Murder Club - Mark Pearson [20]
‘I don’t think the wife would approve,’ he said.
Dr Laura Chilvers knelt down and put her hand to the unconscious man’s neck. She felt for a pulse, somewhat unnecessarily, for at that moment he made a wet, slapping sound with his lips and grunted. His eyes remained firmly closed, however, and his stretched arms still stayed wide and immobile. Laura looked up at the sky again. Maybe he was welcoming aliens from space. It wouldn’t be the first time a mentally ill person had ended up on the street. Not by a long chalk, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.
She looked down at the man again, wondering what his story was, and then shrugged and nodded up at Bob Wilkinson, who stood with a couple of tall, uniformed police constables that she didn’t recognise.
‘He’s alive at least, I can tell you that much,’ she said. ‘He’s got a steady heart rhythm. Lungs seem to be functioning fine too.’
Bob Wilkinson glanced across at the now-broken and empty bottle of whisky and grimaced sourly. ‘Take more than a cheap bottle of Scotch to kill Bible Steve, I reckon,’ he said.
‘You know him?’ asked Laura.
The sergeant nodded. ‘Don’t know his real name. I’m not sure even he does any more. Everyone calls him Bible Steve. He’s always quoting the scriptures or preaching at people. When he’s not falling down drunk, that is, or pissing on Mrs Lucky Dragon’s window.’
Laura glanced back at the man sprawled on the pavement. He looked like an actor, she thought, but couldn’t remember who he reminded her of. Hard to tell under all the grime and the greasy, matted hair. Maybe an older version of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, when out-of-his-face on booze. Maybe Oliver Reed in his hell-raising heyday. This man’s hair was dark at one time, she could see, but it was mostly grey now, tangled, long. Impossible to tell what he would look like when he was shaved, shorn and cleaned up. Either way she knew for certain he wasn’t Oliver Reed and was pretty certain he wasn’t Mickey Rourke nor likely to be getting a call from Hollywood any time soon. Cricklewood maybe.
‘Bible Steve we’d call a bit of a nut-job,’ continued PC Wilkinson. ‘But what you medical types would probably classify as having mental difficulties.’
Laura didn’t smile. ‘Whatever he is, he shouldn’t be left out unconscious on a cold night like this. Is he violent?’
‘Not particularly. Harmless enough most of the time. But when he’s had a drink in him, he has been known to swing his fists. No different from most of them on the streets, when they’re out of it on drugs or booze.’
‘He’s pretty much dead to the world now, but you better get him back to the station. So he can’t harm himself. Or anyone else, come to that.’
She stood up and sprayed some antibacterial, disinfectant into her left palm and rubbed her hands together.
Bob Wilkinson gestured to the two uniforms to pick up the sleeping man, his nose wrinkling. The drunk continued groaning, muttering half-formed obscenities, his hands twitching, but he didn’t waken. PC Bob Wilkinson scowled and looked down at the homeless man as they manhandled him to his feet. ‘And for God’s sake put that thing away, and zip him up.’
13.
DR LAURA CHILVERS had only been back at the station for a short while, but had had to see to a couple of forty-year-old businesswomen who had got into a fight in a male lap-dancing club over one of the dancers, and needed minor treatment before being booked; a nineteen-year-old woman who was cycling the wrong way up a one-way street dressed only in her underwear, a feather boa and a Santa Claus hat on her head; and a seventy-year-old retired army general who had become convinced after several bottles of Dom Perignon that he was living in the nineteenth century and that the head concierge at Claridge’s was a Russian cavalry officer, he’d led his own Charge of the Light Brigade with an empty luggage trolley and had fractured one of his shins.
Laura was coming round to Bob Wilkinson’s way of thinking as he led her to one of the holding cells. Nut-jobs. The guest in number-two cell was awake, according