Robin Hood Yard by Mark Sanderson

Author:Mark Sanderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007325283
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Tuesday, 8 November, 12.10 p.m.

Ironmonger Row, between City Road and Old Street, had opened as a public washhouse in 1931 but the Turkish baths in the basement had only been open for three weeks. Everything seemed refreshingly – and reassuringly – new.

Johnny pulled back the cubicle curtain – which matched his blue chequered loincloth – and padded barefoot through the cooling-off area, where a couple of beached whales were deep in conversation, to the Tepidarium. Christ, if this was tepid, he wouldn’t last long in the other rooms.

A bench wide enough to lie on ran round the gloomy, empty chamber. He sat down and immediately stood up again. The warmth, like that of a just-vacated lavatory seat, was shockingly intimate. He twisted the loincloth round so it covered his backside and sat down again.

The heat, which at first had made his skin shrink, soon began to soothe him. His hacking cough bounced off the tiled walls. They retained no impression of previous occupants. Was it their newness or non-absorbency? He usually got a sense of the history of a place, an inkling of what had happened there, an echo of the past. He had never told anyone that he believed humans left traces of themselves wherever they went, traces that the material world absorbed. As a writer he felt it was his duty to read these sermons in stones.

Some locations were more resonant than others. Smithfield screamed, St Paul’s whispered (too much marble) and Hatton Garden babbled. It was the same with people. Some, like him, felt things keenly, whereas the nerve endings of others seemed to be coated in acrylic. Sometimes, he envied them.

His reverie was broken by an inrush of cooler air.

“So there you are! What’re you doing in here? Nesh or something?”

Culver, stark-naked, filled the doorway.

“Follow me.”

Johnny, determined to be unabashed, left behind his loincloth.

They entered the Caldarium. As an inner circle of Hell it was well populated. Culver nodded to his fellow men and strolled over to a corner. When Johnny sat down his buttocks stung.

“Nudity encourages honesty, don’t you think?” Culver gazed round the room, openly sizing up the competition. “No hidden weapons. The naked truth.”

“What about bare-faced liars?”

“Precisely. No one talks about bare-arsed liars.”

The pipes groaned and hissed. Despite Culver’s bravado, the protocol appeared to be lowered eyes and lowered voices.

“Why meet here?” Johnny was missing his notebook.

“Why not mix business with pleasure? You’d be surprised how much gets done here. These walls don’t have ears.”

“People do, though.”

“Relax, Johnny. Concentrate on getting rid of your cold. I called you, remember. You won’t have to sweat it out of me. What did our Jewish friend have to say when you brought up the subject of Czechoslovakia?”

“He denied all knowledge.”

Culver gave an evil chuckle. “He won’t be able to deny this one.” He put a finger to his lips to forestall Johnny’s next question.

Thwarted, Johnny asked him a different one. “Are you Jewish?”

The Shark smiled. “Been examining my assets, have you? Never judge a book by its lack of cover.

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