In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(172)

Miss Schubert—for such was the name on her identification badge—eyed him with the open animosity of the overworked and the underpaid. She consulted a clipboard and gave him a room number. He didn't miss the fact that when he thanked her and headed towards the elevators, she reached for a phone.

Thus, he wasn't entirely unprepared for the sight of a uniformed constable seated outside the closed door of Vi Nevin's room. He was, however, completely unprepared for the appearance of the orange-haired harpy in a crumpled pantsuit who was sitting next to the cop. She leapt to her feet and came hurtling in Martin's direction the moment she saw him.

She shrieked, “It's 'im, it's 'im, it's 'im!” She flew at Martin like a starving hawk with a rabbit in sight, and she sank her talons into the front of his shirt and screeched, “I'll kill you. Bastard. Bastard!”

She shoved him into the wall and butted him with her head. His own head flew back and smacked against the edge of a notice board. His jaw clamped shut. Teeth sinking into his tongue, he tasted blood. She'd ripped the buttons from his shirt and gone for his neck when the constable finally managed to pull her off. Whereupon she began screaming, “Arrest him! He's the one! Arrest him! Arrest him!” and the constable asked for Martin's ID. He somehow dispersed a small crowd that had gathered at the end of the corridor to watch the unfolding scene, a minor kindness for which Martin was grateful.

The woman held at arm's length from him, Martin was able to recognise her at last. It was the hair colour that had thrown him off. When they'd met—when she'd come for her first and only interview at MKR—she'd been black-haired. Otherwise, she was little changed. Still skeletal, still sallow-skinned, with very bad teeth, even worse breath, and the body odour of three-day-old halibut.

“Shelly Platt,” he said.

“You did it! You tried to kill her!”

Martin wondered how his day could possibly get worse. He had his answer a moment later. The constable studied his identification, still holding Shelly in a death-grip. He said, “Miss, miss, one thing at a time,” and he took her with him while he went to the phone at the nurses’ station and punched in a number.

“Look,” Martin called to him. “I only want to know if Miss Nevin's all right. I spoke to someone in casualty. I was told she'd been transferred here.”

“He wants to kill her!” Shelly cried.

“Don't be an idiot,” Martin responded. “I'd hardly show up in the middle of the day and present my ID if I planned to kill her. What the hell happened?”

“As if you don't know!”

“I just need to talk to her,” he told the constable when he was returned his ID and refused admittance. “That's all. It probably won't take five minutes.”

“Sorry” was the reply.

“Look. I don't think you understand. This is an urgent matter and—”

“Aren’ you going t’arrest him?” Shelly demanded. “Wha's he have t'do to her before you lot cart him off to the nick?”

“Will you at least shut her up long enough for me to explain to you that—”

“Orders're orders,” the constable said, and he loosened his grip on Shelly Platt just enough to indicate to Martin that a temporary retreat was called for.

He made that retreat with as much grace as he could muster, considering that the orange-haired termagant had raised enough ruckus for him to become the cynosure of the entire hospital floor. He returned to the Jaguar, threw himself inside, and flicked its air conditioning on full blast with every vent pointing at his face.

Shit, he thought. Fuck, hell, shit. He had little doubt about who had been on the receiving end of that constable's phone call, so he'd put himself in line for another visit from the cops. He considered what sort of light he was going to shine upon his trip to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. “Getting corroboration for my story last night” hardly seemed credible when one considered from whom he was attempting to wrest corroboration in the first place.

He jerked the car into gear and roared out of the car park. On the Fulham Road once more, he pulled down the sun visor and used the recessed mirror within it to examine the damage Shelly Platt had done to him. Jesus, she was a vicious little cat. She'd managed to draw blood on his chest when she'd grabbed his shirt. He'd be wise to get a tetanus shot pronto.

He cut up Finborough Road, heading for home and considering what options were available to him now. It appeared that there was no way he was going to get close to Vi Nevin any time soon and, since the cop on guard in front of her room had no doubt phoned that goon who'd dropped by Lansdowne Road in the middle of the previous night, it also appeared that there was no way he was going to get close to her any time at all. At least not while the cops were doing their bloodhound bit on the Maiden whore's killing, and that might go on for months. He had to develop another plan to get corroboration for his alibi, and he found his mind feverishly coming up with one scenario, only to dismiss it and come up with another.

On the Exhibition Hall side of Earl's Court Station, he stopped for a traffic light. He waved off a street urchin who wanted to wash his windscreen for fifty p, and he observed a hooker in negotiations with a potential client by the Underground entrance. He made an instant evaluation of her in a knee-jerk reaction to the sight of her Band-Aid-size skirt of magenta spandex, her black polyester blouse with its plunging neckline and its senseless ruffles, her stiletto heels and her fishnet stockings: She was a hand-or-mouth bitch only, he decided. Twenty-five pounds if the John was desperate; no more than ten if she and her coke habit were working the street together.