Snow Hill by Mark Sanderson Page B

chlorine of Hornsey Road Baths. It was so strong it stung your eyes and tickled your nostrils. The water, which was never warm enough, appeared green rather than blue. The walls, lined with wooden cubicles, were decorated with horizontal stripes of black and white tiles; the roof bare corrugated iron. Together they createdan echo chamber in which the teacher’s whistle and the cries of the excited boys (for many of whom this was their only bath of the week) bounced off each other. The noise was deafening. It was much quieter under the water. Johnny, letting himself sink to the bottom of the pool, would see how long the air in his lungs would last. The pale, kicking legs above him looked like the tentacles of an enormous sea anemone. As the oxygen slowly dispersed, the heaviness in his chest gradually increased. How could the absence of something weigh so much? It was his first glimpse of the paradox.
    “Now I see why Lizzie chose you and not me,” said Johnny, resorting, as he usually did in difficult situations, to flippancy.
    No wonder Matt looked tormented. His heart went out to him.
    “Is that all you can say? My marriage and career are on the line.”
    “Sorry.” Johnny picked up the photograph again, and studied it, searching for tell-tale signs such as blurred edges, weird variations in contrast or odd angles. The focus and lighting were so good you could see the tuft of black hair between Matt’s pecs. There was no doubt the picture was genuine. It was not a trick shot, a composite of two or three others: it was a print from an original negative. “Have you any idea when it was taken?”
    “Of course not! D’you think I’d have let them take it if I’d been conscious?” Matt hissed. “I don’t make a habit of rubbing willies with other men. I am not a pervert!” Anger exacerbated Matt’s anguish.
    “Calm down,” said Johnny. “I didn’t say you were.”
    It was true Matt’s eyes were closed, but it was impossible to tell whether he was in a state of ecstasy or out for the count. He could have been lying back in abandon or being propped up by his molester.
    Johnny, however, knew that there was no way Matt would have been photographed willingly in such a compromising position.
    “I don’t suppose you recognise the other chap?”
    Matt examined the shot as if for the first time.
    “No. There’s not much to go on is there? Funny that.” He put the photograph back in the envelope and pushed it across the table. “Here, you keep it. I can’t have Lizzie finding the bloody thing.”
    Johnny tried to hide his surprise. If it had been him he would have destroyed the incriminating evidence. Then he realised Matt was not embarrassed by it but enraged. As a boxer he was used to appearing virtually unclothed in public; he was, quite rightly, proud of his body. Besides, no newspaper would ever be able to publish it.
    “When could it have been taken?”
    Surely Matt must have some idea, thought Johnny. How on earth could you be in such a situation and not know about it?
    “I’ve been racking my brains and I just don’t know,” said Matt. Then, as if sensing Johnny’s scepticism, he added: “I’ve woken up in my own bed at home—or at the station-house—every single day.”
    Four workmen were sitting at a nearby table. One ofthem made a remark, provoking a burst of laughter. Matt shot to his feet and went over to them.
    “Care to share the joke, gentlemen?”
    Silence. The whole café was listening. The quartet stared at him insolently. Their regulation brown coats suggested they were porters at Bart’s. The one with a hook-nose and sunken eyes took exception to Matt sticking his nose in.
    “Fuck off!” It was said with real venom. The man’s thin, grey lips hardly moved.
    “I’d make that Fuck off, Constable , if I were you,” said Arturo. “And if you want to use the foul language, do it somewhere else. Say sorry to my friend.”
    The vicious porter mumbled an apology and stormed out