down at her, and at the same moment, as if there were some telepathic connection between them, her eyelids flickered open. She stared up, then her face convulsed in fear for a second before she lost consciousness again.
‘Get him out of here,’ Kathy snapped.
9
K athy didn’t wake until noon the following day. As she surfaced slowly from a deep sleep she became aware of sunlight filtering through the blinds, and immediately her mind began spinning with memories of the previous night: a body falling into the void; the smell of burning plastic; Wylie’s malignant stare; a blackened, gangrenous leg. She sat up abruptly and forced the images away. She might go for a swim, she thought, get her hair done, buy a pair of shoes, get in some food.
She noticed the trail of her discarded clothes on the floor. She still felt exhausted. The phone rang; she picked it up and heard Brock’s voice.
‘Didn’t wake you, did I?’
‘Mmm . . .’ her mouth felt numb, not yet ready for speech. ‘Not quite.’
‘Sorry. Just wondered if you fancied brunch.’
Still slightly disoriented, Kathy wondered what kind of invitation this was.
‘I’m meeting Bren in an hour,’ he went on, ‘at The Bride.’
‘This is work?’
‘Afraid so. Can you make it?’
‘Of course.’
She rang off and got out of bed, opened the blinds, stretched and yawned at the window. It was a beautiful sunny day, white clouds scudding across a pale blue sky, a complete contrast with the drab grey days of the working week behind them.What did Brock want? Surely it was all but over now. Was it the questioning of Wylie? Or—her heart sank—breaking the news to relatives. Yes, that would be it. She should have realised he’d be needing help with that. She wondered how much sleep he’d had. It had been after three when he’d sent her home, but he’d still been working with the others through the material in the flat.
The Bride of Denmark was a myth, one of those unlikely accumulations that sometimes occur in the basements of old buildings in old cities. It didn’t exist in the inventories of the assets of the Metropolitan Police because the occupants of the Queen Anne’s Gate annex did their best to hide its existence, and because those few civil servants who had come across it considered it too difficult to deal with and had designated it ‘miscellaneous’. In the years after the Second World War the former occupants of the building, architectural publishers, had gone about the ruined city like magpies, collecting fragments of old bombed-out pubs and reconstructing them in their basement as the eccentric Bride. The small rooms were crammed with salvaged fittings—the polished bar, the back-to-back pew seats, the mahogany shelving—and encrusted with rows of ancient cobwebby bottles, pewter mugs, porcelain spirit kegs, mirrors and animal trophies. A salmon gawped at an antelope’s head, and the antlers of a moose met the unblinking gaze of a stuffed lion, or at least the front half of a lion, crouching among savannah grass in his glass case. The Bride was a refuge hidden beneath the annex, without phones, computers or office machines, a place where Brock retired to think.
Bren was already there when Kathy arrived, perched on a cane seat at the bar peeling plastic film from a plate of sandwiches. Brock, on the other side, was pouring coffee from a tall pot, and offered her a cup.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and sank onto a worn leather seat beneath the lion. ‘Just what I need.’
‘So as soon as I turn my back you two go and wrap the thing up,’ Bren grunted, sounding peeved.
‘I thought of something and went back . . .’ Kathy began to explain, feeling awkward, but Bren waved a big hand. ‘Brock explained. Well done, anyway.’ He picked up a sandwich and took a bite, handed her the plate.
Brock came through the flap of the bar with a mug of coffee in his hand and sat beside Kathy. He smelled fresh from a shower and was wearing jeans and
‘Get him out of here,’ Kathy snapped.
9
K athy didn’t wake until noon the following day. As she surfaced slowly from a deep sleep she became aware of sunlight filtering through the blinds, and immediately her mind began spinning with memories of the previous night: a body falling into the void; the smell of burning plastic; Wylie’s malignant stare; a blackened, gangrenous leg. She sat up abruptly and forced the images away. She might go for a swim, she thought, get her hair done, buy a pair of shoes, get in some food.
She noticed the trail of her discarded clothes on the floor. She still felt exhausted. The phone rang; she picked it up and heard Brock’s voice.
‘Didn’t wake you, did I?’
‘Mmm . . .’ her mouth felt numb, not yet ready for speech. ‘Not quite.’
‘Sorry. Just wondered if you fancied brunch.’
Still slightly disoriented, Kathy wondered what kind of invitation this was.
‘I’m meeting Bren in an hour,’ he went on, ‘at The Bride.’
‘This is work?’
‘Afraid so. Can you make it?’
‘Of course.’
She rang off and got out of bed, opened the blinds, stretched and yawned at the window. It was a beautiful sunny day, white clouds scudding across a pale blue sky, a complete contrast with the drab grey days of the working week behind them.What did Brock want? Surely it was all but over now. Was it the questioning of Wylie? Or—her heart sank—breaking the news to relatives. Yes, that would be it. She should have realised he’d be needing help with that. She wondered how much sleep he’d had. It had been after three when he’d sent her home, but he’d still been working with the others through the material in the flat.
The Bride of Denmark was a myth, one of those unlikely accumulations that sometimes occur in the basements of old buildings in old cities. It didn’t exist in the inventories of the assets of the Metropolitan Police because the occupants of the Queen Anne’s Gate annex did their best to hide its existence, and because those few civil servants who had come across it considered it too difficult to deal with and had designated it ‘miscellaneous’. In the years after the Second World War the former occupants of the building, architectural publishers, had gone about the ruined city like magpies, collecting fragments of old bombed-out pubs and reconstructing them in their basement as the eccentric Bride. The small rooms were crammed with salvaged fittings—the polished bar, the back-to-back pew seats, the mahogany shelving—and encrusted with rows of ancient cobwebby bottles, pewter mugs, porcelain spirit kegs, mirrors and animal trophies. A salmon gawped at an antelope’s head, and the antlers of a moose met the unblinking gaze of a stuffed lion, or at least the front half of a lion, crouching among savannah grass in his glass case. The Bride was a refuge hidden beneath the annex, without phones, computers or office machines, a place where Brock retired to think.
Bren was already there when Kathy arrived, perched on a cane seat at the bar peeling plastic film from a plate of sandwiches. Brock, on the other side, was pouring coffee from a tall pot, and offered her a cup.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and sank onto a worn leather seat beneath the lion. ‘Just what I need.’
‘So as soon as I turn my back you two go and wrap the thing up,’ Bren grunted, sounding peeved.
‘I thought of something and went back . . .’ Kathy began to explain, feeling awkward, but Bren waved a big hand. ‘Brock explained. Well done, anyway.’ He picked up a sandwich and took a bite, handed her the plate.
Brock came through the flap of the bar with a mug of coffee in his hand and sat beside Kathy. He smelled fresh from a shower and was wearing jeans and
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