Snow Hill (7 page)

“
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.

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.

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 stand 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.

“Are you okay?” His strength was astonishing.

“I am now,” said Johnny. However, as soon as Matt let go, his knees buckled.

Matt, expecting this, was ready to catch him. He lay him down on the floor and roughly rubbed his limbs to increase the circulation.

“My head hurts,” groaned Johnny. It was as if someone were twisting a knife in his eye. “How did you find me?”

“There was a tip-off about a burglary planned for tonight. This place is on my beat,” said Matt. “I found the doors open and decided to wait and see what came out. I stood in a doorway, had a spit and draw, then you came along. Didn’t know it was you, of course. Thought you were a sneak thief. After a bit, when you didn’t come out, I thought I’d better investigate.”

“Didn’t you see anyone else leave?”

“No.”

“Then where’s the person who shut me in?”

They looked round anxiously. Johnny’s teeth would not stop chattering.

“Here.” Matt produced a hip-flask. “It used to be my father’s. Only thing that gets me through nights like this.”

“Don’t get caught.”

Commissioner Turnbull of the Metropolitan Police had recently sacked two frost-bitten constables for
having a cup of tea in the street. Turnbull thought he was God and acted accordingly. While his men could be fired for “idling and gossiping”, rumour had it that Turnbull himself got away scot-free after he threw scalding water over his long-suffering wife to “teach her a lesson”.

“Don’t you worry about me. Stay here. I’ll go and have a butcher’s.”

“Ha, bloody, ha.” The whisky burned its way to his stomach. “Matt, don’t go. There’s something you should see here first. A porter called Harry Gogg’s been murdered. He’s in there.”

Matt turned on all the lights in the freezer and, glancing back to check that he was not being had, crossed its threshold. He did not trip as Johnny had.

Johnny remained shivering on the stone floor and took another sip. He heard Matt take three tentative steps on the duckboards then stop. He did not say a word.

Johnny pictured the scene back in St Bartholomew-the-Great just twenty-four hours earlier, saw Harry grinning at his frustration, his brown eyes sparkling with life; his brawny body radiating health. Now he was just so much dead meat: his own balls stuffed in his mouth.

Anger surged through him. Johnny clambered to his feet, wincing at his stiffness, and hobbled over to the door.

Matt was staring at the corpse. He was no stranger to death: year in, year out children were crushed by
cartwheels, workers were mangled by machinery, floaters were fished out of the Thames and tramps found frozen to the ground. Murder, though, was different. It had its own gruesome glamour.

“Matt?”

He turned round. Instead of being pale and calm as expected, he was flushed and excited.

“Did you touch him?” His voice was shaking.

“Not bloody likely.”

“Good. You better get out of here now that you can stand on your own two feet. I must report this right away. Should be worth a few brownie points. I can’t believe my luck. My first murder case!”

“Matt, the boy’s dead. It’s hardly a cause for celebration.”

“I know that. You don’t have a monopoly on compassion. I’d given up nicking the poor sod. He spent more time in the toilets under the market than he did in it. Being sorry won’t help him now. I want to find out who killed him—and who tried to kill you.” Johnny was shocked. The rent-boy had been nothing like the nancies he usually saw snivelling in the dock.

“He and an accomplice were paid to take a body to Bart’s early on Sunday morning,” said Johnny, realising for the first time that he had lost his only lead. “He was going to tell me everything. It must have been the dead cop.”

“Well, you’re wrong there,” said Matt with barely suppressed irritation. “The wolly who got transferred to the Met is called George Aitken. He’s a fine chap—from
Aberdeen, I think.” Men were often recruited from outside the capital: farm-hands and soldiers had better lungs than those who had grown up in the Smoke. “We were in the same tug-of-war team. He called me yesterday afternoon to say goodbye. I did warn you that the tip-off sounded dodgy. Just drop it: someone’s pulling your leg.”

Johnny was surprised—and disappointed. He had been so sure he was on to something.

“Whose body was it then? Why has someone choked Harry with his own cock?” The very idea made his gorge rise. “And why did someone try to kill me? I nearly died, for Christ’s sake.” His rage returned. The blood surging through his veins felt good.

“Calm down. You were only in there for ten minutes or so. You’ll be okay. We’ll get the killer, just you see if we don’t. You wanted an exclusive and now you’ve got one.”

He was right: Gogg’s murder would still make a good story.

“Sorry. You saved my life and I haven’t even thanked you.”

They shook hands. The shadows under Matt’s eyes were darker than ever. Johnny felt a pang of sympathy for his friend. However, this was not the time to try and persuade him to see Dr Meikle.

“Go on. Get out of here. I won’t mention your involvement unless I have to. I take it you’re unwilling to make a statement at this stage?”

Johnny nodded. “Let’s meet up over the weekend.”

“It’ll be difficult. All leave’ll be cancelled. The detective squad will need help with their enquiries.”

“You’ll let me know what happens, won’t you?” Johnny did not want Simkins queering his pitch.

“If I can.”

They went upstairs to the ground floor. A startled man in a white coat came beetling towards them.

Matt blocked his path. “Morning, sir. May I use your telephone? There’s no call to be alarmed.”

Johnny left him to it and emerged into a world he had not been meant to see.

In the event, he could not see much. The mist had thickened so much it was like swimming through porridge. His clothes, already damp with melted frost, seemed to soak up the moisture. The cold seeped back into his bones.

Blast! He had left his hat in the freezer. It was too risky to go back to retrieve it now. He quickened his pace, hoping to stave off the cold that way, and hurried towards home and a hot cup of tea.

As he approached the mouth of the cul-de-sac he heard a low muttering. He slowed down, stepping softly. Poking his head round the corner he could make out two men, standing at the far corner. Johnny crept closer, trying not to give himself away.

“Do it, damn you!” said the taller of the two.

The other man took something from him and headed off towards Farringdon. The one who had spoken pulled up his collar and took off in the direction of Smithfield, which, judging by the noise, had already come to life.

There was a little more light in Cowcross Street. Johnny realised the shorter man was wearing police uniform. He had no choice: he had to follow him.

Making no allowance for the fog, the cop charged on up St John’s Lane, leaving murky swirls in his wake.

As Johnny followed, a pile of paraffin rags in the doorway of an ironmonger’s assumed the bleary form of a tramp. The man grunted and tried to sit up. A battle-scarred moggie escaped from his arms with a yowl.

The rapid footsteps ahead of him suddenly became muffled. The cop had turned into Passing Alley. Within seconds of entering the dark passageway, Johnny was reminded of its former name—Pissing Alley—which had been amended to something more respectable by the prudish Victorians. Human nature was harder to change: men still used the snicket as a urinal. In summer the stench was overpowering, but even in winter a persistent tang hung in the air.

Johnny would have held his nose except that he needed both hands to guide himself. It was an unusually long passage, so narrow that it was impossible to pass someone coming in the opposite direction without rubbing up against them. Women tended to avoid the place.

Although the fog could not penetrate the gap between the five-storey buildings, it was pitch black in the cut-through. Slimy brick walls closed in on him. His head began to throb. The claustrophobia, which had threatened to overwhelm him in the cold-store, returned. Should he go back?

Johnny stared ahead, straining his eyes to make out any sort of shape in the dancing darkness. Nothing. There was no light at the end of the ginnel.

The footsteps stopped. Johnny froze. For a moment there was silence then the footsteps started again.

This time they were coming towards him.

Johnny turned and began to retrace his steps. A bad move: he was making too much noise and, if the cop had suspected he was being followed, this would only have served to confirm his suspicions.

Heart thumping, Johnny halted and prepared to confront his quarry.

He counted the slow, deliberate steps.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. They stopped.

The cop was listening. If Johnny could not see anything, neither could he.

Johnny held his breath and prayed that the cop would not come any closer. He should have known better.