Bryant & May

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘I’ve only just met him.’

  ‘So how are you finding the PCU?’

  ‘Nobody knows what they’re doing. They muck around a lot.’

  ‘There used to be lots of units like the PCU and they all had their own specific methodology. I can probably only recover part of this.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Infrared.’

  Sidney watched as the page was sprayed with a fine solution and flattened. Kirkpatrick subjected it to LEDs from a lamp shining at a forty-five-degree angle, which turned the blackened paper a sickly purple. He put his headphones back on while he worked, listening to a band called Satanic Disgust. The lead singer sounded as if he was being stabbed to death and his screams bled from the archivist’s earpieces, making Sidney wonder what it must be doing to his brain.

  Finally Kirkpatrick pulled off his phones and withdrew the burned sheet. ‘There’s some legible type in the centre.’ He copied it out onto a separate sheet. ‘There you go. At the top we’ve got what looks like a cap M, then lower case a—k–i—n—’

  ‘Making a Murderer,’ said Sidney absently.

  Kirkpatrick stepped back to show her the page.

  ‘I think it’s part of the manuscript Mr Bryant was looking for, but there’s no author name. Have you ever heard of someone called Peter English?’

  ‘Yeah. I met him at a drinks reception here last year. They hire out the atrium for sponsored events. He gave a speech.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  Kirkpatrick thought for a moment. ‘I didn’t spend much time with him, of course, but he struck me as a suppurating bunghole with all the allure of a hair on a toilet seat. His company never got around to paying their bill. Is he involved in this?’

  ‘Everyone seems to think so. He may not have done it.’

  ‘I hope you nail him, all the same. Preferably to something solid.’ Kirkpatrick harrumphed. ‘People like him have always done something.’

  * * *

  |||

  Meanwhile at the PCU, the detectives were getting ready for a party.

  ‘I’m having doubts about Peter English,’ said Bryant. ‘It feels like we’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘The rich think they will never be caught,’ May replied. ‘We need to go to the launch event marked on English’s office schedule. It starts at two.’

  Bryant looked out of the window. Storm clouds were brewing above the Cally Road Pie Shop. ‘I could have one glass of champagne, purely for medicinal purposes. There might be things on sticks.’

  ‘Do you have a tie?’ asked May.

  ‘No, I have a jumper,’ Bryant suggested. ‘I also have a comb and some aftershave.’ He held up a lime-coloured glass bottle of Hai Karate.

  ‘A budget cologne that was popular fifty years ago.’ May took the bottle away from him and examined the label: ‘Price five shillings and sixpence. How long have you had this?’ he said. ‘Let’s go and surprise English.’

  * * *

  |||

  Three complementary London squares, Belgrave, Eaton and Chester, had housed everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Mick Jagger (it being the perennial fantasy of rebel rock stars to live like aged viscounts). Their houses now fetched thirty million pounds apiece. Today two hundred guests had gathered in Chester Square beneath an unseasonal yellow and white striped marquee that covered its unprepossessing flagstone cross. As English was head of the residents’ committee, there had been no complaints.

  The occasion, the detectives gathered, was the launch of yet another Better British Business initiative, although the marquee roof was mercifully unadorned with its awkward Union Jack–styled logo, which was instead displayed on an easel by the entrance. Red, white and blue balloons clustered like polyps around the dark cave of the marquee. A pair of greeters, blank-eyed blondes, freezing in evening dress, waited to take their names.

  ‘You won’t find us down there,’ said Bryant, waving at the greeter’s electronic pad. ‘We’re part of the security detail.’ He showed his ID.

  ‘I’ll have to check,’ said the blonde, a little thrown.

  ‘Can we get some proper badges made, something with a shield and a bit of gold instead of a laminated card?’ Bryant asked his partner. ‘It looks like we’re trying to sell photocopying equipment. This photo doesn’t do me justice.’

  ‘We haven’t got all day,’ said May sternly as the girl let in a group of Chinese businessmen.

  ‘Let me find someone,’ she told him, half-heartedly looking around. While she did so Bryant pushed his partner forward and they suddenly found themselves inside.

  A violin trio was playing a rendition of British maritime themes. As these had been composed mainly for brass instruments, they sounded like the Last Night of the Proms heard down the wrong end of an ear trumpet.

  Bryant had a horror of corporate events. Worse, it looked as if speeches were about to begin. As they made their way to the raised platform he picked up a leaflet, read a few lines, scrunched it up and threw it over his shoulder, not noticing that it bounced off a woman’s head.

  ‘What’s it about?’ May asked.

  ‘Oh, the usual rubbish about building bridges and making trade deals.’

  ‘Are we actually going to lead him out of here past all his associates? We’ll get hell for it.’

  ‘We can threaten him with arrest if he refuses,’ Bryant suggested, taking a lurid square of tuna ceviche from a passing tray. ‘There he is.’

  Peter English had the tanned elegance of someone who spent a lot of time on a yacht. It made him look wealthy and unsympathetic, as if at any moment the smile might be replaced by a call for guards. He was standing at the centre of a group that might have been meeting to plan a coup, and was eyeing the nearby lectern, waiting for his cue.

  ‘Arthur, are you sure?’ May asked again, adjusting his collar. ‘We’re really going to do this?’

  ‘Come on, it’ll be fun. We haven’t dragged anyone important off the street for ages.’

  ‘Oh God. Let’s get this over and done with.’

  They walked to the platform just as the businessman was about to start speaking. It took a moment for English to register who they were. Without missing a beat he smoothly moved them to one side, turned to his audience and told them that his speech would start in a minute.

  ‘What are you two clowns doing here?’ His eyes were hard black marbles. ‘How did you even get in?’

  ‘It’s not a social visit,’ said Bryant, ‘which is a shame as the vol-au-vents look enticing. We need to interview you in connection with the murders of, well, quite a few people actually.’

  To their surprise, English started laughing. ‘Most amusing. Did Faraday put you up to this?’

  ‘Just gather anything you need to bring with you and we’ll quietly take our leave,’ Bryant suggested.

  English looked from one to the other, incredulous. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  The detectives did not move or speak.

  ‘It’s not going to happen, is it? I’m here with my wife, who is fragrant and highborn and has never had to come into contact with people like you.’

  ‘I must remind you that it is illegal to resist or wilfully obstruct an officer of the law in the execution of their duty,’ said May, ‘and in this event you may be taken into custody under restraint.’

  ‘Did you come here just to insult me?’

  ‘No,’ said Bryant, ‘but the opportunity arose and we thought it was too good to miss.’

  English’s smile seemed to reveal rows and rows of sharp teeth. He appeared to grow before their eyes. ‘Do you have the faintest idea how much trouble you’re in? This is Crown Estate land. You have no jurisdiction here, no permission to set foot inside or even to speak to me. What I have, on the other hand, is a group of Westminster’s most powerful MPs, including
the Minister of Trade, a battery of the country’s finest lawyers and the God-given legal right to have you tossed out on your grubby little ears. Now, I’m about to take the stage and deliver a keynote address on the future of British exports to some of the most powerful investors in the country. You could humiliate yourselves by attempting to disrupt the event, or you can leave quietly and we’ll pretend this embarrassing faux pas never happened and your careers didn’t come to an abrupt, ugly end today.’

  Bryant cleared his throat, never an attractive sound. ‘In that case, I am arresting you. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something which you later rely upon in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ He turned to May. ‘How was that? I thought I might have forgotten the words.’

  May felt a dark presence at his side and turned. Two security men had slid into place beside them. Without taking his eye from English, May called in a support request. The amplified crackle of his shoulder-mic alerted the nearest guests that something was wrong.

  It was an incredibly uncomfortable tableau, the detectives apprehensive and uncertain, the suspect seething. May switched to his mobile and waited while he was transferred between departments. By the sound of it, he didn’t get much of a chance to speak.

  ‘We have a Stand Down,’ he finally told his partner, incredulous.

  ‘Perhaps you now realize that there are places where you cannot go,’ said English with soft menace. ‘These enormous, volatile gentlemen will happily escort you off the premises. I want it to be known that I treated the pair of you with deference and respect—God knows why.’

  The detectives stood in the doorway of Raymond Land’s office looking so sheepish that they might have had tags in their ears.

  ‘Perhaps I could prevail upon you to step inside instead of loitering in the corridor like a pair of superannuated teddy boys,’ Land suggested. ‘Say one word about me not having a door and I’ll have you boiled.’

  They stood awkwardly before him, knowing what lay ahead.

  ‘Come further in,’ said Land. ‘I don’t want Floris overhearing this.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Were either of you aware that Peter English is about to be made a knight of the realm? Perhaps if you had been, you wouldn’t have accused him of murder in front of the French ambassador. Okay, nobody cares about the French, but two members of the Awards Intelligence Service, who helped to get him there, were watching as you two attempted to entice him to the local cop shop with all the effectiveness of a pair of balloon animals.’

  ‘Nobody can be allowed to walk away from a murder inquiry,’ said May. ‘What does he have to do to get arrested—bash open someone’s head in public? Oh I forgot, he’s already done that.’

  ‘Actually he hasn’t,’ said Bryant. ‘He gets others to do the hands-on stuff for him, but we can’t prove it. The Met could put a hundred officers out there tomorrow and all they’ll do is make him change his plans.’

  ‘I’m meant to be reprimanding you,’ Land reminded them.

  ‘Well, go on, then,’ said Bryant.

  The Unit chief ran his fingers across the spot where most of his hair used to be. ‘You cannot wander in off the street and finger a suspect in the middle of a government-sponsored event.’

  Bryant was indignant. ‘We kick council-flat doors off their hinges. Why should he get special treatment? He’s linked to a series of violent deaths. That should be enough to pull him in. The only people in the UK who can’t be arrested are the queen and children under ten—and him, apparently.’

  ‘What do you even know about English?’ Land demanded to know. ‘You have nothing solid on him.’

  ‘We have what we would normally need to bring a person of interest in for questioning,’ said May.

  ‘It’s not enough. There’s no forensic evidence linking English to any of the crime scenes. Once you’ve got that, I’ll get the approval for his arrest.’

  ‘For all we know he has a team of experts working day and night to cover his tracks,’ said May, narrowing his eyes. ‘Why are you so keen to take his side?’

  ‘You’re not the only one who’s been doing a bit of research.’ Land thrust out his chin. ‘English is an easy target. People resent him for being a self-made man. Actually I used to know him. We were friends at school. He seemed a very nice chap.’

  ‘Raymondo, you did not go to a posh school,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m amazed you went to school at all.’

  ‘I meant at school at the same time. Schools.’

  ‘So not the same school at all.’

  ‘But I was always bumping into him. We were old friends and—’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many times did you bump into him?’

  ‘Oh, often.’

  ‘So you must have been really close. How often?’

  ‘Ah—dozens—dozens of times probably.’

  ‘Several times.’

  ‘Oh yes, quite a few.’

  ‘More than once? Because you went to a comprehensive and he went private, and I seem to remember you lived in the wrong part of Greenwich and he probably lived in a nice bit and your paths would not naturally have crossed. I can’t imagine he’d have wanted to be seen with you.’

  May’s ears pricked up. ‘Michael Claremont lived in Greenwich for a couple of years. And the shop fitter, Gavin Spencer.’

  ‘Raymondo, how old were you when this mythical friendship occurred?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly, about fourteen or fifteen,’ said Land, ‘but I don’t see what that has to do with—’

  They went to find Longbright in the operations room. ‘Janice, did anyone else live near Michael Claremont or Gavin Spencer in South East London when they were in their early to mid-teens?’

  ‘We ran full checks on their background histories,’ Janice told him. ‘It was hard to find much on them at all. Only Claremont was required to provide a detailed history prior to his appointment as House Speaker, and Gavin Spencer had notes attached to his prison record. We didn’t find anything to suggest they’d ever met. Besides, if something occurred way back then, why would anyone wait for so much time to pass before acting?’

  ‘You didn’t go and ask around the neighbourhood to see if anyone remembered their faces?’ said Bryant.

  ‘Of course not, it was too long ago. We don’t have the time or resources to do that sort of thing anymore,’ said Janice. ‘But we conducted thorough background checks online.’

  ‘Online,’ Bryant repeated.

  ‘We have to be ready for any comeback from English,’ said Land, who had followed them. ‘You can bet his lawyers are drawing up a response right now.’

  ‘He has to be kept under constant surveillance until this is over,’ said May. ‘I want you to get full approval for his arrest, Raymond. This is our last chance to catch him.’

  Atena waited on tables at her parents’ restaurant in Green Lanes and slept under the counter between shifts. She grew up with the gifts of confidence and easy conversation, and I heard she was planning to study law, something I longed to do if only I had the means. Instead I was forced to remain self-taught.

  I heard she married well. My only friend. I never saw her again.

  By this time I was suffering from bouts of depression, although I still took any work I could find and continued my studies in every spare moment. I watched and I waited. The powerless can only observe. That, I know now, is why social media remains so popular; it is the home of the powerless.

  I remembered the only happy photograph I had seen of my mother, taken at a local funfair when she was young and pretty; I barely recognized the sickly thing that had taken her place. I never saw joy in her face, only the acceptance of defeat. I knew how others saw us, limping child and angry parent, searching charity shops, sitting in laundromats,
watching the rain from cheap cafés, waiting for something better.

  There’s a stage of poverty you reach when you start to look different. It’s very hard to get rid of that look. My mother died in a basement flat full of cockroaches with a needle hanging from her arm. She was killed not by drugs but by sepsis. By this time she was overweight and severely diabetic. I knew the exact moment when her life had gone wrong. In my imagination I undertook a grand scheme that would rebalance my world and save me from her fate.

  Right from the outset nothing went according to plan. Two of the six responsible were out of the country, one working in Madrid, the other in Singapore. But I was good at waiting. It gave me more time to plan.

  They both returned within two months of each other, and then, infuriatingly, another one left for six months to work in Italy. I knew enough about them all to be sure that they weren’t in contact with one another. Were they ever really friends, or merely drawn together out of devilry on dull summer nights when there was nothing to do but hang out and get into trouble? I wondered if they felt remorse, but a more terrible thought struck me. Did they remember what they had done? Did they even remember each other? What appeared momentous to me may have meant nothing to them.

  I had left it too long to exact revenge. Modern policing involves DNA tests, face recognition software and electronic spoor. I knew a little about coding but not enough to erase whole histories, so I set myself incremental goals and practised until I could attain each one.

  One of the first things I did was remove or alter the few online residential addresses I could find for any of the six between the ages of seventeen and eighteen. I couldn’t get to Claremont’s details because they resided in a government file, and I found nothing on Gavin Spencer’s background because he had an almost nonexistent digital footprint.

  Searching for them became more than just an exercise. It was a reason to stay alive.