Bryant & May – England’s Finest

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘He should have lied,’ said Bryant. ‘He might have got away with it.’

  ‘I couldn’t find work after the war,’ the doctor admitted. ‘You have no idea what it’s like, not being able to make a living.’ He had no idea how close Bryant had come to following his father on to the streets of the East End and into the black market.

  They handed their culprit over to a sergeant on Lower Thames Street. ‘Blimey, this is Henry Walters,’ said the sergeant. ‘Was he after diamond rings again? You never give up, do you, Henry?’

  ‘What did you spot that I missed?’ May asked.

  ‘It was what I heard,’ said Bryant. ‘A doctor with an aversion to silver could only mean one thing. Go on, Henry, turn over your hands.’

  Now May saw why the boy had been so reluctant to be led about by his benefactor’s hand. Walters’s palms were an alarming shade of blue.

  ‘I saw small patches of blue on his back,’ said Bryant. ‘We have penicillin now but colloidal silver was always used to cure infections. The trouble was that it permanently dyed your skin.’

  As they headed back out of the Square Mile, Bryant bought ice creams for them both.

  ‘You’re in a better mood,’ said May, crunching his wafer with relish.

  ‘Of course,’ Bryant replied. ‘I felt useful again. It’s not such a bad day after all.’

  ‘Shall we go to the bandstand and hear a concert?’ May suggested.

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ said Bryant, popping the end of his cone into his mouth.

  Bryant & May and the Postman

  ‘You know the problem with you two?’ Janice Longbright, joint Operations Director of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, was studying her duty roster.

  ‘Oh please, do tell,’ said Arthur Bryant, lowering his stilton and chutney sandwich for a moment. ‘You know I can’t resist a sentence that starts like that.’

  ‘You go out on too many investigations by yourselves. You should take a female staff member with you more often.’

  ‘What on earth for? Jackson Pollocks.’ Bryant had tried to brush chutney from his waistcoat and made a mess.

  ‘Because you only ever get a male-centric perspective, that’s why.’ Janice sighed. ‘It’s like this.’ She held up a copy of the Daily Express. ‘“Pretty blonde Stephanie, twenty-two, says …” Imagine writing that about a man. “Well-built Colin” or “petite Dan” – it’s a ridiculous attitude to hold in this day and age.’

  Bryant dismissed the idea. ‘That’s just the Daily Express. Nobody takes it seriously.’

  ‘People do when they’re bombarded with this sort of thing all the time. Women do. We get tired of being judged on our looks.’ She could tell her words were falling on deaf ears. ‘All right, what do you think when you look at me?’

  Bryant chewed ruminatively. ‘I think your jacket needs to go up a size. Or the buttons need moving.’

  Longbright released a groan of frustration.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. You’re over-familiar to me, like part of the furniture.’

  ‘I mean do you see me as an officer first or as a woman?’

  ‘I certainly never think of you as a woman. More like an escritoire. You know, sturdy and useful.’ He hoped this was reassuring, but Janice didn’t look happy. Was there no pleasing her?

  ‘You’re hopeless,’ she said. ‘John, tell him, can’t you?’

  May tore himself away from his phone. ‘What Janice means is that as older males we have entrenched viewpoints, and it would be good to get a female perspective on more cases in order to provide a clearer balance.’

  ‘But we’ve only got two women out of eight staff,’ said Bryant, ‘unless you count the cat, and she started out as a boy.’

  ‘I rather think that’s the point she’s making, old sausage.’

  ‘And there’s a glass ceiling,’ said Janice, pressing the point with a jab of her biro. ‘I’ll never be appointed to your position.’

  ‘Well, no, because I’ve got it,’ replied Bryant, becoming confused. ‘But you could get higher in the Met. The Chief of Police and the head of the Murder Squad are currently both female.’

  ‘I don’t want to be in the Met, do I? I’m in this unit.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Bryant conceded. ‘I’ll put in a word with Raymond and see if we can’t implement some changes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Longbright.

  ‘Now go and put the kettle on. I’m parched.’

  May silently signalled to his partner.

  ‘What?’

  May waved his hands, pointing back. Comprehension filled Bryant’s eyes.

  ‘Ah. Sorry, Janice. Insensitive. Make one for yourself as well. And bring chocolate digestives.’

  Here perhaps we should freeze the frame for a moment and caption the gentleman before us, like an information card on the front of a mummy case:

  Detective Inspector Arthur St John Aloysius Montmorency Bryant

  Species: Arcanum senex

  Age: somewhere between prostate and post-mortem

  Previous employment: police headquarters on the Strand, Whitechapel, Bow Street, Savile Row, Mornington Crescent and at the North London Serious Crimes Division

  Hobbies: scientific experimentation, arcane literature, part-time tour guide for ‘London’s Peculiar Walks’

  Specialist subjects: London and murder

  Favourite pipe: Lorenzo Spitfire

  Afflictions: arthritis, selective deafness, Luddism, inability to stay on topic, unembarrassability, sarcasm, theatricality, contrariness, obstinacy, periodic hallucinations triggered by unlicensed medication, the peculiar ability to confuse others.

  For the full history of this colourful character we would have to explore at least seventeen volumes of his memoirs, available from all good bookshops. For now, though, let it be noted that every story needs a main protagonist, and this is the only one we have.

  The Royal Mail van appeared at the same time every day, 11 a.m., which was largely a waste of time as almost everyone was at work, so instead of parcels and packets being accepted at front doors, everyone got a little slip covered in indecipherable writing, informing them that their mail had been taken to a depot two miles away. It infuriated Bryant, so he took to leaving the deliverer little gifts in return, waiting until he left his van and then posting a similar note through his window stating that while he was out he’d missed an important package that could be collected from number 17, Albion House, Harrison Street, Bloomsbury (3rd floor) after 8 p.m.

  As soon as the postal worker realized what Mr Bryant was up to, he took to bringing his mail at a later time when there was somebody home. On such small victories are happy lives built.

  One day after the leaving of just such a note, the postman failed to appear at Bryant’s door even though his van was clearly parked in the forecourt of the flats, and Bryant began to sense that something was wrong.

  When the elderly detective next stepped on to his balcony in his tartan carpet slippers to check that the van was still there, the postman passed him vertically, heading down, and hit the ground with quite a thud. His neck was broken upon impact. He died instantly.

  It took Bryant a while to get downstairs because he preferred not to attempt the stairs with his knees, flying postman or no flying postman, and he had to wait for the lift, which had a mind of its own.

  The postman’s name was Adeel Khan. He was thirty-one years old and had been born in Karachi. He had trained in IT, but had been forced to change jobs after his company introduced cost-cutting measures. He had been a postal worker for four years, and lived in a council flat in Finsbury Park with his wife and a beautiful three-year-old daughter. It was thought that he slipped and fell over the balcony of the fifth floor, although nobody saw what happened.

  ‘Which is absurd,’ railed Bryant when he was back in his office the next day. He snatched off his spectacles to reveal another set of spectacles he’d forgotten he had donned earlier. ‘That balcony is nearly three and a half feet h
igh. The floor tiles were bone dry. It hasn’t rained in a month and Mr Khan was wearing rubber-soled boots. He had never had a drink in his life. It doesn’t seem very likely that he could have fallen over.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ asked John May, attempting to untangle his partner’s many pairs of glasses and put them into different labelled cases. ‘We’ve not had any witnesses come forward. Maybe he had money worries. Has anyone spoken to the wife yet?’

  ‘Jack Renfield spoke to her,’ Janice Longbright confirmed. ‘Understandably she’s in a terrible state of shock. Giles Kershaw ran a preliminary examination on the body. Massive contusion on the skull, fractured vertebrae, several minor abrasions including a small bruise on the chest. According to his wife Khan left the house yesterday morning at six a.m. in a perfectly good mood, the same as always, kissed his daughter goodbye and said he’d be back at eight thirty p.m.’

  ‘A long day,’ said May, handing Bryant the right pairs in the right cases. ‘I guess he was used to waiting around in order to deliver your packages. It doesn’t sound like a case for us.’

  ‘I thought you’d need some visual ID for him if you were going to conduct interviews,’ said Longbright, ‘but Mrs Khan had no photographs to give Jack and her husband doesn’t have a Facebook profile—’

  ‘Wait, wait – conduct interviews?’ said Bryant. ‘Where are Colin and Meera?’

  ‘Colin’s on holiday in Ibiza and Meera’s gone to a wedding. I’m swamped with work so you’ll have to do them. It wouldn’t kill you.’

  It was a warm August afternoon at the Peculiar Crimes Unit and the surrounding streets were becalmed. Most local residents refused to trust the London weather and had headed abroad. This usually indicated a quiet time for the PCU, and the unfortunate death of a postman would have passed beneath their attention but for two facts: it had occurred on the detective’s doorstep, and despite his protestations Bryant was incorrigibly curious.

  He checked his preliminary notes. ‘Mr Khan wasn’t born here. Does he have Islamist contacts in his home country?’

  ‘His parents left Pakistan for London when he was two,’ said May. ‘He’s entirely naturalized. The Home Office has nothing on him.’

  ‘You know jihadist insurgents bombed Islamabad airport again two days ago, and all flights are suspended.’

  ‘Pakistani officials are saying Afghan fighters are behind the attack,’ said May, ‘if you can believe them. I don’t think his ethnicity’s a factor. Let’s start with the idea that somebody here had it in for him. We should go and conduct the door-to-doors. I imagine it’s been quite a while since you had to do any.’

  ‘Thirty-six years,’ said Bryant. ‘It was a warm day like this, August the thirteenth. The last person I interviewed was Mrs Margery Allsop at thirty-nine Kensington Gardens, about a young woman in her care who died of a massive drug overdose, even though there was no immediate evidence of drugs in her passages. It turned out she was acting as the “banker” for a drug-selling trio, holding on to the goods. When the Met turned up, acting on a tip-off, she swallowed everything in small heat-sealed plastic bags, but because she had been eating oranges the citric acid ate through the bags and released their contents into her system.’

  ‘What a phenomenal memory you have,’ said May, not without sarcasm. ‘What’s the name of your bank?’

  ‘Er – um. Don’t prompt me. I know this.’

  ‘Incredible.’ He tapped Bryant on the shoulder. ‘Get your coat on, we’re going to meet your neighbours.’

  As it was sunny they walked around to Harrison Street. ‘Look at this lot, an absolute shower,’ said Bryant, waving his walking stick at passers-by with disapproval. ‘Why can’t Londoners learn to dress properly in summer? The Italians and the Spanish drape themselves in elegant lightweight suits, not leggings and boob tubes. If you’ve got skinny white knees and ankles like a stick insect, why would you think it’s a good idea to wear gigantic shorts?’

  ‘Says the man in the moth-eaten tweed overcoat and scarf,’ said May drily.

  ‘It’s bound to rain later. Charles the Second described the English summer as “three fine days and a thunderstorm”. Anyway, I’ve only got a string vest and a shirt on under this.’

  May stopped on the building’s staircase to catch his breath. ‘Aren’t you tired? Why didn’t we get the lift?’

  Bryant pulled a face. ‘It smells of curry.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask the neighbours to be more mindful.’

  ‘No, it was my curry. I dropped a takeaway in it last night. Here we are, the fifth floor.’

  May turned to his partner. ‘How do you want to do this?’

  ‘Oh, in twos and threes I think, with a break in between,’ said Bryant, ringing the first doorbell.

  ‘So you can write them up as you go?’

  ‘No, dicky bladder. I’m not accepting more than three cups of tea.’

  They worked their way swiftly along the fifth and fourth floors, puzzling and upsetting the residents in roughly equal measure. Many were migrants, apprehensive and unaccustomed to impromptu calls. Often three generations were present, including grandmothers in emerald and scarlet sarees who spoke little English, and smart westernized children in Nike shirts. Several of their interviewees were able to recall the postal worker, but nobody knew his name.

  ‘Wasn’t it Gounod who said that our homes were no longer in the street because the street was in our homes?’ Bryant wondered. ‘Ahead of his time, that chap. I didn’t think I’d like living in a flat as much as I do. And it’s good to finally meet the neighbours.’ He had conveniently glossed over the fact that they were conducting a possible murder inquiry.

  They spoke to one wild-haired old boy who lived alone, answering their knock in a vest and old-fashioned braces. He had an unshaven chin and a rough cockney accent, and stood just outside his flat with the front door left partly open. Bryant felt as awkward as a dinner guest taking too long to say goodbye, but could not resist peering over the man’s shoulder. On a narrow hall table were three white long-stem vases, each containing a perfect purple orchid. Above them was a framed monochrome photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson, of an Arab man standing half in shadow. Who had this fellow once been: a war photographer, an artist, an engineer, a gardener, a poet? Did he seek a tranquil grace in his life that he could never find at work? Did he take pride in the secret knowledge that his sensitive soul was hidden behind a gruff demeanour? You can never know people until you see how they live, Bryant thought.

  May looked over at his partner. Bryant appeared to have drifted off into a world of his own, and May remembered why he never took him out on interviews.

  ‘How long does it take to become naturalized, do you think?’ May wondered, closing his notebook after the last door shut.

  ‘In my book you’re a Londoner the moment you start saying sorry when someone bumps into you,’ Bryant replied. ‘There’s a Romanian girl who started six weeks ago in the Ladykillers Café on Caledonian Road. She couldn’t speak a word of English when she arrived. Now she’s calling everyone “darlin’”. It’s the best way to learn, being chucked into the mix.’

  May checked his watch. ‘Well, that didn’t take long, but we’re still four flats missing. Let’s do your floor as well.’

  ‘I can tell you now, Alma’s out,’ Bryant warned. ‘She’s gone to visit her gnu. She’s sponsoring animals for charity at the London Zoo. She made me buy a lottery ticket for a frog last week. Patagonian, near extinction: she’s trying to save them. She’s always out somewhere trying to save someone or something, hence my issue with the postie.’

  ‘Then let’s just visit your neighbour,’ said May, ringing a bell.

  ‘Oh, I’d rather you didn’t—’ Bryant began, but the door was opened by a heavy-set young man in an Arsenal shirt, holding a can of Camden Hells lager in one meaty fist. The sound of a football match could be heard on his television.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ he warned Bryant, his thick finger pointed menaci
ngly.

  ‘This is Brad Pitt,’ Bryant explained, unable to stop himself. ‘He works on a construction site and is absolutely brilliant at swearing. I hear him through the wall whenever his team loses. Do share some of your colourful argot with us, Mr Pitt.’

  ‘My name’s Joe,’ said Joe, reaching forward and shaking May’s hand. ‘We had a misunderstanding about my name. I can see now that sarcasm was a mistake.’

  ‘John May,’ said May. ‘I’m Arthur’s—’

  ‘I know who you are. I seen you dropping him off at the flats some nights. Is this a professional call?’ Joe took a slug of beer.

  ‘Your postal worker—’

  ‘The one who took a swan dive off the balcony,’ said Joe, nodding. ‘Yeah, I saw the ambulance cart him off. Which reminds me.’ He disappeared for a moment and came back with a large cardboard box. ‘I’m not your delivery service, Mr Bryant. I don’t know what’s in here but it smells off. My dog wouldn’t leave it alone.’

  ‘It’s probably my tumours,’ Bryant explained. ‘Diseased ones. I’m helping out a colleague.’

  ‘Perhaps you could make sure he wraps them up a bit better next time.’ Joe handed the package over as quickly as he could. ‘I knew Adeel. He was a nice bloke. We went bowling together once.’

  Bryant raised an eyebrow. ‘Crown green?’

  ‘No, ten pin, up Bloomsbury Lanes. He had trouble finding shoes that fit him.’

  ‘I suppose huge plates are a hazard of the job,’ Bryant surmised.

  ‘You don’t honestly reckon he killed himself?’

  ‘Of course not. We wouldn’t be here if we did.’ Bryant had dismissed that idea at the outset. ‘Do you know if he had any enemies?’

  ‘He was a postie, of course he had enemies.’ Joe pulled his gusset straight with a remarkable degree of unselfconsciousness. ‘Did you speak to everybody?’

  ‘No,’ said May, checking his notebook, ‘we’re missing numbers twenty-three, twenty-seven and thirty-nine.’

  ‘My missus could tell you who’s who but she’s up the doc’s with our littlest. Twenty-seven’s Chinese, they don’t talk to nobody. Twenty-three’s mad as a coot and he don’t talk to nobody neither. Social services deliver his meals. Thirty-nine gets a lot of deliveries. She’s a right stuck-up cow.’