Crossbones Yard by Kate Rhodes

Author:Kate Rhodes [Rhodes, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

19

The taxi ride took for ever, crawling down the Old Kent Road, past a procession of cafés and the tiny shops Tejo and I visited when we were students, with bolts of gaudy Indian silks stacked to the ceiling. They were locked behind metal grilles, as though they wouldn’t survive the night without body armour. The driver dropped me on the wrong side of the square, and I kept my mind empty as I ran across the quadrangle to Bermondsey Wing. There was no point in guessing what had happened until my mother gave me the full story.

She was waiting in the corridor on the third floor. There was no sign that she had allowed herself to shed a tear. She was dressed in a velvet jacket, patent leather shoes, not a hair out of place. Maybe she had been at the theatre, or having dinner with friends when the phone call came. She flinched as I leaned down to kiss her cheek. I perched next to her on the bench.

‘What happened, Mum?’

She pursed her lips. ‘They won’t say how he got his injuries.’

‘I thought he collapsed. You didn’t tell me he’d been hurt.’

‘How could I? You hung up before I could finish.’ Her grey eyes had frosted over. ‘They think he may have fallen.’

‘Fallen from what?’

‘Stop it, Alice. How can I think straight with you repeating everything I say?’

‘Sorry, go ahead.’

‘Thank you.’ She fixed me with her best librarian’s glare. ‘He was found in a car park. Someone heard him screaming and called an ambulance.’ She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to hold back the words.

I forced myself to take deep breaths. ‘Just tell me what you know.’

‘Like I said, they took him away for X-rays. I haven’t seen him.’ Her face was expressionless, but the strip lights were punishing. The wrinkles and age spots she normally concealed so skilfully stood out like a sore thumb. ‘The police keep asking if he’s come round, so they can interview him. What on earth’s been going on, Alice?’

For a moment I considered giving her the full story: I had stumbled across two dead women in as many weeks, and someone was sending me psychotic love letters.

‘Nothing.’ I shook my head. ‘Nothing at all.’

She was about to argue when a familiar voice greeted me. Things were shifting from bad to worse. Sean was standing there in his favourite Savile Row suit, looking puzzled. ‘I didn’t know you’d been called.’

‘I haven’t. I’m here to see my brother Will.’

Sean did a double-take. It took a moment for his impeccable professional manner to re-establish itself.

‘Could we talk privately, please?’ He bent down and spoke to my mother in a respectful murmur. ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Quentin, your son’s being well looked after.’

My mother looked relieved to be spared the medical details. She had always been squeamish. We ate meat every day when I was a child, but she always refused to touch it. It sat in the fridge under a thick layer of cellophane, sliced into neat pink cubes by the butcher.

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