Page 45 of No Man's Land

Josef noticed with unease that all the eyes in the room followed Alex, several men turning to murmur quietly to each other as he left.

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For the second time in a week, Josef found himself stripped bare and studied as if he were a medical specimen.

This time, however, it was not in the warm intimacy of Alex’s bathroom but a tiled, utilitarian space that reminded him of the mortuary where he’d found Sykes. There was nothing admiring in Graves’s gaze either, thank God, just a clinical appraisal followed by the application of iodine on several grazes on his back, shoulders, and arms.

A porcelain bathtub stood against one wall, with a contraption of pipes hanging over it, and a curtain on a rail. Graves said, “You can shower off in there. I’ll have fresh clothes sent in.”

“Shower off?”

“The water comes out at the top,” he explained, pointing at the pipes. “You stand underneath it to wash. Like a rain shower.”

It sounded odd, but Josef would have happily bathed in a duckpond to get the filth off him, so once Graves had left, he turned on the water, startled as it spurted out about six feet above the bath, and hurriedly drew the curtain to keep it from spraying everywhere.

Then he turned his attention back to his clothes, left in a gory pile in the centre of the room. With one eye on the door, he picked up his jacket, grimacing at the stench, and with his fingertips reached into his breast pocket to retrieve the photograph Alex was so desperate to get his hands on. Glancing around the bare room, he set it face down on the tiled windowsill and hoped that it wouldn’t be noticed by whoever brought in the clean clothes Graves had promised.

Then he returned to the bath, fiddled about with the taps to get the right temperature, and finally climbed into the tub.

The hot water hammering down on his head didn’t feel terrible. Nothing like as luxurious as the bath he’d had in Alex’s flat, but it did the job and washed away the blood and gore. He watched it swirling around his feet and down the plughole until the water began to run clear. Then he picked up a bar of sweet-smelling soap that had been left in the tub and used it to wash himself from head to toe.

By the time he stepped out of the bathtub, shivering in the chilly room, someone had left a towel, a comb, a pile of clean clothes, and a pair of shiny black shoes on a stall next to the sink. Josef glanced quickly at the window, relieved to see the photograph where he’d left it. There was no sign of Graves, and so Josef could dry himself and dress in privacy. The clothes fitted remarkably well—a shirt and a smart three-piece navy-blue suit. Finer than anything Josef had ever owned. He planned on keeping it, too, because his own clothes must be beyond salvation. He hoped Graves had burned them.

Once dressed, he examined himself in the mirror and tried to tame his dark curls with the comb. While damp, they slicked back neatly enough, but he knew they’d be all over the place once his hair dried. He scarcely recognised the well-dressed young man staring back at him from the mirror and wondered what Alex would make of him, looking so posh.

Then he wondered why he cared. It was hardly relevant, was it? Although there had been something in Alex’s gaze today, a concern for him that had felt honest…

“He’s a liar.” Sternly, he stared down his own reflection. “Don’t forget that, Joe. Alex Beaumont is a liar.”

That much settled, he tucked the photograph into his jacket pocket and pushed open the bathroom door with the hopeof doing a little exploring, only to find Graves sitting sentry outside.

He rose when Josef appeared, looking him over in apparent satisfaction. “This way, please, Mr Shepel.”

Josef had the strong impression that he had no choice but to follow, that had he asked to leave he’d have been politely and entirely refused. Besides, now that he’d recovered from the shock of the attack, his journalistic nose had started twitching. Here he was, Joe Shepel, inside a secret society. He paid attention to his surroundings as Graves led him back along the corridor to the foyer. The wood-panelled walls held several portraits, stern men gazing down at him from centuries past with little plaques on the frames that read Lord this or Viscount that. August members of the Winconian Society, no doubt.

His fingers itched for his camera.

The foyer was quieter now that the excitement was over, and Graves led him across it quickly, footsteps clack-clacking on the parquet floor, and from there along another short corridor to a small sitting area. A waiting room, perhaps, because there was a second, closed, door on the far side of the room.

And staring out of the window stood Alex. He turned when Josef entered, a flash of relief, quickly covered, crossing his face. Then his eyes flicked subtly over Josef’s body, making him newly aware of his fancy suit, before returning to settle on Josef’s face.

If Graves noticed the telltale sparkle in Alex’s eyes, he didn’t react.

“Please wait here, Mr Shepel,” Graves said, before backing out of the room and closing the door quietly behind him.

Josef didn’t hear the turn of a key in the lock, but the effect of that closing door was the same. Alex turned back to the window, frowning, and Josef noticed a splatter of dried blood on the pristine white of his shirt cuff.

Presumably from when Beaumont had decapitated the…man.

How on earth had they explained it to the police? Clearly, Alex hadn’t been arrested. Perhaps casual murder went unremarked upon among the upper classes. Maybe it happened all the time. God knew people like Alex were happy enough to step over men, women, and children starving on the streets…

He rubbed a hand across his face. No, that wasn’t fair.

He remembered Alex drawing the blanket up over Sykes’s face, that day at the clearing station. There had been compassion in the gesture, more than Josef had shown. And Alex had saved his life, twice. Josef had no doubt that he’d be dead on the street right now if Alex hadn’t, by some miracle, intervened.

The certainty made him shiver, and despite the warm shower and dry clothes, he realised he was still cold. Or maybe it wasn’t the cold making him tremble. Another shiver as he squeezed his eyes shut against a flash of memory, then opened them abruptly when the creature's ruined face and sharp teeth forced their way into his mind.

He found Alex watching him from the window.

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