'If you must be shot,' he said, 'be shot in a lung.'
But there had been worse bother higher up. I had fractured my skull on falling and a fragment of bone had become lodged in the crack, like a penny in a 'Try Your Weight' machine, and Kenneth Munroe proudly told me that he had fished it out with his little fingernail. There had been no compression of the brain, and after telling me this he walked away into the darkness once again.
The bullet had notched a rib, and my chest was strapped. I was put on a low diet, and the next little while was all gruel, beef tea, and darkness followed by the swelling light at the shuttered windows. I would cough some blood from time to time, but it was always quickly wiped away by the nurse, as though it was an embarrassment over dinner and nothing more. I was in the room for head cases rather than lung cases, and here the rules were darkness, perfect quiet and regular dreams of Paris and babies.
After a while, I became more aware of York beyond the shutters: trotting horses in the far distance, faint cries of the drivers and church bells. The Chief came with two cigars, a bottle of John Smith's, a pen – the Swan – and with my report, which he said I might finish in due course. He would not speak about the manhunt that was going on across the city. It would agitate me too much. When he went away, the cigars were removed without a word by the nurse, although she opened the beer for me.
… But I couldn't face it.
A little while later, I drank it, flat, while sitting up and continuing with the report, writing at a lick, and setting down all of Sampson's words just as I remembered them, and putting the confession of Lund quite out of my mind, except to wonder whether he had perhaps made it to The Chief himself by now… But the matter did not seem very pressing for it was now all in the same category as the dreams.
The wife returned at some point. She kissed me, and I gave her the report. She read it on my bed, the press of her body making me realise I needed a fuck.
'Firstly,' she said, when she'd finished, 'you can't spell.'
'Can't spell what?'
'Anything.'
'Can't spell hardly anything, you mean.'
'Second of all,' she continued, 'you must send the London police to the left-luggage place in Charing Cross Station because I'm sure he means to collect the money he left there.'
'We've already done that,' I said with a grin.
'Well then…' said the wife,'… I thought you would've.'
She coloured up (for she'd thought nothing of the sort).
It was night time, no light at the shutter edges, when the Chief came again. He looked sad, and placed a large brown paper sleeve on my bed. Inside was a photograph. I began to pull it free, and stopped halfway, but he nodded at me to continue.
The photograph showed a long white head sleeping in a hat box. It was turned a little to one side, just as if resting between the long spells of hard work that might be the lot of a head trying to make its way in the world without benefit of a body. Around it was blood, but not the colour of blood.
I sat upright, and stared at the Chief, who said, 'Three of his fingers were found in the hat box besides', at which the quantity of beef tea that had been set whirling within me sprang from my mouth. I had done this to Lund. As far as Sampson and Mike were concerned, he and I were in league. What had they asked and not been told three times? Had they, even with a manhunt going on, come by 16A and, finding it empty, tried to discover the house to which I had removed – the place where the ticket might be? Or where, failing that, the clean sweep might be made as a settling of accounts?
The nurse came and took away the stained top cover as the Chief waited with hands in his pockets.
'Can we get a nip of something?' he said.
She shook her head, walking away, adding that if we were to talk, we must do it in whispers. As she moved off, the Chief muttered, 'I have my hip flask about me…' before nodding at the photograph and continuing more loudly, 'The box was found on Platform Six yesterday, and carried over to the Lost Luggage Office by a porter.' 'Just as it was meant to be,' I said. 'Lund had been missing for three days,' said the Chief. 'Whether they came upon him at his home, about the station or somewhere in between, I couldn't say.' 'He put me on to the whole investigation,' I said, 'out of conscience at what he'd done.' The Chief said nothing. '… He killed the Camerons,' I went on. 'He let on to me, but I kept it back because I didn't want to see him swing.' I repeated all of Lund's confession to the Chief, and he lost interest by degrees as I did so. He was looking down at his boots as I added: 'There ought to have been a guard for Lund, but I wanted him kept out of the whole…' The Chief looked up. 'Sampson, or Joseph Howard Vincent, was taken this morning at the Charing Cross Left Luggage office. The arresting officers found the pistol on him that shot the bullets into the Camerons.' 'That's because he took it off Lund,' I said. 'The Surete in Paris,' continued the Chief, 'have found a body, believed from the pocketbook to be an Englishman, on the railway lines by a spot called… Boulevard de la Chapelle.' He could not say it right. 'That was Hopkins,' I said. 'No face left on him,' said the Chief, 'all smashed away. What'll happen over that I don't know, but I daresay it'll come to naught because you can't hang a man twice. Sampson is to be sent back to us. We'll charge him for this…'He indicated the photograph. '… But if you ask me the magistrates will not commit. There was not a spot of blood on him when he was run in; we have nothing to connect the bastard to it.' 'You'll have the evidence of Parkinson,' I said. 'He knew what Lund was about.' No reply from the Chief. 'And Mike,' I said. 'He makes a connection.' 'That bugger's scarpered,' said the Chief. 'But I en't bothered because what will get past the committal is the charge of murdering the Camerons. We have the gun, we have the evidence of the goods clerk, Roberts; we have yours. They were vagabonds, that pair; they had a lot to say about any bad business – we have that from the Institute staff – and they'd turned copper in the past…' I had twisted my body away from the Chief as he added, 'I mean to say… they'd inform from time to time.' The Chief sighed, out of sight. 'There's Sampson's motive, do you not see?' He rose to his feet. 'Sampson'll swing for killing the Camerons,' he said, picking up the photograph, 'and you'll be commended to the Super at headquarters.' By killing Lund, Sampson had removed the one obstacle between himself and a capital charge. It was another new thought; another new sickness. And everything marched in the direction of death. As I closed my eyes in an attempt to go directly to sleep, the Chief chucked something heavy onto my bed. 'Here, lad,' he said. 'Medicine.'
Chapter Thirty-four
Dad shut the door of his house at the top of Baytown, after a good deal of palaver over closing all the curtains in the front room.
'I always close the curtains so as not to fade the dining room carpet' he'd said to the wife, who had immediately turned and whispered to me, 'I swear he has that from the "Ladies' Column".'
But the sun was strong as Dad came up to us, and we all turned to face the sea. The wife was carrying little Harry, for the steep cobbled streets didn't suit the baby carriage that Lillian Backhouse had given us.
A ship was heading north on the sparkling blue water, moving over small, friendly waves of the sort you see painted in a seaside theatre. Dad took the baby off the wife – which he did at every opportunity, even going so far as to walk without his cane in the hopes of having a carry. He pointed young Harry out to face the sea and the ship, saying to him: 'That's ballast for Hartlepool,' at which the wife burst out laughing.