fired. The result was startling. The figure seemed to balloon up, his body losing its shape, becoming a flapping mass of white cloth, with a face loosely imprinted on it. There was a noise like the snapping of Monday-washed sheets on a line, a sound that was out of place in this grimy back-street. Norton’s confusion left him responseless for a moment, and the man-sheet seemed to rise in the air, illusory.
At Norton’s feet, Maguire was coming round, groaning. He was trying to speak but having difficulty making himself understood through his bruised larynx and throat. Norton bent closer to him. He smelt of vomit and fear.
‘Glass,’ he seemed to be saying.
It was enough. Norton nodded, said hush. That was the face, of course, on the sheet. Glass, the imprudent accountant. He’d watched the man’s feet fried, watched the whole vicious ritual; not to his taste at all.
Well, well: Ronnie Glass had some friends apparently, friends not above revenge.
Norton looked up, but the wind had lifted the ghost above the rooftops and away.
That had been a bad experience; the first taste of failure. Ronnie remembered it still, the desolation of that night. He’d lain, heaped in a rat-run corner of a derelict factory south of the river, and calmed the panic in his fibres. What good was this trick he’d mastered if he lost control of it the instant he was threatened? He must plan more carefully, and wind his will up until it would brook no resistance. Already he sensed that his energy was ebbing: and there was a hint of difficulty in restructuring his body this second time round. He had no time to waste with fumbled failures. He must corner the man where he could not possibly escape.
Police investigations at the mortuary had led round in circles for half a day; and now into the night. Inspector Wall of the Yard had tried every technique he knew. Soft words, hard words, promises, threats, seductions, surprises, even blows. Still Lenny told the same story; a ridiculous story he swore would be corroborated when his fellow technician came out of the catatonic state he’d now taken refuge in. But there was no way the Inspector could take the story seriously. A shroud that walked?
How could he put that in his report? No, he wanted something concrete, even if it was a lie.
‘Can I have a cigarette?’ asked Lenny for the umpteenth time. Wall shook his head.
‘Hey, Fresco – ‘ Wall addressed his right-hand man, Al Kincaid. ‘I think it’s time you searched the lad again.’
Lenny knew what another search implied; it was a euphemism for a beating. Up against the wall, legs spread, hands on head: wham! His stomach jumped at the thought.
‘Listen . . .’ he implored.
‘What, Lenny?’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘Of course you did it,’ said Wall, picking his nose. ‘We just want to know why. Didn’t you like the old fucker? Make dirty remarks about your lady-friends, did he? He had a bit of a reputation for that, I understand.’
Al Fresco smirked.
‘Was that why you nobbled him?’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Lenny, ‘you think I’d tell you a fucking story like that if I didn’t see it with my own fucking eyes.’
‘Language,’ chided Fresco.
‘Shrouds don’t fly,’ said Wall, with understandable conviction.
‘Then where is the shroud, eh?’ reasoned Lenny.
‘You incinerated it, you ate it, how the fuck should I know?’
‘Language,’ said Lenny quietly.
The phone rang before Fresco could hit him. He picked it up, spoke and handed it to Wall. Then he hit Lenny, a friendly slap that drew a little blood.
‘Listen,’ said Fresco, breathing with lethal proximity to Lenny as if to suck the air out of his mouth, ‘We know you did it, see? You were the only one in the morgue alive to do it, see? We just want to know why. That’s all. Just why.’
‘Fresco.’ Wall had covered the receiver as he spoke to the muscle-man.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It’s Mr Maguire.’
‘Mr Maguire?’
‘Micky Maguire.’
Fresco nodded.
‘He’s very upset.’
‘Oh yeah? Why’s that?’
‘He thinks he’s been attacked, by the man in the morgue. The pornographer.’