Flesh Wounds

by Christopher Fowler

  Ronnie gave up waiting, flicked his fag onto the rails and turned to leave. So the kid hadn’t made the train; there’d be plenty more who would. For a brief moment he wondered who the weird bird in fancy dress had been. But who knew what kind of nutters hung around the station at night? He pulled his jacket tighter at his throat and set off. He only hoped that the little sod with the skateboard hadn’t slashed his tyres.

  His nibs would not be pleased. Annie had already been promised to a gentleman anxious for a bit of fresh, sight unseen, and now excuses would have to be made. Nora was surprised by the girl’s nonappearance. Perhaps her nerve had failed her at the last moment. It was getting harder and harder to find virgins. A sign of the times we live in, she thought. She’d told his nibs they should have diversified, but given Mr Wilde’s trouble with the Marquess of Queensberry at the moment, the bottom had dropped out of the boy market.

  Nora reknotted her shawl at the neck and searched for a cab, cynically reflecting on the difficulties of earning an honest wage in a modern city.

  ‘It’s about time somebody fixed that bloody clock,’ said one of the workmen. ‘It wants replacing with a digital.’

  ‘You can’t get rid of that,’ countered his mate, looking up at the great cream face. ‘It’s an antique. Besides, it’s only the second hand that’s stuck, and who needs it?’ He pointed out at the mass of commuters churning along the station platform. ‘One lousy second ain’t going to make a difference to anyone.’

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Retribution

  ALL THIS HAS happened before, and will happen again.

  But this time it happened in London, to the most ordinary of mortals. It happened to a man lost and damned in a tangle of wet North London streets, a man who appeared to be running for his life.

  But I wasn’t running for my life; I was running for someone else’s.

  As I ran, I checked my wristwatch and swore aloud. Ten before midnight. I knew there were only minutes left. I glanced back over my shoulder again. No cabs on the roads, not a bus in sight. No driver would stop for me anyway, not looking like this. Nothing for it but to keep going, and try to catch my breath at the next corner.

  I missed the green pedestrian light. Dropped my hands to my knees and bent forward, gulping air. An overdressed couple emerged from a restaurant arm in arm and stared in careful disgust before skirting around me. The light changed and I ran on, stitch stinging my side. An empty cab ignored my hoarse shout and veered around my outstretched hand.

  With five and a half minutes to go I was still several streets from the address I had memorized. I knew I was going to be late. But late implied running for a train, late for a blind date, late for a business meeting.

  Not late for a death.

  On past a glaring neon supermarket staffed by sad-looking Asians. An all-night garage, two West Indian Girls trying to buy cigarettes, arguing with the Turkish cashier through a scratched Plexiglas window. Walls plastered with band posters and graffiti. A main road ahead; traffic lights about to change against me, amber and green slashing the wet tarmac. I managed a spurt of speed, dashing to the other side, just missed by a newspaper van. Reached the next turning and looked up.

  There in the middle of the road, slowly emerging from a mist of rain, walked a hollow-eyed funeral cortège of thin, bowed figures. I had an impression of top hats and draped bustles, following behind twin horses plumed in black. Snorting and stamping, the percherons were pulling an ornate ebony coffin wagon, clip-clopping on against the creaking wheels, setting their hooves firmly on cobbles as they rounded the corner; an absurdly anachronistic vision.

  That was when I threw my arm across my face and shouted out; ‘There is nothing there, damn you!’ I knew this was a sight no one else could see. When I opened my eyes again, the solemn procession had faded from view. The street was empty.

  I ran on.

  At last I reached the building, a thirties apartment block rising above a darkened delicatessen. Ran up the steps and pushed through the glass doors at the top. The semi-conscious concierge didn’t try to stop me. I shoved my way past him and took the stairs three at a time, hauling myself up by grabbing at the banisters.

  The smell of frying bacon lingered in the stairwell, blending with stale boiled cabbage in the halls. The distant sound of sobbing, misery unfurling behind closed doors.

  The third floor, end of the corridor.

  The overhead lights were out. This was real, not imagined; the ceiling globes had all been smashed. Glass crunched under my track shoes. I slowed to a walk in the thickening darkness, stomach churning, pulse hammering. Already I could see that the jamb of the front door had been shattered. I stood before it, pausing to gather my strength. Then I pushed. The door swung wide at my touch. As I entered, the hallway slowly illuminated itself like a stage set. Another of the bastard’s little tricks, I supposed. I stepped further into the apartment.

  The brass hall-clock read one minute past midnight. For a moment, hope surged. Was I still in time? Then I noticed that it would never read anything else. A crack ran across its face, conveniently fixing the time of death.

  A thin, agonized wail startled me. Could he still be alive? It came from the end of the hall. Beneath the scent of furniture polish, the air held the cuprous tang of fresh blood. I walked forward, checking each of the rooms as I passed. One by one they glowed as bright as theatrical sets and faded as I looked in, just so that I could see everything clearly. Games, even in matters of death, my enemy loved playing games. Now the crying was continuous and low, the sound of a snared animal in constant suffering. I reached the end room and dared myself to look.

  The only signs of disturbance were an overturned chair and a single broken cup and saucer, a little spilled tea. The young man was face down on the floor, crawling toward the fireplace. His face was jaundiced with shock, his pale trousers opaque with urine. Several inches from him, a neat oval of blood was soaking into the carpet. Something was protruding from the small of his back at a sharp angle, the handle of an iron poker. Judging from the length of the exposed section, the other two thirds was lodged inside his body.

  His limbs moved ineffectually, so that he looked like a pinned insect vaguely attempting to free itself. The overhead lights became intense, raised voltage crackling through the filaments.

  I stumbled further into the room, appalled by the pathetic efforts of the dying man. I didn’t know what to do. As I watched, he looked up at me and spoke.

  ‘Why you, of all people?’ he asked, wincing. His teeth squeaked as he ground them together. ‘Martyn, you’re my friend. Why would you want to hurt me?’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I replied flatly. ‘I only just got here.’ It sounded absurd. I was standing in a brilliantly lit room, talking to a man with a poker through his gut. It was like being trapped inside someone else’s hallucination.

  ‘I saw you, I know it was you. Don’t come any closer!’

  The fearful figure below me attempted to push away, but the protruding poker handle prevented him from backing against the wall, and then the effort killed him. He said something inaudible, and one eye filled with blood. His shoes drummed against the floor a few times and he was still.

  I had never seen a life leave before, but something left right then. His body, living a moment ago, was already a corpse. In the silence that followed, I gently pulled the door closed, providing a little privacy for death.

  I reached the ground floor and looked out for the concierge, but he wasn’t in his booth. What would I do if he remembered me dashing past? The police would be bound to question him.

  No time to worry about it now. As I left the building it began to rain again, and then to pour. I stood before the little row of shops wrapped in glittering strokes of water as tears poured down my face, and indignation rose within me.

  If I was going to be turned into a murderer, at leas
t Spanky could have told me.

  I looked up into the sky and let the rain splash on my face. That’s when I saw him, looming far above the restaurants and shops and pubs and coffee bars, dressed in his immaculate black tuxedo, literally larger than life. He was chuckling to himself, resting his elbows on the flat terraced rooftops as he looked down at the earth. His giant torso seemed shaped by the clouds, like those old drawings of the North Wind taking human form. He shook his head slowly and tapped his watch, as if to rebuke me for even trying to outrun him.

  I listened to the crackle of rainwater dropping from broken gutters and looked around at the empty streets, praying that someone would turn into the road and look up. But I knew it would be useless. No one else could see him. No one else would ever see him.

  No one but me.

  About the Author

  Christopher Fowler is the award-winning author of more than forty novels – including thirteen featuring the detectives Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit – and short-story collections. The recipient of the coveted CWA ‘Dagger in the Library’ Award for 2015, Chris’s most recent books are the Ballard-esque thriller The Sand Men and Bryant & May – Strange Tide. His other work includes screenplays, video games, graphic novels, audio plays and two critically acclaimed memoirs, Paperboy and Film Freak. His weekly column ‘Invisible Ink’ was a highlight of the Independent on Sunday’s arts pages. He lives in King’s Cross, London, and Barcelona.

  For more information, please visit www.christopherfowler.co.uk

  Also by Christopher Fowler

  The Bryant & May Novels

  FULL DARK HOUSE

  THE WATER ROOM

  SEVENTY-SEVEN CLOCKS

  TEN-SECOND STAIRCASE

  WHITE CORRIDOR

  THE VICTORIA VANISHES

  BRYANT & MAY ON THE LOOSE

  BRYANT & MAY OFF THE RAILS

  BRYANT & MAY AND THE MEMORY OF BLOOD

  BRYANT & MAY AND THE INVISIBLE CODE

  BRYANT & MAY – THE BLEEDING HEART

  BRYANT & MAY – THE BURNING MAN

  BRYANT & MAY – STRANGE TIDE

  The Bryant & May short stories

  BRYANT & MAY – LONDON’S GLORY

  Other Novels

  ROOFWORLD

  SPANKY

  RUNE

  RED BRIDE

  DISTURBIA

  PSYCHOVILLE

  SOHO BLACK

  HELLION: THE CURSE OF SNAKES

  CALABASH

  Short Stories

  CITY JITTERS

  THE BUREAU OF LOST SOULS

  SHARPER KNIVES

  FLESH WOUNDS

  PERSONAL DEMONS

  THE DEVIL IN ME

  OLD DEVIL MOON

  DEMONIZED

  RED GLOVES VOLUMES 1 AND 2

  FRIGHTENING

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  PAPERBOY

  FILM FREAK

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in Great Britain in 1995 by Warner Books

  This edition published in 2016 by Transworld Digital

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Christopher Fowler 1995

  Extract from Spanky © Christopher Fowler 1994

  Cover art/design by Martin Butterworth

  Christopher Fowler has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473540101

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