Snow Hill

by Mark Sanderson

  He wandered through the ambulatory, investigating the numerous nooks and crannies, trying—and failing—to identify the period and style of the various additions and renovations. The piecemeal quality of the church’s construction actually served to enhance its austere charm. Of all the memorials that embossed the walls, that to Margaret and John Whiting, who both died in 1681, made the greatest impression:

  Shee first deceased, Hee for a little Tryd To live without her, likd it not and dyd.

  Johnny knelt down in a pew and said a prayer for his parents. He no longer believed in an all-merciful God. He was not sure what he believed in any more. Truth? Justice? Love? Did any of them endure?

  As he got to his feet he noticed an oriel window above him, beautiful if incongruous. The central panel of its stone base was decorated with a cloverleaf. It contained a rebus, a visual puzzle, in which a crossbow arrow pierced a cask. A bolt and a tun.

  Something moved: there was a figure in the window, dressed in black. Johnny tried not to appear startled. He pulled himself together and exited the pew. In the distance a door slammed.

  “Have you worked it out yet?” A young man, his palms pressed together, approached.

  “Who was Bolton?” Johnny, having compiled crosswords, considered the rebus insultingly simple.

  “Ah, very good, very good. The Prior was a fascinating man but completely loopy. He built the window so he could observe Mass without having to enter the church.”

  “Rather voyeuristic of him, wasn’t it? Religion as a spectator sport.”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking, it’s all theatre, isn’t it? But, like most pursuits, it’s more fun taking part.” He smiled conspiratorially. There was a blob of food on his dog collar. “Prior Bolton also built Canonbury Tower in Islington. Have you seen it?” Johnny nodded. “He was convinced that an apocalyptic tidal wave was going to wash away the City in 1524. Something to do with a conjunction of water signs, apparently. That’s why he built the tower—and he didn’t stop there. He went on to have a house built on the highest spot in Harrow-on-the-Hill. It seems he thought the flood wouldn’t reach him there.”

  “Après lui, le deluge.”

  “Fortunately not. The end of the world still awaits us. Came pretty close though in the Great War. The church was hit during a Zeppelin raid in 1916, but the bomb only damaged the west gateway. The Lord looks after his own.”

  “And the people blown to bits? Who was looking after them?”

  They had learned all about the Zeppelin raids at school. It was impossible to imagine how the victims must have felt. Death from the air: another great technological advance.

  The verger cleared his throat. “You’re a non-believer then? Never mind. You may not love Jesus, but He still loves you.”

  Well, at least that made one person. Johnny did not think it appropriate to share the thought. He said goodbye to the silky cleric and headed back to the real world.

  The market had gone to bed. It was so cold he could feel the shape of his lungs. The smog had all but vanished. The sun, a wan disc, was having as much difficulty rising as Johnny had experienced several hours earlier. Justice, the golden lady who presided over the Central Criminal Courts, her arms akimbo like a traffic cop, was already on duty. Now all he had to do was put in a full day’s work. Even so, his spirits lifted. At last he had a definite lead.

  EIGHT

  Friday, 11th December, 3.05 a.m.

  An impromptu chain of Christmas lights gave Upper Street the faltering jauntiness of a seaside resort after the tide has gone out. He was the only visitor. Islington had become a ghost town: its bus, tram and Tube drivers still lay farting in their beds. A faint, freezing mist cast a grey pall over the slumbering terraces, tenements, shops and factories. Each lamp-post was graced with a halo: gold in the centre, surrounded by rings of cream, orange, violet and purple, then brown at the edges. Nothing, not even a yowling dog, broke the uncanny silence.

  Johnny strode out, trying to strike sparks on the Tri-pedal road surface with his segs. The iron was supposed to give tyres and rubber-soled shoes a better grip but in such icy conditions it just made it easier to skid. He returned to the pavement.

  The crossroads where Pentonville Road turned into City Road was clear of traffic in every direction. A lone policeman stood in the doorway of the Angel cinema. He nodded but did not bother to extinguish his cigarette. Johnny’s head ached. Lack of sleep or excess alcohol? Both, probably.

  He knew it was a bad idea to go for a drink with Bill, but he hadn’t had the heart to put him off two evenings in one week. Even so, as they had sat in the Tipperary, which Bill still insisted on calling the Boar’s Head—printers returning from the Great War had given the pub its new name—it was all Johnny could do to stay awake. He could not tell him that he had been up since five, and that he would have to be up again in a few hours time, because that would only invite questions.

  He did, however, have one question of his own.

  “How come you didn’t tell me that a wolly had transferred from Snow Hill to the Met?”

  “Sheer ignorance, dear boy.” Bill’s bloodshot eyes—like road maps of Great Britain—regarded him quizzically. “What’s the matter? You think I’m holding back on you?”

  “Your calls turned nothing up?”

  “Nothing relevant.” Bill leaned forward. “I promised not to run the story.”

  “What story?” Johnny was struggling to mask his trepidation. Even if Bill had given his word that he would not write about the death of a cop, that didn’t mean he too was sworn to maintain his silence.

  “Nobody’s been transferred. A constable has been sacked—and you know how the powers-that-be like to keep such matters hush-hush.”

  “What did he do?” asked Johnny.

  Bill chuckled. “It sounds like this feller was a chap after my own heart. You know how they’re introducing bicycles so that the boys in blue can patrol longer beats?”

  “Yes.” Matt had told him: he preferred being footsore to being saddle-sore.

  “Well, the blighter was winding a piece of string round the odometer and pulling it back and forth so that, when his sergeant checked, it looked as if he was covering the requisite distance instead of just sitting on his arse and smoking.”

  “I have to admit, it demonstrates a certain ingenuity. What was the cop’s name?”

  “Don’t know. Rotherforth wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Rotherforth? He’s your source? When I spoke to him he rubbished the tip-off.”

  “Keep your hair on. He and I go way back. I got you the dope, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, thanks a lot, Bill.”

  There was no way he was going to mention the dead cop after that. He tried changing the subject, but Bill had known him long enough to sense when his protégé was withholding something. Again and again, he kept asking if Johnny had anything else to tell him. Johnny kept mum: he knew that the tighter Bill got, the looser his tongue became.

  It went against the grain to deceive Bill. In addition to being his mentor, the older man had helped Johnny pay his mother’s medical expenses. Without his generosity, she would not have been able to stay in hospital until the end. Bill knew what it was to lose someone to cancer: his wife had died of it. He did not talk about her much, brushing off Johnny’s questions with: “It was a long time ago, dear boy, when you were still sucking your mother’s tits.” Even with those closest to him, Bill preferred office gossip or conversation about books to personal disclosure. He rated Thackeray, Gissing and Jerrold above Dickens—which often led to heated arguments. Spouseless and childless, Bill did not seem to have a life outside work. His colleagues appeared to be his only friends. Drinking and smoking were his major hobbies. He said the tobacco was good for his asthma. Johnny wondered what Bill would do with himself when he retired the following year.

  He felt especially guilty because only that morning, Bill—as helpful as ever—had given him the telephone number of an alienist after he’
d made up a story about Daisy having nightmares and wanting to find someone who could treat her.

  During his lunch break, Johnny had sounded out Dr Meikle. After listening to Matt’s symptoms the doctor said it sounded as though his friend was refusing to face up to a traumatic event in his past. If he continued to do so he could well suffer a breakdown. Meikle had warned Johnny: “He should come to see me at once.”

  When he relayed the suggestion, Matt had been swift to reject it. “There’s nothing in my past that would explain the nightmares. I haven’t got the time to lie around on a couch all day. Besides, it would no doubt cost a pretty penny. I’ve got this far without a man in a white coat. The bad dreams’ll probably stop as suddenly as they started.”

  Johnny hoped so. Before Matt hung up, he’d filled him in on the previous night’s brief encounter with PC Vinson, and secured a promise to find out the name of the apparently non-existent transferred recruit.

  There was no moon and the absence of street-lights made progress tricky as he made his way downhill along St John Street. Smithfield was still asleep. Drivers who had arrived overnight snored on in their cabs. The clock in Grand Avenue said 3.27.

  Johnny turned into Cowcross Street. Green Hill’s Rents was just past the Hope on the left. It was a dead-end, only about three hundred yards long. Why had Gogg suggested meeting here?

  There was only one building of consequence in the cul-de-sac: a cold store. Its huge double doors were unlocked. Johnny pushed them open and slipped through the gap. He found himself in a wide hallway plastered with posters of prize bulls advertising the Smithfield Club Cattle Show at the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, from 7th December through to the 11th.

  Deep humming filled his ears and tickled his feet. A corridor lined with poky offices ran off to the left. The plywood and glass partitions were unlit and unoccupied. The narrow stairs on the right presumably led to the cellar. Perhaps Gogg was down there.

  The humming got louder. The foundations of the building seemed to pulsate with barely suppressed energy. It was suffocatingly warm.

  A gigantic refrigerator filled the gloomy basement. A vertical strip of light told him that the door was ajar. Wisps of steam streamed out.

  “Hello? Harry?”

  There was no reply. Where the hell was the boy?

  He pulled open the steel door. Winter blasted out. He blinked and felt the skin on his face shrink.

  Wooden duckboards ran down the middle of the fridge. On either side frozen carcasses hung from hooks attached to two circular rails. Ball-bearings ensured every cadaver could be reached without stepping on to the stainless steel floor.

  “Harry?”

  He hunkered down and looked underneath the hanging meat. Nothing.

  Johnny was about to close the foot-thick door when he realised that the freezer was much larger than he had originally thought. There was a panel of light switches by the door. Only one of them had been turned on. He flicked on all the others and gasped.

  The cold-store was vast. Its duckboards stretched on and on. In the distance he could make out another door, which presumably led to the underground rail depot that allowed dead livestock to be unloaded directly off the train. The ice-chamber was filled to capacity. Although the lights were bright, the mass of meat reduced their glare to a reddish glow. Gogg must have had second thoughts.

  The threshold of the fridge was a foot off the floor. Johnny tripped over it and fell head-first against the nearest side of beef. It was like hitting a brick wall. He swore and lay sprawled on the duckboards rubbing his brow.

  What sounded like an angry rattlesnake could now be heard above the hum. He had set the carousel of corpses in motion.

  The well-oiled ball-bearings spun round and round. The slaughtered animals slid past him one by one. Frosted sheep, headless pigs, hollow cows…and Harry.

  He was hanging from a hook which protruded from his neck. His head lolled to one side. The eyes stared at him glassily.

  There was something stuffed in his mouth. It looked like a fat, tropical slug: purple, red and yellow.

  Johnny was transfixed. Harry continued rolling towards him. He was naked. There was a black gash in his groin. Blood trickled down his thighs, streaked his calves and dripped off his hairy big toes. Nearer. Nearer. Johnny gazed into the bloated face.

  The boy had been made to eat his own genitals.

  Gagging, Johnny scrambled to his feet. He was now shaking with fear as well as cold. Whoever had butchered Harry might still be in the freezer. He had to get out.

  Too late. The door slammed in his face.

  He jumped back and yelled as Gogg brushed past him. He looked round wildly. There was no handle on this side of the door. Nor was there an alarm.

  One by one, the lights went out.

  NINE

  Johnny hammered and hollered for all he was worth, but the door remained shut and the lights remained off. Slowly the swinging stiffs clicked to a stop. The vast chamber fell deafeningly quiet.

  Although he could no longer hear the massive generator, Johnny could still feel a muffled vibration. In such utter darkness it made no difference whether his eyes were open or closed. It was like drowning in ink.

  Panic began to writhe in the pit of his stomach. He sat on the floor and strained his ears for the slightest noise. All he could hear was Gogg’s life-blood slowly ebbing away: tick, tick, tick. He was alone—that was something. The killer was not trapped in there with him.

  The temperature continued to fall.

  It would not be long before the staff turned up for work. However, if he could not hear them, they would not be able to hear his cries for help.

  His teeth sounded as though they were sending a mayday message in Morse code. It was too cold to sit around on the off-chance of being rescued. Besides, how long would the air last? Which would kill him first: suffocation or hypothermia? He wasn’t going to wait to find out. He had to keep moving.

  Perhaps the door at the other end of the freezer had a handle on the inside. Johnny began to crawl along the duckboards. He had no wish to bump into any more nasty surprises.

  His overcoat cushioned his knees a little, but his hands were unprotected. He rarely wore gloves: they were too restrictive. Each time he missed the edge of the board he left behind a layer of skin on the metal floor. A splinter sank under the nail of a forefinger, piercing the quick. He was almost relieved when his head finally butted the door.

  It was exactly the same as the one at the other end.

  Johnny crawled back the way he had come, this time using a none-too-clean handkerchief and his hat to protect his sore hands.

  Rime was forming on his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. It was exhausting and progress was excrutiatingly slow. Iron bands seemed to be tightening round his head. He forced himself to carry on.

  Surely he should have reached the door by now? He could feel claustrophobia creeping up on him. The darkness took on a glutinous quality, glugging into his mouth, trickling into his nostrils, filling his lungs. He squeezed his eyes shut. Purple and orange burst out of the black.

  It was becoming increasingly difficult to think. Johnny knew he must not panic. He yelled again, his lips splitting open, the blood shockingly hot.

  The effort sapped what strength he had left. It was no good: he would have to rest for a moment.

  The vibrating hum sent ripples through his bone marrow. It was strangely soothing.

  He was asleep in seconds.

  After her husband’s death, Johnny’s mother, like many other grieving widows of the Great War, had ordered a “spirit photograph”. The simple but expensive process involved super-imposing an image of the dead person on to one of the living. The magic of double exposure thus bridged the gap between this world and the next. A separated couple could be reunited by a mere trick of the light.

  His mother was delighted with the result. A studio portrait of her sitting solemnly on a straight-backed dining chair beside the obligatory aspidistra on a sta
nd had been merged with her favourite from the half-dozen that the same photographer had taken of her husband shortly before he had been shipped to France. The good-looking soldier standing confidently in front of the camera had been transformed into a shadowy figure whose right hand seemed to rest on her left shoulder.

  It was a touching memento from which she derived great comfort and reassurance. Her Edward was still with her. He was looking after her now and always would be.

  The picture was on her bedside table when she died. Johnny brought it home from the hospital and put it back on the mantelpiece where, throughout his childhood, it had given him the creeps. He had not liked the idea that a man he did not know could be watching him every minute of every day. However, the fact that his mother had since joined his father, that the longed-for reunion had finally been achieved, made it impossible for him to put away, let alone throw away, the sinister souvenir.

  Johnny did not believe in ghosts: they were just external manifestations of internal disorder, grief, fear—or, in the case of Ebenezer Scrooge, a guilty conscience. Marley and Christmasses Past, Present and Future were harmless messengers from his own troubled mind.

  And now here he was, suspended between life and death, feeling the big chill, sinking deeper and deeper towards oblivion.

  Johnny knew he ought to fight, to go against the flow, but he did not have the energy to resist. He really could feel himself swaying. It was as if someone had picked him up. Was he back in his father’s arms?

  Someone slapped him across the face, hard. They did it again, harder. He registered the impact but not the pain.

  “Johnny! Snap out of it. Wake up!”

  Whoever it was hit him again.

  “All right, all right.” He opened his eyes. His lashes were frozen together. Warm thumbs melted the ice. Johnny blinked. It was Matt. “I’m not crying,” said Johnny.

  Matt hauled him to his feet and gave him a bear-hug.