The Unquiet Dead Read Online Free PDF

pet any more.’
    ‘Mark, listen to yourself.’
    ‘You’ll put yourself in for a transfer if
what
happens?’
    She tried to defuse the tension by smiling. ‘Don’t get all excited, I’m not going anywhere.’
    But Mark didn’t want it defusing. ‘If what happens?’
    ‘If you find Anna Maria’s body in Marshall Street Baths,’ she replied coolly.
    ‘Would you be willing to make that into an official wager?’
    ‘What is wrong with you? You’ve been bolshie for days,’ said Jessie.
    ‘It isn’t rocket science. If we find her body at the baths, you get your arse transferred out of here.’
    ‘And if you don’t?’
    ‘Name it,’ he said confidently.
    It dawned on Jessie then what Mark was doing with the box of files. They were his files, from his office. His old office: the matching shoebox across the hall from hers.
    ‘I get your office.’ He looked back over his shoulder and smiled. ‘No, Mark. Your
new
office. Upstairs.’
    ‘Who told you?’
    Jessie smiled sadly to herself. Was his professional opinion of her really so low? The fact she’d seen him sitting at Jones’ desk in the presence of the new DCI, the fact that he was now carrying a packing box, these giveaways were obviously not enough. ‘A white rabbit,’ she said. ‘Okay. Deal: my transfer for your office.’ Jessie stood up.
    ‘Are you prepared to shake on it?’ demanded Mark.
    ‘Is this for real, Mark?’
    Mark set the box down on Jessie’s desk.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, putting out his hand. Somewhat dazed, Jessie shook his hand. As she did so, he laughed. ‘And by the way, Jessie, this isn’t a transfer out of CID, this is a transfer out of West End Central. That way I can get you out of my hair once and for all.’
    ‘Mark, you haven’t got any hair.’
    Mark glared at her. It was her turn to shrug. ‘What? You started this. Remember that, won’t you?’
    Mark had officers stationed around the perimeter of the building, up on the roof and on the top storey of the Poland Street car park. The drug squad had sent a team and they now joined Mark’s men outside the chained double doors of the old public baths. Everyone was wearing body armour. The handcuffs glinted against the black flak jackets, radios crackled with expectation. A SOCO team waited by their van. The street was cordoned off, which gained the attention of workers in the adjacent offices. Everyone was waiting for the whistle.
    Jessie sat in the surveillance room and watched it all live via a video link. She was tuned in and ready to go. A slightly stooped man with a thick moustache inserted a key from a large selection into the padlock that held the chains in place. Heturned the key and pulled; the chain slithered to the ground like a boa constrictor dropping from a tree. The team entered in twos. Jessie watched as the video camera followed them in. The first room was a foyer complete with a wood-and-glass kiosk. One of the doors hung haphazardly from its rusting hinge. The floor was laid with intricate diamond-shaped tiles worked into a graphic design, the type you see in the entrances of elegant Victorian terrace housing. Peppermint. Cobalt. Burnt sienna. Black and white. The once majestic windows were coated in grime and protected by a thick wire mesh. The camera automatically adjusted to the reduction in light. They’d gone through the portal of a time machine and entered a long-forgotten era. Victorian bath houses, where the great unwashed came to bathe en masse. The team moved further into the building. The screen went fuzzy, then a new image came into focus.
    ‘Jesus Christ –’ Jessie heard Fry mutter – ‘it’s a bit fucking spooky.’ Jessie saw what he was looking at. The pool was enormous, a marble-tiled gaping wound in the ground, the swimming lanes neatly delineated by black tiles. What must once have been a majestic pool was now empty except for the green sludge that filled the deepest part of the deep end. The high glass-domed ceiling was