The Whispering Gallery (18 page)

Johnny rushed out of the front door and met Mrs Turquand from downstairs coming up the area steps. She was still in a floral housecoat and curlers. She screamed again. Faces appeared at windows up and down Cruden Street. Barefoot guttersnipes, anxious not to miss anything, came scampering up the terrace.

“What's happened?” The old woman, eyes wide with terror, opened her toothless mouth to scream again. “Please stop doing that. Tell me what's wrong.”

She pointed a shaking finger at her own front door then allowed herself to be comforted by a neighbour who scowled at Johnny as if the commotion were all his fault.

Johnny entered the dark, low-ceilinged flat. “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” crackled out of the wireless. Mrs Turquand lived alone. There was an open box on the dining table. He pulled out its contents: a large basket filled with roses, apples and the head of a young woman.

He instinctively knew it was real – and yet he couldn't have said why or how. The lidless eyes had begun to turn milky. The bleached hair smelled as though it had been freshly shampooed and rouge had been applied to the now mottled cheeks. To heighten the grotesque effect? If so it worked. The artificially pink lips were so swollen that they had split like overcooked sausages. A semi-clear viscous liquid seeped from the nose.

Johnny, sweating heavily, went back outside. His mounting anger gave him the strength to carry on.

“What were you playing at? It wasn't delivered to you, was it? Why stick your beak in my business?” He knew the answer to the last question: the lonely widow had nothing better to do. She burst into tears.

“Don't you speak to her like that! Who d'you think you are? Can't you see she's upset?” A young mother, one of a number who had come to gawp, folded her arms across her chest. A pair of filthy brats held on to her apron.

“I was doing you a favour, that's all,” sniffed Mrs Turquand. “You were otherwise engaged.” Her knowing look revealed that she had been eavesdropping on his heated conversation with Stella. The sash windows, of course, had been fully open. “The taxi-driver said he was going to be late for his dinner so I said I'd make sure you received the basket. Beautiful it was, smelled heavenly. Then . . .” – she paused, aware that she was incriminating herself – “I saw that thing in the middle.”

“What, dear? What did you see?” asked the straggle-haired mother eagerly.

“A human head. That's what!”

A cry went up from the crowd that was growing by the minute.

“Give us a butcher's, mister. Go on, don't be a killjoy. Pleeeease!” The kids jumped up and down excitedly.

Johnny was almost relieved to see a policeman's helmet parting the ghoulish throng.

It took a while, but eventually a black Wolseley pulled up outside. The gang of kids, determined not to miss any of the action, still held on to the area railings.

“Popular as ever, I see.” Uninvited, DC Penterell sat down and crossed his gangly legs. The basket, which Johnny had quickly removed from the flat below, sat in the middle of the kitchen table. He'd had to swat away the hands of those determined to see what lurked inside the box. “I don't suppose you recognise her?”

“No.” The thought that he might be in some way responsible for her death was almost as sickening as the sight of her mutilated face.

“Any postcard?”

“No.”

“See the man who delivered it?”

“No – and I presume my so-called bodyguards are having a day off. Strange how this maniac doesn't observe the Sabbath.”

Johnny realised he had been an arrogant fool – if the killer had wanted him dead he wouldn't still be breathing. He should have accompanied Matt to Bexley. Then again, perhaps it was Matt's presence last night that had saved him.

The cabbie, an idle devil, must have ignored the strict instructions to give the box to him and no one else. Johnny didn't envy the man trying to get a description of the driver from the hysterical woman downstairs. It was very unlikely that she'd had the wit to take down the number of the cab. Its driver, fantasising about roast beef and all the trimmings, would have been at the Angel when she learned what was in the box.

“It's not like you to be lost for words.”

“I'm having a day from hell.”

“Well, look on the bright side. It's got to be better than hers.” He nodded at the head. Its cloudy eyes gazed sightlessly at the
Daily News
calendar that hung on the back of the door. “Crossing off the days, I see. Only twenty more to go.”

“He'll make his move before then. My guess is nineteenth July.”

“Why?”

“It's the feast day of Saint Rufina – the red-head.”

“I wonder what he's got in mind for you.” Johnny felt like thumping the callous detective – who saw the anger flare in his eyes. “Go on. Take a swing. There's nothing I'd like more than to arrest you. 'Course, you'd be a lot safer banged up.”

“I'm not so sure about that – especially at Snow Hill.”

“Don't you worry, I'd look after you.” The detective's chuckle did not inspire confidence. “I need you to come down to the station anyway. Inspector Woodling, who's none too pleased at having his day of rest ruined, should be there by now. He wants a word in your shell-like. I'll get Constable Watkiss to bring us some lunch – if you haven't lost your appetite.”

“I need to go to the office.”

“Fear not, we won't take up too much of your precious time – if you co-operate. We've got plenty to do as well. This is the breakthrough we've been waiting for: someone is bound to recognise the poor cow.”

“Well, if you stir your stumps we can run an artist's impression of her with my article tomorrow.”

“Woodling might have something to say about that.”

“Why? You're going to have to go public now. Thanks to the mob outside, the news will be all over North London by tonight.”

In the event Inspector Woodling had rather a lot to say. He wasn't at all what Johnny had expected: seven feet of stern-faced rectitude. He was short for a copper in the City of London Police, around six feet, and, although he had been in the capital for over ten years, had lost none of his Welsh accent or charm. Johnny didn't even mind being called “boyo”.

“We're the same age, you and me,” said Woodling, after Watkiss, with a scowl, had brought in a plate of ham sandwiches and a pot of tea. He ignored Johnny's request for some mustard: “English, if you have it . . .”

Woodling nodded at the constable's retreating back. “Don't mind him – he's got a sore head. Blames the sun, of course, not the barrel of ale he drank yesterday.”

“He reads other people's diaries.”

“So I hear. That was a nasty business – before my time, I'm glad to say. Transferred from the Met in January.”

“May I ask why?”

“You may, but I shan't – well, can't – tell you.”

“Are you married?”

“Indeed. To Monique, a lovely lass from Brittany. You?”

“Not yet.”

“It's not easy, finding the right girl.”

“So it seems.”

And then the pleasantries were over. It was like flicking a switch.

“Why does this man want to kill you?”

“I don't know. If I did, I'd have found him by now.”

“Leave that to us. That's an order, not a request. Four women have died because of you. You don't want any more deaths on your conscience.”

“I didn't kill them. You might as well blame yourself for not giving them the protection they deserved.”

“They died to get your attention.”

“That can't be the only reason. Revenge? Jealousy? Perverted sexual gratification? The killer could have any – or all – of these motives.” Johnny sipped his tea but left the sandwiches untouched. He doubted that Watkiss had been stupid enough to tamper with them, but even so the very idea of eating still turned his stomach. “Did the bones come from a different body to that of the breast and the arm?”

“Correct. And it's probably safe to assume the head came from another. Hence four.”

“Perhaps the killer just enjoys slaughtering women. I've given him as much publicity as I can. However, if you were to let me run a picture of the latest victim in tomorrow's edition it might speed up the process of identification.”

“An artist is already working on an impression of how she might have looked.”

“St Dorothy, the martyr on Friday's postcard, was beheaded. Today a head turns up. The killer's certainly got a sick sense of humour.”

“Can you think of any reason why he chose the quotation from Rilke?”
Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
: Johnny couldn't get the words out of his mind. Was there a connection to the fact that he lived at the Angel?

“I think he's just trying to put me under greater pressure. He's playing a game and wants to remind me that, one way or another, I'll be the next person to lose my head.”

“This business would certainly send some folk to the booby hatch.”

“I visited Colney Hatch Mental Hospital once,” said Johnny. “I was researching what had happened to those who were still suffering from shell shock and other forms of psychological trauma. I was proudly escorted down the longest corridor in Britain. What does it say about our country that it's in a lunatic asylum? I was told it takes five hours to walk round all the wards but, fortunately, I had neither the time nor inclination to put it to the test. I still have nightmares about some of the things I saw. It's not called Colney Hatch any more. It became the Friern Mental Hospital earlier this year.”

“Is any of this relevant?”

“I don't know – except whoever's doing this must be mad.”

“Send me a copy of the article.”

“I'll swap it for your artist's impression of the woman.”

“Fair enough,” said Woodling. “Well, don't just sit there. Go and get it.”

The thought of Stella being just round the corner at The Cock, possibly in the arms of Dimeo, did nothing to alleviate his ill humour. He crossed Holborn Viaduct then walked the length of Shoe Lane to Fleet Street. He didn't pass a soul. It was, if anything, even hotter. The heatwave was forecast to break by the end of the coming week.

The newsroom was an inner circle of hell. Gustav Patsel, head back on his throne, snored gently. The skeleton staff went about their business and ignored him. The night shift wouldn't turn up till around four. Johnny found an empty paper bag that had contained someone's lunch, inflated it then burst it behind the German. He leapt to his feet in a shower of crumbs.

“
Gott im Himmel!
What are you doing here, Mr Steadman?”

“I've had another human offering: a head in a basket.”

“It couldn't have come at a better time. Such a slow news day.”

“The cops are going to send over an artist's impression of the dead woman. They think it might be the breakthrough they need.”

“Excellent. A thousand words, please. Relate the whole sorry saga from the beginning. We can start the new week with a splash. You'll make the front page again.”

The article took him much longer than anticipated. As well as rehearsing his assault and his escape from the pair of undercover cops at dawn on Saturday he listed all the postcards of the saints he had received, along with their feast days: Agatha (5th February), Dorothy (6th February), Rufina and Justa (19th July), Rufus (1st August), Anastasia and Basilissa (25th December). Then there was Aphrodite, the Venus de Milo: the odd one out.

If the dates were not significant – there were too many digits to form a telephone number – then perhaps the initials of the martyrs held a clue? A, D, R, J, R, A, B, V or A. It didn't seem to promise much in the way of an anagram. Perhaps four more postcards – with the names of saints whose initials were C, A, B, and A – would arrive to spell out ABRACADABRA. The J – for Johnny? – might be a red herring. As it was, BRAVADO was the nearest he could come to a word, but the O was lacking. Then O – nothing, zero, love – could represent absence. What if it were a name though . . . J. Bravard? It sounded French but rang no bells. He was fairly certain that he had never interviewed anyone called Bravard. He dug out his old notebooks and checked: nothing. However, he decided not to include any of this wild speculation on the off chance it was nearer the mark than he realised and tipped off the killer.

Once Pencil was satisfied with his copy, he looked up Bravard in the telephone directory. There were six with that name but none of them had the initial J. He picked up the receiver.

“It seems rather far-fetched,” said Matt. “Why are you telling me?”

“I thought you'd like to suggest the name to Woodling. Do you want to stay in uniform all your life?” Johnny wasn't acting entirely out of altruism – Matt would be of far more use to him in the Detective Squad.

“Thank you. If it leads to anything, you'll be the first to know.”

Ten seconds later the telephone rang. “Have you found the article yet?” Did Woodling have a sixth sense?

“Yes, I have – but I can't see it producing any leads.”

“You never can tell. Send it anyway. The picture of the dead woman should be on your desk shortly.”

The continuing plight of veterans of the Great War had made a great impression on Johnny. His article had prompted a flurry of letters – full of concern from do-gooders and platitudes from politicians – but had changed precisely nothing. Those with only physical wounds were cared for in hospitals around the capital, including Richmond, whereas those with psychological wounds were sent to Friern Barnet. Many of the patients also had physical wounds: they had lost arms and/or legs as well as their minds. Some were in straitjackets in padded cells; some rocked back and forth in wheel-chairs, drool trickling down their chins; and some were stupefied with drugs. However, others had seemed quite sane and proved capable of holding a decent conversation – for a while at least. Johnny concluded that the only reason they were in the original booby hatch fifteen years after the armistice had been signed was because they had no one to care for them or nowhere else to go. The article had appeared under the headline, THE HIDDEN COST OF WAR.