‘Call in soonest,’ it said. ‘Big one.’
The show was almost over now and Gus looked at the pager again and then at his watch and clearly made a decision. He sat tight.
It wasn’t till the audience was on its feet and surging for the exits that he murmured in George’s ear. ‘We’ve got a problem.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got to call in, and it’s probably a body. My pager said a big one. That’s Roop’s code for a body, and one there’s a problem over at that. Which means it could involve you too. No time to take your old ladies home. Do you mind if we put ‘em in a cab?’
Bridget, who was close behind Gus, leaned over and said firmly, ‘I heard that What’s the matter? Got to go home separately, have we?’
‘Sorry, darling, but yes.’ Gus was very business-like suddenly. ‘It looks like it Let me get to the car and phone in. If we have to, George and I will go in my car after we get a cab for you two. Got your door key?’
‘No problem,’ Bridget said crisply. ‘Jeez, this is the real thing, huh? We go out to this fabulous evening of real English fun with the nicest cop I’ve ever met in all my life, and I’ve known a few, one way or another’ — she winked at Gus — ‘when I was younger, you understand. And now just at the right time you have to go and do the business. I tell you, it’s fabulous. All we need to really fill in the picture is a rolling London fog and the sound of horses’ hooves! Don’t fret, hon, just point us to the nearest cab and don’t you worry about another thing. We’ve had a great time and we’ll be glad to get back. Our gadding days are long over.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘More’s the pity.’
The crowd had thinned swiftly, many of the audience still clustering in the bars, and they came out into the Arches and turned right to get down to Villiers Street and the car — for which Gus had the key in his hand, since it had been given back to him in the interval together with information about where his car was parked — just as a cab with its light on passed the end. Gus broke into an immediate run to go careering down to catch it, bawling ‘Taxi!’ at the top of his voice.
Bridget tucked her hand into George’s elbow and chuckled. ‘That is one very nice man, George. Hang on to him, honey.’
‘Don’t be silly, Bridget,’ George said sharply. ‘He’s just a friend. You don’t hang on to friends. They just stick.’
‘Such stuff! He thinks you’re the best there is. It shows in every move he makes. You let him go and you are one crazy lady. Ain’t she, Vanny?’
Vanny wasn’t listening. She had her arm held by Bridget and was trotting along, gazing blissfully into the middle distance and humming. ‘And I’m away with the raggle-taggle gypsies, oh!’ in a rather breathy little voice. Bridget laughed.
‘She’s had the time of her life. Me too. Now I want bed and so does she. And look at that guy, will you? Caught the cab just like that! He really is the best.’
They had reached the end of the Arches and there was Gus with the cab door held open, looking at his watch. Bridget urged Vanny forward and pushed her inside the taxi.
‘On your way, you two! I wish I was coming with you. Just you tell me all about it tomorrow, promise?’ she cried and waved as Gus closed the door on her.
‘The fare’s paid,’ he yelled into the back as the driver engaged gears, ‘so you’ve nothing to fret about, OK? Talk to you again soon. Goodnight, sweethearts.’
‘Goodnight,’ called Bridget. She waved and the cab turned and went, leaving George staring after it, at her mother. She was still singing, sitting happily beside Bridget, repeating the same words over and over again. She seemed stuck on ‘raggle-taggle’, and the sense of misery descended over George again. She had thought that this evening her mother had been her old self, but she hadn’t. That had been a momentary thing. Now she was away again, no longer accessible; and George wanted to weep.
‘It’s all right, George,’ Gus murmured. ‘She’s very happy at the moment. And do remember she’s sleepy and had a certain amount of champagne, which’ll add to it all. She’ll be better again tomorrow.’
George turned and stared at him in the bright light thrown by the shops and cafés that lined Villiers Street. Passers-by jostled her but she paid no attention to them.
‘What?’ she said stupidly. ‘Do you know —’
‘Oh, yes, I know,’ he said. ‘I remember my old mum, you see. She had it And she was very like your Ma. She doesn’t make too many slips, but they’re there. I saw them, you see, the forgotten things. It’s — well, let it be. Mum’s gone now. Better off, if you ask me.’ He tucked his arm into hers and held it close. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. You can cope. We all have to when it comes to the crunch, eh? Right now there ain’t much of a crunch to face up to so forget it. Leave her to Bridget and come with me. Let’s see which sort of big one the nick’s got for us.’
13
The big one, as he discovered on his car radio when they pulled out from their parking place in John Adam Street, was indeed a dead body, and possibly one that got that way by means of murder.
‘In the car park of the Rag and Bottle, Guv.’ George recognized Sergeant Rupert Dudley’s voice even though it was distorted. ‘Down by the hospital, Asian bloke. Could have been — well, I’ll tell you when you get here. We’ve got the Soco there already and there’s not much to see, really. We need some forensic. Shall I let the doctor know, or will you?’ George reddened in the darkness. Even on the radio she could hear the note of disdain in Rupert’s voice. He didn’t like her and never had.
‘That’s all right, Roop,’ Gus said. ‘I’ll dig her out. ETA — let me see …’ He had reached the end of the street where it joined the Strand and peered up at the ‘No Right Turn’ sign, grinned at George and turned right, screeching across the traffic to do it. ‘ETA, traffic permitting, fifteen minutes outside, over and out and Roger and all the rest of that stuff.’
‘There’s no justice,’ George said. ‘If I did that I’d get pinched as sure as —’
‘If you did that you’d be a bleedin’ miracle, seein’ as you don’t have a car,’ he said. ‘And if I can’t get away with a bit of traffic violation, who can? Have you got your gear with you? Or do we have to stop at the hospital or send someone over there to get your emergency kit, as per usual?’
‘No, you do not is the answer to both,’ George said, patting her big leather shoulder bag. ‘I’ve got fed up with having a big kit to send for or have about; I’ve made up a smaller version which’ll do for scene-of-crime operations and I take it everywhere now.’
‘Like a make-up bag,’ he said approvingly. ‘I do like a lady what is a lady, never caught without her necessaries.’
‘Rupert was a bit on the uncommunicative side,’ she said as he swung the car perilously close to the inside lane, taking the turn into the Aldwych. ‘Started to say what he thought had happened and then shut up.’
‘So I should hope,’ Gus said. ‘There’s too much chatter on the radio anyway. I keep tellin’ ‘em they ought to be more professional.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, I see. That was why you said Roger and over and out and all that stuff. Very professional, I don’t think.’
‘I’m the Guv,’ Gus said with sublime self-assurance. ‘I can do what I like. It’s them that have to mind their ways. And I don’t want important facts blabbed all over the airways for any listenin’ villain to pick up. And what Roop said means that it’s a nasty one. No accident. Murder even. Why else should he call out Soco? No point in having a scene-of-crime-officer if there ain’t no crime, is there? — not that he’d dare stick his neck out and say more’n that, even if I did let him chatter like a schoolgirl over the radio. It takes more’n his opinion to decide whether there’s been a murder or not. Until you and me gets there there’s no one properly qualified to say what’s happened. Right?’
She was touched by the easy way he included her in his view of the aristocracy of the policeman’s working world and smiled at him in the flickering ligh
t from outside as they sped down Essex Street, heading for the Embankment. Another few minutes at this rate and they’d be at the Tower of London. He had to be breaking every traffic rule there was, the speed he was going, but his control of the car was total and it responded to him as though it had been a sentient creature.
‘Thanks for being so kind to my old dears.’ she said, and he tutted reprovingly.
‘Old dears, forsooth? What a nasty label! They’re a smashin’ pair of interesting lad — women. You should be ashamed to be so — so ageist.’ And he positively smirked at her in a quick sideways glint before he returned his attention to the road.
‘Hell, they were old when I was a kid!’ she said. ‘It’s hard not to see them except as forever antiques.’
‘How old is your mother?’
‘Urn — almost seventy. I turned up late in her life.’
‘Thirty-three or -four she was, then, when you were born. I have got it right, haven’t I? You’re thirty-six.’
She was, to her own surprise, a little nettled. ‘How’d you know that?’
‘I make it my business to know everything there is to know about people I’m interested in. I am right, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, you’re right. What of it?’
‘Not a thing. Except that your mum was younger than you are now when you were born, and here you are saying she was old when you were a kid. Think about that.’
‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much! Now I do feel good!’
‘Serves you right for labelling your mum old. She’s old, yeah, but not old old, know what I mean?’
‘Can we change the subject?’ she demanded. ‘All I wanted to do was say thank you for being so kind and organizing such a great evening for them. If I’d kept my big mouth shut I’d not be feeling so over the hill now.’
‘Who said you were over the hill?’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re the perfect age. Like Brie just as it starts running all over the place and before it gets a bit high. Delicious — Oh, get out of the way, you stupid bugger!’ He wrenched on the wheel and pushed his foot down hard to get past an elderly Mini that was toodling happily in the centre lane. By the time the Mini had honked like a flight of extremely irritated geese and Gus had flung open his window to make a highly unprofessional gesture out of it as he left the other car far behind, the moment for any response to that was past. Not that she would have found it easy to make one; to be told you were delicious was one thing, but like a cheese? Better not even to think about it.
‘Nearly there,’ he said, as the car swept round into the main road leading down to Shadwell. ‘The Rag and Bottle. That’s the local name for the Flag and Flask, you know, and —’
‘Yeah. And Christopher Columbus discovered America,’ George said. ‘For God’s sake, Gus, it wasn’t the locals who renamed it — it was the hospital people! In the old days anaesthetics were given by dripping ether on to a piece of cloth held over the patient’s nose and mouth and that was called a rag and bottle anaesthetic.’
‘Trust you to know best,’ he said, pulling the car to a slightly squealing stop beside the cluster of police cars with their blue lights flashing waiting outside the pub. ‘Come on. Let’s get some work done.’
Sergeant Dudley detached himself from the untidy group of people standing near the cars and came loping over to him. ‘Wotcha, Guv. Nice time. Round the back here, in the car park — Oh. Evening, doctor.’
‘Evening, Roop,’ George said, knowing how much he hated the diminutive form of his name and delighting in using it; he’d only offered his meagre greeting because she’d pushed herself forward and stared at him challengingly over Gus’s shoulder. He glared back at her, then turned away to lead them to the car park.
It lay behind the pub at the end of a curving roughly surfaced private alley. Vividly bright Tilley lamps burned all along the way, set there by the police, and at the far end, where the alley entered the wide gravelled car park proper, there was another huddle of people.
It broke apart as Rupert arrived and shouldered his way in; people stepped back to let Gus and George follow in easily. At the centre the sprawled body lay.
All George could see at first were the clothes; the legs, the right one bent at a sharp angle that showed clearly there was a fracture there, were covered in dark blue jeans, which even under these circumstances showed as fairly new, and the feet were encased in white trainers of the sort that looked trendy but were, in fact, cheap. George had seen some very like them in Watney Street Market piled hugger-mugger in boxes marked ‘cut price’. There was an equally new-looking anorak in dark red covering the upper part of the torso, and on the back of the head — the corpse was lying face down — a woolly cap of the sort that Rastafarians wore. That alone of the clothes looked old and dirty and was well stained with hair oil.
‘Not his own hat, then,’ Gus said, looking down at the corpse, but making no attempt to touch or move it. ‘What else?’
‘Not a Rastafarian, anyway. Dark, all right, but not West Indian. Come round here, have a look. Asian, I’d say.’
Gus moved round to the other side of the corpse, George following him, and bent down. George could see only the back of Gus’s head as his bulk obscured the view of the dead face, so she moved round a little more to peer over his shoulder.
And heard herself saying, ‘Christ!’ in a sort of half-shriek as she stared down at the now clearly illuminated face of the dead man.
Gus whirled. ‘Wotsamatter?’ he demanded, grabbing at her arm. ‘Are you all right? Whatever is it?’
‘I —’ She swallowed and shook her head. ‘I know him.’
Even Rupert looked interested now. All the people around her stretched their necks and stared as the sergeant said sharply, ‘Well, that helps. We’ve not been able to get an ID. Not a damn thing on him with a name. Who is he?’
She stared down at the face. It was badly scratched by the gravel; some of the small stones were actually embedded in the gleaming dark skin, mottling it so that it looked as though he had been afflicted with some nameless skin disease. The eyes were half open and the mouth was lax, showing the perfect teeth very clearly. There could be no doubt who he was.
‘He’s one of the doctors at the hospital,’ she said as steadily as she could. ‘Or was. His name is Harilal Rajabani. Harry to most of us.’
By the time George had finished her initial examination and given them permission to move the body to the mortuary at the hospital it was well past midnight. She sat on the low wall at the side of the car park, packing up her gear again. She wasn’t aware of being tired, but she yawned suddenly; and not with sleepiness. It was with stress.
It wasn’t that she’d known Harry all that well, she told herself as she tried to examine the way she felt. He’d been just one of the dozens of junior doctors who could be described as infesting Old East; but that episode in Barrie Ward had made her very aware of him, and she sighed, this time a deeper and more greedy air-gulping movement as she remembered.
It was because she had been so filled with guilt, that was the problem. That man had hurled the most disgusting abuse she had ever heard at Harry Rajabani and no one had done anything to stop him. They had been as paralysed by the venom he had spat as if it had touched them personally, had been frozen into inaction. And then when she’d discovered the man had behaved so out of grief, it had made it worse. His loss didn’t license him to behave appallingly but it did make it virtually impossible for anyone to deal with him. To go to a man whose young son has just died and take him to task for racism? It couldn’t be done, could it? She couldn’t, in fact, be sure, and she sat on the wall staring into the darkness and tried to get her ideas clear.
Gus had been seeing his men off, checking that the site had been properly sealed from interference and the tarpaulins had been set over the relevant parts of the gravel, and now came crunching towards her. ‘You OK, ducks? Nasty, that one. Sorry you had to do it, seein’ he was a mate.’
‘I’ve told you before, Gus
,’ she said wearily as she buckled up her equipment case and slid it into her shoulder bag. ‘He wasn’t a mate. He was a — well, I can’t even call him a colleague.’
‘But you knew him.’
‘How else could I have identified him? Oh, God, there’s a thought. Next of kin. Proper identification.’
‘We’ll worry about that tomorrow.’ He hooked his hand into her elbow and half led, half urged her towards the exit alley, making a wide curve round the place where the tarpaulins lay. They ducked under the yellow plastic ribbons marked, ‘Police. Do Not Enter’, which flapped mournfully in the night wind coming up from the river, and went down to his car. ‘Listen, ducks, this isn’t the time. It’s late, you’re tired. You must be — I’m knackered! But if tomorrow you can think of anything relevant —’
‘Tell me first what you think happened here,’ she said abruptly. The anxiety that was gnawing at her couldn’t be held back much longer, but it might help if she had some facts.
He peered at her and opened his mouth to say one thing, clearly reconsidered and said something else.
‘Well, if you insist, though I’m ready for bed. OK. We think that there was a punch-up of sorts in the pub — well, not to say punch-up. A bit of shouting abuse and insults, pretty normal for the manor. They had a go at this Harry. He started to shout back but then someone pulled him away and he went off in a state. The abusers, according to the barman, went off after him — trouble is he can’t be sure how long it was between Harry leaving and these other fellas following. We reckon it had to be pretty close, because they caught up with him there. There’s a lavatory by the car park as well as the one inside, which was full of people throwing up, seemingly, at the time all this happened. He must have been going there because he didn’t have a car out here. There were only the staff cars when we got here, as you saw.’
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