‘What do you mean, I can’t come in?’
Raymond Land looked from one Dave to the other, trying to remember which was which. They stood on either side of the door in the chipboard wall that had been constructed around the Peculiar Crimes Unit. From the grim look on their faces they might have been set to guard a keep, armed with monkey wrenches instead of pikes.
‘The front door lock isn’t working properly,’ explained Dave One. ‘Mr Bryant has set up a password system to secure the premises.’
‘Oh, this is ridiculous. Let me in, you know who I am.’ Land looked around the door to the staircase, wondering if he should just push past them.
‘He said you’d say that,’ said Dave Two.
‘How would I know what the password is? He hasn’t bloody told me.’
‘You could try guessing. We can give you a hint. It’s something Mr Bryant stored in the evidence room.’
Land’s eyebrows nearly met his comb-over. ‘Dear God, that could be anything. Bomb-making equipment. A goat’s head. The Dagenham Cannibal’s Cuisinart. Crippen’s corpse. Madame Blavatsky.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Dave One. ‘In you come.’ He took Land’s right hand and smacked it with a rubber stamp. Land looked down and read:
Admit one
Santa’s Grotto
Gamages Department Store
Valid until end of 1956
He ushered the Unit chief inside. Land felt his way along the darkened plywood corridor and emerged by a blue plastic Portaloo with a sign on it reading: Raymond Land’s Office—Please Knock.
Furious, he blundered back and shoved the snickering builders out of the way. ‘I know you think this sort of thing is amusing but police work is no laughing matter. I will not work in a toilet. A very important political figure has been buried under a pile of fruit.’
‘Cheers, Mr Land,’ Dave One called after him. ‘Top bantz, you’re a total ledge.’
‘Ah, Raymondo, mi idiota favorito,’ cried Bryant as Land stormed past his office. ‘I’d like my desk lamp back.’
‘I’ll give you a broken back if you do that again,’ seethed Land.
Bryant paused to take his Spitfire out of his mouth. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Your little jest with the two Daves.’
‘I only asked them to keep an eye on the door.’
‘You’ve infected them with your appalling sense of humour. You’ve already turned a simple accident into a ludicrously complex murder mystery. I want results, not guesswork. If you’re so sure Claremont was deliberately attacked, find me some proof fast. And stop smoking that thing indoors, it stinks.’
Bryant took the tobacco pouch from his top pocket and read it. ‘ “Fort William Old Naval Bengali Hemp.” Yes, it’s a bit pungent, isn’t it? Says here it’s made with cardamom and marigold seeds but it smells like burning mice. I’d love to help out but this morning I’m dealing with the bookseller who killed himself.’
‘What bookseller? I don’t remember anything about that.’
‘The case came in while you were fretting over your daffodils in Ventnor. Last month a bookseller burned down his shop, except he was framed, and killed himself and nobody did anything about it.’
‘Why are you getting involved when we still need you on Claremont?’ Land demanded.
‘Because I can’t do anything on that until—what ho, Dan.’
Land felt sure that his detective had been about to reveal something important, but it was too late; Dan Banbury was bounding up the staircase as fast as anyone could, considering there were several steps missing.
‘How did you get in?’ asked Land, annoyed.
‘I’ve been at the Westminster vehicle compound.’ Dan swung his case onto a table and opened it. ‘Looks like Mr B. was right. I found this under the van’s front seat. Incredible. They hadn’t even tagged and bagged it.’ He lifted out a clear pouch containing an unprepossessing grey rag.
‘I have no idea what I’m looking at,’ said Land, mystified.
‘It’s a stick-on goatee made exclusively by a theatrical costumier in Shaftesbury Avenue. Unfortunately they say they haven’t sold any in months, which suggests it was nicked from the store.’ He took a piece of wood from his bag and showed it to Bryant. ‘This is similar to the one that speared Claremont. I experimented with several bits and they all broke into sharp pieces. If Claremont was attacked in the van, the driver had to have inflicted the blow before going upstairs. Here, push down on this.’
He held out the spear of wood. Bryant gripped it and pushed, but had to let go.
‘There’s no way you can do it without piercing your hands, is there? Imagine someone trying to fight you off at the same time.’ Banbury took the wood back and closed up his bag. ‘I think your new girl has some good ideas. Claremont was bashed about, plastered with tissues and stabbed while he was floundering around. You were brought on board to find an information leak and got attempted murder instead.’
Bryant shook out his hands. ‘I’m getting a tingling feeling in my fingertips.’
‘Perhaps you’re having a stroke,’ Land suggested.
‘Something wicked this way comes. I’m going to need my books. I’m missing certain key volumes. I can live without my British Nautical Almanac and my Practical Guide to Keeping Geese but I must have my Encyclopaedia of English Folk Song.’
Land looked around. ‘Does anyone know what he’s on about?’
‘What I’m on about?’ Bryant dragged noisily on his pipe. ‘I fear the attack on Michael Claremont was just the start. The overture to the main event.’
Chakira Rahman was late, and the BBC did not like to be kept waiting.
Broadcasting House was still a healthy walk away so she needed a city bike or a taxi, but she was not dressed for the former and there were none of the latter available. It was occluded and inclement. The spring rain looked soiled, as if it had already been recycled through several city drains.
Rahman was recording an interview about the construction of the new Museum of London, but her nanny had chosen today to have her dog put down, so she had bundled her phone-focused girls into the car and run them to school herself, calling her assistant to collect the vehicle so that she could keep to her schedule and get to her next appointment before eleven.
It was always like this, running from briefings to construction sites, arguing with the architect, the client and the banks while making sure that her two girls were fed, watered and educated, but there was even more pressure on her than usual. She was in a position of privilege that had taken a long time to earn. When others fought hard she fought harder, but right now if she didn’t get to the studio, turn on her formidable charm and explain why part of the museum project was running late, the press would be attacking her before noon and her directors soon after that.
She was lost in thought as she cut off the corner of Duncannon Street and St Martin’s Lane, diagonally climbing the three-sided steps to St Martin-in-the-Fields. As much of her day involved sitting in windowless rooms, she tended to use London’s street furniture like gym equipment, getting in her steps and turning stairs into thigh-and-glute exercises.
On the other side of the road a group of tourists had gathered for a new exhibition of Martin Parr photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, their colourful umbrellas hoisted against the famous English weather they’d heard about and now wished never to see again.
Chakira was thinking about her upcoming conference call with the German Minister of Housing, and wondering if her researcher had provided her with enough material about their project, when she became aware of the man limping towards her.
He suddenly moved his hand and her first thought was that he would ask her for money, but a moment later there was a pain in her chest. It felt as if she was experiencing a heart attack.
&n
bsp; She heard the sound of coins dropping nearby. Her mind raced: a protestor, a terrorist, just a black shape, fleeting and gone.
Her balance went. She slipped and fell headfirst down the wet steps. Somebody cried out. She fought to regain her equilibrium but the staircase was wide and sloped away at two different angles. It was impossible for her to break her fall. As she landed she felt something snap in her wrist. She slid to a stop on the corner of the staircase with the coins cast on the steps above her, extending from her heels like a row of copper raindrops.
The man had already gone. A woman ran over to help. Chakira wanted to say Don’t move me, but now there was an iciness spreading from the base of her skull, and her tilted view of Trafalgar Square sparkled and dissipated as bells began to ring.
* * *
|||
‘I’m afraid she’s dead,’ said the vicar of St Martin’s, the Reverend Stephen Mallory, who was the first to understand what had happened. He called an ambulance and they called the police, who arrived and spoke to the Serious Crime Command, who summoned the Peculiar Crimes Unit, the entire process taking eight minutes, during which time Chakira Rahman lay on the steps with an overcoat covering her face. The drama coincided with a party of tourists being led out of the church, so Mallory was forced to divert them, and by doing so drew even more attention to the fallen woman.
Dan Banbury collected Bryant in his car, but by the time they arrived the body had been moved inside the church and shielded from public view by the Emergency Medical Team.
‘The steps aren’t very steep,’ Bryant observed. ‘Even I could get up and down them without slipping. They’re disorienting, though.’ He stepped back under the eaves. The rain was sheeting down now.
‘We had a bloke fall down these last month,’ said the EMT leader. ‘American. Aneurism. He was in sniper’s alley.’
Bryant looked about. ‘And where is that?’
‘Not where, when. Forty-eight to fifty-two. Males who don’t change their lifestyles in that age bracket have a tendency to drop dead. Went down like a toboggan, straight under a lorry.’
‘You think she’d have survived being stabbed if she hadn’t fallen as well?’
‘Probably not,’ said the EMT leader. ‘The blade went in deep and was removed.’
Bryant wrinkled his nose. ‘Are you chewing?’
‘Fruit gum.’
‘Can I have one? Dan, nobody’s taped off the spot where she fell.’ He waved at his crime scene manager, who was balanced on the rain-slick steps. ‘Do something about it.’
‘Sure you don’t want to go and trample all over it with your big boots first, drop a few sweet wrappers, tread some mud in?’ Banbury asked. ‘It’s what you usually do.’
‘Just secure the site, would you? The Met officers can handle a weapon search, they’re good at that.’
‘Surely there’s no need to bring—’ Banbury began before he caught the trapped-wind look on Bryant’s features. ‘I’ll tell them.’
‘I don’t suppose anyone saw where her attacker went.’ Bryant sighed and looked about. ‘Do we even have a description?’
Behind him was a ragged queue of tourists in rain macs. ‘They’ll start drifting away in a minute if you don’t take their statements. Dan, run them into the narthex and make sure there are at least two officers with notepads.’
‘Where’s the narthex?’
‘The porch bit at the front, you heathen. They can’t phone anyone about this until we’ve put out a statement. If anyone’s filmed it, take their device away. Chakira Rahman is an MBE so news of her death will get out there quickly enough, but we have to be in control of the information.’
Bryant stuck his hands in his pockets and looked out at the scene. The fat, inelegant plumes of the Trafalgar Square fountains were spattering over their basins in the wind. Rain had driven everyone from the square. Crimson exhibition banners clanged and slapped at their poles. A taxi was stuck across a junction. Tourists in clear plastic rain hats advertising a musical—ironically, Singing in the Rain—were politely waiting to get around the congested corner of the church steps. A Japanese couple in full wedding regalia, the bride in a frothy white frock that made her look like a shepherdess, were being photographed on the steps of a church where a woman had just been stabbed to death.
It’s happened to another high-profile figure in public, Bryant thought. Sheer devilry. I know where we’re going with this, I just don’t know how to tell anyone without being ridiculed. John could have helped him explain, if only he could be here. The pistol might have been aimed at his partner but the blast had damaged him as well. Bryant took death more seriously than people realized.
Two constables guarded a roped-off corner beneath the organ where the body had been placed. Now that the coach party had left the church it was almost empty. St Martin’s was busiest during its evening concerts. Then the chandeliers would be lit so that the gold tracery of the white interior could glow and sparkle above the heads of the congregation. Today the seething grey morning had turned the wooden pews to charcoal, filling the space with deep shadows.
The ambulance team wanted to take the body. An initial search noted injuries caused by the fall, a broken wrist and a cheekbone contusion, and the cause of death, a single stab wound penetrating deeply and directly into the heart. It was Bryant’s worst nightmare, someone struck down in a public place. He had seen the aftermaths of street bombs, innocents attacked by fanatics. It was as if the city, birthed in ancient paganism, periodically demanded sacrifices of its people.
For now he had to think about the practical. Banbury had checked Chakira Rahman’s online profile and lifted her contact details, including her husband’s office numbers. Her face was familiar to many in the capital. One of the most levelling characteristics of London was that the majority of its inhabitants, rich or poor, walked, biked or used public transport to cross the city. It was important to ensure that they never became afraid of doing so. He looked over at the waiting group of witnesses, corralled behind the rear pews.
‘She’s well known, isn’t she?’ said the vicar softly, staring in wonder at the covered shape being removed from the floor. ‘She raises money for humanitarian aid. I’ve seen her being interviewed on television.’
‘What did you see?’ asked Bryant.
‘I heard someone cry out and immediately came outside. I couldn’t see her at first. She had fallen facedown.’
‘Was there anyone else near her?’
‘Not that I noticed. My concentration was on Mrs Rahman. And there was the blood of course. I didn’t want anyone coming into the church to see it but it spread across the steps. We overlook the heart of the city. To have such a thing happen here is unthinkable. People have had accidents before but no one has died.’
‘The medics said there was a fatality just last month.’
‘Yes, but he went under a truck. That’s not us.’
‘Are there cameras covering the steps?’ asked Bryant.
‘Not from the church. It’s a very old building. You can’t just drill into the brickwork.’
‘Perhaps we’ll be lucky with the ones in Duncannon Street. We’ll make sure he doesn’t get away.’ It felt like something he should say rather than something he believed right now. ‘There’ll be some disruption here for a while. We’ll try to be gone as soon as possible.’
‘I think I should say a prayer for her,’ said Reverend Mallory.
For once, Bryant did not indulge his penchant for vicar-baiting. Instead, he turned his attention to the removal of the body, staying with the EMT while they made it safe for transporting down the steps. As he headed outside, an argument started.
He glanced back at the witnesses. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘We’ve got half a dozen phone recordings of the attack,’ said Banbury, ‘maybe more, and they’re kicking up hell. No
one wants to hand over their phone. Two of them are arguing over copyright.’
‘Who’s the scariest Met officer on site right now?’
‘Sergeant Maxfield.’
‘Louise? Perfect. Let’s put her in charge of the witnesses. We must be able to get an ID of the attacker.’
Bryant located the no-nonsense sergeant and had a word with her. Within moments she completely silenced the mob. Met officers cultivated that ability; they could put a full stop to arguments with as much efficiency and more warmth than British Airways counter staff. It was a skill no one at the PCU had ever managed to develop.
Banbury found him again. ‘This is going to do your head in, Mr B. They were scattered at the spot where Mrs Rahman fell. One of the witnesses says she saw a man throw them down but she didn’t see what they were.’ He handed Bryant a plastic evidence pouch.
Bryant unsealed it and squinted inside. ‘You have got to be joking.’
‘Don’t take them out of their—’ Banbury began but it was too late. Bryant had already tipped them into the palm of his hand.
‘Five farthings?’ he said incredulously. ‘Tell me this isn’t what I think it is. Did anybody see you pick them up?’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘It has to be kept out of the press. Can you imagine the field day they’d have?’ He handed back the pouch. ‘Do whatever you feel is necessary to suppress it.’
Banbury caught his eye.
‘What?’ snapped Bryant, nettled.
‘I’ve seen that look on your face before. You think it’s all connected now, because of the churches.’
‘I’m keeping an open mind,’ Bryant lied. ‘That’s what John would do.’
He called Longbright. ‘Janice, everything has changed. I need you to be with Giles Kershaw when he receives this body. And get Raymond to put a news blackout on the death until you and Giles have spoken.’
He heard her sigh of impatience. ‘I was due to go to Holborn Police Station to discuss the Cristian Albu suicide,’ she told him. ‘You told me it was important.’
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