Willing Flesh
Page 28
‘Strange,’ says Asquith. ‘All my days, I have peered into the past, but this is now, isn’t it? They will come here, to the scene of this murder.’
‘She’s not dead. And how would you know it’s murder?’
‘This will be history.’ Asquith looks as if he can’t quite fathom a common truth, or his father’s name; certainly can’t grasp that he will be a part of somebody else’s visitations.
‘Go,’ says Staffe. He watches Asquith disappear down the tunnel, towards the streets and libraries, the hospitals and homes. Water drips, and the rats constantly scuttle and scratch. They say you are never more than twelve feet from a rat on the London streets. Beneath, you’re amongst them. He tries to imagine what it would have been like for the woman down here.
How long had she been below ground? Who had brought her and why had they done what they did: the blow to the head, the scratch marks on her arms, and all the blood – down there, caked on the tops of her thighs and smeared on her stomach. Her lip was lacerated, too. The doctor reckoned the woman had probably bitten through it herself.
He shivers, pulls his jacket tight around him and the tunnel becomes coffin black once again as the light from Asquith’s torch fades completely. The iron door slams shut again. It feels final.
Staffe turns on his torch, its batteries weak, or a failed contact. The weak beam stutters as he casts around the scene, flickering on the dark stain of blood on the ground, where her legs had made their confluence. ‘Damn,’ he says, aloud, hearing his own echo, praying she survives; that whoever did this can be caught.
He makes his way, piecing together a critical path he will follow, but he catches his boot on a discarded tool box and falls, into the harsh dark, landing on an elbow, grazing his hand on the wet stone floor.
As he reaches the iron door, his torch fails and he reaches, feels for the latch in the black, grazing his fingers and knuckles. He remembers a promise he had made for today, finds the latch, heaves the door. Daylight falls through the shaft, like weak water and for a moment, it blinds him.
Above ground, it is a fine, spring day, a pleasant surprise for the city folk who are out, shirt-sleeved, bare-legged. Staffe carries his jacket slung over a shoulder, and walks past the entrance to Leadengate and past the Hand and Shears, stolen away in the shadow of Saint Bartholomew’s flint Church. He is sorely tempted, but instead makes his way up to the hospital of the same name. Pushing open the swing doors, he rubs his elbow, grimaces.
*
‘What are her chances?’ says Staffe, looking past his Detective Sergeant to the woman in bed. In the hospital light, blue-white, her skin like wax, and against the brilliant white starch of ward linen, the dying woman seems in a far worse state – as if you could hear the sub-audio screams of her bruises and cuts in this harsh and clean environment, where there is no thing such as chance. Back in the tunnel, it had seemed as if she might be saved by apothecary, faith, or some alien dimension.
‘Touch and go. More go than touch.’
‘Has she said anything?’
Pulford shakes his head. Both men angle towards the woman, neither wanting to get too close. ‘We have had the ID confirmed, sir – from her prints.’
‘She’s got a record?’
‘Strange, isn’t it, sir? When they’re naked and beaten up and put between those sheets and fed on a drip, their history counts for nothing. Could be hooked on the crack pipe or pulling in a million a year in the City.’
‘What kind of record does she have?’
‘Benefit fraud. And ABH.’
‘ABH?’
‘Against the dad.’
‘The dad? There’s kids?’
‘Oh yes. But the kids are in care. And the doctors reckon there’s another one, a baby. They reckon she’s had a baby, just.’
‘What!’ Staffe looks at her, remembers the smeared blood and what he thought were wounds. ‘She had a baby down in the tunnel?’
‘Forensics have been in, but there’s no signs of a placenta or …’
‘Christ! We’ve got to speak to this poor woman.’
‘She tried to get a termination, sir. She was on the books here, as it happens, but they sent her away. She was too late.’
‘When was this?’
‘Months ago.’
‘This could be a back street job gone wrong.’
‘The doctors can’t say.’
‘What’s she called?’
‘Kerry. Kerry Degg.’
Staffe sits beside the woman, takes her hand in his, careful not to disturb the drips that tunnel their way into her veins. Life dripping into her, dripping away. ‘What kind of animal would take her down there?’
‘Perhaps she went in herself. Forensics say she could have been down there a couple of days. But no more. There’s no, you know …’
‘Excrement,’ Staffe sighs. ‘And when did the baby happen? Can they say?’
‘She’s haemorrhaged pretty badly, sir. They say they need to keep her stable. They can’t go into that. Not yet. Not until she’s better; or …’
Staffe tries to imagine what might make a woman go to such a place to have a baby. ‘And the husband?’
‘Sean. They’ve been married six years, since she was seventeen. He’s thirty six and clean as a whistle.’
‘We’ll see about that.’ Staffe reaches out, squeezes her hand, as firmly as he dare, to see if her eyes will flicker or her pulse change. But she is dead to his attentions, for now.
He studies her, clinging onto life, having issued life; having had cause to attack Sean Degg, her husband of six years; having been deemed unfit to hold onto her own children. And as he gazes at her, stripped of all make-up and her jet black hair combed flat, lank, something inside him stirs. He thinks he might know her.
Staffe turns to his young sergeant. ‘It makes you wonder whether what we do is for the best.’
About the Author
Adam Creed was born in Salford and read PPE at Balliol College Oxford before working for Flemings in the City. He abandoned his career to study writing at Sheffield Hallam University, following which he wrote in Andalucia then returned to England to work with writers in prison. He is now Head of Writing at Liverpool John Moores University and Project Leader of Free To Write. He has a wife and two beautiful daughters.
Willing Flesh is the second novel in the D. I. Staffe series.
By the Same Author
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
Copyright
First published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2010
All rights reserved
© Adam Creed, 2010
The right of Adam Creed to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–25864–2
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twen
ty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
Boxing Day
Extract from Book 3 in the D. I. Staffe series
About the Author
By the Same Author
Copyright