Post Mortem by Gary Bell (free children's ebooks pdf .TXT) 📕

embroidered onto his chest. ‘I’m from the agency. The temporary cleaner.’ He gestured to the Henry vacuum and his basket of cleaning supplies behind him.

‘Oh, of course.’ I pinched at my eyes. ‘My apologies. It’s been a long week.’

He nodded, chewing his lips. His skin was pallid and blotchy, and sweat rolled past his ears. His nails, I noticed, were long and filthy. He also smelled like something I hadn’t smelled in a while. It was the smell of the homeless.

‘Well,’ he said, picking up the basket and dragging the vacuum cleaner along by its pipe. ‘Best be getting on.’

‘Yes.’ I stepped aside, Zara did the same, and he passed us both and began to descend the stairs.

I was already walking the landing towards my door when Zara clicked her tongue. ‘Well, well, well. The Rook fame strikes again.’

‘Fame?’ From my coat pocket, I produced my own set of keys. ‘What fame?’

‘Your fame. You know you’re getting a bit too well known when the temporary cleaner knows you by name.’

I paused, thinking back on the brief encounter. ‘He didn’t know my name.’

‘Course he did, he called you Mr Rook.’

‘How could he possibly know –’ I stopped talking. As I approached my room it became obvious I wasn’t going to need my key. The door was hanging from its hinges and the light was on. ‘Bastard!’

The room was trashed. Books had been thrown from the shelves. The drawers were opened, rifled through, and papers were strewn across the floor. Whatever he’d been looking for would’ve been hard to say, if he hadn’t left it face up on the desk as if neatly positioned for a photograph. The forms with Omar Pickett’s provisional licence. The address of his current whereabouts.

‘Zara, wait!’ I yelled, but she was already on the staircase, sprinting after the man.

27

‘Oi!’ she shouted, dodging around the vacuum cleaner that had been dumped in the middle of the staircase. From below, I could hear the cleaner’s footsteps increasing to a sprint. I heard the front door go crashing open, followed by the revving of an engine.

We made it outside just in time to see the cleaner stuffing his head into a helmet while clambering onto the back of the moped. The bike went putting off over the pavement into Furnival Street, slowing only briefly to negotiate the concrete bollards before disappearing towards Holborn with a sound like a mosquito fading into the night.

‘Fuck!’ Zara cried. ‘They’re going for Omar!’

‘Come on,’ I said, already turning. ‘I know a quicker way!’

We sprinted across Chancery and up to the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. It must’ve been coming up to seven o’clock now, because an old custodian was sauntering up to the gate from the other side, whistling and selecting the appropriate key from his bunch. He fell backwards shouting when we barged through the gate.

I could hear Zara panting into her phone. ‘Hello? Police! I need Detective Inspector Jack Linford! It’s an emergency! There’s going to be a violent assault! Bruce House! The back of Drury Lane! Just fucking send somebody! Anybody!’

By the time she hung up, we’d made it through Lincoln’s Inn and were out of the gatehouse at the south-east corner, pelting along the perimeter of Lincoln’s Inn Field, the fence they’d raised to deter the homeless back in 1993. This was no jog. It was a flat-out sprint. When I finally reached Sardinia Street, the buildings were disappearing around me. All I could hear was my own wheezing, like an astronaut floating in darkness, a deep-sea diver sinking into black. Screws turned in the backs of my thighs, ankles and knees. Sagging hair clouded my vision.

Ahead, Zara had come to an abrupt stop at the edge of Kingsway, the main road running from left to right with a steel barrier dividing its four lanes through the centre. She was listening for something. I paused, focusing hard, and heard it too. The moped was now coming down Kingsway from the right. There was a rally of horns as it tore recklessly through the lanes and then Zara was off again, zigzagging between black cabs and nimbly jumping the barrier. I followed, vaulting over, legs like concrete, and almost tripped in front of a northbound bus. Then we were on Kemble, which forked onto Wild Street to the right, and I saw the small bike rocketing towards us from that direction. I leapt with arms outstretched as if I might be able to tackle the riders from it, but there was no chance; they were several feet ahead already, whizzing up towards the sign for Bruce House Centre on the left.

And like a spill of petrol flowing beside an open flame, I saw what was going to happen before it ever did. From my distance of about thirty yards, I could make out the cluster of figures standing in the archway of the building’s brown double doors, cigarette smoke rising idly into dusk; I didn’t have to identify Omar for my gut to be sure that he was somewhere in the middle.

In unison, the smokers turned towards the bike, which had slowed to a crawl, then a halt. The passenger in the cleaning overalls was reaching for something, and the next thing I knew, Zara had turned on the spot and was running straight back towards me.

‘Back!’ she cried, pushing against my chest. ‘Get back!’

A sharp popping sound; three, four, five cracks accompanied by small bursts of light. It took my brain another second to realise that the passenger with the handgun had opened fire on the smokers.

Now somebody was screaming. The glass in the hostel’s doors had shattered. Two of the smokers were on the ground. One was crawling but the other wasn’t. The remaining bystanders had lunged into the safety of the building.

A siren was coming. Maybe two. Still not near enough. I pushed Zara aside and started running again, shoes pounding. Ahead, the bike’s red brake light went out. It took off up the remainder of