Free Ripped by Frederic Lindsay Page B

the alley. Brick walls on either side, the dusty cobbles, even the blank line of barred windows, soaked up the light. Whoever had died in here seemed already buried. He put back his head and there high above was a stripe of afternoon sky, summer blue and chilled. A deep grave open to the sky. When he looked down, it seemed darker and the man had popped out from beyond the corner abruptly as a conjuring trick. 'This one's going to be a bugger.'
    'Aren't they all?'
    'Wait till you see this joker.'
    'Was she raped?'
    'Eh?'
    The man's grunt was more puzzled than suspicious, but Murray knew he was on the edge of pushing his luck too far. Having no choice, he went round the corner. In front of him the alley ended in a turning circle and a service platform below which a group of men were gathered. Inspection lamps had been set up and under their white unsparing glare a man knelt over a shape on the ground. By some accident, the watching men were perfectly silent. The police examiner moved to one side and he saw that where the head of the shape should be there was a ruin of pulp drawn away from the body in a brief stripe of red. It was so quiet that from behind a barred window to the right someone could be heard whistling 'The Blue Danube'. There was a hollow echo to it as if it came from an empty room . The way the body had been turned , one arm lay out to the side under the bright light of the lamp.
    One of the men turned his head – Stewart. With a comic carefulness, he eased his way out of the group round the corpse.
    It was only when they were back round the corner safely out of sight that he spoke, 'You must be clean off your nut. Peerse would've gutted you if he'd seen you there.' Before Murray could answer, Stewart exclaimed, 'Not another one!'
    The Citizen columnist Billy Shanks was being nodded in his turn past the young Constable . He came towards them grinning widely.
    'Hold it, Billy,' Stewart said. 'You're not on.'
    'There's no chance of a quick look ? You could pretend you haven't seen me.'
    'One mug's enough, Billy. Put it in reverse.' Billy Shanks gave a grin of inexhaustible good nature. His long arms waved as if under separate instructions, a parallel conversation using a code whose semaphore was lost.
    'Don't blame the Constable, Eddy. You shouldn't have a boy doing a man's job.'
    They walked slowly back towards the mouth of the alley. Stewart spoke very fast and softly. 'Man in his fifties – Doc Pritchard's having a look at him now. He's got stab wounds – I suppose one of them killed him. No idea when yet. A van man found him. Maybe it happened last night, small hours this morning. Oh, one other thing – when the doc was looking, I saw cuts on him , he'd been ripped about the lower body.'
    'Sexually?' Billy Shanks asked hopefully.
    'His ornaments are still there if that's what you mean. But he's got cuts – like I say, on the belly.' The constable made a business of clearing a way for them into the crowd .
    'He's doing a grand job.'
    'Little Boy Blue,' Stewart said unexpectedly and laughed.
    The driver was dithering beside the car. When he saw Stewart with Murray, he blew out his plump cheeks in a sigh of relief. 'Another bloody eedjit!' Stewart said, as if in disbelief that the world could hold so many. Ignoring the driver, they walked on a few paces beyond the car before stopping.
    'Have you an identification?'
    'He just had on a shirt and trouser – nothing there to give a hint who he is – was.'
    ‘J ust? You mean that was all?'
    'The lot.'
    'It's a picture job then. Show it around till somebody recognises him.'
    At this, Stewart took a quick look at the listening Murray who said, 'Yes – I saw it.'
    'What?' Shanks asked .
    'The bloody van,' Stewart said and started to laugh, 'the driver must have been half asleep. Didn't stop till he felt a bump. He ran a wheel over the poor bugger's face.'
    Grinning, he walked away. In the tenements opposite, women hung out of the windows, their elbows on the