How long before rigor mortis started to take over? I wondered. Usually it started about forty-five minutes to an hour after death, I seemed to remember from somewhere.
I plodded on, sliding a hand along walls for balance, hanging on to lamp posts along the way, summoning up extra willpower to cross roads where there was nothing to grab hold of should my knees buckle, unable to avoid traffic (mercifully, there was very little), so forcing myself to stand stock-still while cars and the occasional bus manoeuvred around me instead. Abuse was hurled at me, horns were tooted, but I was oblivious. I only had one thing in mind and that was to reach my goal before flesh and bone gave up.
Having lived in the city all my life, I knew where to find the local police station and my mind was sharp enough to recognize roads and streets. How long I’d been travelling, I had no idea: it could have been an hour or only half an hour. Whatever, the effort was draining my resolve.
I saw a big flyover up ahead and it gave me hope, because it meant I was close. For a short while my rambling gait—somewhere between Liam Gallagher’s swagger and Ozzy Osbourne’s shuffle—actually quickened, but it couldn’t last long. Against my will, I slowed down and one foot began to drag. And then I saw the building I was looking for in the distance and the sight of it gave me fresh determination. I stepped off the kerb, almost tripping in my sudden haste, but managed to recover before falling; it was a particularly ungainly moment, my arms bending in all sorts of ways. Someone whistled at me, then laughed, but no one came to my aid, and perhaps that was a good thing.
Still attracting curious stares (there were a few more people on this main road) I stomped ungracefully towards my goal. Reaching the other side, I had difficulty in raising a foot to mount the pavement. My toenail scraped the kerbstone to find the higher level and I leaned forward so that my weight was on that leg, then dragged my other foot after the first. It didn’t work out so well—I lost my balance and toppled over onto the pavement. Luckily, I didn’t go all the way down, ending up sitting on the ground, one hand against the stone, my legs spread sideways, knees bent. I remained in that position for a minute or two, trying to regain my composure and psyching myself for the effort it would now take to get me on my feet again.
That was when I caught sight of the last thing in the world that I wanted to see.
Coming towards me on the opposite side of the road was Moker’s old beat-up Hillman, its sidelights shining like warning beacons. I knew whose shadowy figure was behind the wheel and I groaned. With the groan I swore out loud and at least the word was fairly coherent (to my own ears at least).
Moker obviously hadn’t seen me, for the vehicle was coming straight ahead without slowing. Now instinct should have made me hide my face, maybe roll myself into an inconspicuous ball, but making somebody else’s body react sharply was not so easy. For some reason I ended up on all fours like a dog, my head raised and facing towards the approaching car.
Moker hit the brakes as soon as he saw me and in that instant I realized that he’d been cruising the neighbourhood searching for me. He must have collected his car from the car park (no doubt using the quiet side EXIT/ENTRANCE to reach it) and returned to the secluded cul-de-sac where he had left the woman’s battered corpse to find it gone. What a shock that must have been for him.
So he’d come looking for his prize, perhaps wondering if the Arabs had carried it off—or perhaps even suspecting another spirit had somehow stolen his right. And now his search had proved successful. He’d spotted me. And I was helpless.
32
I struggled to get to my feet again (okay, it was the dead woman’s feet, but to keep on mentioning that gets tedious) but could only fumble around on the pavement, my legs becoming stubbornly obstinate. The Hillman, which had not been travelling very fast in the first place, slid to a halt. Masked by hat and scarf, Moker looked out the side window at me.
I scrambled around in panic, but my legs refused to obey me. Each time I attempted to bend a knee the leg declined to fold. Moker was looking about, no doubt making sure the coast was clear for him to bundle me into the boot of the car, when an Audi arrived behind him. The irritated driver tooted his horn and yelled at the obstacle in his way, and Moker looked back at him; either surprise or anger might have been on his face if he’d had a face. He unwound his side window, not a speedy process in the old Hillman, and indicated for the other driver to go around him, but fortunately for me, the guy was the obstreperous kind and saw no reason why he should have to go out of his way to avoid another vehicle that was wrongly parked in the middle of the road (it was a very wide road, but that wasn’t the point). He continued to thump his horn and swear at Moker.
Moker had obviously decided that it would be easier to move than engage in a haranguing match, because he drove on, pulling into the kerb on his side of the road. I took the opportunity to try to get up again, but without much joy: my legs kept collapsing each time I tried to kneel. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Moker starting the first move of a three-point turn and I groaned in frustration.
Suddenly, I was gripped under the arms by strong hands and hauled to my unsteady feet. A big woman with butch, short blonde hair and no make-up came around from behind me, one hand hanging onto my arm to prevent me from falling again. She wore a dark jacket with dark slacks, the collar of a pale-blue shirt spread over the neck and lapels of the jacket, its long tips pointing towards the nipples of wide and ample breasts.
“You all right, dear?” I heard her ask in a surprisingly high voice given the masculinity of her build. Her only adornments, I saw, were a pair of large, round and dangly earrings.
“Muh… ma… yeh-es,” I managed to reply.
Although her face began to waver in front of me, my vision beginning to fail, I still caught the look of disgust she gave me when she noticed my state and smelled the blood and urine (and other stuff!) on my clothes. She began to back away, not through fear, I guessed, but from revulsion. I was aware that I was not a pretty sight, nor very well perfumed, but I held up a pleading hand to her anyway. She continued to back off and I couldn’t blame her: I wasn’t the finest figure to come face to face with, especially at that hour (well, any hour, really).
“Hel… hel… me…” I muttered, but it was no good; she turned on her heel (sensible brogues, actually) and walked away from me.
More beeping of horns sounded and I slowly craned my neck to look back at Moker. Seemed he’d become a nuisance to other drivers, for he was sideways across the road, blocking the paths of two more vehicles, one of them a late-night bus. They were causing quite a racket, although the noise suddenly dwindled in my borrowed ears. Oh shit, now my hearing was going.
I began to walk, following the big woman who’d just become a blur in the distance by now. She soon passed the front entrance of the police station I was aiming for, and I thought it a pity that she hadn’t popped inside to report a battered madwoman on the loose.
I moved one foot in front of the other, one in front of the other, one in front of the other, concentrating hard as I tried to say the words.
“Un… an… funt… of… udder…” Practising all the way, forcing my stiff legs to move. “Un… in… funt… o… udder… one… in… front… of… udder…”
I repeated it all the way until it began to sound like a chant. A red bus passed me, the bus Moker had held up, then a car, and I knew it would not be long before he came alongside me like some kerb-crawling creep. I tried to hasten my step, but almost tumbled over with the extra effort. Take it easy, I told myself, think hard, one foot in front of the other, but don’t rush it. Not far to go… oh God, so why did it seem such a long way away?
“One… in… front… of… udder…” Bloody hell!
Soon there though. Not that far. Where was Moker? I wasn’t going to look. To look meant stopping and forcing my head round. Would take too long. Besides, eyes becoming too blurred. Halos around streetlamps. Cold, bloody cold inside this refrigerated carcass. Almost there, I think.
I was speaking as I went, keeping up the practice because if I couldn’t talk coherently once inside the police station, then this whole mission was pointless.
Uh-oh. Car coming up from behind. I knew who it was without looking but, as it would only take a sideways glance, I looked anyway. I thought I could hear the sinews and bones of my neck grinding against each other.
There was Moker, wide-set bulging eyes gazing out at me from the open side window. I couldn’t be sure if it was surprise or panic in those frightening eyes. Maybe a mixture of both. I swerved aside, because I realized that if I could see his eyes so clearly, then I was too close to him. A big hand came out of the window to grab at me, but I’d just about put enough distance between us.
What must he be thinking? That he hadn’t entirely finished the woman off? But surely the beating from the
