Flash Flood

Chapter Twenty-five

As José Xavier walked along, he saw that this part of town was full of signs for lawyers’ offices and financial institutions, punctuated by the odd sandwich bar. He was hungry, desperately hungry.

Once he saw the sandwich shops, he couldn’t stop thinking about food. All that time in the pouring rain had taken its toll and his body craved calories just to keep warm. He tried the doors but they had been locked up carefully. People in this part of London obviously didn’t just abandon their premises.

Through the windows of a solicitor’s office he could see a figure moving around inside — a bald man in a suit; no doubt one of the solicitors. He had a packet of Hobnobs beside him.

José stopped, transfixed by the sight of the biscuits. He wasn’t even aware that he was staring until the man caught sight of him and beckoned to him frantically.

José walked in, careful to keep his policeman’s raincoat buttoned up high, his eyes fixed on the biscuits.

The bald man pointed across to a figure lying on the floor. ‘She’s there,’ he told José. ‘We pulled her out of the basement when it flooded.’

A woman was stretched out on her back. Her clothes were soaked and her black tights had gaping holes in them. Her hair flowed over her face like seaweed. The carpet around her was sodden, as though she was bleeding river water. A man in half-moon glasses was kneeling over her, trying to give her the kiss of life.

‘The police are here,’ the bald man told him, and Half-moon Glasses sat back on his heels looking relieved.

José put his hand out to the man with the Hobnobs. ‘Give me those,’ he ordered.

The bald man handed the packet over. José wolfed four of them immediately. It was the first thing he’d eaten for hours. Better than what was on offer in Snow Hill police station.

The two men looked at him, amazed, as though they’d expected him to give them to the unconscious woman as some kind of miracle cure.

‘She needs help,’ said Half-moon Glasses. ‘We can’t get her to breathe.’

José glanced at the woman. Even from this distance her clothes smelled of sewage. A drain must have flooded into the building. Her skin looked pale and waxy and her lips were blue.

While he’d been taking this in José had eaten four more biscuits. The rain dripped off his uniform onto the floor.

‘She looks dead,’ said José. He wandered through to the kitchen and opened the fridge door. The light didn’t come on — of course — but there was a packet of sandwiches in there from one of the upmarket shops he had passed on the way here. He tore the packet open and took an enormous bite.

The bald man followed him. ‘Aren’t you even going to look at her?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you call for help on your radio?’

José straightened up and hit him around the mouth. The bald man crashed to the floor, letting out a grunt of surprise and pain.

In the other room, Half-moon Glasses froze where he was, still kneeling by the dead woman. His eyes were wide and horrified.

By the sink was a bottle of bleach with a trigger nozzle. José seized it and pointed the nozzle downwards at the bald man’s face, like a gun. Just in case he was thinking about trying to stop him getting away.

The bald man understood. He stayed where he was, leaning up on one elbow, his other hand on his bleeding mouth, watching José.

José walked to the door.

Outside, the rain was still tipping down, splashing noisily off the road and the gutters. José put the bleach bottle in his pocket, turned up his collar and went out.

In a back street in Mayfair, Francisco Gomez walked into a repair garage. It was very upmarket — there were no oily patches on the forecourt, as if cleaners came and scrubbed them away every day. A Mini stood on the inspection ramp, where it had been abandoned in the middle of an MOT. It was rather a modest car for this part of town, Francisco thought, but he guessed the mechanics had taken the Mercs and Jags and scarpered when the disaster hit.

The station had one petrol pump. Excellent: he could help himself to a can while he was here. You never knew when it might come in useful. He pulled the petrol nozzle out of the holder and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. It was probably locked from some central control indoors.

He made his way across to the office. A puffy jacket like the top half of a Michelin man outfit lay abandoned on an office chair. Francisco shrugged off the sodden donkey jacket and put the puffy jacket on. The warmth cocooned his soaking skin.

Now to find the switch to release the petrol pumps.

He found it first go, under the cash register. He pressed it, but still nothing happened. Too bad.

The cash register wouldn’t open either.

Next to it was a phone. He picked up the receiver, but there was no tone. The phones were still out. He’d done that in every shop he’d been into. Not that he wanted to call anyone: his partner would hardly have been allowed to keep his mobile. Still, it was reassuring to know that no one else was able to talk to each other either.

Francisco went through a doorway into the covered garage area and saw tools lying scattered all over the floor.

He bent down and picked up a tyre iron. That’s what he had been looking for. He looked at the Mini on the ramp. It was a pity he couldn’t get it down — he might have been able to get to Charing Cross a bit faster. He didn’t want José to think he wasn’t coming.