Troy lay awake watching the dawn light bounce off the wall of the building opposite his window. Masha was sleeping now, her breathing regular as a metronome. He caught the phone at its first ring.
Jack. Again.
‘There’s been another. Much closer to home. Adam and Eve Court.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s an alley behind a pub in Wells Street. Leads from Eastcastle Street to Oxford Street. Shall I pick you up?’
‘No. I’ll walk over. I’ll be there in about a quarter of an hour.’
It was so familiar. And a shock to think he had not been abroad in the city at this time of day in ages. It was London bleached out, its day only just begun. Winos around Soho Square, growling at him incomprehensibly, a crazed monologuist, poised flamingo-like on one leg in Great Chapel Street, pointing a finger at Troy and calling him a ‘sinner’, to no denial from Troy, prostitutes in Berwick Street smiling at him, a beat copper in Poland Street who recognised him and saluted, and then the crush of police cars and detectives in Oxford Street at the narrow entrance to the unlikely named Adam and Eve Court. Once he saw it he knew it. He’d just never known it had such a momentous name.
They let him pass with murmured good-mornings, yawning and sighing. For a second Troy wondered if he smelt of sex, then realised these men had probably been up all night and reeked of beer and fags themselves. Jack’s car was parked face on at the top of the alley, headlights on dip to light up the court better than the day could manage at that hour. Jack was nowhere to be seen.
Kolankiewicz said, ‘For once I cannot blame him. This one is messy.’
He lifted a rubber sheet. Rearranged by someone with a passing knowledge of human anatomy, these bloody joints of meat might pass as a facsimile of something that had once been a living, breathing human being. This one had not been dead as long as the other: it was wet with blood and guts. The smell of it smothered beer and fags. Smothered sex. Smothered everything except the stench of vomit when Wildeve returned. ‘Sorry, chaps. I’ll be fine now. Have you got anywhere?’
Troy said nothing, Kolankiewicz said, ‘It looks much the same. Male. About twenty. Big. Put Humpty back together and I’d say about five eleven or six foot. Big in the chest and arms, plenty of muscle, not much under fifteen stones. And just like the last, no clothes, no head, no hands . . . and no cock that we’ve found. And taken apart with a mechanical saw.’
Kolankiewicz draped the rubber sheet over the remains.
‘Semen?’ Troy asked, talking to Kolankiewicz but watching Wildeve.
‘Yes.’
‘And where was the body?’
‘In dustbins, with the night’s rubbish from the pub. Binmen found it about an hour ago,’ said Jack.
‘Then it is different from the last. They tried to conceal the last.’
Kolankiewicz said, ‘Is it not concealment of a sort?’
Troy said. ‘No. I think we were meant to find this one.’
And Jack said, ‘I agree. They’re making no effort to hide it. In fact, they’re taking the piss. They’re holding up two fingers to us, and yelling, “Catch us if you can.”’
They left Kolankiewicz to it. Driving back towards the Tottenham Court Road, Troy said, ‘Taking the piss? Isn’t that what you said about Brock getting blown up?’
‘Don’t remember,’ Jack replied.
When Troy got home Masha had gone.