The Steel Spring (10 page)

Two days later:

Three bloody socialists came here today and asked for protection! Got what they deserved
.

A comment on the twelfth of November hinted at flagging enthusiasm:

Everything seems normal again. The military are still here, but we can get back to the drunks
.

But the entry for the very next day sounded the alarm.

Some epidemic has broken out. Our cars commandeered as ambulances
.

Confirmation came on the fifteenth of November:

Extremely contagious illness. Already thirty per cent absence in this district. Health officials seriously concerned
.

Then there were no entries for a week.

More than fifty per cent of staff off sick, a lot have died. All cars that can be manned are taking the sick and dead to the national detox centre and blood donors to the main hospital
.

And three days later:

The illness is extremely catching. Not feeling so good myself. Short of staff, despite army help
.

There were only three further entries. They were unsigned and in different handwriting.

Monday 25 Nov. Acting Inspector died yesterday. Cremated immediately
.

Wednesday 27 Nov. State of emergency
.

Saturday 30 Nov. All police and army officers fit for duty now to take orders from the medical authorities. About to report to the chief medical officer
.

The note was four days old, and it was the last in the diary.

Inspector Jensen read everything through again. Then he got out his ballpoint pen and wrote neatly:

Wednesday 4 Dec. Resumed command 10.30. Station unmanned. J–n
.

He closed the diary and returned it to its place.

Back at his desk, he thought he heard a faint sound in the building, presumably from the cells.

Inspector Jensen went down the spiral staircase and across the deserted reception area, opened a steel door and made his way to the basement. In the newly built cell block, the ceiling and floor were painted white and the cells had bars of shiny steel. Despite the overcast weather and the lack of artificial light, it was not as dark down there as one might have expected. The vast majority of the cells were empty and standing open. Two of the doors, however, were shut and locked. He looked through the bars into the first of them. On the bunk below the high, barred window lay a woman. She was naked and her clothes were strewn around the cell floor. She was lying on her back and he knew at a glance that she was dead, and had in all likelihood been so for several days. Her flesh was chalk-white and her eyes wide open. She was quite young, and the usual type, blonde and smooth-skinned, her armpits and pubic area shaved. Apart from the unnatural pallor, death had not altered her appearance to any marked degree. The chill of the unheated basement had evidently helped to preserve the body. Jensen did not bother to unlock the door to scrutinise her at closer hand. Instead he moved on to the other locked cell. It was on the left, at the far end of the corridor. Here, too, there was someone stretched out on the bunk. But this time it was a man and what was more, he was alive. He was lying with his face to the wall, and had cocooned himself in the grey police blanket. Seemed to be shaking with cold. The cell stank of
urine and excrement. Jensen stood there watching him for a few moments. Then he got out his key ring, unlocked the door and went in. The man turned his head and stared at him. His face was hollow, his eyes bloodshot and crusted. Grizzled stubble on his chin, sunken cheeks.

‘What,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Who …’

‘How long have you been here?’ asked Jensen.

‘Four or five days,’ the man said in a weak voice. ‘Roughly.’

‘Why were you arrested?’

‘The usual. Booze.’

Jensen nodded.

‘I’ve been in three times already.’

Three drinking offences meant immediate transfer to a rehabilitation centre for alcoholics, or detox clinic as it was known nowadays. This was routine procedure.

‘But no bus showed up to fetch me the next morning. Nobody showed up at all. If I hadn’t had the bowl of washing water I’d have died of thirst.’

‘Have you been here alone all this time?’

‘The pigs … sorry … the police brought in a girl at the same time as me. Are you a policeman?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I don’t think she was drunk. Or that wasn’t the only thing, at any rate. I only saw her for a few seconds when they were searching us. But I heard her. Shrieking and howling and shouting all sorts of weird stuff. I haven’t heard her for the last couple of days.’

Jensen nodded again. Looked at the man and said:

‘Can you walk all right?’

‘I think so. I haven’t had anything to eat since I got here. Only that bloody washing water.’

‘Come with me.’

The arrested man struggled free of the blanket and got slowly and unsteadily to his feet. Jensen took him by the arm and led him up to reception. The man was haggard and in poor physical condition, presumably as a result of advanced alcoholism rather than the starvation cure he had endured in the last few days.

In the canteen next to the reception area, Jensen found a few packets of biscuits and a bag of rusks. He also took with him three bottles of fizzy drink and the two identity cards he found in the card index system where the IDs of those under arrest were kept overnight.

He took the man up to his office, and while the latter cautiously nibbled his way through a few biscuits and gulped down one of the fizzy drinks, he carefully studied the two identity cards.

The woman had been twenty-six and unmarried. Her profession was given as computer operator in the Department of Communications. She had never been arrested for drunkenness, and had not been this time, either. The charge was offending public decency.

The man was forty-seven and described as a casual labourer. He had already had three spells in the alcohol clinic and the three red marks on his card showed that he was indeed due for a fourth period of treatment. The length of the treatment was increased by a month each time. You started with a month, then went on to two, three, four and so on. After five stays in the institution, you were considered beyond human help and interned for an indefinite period. That was the routine procedure.

Jensen observed the man, who was now eating with rather
greater enthusiasm. When the first packet of biscuits was gone, the arrested man said dubiously:

‘I wonder …’

‘Yes?’

‘You wouldn’t happen to have a drop of the hard stuff?’

There was a locked room in the police station where relatively large amounts of alcoholic drink, confiscated from those taken under arrest, were stored to await quarterly collection by the lorries of the state alcohol monopoly for resale to customers.

‘It’s against the rules to consume alcohol here,’ Jensen said unsympathetically.

‘I see. It’s just that I’m freezing cold.’

Jensen got out his notebook.

‘I’m going to ask you a few questions,’ he said.

‘Fire away.’

‘You said that woman didn’t seem drunk. On what basis do you make that assertion?’

‘Well, I only heard her, as I say. She was bellowing and screaming. I think she was sick, or crazy.’

‘Could you hear what she was saying?’

‘Yes, sometimes. She shouted that everything was red, that there was a red fog in her cell.’

‘Go on.’

‘She yelled obscenities.’

‘What sort of obscenities?’

‘All sorts. She shouted something about not being able to bear having clothes on. Said she was free and couldn’t restrain her body. And loads of other stuff. Then she cried and howled, like an animal. But I haven’t heard her for a couple of days now. Maybe even three. I’m not very sure.’

‘What were the circumstances of your arrest?’

‘It was stupid. Avoidable.’

‘In what way?’

‘I was plastered, of course. Had been for weeks. But then I tripped over down there on the front steps and fell asleep.’

‘The front steps here?’

‘Yes. Or at least, that’s where I was lying when a pig … when a policeman in uniform woke me up and brought me in.’

‘Who searched you?’

‘The same bloke. The one who woke me up. He was the only one I saw. I thought the bus would be coming in the morning to take me to the dryer, but nobody came back. Not until just now, when you turned up and let me out.’

‘When did you first see the woman?’

‘The policeman who nabbed me had her with him.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think she’d been drinking.’

‘So you said.’

‘I think she was out of her mind. She screamed and hurled insults and told the policeman to fucking well leave her alone and concentrate on rooting out the vermin instead.’

‘What vermin?’

‘I don’t know. Then she pulled up her dress and showed … well, her cunt.’

‘How did the police officer behave?’

‘Oh, he was nice enough. Stayed calm. Said that he had a lot to do. That he’d arrange for me to be picked up and taken to the dryer. And he said he’d send a doctor down to take a look at that girl. But nobody ever came. I don’t think so, anyway. He had to go to the hospital, he said. He’d be back soon. But
he didn’t come. Nobody came. If I hadn’t had that washbowl … are you sure you haven’t got anything to drink?’

Jensen did not reply.

‘It’s so cold,’ said the alcoholic. ‘I’m freezing.’

‘I’ll make sure you’ve got some food supplies and extra blankets. One more thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘How were things before this happened?’

‘Great.’

‘What do you mean by great?’

‘Just what I say. Things have never been so good as these past couple of months.’

‘In what way?’

‘In every way. You’ve gathered I drink a lot. I was a car mechanic before. I haven’t got anywhere proper to live, have to find places here and there. And always running scared of the cops. Trying to keep out of the way so as not to get nailed again and sent to dry out.’

The man sat grumbling to himself for a minute or two. Then he said:

‘I’m in for four months this time.’

‘So what was it that was so great?’

‘Suddenly nobody cared about us alkies. The police couldn’t give a damn about us. Said they had too much else on. Spent every day having a go at people carrying placards and that. Some political hullabaloo. Loads of soldiers, too. Firing shots and carrying on.’

‘And the elections were postponed?’

‘What elections?’

‘The government elections. The democratic elections.’

‘Oh, them. They’re nothing to do with ordinary people. I
never vote. Politics is only for a few types who understand what it’s all about. Making the decisions and that. Well, and then …’

‘Yes.’

‘All of a sudden, nobody had to work any more. Some catching disease started spreading. People died of it, they said.’

‘Aren’t you afraid of this disease?’

‘Pah, everyone’s got to die of something or other in the end.’

‘So you don’t know what’s been happening?’

‘Nope, haven’t the foggiest. There were fewer and fewer people about and the street lamps went out. I was drunk most of the time, of course. Pity I had to go and collapse in a heap on the steps of a police station.’

‘Can you read?’

‘You bet I can. We learnt at school. But …’

‘But what?’

‘I never read anything, of course. It’s only ever things for other people. Stuff that makes no sense.’ They sat in silence for a while. Then the man said:

‘Is it over now, that disease?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Ah.’

‘According to the note on your identity card, you’ve been here five days and nights. Did you see or hear anything in that time? Apart from the woman in cell eight?’

The man thought.

‘Well, yes. Yesterday.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I didn’t see anybody. But I heard a car come into the yard. Heard the engine. It sounded like a jeep. I was a mechanic before … well, before I got like this. I can recognise engines by the sound. A jeep, I think.’

‘What then?’

‘Somebody got out. Only one person. You could tell from the footsteps. He didn’t come down to the cells. It sounded as though he was going up into the main building.’

‘He? Are you sure it was a man?’

‘Sounded like it.’

‘And then?’

‘I tried calling out, but my voice was all croaky, and after a while he drove off again.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No.’

Jensen closed his notepad and put down his pen. Collected up the rusks, fizzy drink bottles and the rest of the biscuits. Took the man back down to the arrest suite, fetched blankets, a slop bucket and a can of water and put him in a clean cell. Locked him in.

‘Are you certain you wouldn’t like to give me a drop of booze?’ the man said.

‘Yes, I’m certain. I shall make sure you’re taken to the rehabilitation centre as soon as possible.’

He returned to his office, sat down at the desk and read slowly through all the notes he had made. After about an hour he heard the sound of a vehicle engine, rose and went to the window.

A small jeep with a canvas top turned in through the gateway. It parked so close to the wall that Jensen could not see who was getting out.

Inspector Jensen sat at his office desk, listening.

Whoever had got out of the jeep made no effort to move cautiously or conceal what they were doing. Footsteps echoed across the ground-floor reception area and then up the spiral staircase. The visitor was already in the corridor, passing Jensen’s room. To judge by the steps and the breathing, the person in question was carrying something heavy. A door opened and shut. As far as Jensen could tell, the person had gone into the radio control room.

He left it a couple of minutes. In the meantime, he thought he could make out faint, mechanical sounds.

Jensen stood up, left the room and walked the few steps to the radio control room. Knocked lightly on the door before he opened it.

There was a man bending over the radio control console. Beside him on the floor were two accumulators in wooden boxes. They looked like extra-large car batteries. The man turned and stared towards the door. Jensen recognised him at once. The red-haired police doctor.