Merlin stepped carefully around the large pool of smouldering sludge. Madame Tussauds had taken a direct hit the previous night and he presumed that he was looking at the last remains of some of the famous waxworks’ stock-in-trade. Eerily, some parts of the sludge retained human form. Here and there it disgorged an arm, a leg or a tortured face.
Merlin stepped over something that looked like Jean Harlow’s head and then over the head of either George Formby or Stanley Baldwin, he wasn’t sure. Like Merlin, Madame Tussauds had had an eventful Sunday night.
His shoulder pain having cleared up and despite his bruises and the aircraft noise, he had a surprisingly good and deep sleep when he’d got home. In bright early morning light, Merlin was walking along Marylebone Road, trying to find the ruined building of the night before. A little beyond Madame Tussauds on the other side of the road, he found it. To his left was the still burning shell of the bombed flats whose explosion had blown him off his feet and opposite was the side street from which the running man had emerged. As he turned into it, he saw a cat racing along the cobbles in pursuit of something. No doubt the rats were everywhere. He stepped across the road and around the bomb crater and stood at the door through which he had passed only a few hours before. The building was no longer smouldering. The frame of the front door remained intact, as did a small portion of the front wall to the right of the door. A brass nameplate remained undamaged. On it were the words “Grand Duchy and Oriental Trading Company Limited”. Merlin took a small notebook out of his jacket top pocket and jotted down the name. He walked through the doorway and picked his way over the splintered floorboards towards the back of the house where he thought he’d seen the men.
“Oi, mate. Better get out of there. This thing could come down at any minute.”
Merlin looked back to see the outline of an ARP warden framed by the front door against the bright sunlight. The image reminded him of a scene in a Western he’d been to see with Alice. “It’s alright. I’m a policeman.”
“Well, being a policeman is not going to stop the roof of this place coming down on you. I suggest you make your way back over here and carefully.”
“I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Suit yourself. It’s your funeral.” The warden disappeared. Merlin moved forward carefully. Some sunlight was filtering through holes in the walls and the roof, but this had the effect of making the areas of the house not lit by sun even gloomier and harder for his eyes to penetrate. He thought he could see something shining in the corner, but was it just a trick of the light? He took another couple of wary steps.
*