The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard (Quigg)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘So, you found the body at quarter to five?’

  Kline wrote the salient facts down in her notebook.

  ‘Yes. Although . . . it isn’t a complete body, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I mean, what type of animal could cause injuries like that? It must have been a bear, or a gorilla, or something along those lines. Maybe you should check that none of the animals have escaped from the zoo.’

  ‘Good idea, we’ll do that. Did you see or hear anything else?’

  ‘The woman’s heart was still beating when I arrived, you know.’

  ‘So I believe. Did you try to resuscitate her?’

  ‘There didn’t seem to be much point in that. She was already dead for God’s sake, and what few drops of blood that were left inside her body simply dribbled out.’

  ‘How did you see that her heart was still pumping out blood?’ Kline asked. ‘I mean, it was still dark at that time of the morning, wasn’t it?’

  Morrissey pulled a slim-line torch from his coat pocket. ‘I always carry one with me.’

  Kline persisted like the Inquisitor General. ‘Most people would have fainted or been sick . . .’

  ‘Milkmen aren’t “most people”, love. In my twenty years I’ve assisted in the birth of three babies, saved a teenager with a gunshot wound to the chest, helped a guy who had chopped his hand off with a chainsaw – by accident, of course . . .’

  ‘If you call me “love” again, you’ll need some medical assistance yourself.’

  ‘Ah, you’re one of those lesbian women’s rights activists who think that men should be . . . .’

  Kline made a move towards Morrissey.

  Quigg stepped in front of her. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr . . .’

  ‘You don’t want to know what I heard?’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘Horse’s hooves.’ He pointed to a narrow arched alleyway. ‘Disappeared through there into Ely Place.’

  ‘Horse’s hooves? Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, I assume it was a horse. The sound is quite distinctive on cobbles.. Before I had a van I drove a milk float, and before that a horse and cart. Anyway, what else could it have been? There aren’t many camels or goats in Holborn.’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ Perkins called over. ‘What else indeed?’

  ‘Shut up, Perkins.’ Quigg threw over his shoulder, and then turned back to the milkman. ‘Nothing else then, Mr Morrissey?’

  ‘No, that’s it.’

  Quigg passed him a card. ‘If you do recall anything else, please give me a ring.’

  ‘I can go?’

  ‘Yes. Give DC Kline your contact details, and then you can go.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t worry, DC Kline knows very well not to kill or maim endangered species – don’t you Kline?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  He walked over to Perkins. ‘Show me the rest of the body then.’

  They walked round the courtyard looking at the arms and legs.

  ‘We’ve found hairs, you know,’ Perkins said.

  ‘If it wasn’t for that poor dead woman, I’d say someone was playing a practical joke on us.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting they’re hairs from the Devil.’

  ‘Good.

  ‘We’ll obviously analyze them and see what we come up with.’

  ‘But you’re hoping that they belong to the Devil, aren’t you?’

  ‘My only hope is that I can serve the citizens of London and help you to solve the case, Inspector.’

  ‘And be the man who proves the Devil exists.’

  ‘Can you imagine being that person?’

  ‘No. So, where did you find these hairs?’

  ‘Gripped in the woman’s right hand, and also snagged on a rusty nut and bolt from an old gate in the alleyway.

  ‘Horse hair?’

  Perkins shrugged. ‘We live in hope.’

  ‘Just hurry up with the analysis and stop imagining you’re Professor Van Helsing.’

  The pathologist called them over. She was still kneeling down examining the torso.

  ‘You have seen this?’ she asked, pointing to a faint small black mark above the left breast.

  Quigg squatted. ‘Did you see this, Perkins?’

  ‘No. I was more concerned with the hoof marks.’

  ‘You’re getting sloppy.’

  Kline joined them and stood behind Quigg.

  Solberg held a magnifying glass out to him. ‘A tiny tattoo.’

  He stared through the glass at the indistinct scars on the woman’s skin of a barely noticeable tattoo approximately an eighth of an inch in height. ‘It’s a number: 128145.’

  ‘Concentration camp victims during the Second World War had camp numbers tattooed above their left breast,’ Perkins said.

  ‘On the left arm,’ Solberg corrected him.

  ‘That’s where they ended up, but originally they began as numbers sewn on clothing, and then they were put on the chest using indelible ink. When the Germans had an influx of Soviet prisoners, they began applying the numbers using a multi-needle stamp, and then ended up using a single needle to tattoo the number on the left forearm. Some numbers were prefixed with triangles for Jews, a Z for Roma – Zigeuner means Gypsy in German – and an A or B for Jewish men.’

  ‘Concentration camp numbers are all well and good,’ Quigg remarked, ‘. . . but this woman is in her twenties, and it’s too small to be a concentration camp number.’ He craned his neck to look at the others, but no one said anything. ‘Also, why is it so faint?’

  ‘Laser removal is my guess,’ Perkins suggested.

  Solberg nodded. ‘I agree.’

  ‘Why would she have a number tattooed on her breast in the first place? And why would she then have it removed? I want you to find out what this number means, Perkins.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Are you saying you won’t?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything of the sort.’

  ‘Good. I’ll expect something by tomorrow morning.’ He turned back to Dr Solberg ‘When are you going to do the post mortem, Doc?’

  ‘Let us say ten o’clock in the morning. You will be there?’

  He nodded. ‘Kline and I will both be there.’

  ‘I will see you then, Inspector Quigg.’

  Under the pathologist’s direction, forensic officers began bagging the body parts for transportation to the morgue at Hammersmith Hospital.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Kline. ‘Let’s see if we can’t find out what happened to the horse.’

  ***

  Her period was a day late. She’d never been late before. Her periods came on time – unlike the trains. She took her pill every morning religiously. If Quigg had got her pregnant she was going to fucking kill him, and then she’d sue the National Health Service for every penny they had, which wasn’t much apparently.

  The last thing they needed in this madhouse was another screaming brat. Christ! They already had the twins – Dylan and Lily Rose, Duffy’s rugrat – Máire; and Ruth was due to give birth to her slug any day now. And Lucy fucking dogsbody was being treated like the in-house nurse, helper and all-round bottle-washer. If she hadn’t fallen in love with Quigg she’d have packed her rucksack long ago and headed south for the winter. That fucking Quigg had a lot to answer for.

  She ran her hand over her flat stomach. Did she feel pregnant? No, there was only orange juice and toast in there. There were definitely no sperm wriggling about in her eggs, and her hard plum-sized breasts didn’t feel any different. No, her period would come – it had to. There was sure to be some logical explanation for her lateness. Maybe it was the stress of killing that crazy bastard Sergeant Jones.

  The bell jangled.

  ‘Fuck off,’ she shouted, but she walked along the connecting corridor anyway.

  ‘Well?’ she said, once she stood in the atrium, to determine whether it was Ruth or Duffy who had rung the bell. She felt like the
hired fucking help.

  ‘It’s me,’ Ruth called.

  She began walking to Ruth’s bedroom. ‘You’re a fucking . . .’

  ‘My waters have broken.’

  ‘Crap!’ She stopped in the living room, picked up the phone and called for the ambulance.

  ‘Twenty-seven minutes! You’d better be here in five minutes or babies’ heads will roll.’

  When she went into the bedroom, Ruth was lying on the bed panting and straining with her legs open wide like a contortionist slopping about in a pool of slush.

  ‘He is coming.’

  ‘He better fucking not be. Close your legs. Stop breathing! Stop pushing! The ambulance will be here in twenty-five minutes.’

  ‘It will be too late. You will have to help me.’

  ‘No fucking way, Jose.’

  Duffy hobbled in. ‘Is he coming?’

  ‘He is coming,’ she said between breaths.

  ‘No he’s not,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s a false alarm. Tell her to stop pushing, Duffy.’

  ‘That would be like trying to stop an out-of-control express train with a feather. If it’s coming, it’s coming. You will have to . . .’

  ‘I will fucking not. I’m going to my room. Call me when it’s all over.’

  ‘I know you’re kidding,’ Duffy said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Ruth needs you. I need you. Quigg needs you. I’ll be here to help.’

  ‘You’re about as much use a mint-flavoured suppository. Fuck!’

  She slid her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and speed-dialled Quigg.

  ‘Quigg.’

  She held the phone to Ruth’s mouth, but all Ruth could manage was some panting, grunting and straining.

  ‘Is this a dirty phone call? We have the technology to trace you . . .’

  ‘You’re a fucking dead man, Quigg.’

  ‘Good morning, Lucy. How are you?’

  ‘That was the sound of your brat trying to crawl into the world.’

  ‘Oh God! Is he coming?’

  ‘That’s what Ruth says.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘As usual, you’ll get here after it’s all over.’

  ‘Have you called the ambulance?’

  ‘Yes, but apparently . . .’

  Ruth screamed as if she was being ripped apart.

  ‘. . . It’s coming now, and I’m the fucking midwife.’ She threw the phone on the bed. ‘Okay, I need a bucket, a spade and a pizza.’

  Ruth and Duffy stared at her.

  ‘Only joking. Don’t worry, I’ve done this no times before, so you’re in unsafe hands.’ She ran out of Ruth’s bedroom, through the atrium and along the corridor to her room. Found a website on the internet that provided instructions on giving birth, and printed them off.

  She ran back. ‘Okay, we’re ready for lift off.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Quigg said, putting his phone away.

  Kline’s face creased up. ‘Go where?’ She looked at her watch. It was twelve-fifteen. ‘I was just thinking about you buying me lunch.’

  They were about to enter the alleyway and walk through into Ely Place.

  ‘My baby’s being born, you’ll have to buy your own.’

  ‘Another one? Have you reached double figures yet?’

  He held out his hand. ‘Keys.’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘That can be arranged.’

  ‘What am I meant to do?’

  ‘Carry on working.’

  ‘I mean for transport.’

  ‘I take it you’re familiar with the concept of tube travel?’

  She handed him the keys to his Mercedes. ‘Don’t damage my hula-hula girl.’

  ‘I’ll try not to. So, while I’m away . . .’

  ‘You think I don’t know what to do?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it then, and we’ll catch up at the station tomorrow morning at eight-thirty.’

  ‘What about the press?’ she asked, pointing to the group of more than fifty journalists, cameramen and photographers wielding tripods with television or digital cameras, notebooks, voice recorders, laptops and microphones.

  ‘They can wait until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Okay. Have you got a name?’

  ‘Don’t you start.’

  ‘For the baby?’

  ‘Oh! No, not yet.’

  ‘Well, good luck then.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll need it.’

  She watched him hurry off.

  Yes, she knew exactly what to do. She walked through the alley into Ely Place and past St Ethelreda’s Church onto Charterhouse Street. From there she turned left past the London College of Accountancy, and left again up the A201 to Farringdon tube station.

  At the glass-fronted hatch she bought a ticket to Lewisham from the bald-headed woman. It was a straight-forward journey to Bow Road on the Hammersmith & City Line, change lines to the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and hop on a train to Lewisham – where her parents lived – but she wasn’t going to see her mum and dad.

  ***

  ‘Jesus!’ Lucy said. ‘I can see your fucking tonsils.’

  Ruth tried to laugh, but pissed herself and farted instead.

  Duffy held her stomach as she laughed.

  Lucy put a hand over her nose and mouth. ‘Do you fucking mind – there are tunnelling executives down here.’

  ‘Sorry! But you should not try to make me laugh. I have no control over my body anymore.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lucy said, picking up the instructions. ‘It says here that your cervix should begin to open – is it opening?’

  ‘I do not know. You are down there. I can’t see my cervix from up here.’

  ‘What’s the cervix?’

  Ruth reached down and pulled her vagina apart. ‘It is inside here.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Lucy said. ‘What the fuck’s that?’

  Duffy peered over Lucy’s shoulder. ‘So that’s what the cervix looks like. I’d say that was the baby’s head in the middle.’

  ‘No, no, no! It says here that during stage one the cervix should be open about three to four centimetres, that the process is gradual over several hours.’

  Ruth screamed and pushed.

  ‘Will you stop fucking pushing. You’re not meant to be pushing. It says here that you should take walks, listen to soothing music, drink lots of fluids . . .’

  ‘I think we’re a bit past that,’ Duffy suggested.

  ‘For fuck’s sake. What good is an instruction manual if you’re going to do your own thing? Right, what’s the time between contractions? And how long do they last?’

  Duffy timed the gap between the contractions and the length of the next one. ‘A minute forty and a minute thirty.’

  ‘No, no, no! It says here that they should be three minutes apart, last for a minute and go on for about six hours.’

  Ruth was as red as a beetroot, slobbering at the mouth and sweating like a pig. ‘It’s coming,’ she screamed.

  ‘Stop fucking . . . Jesus! What the hell is that?’

  Duffy grinned. ‘I told you – it’s the baby’s head.’

  Lucy threw the instructions across the room. ‘Fucking waste of paper. Okay, let’s do it. Are you still pushing up there?’

  ‘Wait for the contractions, Ruth,’ Duffy said.

  Lucy glared at her. ‘Oh, so now you’re the fucking expert?’

  Ruth gripped her knees, screamed and pushed. ‘It is stuck,’ she said and fell back exhausted.

  Lucy went and picked up the instructions again and found what she was looking for. ‘I know what’s wrong. It should be sideways so the shoulders can get through, not lying on its back like that lazy bastard Quigg.’

  ‘You have to turn it,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Me?’

  Duffy backed away holding her stomach. ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘And I can’t,’ Ruth panted.

  ‘Why is it always me? I should get paid fucking d
anger money for living here.’ She pushed the baby back slightly, slid her thin fingers to the front and back of the tiny body and slowly turned it so that it was sideways on. ‘There! How does that feel?’

  Ruth pushed again.

  The baby slithered out like a jellied eel and plopped on the bed.

  Lucy screwed up her face. ‘Oh fuck! Now what?’

  ‘It’s a boy,’ Duffy said. ‘You knew it was going to be a boy, didn’t you? Clear his airway, Lucy.’

  Lucy picked the baby up and stuck a finger in his mouth.

  He began to cry.

  There was banging at the front door.

  ‘That’ll be the ambulance,’ Lucy said. She passed the baby to Ruth. ‘Here, he’s your baby, and you’d better close your legs as well. I’ll go and let them in.’

  Duffy helped Ruth to look half-presentable.

  ‘A fat lot of fucking good you two were,’ Lucy said to the paramedics when she opened the door.

  ‘Sorry. The traffic was murder,’ one of them said.

  She led them into Ruth’s bedroom, and they quickly assessed the situation. After cutting the cord, they delivered the placenta, cleaned Ruth and the baby, and then put them both on a stretcher to take to the hospital.

  Quigg burst in. ‘Am I too late?’

  ‘You’re always too late, Quigg,’ Lucy said.

  He knelt down and kissed Ruth. ‘Well done.’

  ‘It is a boy. We will call him Luke after Lucy. Without her, your son would not be here.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ he said, as he followed the stretcher out to the ambulance.

  ‘You’re fucking welcome,’ Lucy shouted after him.

  He came back and gave her a long kiss on the lips. ‘I’ll give you an extra-special bath tonight.’

  ‘Yeah well . . . you’d better.’ That’s all she needed – more sperm swimming about inside her. And after what she’d just witnessed – God help her if she was pregnant.

  ***

  The journey took her twenty-five minutes – plenty of time to work out exactly what she was going to do and how she was going to do it.

  Outside Lewisham station she caught a taxi to the shopping centre where she bought a dark grey hoodie with pockets that was two sizes too big for her from a pop-up shop with no name. She then wandered around in Aladdin’s Cave with a wire basket and threw into it a roll of duct tape, a kitchen knife, a claw hammer, some medium-sized nails and a big box of matches.