Bryant & May – England’s Finest

by Christopher Fowler

  Oluwa had tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t know how to make a living for myself any other way.’

  Bryant withdrew the Christmas card Janice Longbright had given him and turned it over, writing on the back. In doing so he wiped rainbow glitter all over his pug nose. ‘You made the suit yourself, yes? Did you ever make any others like it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Oluwa. ‘They wear out quickly. Almost every penny I earn goes towards making the next one. I am very good.’

  ‘Then call these people,’ said Bryant, handing him the Christmas card. ‘They run a special-effects company based in Bristol. I’ll have a word with them. I have a feeling they could use a fellow with your talents. If you agree to this, we’ll set you free.’

  Oluwa still looked fearful as he cautiously rose to leave.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Bryant assured him. ‘Take the suit with you. You’ll need to show them some of your handiwork.’

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Oluwa began.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Bryant. ‘It’s what everyone should do at this time of year. It’s Christmas.’ The detective’s nose sparkled. He might have been the seventh reindeer himself.

  Bryant & May’s Day off

  There are post-war London smells which have now been lost: the mildew in sailors’ clothes long packed away, the scent of tobacco sweetened with amber, the mustiness of horsehair cinema seats. Arthur Bryant smelled them all, mainly because he smelled of them all. He was a man born for winter, and like many born Londoners a hot summer day only served to confuse him.

  He had found ways to fill the morning, breakfasting at the Lyons’ Corner House on the Strand, visiting Joseph Wright’s painting An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump at the National Gallery, clambering through the tops of the planes and elms of the Embankment’s tree walk, its boards hung about with Chinese lanterns, and now he was bored. It was rare that he had a day off and he hated them, especially in August.

  The morning had begun with a summer storm that had deflated the Zeppelin-sized clouds above the city, leaving the sun to steam them into wisps. Now the light was diamond blue and it felt hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement. There was something about a hot day in London that made you feel you had to put your skin into sunlight in case there wasn’t another fine day before the onset of autumn. It was absurd to feel so pressured. Londoners were daisies, forever phototropically craning their heads to brightness.

  Mooching towards the river, he wished he had not worn his thick winter vest. Dressed in the kind of scratchy tweeds his father usually wore to go to the races, he reluctantly decided that looking smart was less essential than being comfortable. He was surrounded by floral summer dresses and businessmen in shirt sleeves, jackets slung nonchalantly over their shoulders. The air around the Thames was humid and still, and smelled of warm bricks.

  Bryant pinched off his hat and fanned his face. Although the war was now a distant memory it still seemed as if no one remembered how to dress. The ladies expressed more originality, altering their old summer frocks by adding pleats and bows and silk flowers, but half the men were still in demob suits, an army of grey and brown-clad civilians on the march from their baking offices, looking for somewhere shady to eat their packed lunches.

  There were so few cars on the Strand one could be forgiven for thinking that petrol rationing was still in place. Bryant’s father missed being able to trade coupons for clothes on Warren Street’s black market, where deals were sealed with a nod and a handshake in shop doorways. The war had been good to men like him.

  ‘I thought you were in some kind of experimental unit,’ his old man had complained, ‘not a bloody copper.’ It shamed him to think that there might be a male in the household willing to follow the line of the law.

  ‘Science involves detection, and the reverse is increasingly the case,’ Bryant explained, but his father did not want to know. Bert refused to hear about his son’s career and eventually went to his grave resentful and bewildered. The day of the funeral had been hot, too, tactless weather for mourning.

  ‘I say, there you are.’ John May came charging up the crowded pavement. ‘I was calling out but you were miles away. You forgot these.’ He handed over a greaseproof packet of cheese and pickle sandwiches. May had not long been working with Bryant but was already discovering his strange ways, one of which was placing an order of priority on his forgetfulness so that considerations of lesser importance, like office politics, food, courtesy and deference were deleted in favour of the things he actually cared about. ‘I didn’t think you were coming in today, but someone saw you leave these on a desk.’

  ‘I only popped my head around the door, purely because I was passing.’ Bryant accepted the sandwiches and stuffed them into his pocket.

  ‘Gosh, aren’t you boiling in that old suit?’ May was bounding alongside him, being annoyingly puppyish, a long lean Labrador of a man, far too ready to think kindly of others.

  ‘This is a Harris Tweed, hand-woven in the Outer Hebrides and made from pure virgin wool,’ Bryant said, dodging the question. He could have explained that he owned no summer suit and would not have been able to afford one if he had the inclination to make such a purchase. John May came from a better-off background and probably took it for granted that seasonal clothing could be unearthed according to the climate.

  ‘It just looks so heavy. It’s seventy-five degrees, you know, probably more if you measure it from the Air Ministry roof. You picked the right day to have off.’

  ‘I didn’t pick it, I was told to take it,’ snapped Bryant. ‘They think I work too much. Anyway, there’s bound to be another storm later. City weather has no stability.’

  It was a depressing thought but May had noticed the pattern himself. Although the day had started with a downpour, by eleven the sun was burnishing the copper-edged buildings that hemmed the skyline and softening the tarmac along Lower Thames Street. Ahead the river sparkled like the Mediterranean.

  ‘Don’t you have something you should be doing?’ Bryant dug a digit beneath his celluloid collar, trying to loosen it, but the blasted thing just stuck out on one side.

  ‘I’m on lunch, but to be honest there’s not much going on today. Here, let me get that.’ May reached over and pulled the white strip free for him. Unlike others, he never took offence at Bryant’s impatient tone. In truth he felt a little sorry for his partner. There had been some kind of tragedy in his life and he often appeared lost and uncared-for. It looked as if he’d slept in his suit. ‘I think you don’t know what to do with yourself on a day off,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you sit in the park and enjoy the sunshine?’

  ‘Why don’t you sit in the park? Go on, hop it.’ Bryant ploughed on through the lunchtime workers. ‘I hate having days off. It just winds me up, wandering about. Why would anyone want to sit sweating in a bandstand deckchair listening to Workers’ Playtime?’

  ‘You know, it would improve your efficiency to let that formidable brain relax once in a while,’ May pointed out. ‘At least let me buy you a lemonade. We could find a bench, roll up our trouser legs and watch the pretty girls go past.’

  ‘With my legs? You must be joking.’

  May persevered. ‘Don’t you ever want to recharge your batteries?’

  ‘All batteries need to make them run is plenty of acid,’ Bryant replied, then stopped short, a dog sniffing out a butcher’s shop. ‘Trouble.’

  A rotund man in a waistcoat and pince-nez was wringing his hands in the doorway of his jewellery shop, Lombroso & Sons. Golden necklaces glinted in padded racks of maroon velvet, set within the shop front’s old-fashioned black glass frame. Mr Lombroso (for it was the proprietor) searched the street in ill-contained panic.

  ‘We’re police officers,’ said Bryant, ‘can we help?’

  ‘A thief,’ said the jeweller, glancing at him with disconcertingly thyroidal eyes. ‘Just a minute ago on this very spot.’

  ‘What happened?’ Before May could halt his progress
, Bryant was already sliding into the dimly lit shop.

  ‘But we have to find him!’ cried Mr Lombroso.

  ‘Then explain quickly,’ said Bryant.

  ‘A man came in and asked to see a tray of rings in the window. I removed them and allowed him to examine the one he liked. When he mentioned another that his fiancée might prefer I climbed into the window to fetch it. I returned with the ring, he decided against the purchase and left. That was when I saw what he’d done.’

  ‘What had he done?’ Bryant asked.

  Mr Lombroso held up the tray and removed the ring in the bottom left corner. ‘It’s painted tin,’ he said. ‘While I was in the window he switched them. The ring he took is the most valuable one we have in stock.’

  ‘Why did you leave him alone with the tray?’ May wondered.

  ‘There has to be trust,’ said Mr Lombroso, clearly shocked. ‘He introduced himself, although I didn’t quite catch the name. And he looked like a gentleman.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He had a very smart suit, double-breasted herringbone with a hand-stitched lining of pale grey silk. I used to be a tailor; I know fine clothes when I see them. Most of the company employees around here wear off-the-peg. We have to hurry.’

  ‘Would you recognize him again?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘No, but I’d know the suit anywhere.’

  ‘Is there anything else you remember about him?’

  ‘He was wearing a grey trilby and Oxfords with a fine perforated toecap.’

  ‘But physically?’

  ‘He’s probably in his forties but just – ordinary. Clothes make the man.’

  ‘It would have helped if you’d seen his boat race,’ said Bryant. ‘Which way did he go from the front door?’

  ‘Left, I think.’

  ‘Close the shop,’ Bryant commanded. ‘We’ll help you look.’

  ‘How will we ever find him in these lunchtime crowds?’ May asked his partner.

  ‘It’s five to two,’ Bryant replied. ‘Any moment now he’ll find himself in empty streets. It’s all insurance and accountants around here: clock-watchers, the lot of ’em. Lower Thames Street is a dead end. He can’t get out without entering a building. You’ve seen what the office workers wear – he’ll stick out like a nun in a snowstorm.’

  Mr Lombroso hastily pulled down his shutters and pocketed an immense ring of keys. ‘I should never have turned my back,’ he said, huffing after the detectives, ‘but I thought, you know, a doctor, well, he’s from the professional classes.’

  ‘Wait a minute, a doctor?’ said Bryant. ‘You didn’t mention that.’

  ‘Oh yes, he told me while I was looking in the window. He met his fiancée during the war. He’d seen service as a doctor and she was his nurse. He said it had to be a gold ring – he hated the thought of silver. Well, the finest we have are inset with diamonds of four carats. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bryant. ‘The word derives from the seeds of the carob tree, which were used by gem traders before the twelfth century to balance scales when weighing a diamond.’

  ‘I didn’t realize he was simply telling me a tale to make sure I brought out the best tray.’

  ‘So he’s a professional,’ said May as they searched the faces around them. ‘Do you really remember no physical features at all?’

  ‘He didn’t take his hat off and it’s dark in the shop,’ said the distraught jeweller. ‘I think he was rather pale, though.’

  ‘After the summer we’ve had so is nearly every man in London,’ said Bryant, scanning the street. Four secretaries, three bankers in top hats, a clutch of men in bowlers, no thief. They checked each building as they passed, questioning the doormen, several of whom were missing an arm, having taken the only jobs they could find after the war.

  ‘What’s at the end of the road?’ May asked his partner.

  ‘The river, old bean. And he can’t have just— Hold on.’

  Bryant all but ran to the far wall, where a great iron gate had been propped open. He looked down on to the Tower Beach and saw masses of semi-naked bodies on the sand, his heart sinking.

  In 1934 King George V promised the children of London that they could have ‘free access forever’ to this specially constructed foreshore, and over the next five years half a million people swam and sunbathed among the vendors and entertainers, hiring threepenny rowing boats to go under Tower Bridge and back. The beach was to remain in place for nearly forty years.

  Today the so-called ‘London Riviera’ was swarming with sunbathers. Colourful towels had been laid out, striped deckchairs rented, grand sandcastles built, and dockers’ daughters splashed about with the sons of bankers. Handkerchiefs had been knotted and trouser legs rolled up, but the majority of sun-worshippers had stripped to their woollen bathing trunks and swimsuits. Copies of the Daily Mirror had been opened to see whether Jane, the paper’s resident cartoon-strip pin-up girl, had also removed her clothes.

  ‘He couldn’t have gone anywhere else,’ said Bryant. ‘He must be down there.’

  ‘But if all we have to go on is a description of his suit, how can we find him in a state of undress?’ May asked. ‘Look, there must be fifty men in their forties, all in their swimming togs. He hasn’t just removed his clothes, he’s stripped himself of his identity.’

  The detectives looked down in despair as the swimmers frolicked, bathed and dozed. ‘What do we do now?’ asked Mr Lombroso.

  ‘Wherever there are this many people there’s money to be made,’ said Bryant mysteriously, waving a hand at the shoreline. He was right; a hokey-pokey man was selling ice cream and another was hawking newspapers. There was even a young lad leading a donkey about for rides. ‘He can’t know the area. If he did he’d have turned right coming out of the shop. Instead he found himself cornered. He couldn’t come back past your window, so my guess is he’s hiding out down here for a while.’

  He led the way down the steps to the shore and approached a man in braces and an undershirt who was standing beside a row of grey metal crates. In each of them was a pile of carefully folded clothes. Propped up against one of the crates was a roofing slate upon which had been chalked: ‘Harry the Minder – Swimming Trunks 3d’.

  ‘We need to look through these clothes,’ Bryant explained.

  ‘’Ere, you can’t just come down here and rifle through me clients’ clobber,’ said Harry indignantly. ‘I’ve me reputation to think of.’

  ‘We won’t disturb anything.’ Bryant showed his police card. ‘This gentleman is trying to identify someone.’

  ‘All right, but be quick about it.’ The minder shielded the crates from the sunbathers, fearful that his clients might think he was in league with crooks.

  Mr Lombroso beetled along the line of crates and stopped before one like a pointer with a partridge. ‘Here he is. Double-breasted herringbone, hand-stitched lining.’

  Bryant knelt and checked the jacket pockets. The clothes-minder slapped at him. ‘Oi, I didn’t say you could touch ’em!’

  In the trousers, Bryant found the ring. He rose, holding it up as evidence. ‘Whose basket is this? Did you rent him trunks as well? What does he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know, just another city bloke without clothes,’ said Harry with a shrug.

  ‘He’s the man who robbed my shop,’ said Mr Lombroso heatedly.

  ‘It couldn’t have been,’ said the minder. ‘He had a kid with ’im – a little boy.’

  May studied the shoreline. Over half of the men down at the water’s edge were with children.

  ‘Where are the boy’s clothes?’ Bryant was shown another crate containing shorts, a shirt, underpants, socks and sandals. ‘And you really can’t point them out to me?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you remember the last properly ’ot day we ’ad?’ asked the minder. ‘Nor can I. I hate the ’eat. My missus gets funny ideas when she has to take ’er stays off. That’s why there’s so many secketries down there today, flauntin’
themselves. Sex mad they are, when a fella just wants to nod off in the sun.’

  ‘Maybe there’s someone else down there in the same clothes,’ said May.

  ‘No, this is him and he certainly didn’t arrive with the child,’ said Bryant.

  ‘How do you know?’ Mr Lombroso asked.

  ‘It rained until half nine.’ Bryant pointed at the crates. ‘This man’s shoes are still splashed with mud, but the boy came here in socks and sandals. The socks are dry, so they weren’t together earlier. He thought he’d put us off the scent by chucking the kid a couple of bob to come down to the beach with him. Probably sent him off to play as soon as they got by the water.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘We take a stroll in the sun,’ said Bryant. ‘Act natural.’ As he was wearing a heavy winter suit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch the effect was far from inconspicuous.

  ‘In his early forties. A doctor during the war, if he’s to be believed. Wait.’ He gripped May’s arm and pointed. At first sight the boy could have simply been having a disagreement with his father, but as the detectives approached, they saw how anxious the lad was to escape. ‘Let go of me, I don’t bloody know you,’ he was shouting as a hand gripped his slender wrist.

  The question of culpability would be hard to prove, May knew, but before he could decide what to do Bryant had shot forward with surprising nimbleness and slapped a handcuff over the pale man’s wrist. ‘What are you doing?’ he cried. ‘We don’t know—’

  ‘Oh, we know all right,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m arresting you, doctor.’

  ‘That’s the man,’ Mr Lombroso said. ‘I remember now. He came in last week.’

  The pale man in blue trunks seemed to consider his options for only a moment. ‘Oh hell,’ he said, ‘what’s the use? Nothing has turned out right for me.’

  They led him back to Harry the clothes-minder, where he got dressed with some difficulty.