Murder Club - Mark Pearson [23]
‘The Bible?’
‘The Battle of Otterburn, mid-sixteenth-century.’
‘Are you a time-traveller?’ asked Laura gently, as she cleaned his knuckles up as best she could with a tissue and surgical spirit.
The bearded man nodded his head. ‘I have been.’
‘And how did you hurt your hands in this millennium?’
Bible Steve looked down at his hands again and made fists of them. ‘Doing the Lord’s work,’ he said.
‘Fighting?’
He nodded. ‘The good fight, yes.’
‘Who were you fighting with?’
‘I fight the Devil, Doctor. Where I find him.’
‘On the streets?’
‘The Devil is in the hearts of men,’ he said angrily and glared at her. ‘In the hearts of men and women and in the corruption of children!’
Laura looked at him, concerned. ‘Have you hurt children, Steve?’
Bible Steve shook his head, then tilted it to one side. ‘I am just a vessel. No more than that.’
Laura put the cap on top of the bottle of surgical spirit and placed it to one side. She would have stood up, but Bible Steve grabbed her hands and pulled her towards him, an intent look in his red, sore eyes. ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said again.
Laura shook her head and took her hands out of his. ‘No. Like I said. I met you earlier, on the street, and when you were in the cell. You were drunk. You still are.’
‘No. I know you!’ he said for the third time, in a hoarse croak. ‘You are my angel. My guardian Angela!’
He stood up and reached out for her, turning his huge hands into claws, and Laura stepped back, her eyes wide. Horrified.
16.
LAURA STEPPED OUT from her office, nodding to the constable, and hurried across to the desk where Sergeant Matthews was filling in a form and watching two uniforms lead a drunk Santa Claus to the holding cells. He sighed and put the form to one side.
‘What’s the verdict, Doctor?’
‘He’s sober enough now, I guess. If not entirely lucid.’
‘Bible Steve is never entirely lucid.’
‘Probably not, no.’
The sergeant looked across as the constable led the man in question out of the police surgeon’s office. ‘So I can charge him and release him?’
Laura held up her hand to the constable, signalling for him to wait, and leaned in to speak quietly with the desk sergeant. ‘He’s sober enough to be charged and released, but why don’t you keep him in for the night?’
‘Why would I do that? Is he ill?’
‘Not physically, no.’
‘I’m jammed up here, Laura.’
‘I know it’s against procedures, but a night out of the cold isn’t going to hurt him.’
Bible Steve called out to them, ‘I just want my own bed, Officer. Take a page or two of the Good Book. God’s love keeps us warm. Nourishment, not punishment.’
‘He hasn’t got a bed, Dave.’
‘Neither have we – like I say, we’re jammed up here and the night is far from over.’
Laura looked at her watch. ‘Yeah, and it’s time I was out of here.’
‘We’ll drop him off at the shelter. We always do.’
‘You’re a good man, Sergeant Matthews, and I’ll kill any man who says otherwise!’ shouted Bible Steve.
The sergeant nodded to him. ‘Please don’t. And remember, sweet-and-sour pork balls are off the menu tonight!’
Laura adjusted her hat and headed for the door.
‘Bless you, my child!’ the homeless man called after her.
But Laura hurried on, the door closing behind her.
‘Take care, darling,’ Bible Steve said softly.
17.
London, off the Edgware Road. 3 a.m., Saturday
THE STREETS OF London were mostly quiet now.
In the distance, the sound of music playing from a club that was staying open until five in the morning. Lou Reed singing about shiny boots of leather, but faintly. Audible when the club doors opened for people to leave. There was little or no traffic on the roads, which were covered with thick snow. Large flakes of it that continued to fall, filling the air. Any footprints in that snow in the little side-street had long been filled in.
Bible Steve looked upwards, his eyes wide with wonder as the snow fell on his upturned face. He reached a hand out and clutched it, as if the dancing snowflakes were little bits of magic he could catch in his palm. He watched as they melted on