“You’re the boss,” said Nancy, and it was then that Josh opened the bathroom door.
Sixteen
It was the smell that hit them first, and all three of them cried out in a chorus of disgust. Josh couldn’t imagine how it hadn’t permeated the whole house; and then he realized that he had been smelling it, all the way upstairs, and that he hadn’t really registered what it was. And then there was the noise: the furious zizzing of hundreds of glittering bluebottles as he disturbed them in the middle of their feasting and their egg-laying.
The smell was ripe and sweet and almost visibly green. All of the bathroom windows were closed and an electric wall-heater had been left on, which had increased the temperature inside the bathroom to well over eighty degrees. Above the bath hung a wooden drying-frame, intended for drip-dry shirts and pantyhose. But spreadeagled on this frame was what appeared at first sight to be a half-gutted animal.
It was only when Josh stepped closer, keeping his hand clamped over his nose and mouth, that he understood what he was actually looking at. The animal was a woman – a naked, gray-haired woman, her body split wide open from her chin to her pubic hair. It was impossible to see who she was, or who she might have been, because her face was crawling with bluebottles, as if she were wearing a living Mardi Gras mask.
On the green-tiled wall, a large cross had been marked in blood and excrement.
Josh pulled the door shut. Nancy was already halfway down the stairs, with Simon close behind her. Simon didn’t bother to go back through the kitchen: he snatched open the front door and took three stiff-legged steps outside, gasping for air. Nancy leaned up against the porch, both hands clasped over her stomach, saying, “God … oh my God. That was appalling.”
Josh said, “We’d better get out of here. Whoever did that to Mrs Marmion, they won’t hesitate to do it to us, too.”
“The Hoodies,” said Simon. “Didn’t you see the cross? They always do that.”
They climbed back into the Austin. Simon swung the starting-handle and the motor chugged into life. Then he executed a fifteen-point turn, with a gladiatorial clashing of gears, and managed to point the car back the way they had come.
“They must have guessed that we were coming to see her,” said Nancy.
“I doubt if it was a guess,” put in Simon. “The Hoodies have people in the telephone exchange, they listen to everything. You can’t even phone up your fishmonger without them knowing about it.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Course not. It’s all allowed under the God’s Word Act. They can’t allow people to talk a lot of popery, even in private.”
They drove down St John’s Hill toward Wandsworth. Josh glanced out of the rear window from time to time to make sure that they weren’t being followed, but there was a convoy of three buses behind them which would have made it very difficult for anybody to keep them in sight.
Nancy said, “We can’t stay here, Josh. It’s much too dangerous. We have to go back.”
“Not bad advice, guvnor,” said Simon. “Even if it was Frank Mordant that topped your sister, how are you going to prove it? So far as this world’s concerned, she never existed, so she couldn’t have been topped; and so far as your world’s concerned, Frank Mordant is gone without a trace, ain’t he, and you try convincing your constabulary to come here and collar him.”
“You’re not suggesting I let him get away with it?”
“I don’t see that you’ve got very much choice. You’ve got a body in one world and a murderer in another, and never the twain shall meet. You might find proof enough to get him arrested, even without a body. But then there’s the question of the Hoodies. It looks like he’s come to some sort of arrangement with them; and if that’s the case, you won’t have a dog’s chance of getting him convicted. One wink to the reeve and that’ll be it, no case to answer, your worship. You saw that woman back there. They’re a law unto themselves, the Hoodies. Do what they like, say what they like, kill who they like; and all in the name of God.”
“Josh, we have to go back,” Nancy insisted.
“The world’s taken a turn around since you first arrived,” put in Simon. “You can go back as soon as you like.”
“I’m not sure,” said Josh. “What if I can never find my way back here again? How can I spend the rest of my life knowing that the man who strangled Julia is going unpunished? And if he murdered John Farbelow’s girlfriend, too, how many times has he done it before, and how many times is he going to do it again?”
“There are times in this vale of tears, guvnor, when we just have to admit that we’re up against a brick wall.”
“That’s exactly right. We are up against a brick wall. But you and I know that if you have enough faith, you can jump right through that brick wall.”
“Can’t see your constabulary swallowing that. Even if they did, they wouldn’t have any jurisdiction over here, now would they?”
“I wasn’t talking about the cops. There are other ways of settling scores than calling the cops.”
“Like what?” Nancy demanded. “Killing Frank Mordant yourself?”
“Of course not. But if he did do it, I can think of a whole lot of ways to make his life a misery. Mind you, if I did kill him, I wouldn’t be caught for it, would I? Any more than he’s ever going to be caught for killing Julia. But it would be justice.”
“Justice? If you killed him, then you’d be just as evil as he is. Besides, I can’t imagine you having the nerve to kill anybody. You killed that dog and you can’t stop blaming yourself.”
“The dog was innocent.”
“The dog was going to kill a man. You had to make a choice. Now you have to make another choice.”
“You ought to think about going back, guvnor,” said Simon, his eyes floating in the rear-view mirror. “You don’t want to underestimate the Hoodies, believe you me; and if Frank Mordant really is their man they won’t let you get away with giving him grief. You’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your natural. I’ll tell you something else: don’t trust that John Farbelow further than you can throw him. He’s the kind of cove who gets everybody else to do his dirty work for him. For all you know, he’s got a grudge against Frank Mordant for something quite different, and there never was no girl what he met on the number fifteen bus. What could suit him better than for you to do his topping for him?”
Nancy reached across and sandwiched Josh’s hand between hers. She was looking tired and stressed, and he could see that the sight of Mrs Marmion had been just too much for her. He suddenly realized how tired he was, and how dirty he felt. They needed to get back to “real” London for a rest and a shower, if nothing else.
“OK, then,” he said. “Take us to Star Yard. Do you know anyplace where we can buy some candles?”
“Ironmongers on the corner here, guvnor.”
Simon parked the car and left them sitting in the back seat while he went to buy some candles. Nancy said, “You shouldn’t come back here again, Josh. You’ve got an idea of what might have happened to Julia … you don’t need to follow it up any further.”
“I’m sorry, Nance, that’s where you’re wrong. There’s no way that I can leave this unfinished.”
“But what about the Hooded Men? Look what they did to that woman!”
“That’s exactly my point. There have been Hooded Men all through history, of one kind or another. The day we let them intimidate us, that’s the day we might as well get our dogs to dig us some graves, and scoop the earth back on top of us.”