‘Regular channels no use, sir. It’s you we have to see. Just to take a look at the body before it goes off to the morgue. Won’t take you a minute and it will save us hours.’
‘Why me?’ Joe shivered. The evening’s euphoria had evaporated, leaving him full of cold foreboding.
‘No identification to be found, sir. No documents, no labels on clothing, nothing at all. Except for one item in her pocket.’
‘Her pocket?’
‘Deceased is a young female, sir.’
He fumbled under his cape and held up a small white object.
‘We were lucky we got there before the printer’s ink ran. You can just make it out.’ He read from the card: ‘“Commander Joseph Sandilands, New Scotland Yard, London. Whitehall 1212.”
‘It’s your calling card, sir.’
Chapter Sixteen
For a moment, Joe’s face and limbs froze. When finally he found his voice it rapped out with military precision: ‘Waterloo Bridge. We’ll never get a taxi at this time of night. Half a mile from here? We can run it in five minutes.’
He was sprinting out of the door before the river police had pulled themselves together. They pounded after him, boots thumping, capes flying.
As the door swung to behind them, the duty sergeant caught the eye of a passing constable who’d loitered to witness the strange scene. ‘’Struth! That got him moving! D’you see his face when the penny dropped? Wonder how many girls the old fart’s given his card to lately?’
‘Sounds like a case of unrequited affection to me,’ commented the bobby sentimentally. ‘Probably got some poor girl up the stick.’
Joe pounded along the Embankment, evening shoes giving him a perilous grip on the wet pavings. He looked ahead through the half-grown trees lining the river to the shimmering line of pale yellow lamps studding the bridge along its great length. Cleopatra’s Needle. More than halfway there. He tore off his tie and cracked open his collar. He pushed on, glad to hear his escort panting and cursing close behind.
Three young females. He’d given his card to three and that only yesterday. With dread he listed them. ‘Audrey, Melisande. . And her baby. .’ His heart gave a lurch which threatened to cut off his breathing as he added, ‘Little Dorcas.’
He could have asked the sergeant one simple question which would have reduced the choice to one: blonde, auburn or black hair? He knew very well why he’d not asked. One answer from the list would have been more than he could bear and he could not risk showing emotion right there at the reception desk.
It must be Dorcas, he decided. Driven to distraction by her grandmother’s cruelty she’d run away to London, swelling the numbers of waifs and strays who fetched up on the cold streets of the capital in their thousands. He’d been kind to her. Armitage had paid her flattering attention. Perhaps she’d been trying to contact one of them? He ran on. Without a word spoken, they all stopped and, hands on knees, gasping for breath, they tried to gain a measure of control before they entered the dismal little rescue room. The older of the two officers flung him a wounded look. ‘It’s all right, sir. She’s not going anywhere, whoever she is. Five minutes is neither here nor there for the deceased.’
‘It’s a bloody eternity for me,’ said Joe with passion.
A tug hooted mournfully, echoing his words. A sickening stench of decay belched from the ooze below. It was low tide and several yards of stinking mud fringed the sinister black slide of the river.
‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’
They exchanged looks, nodded and went inside.
A third river officer was sitting over his tea, a brimming ashtray on the floor at his feet, filling in the crossword on the back of the Evening Standard. He shot to attention as they entered. In the centre of the room on a still-dripping truckle bed lay a white-shrouded figure. The cocktail of carbolic and Wimsol bleach was almost a relief after the river smells. As Joe advanced to lift the sheet he started in horror to hear a voice behind him intoning:
‘One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care,
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young and so fair!’
Joe turned and addressed the sergeant angrily. ‘Who or what in hell is that?’
The sergeant’s voice was a placatory whisper. ‘Witness, sir. He was on the bridge when she jumped.’
A bear-like figure shambled forward into the light shed by the solitary electric bulb and presented himself.
‘He’s a down-and-out, sir. Harmless. We know him well. Came forward with information and we asked him to stay in case a statement was required. Name of Arthur.’
Joe turned to the man. ‘Arthur? Thank you for staying. And thank you for your sentiments. Now, gentlemen, shall we?’
The constable moved reverently to turn the sheet back.
Joe stared.
‘Young female,’ the elderly sergeant had said. And, in death, wiped clean of coquettish artifice, her doll’s face framed by a mop of curling blonde hair, Audrey had shed the years along with her life.
‘Known to you, sir?’ the sergeant enquired gently.
‘Yes. Audrey Blount. Miss Audrey Blount. I can give you her address. Two addresses in fact. She has a sister in Wimbledon, I understand. I interviewed her yesterday. . was it yesterday?. . Sunday, anyway. It was Sunday. You can have her taken to the morgue now. I’ll arrange for a police autopsy. Not usual, I know, but there are special circumstances. I’ll see that her next of kin are informed. Look, can you be certain it was suicide?’
‘Better have a word with old Arthur, sir. He’s very clear on what took place, you’ll find.’
‘I’d like to do that.’ He cast an eye around the crowded and unpleasant room. ‘But not here. I could do with some fresh air. How about you, Arthur? Shall we go up on to the bridge and you can tell me all about it?’
‘Here, take this spare cape, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Can get a bit nippy up there and there’s a mist rising.’
Joe approached the body and quietly spoke over it a further verse of Thomas Hood’s lugubrious poem. He’d always hated it but here, in these ghastly surroundings, it flooded back into his mind with awful appositeness.
‘Touch her not scornfully,
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly,
Not of the stains of her. .’
His voice faltered for a moment and the deep baritone behind him finished for him:
‘All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.’
Joe dashed a hand at his eyes. The sergeant passed him a crisp handkerchief. ‘Here. It’s the carbolic, sir. Fumes can get to you if you’re not used to it.’
‘If we go along to the very centre, I think you’ll find the air is fresher there. . I’m sorry — I don’t know your rank?’ said Arthur in a tone which would have sounded at home in a London club.