Bryant & May – England’s Finest

by Christopher Fowler

  Kamesh’s eyes widened, making him even more insect-like. ‘Alysha?’

  Longbright knew he was buying time to think of an acceptable answer, so she kept talking. ‘She’s virtually your neighbour. You grabbed a bite to eat with her last Thursday, remember? You were seen on that bench over there. What were you eating?’

  ‘What? Ah – I don’t—’

  May held his breath. It was obvious that Kamesh knew her. The question now was whether he would admit it.

  ‘The people who saw you guys thought it was noodles – was it noodles? We think there may have been a hygiene issue with the food preparation – did you get gastric problems afterwards? She did …’

  ‘Yeah, I had a bad stomach.’ Kamesh pulled his hair straight. ‘I was up all night.’

  May breathed out, relieved. ‘Have you seen her since?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’ve been trying to catch up on my coursework.’

  ‘How well do you know her?’

  ‘I just see her around sometimes and we get something to eat.’

  ‘Where did you go for the food?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘There’s a pop-up on the quad called Curry in a Hurry.’

  ‘So it was a curry you ate last Thursday. One last thing.’ May stopped in the doorway. ‘What did you take?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Kamesh looked even more confused.

  ‘For your stomach, when you got sick. What did you take for it?’

  ‘Oh. Nothing, it wasn’t serious. What is this about, anyway?’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s nothing.’ Bryant’s smile did not inspire confidence.

  The detectives took Colin Bimsley with them, as he had something of a reputation as a human waste-disposal unit. The next day at 11.30 a.m. the curry stall appeared as part of the Bloomsbury Farmers’ Market at the north end of Torrington Square. The pop-up was covered in red and yellow bunting, and had rows of gaudy condiment bottles lined up along its counter.

  ‘You eat more curries than anyone I know,’ said Bryant. ‘You can tell us if it’s any good.’

  ‘Are you going to judge that by whether it kills me?’ Colin asked. ‘I love a good Ruby Murray but I don’t want to die over one.’ He turned to the proprietor. ‘Can I get a pork vindaloo with extra habaneros?’

  ‘Make it really hot,’ said Bryant, digging for change.

  The girl behind the counter pointed to the condiments. ‘The ones at the end are the hottest.’ She handed him a bottle of water. ‘You’ll thank me for making you buy this.’

  ‘Oh well, in for a penny.’ Colin selected two of the most lethal-looking spices in the row, then added a third.

  They took him to the bench and sat him down, waiting. ‘Don’t all look at me,’ he said, unwrapping his spork and peeling the cardboard lid from his curry container.

  While May waited for Colin to eat, he looked around and spotted a green plastic gardeners’ hut in the corner, wedged between two hedges. ‘Where was the witness when she saw them?’ he asked Janice.

  She pointed to the edge of the quadrangle. ‘Somewhere over there, coming out of the main hall.’

  ‘Quite a distance.’

  ‘She insists she saw them clearly.’

  Bimsley was tucking in. After five minutes he wiped his forehead and blew his nose. At ten he started sweating profusely.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked May.

  ‘There are noodles and slices of mango in here, which is just wrong.’

  ‘Apart from that.’

  ‘I think it’ll take six weeks for my taste buds to grow back.’ Bimsley fanned his mouth. ‘I shouldn’t have added any more chillies.’

  ‘Condiments,’ Bryant repeated, his eyes narrowed. ‘Hm.’

  ‘I hate it when you make your eyes shrink like that,’ said May. ‘Like you know something the rest of us haven’t figured out.’

  ‘I think I do.’ He rose from the bench. ‘Colin, thank you for your help. I’d love to stay and listen to you eat longer, but I have work to attend to.’ He drifted off, thrashing at some litter with his walking stick.

  ‘You heard the old man – work,’ said May, rising. ‘We need to talk to anyone who knows Kamesh. I know he studies economics, not English history, and there’s no earthly reason why he should know about these stupid footsteps, but I’m starting to have my doubts about him.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Colin, attempting to fold the foil container in half without squirting curry down his jacket.

  ‘He says he was up all night, then says he took nothing for his stomach because it wasn’t serious. It felt like a lie. I don’t think he got sick.’

  ‘Are you always this suspicious?’ Colin asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said May. ‘I’m a cop.’

  Over that afternoon they found half a dozen students who were prepared to offer an opinion on Raj Kamesh:

  ‘He’s very ambitious. He’s running this big-deal start-up at night. I don’t know when he ever sleeps. There’s a girl who likes him. How much? Oh, a lot.’

  ‘He told me he doesn’t have time for a relationship right now. He needs to get on with building his career. He’s got no social skills and isn’t interested in other people.’

  ‘The girl was sending him little notes all the time and driving him nuts. No, I don’t think anyone spoke to her much, she was kind of shy. He said he would deal with it.’

  ‘Were they together? Not to my knowledge. He’s not much fun to be around, but she liked him for some reason. All Raj ever does is work.’

  ‘Well, I think he showed an interest at first, then he realized she was going to be too needy. He’s behind on his coursework because he spends too much time building his online company. He has nothing left for anyone else.’

  And finally:

  ‘I think things were coming to a head. She was always hanging around the hall waiting for him. He told a friend of mine he was going to get rid of her.’

  ‘What do you reckon, John?’ Bryant asked, creaking back in his desk chair. ‘Do we have enough to make a case?’

  ‘What, he couldn’t get rid of her so he killed her? Don’t you think there are easier ways to deal with that situation?’

  ‘Kamesh is ambitious and prioritizes his career above everything else, and she was annoying him. He could have purchased rat poison and sprinkled it on her side of the curry.’

  May tried to imagine the scenario and shook his head. ‘No, no. The thing about curry is that it’s gloopy, and Colin said it had noodles in it, which means it would have been impossible to separate it into two neat halves. He would have poisoned himself as well. Why am I even thinking like this? It’s your fault, you always assume people murder their way out of situations, and you know why? You love murders.’

  ‘No I don’t.’ Bryant looked quite horrified at the thought. ‘There is no circumstance on earth that allows one person to take the life of another. Although I’ll admit a certain fascination with devious minds.’

  ‘Tell you what, let’s have a little wager, you and I.’ May took out his fountain pen and found a sheet of paper. ‘I think I know what happened, and I have a way to prove it.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Bryant, his eyes narrowing even more. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Then let’s both write it down and see who’s right.’

  They sealed their pages into envelopes and handed them to each other. ‘Who’s going to go first?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘Toss a coin,’ said May. ‘Let’s use mine; I don’t trust yours.’ He took out a 50p piece and flipped it. ‘Call.’

  ‘Tails.’

  ‘Tails it is.’

  ‘Right, I go first. Let’s head back to the curry stall.’

  The farmers’ market was in full swing once more. As they approached the stalls they could see that a long lunchtime queue had formed for Curry in a Hurry.

  ‘Colin suffered no ill effects, then,’ said May. ‘He even took Meera out for another one last night.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t try these in
the right combination,’ Bryant said, pointing at the colourful condiment pots. He held one up before the counter girl. ‘Where do you get these?’

  ‘We mix and grind them ourselves,’ she said.

  ‘Ever had anyone get sick after using them?’

  ‘Certainly not. All of our hygiene certificates from the Food Standards Agency are up to date.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Bryant as they walked away, ‘I think Kamesh had heard about the legend, tore the ground up himself, then invited Hussein to take a look. She’s studying urban sociology; maybe it was a subject that interested her. He met her some weeks earlier, then changed his mind about her. Perhaps Miss Hussein started calling too often and disrupting his plans. He decides to ignore her but she comes looking for him. Soon after this he realizes he’ll be unable to get rid of her. He concocts a plan, telling her he has something unusual to show her. He buys her a curry, brings a condiment bottle of his own just like the ones on the counter of the stall, and empties it on her side of the meal while she’s studying the footsteps. That way, he can be sure she eats it. Then he goes home and everything goes back to normal. The perfect murder.’

  ‘And that’s it, is it?’ asked May, fishing his partner’s envelope from his coat. ‘You dismiss my gloopy curry problem without a second thought.’

  ‘You think I’m wrong?’

  ‘I know you are.’

  ‘Then what is your solution?’

  May smiled. ‘Mine – and you’ll like this – involves a paradox that is mundane, yet extraordinary. The boy is a murderer, but the girl wasn’t murdered.’

  ‘My dear fellow, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Follow me.’

  It buoyed May to be in control for once. There was a spring in his step as he walked across the grass to the top corner of the quadrangle and the small supply hut belonging to the college’s gardener.

  ‘You’re partly right, of course. Alysha Hussein’s attentions were unwanted. She was always there, just across the square or hanging around the common rooms, waiting for him. He couldn’t concentrate on his coursework or his extracurricular project. He met up with her to have a talk, and to tell her once and for all to leave him alone.’

  ‘And in this scenario of yours’ – here Bryant waved his fingers in the air to indicate the flimsiness of his partner’s theory – ‘how does the lady take it?’

  ‘She’s devastated,’ May replied. ‘He’s invited her to share a meal with him and this is what she gets instead. She’s already nervous and hypertense, and overheated from the curry. Now Kamesh’s cruel dismissal pushes her heart rate further and she goes into the first of a series of arrhythmic arrests. She can’t breathe, let alone speak. She reaches out to him, desperate for his help. Does he realize that all he has to do is walk away from her as quickly as possible and let nature take its course, or does he just think she’s being over-dramatic? Either way, he crosses the lawn and doesn’t look back until he’s returned to his room. You have to admit it’s a more plausible explanation than yours.’

  ‘Wait.’ Bryant held up a questioning finger. ‘What about the forty footsteps?’

  ‘Open my envelope,’ said May.

  Bryant did as he was told. On the page inside was an instruction. He opened the lid of the gardener’s box and looked inside.

  ‘You told me your landlady complained about the poor planting,’ said May. ‘The gardener was trying to fix it.’

  In the green pod was a gigantic yellow container of weedkiller.

  ‘At first I thought he had poisoned her with it,’ May admitted, tapping out a rare cigarette. ‘But when I did some checking I discovered that few British weedkillers have lethal chemicals in them any more. They could make you sick because they contain dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, but they’re not likely to kill you.’

  ‘Then what does this have to do with—?’ Bryant started to ask.

  ‘Pick up the canister,’ May instructed.

  When Bryant did so he found that its base had split, so that there was hardly any liquid left inside it.

  ‘There’s a crack in the pod as well.’ May pointed his cigarette at its base. ‘The weedkiller has been leaking out all this time. We didn’t notice it when it was raining, but on dry days it made the path wet. When Kamesh stood up to leave he walked in a puddle of it and trod it across the lawn. That’s why there are only a few bare patches – it wore off after a few steps.’

  ‘You mean he accidentally duplicated the original steps that were there on and off for three hundred years?’

  May examined the end of his cigarette. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed an occasional smoke. ‘Not exactly. I did some further checking with your pal Kirkpatrick. Southey was off by more than just a few feet. The latest evidence locates the duelling site to a spot next to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, underneath a coffee shop.’

  ‘If you’re correct, I promise I won’t be a bad loser,’ said Bryant, ‘but you have to answer two questions for me. First, what makes you think you’re right?’

  May pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to his partner. ‘Your hay fever,’ he said. ‘You can’t smell anything at the moment, can you? It reeks of creosote around here. The odour is added to the weedkiller to stop pets from drinking it. And the second question?’

  ‘How are you going to prove it?’

  ‘Check his trainers,’ May replied. ‘What does the winner get?’

  ‘Two chicken jalfrezis, please,’ said Bryant at the counter of Curry in a Hurry.

  Janice Longbright and the Best of Friends

  I. WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

  Gail Barker first met Lily Marshall in the golden, molten days of a Paris autumn, when the air was hot and dead and the leaves were losing their richness.

  Lily was taking a selfie next to Monet’s Water Lilies in the Musée de l’Orangerie in the Jardin des Tuileries. When she caught Gail looking at her she said, ‘What? It goes right around the entire room, I can’t be blocking your view.’ They were the very last people in the place and the guards wanted them out, but Lily was taking her time.

  Gail apologized for staring, and finally said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just not going to come out like that.’ Lily was dangling a Pentax in front of her and dipping at an absurd angle to try and get part of that vast mauve-blue painting in the background.

  ‘Then could you take it?’ Lily snapped impatiently. She was eighteen; Gail was seventeen. This was before proper selfies with phones, and Lily was using the timer on her camera, except she always thought it wasn’t going to go off and dropped her insouciant pose just as the shutter clicked. Gail untangled the camera from her and carefully took the picture.

  Gail was still at school and had come to Paris by herself in the summer holidays. She had travelled by coach and paid for the trip through her Saturday job. Lily’s grades were not good enough to get her into the university of her choice, so she had accepted a job at Home & Hearth, the homewares company where she would later be made a director.

  After the gallery closed its doors they crossed the Seine to a bar near Notre-Dame called La Brasserie de l’Île Saint-Louis, a service continu joint where the waiters would leave you alone all night so long as you kept something in your glass.

  Youth, Paris, love and the moon. Well, Gail wasn’t in love but perhaps, she decided, she had something better: a friend, the first her mother had not chosen for her. Lily was mature beyond a year’s difference. She wore so much make-up that it was hard to tell what she really looked like: foundation, concealer, bronzer, setting powder, two types of contour, highlighter, lip colour and half a dozen shades of eye shadow. She hardly ever went anywhere without this powdered mask. She explained that she’d had acne when she was younger and it had left her cheeks and neck with discoloured patches right down to the collar of her T-shirt, so the warpaint boosted her confidence.

  Lily had shiny black bobbed hair which she kept dyed because she said she was natural British mouse. Her eyes were set wi
de apart and she wore crimson lipstick that looked fabulous at night but slutty in the morning. Gail suspected that without these tricks Lily was probably rather ordinary-looking, practically invisible. Lily was affected, Gail supposed, because she was away from her controlling parents and in love with Paris and could be whoever she liked. But just as the water lilies only appeared whole from a distance, so Lily remained frustratingly oblique at close range.

  ‘Besides,’ she told Gail, filling her wine glass, ‘Monet painted four hundred and fifty pictures of his garden in every season and every light, and that’s how you should see people, always changing.’

  The sun had set and the street lamps had come on. Waiters slipped between the tables in their white shirts, black waistcoats and white aprons. ‘I’m ordering us entrecôtes grillées. They’re thin boneless steaks – you do eat meat, don’t you? – but you must order it as you would like it to be cooked, otherwise they’ll flash it under the grill for two seconds and serve it dripping blood. And we’ll have to have fries because Parisians don’t seem to understand the concept of vegetables. Order what you like, my father’s paying. I’ve got him enrolled in a system I call Parenting Through Guilt.’

  Gail was entranced. She had never met anyone like Lily. She seemed entirely comfortable in her surroundings and her own skin, even though her every movement reeked of artifice. She was from the wealthiest part of Surrey but didn’t have the conviction of absolute rightness you so often found in girls from the Home Counties. She was always willing to be proven wrong. Gail was as contradictory in her own way, practical but imaginative. She was a Londoner from a less-well-off family, and it turned out that Lily was moving nearby.

  ‘My parents wanted me to go to university,’ Lily continued, ‘but I told them I wanted to find a company where I could learn from the ground up. I’m taking an interior-design course to see if I’ll like it.’

  ‘But what if you find you don’t have the aptitude?’ Gail asked.