White Corridor

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘For what it’s worth, I take you seriously,’ said Bimsley. ‘You’re a true professional, Meera. You’re just too hard on yourself. All you need to do is lighten up a bit. But you need to tell the others about arguing with Oswald.’

  ‘I’ve a feeling some of them suspect me,’ she said miserably. ‘I haven’t exactly made friends at the unit.’

  ‘It’s never too late to start,’ said Bimsley, giving her an encouraging smile.

  He thought about the young Indian detective constable while she went to speak with her sister; perhaps the fault had lain with him. He had assumed that her anger was an issue connected with race and class, some kind of attitude she was working through. Now he saw that she simply wanted to be accepted as a team player.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of raised voices at the counter. Glancing up, he saw an emaciated young man with a shaved head attempting to grab Jezminder’s arm as Meera warned him off. Bimsley instinctively pushed back from the table and made his way over.

  ‘Let go of the lady, mate,’ he warned.

  ‘I’ve told him,’ said Jezminder, ‘he can’t come in here while I am working.’

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Colin.

  ‘He used to be her boyfriend,’ said Meera with a grimace of disapproval. ‘Jake, she’s told you before about turning up here. She doesn’t want to see you anymore.’ He was half as tall again as the little detective constable. Meera was prepared to take on anyone, but even she stepped back as he tried to slap her with a bony fist.

  ‘I’m her man, not yours, all right? So I’ve got the right to—’

  It took barely a second for Bimsley to assess the situation. The boyfriend was chasing cash, and he could see why; the urgency burned fiercely within his hollow eyes, robbing him of rationality. Heroin addicts were usually wheedling, pathetic, needy, but this one was dangerous. He grabbed at Jezminder’s bag, breaking the strap as the two girls tried to push him away.

  Colin had trained for six years at the Hoxton Boys’ Boxing Club until his instructor had warned him to stay away, not because he lost his matches or failed training, or even because he lacked the essential hand-eye coordination of his profession, but because his reach was too short and his wildly swinging fists were potentially lethal.

  He unleashed one now, the right, and listened as it connected with Jake’s jaw. There it was, the sound he remembered hearing at the gym, the tearing of jaw muscle as Jake went down.

  ‘Ganesh!’ said Meera, watching as he slammed onto the tiled floor, for her mother had taught her to invoke Indian gods rather than swear like a navvy whenever she was surprised. Jake was out cold.

  ‘Do you want him in rehab, or do you just want him gone?’ asked Colin, sitting his opponent upright and checking his jaw.

  ‘Gone,’ whispered Jezminder.

  Back on the street, Meera looked at him warily, as if seeing a new side of her colleague.

  ‘What?’ he asked, not liking to be stared at. ‘I’m sorry about that. I’m usually a bit of a pacifist. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Then don’t stare at me. You make me uncomfortable.’

  ‘I was noticing. You have a heart of oak,’ she said finally. ‘Probably got a head to match, though.’ She saw that the knuckles of his right hand were scraped, dripping dark sap.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he told her. But he could sense that something had changed between them. For the first time, she was looking upon him with kindness and, unless he was imagining it, something altogether more interesting.

  39

  CIRCE

  The fake-leopardskin coat scratched her neck, the red woollen two-piece suit was too tight across the bust, and the patent-leather heels pinched, but DS Janice Longbright looked good and knew it. This is no way to run an investigation, she thought, strutting across the illuminated green glass of the causeway that acted as a catwalk into Circe, but I know it’s what Arthur would have made me do. She strode up to the counter and asked to see the woman whose name was on the card she had been given. She had decided to pay her induction fee by using the credit card details Raymond Land had asked her to acquire for his wife. Leanne Land deserved to pay for having an affair with a golf caddie behind her husband’s back.

  ‘I’m afraid Miss Grutzmacher is taking a class at the moment, but you can see someone else about induction suitability,’ the receptionist told her, picking up a modular white trim-phone and smiling vacantly into the middle distance.

  Juan-Luis was a ponytailed young Spaniard with more than a hint of the flamenco dancer in his movements. He shook Longbright’s hand so lightly that she felt touched by an angel, then led her to a white room bordered by recessed blue lights and deep-purple seating before flopping into the unit beside her. ‘You say you were recommended by Monsieur Alphonse for one of our rejuvenation courses?’ he said, checking his PDA.

  ‘I won’t be on the system yet,’ said Longbright. ‘I only just saw him this morning. You come very highly recommended. A friend’s daughter has been receiving treatment here, a girl called Lilith Starr. I wonder, how is she doing?’

  Clearly, the conversation had taken a turn for which he had not been prepared. A momentary fluster occurred in his composure before he returned to form. ‘I’m not sure I know who you mean—’

  ‘You must do. She was personally recommended by Mr Spender.’

  ‘Well, that wouldn’t be my area. I only handle induction. Besides, our client details are confidential.’

  ‘But if you conduct all the inductions, you must have seen her.’

  Juan-Luis sighed. Clearly, the subject was not going to go away. ‘I think she is no longer with us.’

  ‘Really? I find that surprising, as she was singled out for special attention.’

  ‘I heard the treatment proved unsuitable for her. A medical condition—’

  ‘Surely your treatments don’t require a doctor’s intervention…’

  ‘Everyone has to fill out an approval form, and she omitted to tell us about certain—ah—medications.’

  ‘You mean not just prescription drugs but others associated with—’

  ‘—lifestyle choices. That’s correct.’

  So he knows about her habit, thought Longbright. ‘But I thought she came to you for several treatments. My friend said—’

  ‘Look, as soon as we discovered she had filled the form in falsely, we cancelled her appointments.’

  ‘Why would you do that, I mean if she had made her own choices—’

  ‘Because there are diets, exercise regimes and supplements we prefer our clients to take, and obviously we can’t risk their health.’

  Or the lawsuits, thought Longbright. ‘So what was wrong with her?’

  Juan-Luis could see she would not rest until he had provided satisfactory information, and he badly needed to hit this week’s client quota. He set aside his PDA and lowered his voice. ‘Apart from the recreational drugs she chose to use, she had been taking Haldol since she was a child. It’s a drug formerly used to control behavioral problems in children.’

  ‘You mean her parents had it prescribed for her?’

  ‘I imagine so, but it should have been stopped, because it has long been known to pose health risks, like low blood pressure and even cardiac arrest, and there’s potential cross-reaction with other chemicals that makes it unsafe at any dosage. Unfortunately, Haldol can also be addictive.’

  ‘Do you prescribe drugs for your patients, antiageing potions, anything like that?’

  ‘You’re a police officer, aren’t you.’ He offered the statement as a matter of fact. ‘Listen, it’s not my company, I have no vested interests here, but I can tell you the rules are strictly adhered to. We provide our clients with medical supervision in the form of advice and, in certain cases, dietary aids. We never suggest they can stave off illness and live forever just by changing their diet and exercising more, like some clubs promise, but we show them how they can live healthi
er, more active lives for longer.’

  ‘But in your brochure you recommend homeopathic remedies.’

  ‘We make no claims that they’ll perform miracles, but I admit, sometimes women want to believe more than we can promise.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s up to them.’

  As she left the clinic, Longbright tried to make sense of what she had learned. It was possible that Lilith had not died as a direct result of her drug use, in which case someone else might have felt responsible for her death.

  She returned to the unit and sought out Giles Kershaw. An idea had begun to form in her head, but it was one that could lead them all into trouble, for it meant lodging an accusation against a fellow officer.

  40

  PERFORMING THE IMPOSSIBLE

  ‘I feel like I might be heading down the wrong route with this,’ Longbright told the pathologist. ‘We have definitely discounted the most likely causes, haven’t we?’

  ‘I told you that,’ said Kershaw, falling in beside her as they headed through the unit. ‘The primary blow to his chest is the one that initiated the seizure. The neck bruise is secondary.’

  ‘Then I need to run something by you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Suppose someone other than Mills came to the mortuary to check on Lilith Starr, and ended up arguing with Oswald Finch about her cause of death? By that time, Finch’s notes had already been removed, although Mills still insists it wasn’t him. What if Finch set down the true cause of her death, and it laid the blame at someone else’s door—God knows, Oswald was never afraid to accuse others. That would place Mills in the clear, but who would it point to?’

  ‘Not a member of the PCU staff,’ Kershaw remarked, ‘because none of them knew the victim. What about her parents?’

  ‘Highly unlikely, don’t you think? Our pugnacious Sergeant Renfield was the one who brought her in. Finch might have threatened to report him for some minor transgression. He had the power to do so. A lot of senior officers in the Met held him in the highest regard. Plus, Renfield and Finch had always hated each other.’

  ‘Renfield prides himself on playing by the book. He would have been mortified to be reported by a man he considered his enemy.’

  Longbright felt she was finally on the right track. ‘I think Renfield returned to the mortuary for some reason, and found Finch writing up a report that accused him of failure to carry out correct procedure.’

  ‘The sergeant certainly has the right temperament,’ Kershaw admitted.

  ‘Hadn’t he once been placed on a month’s paid leave for attacking another officer? Finch would probably have goaded him. You know how he liked to wind people up. Suppose he realised that the girl could have been saved if Renfield had acted differently? What was he doing accompanying a body to the morgue anyway? If Lilith Starr wasn’t just another Camden overdose after all, Renfield should have noticed something and called in medics at once. Imagine Finch spotting that. He challenges the sergeant, the limit of Renfield’s patience is reached, and he gives Finch a little happy-slap…’

  ‘But the pathologist is old and infirm, and the effect on him is more drastic than intended.’ Kershaw seized on the idea, taking it further. ‘He collapses on the floor. Renfield panics, looks about the room, sees the loose ceiling-fan cover and decides to make it look like an accident. He leaves the room, closing the door behind him.’

  ‘You realize what will happen if we try to take him in as a suspect,’ warned Longbright. ‘All these years we’ve spent attempting to heal the rift between the PCU and the Metropolitan Police. We’ll have to fight them head-on.’

  ‘The Princess Royal’s visit is scheduled to commence in precisely five hours, but I see little sign of preparation for her appearance,’ said Rosemary Armstrong, the royal appointments secretary. Upon her arrival she had glanced about the unit with a vaguely horrified air before flicking a handkerchief over the chair April had offered her. A search had commenced to locate a teacup, but April had only been able to produce a clean mug bearing the shield of St Crispin’s Boys’ School that Bryant had swiped in the course of their last investigation.

  ‘We are a working unit,’ said April, ‘and today is especially busy. We’re short-staffed, and—’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Armstrong impatiently waved the thought aside. ‘I’m sure we all have lots of work to do, yes? But by this evening the Princess will be quite fatigued, and in no mood for a poor show. Last night she had to sit through a performance of The Marriage of Figaro that could, with the utmost charity, have best been described as pedestrian, and today she is required to unveil a plaque dedicated to the Dagenham Girl Pipers before attending your presentation. Few people can imagine the stamina required to handle her responsibilities.’ She rose and peered from the corner window overlooking the road. ‘What on earth is that down there?’

  ‘It’s Camden High Street.’

  ‘What a pity. Does it always look like that?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

  ‘With all those people milling about? That won’t do. I thought we’d decided on barriers.’

  ‘The mayor was against the idea, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That ghastly little Trot? Well, I suppose these things can’t be helped. I assume you can assure me that the building will have been thoroughly cleaned and tidied, with the fresh-cut flowers I requested in place throughout the offices by five o’clock, yes? That everyone will be in their places, and that the royal protocol brochures will have been read and digested? We cannot risk breaches of etiquette simply because some members of staff have failed to observe a few painfully simple rules.’

  ‘We’ll certainly do our best to ensure that the Princess has a pleasant and informative visit,’ said April.

  ‘Hm.’ Rosemary Armstrong looked as if she did not believe it for a minute, but the girl was sweet enough and seemed eager to please. ‘I shall be with the Princess for the rest of the day, and as she does not approve of mobile telephones, mine will be switched off, so if there are any problems, you’ll simply have to sort them out yourself. Oh, and one other thing—’ She waggled her fingers at the air. ‘There’s a most peculiar smell in here. It seems to be emanating from that cat. The Princess has allergies, and is very sensitive to a lack of freshness. Make it disappear, would you?’

  ‘What a dreadful woman,’ said Raymond Land after the royal secretary had wafted from the building in a haze of old English gardenia. ‘What are we going to do when they return expecting a full complement of staff? April, it’s your job to look after the unit, can’t you think of something?’

  ‘What about a bomb scare?’ she suggested. ‘We could get the area cordoned off, have the visit cancelled. It would be nobody’s fault.’

  Land was too worried to hear her. ‘If she doesn’t come here and assess our operation in a positive light, we risk losing all of our remaining funding. It’s absolutely imperative that she approves and reports back to Kasavian. How did we ever get into this mess? It’s Bryant’s fault, trotting off to a ridiculous spiritualists’ convention and taking our best man with him. We’re for the high jump, there’s no way out of it this time. Obviously we can’t get them back here by five, but we have to release the rest of the staff from house arrest, and that means finding an explanation for Oswald’s death.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’ve got a five-hour window. Surely it’s not asking the impossible?’

  It seemed to be a rite of passage at the PCU that the performance of the impossible was required from every member of staff at least once during their tenure. April had already risked her life for the unit, as her mother had before her. Only weeks ago she had almost been thrown to her death from the top of a building during the unmasking of the Highwayman. Now, she realised, with her grandfather out of action and everyone else trying to solve Oswald Finch’s murder, their survival might be in her hands alone.

  41

  DIABLE

  ‘We’ve had a call back, Arthur,’ said John May, checking his messages. ‘You were right about the
London lawyer, Edward Winthrop. He was sent to Marseilles to attempt the extradition of a young man named Pascal Favier, but Favier managed to attack him in the empty courtyard of the jailhouse, knocking the lawyer unconscious and stealing his identity. Winthrop died of a fractured skull. Favier was never caught.’

  Bryant’s eyes lit up. ‘Then the police must have been tracking him ever since. Why haven’t they been able to catch him?’

  ‘Who knows how efficient these people are?’ May replied. ‘I don’t suppose the local police were notified properly. All kinds of communication breakdowns occur between the regions. It sounds like he’s been travelling through the southern provinces of France, adopting the identities of those he has assaulted and left for dead. Hang on, another positive ID coming in.’ He played back the rest of the returned calls, listening intently. ‘There’s a Johann Bellocq registered as the owner of a villa in Eze-sur-Mer, which ties in with Madeline’s story. We can get the local gendarmes to go around there now.’

  ‘It still doesn’t help us with the real identity of this maniac who’s out there in the snow, unless they can find a link which proves that Pascal Favier and Johann Bellocq are one and the same. I feel so hand-tied, stuck in here.’ Bryant threw himself back in the passenger seat, frustrated.

  May checked through his notes. ‘Madeline Gilby said Johann confessed his past to her. He said that his beloved grandfather had died, leaving him alone with his mother, and that he murdered her. He spent just five years in a church which operated as the local mental hospital, run by nuns—apparently there were mitigating circumstances surrounding the mother’s death—but the reprieve did him no good, as he became a member of something called Le Société Du Diable, some kind of neo-Nazi organisation run from Jean-Marie Le Pen country. After leaving there, who knows where he went? Presumably this was the period in which he committed the crimes that landed him in the Marseilles jailhouse. After his escape he went off-radar again, living somewhere in the Alpes-Maritimes area, until killing this Bellocq chap.’