One thing was for sure, clothed or unclothed, she would never be getting on a bloody bike again.
A man on the bike next to her began scratching his balls vigorously. Catching her watching, he gave her a cheeky grin. Melissa quickly returned her gaze to the road. She was careful to remain tucked into the middle of the group, well away from any would-be gropers lurking between parked cars. But the turnout for the ride had been poor – at most, only about a third of the number that had been confidently predicted by the organizers had turned up – and there was really nowhere to hide. The whole thing made her skin crawl. By her tally, there were at least four times as many men on the ride as women. There were a broad range of specimens – a wide variety of ages and physical conditions – but all of them seemed ecstatic at the opportunity to let their willies dangle from the side of the frame of their bike while they ogled some naked female flesh.
As the cyclists picked up pace slightly, she glanced over at Will. About two bike rides in front, off to the right, her boyfriend was holding the position that he’d taken from the very start of the ride – up close beside Kara Johnson, whose massive breasts had been painted bright red for the occasion. Will was transfixed; Melissa was convinced that he’d had a semi-chub on for the last mile and a half, at least. He looked like he wanted to jump Kara on the spot. And she didn’t look too dismayed at the idea, either.
What annoyed Melissa more than anything was the knowledge that if she and Will had sex tonight, he would be thinking about Kara and her gigantic – no doubt fake – tits.
Tosser.
The pace of the riders had slowed once again, this time to little more than a crawl. Taking a drink of lukewarm water from her bidon, Melissa spat the water out onto the tarmac. ‘Urgh.’ She was thirsty but she also really needed to pee. She recalled the case of the London marathon runner who’d squatted down in the gutter, mid-race, to go. Somehow she didn’t think she’d be able to get away with that not so close to Nelson’s Column at least.
As the front of the ride reached the south-east corner of the square, everything came to a complete standstill. Amid the general grumbling, Melissa gleaned that the police were holding them up to let regular traffic through first. This was not what the organizers had promised would happen and she could sense the group’s humour levels begin to ebb still further. Doubtless she wasn’t the only participant who was tired and fed up. She tried to catch Will’s eye but he remained focused on the Amazonian Kara, his head so close to her arse that he looked like he was poised to lick the sweat from her glistening buttocks. Catching sight of ripples of cellulite on the backs of her thighs, Melissa felt a grim glimmer of satisfaction. ‘You should cover that up,’ she hissed to herself, ‘you fat bitch.’
The need to pee was now becoming more urgent. Hopping from foot to foot, she tried to make out what was happening up ahead. Still there was no sign of the riders moving off. Melissa realized that if she didn’t find a loo soon, she would just have to go in the street after all. To her left, she caught sight of a teenage boy in a replica Manchester United shirt standing on the pavement with his left arm aloft, filming her on his mobile phone. His right hand was shuffling in the pocket of his jeans. Their eyes met and the boy’s grin grew wider.
Fuck this, Melissa thought. I’ve simply got to get out of here. Turning around, she had just reached for her pannier when an ear-splitting scream suddenly cascaded down the road towards her. Looking up, she could see people ahead jumping off their bikes and letting them drop to the ground as they ran to converge on an hysterical woman in a red bikini. Through gaps in the crowd, Melissa could see that the woman was standing over a bearded man who had apparently fallen from his bike and was lying on his back in the road. A couple of the police officers who had been watching the ride go past were trying to make their way through the crowd towards the prostrate man. A third was calling for an ambulance.
‘Excuse me.’ Melissa felt a hand on her shoulder and looked round to see a tall Asian guy gently manoeuvring her out of the way so that he could get past.
‘I think the police are dealing with it,’ she mumbled, grateful that the guy was at least making an effort to look at her face, rather than her chest. He was wearing jeans and a navy T-shirt bearing the legend EVERTON’S
Handsome, Melissa thought, but knackered-looking.
‘I am the police,’ he replied with a slight Northern accent, producing an ID badge on a chain and pulling it over his head.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ the officer replied. ‘But don’t worry. Just stay here for the moment and we’ll find out.’ Stepping backwards, he took a moment – a long moment – to check her out from tip to toe. ‘Maybe put some clothes on,’ he said, giving every indication of liking what he saw. ‘This may take a while.’
Not for the first time in his police career, Umar was almost completely distracted by the naked woman in front of him. The girl was very pretty – petite, slim, with pert breasts that ended in enormous nipples – and it took him a moment to tune back in to the screaming just down the road. There were various uniforms milling about but no one appeared to be taking control of the situation.
‘Police!’ he shouted, waving the ID in front of his face. ‘Let me through.’ Slowly a narrow pathway opened up in front of him. Moving away from the girl, he slalomed past a series of cyclists until he came to the guy on the ground. A WPC was kneeling over him, searching for a pulse. She looked up at Umar and shook her head. Behind her, he could see a dark mess sticking to the tarmac – blood. Lying in the blood, glinting in the sunlight, was what looked like a kitchen knife.
Not natural causes then, Umar mused.
‘Looks like he’s been stabbed,’ said the uniform. The woman who had been screaming was now sobbing quietly into the chest of a fellow rider whose yellow Speedos left nothing to the imagination. All around him, Umar could make out a low murmour among the onlookers, the sound of curiosity rather than fear.
Christ, he thought, how are we going to secure this scene? From the direction of Charing Cross Road came the sound of an ambulance siren rushing towards them. Speaking into her walkie-talkie, the WPC was asking the station for more officers to help secure the scene and corral witnesses. Already, however, people were beginning to slip away. There was no way that the police officers would be able to stop them. Another group of cyclists had peeled off to buy ice creams from a van parked by one of the exits to Charing Cross tube station. Already, the dead man was no more than a mildly diverting topic of conversation.
Hands on hips, Umar watched a buxom wench, her breasts painted red for the occasion, chatting happily to some chinless wonder. As the ambulance pulled up in the eastbound lane, the paramedics jumped out and began retrieving their kit. They went about their task with practised efficiency, but lacking the high tempo that marked a life and death situation. Ten yards further down the road, a couple of uniforms were cordoning off the street, much to the annoyance of a bus driver who’d just had his route abruptly curtailed. More uniforms started trickling out of the nearby station. Umar watched to see if any more senior officers followed them. What he needed was someone to take charge as quickly as possible, so that he could slink off. Otherwise, his evening would go up in smoke. He would have to cancel dinner. Doubtless, Carlyle would be delighted at having avoided babysitting duties, but Christina would kill him. And the sergeant knew full well which of the two scared him most.
‘My God. What’s happened?’
It took Umar a couple of seconds to recognize the girl he’d spoken to just minutes before. Having slipped into a pair of white shorts and a Nike T-shirt, she looked completely different – if anything, even prettier. ‘The bloke over there,’ Umar pointed at the prostrate cyclists, ‘it looks like he’s been stabbed.’