The Mushroom Man dcp-2

by Stuart Pawson

  Silence.

  "I say again, this is Charlie Palooka with an urgent message to Heckley Control. Answer the goddamn radio, Arthur."

  I flicked the switch off and on and pressed the 'speak' button, but wasn't even rewarded with a hiss of static. I'd have to use the mobile phone in the car.

  As I stepped off the curb my left foot went into a pothole filled with water. It came over my ankle and filled my shoe.

  "Bugger!" I cursed, shaking my soaking foot. "Bugger-bloody-damn!"

  "And fuck!" I added for good measure.

  "Arthur, why can't I reach you on my radio?" I snapped, when he answered the phone.

  "Sorry, Mr. Priest. We could hear you. You must have another faulty radio. The transmit button sticks in when it's wet. What was all the cursing about?"

  "I stepped in a puddle. Up to my knee. I'll have to go home to change my shoes. Look, Arthur, these radios should have been sorted weeks ago." I was annoyed about it, and having one cold foot didn't help.

  "We thought they had been. All the new ones were sent back and modified."

  "It's not good enough. I'll have words with the supplier. A fault like this could cost someone's life."

  "You're right, boss. Put it in your pocket, then it won't get left in the car."

  I retrieved it from the glove box where I'd tossed it. "OK. Now listen to this. I want an APW broadcasting for Rhoda Flannery, home address: forty-nine Attlee Towers, Heckley; driving a grey 1988 Ford Fiesta. You've got the number."

  "Will do, Mr. Priest. What's it about?"

  "She's the Mushroom Man."

  "Sheest! Are you sure?"

  I ignored the question. "Suspect is armed with a shotgun, and very dangerous. On no account to be approached by unarmed officers. I'm outside Attlee Towers now. Can you have someone here as soon as possible? Oh, and inform Mr. Wood."

  Five minutes later a local patrol car joined me, and said that an ARV was on its way. I pointed out Rhoda's flat to them and gave strict instructions that they were to wait for the armed officers if she came back. I said I was going home to change my shoes and would then go to the station. It could be a long day.

  I reversed the car into my drive, so I could make a fast getaway if anybody rang. It felt cold inside the house, and I was chilled through. The radiators weren't on at that time of day, so I turned the gas fire fully on and pulled the easy chair closer. I kept my jacket on, but removed my shoes and socks so I could toast my feet. There was a draught on my neck, so I sank lower into the chair. When I'd thawed out I'd make a drink and a sandwich. Meanwhile, I'd just relax and let the others do the running around. It was out of my hands.

  Well, I thought it was.

  This was my parents' house, inherited by me after they died. Dad was a do-it-yourself freak. He'd installed the central heating, years ago, and made a good job of it. Except for one small thing. In the hallway, under the carpet, there is a trap door that gives access to the circulating pump. It creaks every time you walk over it. He'd tried to fix it and so had I, but without success. As I sat there, warming my feet, it creaked. Somebody was inside the house.

  That was why it was cold: one of the windows was open. I reached out and picked the phone up from the coffee table alongside my chair. It was dead. I delved into my inside pocket for the radio, but just as I touched it the door flew open.

  The ridiculous and the terrifying are sometimes just a hair's-breadth apart. She was wearing a man's suit that was two sizes too large for her even before her body had been wasted by disease, topped off by a trilby hat. She would have looked as if she were auditioning for the Artful Dodger had it not been for the gaunt face, dotted with sores that would never heal because her immune system was gone. And the sawn-off shotgun. The Dodger never carried a shotgun.

  "Who the hell are you?" I said. I knew the answer, but would never have recognised her.

  "Put your hands where I can see them," she croaked, 'and say a quick prayer, before I blow your fucking head off." Her voice was a cackle, like she had a throat full of eggshells.

  "It's Rhoda, isn't it?" I said.

  "And you're the late Charlie Priest." She pointed the shotgun at me.

  It focuses the attention like nothing I'd experienced before. Keep 'em talking, the book said.

  "Why?" I asked. God! Was that the best I could do? "Don't you think I deserve an explanation?" Marginally better.

  "What explanation did you give Don?" she hissed.

  "Don committed murder," I told her. "He knew what was coming; bore no grudges. It was my job to put him away, and I did it."

  "He was innocent. He wouldn't lie to me. You didn't get him life, you gave him a death sentence." She was shrieking now. "Do you know what it was like? A hundred men sharing a needle, passing it from cell to cell for a month until someone brought a new one in? He didn't deserve what he got in there."

  I was hopelessly off balance, sprawled in the armchair with my arms dangling over the sides. I pulled my feet back against the seat as I spoke: "Nobody deserves that, Rhoda. Least of all you."

  "What do you care? Look at this!" she screamed, flinging her hat into the corner. The red mane had gone, replaced by a patchwork of weeping lesions. I felt myself recoil at the sight. "Well, we got it, whether we deserved it or not, and now you get yours." She levelled the gun at me.

  "What about the others, Rhoda? Did they deserve what they got?"

  "Ah! Them," she scoffed. The gun swung a couple of degrees away from me as she threw her head back and laughed. I drew my hands in, placing them on the chair arms.

  "Yes, them. What had they done to you?"

  She could barely control her laughter, the gun waving about alarmingly, sometimes pointing at me, sometimes not.

  "Nothing!" she declared. "They'd done nothing to me. Don't you see, that's what makes it so perfect."

  "I don't understand."

  "You're the fucking detective. The Top Cop: She taunted me with the words. "Tell me, then, Mr. Top Cop, what's the perfect murder?"

  "Er, I don't know. One that nobody knows has been committed, I suppose."

  "Close, but not quite. One without a motive, that's the perfect murder. I had no reason to kill them. You were just the next in the line. Four proper priests, then you. I was going to kill another person called Priest, just to sew things up, then I could die happy.

  Unfortunately that stuck-up bitch you go out with got in the way. That was a laugh when I found out she was a bishop's wife." She chuckled and grinned, revealing brown teeth with gaps at the sides of her mouth.

  She reminded me of the skull on the window of number 48. I flinched at her words, but used the movement to curl my fingers over the ends of the chair arms. I was as poised as I'd ever be.

  "Rhoda," I said, as softly and calmly as I could, 'there's been too much killing. You've had a raw deal, but this won't solve anything.

  You could have treatment. They've drugs now that could help you. Put the gun down."

  "There's no treatment for this!" she cried, pointing at her head. She leaned back against the wall and I could see that her cheeks were glistening with tears. "I said I'd wait for him. I had a job and a flat. We could still have had kids, that's all I ever wanted. It wasn't much, was it?"

  "Kids," I sighed. "That's all I ever wanted, too. But it wasn't to be."

  "Still…" she said, and the steel was back in her voice and the gun wasn't wavering any more, 'killing you will make me feel better for a couple of days."

  "What about the first two? Were they really you?" The words tumbled out and I wondered if any of our conversation was being transmitted. It would make riveting listening in the control room.

  "Ah!" she snorted. "I saw a headline over someone's shoulder. It said: "Priest killed. Was it murder?" For a glorious moment I thought it was you. My heart leapt. I got off the bus a stop early to call at the news agent I wept when I read it was only some crumby vicar."

  There was a scrunch of gravel under tyres from the road outside. A look o
f panic flickered across her face and the gun steadied, pointing at my head. "Neighbours," I said. "They come and go all the time." I eased myself up slightly. "So what about the second one? Did you do him?"

  "No, he just fell down the tower. That's when I got the idea, though.

  I liked the thought of some religious nut knocking off priests." Her shoulders bobbed up and down with amusement.

  They'd surround the house; listen at the windows; then try to make contact, probably by ringing the doorbell. "But the next two were all your own work," I said.

  "All my own work," she boasted. "And now it's your turn."

  "Where did you get the name, Destroying Angel?"

  "I know all about mushrooms. Which are good, which are bad. I've always liked that one."

  "I thought they were poisonous?"

  "No more talking." She levelled the gun. "Kiss your arse goodbye, Charlie Priest '

  TRIIIING! The doorbell!

  I went in hard and curving. First to the right, towards her but away from the gun, then up for it. Her eyes had flickered towards the sound of the bell, and for a tenth of a second she couldn't decide whether to swing the gun away from my grasping hand or try to blast me with it. It was all I needed. My body hit hers and bounced her back against the wall. The fingers of my left hand curled round her wrist, thin as a robin's leg, and lifted it and the gun towards the ceiling. She went for my eyes with her free hand, clawing ribbons of skin from my cheek.

  I jerked my head back and managed to grasp her other wrist. I was a foot taller than her and a few stones heavier. I stretched her arms apart and pinned her to the wall as if she were a petulant child. She was still holding the shotgun.

  "In here! I've got her!" I shouted.

  Then her knee hit me in the balls.

  Forget childbirth the knee in the balls is the most excruciating pain known to mankind. A fireball exploded in my stomach and my knees buckled, as if a scythe had gone through them. I was blinded by agony, but the threat of a twelve-bore is a powerful anaesthetic. Teetering on the edge of blacking out, I concentrated with all the power I possessed on gripping that right wrist. Outside, the door glass was shattering and wood splintering. With a desperate effort I swung her away from the wall and kicked her legs from under her. She fell over backwards. As she hit the floor I collapsed my legs so that my entire weight fell mercilessly on top or her. Our faces were touching as I did so, and her breath erupted in a volcanic torrent into my face. I turned my head sideways to escape it, and she sank her teeth deep into my ear.

  The cavalry rushed in. They found us on the floor, as if crucified face to face, with my blood and her saliva intermingling and dribbling down her cheek, on to the carpet.

  Chapter 23

  Sparky prised her jaws open with a spoon handle. Once she was off me she allowed the boys in blue to take her away. Sparky cleaned up my ear with a wet cloth whilst I put a tentative hand down my Y-fronts and gingerly explored the contents. He handed me a tea towel and told me to keep it pressed against the side of my head.

  "Well, at least we know what to call you from now on," he said.

  "What?" I groaned.

  "Van Gogh," he replied.

  "I'd have thought Goebbels," suggested Nigel.

  "It's not funny," I snapped, somewhere between laughing and crying.

  "And if you've knackered my front door you can bloody well pay for a new one."

  "You're right, Charlie, it's not funny," Sparky admitted, hooking his hands under my shoulders. "C'mon, let's get you to hospital. Can you stand up?"

  They did some nifty microsurgery on my ear and told me it would soon be as good as new. When they learned that the person who'd bitten me had advanced AIDS they handled me with rubber gloves and spoke in whispers.

  My right testicle looked reasonably normal, but its partner resembled a ripe aubergine. No treatment was offered. "We'll just see how it goes," the doctor said, adding that he'd have another look at the ear in a week. Two nurses, female, said they'd check my goo lies again tomorrow morning.

  In the afternoon a woman in civilian clothes with a comfortable face came to visit me. She had a permanent smile, as if she were dosing her HRT patch with cocaine. She introduced herself and told me she was an AIDS counsellor.

  The gist of it was that I should think carefully before I decided to have a test. Even if it proved negative the fact that I had been tested might lead to difficulties with life insurance or obtaining a mortgage. I should ask myself if I really needed to know.

  "Of course I bloody well need to know," I growled at her.

  In which case, she reassured me, the news was not all bleak it was possible to be HIV positive and not develop the disease for as long as twenty years. As nobody had heard of AIDS that long ago I took this information with a pinch of scepticism. When she went into the bit about anal and oral intercourse I told her I was tired and pulled the blankets over my head. Her parting shot was that everything we had said was confidential. Who told you? I thought. She scared the willies out of me.

  Modern NHS hospitals have a menu system for mealtimes. Every day you are given a list of the following day's dishes, upon which you tick your selections. Unfortunately this means that on your first day you have to have what the previous occupant of the bed chose on his last day. I was following a diabetic rabbit on hunger strike. I vowed revenge on the next hapless soul to lie here.

  Sam Evans came in the evening, bearing a magazine on trout fishing. He looked tired.

  "How did you know I was interested in trout fishing, Sam?" I asked.

  "I didn't. Are you?"

  "Not especially. Wouldn't mind having a go, though."

  "That's what I thought, so it's what I'm prescribing for you. How are you feeling?"

  "Worried."

  "I guessed you might be, so I've been doing some swatting."

  "Just make me one little promise, please," I begged.

  "What's that, Charlie?"

  "To be honest with me."

  He nodded. "OK. Well, the news is not too bad, although it could be better. The basic facts are that if she infected you it will take about eight weeks for you to make sufficient antibodies to be detected by a blood test. That's what we look for, antibodies."

  "So I won't know for another eight weeks?"

  "Afraid not. Plus another week for the test. However, the bright side is that there is no documented case anywhere in the world of AIDS being contracted through a bite. As you know from your work with DNA, there are blood cells in saliva, but the quantity of virus present is infinitesimal, and there is also an agent present that inactivates it.

  That's the good news."

  "However…"

  "However… I've just examined her, Charlie. She's in the hospital wing at Filton Green."

  "You have been busy."

  "It's in a good cause. I can't say I'm happy about what I saw. The disease has affected her brain dementia although I suspect she was on the way before she caught it. You saw the lesions on her face; well, the inside of her mouth is just as bad. Her gums are ulcerated and bleeding. The truth is, Charlie, we know so little about it. Up to today I knew next to nothing. I'd be a liar if I said I thought you were in the clear."

  I pursed my lips and focused on the big paper clip holding my notes at the foot of the bed. "So we sit tight and take the tests in eight weeks," I said.

  "That's right. The risk is slim, extremely slim, but in my judgement it's there."

  He told me that the incidence of HIV and AIDS was relatively low in Yorkshire, and I might receive a more educated assessment from a London doctor, but my brief experience with the counsellor had taught me that peddling optimism was part of the treatment. The biggest part. I trusted Sam.

  There were other illnesses she could have passed on to me, some serious, but they faded into insignificance compared with the big A. As a precautionary measure a cocktail of exotic chemicals was injected into my bloodstream.

  I asked the nurse for something to make
me sleep, and it worked. It was only a pill, unfortunately. After breakfast I made it to the toilet without too much discomfort and removed the bandage from around my head. The ear didn't look too bad, so I put my clothes on and inched my way to the front entrance. I saw a sign pointing to Ward 4B, where Annabelle was, but didn't follow it. In the foyer is a bank of pay phones with the numbers of taxi firms prominently displayed. I rang one, and asked him to take me home. The two nurses were due for a disappointment when they came to make their examination. One of them was black, the other white. How appropriate, I'd thought at the time.

  I locked my door, pulled the phone out and went to bed for nearly two days. Gilbert came round and gave me a telling-off and progress reports on my two murderers. Dewhurst was pulling round but not saying anything, Rhoda was sinking fast and doubtful for standing trial.

  "He came out of jail and passed it on to her. Can you believe it?" I asked.

  Gilbert shook his head.

  "And she still loved him. He did that to her and she still loved him."

  "It's affected her brain," he said. "Apparently it can do that, in a few cases. I don't think she was all there to begin with. And what about you? How do you intend spending your enforced rest?"

  "I think I'll go away for a few days, as soon as I can get about OK.

  Have a change of scenery."

  "Good idea, but what about Annabelle?" ' Annabelle? She's making good progress. I rang about an hour ago." I didn't tell him that I hadn't asked to be put through to her.

  "What about seeing her? I'll take you, if you want."

  I sat and inspected my fingernails for a couple of minutes, before saying: "Gilbert, there's an outside chance that I've been infected. If 11 take eight, nine weeks before we know, one way or the other. I've..

  I've decided not to see Annabelle again until it's all over."

  He sat up, looking shocked.

  I was quite calm. I said: "I'll never let it affect me like it did Rhoda. If I've got it, it's better we finish right now."

  "Does she know?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "When Sam came to see me I asked him to deliver a message. That the woman who shot her was in custody and I was safe, but I'd gone down with this flu bug that's going round, so I was staying away from her. It didn't sound so cheap at the time."