Snow Hill (8 page)

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. He could not be more than six feet away now.

He would have to punch him in the balls and run like hell.

Eleven. Twelve. He could hear him breathing. His own lungs, meanwhile, were about to burst. Sweat prickled his upper lip and armpits.

Thirteen. Fourteen. The cop sniffed. Paper rustled.

The point of the knife pricked his skin just above the Adam’s apple.

“Keep your eyes shut.”

Hot breath brushed his left ear. He concentrated on
trying not to swallow. Seconds passed. Was this how he was going to die? Stabbed in a back alley reeking of piss? This was not how it was supposed to be: he had not got where he was going, still had many things to achieve. Promotion, a novel, a wife and lots of kids. Well, what was the bastard waiting for?

The knife moved. Johnny, full of fury, braced himself.

However, the cop did not kill him.

He kissed him.

I had to do it—he left me no choice. He started babbling as soon as he saw the hat-pin. He was on his knees straight away—invert that he was, he’d already spent half his miserable life on them, begging for it—but I wasn’t in the mood for forgiveness or anything else.

He swore he hadn’t tipped off Steadman, promised he’d given nothing away. I almost believed him.

When I produced the knife, he stopped squealing. He was crying as I made him strip, snivelling like some little kid. His cock shrivelled to almost nothing. Fear or the cold? Both most likely. It actually grew afterwards—which made it easier to slice off. The blood was so hot.

I can still hear him screaming.

Steadman’s a lucky blighter. I thought he’d cop it for sure. Didn’t expect anyone to be on the scene that time
in the morning. He must have a guardian angel. We’ll see.

The murder
might
stop him sniffing around. I doubt it, though. Most likely there’ll have to be another mishap…and I won’t leave anything to chance next time.

The man’s tongue was in his mouth before he knew it. An image of Gogg’s severed penis slid into his mind. He jerked his head away and retched. Why the hell would a cop do that? His terror turned to rage. He spat savagely at his assailant but the pervert was already making his getaway, whistling a familiar tune which, for the moment, Johnny could not name.

A clink and a clatter echoed down the alley. The knife had been dropped—or discarded. Johnny wiped his cracked lips with the back of his hand. He supposed he ought to go and check.

The alley became even narrower as it neared its end. He found the knife by kicking it. He hated to think what his peeled fingers were touching as he groped about on the filthy ground. He took off his muffler—a present from Lizzie last Christmas—and picked up the knife with it.

Back in St John Street he stood beneath a lone gas-light and examined the blood-stained blade. He shuddered. It was a butcher’s knife, about ten inches long, and very sharp. The blood was no doubt that of Harry Gogg.

Why had the cop thrown the murder weapon away? If the men he had seen were responsible for Harry’s death, why on earth had such incriminating evidence been left for him to find? Did they
want
to be caught?

His mind was racing but he could not think about it now. He was shaking with exhaustion. Shock and the cold, plus his hangover and lack of sleep, were taking their toll. He did not have the energy to trail all the way home then back to the office.

The Cock would be opening soon. There he’d find warmth and safety in numbers. Wrapping the knife in the muffler, he carefully placed it in an inside pocket of his overcoat. It was an awkward fit. The blade had to point upwards otherwise it moved around too much. He would just have to make sure he did not fall on it.

He could not face going through Passing Alley again so he trudged down to Peter’s Lane. Already he could hear the shriek of the first freight trains of the day pulling into Farringdon. The fumes from the gin distillery in Turnmill Street hung heavily in the damp air.

By the time he re-emerged into Cowcross Street, the tramp had disappeared. A single policeman was on guard duty at the entrance to Green Hill’s Rents. A group of his colleagues were standing outside the cold-store, which was now ablaze with light.

Pulling up his collar to hide his face, Johnny walked
by on the other side. When a black van pulled up at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, the constable waved it on.

The meat market was in full swing. The big hand of the clock in Grand Avenue now pointed north-east. A lot had happened in forty minutes. The recreation ground where he had first spoken to Harry was deserted.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to tell Harry that the body he had helped to move was that of a cop. The knowledge that he was involved in serious skulduggery must have spooked the boy. Harry could have told someone that a newshound was sniffing around—and if it was the person who had paid him to dispose of the corpse, they might have decided to shut his pretty mouth for ever.

“Look what the cat’s dragged in!” Dolly regarded him with a mixture of amusement and concern. The few early customers smiled into their beer. Johnny sat on the same stool that he had occupied almost twenty-four hours before. “What on earth have you been up to?” She nodded at his coat, which he could now see was smeared with streaks of green and brown filth.

“Don’t ask. I’ll have a wazzer please.”

“First things first. Come on, take it off.”

“It’s all right, thanks. I’ll drop it off at the cleaners on my way to work.”

“Oh no you won’t. What’ll you wear in the meantime? You’ll catch your death in this weather.”

She was right. He was such an idiot. He should have hidden the knife or, better still, handed it to the cop on sentry duty. It was too late now.

There was nothing else for it. Dolly looked honest enough—not the type to go through a bloke’s pockets. He undid the buttons.

“What’s that on your neck? Looks like blood to me. Cut yourself shaving?”

He handed the coat to her over the bar. “I’ll go and clean myself up.”

“I should think so too. Those hands are a disgrace.”

The wazzer was waiting for him when he returned from the Gents. He concentrated on not spilling it. The hot tea tasted like nectar. His shakes slowly subsided.

“There you are!” The landlady slammed a full English breakfast down in front of him. “Get that inside you.”

Food, especially meat, was the last thing on his mind, but he was too tired to argue. He started slowly but soon picked up speed as the salt and spices aroused his appetite. It felt obscene to be stuffing his face after what he had just seen, yet the hot meal reminded him that he was still alive.

He so easily might not have been.

Dolly looked on with approval. He washed the last of the grease down with the dregs of the wazzer.

“Another one?”

“Please.”

She picked up the plate and went off to the kitchen. “Stella? You done with that coat yet? Stella! Where are you?”

“Here you are.”

Johnny spun round. His eyes met those of a girl. They were dazzlingly green and fringed with long, dark lashes.
The day had hardly begun, yet she seemed all set for a night on the town.

“What’s up? Never seen a beautiful woman before?”

“One or two,” said Johnny with as much nonchalance as he could muster—which was not much. He stood up and put his coat back on. “Thank you, it’s as good as new.” He patted his pockets.

“Don’t worry, the knife’s still there.”

A smile played on her full red lips. He wanted to kiss them. Before he could think of what to say, they were interrupted.

“I see you’ve met my Stella,” said Dolly. “She’s not a bad girl. Considers herself too good for this place though.” The landlady winked.

“She is,” said Johnny.

“Don’t say it.” The green eyes bored into him.

“What?”

“Let me take you away from all this—or words to that effect.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You must’ve heard every chat-up line going.” He cleared his throat. His life had suddenly become a surreal series of misadventures. What else could possibly happen to him? He had nothing to lose. “So how about letting me take you to dinner to say thank you? Anywhere you like. I wouldn’t mind being taken to the cleaners by you.”

“Okay.”

He tried to mask his astonishment by fishing a business card out of his wallet but only succeeded in dropping it at her feet. They both knelt down to retrieve it.

Out of sight of her mother, she blew him a kiss. “Monday night. Six o’clock. Pick me up here. If you’re a second late you’ll be sorry.” Then she swanned out of the bar.

“So tell me, Mr Journalist,” said Dolly. “Did you get what you wanted from Harry Gogg?”

The question brought him down to the ground with a bump.

“’Fraid not. Nice lad, though.”

Dolly nodded sagely. The spaghetti hair swayed.

“He is. Harry’s a lovely boy, no harm to anyone. It’s a shame the police won’t leave him alone.”

The lift-boy raised his eyebrows when he asked for the seventh floor. Galley-slaves like Johnny did not visit the bridge very often.

The first time he’d entered the editor’s suite had been the day he joined the
News
; like all new employees he’d been summoned up to receive a welcoming handshake.

The second time he’d got a pat on the back to congratulate him on becoming a junior reporter, a reward for a series of articles on childhood poverty which Captain Vic had found “both passionate and pioneering”. The series had generated a lot of comment and not a jot of change.

The last time he crossed the carpeted expanse he’d been given a bottle of champagne—the paper had an excellent, extensive wine cellar—and promoted to the post of fully-fledged crime reporter. His exclusive about the drugs ring at Bart’s had caused a sensation and had been much appreciated by the high-ups. He was told
he had a great career ahead of him—and then he went back downstairs where Patsel promptly sent him into exile at the Old Bailey.

Johnny was determined that his current investigation would prove to be his means of escape.

The well-appointed calm of the top deck was in stark contrast to the raucous chaos of the engine rooms below. It housed, in addition to the editor’s suite, the proprietor’s apartment, six offices for senior management and their secretaries, and a boardroom with a table the length of a cricket pitch.

At 6.30 a.m. there was no sign of the snooty brunette who controlled access to the editor. Johnny thought he could hear grunting coming from the other side of the door. He knocked anyway.

“Enter!”

As the door swung open, Johnny was confronted by the sight of the editor, wearing nothing but a pair of soiled combinations, hanging upside down from a set of wall-bars. Sweat dripped on to the carpet.

“Ah, Steadman. What can I do for you?” he panted, immediately resuming his workout.

Victor Stone was a dedicated newsman who burned off excess nervous energy with callisthenics. “Beauty hurts” was one of his favourite catchphrases. Rumour had it that he and his wife were committed members of the Open-Air Tourist Society—which meant they spent their holidays running around with no clothes on. Bill reckoned it was how they got their OATS. Whether this was true or not, worshipping the sun had
certainly given Stone a Mediterranean complexion—and his darker skin made his teeth appear even whiter. He claimed to be forty-five but looked much younger, especially when he was surrounded by his grey-haired superiors.

Johnny told him about the tip-off, his meeting with Harry Gogg, his murder and mutilation, the attempt on his own life and the knife.

He did not tell him about his encounter with the policeman in the alley. He could not get it out of his mind. The one consolation was that nobody need ever know. Why had the cop kissed him? Had he known whom he was kissing? Did he think he was a shirt-lifter? Thinking about it, Johnny found it hard to resist the urge to spit.

“Almost done.”

Stone embarked on a final set of chin-ups. Johnny, unsure what his story amounted to, or what his editor would make of it, took the opportunity to inspect the room more closely.

There was little to show that this office housed a member of the fourth estate. Rather, it resembled the library of a stately home. Two of its walls were lined with leather-bound books. Busts of famous authors surmounted the shelves: he was gratified to spot Dickens standing shoulder to shoulder with Tennyson and Thackeray. The huge double-pedestal desk was lit by a brass lamp with a green, opalescent glass shade. Its surface, inlaid with tooled green leather, boasted an eau-de-nil leather blotter, olivine pen-stand and no less than
four Bakelite telephones, all of which were black. A chesterfield, set against the front, prevented anyone getting too close. The three square windows, their baize blinds still drawn against the December darkness, looked down on a table and eight chairs. Next to them stood a pair of drawing-boards, still spread with pages from the previous day’s final edition.

Stone, his exercise routine completed, dropped to the floor. The telephones tinkled faintly. He grabbed a towel from the back of a chair and rubbed himself down.

“So there are two dead men, one of whom was definitely murdered, and you’ve only a hunch that their deaths are connected. Since you were the man on the spot I’m going to let you write up Gogg’s killing—but leave out any mention of your own involvement and the other death. The murder of a male tart is a great story, but it won’t cause much of an outcry.”

“The murder of a cop would, sir.”

“Indeed. Unfortunately, apart from the anonymous tip-off, you don’t have any evidence that the body delivered to Bart’s by Harry Gogg and his mystery accomplice was a cop’s—or that he was actually murdered. You’ll have to dig around some more before we can run anything on that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s suppose, just for a moment, that your hunch is correct. What d’you think this cop was up to that landed him in the morgue?”

“I’ve no idea, sir. Maybe nothing at all.”

“No one, especially a cop, is totally innocent. I know
you, Steadman. You can’t read someone’s copy month after month and not get an insight into their character. You instinctively saw the dead man as a victim, didn’t you? This is another opportunity for you to champion the underdog, to rage against the cruel workings of faceless authority. But there are other possibilities. The bluebottle may have been a bad ’un who ended up being squashed when one of his scams went wrong.”

“He was naked, sir.”

“Was he now? Perhaps he was stripped afterwards to hide his identity. Perhaps he was attacked at home in bed. Perhaps he was blackmailing someone who couldn’t pay any more. Perhaps he fell out with an accomplice who came after him seeking revenge. Find the motive and you’ll find the killer. The connection with Gogg may be pure coincidence.”

“I don’t think so, sir,” said Johnny. “Surely the fact that the death has not been reported is suspicious? If it was a cop, bent or otherwise, Scotland Yard could have issued a press release full of the usual lies and that would have probably been the end of the matter. They’d have been quick enough to put out a statement if he’d died in the line of duty. Everyone loves a dead hero.” He shook his head. “No. Something, somewhere’s not right. I can feel it in my bones. Bill Fox was told that a cop had been sacked, but I’ve now heard from two sources at Snow Hill that the only officer unaccounted for was a rookie cop who transferred to the Met. Which is it? Someone certainly doesn’t want the truth to come out: why try and kill me otherwise?”

“They might have just been trying to scare you off. After all, you’re here now.”

Johnny nodded. That would explain why the cop had not killed him in the alley—after all, there would have been no witnesses, and had he used the knife instead of just holding it to Johnny’s throat it would all have been over in a matter of seconds. Of course, it still didn’t explain why the cop had kissed him.

Stone began undoing the buttons on his vest. He strode over to the bookshelves and pressed a copy of Ruskin’s
Sesame and Lilies
. A hidden door sprang open to reveal a small, black-and-white tiled bathroom. It was not unknown for him to conduct editorial meetings from his bathtub.