Ashes by Now (6 page)

17

Things got weird from there on in. I can't remember everything, but what I do remember still comes back from time to time. I don't have a choice of nightmares now. They're always the same.

I woke up in the ambulance, although I didn't know it was an ambulance then. All I could see was a man's face peering down at me. I was wearing an oxygen mask, I suppose. I know that I couldn't speak. But I lifted my hand and saw the streaks of blood that were drying on it.

I woke up again in the hospital. Or maybe I was already dreaming. I was being rushed along a corridor. I tried to speak again, but nothing came out.

Then things got
really
weird.

I was in an operating theatre. Lying there with doctors and nurses clustered round me. I couldn't move or speak. The ECG machine was bleeping quietly away, and everything appeared to be serene. As I looked, I didn't have a worry in the world. Then I heard a voice speak my name, and I looked round. Standing there behind the doctors and nurses was Sailor Grant. He was naked and dead, but it was his voice I heard speak my name, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. As I looked into Sailor's face there was a sudden commotion amongst the doctors and nurses standing round me. Everyone in the room was moving fast, and I saw the ECG machine go flat-line all of a sudden and start to sound a high-pitched scream.

I knew then that it was my choice. If I wanted to live, I could live. If I wanted to die, I could die. I looked up at Sailor again as a doctor laid two paddles on my bare chest, shouted ‘clear' and attempted to start my heart.

‘You can come with me or stay,' I heard him say. ‘But if you stay you must finish what you started all that time ago.'

I knew what he meant. Carol Harvey's murder. I knew that if I decided to live I had to do the right thing by her. I looked up at Sailor's face again as the doctor fibulated me for the second time and I made my decision. Shit, I thought, at least they should let you die in peace.

I woke up under crisp hospital sheets with a pretty nurse smiling down at me. ‘We thought we'd lost you,' she said.

My throat was so dry I couldn't speak. She gave me a plastic beaker of water, with a straw sticking out, and I sipped a drop, and it tasted like nectar.

‘Bad pennies,' I croaked. ‘It's harder to get rid of us than you think.'

‘Don't talk,' she told me. ‘I'll go and fetch a doctor.'

I lay back on the pillow and admired the design on the plastic curtains that surrounded my bed.

About two minutes later a balding thirty-something in a white coat bustled through a gap in the curtains and stood looking at me.

‘So you're back,' he said. ‘It's something of a miracle.'

‘Is that so?' I asked. ‘What happened?'

‘There's plenty of time for that,' he said brusquely. ‘Let me have a look at you first.'

He gave me an examination, and stood up from the bed shaking his head.

‘You shouldn't be here at all,' he said. ‘You were clinically dead for a while there.'

‘I've got something to do,' I told him. ‘Something important.' But he didn't know what the hell I was talking about, and right then neither did I.

He left after that, and the pretty nurse came back. She smelled like clean sheets herself, and I must confess to having carnal thoughts about what she was like under that starched uniform of hers. I had to be getting better.

‘How are you feeling?' she asked.

‘I don't know,' I said, and begged for more water.

‘You've had lots of visitors,' she said. ‘Your wife and daughter were here.

‘Ex-wife,' I told her. ‘Are they here now?'

She smiled. ‘No. That was weeks ago. You've been unconscious for ages.'

I suddenly felt alarmed. ‘How long?' I demanded.

She looked at my charts. ‘You were brought in here over six weeks ago.'

‘Six weeks,' I said. ‘Christ, what's the date?'

‘September the first.'

Jesus, I thought. That's impossible.

‘And your two girlfriends keep coming in to see you.'

‘Dawn and Tracey?' I said.

‘Yes. They're ever so nice. They said they'd come in and entertain the patients if we wanted.'

‘I bet they would,' I said. ‘Trouble is they might kill some whilst they're at it.'

‘And the police,' she said. ‘They want to know what happened.'

‘So do I,' I told her. And I did. Because at that precise moment I couldn't remember a damn thing.

So she sat down on the chair beside the bed and told me what she did know.

18

Which wasn't a great amount. I'd been brought into King's College Hospital, after being picked up from the gutter. I'd been badly beaten.

I had a ruptured spleen, a couple of broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a fractured collarbone, extensive bruising. Plus a lot of superficial cuts and mild concussion. I'd been rushed to theatre for an operation on the spleen. There had been complications on the operating table, and my heart had stopped. The doctors had called a crash code, and I'd been brought back to life after dying for half a minute or so.

I'd been out of it for six weeks. Not in a coma as such, but pretty close. I'd mumbled and shouted, and fought the people who were trying to help me, but I hadn't opened my eyes until earlier that day when, alerted by the fact that I was trying to speak again, the nurse had come to my bedside.

Simple.

Except I couldn't remember what had happened.

Not then.

That had been the middle of July. Now it was the first of September.

The last thing I did remember was a Sunday night out with Dawn and Tracey. A simple trip down the pub, followed by a Chinese meal, and a fuck with Dawn. But I knew that had been in June. Just after my birthday. After that nothing.

Not then.

‘Well, nurse,' I said. ‘Another fine mess I seem to have got myself into.'

‘Do you want a mirror?' she asked.

‘Why?' I said. ‘Did you have to do plastic surgery?'

‘No. I thought you just might like to see.'

‘OK,' I said. ‘You're the boss.'

She gave me a mirror from inside the drawer of the cupboard next to my bed. I looked at myself. My face was thinner. My hair was longer, but apart from that I was pretty much as I remembered. Not that I'd exactly call that pretty. ‘Yeah,' I said. ‘That's me all right. Who's been shaving me?'

‘I have,' she said.

‘Thanks.'

‘It's been a pleasure. Do you want me to tell anyone you're back in the land of the living?'

‘Not the taxman,' I said.

She giggled. ‘You're funny,' she said.

I looked at the swell of her breasts under the starched uniform and wondered again what she looked like without it.

‘You could tell Dawn and Tracey.'

‘I'll call them for you. They left a number with sister.'

‘You're very kind. What's your name by the way?'

‘Pru.'

‘That's nice.'

‘So I've been told. I'll go and make that call.' And she left.

She wasn't gone for long, and when she did come back, she didn't bring good news. ‘You've got a visitor,' she said.

‘Who?'

‘A policeman. There've been lots.'

‘I just bet there have.'

‘This one's been before. He's horrible.' She shuddered.

‘What's his name?' I asked.

Suddenly the curtains round the bed were pushed aside, and an unkempt figure in a greasy old raincoat stuck his head and shoulders inside. He smiled when he saw me.

‘Inspector Robber,' I said.

‘Who were you expecting?'

‘Columbo. But I see you got your dibs on the mac today.'

‘Amusing, Sharman. I see they didn't knock your sense of humour out of you. I'm glad about that.'

‘Who didn't?' I asked.

‘Whoever knocked the other seven kinds of shit out of you. Beg your pardon, miss.' And he gave Pru a cheesy smile that showed where he'd missed with the toothbrush that morning.

‘That's all right,' she said sniffily. ‘I've heard worse. But I thought I told you to wait outside until I found out whether Mr Sharman wanted to see you or not.'

‘As if he wouldn't,' said Robber.

‘As if,' I said. ‘It's OK, Pru. Let him stay.'

‘If you're sure.'

I nodded, and she left with a swish of starched skirts.

‘Pru, is it?' said Robber. ‘You don't waste much time.'

‘Charmers like us don't have to. You must have noticed that yourself.'

Robber didn't reply, just drew up a chair and sat down. It gave me a chance to give him the once over.

He hadn't changed. He still looked exactly like the last time I'd seen him, when I'd got involved in a case he'd been working on. It had finished in tears, but then most of my cases did. He still didn't know the whole story, and he never would.

His hair was greasy. His skin was greasy. His mac was greasy. His shirt was a disgrace, and his neck bulged over the dirty, too-tight collar fastened with a safety pin under the knot of his greasy old tie. His trousers had never met an iron, and his shoes were ill-acquainted with polish. In short, he was a mess. I could never work out what he did with all the money he earned.

‘So what's the story?' he asked when he was comfortable and had a cigarette lit.

‘No smoking in here,' I said.

He shrugged.

‘Give us a drag then.'

He did. The end was wet, but the smoke tasted good.

‘Who did it, Sharman?' he asked.

‘Good question. I don't remember.'

‘Excuse no. 65A. I don't remember, your honour. Me mind's a complete blank.'

‘Your honour, bollocks. I'm not on trial, am I?'

He shrugged again.

‘Well, am I?'

‘Not at the moment.'

‘Listen,' I said. ‘As far as I understand, it was me that took a beating. Maybe if you found out who did it,
they
might be on trial.'

‘Who, is difficult,' he said. ‘Why, might help.'

‘Jack,' I said, taking the liberty of using his Christian name. ‘If I knew, I'd tell you. Honest. But the last thing I remember is going out with two young ladies some time in June. After that I'm a blank.'

‘Don't tempt me,' he said, and dogged his ciggie out in a bedpan. ‘If you do remember anything get in touch.'

‘Is this official?' I asked.

‘Half and half. I'm interested.'

‘I'm flattered.'

‘So you should be.' He stood up to leave.

‘Is that it?' I asked.

‘For now. I shall return.'

‘Like General MacArthur.'

The remark went right over his head.

‘No “I'm glad you're better”?' I asked.

‘Don't fuck about, Sharman. You know the world would be a better place without you.' He pushed out through the curtains again.

My, but that stung.

19

That night they must have cut my medication. Or maybe it was because it was my first night back in the world. Or something. Who knows?

But whatever it was, it was the first night that I had the dreams. The nightmares that still come back regularly to haunt my sleep.

They turned off the main lights in the small ward at about ten. I lay and looked into the shadows until I fell asleep. Then I dreamt about what happened all those weeks ago. Starting at the end and working backwards.

First I was in the operating theatre with the paddles on my chest, and my body jumping as the electrical current went through it. I saw Sailor Grant's dead body and I remembered his words, and decided that, however shitty it was, living was preferable to dying. Then I was in the hospital corridor being rushed to the theatre, then the ambulance.

Then I started to remember the really bad bits.

It was like the memory of an acid trip. Or a film that had been burnt and melted.

I dreamed about being driven along almost deserted streets, and a conversation about a piece of paper, that somehow was important, but I didn't know why. And leaping from the car to bounce across the tarmac until I ended up in the gutter and saw that copper. The man who saved my life. After that I dreamed I was being beaten. Beaten hard by experts. Collier and Millar. Punching, kicking and gouging, until they nearly killed me. And then hearing that was what they intended to do.

I dreamed of Sailor's dead body on the toilet, and then that memory got mixed up with the Sailor Grant I saw in the operating theatre, and in the Live And Let Live. All asking for my help. And all being turned down.

I came awake in the middle of the night, struggling to sit up, a silent scream bubbling in the back of my throat.

Then I remembered.

I remembered everything, and resolved to do something about it.

I had to stay at King's for another three weeks, convalescing.

I had lots more visitors.

My mother roused herself from deepest Sussex to make the pilgrimage to the big, wicked city, and brought me some sandwiches. Thanks, Mum. She didn't stay long. Just as well probably.

My ex-wife and daughter came down again from Aberdeen. Judith had grown up since the last time I'd seen her. A real young lady, dressed in the latest rave fashions. It made me feel quite old to look at her. Laura was ageing well. Maybe it was the Scottish air. They looked more like two sisters than mother and daughter. Mind you, her disposition hadn't improved much. She moaned and groaned so much about the cost of the air fares down to London that I offered her a cheque to pay for them.

Christ. We were married once. Love, honour and fucking obey.

Bitch.

At least she had the good grace to refuse the money. And why shouldn't she? Her husband was rolling in it. But, if Judith hadn't been there, I think she might just have taken it, out of spite.

Dawn and Tracey were in and out all the time. What a popular pair they were with the other male patients, and doctors in particular.

They actually rolled in when Laura and Judith were there one afternoon. The girls were on their way to a masonic do in Clerkenwell, where they were going to take off every stitch in honour of the Great Architect.

Laura's face was a picture. There they came, the Wandsworth two. Staggering in on the latest glam-rock revival: platform sole and pencil heel, toeless, suede St Louis Blues, their passage not helped by the two or three Drambuie-and-lagers they'd sucked down for lunch. With the shoes, Tracey had opted for a long, tight skirt that was split to the thigh, black fishnet tights, a patchwork tank top sans bra, and a red satin jacket with Concorde lapels. When Tracey went for a look she really went for it. And since I'd been in hospital the '70s had obviously returned with a vengeance.

Dawn had stuck with the basic Soho streetwalker image that she loved. Black stockings, with a thin gold chain around the right ankle, black mini-skirt that just covered the tops of them, black satin blouse, unbuttoned to show the lace of her black net bra, and the black shiny plastic mac that the girls took turns to wear. On top of her blonde head, at a rakish angle, was set a black beret. Her slap consisted of solid-state pan stick, sooty mascara, and shiny red Monroe lipstick. Tracey had gone for a full rainbow psychedelic '70s make-up job to go with the rest of her outfit.

Those two would stop traffic on Resurrection Day. And probably will.

As they pushed their way through the ward door and wobbled over to my bed, Laura turned and said, ‘I imagine these two are with you.'

I just nodded.

Judith was gobsmacked by the sight of them.

‘Hello, Nick,' said Tracey. ‘Fuck me, have we had a journey today. Old Bill gave us a pull in Herne Hill. I think they thought we was on the game or sumfin'.' She suddenly noticed Judith and Laura. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘Are we interruptin' anyfin'?' When Tracey was agitated, her accent zeroed in on Bermondsey where she'd been born and bred, and nothing would get it any further up river.

Except a stiff drink that is.

‘No,' I said mildly. ‘Not a thing. This is my ex-wife Laura, and this is my –' I almost said ‘little girl', before I realised, just in time, the kind of look that Judith would give me if I did ‘– daughter, Judith. This is Dawn and Tracey. Friends of mine. They've been visiting almost every day to make sure I'm all right.'

Laura managed a smile that would curdle milk, and offered her hand like the Queen Mother unveiling a war memorial. Judith swallowed and said, ‘Hi.'

‘I like your 'at,' said Tracey, referring to Judith's backwards-facing baseball cap. ‘Dead good, eh, Dawn?'

‘Wicked,' Dawn replied. ‘Mind if I sit down, Nick? These bleeding shoes might look the business, but they're murder on my poor old feet.'

She collapsed on to the edge of the bed, and her skirt shot up over the tops of her stockings to expose three inches of milk-white thighs, bisected by black suspenders. Poor Laura almost fainted dead away.

She used to be as horny as fuck herself once. And nothing fazed her. I always find it sad when people change.

Tracey sat on the other side of the bed and looked long and hard at me.

I hadn't told anyone what had happened that night on the Lion, and how I ended up in a gutter in Peckham. If anyone asked, and they did, including two local CID who I'd never met before, and didn't particularly want to meet again, I told them I couldn't remember. That I must have been mugged. The fact that I'd still had my wallet on me when I was picked up, cash and ID intact, sort of blew that one out of the water, but there you go.

‘You look much better, Nick,' Tracey said.

‘Good,' I said. ‘I'm glad you think so. I feel much better, too.'

‘We'll have you right as rain in no time, as soon as you're out of this dump. Eh, Dawn?'

‘Course we will,' Dawn replied. ‘Some good home cooking and you'll be tickety-boo.'

I felt like I was beginning to hallucinate again. Tracey and Dawn's idea of home cooking was ten minutes in the microwave at full blast for anything from a TV dinner to a five-pound oven-ready chicken. I expect the domestic bit was for Laura's benefit.

‘I can't wait,' I said.

‘You from round 'ere?' Tracey asked Laura.

‘Aberdeen actually,' replied Laura in her best lady-of-the-manor fashion. She was beginning to piss me right off. Tracey and Dawn were genuine twenty-four carat. And they gave a shit about me. Which was more than my ex-wife had done for more years than I cared to remember. And she was treating them like they were dirt. Or perhaps I was being too hard on her. At least she'd come down. And brought Judith. She needn't have bothered. Or perhaps it was that I'd never got over the fact that she'd dumped me, even though I'd asked for it. Who can tell with human nature?

‘Where you staying?' asked Tracey.

‘The Connaught,' replied Laura. ‘We always stay there when we're in town.'

And she was moaning about money.

I saw the look that Tracey gave Dawn. I just knew that the guns were coming out. With a vengeance.

‘We done a show there once, remember, Dawn?' she said.

I winced. I knew we were in for some memoirs from the skin game, probably in extremely graphic detail, and I just knew that Laura would have a fit.

‘Are you singers?' asked Judith, who suddenly found her voice and saved the day.

‘No, love,' said Dawn. ‘We're…' And she suddenly fell in with how old Judith was. ‘… Well sort of. All-round entertainers, really.' And she winked at Trace, who, thank God, fell in too, bless her.

‘That's right, Judith love,' she said. ‘All-round entertainers. That's us.'

Laura obviously wasn't so sure. ‘We'd better be going and leave you with your friends, Nick,' she said. ‘We'll pop in later. You know we're off first thing tomorrow.'

‘OK, Laura,' I said, and winked at Judith. ‘Going shopping?' I asked.

Judith nodded.

‘Spend lots of Louis's money,' I said. ‘I'm sure he won't mind.'

Laura scowled, gathered her things together, and she and Judith left.

‘Who's Louis?' asked Dawn

‘Her husband.'

‘Were you really married to her?' asked Tracey. ‘She looks like she's got sandpaper in her knickers.'

I had to laugh. What a woman.

‘But your daughter seems nice,' she went on.

‘She gets that from me,' I said.

‘God help her then,' said Dawn.

I had lots of other visitors too. Des, my old mate from Covent Garden, came in to see me. And my two friends who had been christened Charles: Charlie, the mechanic who serviced my cars; and Chas who worked on the
South London Press
, and who'd got involved with me on a recent case.

Charlie didn't ask what had happened to me. He wasn't the inquisitive type, except when it came to working out why a car wouldn't start.

Chas, on the other hand, was full of questions. Like the rest, I told him I couldn't remember.

He believed me like he believed that the Pope was a Jew.

Robber came back a couple times too. Nosing about to see what he could find. But I just took the piss until he went away again.

Other people came too. Too numerous to mention really. Some I expected, and some I was surprised to see.

But the biggest surprise of all was the day before I was due to be discharged, when Detective Inspector Terry Collier paid me a visit.

I don't mind telling you that the sight of him scared me half to death, if you'll excuse the expression.

I was still dreaming about what happened that night on the Lion – not pleasant dreams as you can imagine – and when he walked into the ward for real my mouth went dry and I felt the sweat break out all over my body. Pure fear. And he knew it.

And I knew that until he was out of circulation one way or another, the mere thought of him would always have that effect on me.

He strolled up to the side of my bed and said, ‘Hello, Nick. How's your bad luck?'

‘All the worse for seeing you,' I replied.

I didn't want him to know just how scared I
was
.

‘That's not a nice thing to say when an old friend and colleague comes calling. I'd've bought you flowers, but the shop was shut.'

‘Thanks for the thought,' I said. ‘But you needn't have bothered.'

‘No bother. I just thought I'd pop in to see how you were getting on. I hear you're off home tomorrow.'

‘That's right.'

‘Had any other visitors from the force?'

‘As if you didn't know.'

He pretended to look hurt. ‘Well, have you?'

‘Sure I have. A couple of local DCs, and an old friend of mine too.'

‘Who?'

‘Jack Robber.'

‘What did he want?'

‘To find out who put me here.'

‘But you didn't tell.'

I shook my head.

‘So what
did
you tell them?'

‘Nothing. That I didn't know what did happen. And you know that too, Collier. Otherwise they'd have been round to see you and your mate.'

‘Just checking.'

‘You've got some fucking nerve coming here,' I said. And I could feel the sweat break out on my upper lip.

‘Is that right?'

‘You were going to kill me that night.'

‘Fuck off. Course not.'

‘I remember.'

‘No mate. You were too badly off.' He sat on the edge of the bed, just like an old friend come to call.

‘I suppose I took a nasty fall. Like Grant did in the station that night.'

‘No mate. You took what you deserved. We'd been waiting a long time for that. And forget all about Grant. He was just a nasty little nonce. You're the last person I would have expected to stick up for one of them. You saw enough of that in the job, didn't you?'

I didn't reply. I was at a disadvantage, being still weak and all tucked up in bed, and he knew it.

‘So do yourself a favour,' he went on. ‘Keep your nose out of what doesn't concern you any more. We know who your friends are, and where they are, and what they do. It would be a terrible shame if something bad happened to one of them.'

I came off the bed, fists clenched. ‘You bastard. Leave my friends out of this,' I shouted, and I saw heads turn right along the ward.

‘Keep your voice down,' said Collier. ‘We don't want everyone listening in on our business. Now look here, Sharman. You had a result that night. Don't push your luck. Next time you might not.'

Jesus. Next time. That's what I was frightened of.

‘Forget about Grant, and forget everything else that happened. Like I said, next time you might not be so lucky. And those tarts of yours who keep coming in to look after you. They might not be so lucky either. You've had a couple of months in here at the taxpayers' expense. How bad? Just go home and get well, and look after your own backyard in future. Understand?'