Murder Club - Mark Pearson [22]
She put a full, almost shoulder-to-heel leather overcoat on top of her outfit, buttoned it up and put a Russian military-style fur cap on her head.
She turned the lock in the door and went into the reception area, sticking her head around Kate Walker’s door to say goodbye, but she had already left. As she headed for the exit, the desk sergeant, Dave Matthews, called her back.
‘Hold your horses a moment, Dr Zhivago.’
Laura turned back, not particularly amused as she saw that he was with another PC, leading the drunk they had collected earlier from the Edgware Road. Bible Steve. He was a lot quieter now and quite passive as the young constable walked him forward.
Laura looked pointedly at her watch. ‘I’m out of here, Sergeant.’
‘Just take a minute. The cells are full back there.’
‘Are you going to charge him?’
‘You bet! I want him charged and out of here as soon as.’
Laura’s nostrils quivered. ‘I can see why.’
Bible Steve looked up at her. ‘I am here, you know!’
‘No doubting of that, Mr Bible.’
‘What are you going to charge me with?’
‘Putting people off their sweet-and-sour pork balls,’ said Dave Matthews, and Laura laughed despite herself.
‘I did nothing of the sort!’
‘Wagging the weeny at the window, Bible. It’s not the sort of entertainment the diners at the Lucky Dragon were expecting. I don’t know …’ The sergeant wagged his hand himself. ‘Maybe a fortune-cookie.’
‘The call of nature must be answered, Sergeant. No man can ignore it.’
‘You could have gone down the alley, Bible. Spraying the shop window like a territorial Great Dane – it’s hardly being discreet, is it?’
‘I was making a protest. My Christian duty. This city is rife with its worshippers, like an apple rotten with worms. They dine as others starve so that the seventh prince of Hell be worshipped!’
‘I haven’t got time for this, Dave,’ said Laura.
Bible Steve held his hands aloft again. ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.’
‘Right,’ said Laura with a sigh and looked at her watch.
‘Matthew six, nineteen to twenty-one,’ said Bible Steve.
‘Shut it now, or I’ll put you back in the cell and leave you there till Christmas. Sergeant Matthews, White City nick,’ said Slimline Dave.
Bible Steve lowered his hands and looked at Laura. ‘Lead on MacDuff.’
‘This way.’ Laura gestured for the constable to bring him to her office. As they walked towards it, Bible Steve turned and looked at her.
‘I know you,’ he said.
‘No, you don’t.’
Bible Steve looked across at the constable. ‘She interfered with me, the last time I was here.’
‘She wasn’t even here the last time you were brought in, Steve.’
‘Interfered, I tell you!’
Laura opened the door to her office. ‘In here.’
Bible Steve saluted and followed her in. The constable nodded to her. ‘I’ll be just outside, if you need me.’
‘Thanks, I am sure I’ll be fine.’
Back inside her office, Laura checked his eyes, his pulse. Then looked at his hands, which were bruised, scarred and had dried blood on both sets of knuckles.
‘How did you hurt your hands, Steve?’
Bible Steve spread his fingers wide. ‘But I hae dreamed a dreary dream. Beyond the Isle of Skye. I saw a dead man win a fight,