Bryant & May 07; Bryant & May on the Loose b&m-7

by Christopher Fowler

  The slippery mud made walking treacherous. May and Mangeshkar were forced to take Bryant’s arms to keep him upright.

  “I shouldn’t have worn Prada shoes,” said May, watching as liquefied clay closed over his toe caps.

  “Not at your age, no,” agreed Bryant. “You’ve always been a bit of a clotheshorse, haven’t you? Heaven knows how many people tramped across here on their way home after your scare, Meera.”

  “I wasn’t scared. The odd thing is I don’t think he meant to slash my arm. He sort of fell into me because I kicked him.”

  “You said he was wearing knives on his head. He’d already broken the law, albeit in a preposterous way.”

  “Yeah, but I was thinking… . It takes a certain type of mind to come up with antlers made out of knife blades. It was right here.” She pointed to the chewed-up earth around the base of the anodised post.

  “Help me down,” said May.

  “Ha!” Bryant was triumphant. “It’s usually me who needs a hand down.”

  “I’ve only just recovered from an operation.” May was indignant. “What’s that?” He pointed to some matted strands of brown fur embedded in the mud. “Something from your stag-man?”

  “Probably hair from a passing rat,” answered Bryant gloomily. “The canal system is besieged with them. They live off discarded chicken bones and grow to the size of Alsatians.” He dug a small clear plastic bag from his overcoat pocket and passed it to his partner before creeping off in search of footprints.

  The wind was sweeping across the great churned field, thumping against pallets and stacks of steel plate. Meera squinted at the dark tumble of the sky. “There’s something weird about this place,” she muttered. “I don’t like it here.”

  Bryant was interested. “Oh, why not?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t look right. Too bare.”

  “You don’t have the comfort of surrounding buildings. That’s because we’re on a hill. You don’t notice the gradient as you walk here. King’s Cross has a strange and convoluted history. There are spirits, of course – there always are near water and the poor. But there’s something else besides.” He sniffed noisily. “An unrest. A disquietude. Even on a day of clear skies there’s something turbulent here that comes up through the soil. You can smell it in the stormy air, can’t you?”

  Meera found herself nodding in agreement, against her better judgement. She gave an involuntary shiver.

  Bryant patted her arm in understanding. “Someone just walked over your grave. I’ll have to tell you all about the area sometime and I guarantee you’ll feel even stranger. Every act of kindness or violence, every deed of benevolence or cruelty, leaves its mark on the land. Those marks resurface in tiny tremors. And the ground here holds a great many dark secrets.” A sheet of corrugated metal blew over, making Meera jump. Bryant smiled suddenly. “I wonder, can you get Dan Banbury up here? We could use his plastic-mould kit for this – look.” He pointed to a pair of semi-circular shapes embedded deeply in the mud. “They look like hoofprints to me.”

  “They’re very big.”

  “Presumably they had to be large enough to fit over regular shoes, like pattens. This gentleman took his outfit seriously. There are a couple of costume shops near here. You’d better check them out.”

  “Are you going to explain why you’re so interested?” asked May.

  Bryant cupped his hands, blew into them and thought for a moment. “No, I’m not. Let’s see your freezer body now.”

  “We can’t,” said May. “It went to the Upper Street Morgue, which is under Islington’s jurisdiction.”

  “You’re telling me we can’t get at it?” Bryant’s watery blue eyes widened in surprise.

  “Ah, you finally understand! No, Arthur, we’re not allowed.”

  “You mean we’re persona au gratin?”

  “Yes. Perhaps now you could go and see your pals at the Home Office and try to pull a few strings for us.”

  “Indeed. I exerted a great influence over the last Senior Commissioner. He still owes me a huge favour because I saved his son’s reputation.”

  “How?”

  “Well, you know the sauna on the corner of Camden Road – ”

  “No, I mean how did you exert influence over him?”

  “Oh, well, basically I told him what to do. Except I can’t anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for a start he’s dead. Coronary embolism, about two months ago. A damned nuisance. I never liked him much, but I felt sorry for the passengers in his car.”

  “Now what do we do?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to break the law again. I mean, there’s something wrong here and the Met won’t be able to do anything, so it’s down to us. Meanwhile, strong tea, lots of it. There’s a café on York Way that does bacon sandwiches you’ll be pulling out of your teeth for days. I won’t be, of course, because I take mine out and give them a rinse. If you can’t get hold of Dan, put in a call to Jack Renfield and tell him to meet us there; we’re going to need his help. But first let’s get out of this mud.”

  As they headed toward the café, the trio tried to stamp the dark earth from their shoes but it remained stuck fast, as if the very ground was determined to leave its mark upon them.

  ∨ Bryant & May on the Loose ∧

  12

  Reformation

  The Café Montmartre (Open 24hrs For Hot Snacks ) was the second most inappropriately named restaurant ever to appear in Central London (the first was the Beverly Hills Nail Salon, Whitechapel). The owner, a former nightclub promoter called Alfie Frommidge, had changed the name from Alf’s Café in order to attract a new upmarket clientele, but all he had succeeded in doing was annoying the builders who had been using the place for cheap lunches, and who did not take kindly to paying double for the same menu just because it had been rewritten in bad French. Alfie’s plan had been to appeal to Parisians arriving on the Eurostar, but they never ventured this far along the road, and if they did, one look at the first item on the menu – “Saucisses et frites avec un oeuf et Baked Beans” – would have seen them off.

  DS Jack Renfield found the three ex-members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit seated in a row behind a wall of dusty plastic ferns. Alfie dropped an absurdly elaborate menu in front of him and continued to address Arthur Bryant.

  “Since we got an alcohol licence we get your so-called professionals in the evenings now,” the restaurant owner explained, “all the staff from the new offices next door, the branding company for the new King’s Cross. A million quid for a logo that’s a coloured squiggle my old gran could have knocked out in ten minutes, and she’s only got one eye.”

  “I know,” said Bryant. “I’ve seen them in here, braying halfwits and drunk PR girls shrieking like demented chickens. I think I preferred the place when it was a dump with empty scallop shells on the tables for ashtrays.”

  “Me too, but you can’t halt progress, Mr Bryant. People want something classier.” Alfie wiped his hands on his apron and headed back to the kitchen to throw a fistful of parmesan shavings onto his instant mash.

  “Ah, Renfield.” Bryant turned to his former detective sergeant. “You’ve got good pals in the Met. Most of my influential friends are either dead or not feeling very well. I’ve put a couple of calls out, but no-one’s come back to me yet. Anyone at Islington nick who could smuggle one of us into the mortuary?”

  “If you’re talking about Bimsley’s corpse, Islington reckons the south side of the Caledonian Road falls under Camden Council, so they’ve now taken it to the coroner’s office at Camley Street, just round the corner.”

  “You don’t know anyone there, do you?”

  “I used to go out with a really weird Greek bird called Rosa Lysandrou who worked there as a receptionist. This was a few years back, but I think she’s still there. I could give her a call.”

  “Kindly do so, would you? Have we heard from Dan yet? And where’s Longbright?”

  “Wait
a minute,” May interrupted, “you can’t just go assembling the old crowd again. This isn’t The Blues Brothers, we’re not getting the band back together.”

  “Whyever not?” asked Bryant, genuinely puzzled. “Even Kasavian will see the financial sense in reopening the unit. I’ll talk to him and persuade him to recommission us.”

  “And what if he won’t do it?”

  “We’ll hardly be any worse off than we are now.” On some subconscious level, Bryant knew that the only way to pull himself out of his self-pitying nosedive was to try and solve a murder that no-one else in the Central London area was equipped to handle. The effort of succeeding was possibly the one thing that could restore his self-esteem.

  Alfie returned with teas the colour of Thames mud. “Are you going to be using this place as your office?” he asked. “I could rent you a table.”

  “Yes, and I could call a health inspector,” Bryant told him. “It’s just until we get sorted out. Tell me, do you get many customers from the nightclub over the road?”

  “They come in here off their faces and order big breakfasts, then can’t eat them,” said Alfie.

  “Ever get anyone in fancy dress outfits?”

  “At the weekends sometimes. Nurses, schoolgirls, vampires, blokes in gorilla suits – we had a bunch of people done up as a bathroom once. Pipes, a bidet, the lot.”

  “Anyone dressed as a stag?”

  “Stag? Oh, I get it, stag night. No. Hang on a minute.” He went back to the kitchen and returned a minute later. “Yeah, the sous-chef saw some guy dressed as a stag a couple of weeks back. Furry coat, antlers, the works. Just stood outside here having a smoke.”

  “A bit of a nuisance, was he?”

  “Doesn’t sound like it. Why?”

  Renfield snapped his phone shut. “You’re on. Rosa says she can get you into Camley Street right now for a few minutes because the office is closed, but she’ll take only one of you.”

  “That had better be me,” said May. “Arthur, wait here. Perhaps you’re interested enough to put in that call to Faraday now. Sound him out about reopening the unit.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Meera.

  “If Arthur really can persuade the Home Office to back us, perhaps you should find out about the current availability of our former staff. Just refer them to me if they want to know about salaries. Start with Colin Bimsley.”

  Meera grimaced. “Don’t make me call Colin, chief. He doesn’t need the encouragement.”

  “Meera, you’re not asking him on a date; this is business. Get cracking. Then round up Raymond Land and the others.” May turned back to find Bryant staring happily at him. “ What?”

  “Nothing,” said Bryant, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

  ♦

  “Ah, Mr Bryant, I was rather expecting you to call,” said Leslie Faraday, who wasn’t thrilled about being disturbed at lunch, halfway through a bowl of canteen macaroni cheese. “There’s been some movement on your situation. After my conversation with your partner, I talked with Mr Kasavian. He’s not at all happy about the idea of re-forming the PCU.”

  “I imagine he’s even less happy about the idea of criminal gangs returning to an area that will become one of the main arrival points for the 2012 Olympics,” said Bryant. “King’s Cross isn’t the only place undergoing a transformation. After the games, the Lower Lea Valley will become the largest urban park created in Europe for one hundred fifty years.”

  “So I am led to believe. The government expects international traffic through King’s Cross to become permanent, and that means even more overseas investment, public-private partnerships, that sort of thing. The Prime Minister is anxious to maximise the business opportunities afforded by the new Eurostar link, and as you know, it only takes one incident to swing the British press in the wrong direction, so – ”

  “For God’s sake, Leslie, do stop waffling,” cried Bryant, exasperated. “Is he going to bring us back or not?”

  Faraday looked back at the phone and scowled. He had dropped macaroni cheese down his trousers. “Well, I don’t think we have any choice in the matter.”

  “Does that mean you are?”

  “There’s good and bad news. You can re-form the PCU as long as it’s on the strict understanding that this case is resolved very quickly and very quietly. No later than the end of next week. After that, it returns to Islington CID.”

  “I take it that’s the good news.”

  “Correct. The bad is that we won’t be able to officially recognise you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means no-one can know of your existence. You won’t have access to police information or technology. No identity intelligence, file sharing, fingerprint databases or forensic utilities of any kind. We simply can’t afford to let them know about you.”

  “You mean we’d have to operate with fewer tools than Sherlock Holmes had at his disposal, and he was fictional! How are we supposed to do that? This is the twenty-first century.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do.”

  “Can we at least get our old building back?”

  “I’m afraid not. There will have to be some kind of temporary arrangement – ”

  “Then we’ll take out a rental agreement on a cheap office in King’s Cross and send the bill over to you.”

  “I don’t know about that – ”

  “I’m a pensioner, Leslie; I’ve got no money. What am I supposed to do, bung the expense on my Sainsbury’s card?”

  “Well, I’ll have to clear it – ”

  “Fine, you do that and I’ll get started at once.” Bryant could hear the sweat breaking out on Faraday’s forehead; he decided to ring off before the civil servant changed his mind.

  ♦

  “Meera? Is that you?” Colin Bimsley was still in bed when the phone rang. He could scarcely believe that the diminutive Indian DC was actually calling him.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. The old man’s trying to get the unit back on its feet. I think you’d better come over here as soon as you can.”

  “Do you want me for my body? I mean, the body I found in the shop?”

  “I’m not sure what Bryant’s up to. I’ve tried working out how he thinks, but it’s like trying to reset the clock on my oven without the manual.”

  “I didn’t know you cooked.”

  “I can heat up takeaway. Are you coming or what?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In some horrible fake-French café at the back of King’s Cross station, just past the junction of York Way and Wharf Road.” Meera gave him the address. “Don’t say – ”

  “So is this, like, a date?”

  “You had to say it, didn’t you.” She cut the connection, then called Janice Longbright.

  “Come back to the unit?” Longbright wedged the heavy Bakelite telephone receiver under her ear while she folded a pair of 1950s crimson silk broderie anglaise knickers into a ribboned box. Saturday was a busy shopping day in Camden Town. “To be honest, I’m quite enjoying myself here. Why would I want to come back?”

  “I could say we’ll be performing a service by taking on the case,” said Meera, “but the truth is I think old Bryant will peg it if we don’t.”

  “He’s not ill, is he?”

  “Not yet, but he’s been going downhill. Let’s just say he doesn’t have a lot to live for without you and John beside him.”

  Longbright sighed and looked around the sumptuous lingerie store, already knowing she would have to bid farewell to it. “When does he want me?”

  “Right now.”

  “Then I guess I’ll be there,” she promised, trying to keep the regret from her voice.

  ♦

  Raymond Land was at his club, waiting for the bar to open. He missed his shot when the phone rang.

  “Buggeration!” He rose from the billiard table with a wince. Flipping open his phone, he tried to recognise the number. It couldn’t be Leanne, his wife;
she was having a lesson with her Latin American dance instructor. Apparently the man was teaching her to rhumba.

  “Mr Land, it’s Meera.”

  “Hello, Mangeshkar, how are you?”

  “Very well, thanks. How’s Crippen?”

  “I’m not very good with cats.” Land still had a bandage on his hand. He had been stuck with the PCU’s mascot ever since the unit shut, and the damned thing kept trying to bite him whenever he picked it up. “Do you want it back?” he asked hopefully.

  “I have some wonderful news for you.”

  Land’s heart began to sink. He set down his billiard cue reverently, sensing that something was about to die, probably his long-term retirement plan.

  “The Peculiar Crimes Unit is going to be reopened.”

  No, thought Land. I’m out. I earned it, all those years of being made to look stupid while Bryant and May took all the glory. I can’t do it. I won’t do it.

  “I won’t do it.” He realised he had spoken the last part of his thoughts aloud.

  “I’m afraid you have to, sir,” said Mangeshkar. “I just had a call from Mr Leslie Faraday at the Home Office. His orders come from Mr Kasavian, and his orders come directly from the Prime Minister. They want you to start work immediately. A matter of priority.”

  “But I thought the team had split up.”

  “No, sir. I’ve located all of them except one.”

  “Why, who’s missing?” asked Land.

  ∨ Bryant & May on the Loose ∧

  13

  Identity

  The steep-roofed Gothic building at the back of Camley Street had a melancholy air, even for a coroner’s office. The wet green banks of the St Pancras Old Church graveyard sloped down on either side of the walls, as if threatening to inundate the little house with the cascading tombs of the dead. Even a modern extension could not erase the sense of desolation that enveloped it. Tall black iron railings, each spear topped with a gold-painted fleur-de-lis, surrounded the doorway. Beneath a rowan tree, a muscular grave digger stood motionless, looking down at them with feigned disinterest. He was young, but it seemed to May that the mournful atmosphere had stained his features with sorrow.