Page 12 of No Man's Land

Unfortunately, his best lasted only a few minutes.

With the fog still thick, it was slow going along Piccadilly as he headed for the tube—sod walking home in this muck. He’d just reached the station when he heard a commotion up ahead. Nothing unusual about that in London, especially in the fog, so he paid no attention at first as he stopped outside the entrance to Dover Street and ferreted in his pocket for change.

The sudden shrill blast of a police whistle made him jump. And piqued his curiosity. He hesitated, eyeing the warmth and light of the Underground on one side and the foggy darknesson the other. As usual, his curiosity won the argument. Taking a bracing drag on his gasper, he went to investigate. As he walked toward the sounds of alarm, he couldn’t see much except that someone was waving a light about—a hand torch, by the look of the steady electric beam. The police whistle blew again from up ahead, followed by the pounding of running feet as an officer sped past him.

Josef quickened his pace until the lumpy shapes in the fog resolved themselves into a small crowd of people, their low murmurs of consternation muted by the dank air. One of them—the police officer, probably—wielded the electric torch. Josef could see its beam flashing through the fog. He hurried forward but stumbled to a halt when his nose filled with that dreadfully familiar stench of rot.

This time he knew he hadn’t imagined it because he could see two ladies holding their handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths. Josef’s heart kicked with a sudden sense of dread. “Excuse me,” he said, shouldering his way through the small crowd. They let him pass, eager to draw back.

And he understood why when he saw the dead man sprawled on the pavement.

A tramp, by the looks of his ragged clothing. Josef had seen more dead men than he could count, so it wasn’t the old man’s deathly stillness that troubled him, or his rictus of horror, peg-toothed gums bared. He’d seen far worse. No, what had Josef recoiling in shock was the putrid black wound on the man’s arm and shoulder. He reached immediately for his camera and crouched down, then cursed the lack of light. Impossible to photograph anything in these conditions.

“Stay back, sir.” The policeman stood on the other side of the body, keeping his distance like the rest of the crowd. “We’re fetching an ambulance.”

“Bit late for that,” Josef muttered. More loudly, he said, “What happened?”

From behind him, a woman said, “Looks like something took a bite out of him.”

“Maybe there’s an animal on the loose?” said another. “A wolf or something, escaped from the zoo.”

“There are no wolves loose in London, madam,” said the unimaginative constable.

But wolves or not, the woman was right. The flesh did look as if it had been eaten away. Torn out. Which was unlikely, of course, but Josef’s eyes saw what they saw. And God almighty, the stink! He tucked his mouth and nose into the crook of his elbow. “I’ve seen this before.”

“Now, now,” the policeman protested. “There’s nothing to say this is anything like the other one.”

Josef’s head jerked up. “What other one?”

After a pause, the constable said, “Move back from the body, sir.”

“Are you saying you’ve seen a wound like this before? In London—?”

“Excuse me, officer,” interrupted a cultured voice. “Is there some kind of trouble?”

At which point Josef’s thoughts scattered entirely because, to his complete astonishment, he recognised that voice. And sure enough, Captain Winchester appeared out of the mist behind the constable, flanked by two other men who, like him, were dressed in impeccable evening wear. One of them was the tall, Indian officer who’d been with Winchester in Flanders. The other Josef didn’t recognise.

Still crouching by the body, Josef absolutely stared. No chance this was a coincidence. Not a single one.

“Nothing to trouble yourself with, sir.” The policeman touched the brim of his helmet with the instinctive deferenceJosef loathed. “The ambulance is on the way.” As if to prove him correct, the ding-ding-ding of the bell crept along the street behind them. “Poor wretch succumbed to the cold most likely.”

The cold my arse, Josef thought.Did the cold chew a rotting hole in his arm?

Winchester’s gaze was fixed on the body, so intent that he didn’t appear to have noticed Josef. All to the good. “Very sad,” Winchester said coolly, but he was looking at the wounds—bites?—on the body’s arm with avid interest.

Now was not the time for Josef to speak to Winchester, not in front of all these people. Besides, dressed up to the nines as he was, the captain was clearly more of a toff than Josef had realised back in Poperinge. Any kind of familiarity between them would raise questions difficult to answer and potentially dangerous to them both; it wasn’t the done thing among men of their sort to subject a lover to the risk of exposure. Even when said lover was a lying thief.

And so, Josef kept his head down, hiding his face beneath the peak of his cap.

“Seen your fill, you ghoul?” said one of Winchester’s friends, a shorter slight chap with a top hat so tall it looked like he was overcompensating. “Come on. If we don’t leave now, they’ll give away our table.”

“Mind your backs!” called a woman’s voice, accompanied by the chug of a motor. The LCC ambulance had arrived, the driver leaning out of the window as she parked at the side of the street. The policeman began to move the small crowd aside, and Josef used the general shuffling around to hide himself as he stood up and mingled with the watchers. He kept his eye on Winchester, though. Well, he was hard to miss in his glistening topper and long, elegant overcoat.

Dashing, Josef’s mind supplied unhelpfully.

The ambulance women took charge immediately, bustling about, assessing the casualty. Well, corpse. Josef found himself watching them with professional interest and admiration. The entire London ambulance service was staffed by women these days, much to May’s delight, and from what he could see, they knew their stuff.

“Poor old boy,” one of the women said, crouching next to the man’s feet. She was a full-figured woman with a crown of red hair peeking out from beneath her hat. “Alright, Lottie. On three, now.” She took the man’s feet, her colleague took his shoulders, and together they hefted the corpse onto the stretcher. Then she fetched a blanket to cover his body and face.

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