Bryant & May - The Burning Man

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Of course I want to know.’

  ‘Then can you kindly uncrease your face?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  Bryant caught sight of himself in a window and adjusted his hat to a nattier setting. ‘I want to go on, of course. That’s what anybody with more than two brain cells wants to do, isn’t it?’

  ‘OK. What else do you want?’

  Bryant did not need to think about it. ‘I want to get good value out of my free travel card, and the rest of my senior-citizen concessions. God knows I’ve paid my taxes long enough. I want to arrest people and make suspects squirm. I want to protect those who can’t look after themselves. I want to be a thorn in the side of the establishment, and a pain in the arse of the status quo. I want to finish Tristram Shandy and Middlemarch. I want to see if they’re able to milk any more films out of The Lord of the Rings. I want a mohawk. I want to train as a French pastry chef, a Spanish matador and an Italian opera singer. I want my clothes to wear out before I do. I want to see a decent production of Measure for Measure. I want the unconditional love of a beautiful woman and to sit with her on a beach in Thailand. I want my wife back. I want unfeasible cocktails. I want to get a tattoo and hang-glide from the Shard. I want to eat fusion food, whatever that is. I want to live long enough to see the look of smugness wiped off the faces of everyone who works for Google. I can give you a much fuller list if you’d like.’

  ‘No,’ said May, ‘that’s enough to be going on with.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Yes, you can lend me five thousand pounds.’

  ‘I haven’t got five thousand pounds.’

  ‘Then don’t ask if there’s anything you can do.’

  With that, the subject was closed. May waited until Bryant had turned the corner, then walked back to the tube.

  36

  THE HAMLET TACTIC

  Thursday night was not quite over and done with.

  Janice Longbright pushed her chair away from the desk and rose, stretching her aching back. ‘How can you still be eating?’ she asked Jack Renfield, who was chewing a bright-orange chicken leg, taken from a pirate-brand KFC box.

  ‘I need the carbs,’ replied Jack. ‘I’m a big bloke, I burn off a lot. Ask Colin.’

  ‘Virginia Fried Chicken? What, they just picked the next state over for the name? Chuck us a piece.’

  Renfield flipped her a chunk of breast. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Frank Leach ran an online company with offices in Whitechapel. Diamond of the East Financial Services. Sound dodgy enough?’

  ‘Diamond of the East? Leach was lending money to the Bangladeshi community?’

  ‘Looks like it. High interest rates, high-risk clients. Right on Whitechapel Road. The screen-cap makes it look like a dump. Leach’s the owner, with a couple of flunkeys doing the churn and burn. His site leads to two other businesses, another moneylending dealership with hilarious interest rates and a pawnbroker service.’

  ‘So Hall, De Vere and Leach were all involved in finance.’

  ‘At different levels, yes,’ Longbright agreed.

  ‘Diamond of the East. Doesn’t sound like much of a target for an anarchist. I’d have thought there were better targets out there. Why not go after employees of the big five banks?’

  ‘You’re right, it doesn’t make sense.’ She spat a piece of bone into a tissue. ‘Maybe the victims really are being picked at random.’

  ‘Not according to the Old Man. You’re looking very fetching tonight, by the way.’

  ‘Yes?’ Longbright looked down at herself. ‘I’m not sure what I’d fetch. I mean, I agree about the anarchist angle and I can see why Arthur wants to pursue it. But I’ve been through the Disobey membership lists, and these people … some have genuine grievances, some are troublemakers, some are just weird outsiders. Add communist and fascist infiltrators, police informers and special-interest groups drafted in from other EU countries: it’s an incendiary mix. Darren Link’s lads keep finding so-called protestors employed to shoot chunks of footage from the front line so that marketing firms can sell them on as viral GIFs to ad agencies; how pathetic is that?’ She set aside some chicken gristle and wiped her hands. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had a case like this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’re meant to talk about opportunity, means, motive, yes? And in cases of premeditated murder it’s the last one that dominates. But this is murder as opportunism. I ask myself: Would he have acted if there hadn’t been a riot? You commit a crime and drop into the raging mob outside your door. Where’s the best place for an outsider to hide?’

  ‘Inside a much bigger group of outsiders,’ answered Arthur Bryant. He was leaning against the door jamb, and looked exhausted.

  Longbright sat up in surprise. ‘Hey, we thought you’d gone home.’

  ‘John saw me back but somehow I got lost on the final stretch. I can’t seem to remember where home is.’ He shuffled in and took off his hat. ‘I know it’s in Bloomsbury somewhere. The streets turned themselves around when I wasn’t looking.’ His words tore at Longbright’s heart. He pulled ineffectually at his scarf and coat until she came over to disentangle him. ‘I don’t know Alma’s number, otherwise I would have called her. And anyway, I’m not sure where my phone is. But somehow I remembered the unit. I thought, if I just came back here and sat for a while—’

  ‘Of course,’ said Longbright, concerned. ‘Why don’t you put your feet up? There’s some fresh tea in the pot. Do you want me to call John?’

  ‘No, it was bad enough that I made him walk me most of the way home.’

  ‘I’ll get you a cab when you’re ready,’ said Longbright, pouring mugs of tea.

  ‘The Rookery,’ said Bryant, looking back at her with gratitude. ‘Henry Mayhew. One sugar.’

  Renfield caught Janice’s eye. ‘Sorry, Mr B.?’

  ‘Mayhew catalogued the lives of those who survived outside of London society.’ Bryant’s eyes had a faraway look. ‘The Rookery was in St Giles, an ancient Plantagenet village that started at the corner of Tottenham Court Road, going down to Seven Dials and Covent Garden. It must have been quite nice once, with cottages and garden plots and an old hospital. Then the impoverished French came in, bringing violence in their wake. And pubs like the Bowl and the Angel acted as halfway houses – you know, halfway to execution, where prisoners were given a free final pint of beer.’

  Longbright and Renfield sat back and listened. Bryant seemed quite normal when he was able to lose himself in London’s history.

  ‘The Angel’s still there, of course. Not a bad boozer. And Seven Dials – well, you know how that came about. There were seven roads that made a star, and at their centre sat a single white stone pillar with just six clock faces on top of it, because two of the roads were angled into one. It was torn down when they searched for the buried treasure underneath—’

  ‘Who searched?’ asked Janice, sipping her tea. Bryant continued without seeming to hear her.

  ‘There’s a new pillar there now, of course. But the Rookery – Mayhew wrote about it, a tangle of narrow streets where all of the outsiders lived. Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper. Every room let out to several families. A honeycomb of courts and blind alleys, naked children playing in street sewage.’ He raised his palms, imagining the scene, his eyes bright. ‘A policeman enters and the call goes up across the rooftops, travelling faster than any officer can walk, so that escaped prisoners, thieves and deserters have time to get out.’

  He lowered his hands, then cupped them around the hot mug and took a sip. The slogan on the mug read ‘Keep Calm and Lock Someone Up’. ‘We have traditions about dealing with outsiders that survive to the present day. We lump them all together, the ones who don’t fit in. We don’t harm them, we’re too civilized for that, but we put them where we can keep an eye on them. First they were kept in slums, then on run-down council estates. Then there was Mar
garet Thatcher’s plan to abandon parts of the north and cut off all support for Liverpool. “Managed decline”, she called it. We do the same thing now. Oh, we don’t keep the dispossessed in a physical place any more; they’re in virtual space where they can be monitored electronically. So the State still looks … not liberal, exactly, but at least as if it’s full of good old-fashioned common sense. While of course the exact opposite is true. London is corrupted. It always has been, always will be. Good cup of cha, this.’

  Longbright sat back and studied her boss. His faculties seemed perfect when it came to recalling the events of the distant past, but he couldn’t remember where he lived. ‘Do you think we should look somewhere else, then? And not bother with the protest groups?’

  Bryant seemed diminished once more. ‘I didn’t say that. He’s hiding among them, a modern-day rook, and we have no way of luring him out. No description, no hint of identity, no idea of a motive beyond anger and hatred. But I think it’s someone we’ve met.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Renfield asked.

  ‘Because he’s working to a very specific master plan. One death a day for the period between Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night, from mischief to full-blown insurrection. Any strategist will tell you that when you plan a war campaign you first make sure you know your enemy.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’ asked Longbright.

  ‘I do, as it happens, but there’s a problem,’ Bryant admitted. ‘I’m going to have to pull the Hamlet Tactic.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Someone will die tomorrow, and the day after that, and we can’t stop it. Six deaths, in all probability – then he’ll vanish forever, leaving behind chaos and despair. The protestors have yoked themselves to a cause that can’t be resolved. There’s no available option they can choose. In its present form capitalism doesn’t work – well, we can all see that. But it’s not a shirt that no longer fits. You can’t simply replace it with another off-the-peg design. There will be six visible victims and thousands of invisible ones. You understand, don’t you?’

  ‘When you put it like that, yes,’ Renfield admitted.

  ‘Therefore – the Hamlet Tactic. The PCU is an accountable body, but I need to take steps that the CoL would never approve of. So I’m going to use my “cognitive impairment” to cover my actions. I may misdirect others, or lie, or simply vanish for short periods. It means that while I’m doing this, none of you can help me.’

  ‘What about John?’ asked Longbright.

  Bryant sat up with a start. ‘No, especially not John. John mustn’t know, do you understand? I have to protect him. I have to protect all of you.’

  ‘You’re saying that you’re going to go rogue without any unit support?’ Renfield rubbed at the bridge of his nose. ‘How will that work?’

  ‘If I need something I’ll call you on your private mobiles.’

  Longbright raised a tentative hand. ‘How will we know if—’

  ‘If I’m acting strangely for the case or actually going bananas? You won’t. That’s why it’s called the Hamlet Tactic. This is my swan song, Janice. If you don’t think you can do this, you have to tell me now.’

  ‘We can do it,’ said Longbright, looking to Renfield for confirmation.

  ‘Our job is to protect the public from danger,’ insisted Bryant. ‘This time I have to protect the public from themselves.’

  ‘I don’t know how you even start doing that,’ said Renfield.

  ‘No, but I do.’ Bryant knocked back the remains of his tea. ‘Now if you’ll kindly inform me where I live, I’ll head home and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.’

  ‘OK,’ said Longbright. ‘I’ll call a cab.’

  ‘Are you the only two left here tonight?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Yes, why?’ Longbright glanced at Renfield.

  ‘There’s something I need you to do before you knock off.’

  ‘What?’ asked Renfield.

  ‘It’s a boring job,’ Bryant warned. ‘Colin and Meera usually handle it.’

  ‘Not bin duty,’ moaned Longbright, sinking down into her chair with a groan. ‘Or worse, data searches.’

  Bryant pointed at the computers. ‘I can tell you what you’re looking for.’

  ‘And there I was feeling all warm and motherly towards you,’ complained Longbright.

  37

  X MARKS THE SPOT

  The building that houses the City of London Police Headquarters, on the corner of Love Lane and Wood Street, is so blandly innocuous that it encourages suspicion. Are there currency-laundering Swiss financiers operating behind this blank fascia? Do its tinted windows shield a cabal of disgraced politicians plotting their revenge on Westminster? Is this where deposed dictators and expunged Russian oligarchs plan their secret return to power? Or is there an overweight civil servant wedged behind an absurdly large desk trying to get the plastic wrapper off a bacon sandwich?

  ‘It’s very simple; we have no evidence of insider trading on behalf of Mr Cornell,’ said Leslie Faraday, searching for a paper knife. ‘He seems a bastion of respectability to me. I’ve always admired anyone who could juggle figures, never my strong point. Cornell knew the bank was sailing close to the wind – apparently their cash flow was rocky for a long time – and he acknowledges he’s at least partly to blame. But you can’t send someone to jail for incompetence, otherwise we’d all be inside, wouldn’t we?’ He tore ineffectually at the wrapper, mangling the sandwich in the process. Arthur Bryant gave his partner a weary look. ‘So unless you can prove that the news transmitted itself from Mr Cornell to the directors while they were all locked in a meeting room for the day, you have nothing. And that’s what I’ll have to report back to the Home Office.’

  ‘If I take you there and show you how it was done, and give you the evidence to indict Cornell, would you be prepared to overlook how I came by the information?’ asked Bryant, knowing that DuCaine’s illicitly shot footage would not be admissible in court.

  ‘That depends. You see, it’s not really up to me.’ Faraday eyed his mutilated breakfast with the longing of a dog for its lead. ‘But I suppose if I had a look at what you’ve got, I might be able to—’ His speech decelerated so suddenly that the detectives could actually watch his thoughts backing up. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘If you can prove that Mr Cornell contacted the directors, we may have a deal.’ Bryant had deliberately allowed Faraday to see a way of claiming credit for the arrest.

  ‘Then let’s go.’ May had the false keenness of a man who had been given no indication of what to expect in the next few minutes. At times like this he felt like an actor, wondering what his motivation was while waiting for words to be placed in his mouth.

  They took a car from the CoL pool even though the bank was just a few streets away and Friday morning had dawned dry, a miracle in November.

  ‘What are you up to?’ May hissed at his partner as Faraday went off to find a driver.

  ‘I consider myself something of a locked-room buff, as you know,’ replied Bryant, speaking as a man who regularly entered his car by rotating a bent pastry fork in the door jamb, ‘and it occurred to me that what we had here was a classic locked-room puzzle.’

  May thought for a moment, but nothing came. ‘Kindly explain.’

  ‘Last week the three directors went up to the fourth-floor boardroom. They remained locked in there from ten a.m. until four p.m. What was so important that these three had to be sequestered in such a fashion for so long? According to Janice, they were planning a staff restructure. The minuted documents they took from the boardroom at the end of the afternoon attest to this. Fraternity noticed a closed-circuit camera in the ceiling and Dan tracked down the footage.’ Bryant’s eyes narrowed. ‘Guess what it shows?’

  ‘How can I guess?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a flicker of anything interesting, just three middle-aged businessmen in expensive suits sitting around a table, two on one side, one on the other, talking business and making notes.
During the whole time they were in the room, nobody made or received any phone calls, and the door to the hall was never opened. They just talked and wrote. Nobody did anything unusual at all.’

  ‘Where was Cornell during this?’

  ‘On the ground floor at the front of the building, entirely surrounded by other members of staff. He was told about the collapse of the Shanghai deal by his Kenyan law team at eleven fifty-five a.m., and we have that call logged. So I worked on the supposition that between noon and four p.m. Cornell somehow managed to alert the directors to the fact that the deal had gone sour. But how? He wasn’t left alone during all that time. He and his team even went to lunch together. Look out, Lardy’s back.’

  Faraday had returned with a set of keys. ‘There’s no driver available,’ he reported, ‘so can one of you drive? I can’t, I’m afraid – lost my licence. Some bell-tinkling twerp of a cyclist got himself tangled under my bumper on Wimbledon Common.’

  May snatched up the keys before his partner could volunteer his special brand of vehicle operation, which involved mysterious hand signals, acoustic parking, refuting traffic lights, baiting wardens, scraping other vehicles and conducting arguments with pedestrians, signposts, kerbs, lorry drivers and, on one all-too-memorable occasion, a man carrying a crate of frozen ducks.

  The logical route to their destination would have been to pass Bank and Monument stations, then Fenchurch Street, but with the police barricades fast becoming a permanent addition to the financial district, they were forced to tack back and forth around London Wall on the only available route left.