You Buy Bones Read Free Page A

beasts, and vendors. At night most of these were gone to parts unknown, but their night-sighted cousins now wandered, plying their own trades, and like their daytime counterparts... tried to avoid the police.
    A small man paused just outside a muddy pool of light. His clothing was tailored to fit which set him apart from the majority of Montague’s nocturnal population. But he was not a customer nor a purveyor of the goods being offered; those tailored cuts of wool and linen were too sober and not likely to catch the eye. He most certainly did not wish to catch anyone’s eye. Not here, not at this staggeringly late hour.
    Still awkward in his new robes of office, Mr. Lestrade paused and tried to take in the view of a street he hadn’t felt under his feet in nearly a year.
    It looked much better in the light of day.
    â€˜An expert in these things,’ Dr. Roanoke had told the policeman. ‘He lives close to the Mortuary... calls it convenient.’
    â€˜And he’d be awake at this hour?’ Lestrade had blinked, baffled at the older man.
    The old surgeon chose to smile. ‘Awake? Man, I daresay he’s more likely to be awake than he is to be asleep.’
    Lestrade circled around the nimbus of the street-lamp’s watery glow and ignored the faint rumble of carts behind his back. The last to pass was a dead-cart, its driver clad in a chemical mask against fumes. Somewhere in these grey-green buildings, a couple screamed out their differences over something that had to do with Regent’s Canal - it was impressive that they could cut the thick fog with their lungs.
    The Inspector listened with half an ear. Were it a married dispute, he would be more concerned, but there was more Yiddish than English in the fussing, and everyone knew the Jewish population was rarely violent. [7]
    The topic of the shouting finally came clear to his ears, and the little man shook his head. Fighting over an open window? Someone out to be more grateful. An open window here was usually a window ventilated with a brick.
    Montague Street was full of moments like this - and considering the sheer unfashionable reputation of Camden... that was almost a compliment. Times had slipped to a poorer state even since A Christmas Carol - Lestrade couldn’t possibly imagine the Cratchit family being so cheerful and fearless in this day and age. Now one’s worries would be much worse than an ailing Tiny Tim and a daughter who couldn’t get home to spend a day with her parents. They’d be worried about that same daughter getting home at all, or what their children might be doing to bring home survival money. And fifteen bob a week? People killed for much less than that these days!
    In the darkness, a huddled man was coughing the last of his days out with emphysema. The sounds were clarion-clear. The fog was still rolling slowly in... the night would be another battle for this man in the open night, against the dampness of the stinking puddles.
    Lestrade picked his way across the gleaming black pot-holes and scraps of garbage too far gone for vermin. Rheumy red and blue eyes stared back at him, defiant and silent. Lestrade courteously avoided eye contact. It would not be appreciated or wanted. The wind blew up a reek: rotting garbage and offal and human filth... they both moved quickly: Lestrade to the other side of the street, and the homeless man to the dubious shelter of the snicket between a small shop and the very building Lestrade was about to enter.
    Fruit , the policeman realised. There must be a fruit-monger’s stall and he threw the spoilt parts in the street... Perhaps the poverty was not so dire here, for in some parts of the city, even a stinking-rotten cabbage would be ripped apart and eaten by a beggar. He’d seen it too many times. He’d seen two men nearly kill themselves with their knives over that rotten cabbage. And yet they had fought the policeman, for better starve than gaol...
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