He rose around six thirty the next morning, only minutes before the overhead neon lights flickered on with their blinking light and the clanking sound of their metal housings expanding in the heat. He found a coinbox telephone on a trolley in the corridor.
Time to phone Stan.
He’d be up by now. Fire lit, first fag of the day, sitting by the range in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, cursing the cheerlessness of smokeless coal, and thoroughly relishing the onset of autumn.
‘What’s up?’ he said, instantly suspicious. Troy never called at this hour. The Troy Stan had known was hardly ever up at this hour. Only murder got him up at this time of day.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in the Charing Cross Hospital. Stan, Jackie’s dead.’
He’d learnt not to mince words about death. Stan had taught him that years ago in his first days at the Yard. ‘Forget “Sit down, I’ve something to tell you” – just spit it out. There’s nowt ye can say’ll save ’em so much as an ounce of grief.’
All the same Stan’s response shocked him.
‘Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!’
And he did not stop. His voice rose, louder and shriller. And he did not stop. ‘No, no, no’ might have made more sense, but this wasn’t denial. It was unstoppable, unplumbable heartbreak. Troy heard the phone fall. Waited minutes, a passing age, before Stan picked it up.
‘Which ward?’
‘Bevan.’
‘I’ll be there in an hour.’