Bryant & May - The Burning Man

by Christopher Fowler

  At this time of the morning, phalanxes of Filipina women were arriving in Belgravia to clean apartments. De Vere paid the cab and buzzed himself into the building. He stopped in the hallway outside his flat to sniff the air. What was that? It reminded him of something from his childhood: burned iron filings, the autumnal smell of Bonfire Night just after the last of the big rockets had gone off. It was the metallic tang of his grandfather’s factory floor, where lathes turned and sparks sprayed across the machinery like Catherine wheels. As a boy he would go with the old man and watch as the workers stepped back in deference. The industry that had brought his family a century of prosperity had finally vanished in 2005, a victim of low Chinese production costs, and his father had retired a broken man, but De Vere still recalled the sights and smells of the engine shed.

  Pushing aside the memory, he unlocked the door and entered the maisonette.

  ‘Well, do you know where I can reach him?’ asked May, looking at his watch. It was 8.35 a.m. on Wednesday, and Dexter Cornell’s Spanish housekeeper had just informed him that her employer had gone away. He covered the phone. ‘It sounds like Burnham was right; Cornell’s gone into hiding.’

  ‘He’s got a bolt-hole in the country,’ Bryant mouthed. ‘Ask about Oakley Manor House in Burford. It’s northwest of Oxford.’

  ‘It sounds like that’s where he’s gone,’ said May as he ended the call. ‘The housekeeper wouldn’t confirm it, but he packed all the stuff he usually takes when he goes there. He told her not to talk to anyone. She’s worried she’s going to lose her job. Where did you get that titbit from?’

  ‘My chips,’ Bryant explained. ‘They were wrapped in a page from Grazia that showed the inside of Cornell’s country retreat.’

  ‘I thought he was going to continue coming into the bank.’

  ‘He can,’ said Bryant. ‘It’s a fast commute. We need to get a local officer there, preferably someone with a couple of brain cells. Check on Cornell’s security arrangements, find out how long he’s going to be staying out of town. I imagine he’s got a good alarm system but we’d better have them search the grounds. Right now he’s the most hated man in the country, which makes him the most obvious target. He got married at Oakley Manor House. He’s got a home cinema that seats twenty in the basement, and a lap pool.’

  ‘I never imagined you’d bother reading something like Grazia,’ said May.

  ‘Oh, I don’t just pore over the obituaries and the Police Gazette, you know. Besides, you need something to read when you’re eating a saveloy. I kept the page.’ He rifled through his coat and dragged out a ketchup-stained sheet, flattening it with exaggerated delicacy.

  ‘So he’s got a woman up there with him?’

  ‘Not sure. He seems to be in the process of a messy divorce. His wife – or ex-wife – is what they used to call “flighty”. Tends to party with her set in Gstaad. She’s Russian, a bit of a handful by all accounts. Last week when he was trying to play down his profits and keep a low profile, she flew her pals to the Hermitage in Monte Carlo for some kind of gorgons’ tea party that set him back thirty thousand pounds. Immaculate bad timing.’

  ‘I say, is this going to be the new you? Up on all the latest gossip?’

  ‘Dear God, no,’ said Bryant. ‘Meera told me that bit. Her mother’s been making her read bridal magazines and whatnot. I think she has plans for her daughter. I read it because you have to know your enemy.’

  ‘You’re not allowed to have enemies, Arthur. As a state employee you’re required to remain non-partisan.’

  ‘I’m speaking to you in private, John, not writing a report. I wonder if the Findersbury directors paid Cornell a kickback for the information. I suppose not, as he was meant to deliver the deal.’

  ‘You know they’re pleading innocence.’

  ‘To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies: They would, wouldn’t they? And now Cornell’s hiding away in a country house just like Julian Assange did in Ellingham Hall. I imagine he feels just as embattled. I need to talk to him.’

  ‘You have no right, Arthur. It’s outside of your jurisdiction, unless you can prove that he’s directly involved in the investigation.’

  Bryant leaned forward, rippling his fingers as if trying to hypnotize May. ‘Come on, aren’t you the least bit curious?’

  ‘Only within the confines of my job.’

  ‘And that’s the difference between you and me,’ Bryant said. ‘You just want to catch the fish, and I want to study the ocean.’ With this he rose and strolled out of the room.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ May shouted after him. He waited until he could no longer hear his partner in the hall, then punched out a number. ‘Dr Gillespie, I need you to call Arthur into your office on some pretext. Tell him he needs a blood test or something. Sit him down and talk casually to him.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Dr Gillespie, coughing heavily into the phone. ‘Your partner is almost impossible to engage in normal conversation.’

  ‘He’s behaving weirdly. I mean, even more weirdly than usual.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. He’s sort of – disconnected. He keeps wandering off. I think he’s trying to cover something up. You know how crafty he can be.’

  Dr Gillespie blew his nose violently. ‘I’m sorry, I have a cold. What do you mean, cover what up?’

  ‘He’s having bits of downtime, as if he drifts away and comes back – little fugues.’

  ‘Like mini-strokes? Is he forgetting things?’

  ‘No, he’s always had an astonishing memory. But he’s getting confused. Talking in riddles. And he goes missing.’

  ‘Has this been happening for very long?’ Gillespie released another foamy blast into his handkerchief.

  ‘No, it’s only started recently.’

  ‘All right, I’ll drag him in and sound him out. He’s getting on, you know. He shouldn’t still be working at his age.’

  ‘His work is what keeps him going,’ said May. ‘We’re on one of our biggest-ever cases. There are lives at stake and I can’t afford to put anyone at risk. Will you let me know how it goes?’

  ‘OK, but you may not like my recommendations. Are there any other symptoms I should know about?’

  ‘He’s stopped playing his old Gilbert and Sullivan records. What does that suggest?’

  ‘It might not mean anything. Perhaps he’s just sick of The Mikado.’

  May rang off and sat thoughtfully for a few minutes. There was something he could do.

  ‘Janice?’ He swung around the door of Longbright’s office. ‘I don’t want to let Arthur out of my sight while he’s on this case, but I can’t always be with him. Could you partner him when I’m tied up?’

  ‘I should be able to,’ said Longbright. ‘Everything’s covered here so long as nothing else comes in. Fraternity can take over for me.’ She looked around her desktop. ‘John, you didn’t take anything off my desk last night, did you?’

  ‘I’d have told you if I had. Why?’

  ‘It’s just … I’m missing some of the witness statements. They were here when I left.’

  ‘You might try Raymond.’

  ‘Land’s never read a witness statement in his life.’

  ‘About Arthur – can you do it?’

  She gave up looking and concentrated on the question. ‘Of course. When do you want me to start?’

  ‘As soon as possible. Just find him and tell me where he is. I’m interviewing Freddie Weeks’s mother in ten minutes and Arthur’s in that strange mood he gets when he’s about to wander off.’

  ‘The things I do.’ Janice grabbed her PCU jacket and headed out to look for her boss.

  21

  DISORIENTATION

  Someone had been in the flat. De Vere was sure of it.

  A heavy Minotti armchair had been pushed back a few inches, leaving a scuff on the newly waxed hardwood floor, and the stack of letters and bills he had opened in the kitchen had been moved. He knew that Lena couldn’
t have returned early because he had spoken to her late last night, and the only other person with keys was his cleaning lady. He worked with some crazy people, borderline-autistic tech-heads who were likely to turn up at the front door, find no one home and climb through a window. But they couldn’t do that here, in an apartment building that had designed out any possibility of illegal entry.

  Yet something had been dragged along the hall; there were more black scuff-marks. While he was thinking about what might have happened, he made himself some strong, sweet tea and found that someone had spilled sugar in the kitchen. He walked around in puzzlement, passing the doorway to the second bedroom. The red light on the voicemail button of his house phone was blinking. It was a line hardly anyone used.

  ‘Mister De Vere, is Katya here, I very sorry not come today but I come to you and get my bag stolen on the bus and it have your keys in. I am so sorry.’

  He knew she would never go to the police because she was here illegally, but Katya was a damned good cleaner. Surely she wouldn’t have been so dumb as to put his address on her key tag? If she had, it meant there was a chance that someone had used them to get into the flat.

  Heading into the study, he checked his laptop and found it in its usual place. He kept little of real value lying around, but the thought that a stranger might have been going through his personal belongings sent a prickle across his back.

  Realizing that he hadn’t checked the bedroom, he headed there, but found nothing out of place. He drank some more tea, loosened his tie and lay down on the bed fully clothed. If he just closed his eyes for a few minutes …

  Strong arms dropped over him and crushed the breath from his chest. De Vere tried to raise himself up, but a hand pressed down hard on his throat. Something dark and heavy descended across his vision.

  He could no longer move his head. He smelled heat, then felt it coming closer. He wanted to scream but his voice was cut off, and then there was only the searing white-hot pain that blotted out his senses.

  It was a good thing he lost consciousness as the mask went over his face.

  It was the cleaner who found him. Katya had forgotten that Mr De Vere had given her a second key the year before. After returning home, she had found it among the loose jumble of house keys she kept in a jar under the sink.

  When she got back to the flat, she saw that her employer’s briefcase had been set down in the hall, so she knew he had returned. She called out to let him know that someone else was there, but got no answer. The kitchen was barely touched – although he had made himself his usual tea – and she was heading down the hall when she saw his trouser-clad legs on the bed. She called his name tentatively, not wishing to disturb him if he was having a nap, but there was something wrong – a single shoe on the carpet – that encouraged her to push the door a little wider.

  When she saw the burned bedcover Katya fought the urge to scream. What had he done to his face? There was some kind of metal mask fitted over it. Backing out, she called the police from the house phone, hanging up before they could ask for her name. On her way out she left the keys on the counter, knowing she would never have cause to use them again. He owed her a month’s wages which she now knew she would never get.

  The call was transferred to Buckingham Palace Road and was then picked up by the City of London, with the result that Fraternity DuCaine caught it on the first bounce. ‘Belgravia SOCO’s in first,’ he told Longbright, ‘but we can take over if we’re fast.’

  ‘How come?’ Janice looked up from her screen, surprised.

  ‘They’re not structured to set up a Major Incident Room, and there are circumstances—’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The SOCO says it sounds like our guy again,’ said Fraternity grimly. ‘You’d better tell the old man.’

  ‘God, I’m supposed to be looking after him,’ said Longbright.

  Fraternity raised his eyebrows. ‘Since when did he need looking after?’

  Arthur Bryant was a medley of contradictions. Despite being a man who took twenty minutes to locate the right cable channel on his TV remote, he could be out of the door and heading to a crime scene in under thirty seconds. It was fairly likely that at any given moment he could set himself on fire, yet he was capable of drawing an admission of guilt from a suspect in minutes, succeeding where everyone else had failed.

  Now, in the company of John May, Banbury and DuCaine, he climbed into May’s silver BMW and was taken to Belgravia.

  Familiar to its residents as the Grosvenor Estate and still largely owned by the Duke of Westminster, Belgravia is one of the wealthiest areas in the world. The Grosvenor family came from Eaton Hall in Cheshire, hence the address of Eaton Square, Belgravia, where the detectives found themselves heading. Many of the classical cream stucco exteriors were just façades now; the grand families had long gone, leaving behind offices and apartments carved into lateral spaces across the properties, so that in reality a considerable part of the square was little more than a grandiose business development. It was best not to get Bryant on that subject.

  ‘Typical of this bloody country as a whole,’ he announced from the back seat as they searched for somewhere to park. ‘A shining false front of English propriety hiding the usual wormy muck of greed, corruption and duplicity. “Oh,” everyone cries, “it’s so English!” Isn’t it, though.’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t joined the protestors yet,’ said May testily, checking his rear-view mirror.

  ‘I’m not sleeping in a tent at my age, thank you.’ Bryant was indignant. ‘I paid my dues from “Ban the Bomb” to “Support the Miners”. My marching days ended when councils insisted on providing us with Portaloos. What was wrong with having a wee in an alley?’

  May enjoyed winding his partner up. ‘This square is one of the grandest architectural set pieces in London. So what if there’s strip-lighting and chipboard behind it?’

  ‘It’s vulgar, that’s what.’

  ‘Says the man with the Fablon-and-Formica kitchen.’

  ‘Are they always like this?’ DuCaine asked Banbury as they alighted.

  The crime scene manager shrugged. ‘No, they’ve mellowed.’

  They took the lift to the top floor of the corner building, where a young constable was standing in the hallway by the open door of a flat. The stench of burned fabric stung their nostrils.

  ‘He’s in the bedroom at the back,’ said one of the emerging firefighters, pointing over his shoulder.

  ‘You’d better go first, Dan,’ Bryant suggested. ‘I don’t want you nagging me about touching stuff.’

  The apartment hall was painted in shades of sour cream and granite, and was lined with small brownish modernist paintings, brightened by the inclusion of what looked like an original Paul Klee and a Joan Miró. Beyond them, a smell of burning emanated from the master bedroom.

  ‘Hey, welcome back,’ said Senior Fire Officer Blaize Carter, stepping out into the hall. ‘It just keeps getting weirder. Come and take a look.’

  The corpse was on its back, sprawled on the remains of a king-sized grey bedspread. Its torso and limbs were still intact, but over the victim’s head had been fitted a rough-hewn iron mask. It was hinged vertically and shut so that only a few tufts of singed brown hair and the top half of the left ear had survived outside it, stuck to the blackened pillowcase.

  ‘He looks like a Trojan warrior,’ remarked Bryant. ‘What is that thing?’

  ‘We’ve got scorch marks around his shoulders,’ said Carter. ‘It was put in place while it was hot.’

  Bryant bent over the mask and sniffed. ‘Roasted flesh. Who kills somebody by sticking their head in something like that? How would it even work?’

  ‘How come you’re here?’ Banbury asked the fire officer.

  ‘CoL knew you’d caught the call,’ said Carter, ‘and there was a follow-up from a neighbour who smelled burning.’

  ‘Were there any windows open? Did you have to kick the door in?’

 
; ‘No, the door was shut but not locked. It would have kept any fire contained. These are expensive properties, renovated in the last five or six years, since the new fire regs came in.’

  ‘So plenty of smoke detectors.’

  ‘One in every room.’ Carter pointed up at the white box in the ceiling with wires hanging down from it. ‘Easy to disable. I met the Belgravia SOCO, who was very happy to leave this to you. It’s a bit outside his comfort zone. He reckons the initial call came from the cleaning woman.’

  Banbury closed in on the body. ‘It looks like the damage is entirely local, centred on the skull.’

  ‘Nothing on his wrists,’ said Bryant. ‘How did the killer subdue him? Do a fingertip search around here. I want to know if the victim was knocked out, locked in, what kept him from leaving.’ He believed in a system he called ABC: Assume nothing. Believe nobody. Check everything. ‘How long has he been dead?’

  ‘We picked up the call at nine-o-five a.m.,’ Carter replied. ‘By the time we got here the smoke had dissipated. The bedspread’s not flammable, but the mask scorched everything through to the mattress springs. I don’t have to tell you this wasn’t self-inflicted, do I?’

  ‘I saw a camera in the lobby,’ said Banbury. ‘Fraternity, could you find out where the feed goes?’

  Bryant had already eased himself over the cordon that the Belgravia SOCO had set around the end of the bed, and was going through a work folder that lay on the dressing table. ‘You’re lucky the flat didn’t go up,’ he said, examining the papers.