by Paul Finch
But at present there was no one. Not a soul in sight. Which was strange and not a little eerie. It was also inconvenient, as the only way to find the ex-nun would be by asking someone where she was.
Lucy walked forward warily. She’d consciously dressed down for this, putting on jeans, training shoes, an old hoodie and a denim jacket. This wasn’t simply so that she could blend in with the crowd, but to make it look as if she wouldn’t be worth robbing. There’d be many unfortunates here, men and women who through no fault of their own had fallen through the cracks of society, but there’d be addicts too, alcoholics and mentally unstable characters who could turn violent in an instant. That was also why she had an expandable Autolock baton in a special scabbard sewn inside her jacket, a small can of CS spray in one back pocket, and her handcuffs in the other.
At the moment, though, it looked as if she wouldn’t need any of them.
The place was deserted.
She walked on, increasingly puzzled, coming to a derelict railway line so tangled in thorns that she half tripped over it. She followed this into a canyon between the soaring outlines of the two main structures. Concrete platforms now stood on either side, and Lucy climbed onto the one on her left. It was scattered with bottles, cans, food cartons and wastepaper – yet more indications that folk had been living here and probably still were. She glanced behind continually as she ventured along it, still seeing no one, though when she looked left through the various apertures into the warehouse proper – tall, glassless window frames, or even larger gaps where loading-bay doors stood partly open – it was easy to imagine furtive movement in the darkness. She was tempted to shout, to simply call Sister Cassie by her name, but Lucy didn’t think she’d like the way her voice would echo through the labyrinthine concrete.
She pressed on, holding back from switching on her Maglite, as that would indicate that she might be worth attacking after all. Besides, dim but adequate starlight from the narrow strip of sky above showed that she was approaching the end of the platform. A crumbling mass of half-collapsed brickwork was all that remained of the wall in front of her. On her right, down in the pit, she saw railway buffers peeking through the dense, rancid foliage. On her left, an entrance gaped, a corridor of sorts, which appeared to lead into the very guts of the warehouse. She glanced back along the platform to her rear, just to ensure that hostile forces weren’t encroaching from behind.
It wasn’t easy to be sure. Beyond a couple of dozen yards, the dimness obscured much, allowing for optical illusions. What appeared to be someone crawling towards her on all fours, and freezing on the spot when she looked, gradually resolved itself into a crumpled heap of cardboard.
She glanced back into the passage on her left. If it had ever had a door, it was long gone, but it seemed to offer a direct thoroughfare from one side of the building to the other. That was the obvious way to go next, though Lucy wasn’t convinced that it would be sensible. It wasn’t as if she was anticipating trouble – if so, she’d have called for support. The problem here seemed to be that the place was empty. For all that this dark, decayed environment was menacing, she was sure that no one back at the nick would think any less of her if she delayed this thing until daylight tomorrow.
But that was assuming she’d be able to find the time tomorrow, which she wasn’t certain about. Also, she wanted to make progress quickly. Lucy didn’t like knocking things on the head before she’d even tried, and the suspicion that she might be onto something with these so-called disappearances would not go away. She needed answers of some sort, and she needed them promptly.
She stepped forward into the passage and found herself stumbling over broken planks and littered, tattered newspapers, her nostrils filling with a stench like stagnant urine. She became aware that she was passing more entrances, both left and right. It was now so dark that she was forced to switch on her Maglite and shine it through every doorway. In the first she thought she saw a pale face peeking over the top of a mouldy old quilt, only to realise that it was a roundish patch of malodorous fungus on the wall behind. In all the rooms after that, she saw only rusted pipework and bare, moss-covered bricks.
She glanced repeatedly over her shoulder as she proceeded, the rectangle of dimness that was the entry to this passage steadily receding. Another twenty yards further on, she came to a point where the roof and left side of the corridor had collapsed, forming a landslip of rubble on one side. She was shocked – gut-punch shocked – to see a featureless figure perched on top in an apelike crouch.
‘I’m … I’m looking for Sister Cassiopeia,’ she said, thinking it wise not to shine her light up there.
‘Good luck,’ came a whispered response.
Still watching the figure, Lucy pressed on, clambering over fallen bricks and masonry, and now seeing a glint of moonlight ahead. Relieved, she came to a hanging steel door. It was already partly open and screeched the rest of the way when she pushed. It brought her out into another passage, transverse to the one she’d just come through, and much broader. It had a slanted ceiling made from glass panels, though all of these had collapsed, leaving flaking metal frames and jagged fragments. This side of the warehouse caught the moonlight squarely, leaving it bathed in a spectral luminescence, which at least meant that she could switch her torch off and conserve the battery. The wooden wall on the right no longer existed, having been burned, leaving only a charred framework, which made the passage feel more like an arcade. She walked along it a good sixty yards or so, but there was never much to see: more moonlit ruins, more roads to nowhere, more weedy plots of ground.
Then she thought she heard something; the screech of a metal door being forced. She glanced back along the arcade, thinking that she would easily see someone approaching her from behind. The passage had curved, however, so that the last noisy door she had come through was out of sight. Of course, if someone was following her – she couldn’t help thinking about that crouching, apelike figure – it wasn’t necessarily the best idea to hang around and meet them.
She decided to head back now. This had clearly been a futile errand. She had other work to attend to anyway and would simply put out a BOLO, or ‘Be on the Lookout’, for Sister Cassiopeia. A steel-framed doorway a few yards away looked most promising. When she glanced through it, she saw another brick corridor, but with light at the far end. However, she was no more than five yards inside when she realised that a dark figure was coming down it towards her. It came quickly but awkwardly, moving with a horrible seesawing gait; the closer it got, the more of the light at the end it blotted out.
Lucy backed stiffly into the moonlight, thinking that if someone was behind her as well, she might be cut off. Her hands slid under her jacket, fingers caressing the hilt of the baton. She could now hear whoever this was; feet clumping, damp material whisking over bricks and concrete. Before she knew it, she’d retreated to the other side of the arcade. Where once there’d been a timber wall, now there was a drop of seven or eight feet onto heaps of burned, mangled rubbish. Her heels were right on the edge, and she was tottering.
She stopped, risked a glance behind, and then looked back across the arcade – just as a voluminous shape, cowled and cloaked in black, ballooned into sight.
Lucy half-sagged with relief.
Sister Cassie briefly managed to look even more ghostlike than usual, hobbling forward through the moonlight rather than gliding gracefully as she usually did. Consternation was written on her face.
‘Lucy, Lucy,’ she said admonishingly. ‘I’d heard you’d come here looking for me. For Heaven’s sake, child, whatever possessed you to come into this place on your own?’
Lucy released the baton back into its pouch. ‘I told you I’d come and find you.’
‘Yes, but this dreadful place isn’t safe for a girl like you. Not at night.’
‘Sister … I’m a police officer.’
‘And that’s something else that worries me.’ The ex-nun tut-tutted, eyeing her up and down. ‘A child like you
… in a job like this.’
‘Sister …’ Lucy suppressed her irritation. ‘Your concern is appreciated. But if it’s safe enough for you …’
‘Ahhh, no.’ Sister Cassie wagged a finger. ‘I have an advantage you lack. I commune with the Lord daily. Matins at midnight, Lauds at dawn, Prime at breakfast, Terce in the morning, Sext at Midday, None at mid-afternoon, Vespers in the evening … Compline before bed. I enjoy His full protection.’
‘And what does He feel about your heroin habit? Or the tricks you turn?’
Sister Cassie shook her head with an air of disappointment. ‘You try to express concern for your fellow creatures …’ She turned and limped haughtily along the arcade. ‘It’s our Christian duty to survive, Lucy. Any way we can.’
Lucy fell into step alongside her. ‘Survive? On heroin?’
‘At present, I can’t shake the need. But at least I can suppress it.’
‘Or feed it.’
‘Call it what you will. My medicine enables me to look after my regulars.’
‘What about Fred Holborn? Was he one of your regulars?’
‘Poor Fred.’ Sister Cassie sounded sad but kept on walking, or rather limping. ‘He had an appetite for the carnal pleasures, but at heart he was decent. A ship’s mate in his youth, I believe. Past seventy now. How fallen are the mighty?’
‘Sister, I know you’ve reported Fred Holborn missing. But are you quite sure something bad has happened to him?’
‘It certainly looked bad.’
‘Looked bad?’ Lucy turned, grabbing her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. ‘Sister, did you see something?’
‘Why yes.’ The ex-nun seemed surprised. ‘Did I neglect to mention it?’
‘I’m not sure … I had my mind on other things. But tell me now.’
‘It was here. This very place.’ She veered to the left and a jagged portion of outer wall that hadn’t burned away. At its base, sheets of brown-stained newspaper covered an old mattress. ‘This was where Fred preferred to sleep.’
‘So tell me what happened,’ Lucy said.
‘Well, I was making my nightly rounds.’ Fleetingly, Sister Cassie sounded disapproving. ‘I had considered cutting Fred off my roster because of his lewd behaviour. But …’ She sighed. ‘One mustn’t exaggerate. They were suggestions, not actions. In short, well, to be frank, on one occasion he asked me to—’
‘Sister, I’m not worried about that … just tell me what happened to him. And when.’
‘It was … I’d say a week and a half ago.’
‘As recently as that?’
‘Well, yes. That’s why I remember it so well. It was nine o’clock in the evening. I’d come along to tuck him in, keep him company for a while. I’d managed to scavenge half a pizza which some lout had left on a wall outside an Italian takeaway. A whole half-pizza. I’d already distributed some of it, and there were only a couple of pieces left. I’d made an effort to save one for Fred, though. He’s skin and bone, these days, the poor man. Not that this has tamed his lusty conversation. Oh, dear me, no … some of his comments would even shock a police officer—’
‘I’m sure,’ Lucy cut in. ‘Just tell me what happened.’
The ex-nun pursed her lips. ‘On this occasion, it was a little too much. Especially after I’d saved him a whole slice of pizza. I told him that I was offended. I gave him the whole flask of tea I’d intended to share with him but said that I wasn’t staying with him a moment longer. I was halfway down this path here …’
She moved further along the arcade, coming to a point where a hole had been kicked in the remaining scorched planking. On the other side, rough ground sloped up to the edge of the concrete. A well-trodden footpath snaked down it, cutting through dense weeds near the bottom, before joining another derelict cobbled access road.
‘That’s Canning Crescent down there, I believe,’ the ex-nun said. ‘Or it used to be. Such a shame. When I was teaching—’
‘What happened to Fred?’ Lucy interrupted.
‘Why, he became remorseful. Very much so. He followed me down, limping of course. His poor feet are terribly infected and inflamed. I often change the bandages for him. Sometimes, I can acquire clean ones at the needle exchange on Saddler’s Row.’
‘Sister, please …’
‘Well … when we got down to the bottom here –’ she descended the path, Lucy in her wake ‘– when he caught up with me, which was just about here, this spot, he told me he was sorry. That he hadn’t meant to insult me, and that if it made any difference, the next time I came he would have tried to scrape some money together.’ She tutted again. ‘That was his idea of an apology. He thought that if he offered to buy my favours, I’d somehow be placated. The sad state of these men …’
‘Okay, and …?’
‘I told him I would think about it, but that at present there were other, needier souls I must attend to. So I left him here and walked up this narrow lane.’ She pointed left, to where a ginnel cut away from the cobbled road, curving out of sight between outbuildings. ‘I’d gone maybe forty yards when I heard a motor vehicle engine revving, and a shouting – a loud shouting, as if there was a fight. I hurried back but all I saw when I got here was a vehicle pulling away along Canning Crescent. And no sign of Fred.’
‘A vehicle?’ Lucy said. ‘Had it been parked here when you came down the path?’
‘I didn’t notice it. But as you can see, there’s a shadowy area over there.’ The ex-nun pointed right, and about fifty yards away, a cement ramp tilted down through a square, garage-type aperture into what looked like a subterranean parking zone beneath the warehouse. At this time of night, what little light there was petered out at the entrance, so a vehicle could easily loiter there, just out of sight.
‘Did you see what kind of vehicle it was?’ Lucy asked.
‘Of course. It was a transit van.’
‘A transit van?’ A shiver scurried down Lucy’s spine. ‘What colour?’
Sister Cassie thought this over. ‘Dark. It was dusk, of course, but I’ve always been blessed with good eyesight. I’d say … purple maybe. Or blue. Yes, that’s it. Darkish blue.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember any part of its registration number?’
‘I never remember minor details, I’m afraid.’
‘Okay, fair enough. Look—’
‘Which is why I wrote it down.’
Lucy’s hair prickled. ‘You did?’
‘Well, the first part of it at least.’ The ex-nun rooted in her satchel. ‘I know I put it here somewhere.’
When she finally located it, she’d written five characters down on a condom wrapper, which she apologised for, but said was the only thing she’d found when she’d scrabbled around for something to write on. Lucy could only shake her head, fascinated by Sister Cassie’s resourcefulness. She gloved up and slipped the wrapper into a transparent plastic envelope, saying that it didn’t matter about the missing characters – this was more than enough for them to work with.
They headed back through the building together, the ex-nun guiding the police officer along open passageways, clear of rubble, which would have been far less frightening had she discovered these avenues for herself earlier. All the way, Lucy tried to get through to the PNC on her radio, though the signal broke repeatedly.
On the other side of the great edifice, rather bewilderingly, they entered open ground where now there seemed to be ragged people everywhere, raddled and wizened beyond their years, standing alone and contemplating the darkness, or huddled around small fires. It was almost as if Sister Cassie’s friendly welcome had thrown some kind of ‘she’s okay’ switch, and they’d all come scrambling out from wherever it was they’d been hiding.
One young man seemed to be especially unhappy. In fact, he looked out of place here, with his longish hair, tight stonewashed jeans, tasselled leather jacket and leather trilby. He strode quickly away, swerving between the campfires as he glanced repeatedly back at Lucy, or rather at
her police radio. In the lurid light of the fires, she saw what looked like a shark tattoo on the side of his neck, and a spotty pizza-face twisted with dislike – and fear.
She let him go. She wasn’t interested in dealers at present.
‘DC Clayburn to PNC, over?’ she told her radio for the umpteenth time, now weary.
Static crunched, and a male voice suddenly replied. ‘PNC receiving. Go ahead, Lucy?’
Lucy sighed with relief. ‘Vehicle check, please.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Full index unknown, but I have the first five characters, which are as follows: Oscar-two-two-zero-Mike, over.’
‘Stand by, over.’
Lucy slipped the evidence bag into her pocket and glanced at Sister Cassie as they walked back towards St Clement’s Avenue. ‘What will you do with the rest of your night?’
‘What I always do, child. Tend to those less fortunate than myself.’
‘There’s a fish and chip van parked on Ellis Lane. If I give you some money, do you solemnly promise you’ll go and buy a few portions, one for yourself and several for the hungriest of your regulars … and that you won’t spend it on smack?’
Sister Cassie gave a conspiratorial half-smile; a hint of how pretty she’d once been briefly flickered there. ‘I’ve already purchased adequate medicine for tonight. You may notice I’m walking uncomfortably. He was a young man, very dirty and … I’m sorry to say, rather rough.’
Lucy shook her head as she opened her purse and handed over a couple of twenties. Her radio crackled to life again.