Bryant & May

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Has Claremont got health problems?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘His cupboards are full of painkillers. That’s the best part about being old; you get to do a ton of drugs. I know most of these. I’ll have a word with his doctor. How old was Claremont?’

  ‘Not as old as you.’

  ‘Nobody is as old as me.’

  ‘Mid-fifties, I think. Have you spoken to your partner yet?’ Banbury’s tone was deceptively casual.

  Bryant tipped a tablet into his palm and touched his tongue to it. ‘No, but I heard he’s out of danger.’

  ‘Go and see him.’ Dan took the pill pot out of Bryant’s hand. ‘You’re going to need him on the case.’

  Bryant ignored him. ‘There was a dustcart at the kerb—anyone in it?’

  ‘The driver was asleep in the cabin when it happened.’

  ‘Did you check the pavement and gutter?’

  ‘I went through the bins, all the usual stuff. Nothing special: junk food wrappers, a few empty bottles and an abandoned skateboard.’

  Bryant checked the other cupboards. ‘Was Claremont just incredibly unlucky, Dan? Head in the clouds, stepped out without looking? Or does the Home Office really think there’s a conspiracy? He talks to the wrong person and says something so revealing that they try to kill him in a staged accident?’

  ‘Accidents are easier to establish than conspiracies,’ Banbury told him.

  Bryant stood on the front step of the Marconi building and drew out his pipe. He looked on to the street and tried to see where Claremont’s body had fallen, but the pavement had been cleaned and reopened. It was city policy to reduce the impact of any public drama as quickly as possible, but he wondered if some detail had been swept away in the process. Why had it occurred on a Sunday morning in daylight and in public? Why had the driver run? Why were there oranges in Claremont’s flat?

  Bryant looked up at the windows and puffed at his Spitfire. He called Banbury. ‘Can you make sure that Westminster sends you their forensic report on the van?’

  ‘There may not be one. They only took it because it violated parking regulations.’

  ‘Then put in a formal request to go over it.’

  ‘I’ll try. We’re only on this to ascertain the Speaker’s mental health, remember?’

  I’ll have to do something about that, thought Bryant, drawing deeply on his aromatic leaves.

  * * *

  |||

  Seated on a bench in Claremont’s kitchen, Koharu Takahashi looked small and frightened. This was not how she had imagined she would be spending her holiday in London. And now, to be confronted by this tramplike old man with luminous outsized false teeth and a hearing aid was enough to make her feel like crying.

  ‘He is very strange,’ she whispered in a microscopic voice.

  ‘Strange in what way?’ Bryant asked. ‘Please be more exact.’

  ‘Like wafuku but for westerners,’ she said, watching his uncomprehending eyes. ‘Um, formal—suit.’

  ‘Did you see him close up? Was this him?’ He showed her the photo on his phone.

  Koharu looked around for help but none came. She wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘Beard,’ she said finally. ‘And this.’ She tapped her lapel. ‘Chrysanthemum.’

  ‘Ah, carnation.’

  ‘Flower, no flower.’

  Bryant tried again. ‘Did you see him step out between the parked vehicles?’ He mimed the action.

  ‘He goes under the fruit.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘A lady comes to help. I go away.’

  ‘I know it was a couple of days ago but is there anything else you can tell us about the accident?’

  ‘Is dangerous to cross the road in London.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Takahashi. Utterly useless, we have your details, you’re free to go. This thing that happened, it’s not normal. London is safer than you think, and welcomes you. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.’ Bryant smiled briskly and dismissed her.

  Margot Brandy had helped the PCU many times in the past. She gave Bryant a peck on the cheek and slipped off her faux-leopard coat. ‘I’m glad you’re all right, lovey. I’ve been hearing all sorts of stories about you.’

  Margot’s voice always came as a shock to him, even now. She sounded like an East End bricklayer, solid, rough, fundamentally warmhearted. Her voice was the secret weapon in her arsenal because it caused some of the plummier lawyers to underestimate her, to their lasting regret. ‘How’s your hand?’ he asked.

  She turned over her bandaged palm. ‘It’s fine, darling. I think there are still some splinters in there but I’m not going to sit around in A and E all day. I shouldn’t have waded in like that. I might have known it would be organic fruit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Fancy, expensive, delivered in cheap wooden crates full of straw—more “authentic-looking,” I suppose.’

  ‘A bit of a coincidence, you passing,’ Bryant said.

  ‘Hardly, love—I’m only over the road.’ She lit a Superking from a match and fanned it out. ‘I’m smoking inside, don’t judge me. I know him, of course. A charming dinner companion, always wears a buttonhole. I don’t usually warm to podgy men. The wife’s nice, too, a bit prickly, ambassador for a European charity, saves churches in the Netherlands.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘About six months ago, at an Inns of Court dinner to honour a retiring judge.’

  ‘What’s your professional impression of him?’

  ‘He’s honest. Impassioned. An accomplished public speaker.’

  ‘Levelheaded?’

  ‘Implacable. It comes with the job.’

  ‘Did you see Ms Takahashi?’

  ‘Yes, she was standing farther away than me.’

  ‘Tell me about the van and the dustcart. Why did Claremont choose to cross there?’

  ‘The gap was right outside his door. And Sunday morning, I assume he was heading for the church.’

  Bryant chastised himself. ‘I’m such a heathen. That would never have crossed my mind.’

  ‘The driver of the dustcart was asleep with his boots up on the dashboard. They don’t start until ten on a Sunday in Covent Garden.’ Her left hand cradled her right elbow as she smoked. ‘I didn’t see the door of the fruit van come open but I heard the crash as the crates came down.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else with him?’

  ‘He was alone. I ran over and dug through a great lethal pile of wood and nails. Most of the fruit had scattered. I couldn’t move him and I couldn’t see the driver around. I was amazed that the crates could do so much damage, but we’ve often had cases of negligence involving shifted loads. The driver is usually thrown to the wolves for failing to tether his load correctly.’

  Bryant shook his head. ‘Unfortunately he did a legger the moment the officer’s back was turned. His whereabouts are unknown.’

  Margot blew smoke through a gap in the kitchen window. ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘According to the CCTV footage, Claremont came out of the entrance twice. Pity we have no facial recognition cameras there.’ Bryant opened the fridge and had a poke about inside. ‘This pâté will never keep. Would it be wrong to take it? There’s a space in front of Marconi House exclusively reserved for diplomatic vehicles. I guess he was going to tell the driver to move his van. The cabin of the vehicle is out of shot, but it looks like they talked briefly, then he headed back inside. Five minutes later he reappeared. Presumably the driver said it was a Sunday and he was entitled to unload—’

  ‘Was he? Allowed to unload there on a Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, but not in the diplomatic space. Then the back of the van opened and the crates came down.’

  Margot pinched out her cigarette. ‘So maybe the driver lost his
temper and gave them a push.’

  ‘And there’s my problem,’ said Bryant. ‘The crates fell and one piece impaled Claremont. People can injure themselves on anything. But oranges and lemons? Well, it’s the bells of St Clement’s, isn’t it? Just along from the flat. The church of St Clement Danes, the oranges and lemons church, although I’m not sure why we call it that. And Claremont. Clement. Was the assonance deliberate? I wonder if the church sent him the box of fruit that was found in the flat.’

  ‘Darling, you can’t use me to bounce your ideas off,’ said Margot gently. ‘You need your partner. You know what your problem is.’

  ‘Oh, I hate it when friends say that.’

  ‘You’re a living paradox,’ said Margot. ‘You venerate the law above all else, yet you break all the rules that govern it.’

  ‘Because the law has to be flexible. I understand how it works. But I don’t understand people.’

  ‘Then you have to learn. It’s time you listened to John on that subject.’

  ‘If anyone else gives me advice—’ Bryant began.

  Margot rose and slipped into her coat. ‘Dan says you’ve got the Unit back just for this case. I’d make the most of it if I were you. If you want to understand what really happened, you have to get inside someone’s head.’

  ‘I have no idea how to do that,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t but John does. Take the pâté; it’ll only go to waste.’ She blew him a kiss and left.

  The first illuminated hoarding on Piccadilly Circus was the Perrier sign, which went up in 1908. Over a century later it had been replaced by a vast curved LED screen showing a hyperrealistic hamburger seventeen metres high. Very few of the one hundred million people who passed through the circus every year realized that behind the signage was an old office building. One of the suites backing onto the suppurating hamburger was the office of Dr Marcus Gillespie, FRCP. As its windows were permanently boarded up the doctor relied on artificial light that had the effect of giving him eyestrain, depression and insomnia.

  Today he was also bruised about the face and wearing a supposedly flesh-coloured eye patch, so he was not in the mood to deal with any difficult patients. Unfortunately a knock at the door revealed Arthur Bryant, who had turned up unannounced.

  ‘You were supposed to come in a fortnight ago.’ Dr Gillespie irritably waved Bryant to a seat.

  ‘I forgot about it.’

  ‘It was for a memory test.’

  ‘There you are. You should have reminded me.’ Bryant seated himself with a grunt. ‘What have you done to your eye?’

  ‘I got hit in the face by my wife’s reconnaissance drone. She was taking photos of next door’s crazy paving.’ Dr Gillespie patted his paperwork. ‘I’m very busy—what do you want?’

  ‘I understand the Right Honourable Michael Claremont is a patient of yours.’

  ‘So that’s what this is about? I’ve already had a call from the Home Office. I can’t tell you anything unless it’s a criminal case. Patient confidentiality—you know that.’

  Bryant dismissed the notion. ‘Are you treating him for depression?’

  ‘He’s been under some stress. He feels his parliamentary impartiality is being tested.’

  ‘Has he said by whom?’

  Dr Gillespie gingerly touched his eye patch. ‘I’m his physician, not his priest.’

  ‘Do you think he has any serious mental health problems? Thoughts of suicide?’

  ‘I doubt it, although we don’t fully understand what triggers them because there are too many variable factors. For decades doctors believed that overwork killed people. We used to ask patients if they were under stress in their jobs, and no one ever said no.’

  ‘I’ll need a full list of his medications. One other thing: Does he have a vitamin C deficiency?’

  ‘Everybody does, in the sense that some vitamins aren’t stored in the body. It’s worse in the city. You just have to eat an orange.’

  ‘Why is he taking so much medication?’

  The doctor sighed wearily. ‘Because he wants to, Mr Bryant. Ultimately we’re largely responsible for our own health and like most people today he’s a hypochondriac, so I mainly prescribe placebos.’

  Bryant regarded him with a sharp eye. ‘It’s a piece of cake being a GP, isn’t it? A few referrals here, a few happy pills there. I could do it.’

  ‘You could try.’ Dr Gillespie gingerly adjusted his eye patch. ‘I’ve got a sick dog at home. If you care to come round I’ll set him on you.’

  Bryant punched a groove in his hat and jammed it back on his tonsure. ‘I shall trouble you no longer. By the way, I left a stool sample on your reception desk.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you for one.’

  ‘Think of it as a souvenir.’

  As the rowdy cosmos of Piccadilly Circus closed about him once more, Bryant stood outside Brasserie Zedel on the newly pedestrianized and sanitized edge of Soho, and recalled walking these streets with his partner and Janice Longbright. They’d seen and heard it all under these arches: the catcalls from the prostitutes; the dark laughter of the rent boys; the shady deals and racy nights. Now there was a giant McDonald’s.

  He told the taxi driver to take him to Shad Thames.

  * * *

  |||

  While Bryant headed for a reckoning with his partner, Raymond Land was on his way to the Home Office Liaison Department in Marsham Street. He had been summoned back for a meeting, but as he approached the building he found the entire road filled with members of staff, coatless and in shirtsleeves. At the lobby doors security guards were ushering everyone outside.

  Land stood with the others, wondering what to do. Approaching him was some kind of feminized male model with a trimmed beard, Tom Ford glasses, a tight suit and a severe haircut. He shook Land’s hand warmly.

  ‘Mr Land, I’m awfully sorry about this. The security alarm just went off again. It keeps happening but no one has been able to fix it—Whitehall in a nutshell. We should be allowed back inside in a few minutes. Timothy Floris. Call me Tim.’

  ‘Where’s Miss Hamadani?’

  ‘She bowed out, I’m afraid. Not a good fit, I heard.’

  So this was the publicity-friendly operative Land had recently heard about, appointed as an ‘advisory interlocutor,’ one of the Home Office’s new job titles introduced to add a fresh element of gibberish to their Kafkaesque world.

  ‘It isn’t really my field,’ Floris admitted in a voice that was rather too high and thin to command respect. ‘One of my tasks is to damage-limit the department’s relationship with the media, mainly by keeping everyone away from microphones and Twitter.’

  ‘That must be a full-time job,’ Land sympathized. Faraday rarely spotted his own foot without trying to insert it into his mouth.

  ‘Mr Faraday and I came to an agreement. We’ve got your old building in King’s Cross back for the duration of the investigation. Obviously you have no equipment, so we’ll bring in the essential tech kit if you can rustle up some furniture. I’m calling in every favour I can to get you kitted out and fully operative again.’

  Land made a noise of agreeable consent but was waiting for the catch. There was always a catch with the Home Office.

  ‘Mr Faraday is not keen on handling the details himself…’ Floris began awkwardly.

  I bet he’s not, thought Land. We’ve run out of ways to humiliate him.

  ‘He’s asked me to act as an independent observer, which means I’ll be seconded to the Unit.’ He winced in apology. ‘Obviously I won’t interfere in any way. You should think of me as a…’

  ‘A spy,’ said Land drily.

  ‘A resource,’ said Floris with an ingratiating smile. His teeth were bleached.

  It was a reasonable price to pay for a chance to clear their name, Land decided. ‘We’d better ge
t started,’ he said.

  * * *

  |||

  John May’s flat looked as if it was between tenants. Arthur Bryant walked into a bare-boarded hall with white walls. Beyond it was an empty white room overlooking the grey high tide of the Thames. The room had a special feature: Even weak sunlight reflected from the waves and shone ripples of light across the ceiling, creating a calm underwater atmosphere.

  Bryant went to the open window and looked out. He drew a deep breath and smelled the musk of Thames silt, sharpened through oxygen blooming from the embankment trees. A narrow balcony overlooked the river, upon which an iridescent patch of oil was moving sluggishly downstream like a vast undulating brooch. There was light everywhere even on this purblind day, the sky pushing its way in and filling his vision with furious clouds.

  He turned and studied the room. There were no mantelpieces, no shelves, no flat surfaces for the arrangement of books. May’s flat was an idealized department store layout, a theatre set for some obscure futurist entertainment. Why would such a naturally warmhearted man choose to live this way?

  ‘I’m in here,’ called May.

  Bryant stepped back, overwhelmed by the panorama, and followed the voice.

  His partner lay propped up in bed so that he faced the picture windows. His chest was bandaged and he was wrapped in a grey blanket that matched his leonine silver hair. Elegance came naturally to him even in adversity, so that he appeared to have been art-directed into place in this sparse, ascetic home. His enforced inactivity had added a little weight to his bones.

  ‘Arthur.’ He fought down a smile, determined not to look grateful.

  ‘You shouldn’t leave your front door open, I could be anyone. Are you well? When we asked you to take a bullet for the team we didn’t mean literally.’

  ‘Very funny. This is coming out in a couple of days.’ He showed Bryant the drain in his chest.

  Bryant inwardly recoiled. The plastic tube made him realize just how closely his partner had brushed against death. He stood awkwardly before the picture window that framed the Thames like a Canaletto, not knowing what to say or what to do with his hands, so he took out his Spitfire pipe and fiddled with the stem. ‘Don’t worry,’ he managed, ‘I won’t light it.’