by Mark Pearson
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.
15.
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!’
Laura looked at him, concerned. ‘Have you hurt children, Steve?’
Bible Steve shook his head, then tilted it to one side. ‘I am just a vessel. No more than that.’
Laura put the cap on top of the bottle of surgical spirit and placed it to one side. She would have stood up, but Bible Steve grabbed her hands and pulled her towards him, an intent look in his red, sore eyes. ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said again.
Laura shook her head and took her hands out of his. ‘No. Like I said. I met you earlier, on the street, and when you were in the cell. You were drunk. You still are.’
‘No. I know you!’ he said for the third time, in a hoarse croak. ‘You are my angel. My guardian Angela!’
He stood up and reached out for her, turning his huge hands into claws, and Laura stepped back, her eyes wide. Horrified.
16.
LAURA STEPPED OUT from her office, nodding to the constable, and hurried across to the desk where Sergeant Matthews was filling in a form and watching two uniforms lead a drunk Santa Claus to the holding cells. He sighed and put the form to one side.
‘What’s the verdict, Doctor?’
‘He’s sober enough now, I guess. If not entirely lucid.’
‘Bible Steve is never entirely lucid.’
‘Probably not, no.’
The sergeant looked across as the constable led
the man in question out of the police surgeon’s office. ‘So I can charge him and release him?’
Laura held up her hand to the constable, signalling for him to wait, and leaned in to speak quietly with the desk sergeant. ‘He’s sober enough to be charged and released, but why don’t you keep him in for the night?’
‘Why would I do that? Is he ill?’
‘Not physically, no.’
‘I’m jammed up here, Laura.’
‘I know it’s against procedures, but a night out of the cold isn’t going to hurt him.’
Bible Steve called out to them, ‘I just want my own bed, Officer. Take a page or two of the Good Book. God’s love keeps us warm. Nourishment, not punishment.’
‘He hasn’t got a bed, Dave.’
‘Neither have we – like I say, we’re jammed up here and the night is far from over.’
Laura looked at her watch. ‘Yeah, and it’s time I was out of here.’
‘We’ll drop him off at the shelter. We always do.’
‘You’re a good man, Sergeant Matthews, and I’ll kill any man who says otherwise!’ shouted Bible Steve.
The sergeant nodded to him. ‘Please don’t. And remember, sweet-and-sour pork balls are off the menu tonight!’
Laura adjusted her hat and headed for the door.
‘Bless you, my child!’ the homeless man called after her.
But Laura hurried on, the door closing behind her.
‘Take care, darling,’ Bible Steve said softly.
17.
London, off the Edgware Road. 3 a.m., Saturday
THE STREETS OF London were mostly quiet now.
In the distance, the sound of music playing from a club that was staying open until five in the morning. Lou Reed singing about shiny boots of leather, but faintly. Audible when the club doors opened for people to leave. There was little or no traffic on the roads, which were covered with thick snow. Large flakes of it that continued to fall, filling the air. Any footprints in that snow in the little side-street had long been filled in.
Bible Steve looked upwards, his eyes wide with wonder as the snow fell on his upturned face. He reached a hand out and clutched it, as if the dancing snowflakes were little bits of magic he could catch in his palm. He watched as they melted on the back of his hand and a tear trickled down his cheek. He wiped the sleeve of his coat roughly over his eyes, as he did hundreds of times a day, then thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a can of strong lager. He pulled the ring-pull, took a long drink and then belched.
‘Onward then, ye people,’ he sang loudly. ‘Join our happy throng, blend with ours your voices in the triumph song. Glory, laud and honour unto Christ the King, this through countless ages men and angels sing.’
He waved his can of lager to conduct an invisible choir, and his voice grew even louder.
‘Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before …’
And then his voice faltered and his eyes widened. But not with wonder this time. He shrank back against the brick of the wall that he was leaning against and raised a protective arm.
‘You keep away from me,’ he said, his voice trembling with fear. ‘You keep away from me!’
Part Two
18.
Hampstead, north-west London. 6.30 a.m., Saturday
JACK DELANEY YAWNED and got out of bed. He peeled back the edge of the curtain and peered through the window; it was still dark outside.
Dark, but still snowing heavily in London and had been all night, by the looks of it. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see the garden thick with it. Five days away from Christmas now, and the capital was blanketed in snow. The bookies would be paying out big time this year, he thought to himself, as he slipped his feet into a pair of sheepskin slippers that Kate had bought for him. He hadn’t worn slippers for years. Thin end of the wedge, he had told her; but a nice wedge, he conceded.
He could hear her snoring gently behind him. The corners of his lips slipped into a smile as he listened to her. Kate denied she ever snored, and truth to tell it was more of a sighing sound, and a gentle smack of her lips, than a proper snore. It was a peaceful sound, a contented one, but Delaney was a light sleeper, unless he had had a skinful of whiskey of course, and then he slept through pretty much anything. But it was getting rarer and rarer for him to tie one on nowadays. The last few months had changed him. That much was for sure. He’d put the past back where it belonged and was concentrating on the present, on the future. At least he was trying to. He knew he was a changed man, and a lot of that change had been down to the good lady doctor who shared his bed.
He looked out at her back garden again. A picture-postcard scene. Hampstead in winter. It could have been 100 years ago, 200. Kate owned the whole house, but rented the upstairs flat to a gay couple, Patrick and Simon, a pair of musicians with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Violinists. They spent most of their time away and so she hadn’t bothered parcelling the garden into two lots, as her tenants were quite happy not having the use of it – if it meant they had to pay less rent. It suited Kate fine, and she and Delaney had talked about not letting the flat out again, if the musicians decided to move on. At some stage, in the hopefully not-too-distant future, they had discussed selling Kate’s house and buying somewhere out in the country. The Chilterns maybe, or somewhere else equally rural out near Oxford.
The garden was long and narrow, but beautifully laid out. Not that you could tell at the moment, with the thick snow covering every surface like the frosting on a wedding cake. Jack smiled to himself again, as the image came to his mind. Kate and he had never actually discussed the idea of getting married. But others had. Particularly down at White City Police Station. It was becoming something of a standing joke.
The main line of questioning on the marriage issue, however, came from his daughter Siobhan. Seven years old, going on twenty! More of an interrogation than a questioning, come to that. Jack had thought she might have been against the idea, seeing as her mother had died when she was still young. Jack had carried the guilt of her death around like a small child carries a comfort-blanket. But meeting Kate had changed all that. It had changed everything. And for the better.
He looked back over his shoulder and squinted through the gloom to look at her. Her dark and gloriously curly hair was piled around the pillow that supported her head. He resisted the urge to cross over and smooth it. She had got in late last night and he didn’t want to disturb her. She deserved a lie-in now and again, and she wasn’t rostered on at the police station or at her general practice at the university until later.
He looked back out at the garden again and pulled the curtain shut. He’d talked with Kate about digging a fish pond when spring came and the ground was soft enough. But she had pointed out that they had a baby on the way. Maybe later, when the new addition to the family was old enough for it to be safe, but for now maybe a small fish tank for Siobhan would suffice.
Downstairs he yawned, stifling the noise with his hand, pushed the button on Kate’s DeLonghi Prima Donna coffee machine and waited for it to work its magic. He had dressed in a coal-black woollen suit that Kate had bought him. A white shirt with a new dark-blue silk tie.
He caught sight of himself reflected in the glass of the window looking out over the sink into the lawn. He didn’t recognise himself from the wreck of a man he had been only some few months ago. A shambling, borderline alcoholic on the verge of coming apart at the seams. His jaw was clean-shaven, his dark hair was cut and brushed, his deep-blue eyes were clear and intelligent. Even his black shoes were polished to a military shine.
He looked like he was going to a wedding or a fashion shoot for a men’s magazine cover … or what he actually was going to be doing, later that morning.
Appearing in court.
Seemed that some of his past wouldn’t stay buried after all.
19.
DONGMEI CHANG WAS in a foul mood as she came out of Edgware Road
station.
Her first name might well be a translation of Tung Mei which translated as ‘winter plums’ for some, but the truth was that she hated winter. And always had. To her it meant ‘younger sister from the east’ and she would have dearly loved to return east. To Hong Kong, where she was born. But Dongmei was in her late sixties now and resigned to the fact that she would never be going home. She had been in the United Kingdom since 1962, when she had been brought over to marry a man her father had chosen for her. He was starting a Chinese restaurant and, although she didn’t love him when they first met, he was older than her and he wanted her respect and obedience more than her love. It wasn’t an unusual concept to Dongmei, for she had seen her elder sisters married in a similar fashion. Daughters were business assets in her family. But she and they worked hard, and the business prospered in a modest way, and over the years she came to love her husband in her own way.
He had died ten years ago from a brain embolism suffered during celebrations for Chinese New Year in Soho. They had never been blessed with children, and her husband had refused her requests to seek medical help, so she had carried on the restaurant on her own, staffed mainly by family members who came over from China in generational waves. Trained up for years and then moving on, setting up their own restaurants in different parts of the country. Nobody could afford to buy or rent in London now. Dongmei Chang held the deeds to the building, however, and had been advised to sell up and retire many, many times. But the restaurant was more to her than just a business. She had toyed with the notion of selling up immediately after her husband had died, but even though she wanted to go back home to Hong Kong, she knew that it no longer existed. It wasn’t just that it was now under communist China’s governance, but everything about it had changed. She had left it half a century ago and there was nothing there for her now, and there was nothing here for her either if she sold the Lucky Dragon. And so she hadn’t.
