Comes the Dark by David Stuart Davies

Author:David Stuart Davies
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2014-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

27

The door of the locker-room opened. PC O’Connell, who was lacing up his boots, looked up and saw Lowe enter. He looked weary, with dark shadows under his eyes. He shambled in like a man sleepwalking. O’Connell had noticed a change in his colleague in the last month. He had always been a quiet, self-contained sort of a bloke, not easy in company and stilted in conversation, but recently it was as though he had become more isolated than ever. It was as though he had given up on life, given up trying and was merely going through the motions, waiting for something to happen. Death possibly. The war did strange things to people and certainly Lowe was not unique in seeming to be affected in this way. O’Connell just thanked his lucky stars that he never took life so seriously that it would interfere with his optimistic outlook. He could cope, if others couldn’t.

‘Hey, heard the latest? They’ve caught the strangler,’ O’Connell said cheerily, expecting the good news to raise the spirits of his colleague, but Lowe stopped in his tracks and stared at him uncomprehendingly.

‘It’s true,’ O’Connell added. ‘No joke. Llewellyn nabbed him last night after the blighter had just done another girl in. Number three.’

Lowe felt dizzy, the room swaying before his eyes. With some relief he sat down on the bench next to O’Connell. ‘That is…good news,’ he mumbled without enthusiasm.

‘You can say that again. Takes a bit of pressure off us lot, doesn’t it? Now we can stop watching our backs and return to our normal duties: nabbing the black-market spivs.’ He chuckled to himself.

‘Well, there are plenty of those about,’ Lowe responded, raising a weak smile, while his mind was still coming to terms with the shock of hearing that someone had been arrested for the murders—the murders that he had committed. He had never contemplated this eventuality and he really didn’t know how he felt about it.

‘Who is this strangler character then? What do you know about him?’ he asked as casually as his numbed brain would allow.

O’Connell shrugged. ‘Some soldier who’s gone a bit batty. He was AWOL. Apparently the stupid blighter dropped his wallet in the tart’s bedroom.’

Lowe closed his eyes and remembered. The tart’s bedroom: that garish pink glow, the squalid furnishings, the pale corpse on the bed and those dead staring eyes. This vision was vividly imprinted in his mind. Of course, he suddenly realised, they’d caught the young chap Mary had picked up in the pub, the one he’d followed to her flat.

‘Where is he now?’

‘Down below. In the cells, of course, waiting for…“the big interview”.’ O’Connell laughed at his own dramatic delivery. ‘The big confession, more like. He won’t be able to wriggle out of this one. He’s for the noose all right.’

Lowe looked blankly ahead and gave a ghost of a nod. ‘Well, I’m off to the canteen for a cuppa before I brave the naughty streets again,’ O’Connell said breezily. ‘See you later.’

‘See you later,’ Lowe responded in a monotone.

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