The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 9 Part 63

Perhaps it was the excitement or the champagne or both, but Miriam couldn't sleep. It was almost two o'clock when she gave up and pushed back the single sheet that was all she'd been able to tolerate. She put on her dressing-gown, padded into the sitting room, and switched on the light. Rain was spattering the window and buffeting the geraniums in their pots on the little balcony.

The top-floor flat wasn't in the close, but it was near enough for a view of the cathedral. On sunny days, the ma.s.sive structure looked as vast and improbable as Mont Blanc. Tonight it was like a black ocean liner rising up in the dark. The floodlights were switched off at midnight and only a red warning light on the very summit of the spire remained.

If Miriam craned her neck, she could see part of the top floor of the dean's house. The windows were dark tonight. In the months after Bill's death, when Miriam had found it hard to sleep, she had often seen a light there in the early hours. It was comforting to think of the Dean working late on a sermon or reading some weighty theological tome and to know that she wasn't the only one awake.

Miriam thought about that last tour. She was certain that fourteen had gone up the tower and only thirteen had come down. Of course, feeling certain and being certain aren't the same thing. That's what Bill would have said. How infuriating he could be and how she missed him. If he were here now, he would be complaining about being woken up. "Stop fussing, woman." She could hear him saying it. And yet when push came to shove, he would have been on her side, and in the end, wasn't that what marriage was about?

The cathedral clock struck two. In her mind's eye Miriam saw the clogs turning and meshing together, the ropes growing taut, the pealing of the bell vibrating through the empty cathedral and floating out into the night air.

And that was when she knew how the disappearing trick had been pulled off.

She had already started to dial the Dean's number, when she asked herself what she thought she was doing. She couldn't ring him at this time of night and he had already been up the tower once. And suppose she did instigate another search and there was no one there after all, how would she feel? She went back to the window. If only there was some real evidence, lights in the cathedral maybe ... But she could see only the spire from here. She bit her lip, considering. Well, why not, she wasn't going to get any sleep, that was for sure. She went into the bedroom and got dressed.

She was about to leave when her eye fell on her bowling bag, open on the chest of drawers. Buoyed up by champagne after the party, she had decided to polish her woods, thinking that maybe she could find a new partner and begin again. She picked up the nearest wood, and cupped the familiar, almost spherical object in her hand. It wouldn't make much of a weapon, and if it came to self-defence, she couldn't see herself putting up much of a show. Still, there was something rea.s.suring about its smooth weight in her palm. She slipped it into the pocket of her cagoule. It just fitted.

Miriam was no stranger to the close at night. After Bill had died, insomnia had often driven her out to stroll there alone, but she had never been there when the rain was pelting down and the wind was blowing so hard that her umbrella was turned inside out. Two of the spokes were actually broken and she dumped it in the bin next to the kiosk that was occupied by the constable of the close. There was no one there at the moment he must be on his tour of the close but that would be her first port of call if she did see anything suspicious.

She pulled up her hood and pushed her hands into her pockets to rea.s.sure herself that the wood was in one and her mobile phone was in the other. She set off along one of the paths that dissected the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce around the cathedral. She didn't need a torch. Her feet knew the path and took her confidently forward. She reached the paved area outside the west front. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now and the cathedral was no longer one black undifferentiated ma.s.s. She could distinguish window arches and the shadowy forms of saints in their niches. Out of the inky darkness of the porch a figure stepped forward. Her heart jolted and her hand shot to her mouth. The beam of a torch light dazzled her.

"Jeez, you nearly scared the pants off me," said a laconic American voice. "That hood. Thought for a moment you were some kind of monastic ghost."

"I scared the pants off you! What are you doing here?"

"Same as you, I guess. Couldn't sleep. Look, you'd better come in out of the rain."

She stepped into the porch. The American held the torch so that it illuminated both their faces. The strong light exaggerated his features, giving him deeply shadowed eyes and flared nostrils.

"I don't think we introduced ourselves. I'm Tom, Tom Leverens." He thrust out a hand. His clasp was firm and his hand felt dry and warm in hers.

"I'm Miriam. And I think you'd better switch the torch off. If there is something going on ..."

"Yeah, yeah, OK." There was a click and his face vanished. "If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have actually counted heads, but well, my mind was elsewhere. I've been planning this trip for years it would have been our fortieth wedding anniversary me and Louise. After she pa.s.sed away last year, I wasn't going to bother, but the kids thought I needed a break. Tell the truth, I thought one of them might come with me, but Jeannie's expecting her second and Martha got offered this internship ..."

The homely litany was rea.s.suring. He was a solid presence in the dark beside her. She could smell an aftershave or cologne with an aroma of lime.

"Hey, you don't want to hear all that. Thing is, I know when someone might have slipped away."

"Me, too."

"The clock striking, right?"

She nodded, forgetting that he couldn't see her. "No one would have heard him going back down the stairs. There'd be plenty of time to hide in the roof s.p.a.ce above the clerestory."

"But why?" he said. "For a bet? To steal something? All the valuable stuff must be in the chapter house. That chalice ..."

"St Edmund's chalice. That's what I'm afraid of. All the security is aimed at keeping people out of the building, but once you're in there ..."

"I've already been round the building looking for lights, but what say we do another circuit?"

As they stepped out of the porch, Tom took her arm and tucked it in his. It was a long time since a man had done that, but it felt natural. They fell into step with Miriam leading the way. The rain had slackened, but the sky was still overcast. They kept close to the cathedral, moving out to skirt flying b.u.t.tresses, staring up at the windows, straining their eyes against the darkness. It wasn't until they were rounding the east end that something occurred to Miriam. She pulled Tom in against the wall.

"You said you'd already done a circuit," she whispered. "Did you see the constable?"

"Didn't see a soul."

"He wasn't in his kiosk when I pa.s.sed it, so where is he?"

"Maybe he's there now."

They looked across the close towards the kiosk. But an avenue of mature beeches blocked the view. They saw a light glinting through the leaves, nothing more.

"We'd better see," Tom said.

They set off across the broad expanse of lawn. The wind pushed Miriam's hair back from her face and made her eyes water. From time to time, she glanced back and they had almost reached the shelter of the beeches, when she thought she saw something moving on the tower.

"What's that?"

Tom's arm stiffened in hers and he said, "What I can't see-"

Something was dangling from one of the windows of the clock room like a spider letting itself down from a web.

"We'd better call the police." Miriam pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket.

"I don't think so." Tom's hand closed round her wrist and he didn't sound like James Stewart any more. "I'd hate to hurt you, Miriam, so I think we'll just stand here and let my confederate make his escape."

The night exploded into dazzling whiteness. The cathedral sprang out of the darkness. The floodlights had been switched on.

Tom released Miriam. He turned on his heels. The next moment she heard the thudding of his feet on the paved path between the beeches.

A figure in tracksuit bottoms and a sweater emerged from the porch door. Was it another member of the gang? No, it was the Dean. He was looking up at the tower. In the stark light she saw a young man with a rucksack on his back hanging about ten feet from the ground. The rope on which he was descending had snagged on a gargoyle. In an effort to free it, he was bouncing himself off the wall with his feet.

The Dean was sprinting towards him. Without pausing to think, Miriam set off too.

The gargoyle gave way. The young man fell heavily to the ground. Miriam prayed that he had twisted an ankle, but the next moment he was on his feet. The Dean was closing in on him. The young man slipped off his rucksack. For a moment Miriam thought he was going to drop it and run. Instead he gripped it by both straps and swung it at the Dean. The Dean swerved and the rucksack hit him only a glancing blow, but it was enough to send him spinning out of control. He fell awkwardly on his side. The young man was off, sprinting towards the west front.

In the distance there was the wail of a siren. Over by the constable's lodge flashing lights appeared and there was the sound of a car screeching to a halt. The dean was getting to his feet, but he wasn't going to be in time. Once the youth had reached the other side of the close and the bridge into the water meadows, he could lose himself in the darkness. Even if Miriam could intercept him, what then? He was young and fit and desperate and she was sixty.

She pulled the wood out of her pocket, drew back her arm, and bent forward in one fluid movement. The wood seemed to flow out of her hand and float across the shaven gra.s.s. Time slowed down. The wood reached the path at the precise point where its curved trajectory met that of the fleeing youth. The sole of his right foot made contact with the wood as if the two of them had always been destined to meet. His arms flailed, he wobbled, he teetered. For a moment it seemed that he was going to regain his balance. Then he was down with a crash that must have knocked the wind out of him.

"Ouch," said the Dean.

"Sorry," said Miriam, "but it's a nasty graze and it should be disinfected."

She put the top back on the bottle of TCP. The Dean rolled down his sleeve. They were in the kitchen of his house and there was a bottle of brandy on the table between them.

"I should be the one worrying about you," the Dean said. "You must have had an awful shock when that scoundrel turned on you."

"He'll get his just deserts."

Tom Leverens and the driver who was waiting for him had been stopped as they tried to leave the market square.

"You're sure you're all right? Delayed shock can be a nasty thing." He took one of her hands in both of his and squeezed it.

"Something I've been meaning to ask you," she said. "What were you doing in the close at that time of night? How did you know there was something wrong?"

"I didn't, but I know you, Miriam, and you were certain you'd left someone up the tower. When I went up to bed I saw that there was a light on in your flat and I guessed that you were still worrying about it."

"In my flat?"

"You can just see it from my bedroom window." Could it be? Was the Dean blushing? "I tried to ring you, but there wasn't any answer. I couldn't raise the constable of the close either. I went out and found the poor fellow trussed up by the wall of the bishop's palace. That was when I called the police."

"Thank goodness you were working late!"

"Actually I wasn't working. I was reading a detective story." Now the Dean was definitely blushing.

He wasn't looking at her, but he was still holding her hand.

Hunting for the first-aid kit, Miriam had noticed tins of soup for one in the cupboard. For the first time it occurred to her that someone might be a busy and important person, but still come home to an empty house.

She cleared her throat.

"Tell me, Jim," she said, "Have you ever thought of taking up bowls?"

DEAD MEN'S SOCKS

David Hewson.

1.

PERONI BENT DOWN to take a good look at the two bodies in front of him and said quite cheerily, "You don't see that every day."

"Actually," Silvio Di Capua replied, "I do. This is a morgue. Dead people find their way here all the time."

The cop was early fifties, a big and ugly man with a scarred face and a complex manner, genial yet sly. He frowned at the corpses, both fully clothed, lying on gurneys next to the silver autopsy table. One was grey-haired, around Peroni's age, short with a black clearly dyed goatee, tubby torso stretching against a dark suit that looked a size too small for him. The other was a taller, wiry kid of twenty-two or so with a stubbly bruised face and some wounds Peroni didn't want to look at too closely. Dark-skinned, impoverished somehow and that wasn't just the cheap blue polyester blouson and matching trousers. Rome was like everywhere else. It had its rich. It had its poor. Peroni felt he was looking at both here. Equal at last.

"What I meant was you don't see that ..." He pointed at the feet of the first body. "And that ..." Then the second.

Di Capua grunted then put down his pathologist's clipboard and, with the back of a hand cloaked in a throwaway surgical glove, wiped his brow.

Peroni was staring at him, a look of theatrically outraged disbelief on his battered features. Di Capua, immediately aware of his error, swore then walked over to the equipment cabinet, tore off the present gloves, pulled on a new pair.

It was nine o'clock on a scorching July morning. Peroni and Di Capua had just come on shift. The day was starting as it usually began. Sifting through the pieces the night team had swept up from the busy city beyond the grimy windows of the centro storico Questura. Today was a little different in some ways. The head of the forensic department, Teresa Lupo, had absented herself for an academic conference in Venice leaving the Rome lab in Di Capua's care. Leo Falcone, Peroni's inspector, was on holiday in Sardinia. Nic Costa, his immediate boss, was taking part in some insanely pointless security drill at Fiumicino airport. Their absence left Peroni at a loose end, with no one to rein in his inquisitive and quietly rebellious nature.

"Don't try to distract me with minutiae," the pathologist said.

"I like minutiae," Peroni replied. "Little things." He looked down at the kid in the cheap blue blood-stained clothes and thought: little people too. "Who are they?"

Di Capua glanced at his clipboard and indicated the older man. "Giorgio Spallone. Aged fifty-one. An eminent psychiatrist with a nice villa in Parioli, fished out from the river this morning. Probable suicide. His wife said he'd been depressed for a while."

"Do psychiatrists do that?" Peroni asked straightaway. "Wouldn't they just climb on the couch and talk to themselves instead?"

Di Capua stared at him and said nothing.

"Where?" Peroni continued.

"Found him beached on Tiber Island."

"That's a very public place to kill yourself," Peroni replied. "Bang in the centre of Rome. I've never known a suicide there in thirty years."

"He probably went in elsewhere," Di Capua said with a shrug of his spotless white jacket. "Rivers flow. Remember?"

"Time of death?" Peroni asked. "He's dried out nicely now. Shame it's shrunk his suit. That won't do for the funeral."

"I don't know. I just walked through the door. Like you."

The cop glanced at the second corpse. "And this one?"

Di Capua picked up his notes.

"Ion Dinicu. Twenty-two years old. Some small-time Roma crook the garbage disposal people came across in Testaccio."

"Small-time Roma crook," Peroni repeated. "It sounds so ... judgemental."

"He lived in that dump of a camp on the way to Ciampino. Along with a couple of thousand other gypsies. We got him straightaway from the fingerprints ..."

"Oh yes," Peroni said, smiling. "We printed them all, didn't we? Man, woman and child, guilty of nothing except being Roma."

"I'm not getting into an argument about politics," Di Capua told him.

"Fingerprinting innocent people, taking their mugshots ... that's politics?" Peroni wondered.

"Don't you have work to do?"

"I knew his name already," Peroni went on, ignoring the question. "Got here before you. Looked at the records downstairs. The kid never went inside. Couple of fines for lifting bags from tourists on the buses. Got repatriated to Romania when we were bussing people there. Came back, of course. They never take the hint, do they?"

"Maybe he should have done," the pathologist suggested.

The cop went to the other end of the body and leaned over Dinicu's bloodied, bruised features.