scene-of-crime teams had finished; and to discourage the morbidly curious, like me. The cold must have driven him indoors from his exposed position on the front step; he’d probably been having a cup of tea in the back or something.

      ‘Would you mind moving on, miss? Nothing to see here.’

      Actually it was Bill Roberts, who was regularly up at our department on some business or other: last week it had been an argumentative drunk. He hadn’t recognized me, and was putting on his most patronizing voice-of-authority tone. I couldn’t help smiling, in the circumstances.

      After a moment, recognition dawned, and he relaxed, grinning apologetically. ‘Afternoon, Rachel – sorry, didn’t recognize you in civvies.’

      I’d heard it suggested, rather unkindly, that he wouldn’t recognize a thief if the man walked past him wearing a mask and carrying a sack with SWAG written on it. But he was a decent enough bloke, when he wasn’t throwing his weight around, and I could at least try and find out what he knew.

      ‘They finished in there yet?’

      He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Might have. Shit, but the guy was in a mess …’

      ‘So I heard.’

      ‘You haven’t heard the half of it.’ He paused then, clearly wondering whether he should say more. I raised my eyebrows in mild enquiry; and after a moment he decided that this was one professional to another, and continued.

      ‘You remember that RTA, beginning of November?’

      I knew which road traffic accident he meant: I was still trying to forget it. I nodded.

      ‘Well this was worse.’

      Must have been bad. ‘How do you mean?’ I asked, interested.

      ‘Well, this guy had been all split open too – only not torn this time, but cut, all neat and clean. That’s what makes it worse, it was so cold-blooded: sort of clinical …’

      Clinical. The word lodged and grew cold inside my head; I felt my stomach shift uneasily. My gaze strayed to the open doorway behind him – a gaping entrance into blackness. The blinded windows stared down at us, and were they really so unseeing? Abruptly I found myself struggling to suppress a shiver.

      It must have shown in my face, for he looked at me quizzically. ‘Hey, you okay? Sorry, I thought you Casualty nurses were used to this sort of thing.’

      Used to what? I thought dully; my skin still recalling the chill of Alison Scott’s cubicle. I could still see the fear in her fixed, dilated stare as well. And smell the sickly sweetness of her post-operative infection …

      Cutting. Cold. Clinicians.

      I grimaced, and glanced away.

      The nearby streetlamp came on: sputtering pink that steadied to a deepening rosy glow. I looked at my watch, and was about to make my excuses when a car turned into the street and drove up to park at the kerb close by me. The man who got out wore plain clothes but was obviously another police officer, and this time it was he who recognized me first.

      ‘Hi, Sis – how are things?’

      Joe Davies, indeed: I’d last seen him a couple of months back, when he was still in uniform. About the same age as his colleague (about the same age as me, come to that), he was cooler, sharper, with straight fair hair, and pale restless eyes behind designer specs. On the beat, he’d always been careless of the finer details of uniform dress: you could count on noticing a button undone here, a scuffed toecap there. Now he was plainclothes, this tendency had been allowed to develop further, so СКАЧАТЬ