Murder Club - Mark Pearson [85]
‘How’s it going, Kate?’
‘Just doing the report on Bible Steve.’
‘Are we in the clear?’
Kate hesitated before answering, then gave her a quick smile. ‘I think so. There doesn’t seem to be any bruising to his head while he was in custody. It looks like all the damage was done after he was released.’
‘We’ve just had a call in. The body of a woman matching the description Bible Steve gave us has been found.’
‘She’s dead?’
‘A couple of days, according to Derek Bowman.’
‘Who is she?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘She was beaten. We know that much. Will learn more when he has done the post, I guess.’
‘What kind of beating?’
‘A long thin object.’
‘Like Bible Steve?’
‘Could be. Bowlalong wasn’t specific. I’m heading to the morgue now. Want to tag along?’
Kate looked at the frozen image of Laura Chilvers and closed the laptop. ‘Yeah,’ she said, standing up and putting on her coat. ‘Maybe whoever beat Bible Steve also battered this woman to death. Maybe Bible saw it. That’s what he remembers.’
‘He said he did it himself, though. Blood on his hands.’
‘Maybe it was the woman who hit him. Defending herself against him, maybe?’
‘Maybe.’ Diane Campbell opened the door and they walked through reception towards the front doors, waving at Dave Matthews who was behind the desk talking to a couple of uniforms. ‘What’s the update on Bible?’ she asked.
‘They’re operating on him shortly. He has bleeding varices, torn blood vessels in his stomach. It’s why he was throwing up so much blood earlier.’
‘These torn varices. Were they the result of the beating he was given?’ asked Diane as they walked into the car park.
‘More likely a result of his alcoholism.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘I don’t know, the poor guy is in a pretty terrible state.’
‘This poor guy might just have beaten a twenty-three-year-old girl to death, let’s not forget that.’
‘I think he’s mixing things up in his head. I’m pretty sure there is something going on we don’t know about.’
‘That’s for damn sure,’ Diane agreed. ‘We’ll take my car.’
60.
PATRICIA HUNT STOOD by the window overlooking the car park of the South Hampstead Hospital. It was full. Some of the cars had a couple of inches of snow on their roofs and some didn’t. Still hot from the journey in, she guessed. She looked up at the dark sky. Soon the whole city would be covered in a white shroud.
She sat down next to her husband. His breathing was laboured and he had an oxygen mask attached to his mouth. His eyelids were closed but the eyes beneath them moved from side to side, and his body twitched every now and then, like a cat might when dreaming.
In the corridor a team of nurses and a porter wheeled a hospital bed down towards the operating theatre. Drips attached to the patient, and monitoring devices. He had long unruly hair and a bearded face.
Patricia Hunt made the sign of the cross on her forehead and chest and mumbled a prayer.
‘God save us,’ she said. ‘God save us all.’
She picked up the leatherbound notebook she had brought from her husband’s office in the garden, and started reading.
Zambia, borders of Namibia. 1989.
The missionary knelt on the floor of his hut. He ran a finger under his dog collar to loosen it slightly. It was just past dawn, but the light was brightening and the heat was building. It was a simple room. Wooden floor and walls with a pitch roof. The wood had been stained and varnished. He knelt on a simple rug. A single bed lay beside the side window. Netting covered the windows casting a mottled pattern on the floorboards. He had a plain desk and chair opposite the door that led into his hut, and a washstand with a bowl and jug on it. There was a large ceiling fan overhead that, had it worked, might have brought some relief from the growing heat. A heat that would bake the ground even harder by midday. Even at that early hour, it was enough to force beads of sweat on the missionary’s brow, which he mopped with a large, cotton handkercief. Moisture from the night still hung in the air and it reminded him of the time he visited the