The Seventh Virgin by Chris Verner & Gerald Verner

Author:Chris Verner & Gerald Verner [Verner, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

“You look dog tired,” Bentley said protectively, as Glenda yawned and rubbed her eyes. “You’ve suffered enough already.”

“It has been a quite dreadful day,” she admitted.

“Let me take you home,” he offered.

Glenda smiled and shook her head.

“Thank you, I appreciate your kindness, Joe, but I’d prefer to walk. I want to be alone for a while.” Seeing the consternation on his face, she gently touched his arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll be all right.”

Bentley felt disappointed but understood she needed time to grieve. He went over to a desk, grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper and scribbled down a number. He pressed the piece of paper into her hand.

“Call me if things get bad—”

She looked at the telephone number and gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Joe, I promise I will.”

She put on her coat and tied a dark blue scarf around her head, hiding as much of her face as she could without looking odd. Pulling on her gloves and picking up her shoulder bag, she walked purposefully along Wapping High Street and was lucky that after a short while, she managed to hail a cab.

“Where to miss?” asked the cabby.

“Number fourteen, Brady Street, off the Whitechapel Road,” she answered, relaxing back into the leather seat. She no longer felt tired but alert, like an animal hunting for food, that had caught the scent of its prey. Her destination was a three-storey run-down building next to a bomb site. As the cab drew up outside, she climbed out, paid the cabby and watched it drive off. She paused outside the building, looking up at the grimy sash windows. From her shoulder bag, she took out a key ring, with two keys on it, that her father had given her. Selecting one, she let herself in and switched on the hall light; a single naked bulb of low wattage, that produced sufficient illumination to reveal the interior of the building was wholly uninviting and in desperate need of refurbishment. The hall was cold, damp and smelled of dustbins. She climbed the stairs to the first floor, where, selecting the second key, she opened a door with the number three on it.

She entered a room that was as drab and inhospitable as the hallway. There was a threadbare carpet, on which stood cheap post-war furniture, including a metal-frame bed. She switched on the ceiling light and a small light on the bedside table, finding neither did much to cheer the place up but revealed a damp patch in one corner by the window.

As she looked around the room, tears filled her eyes as it hit home that her father had spent his last days in this horrid little place. No one in their right mind would stay in a room like this out of choice. He had confided to her that he was close to breaking open a big case, but links in the chain were still missing. When he’d found them, he was looking forward to coming home for a while and maybe taking a short break.

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