Page 20 of Ticket Out

She stepped through her own door and realized things might not be so quiet on the top floor any more.

chapterten

The weather had turned.

Sunday had been cool, although still sunny and bright, but it started raining as Monday dawned.

Gabriella made her way to her patch with a black umbrella over her head, shivering at the sudden change in temperature, and for once wishing she didn’t have the early shift.

Liz didn’t look like she minded, though.

She’d given Gabriella a cheerful wave and swung off to Chelsea with a spring in her step.

The dark sky made it seem even earlier than it was, and gusts of wind kept catching Gabriella’s umbrella and trying to rip it out of her hands.

She walked past the townhouse Mr. Jaguar had come out of with a wary eye, keeping a watch for his car, but there was no sign of a bottle green jag. There were plenty of cars illegally parked, though. The rain did that, Liz told her this morning at the meeting. People took chances to park closer to where they needed to be.

She moved down the street, sticking FPNs on windscreens as she went, then turned into Clematis Lane. The loading zone outside the gallery was empty, and it was telling how relieved she felt at the sight.

The narrow alleyways she passed no longer stank like they had last week in the heat, but she heard rats fighting with each other down one of them and stopped to have a closer look.

A bare foot stuck out from behind the bins, its shoe a little way away.

Gabriella stood still, focused on the sling-back, with its black heel and white front.

The shoe Patty had been wearing at Dance-A-Go-Go on Saturday night.

Gabriella forced herself to walk into the narrow alley, which lay between the gift shop which shared a wall with the gallery on the left, and The Cat’s Meow, where Patty worked.

She pressed up against the wall on the other side of the bins and took careful sideways steps until she could see around them.

Patty lay half-propped up against the wall.

One leg was bent at the knee, the other stretched out, its foot the one she’d noticed sticking out from behind the metal bins stacked along the gift shop wall. She was still wearing her smart black and white dress, but blood soaked down the side of it, pooling below her body.

The rain had formed puddles, and the blood had swirled and seeped into them, so it seemed to Gabriella that she was lying in an ocean of blood.

The rats had run as she’d approached, but she could see bite marks on Patty’s hands, and she suddenly felt lightheaded. For a terrible moment she thought she was going to throw up.

She staggered away, moving back to the street and leaning against the corner, head bowed, waiting for the dizziness to recede. She had lowered her umbrella to her side without realizing it, and rain hammered her head, running in rivulets from her hair, under her collar, and down her back.

Finally she got a hold of herself and stumbled toward Gennaro’s, hoping the old man would be there early like he had been last Wednesday.

The door was closed, probably because of the weather, but when she knocked, she heard him shuffling through to the door. He paused, looking through the patterned glass to see who it was, and then pulled it open.

She almost fell in, and he moved back.

“What is it?” he asked in Italian. “Not another one?”

“Yes.”

As she said it, he swore, throwing up his hands in shock as she stood, water dripping off her to pool around her sturdy black shoes.

“I must phone the sergeant.”

“I have his card.” Gennaro went behind a wooden podium from where she guessed he greeted his customers. He pulled out a small card and handed it to her. “The telephone is in my office.”

She followed him, pushing her hair out of her eyes, and when he offered her a chair, she almost fell into it as her knees gave way.

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