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

by Christopher Fowler

  “Is there anyone with him?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He held a meeting yesterday with three men – pretty unsavoury-looking types.”

  “We’ll take over, Reverend,” May suggested. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to lock the main doors.”

  “There must be no violence here,” said Barton emphatically.

  “Your church is built on a pagan sacrificial temple, for Christ’s sake,” complained Bryant.

  “That was a very long time ago.” The vicar bridled. “And I’ll appreciate it if you don’t blaspheme.”

  “Hopefully there won’t be any trouble,” May assured Barton gently. The detectives headed to the worn stone steps leading into the crypt. Beneath the arc lamps, Kareshi was working alone. He had sifted through what appeared to be a ton of dry grey dust, and had cleaned up more than a dozen small grey stone heads, which were arranged on the floor in groups according to type. The intrusion upon his work was clearly unwelcome.

  “Is there something you want?” he asked them, standing upright and wiping his hands on a cloth.

  “Did you receive a visit from a Mr Xander Toth?” asked Bryant.

  “No, I don’t allow visitors. This is like – ” he gestured at the roped-off pit before him “ – one of your crime scenes. I have an extremely limited time to excavate this site before the Diocese requires it to be refilled, and if the artefacts become contaminated I will not be able to verify their authenticity.”

  “How long have you been down here?”

  “Since seven. I’ve seen no-one for days except the Reverend and your friend Mr Austin Potterton.”

  “Reverend Barton says some men came to see you yesterday.”

  “Oh, them,” Kareshi remembered, showing some awkwardness. “Well, I am helping them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They are Belarus exiles; their English is poor and they feel isolated here. They are trying to start a club for fellow expatriates, somewhere they can meet and discuss their problems. They want me to help them, but I cannot spare the time. I don’t have much money, but I give them a little whenever I can.”

  The detectives glanced at each other, thinking the same thing. Bryant voiced the thought. “It’s someone else.” Without explanation or apology, they headed out of the crypt.

  “So much for your criminal mastermind,” said Land unnecessarily. “A down-at-heel Russian archaeologist. Now what?”

  “I could give Austin a call and get him to help us.” On the way out, Bryant collared the vicar. “Unsavoury-looking types, Rev?”

  “Well, shabby, unshaven,” Barton admitted. “Swarthy.”

  “Trust a man of the cloth to think the worst of other people. Come on, John.”

  Outside the church, Bryant stopped. He peered through the misty green gloom of the graveyard, as if expecting to find answers there. The Reverend Charles Barton appeared behind them with a bunch of keys. “I have to let you out of the main gates,” he said sniffily. “The usual team prefers to leave them open, but I’m taking no chances. I’ve started to keep them locked whenever I see the kids from the council flats hanging about.”

  “No balm of sanctuary available here, then,” said Bryant, who could not help needling vicars he found to be pharisaical.

  “Vandals, Mr Bryant. They urinate in my vestry; they desecrate the gravestones. Mr Fox has a hard enough job without – ”

  “ – Mr Fox?”

  “Our interment supervisor.”

  “You mean Fox is the grave digger?”

  “We don’t use such archaisms anymore; they upset the parishioners. Besides, there are no new graves here – it’s as much as we can do to tend the old ones. Mr Fox looks after the grounds, and is currently engaged in removing some of the old coffins. This is a heritage site and standards must be maintained.”

  “How long has he been here?”

  “Well, he was here when I arrived. He was employed by the former coroner of the St Pancras Mortuary. There was some kind of scandal – ”

  “Where does he live?”

  “On the Margery Street council estate, off of King’s Cross Road. Number seven, Spring House.”

  Bryant’s eyes widened. “Spring House?”

  “What’s the matter?” asked May.

  “Margery Street used to be called Spring Place. There was a woman called Black Mary – she belonged to a thirteenth-century Benedictine order that wore black robes.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to hear where this one is going…”

  “She presided over the subterranean spa room that became known as Black Mary’s Hole. The spa was fed by a well bored into the Bagnigge River, which ran down from the St Pancras Old Church. It was capped off into a conduit that lies right underneath Spring House. It’s a chalybeate spring.”

  “A what?”

  “An iron-fed spring, with healing properties. People came from all over London to have their illnesses cured there. But when Spring Place was erected over the conduit in 1815, the local builder turned Black Mary’s Hole into a cesspool, ruining it.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Land, clearly confused. “What on earth has any of this got to do with our murderer?”

  “I told you, he’s a local man, and thanks to Xander Toth he now has an extensive knowledge of the area’s history. He understands its mystical connections and knows how to exploit them. He lives on the site of London’s most venerable spa, destroyed by a builder. I suppose it would be too much to hope that the builder’s family name was Delaney.”

  They were now outside the church gates, heading for Land’s car. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” said May. “It would really confirm your belief in psycho-geographical retribution.”

  “You have to admit that certain areas keep the same properties through generations. The King’s Cross delis and coffee shops were always Italian, and now, hundreds of Italian students are moving back in. Is that just coincidence?”

  “I don’t know – is it just coincidence all of this is happening on St Pancras Day, your time of sacrifice?”

  “See, you’re finally starting to think like me,” Bryant said smugly. “Right now, we need to concentrate on finding Xander Toth before he forfeits his life and loses his head. I think elements of chance have led Mr Fox to reveal his true nature to us.”

  ∨ Bryant & May on the Loose ∧

  49

  The Woman on the Wall

  “I’d assumed he must be some kind of polymath,” mused Bryant unhappily as they drove, with Raymond Land cautiously following them in his BMW. “He’s not. He’s feral and instinctive, the kind of criminal we see so much more of these days. Mind that old lady.”

  “You always want to think they’re twisted geniuses,” May chided him. “You long to pit your wits against someone who hides clues in paintings and evades capture through their knowledge of ancient Greek. Forget it, Arthur; those days have gone.”

  “Russian agents still get poisoned by radioactive pellets in restaurants. Read your daily papers.”

  May was forced to admit his old partner had a point. “It would be dangerous to underestimate this man,” he warned. “He’s clearly smart enough to use everyone he meets. I bet Toth never realised he was acting as the host to a parasite.”

  “Precisely. Mr Fox has one formidable talent. He absorbs the knowledge of others. He used Toth, and I’m sure we’ll find he used Professor Marshall, the former coroner of the St Pancras Mortuary. That’s how the heads were severed so perfectly. We assumed it was a professional hit because of the clean cuts to the neck. The amputations were performed with surgical precision. I think Mr Fox persuaded the disgraced coroner to teach him how. You heard Giles – the cuts were virtually identical.”

  May called Bimsley and Renfield, summoning them to the apartment building. Land’s BMW turned into Margery Street. The council estate had been rebuilt and extended after being bombed during the Second World War. Flat 7 stood on the ground floor, beyond a concrete courtyard.


  “Stay here,” May told Land. “Wait for the others.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” Land complained as they left him alone. “I’m your superior officer.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Bryant called back, “that’s just a title, like labelling a tin of peaches ‘Superior Quality’. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “We may have to kick the door in,” warned May. “That’ll be a challenge.”

  Bryant pushed against the jamb. “I doubt either of us has the strength to shift this. The kitchen window is unlocked.”

  It was a simple matter to raise the bolt and swing the pane wide, but climbing inside proved trickier. A few minutes later May lowered himself carefully onto the kitchen counter and came around to open the door. “There’s no-one here. Where else could he have gone?” The pair stood on the balcony, looking around.

  “They went out,” called a girl in a lime-green tracksuit, leaning over the railing. “Him and his mate.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Just a few minutes ago. He had to hold the other guy up, he was so pissed.”

  “Did you see where they went?”

  “Through there.” She leaned further over and pointed down to a recessed door at the bottom of a flight of steps.

  “Why is he keeping Toth alive?” May wondered as the detectives headed toward the basement.

  “I think I know why, but I hope I’m wrong. They’re going to Black Mary’s Hole. It’s directly underneath Spring House.”

  May found a light switch and strip lights flickered on below them. Fourteen stone steps led to a damp cellar that housed the building’s electrical circuit boxes and elevator equipment.

  “Look around,” said Bryant. “There has to be something else down here.”

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for, Arthur.”

  “Oh, you know.” Bryant waved his hand about with annoying vagueness. “The tunnel.”

  “What tunnel?”

  “You don’t listen to a word I say, do you? The Bagnigge River ran beneath the church to Spring Place, where it was capped off. Our Mr Fox was employed at the church as a grave-maintenance person, or whatever Barton called it. Fox used the tunnel underneath, the one leading from the spa, to get back here. Where else could he have taken Mr Toth?”

  “All right,” May conceded, “but what exactly are we hoping to find?” When Bryant failed to answer, but merely pointed, May slowly turned around. “Oh.”

  Behind him was a grey steel door studded with rivets the size of mushroom caps. “Try it,” Bryant suggested. “There’s no lock that I can see. Put your shoulder to it.”

  May did not have to push hard. The door’s hinges were thickly greased, and it swung in easily.

  “Do you have your Valiant on you?”

  “Of course.” May pulled his cinema usherette’s flashlight from his overcoat and switched it on. “Mind your step. There’s a lot of rubble on the floor. Hang onto my coat.” The pair made their way forward at a cautious pace. The floor was uneven, and followed a gentle upward slope. The tunnel smelled of standing water but was neat and square, cemented with lichen-covered terra-cotta tiles, most of them badly damaged. A channel in the floor indicated the former path of the healing spring. Clearly, nothing but rain had come through here in a very long time.

  Bryant grabbed his colleague’s arm and bade him listen. A soft fall of brick suggested movement far ahead.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” May whispered. “We could go overland, back to the church. Land can watch this end.”

  “No, we’re too close now to risk losing them. I think he’s drugged Toth and has brought him up the tunnel from Spring House because he couldn’t go in through the church. The vicar and Kareshi would have seen them.” Bryant climbed around a pile of collapsed brickwork and moved ahead. “Look.” He pointed his walking stick toward a bend in the tunnel. There was a faint glow of light beyond it.

  “I don’t like this, Arthur. Mr Fox could be hiding anywhere, lying in wait for us.”

  “I know exactly where he is,” declared Bryant. “He’s in the temple.”

  “You mean the spa room Kareshi showed us beneath the church?”

  “It became a spa room precisely because it had been a temple. There was a painting on the wall, worn and very faded but quite recognisable as Saint Helena. I knew at once it was her, because she was flanked by hunting hounds. Saint Helena is the oldest and most powerful of all the pagan goddesses ever to be worshipped on these shores. Saint Helena – or Nouhelene, who wore stag antlers, and who represented the force of natural regeneration.” He stopped to catch his breath, leaning against the tiled wall. “St Pancras Old Church was founded by the Emperor Constantine’s mother, Saint Helena herself. Over time her name was shortened to Nell, and she was depicted carrying a basket of fruit. And then Nell Gwynne moved into the neighbourhood. Nell and her basket of oranges. It’s where all of this came from, where the whole plan began.”

  “Arthur, you’ve lost me. Let’s get our man first, then you can explain.” May shone the flashlight ahead. A glossy fat rat fell from the ceiling of the tunnel with a squeak, more alarmed than the detectives. They turned the bend, picking their way over bricks and garbage – others had been here before them – and the light ahead grew stronger.

  A pale yellow ellipse revealed the entrance to the temple. The edges of the circular room had been marked with fat stumps of candles. In the centre, blindfolded and gagged, his hands and ankles tied, Xander Toth waited like a terrorist’s prisoner. The man who stood behind him was slight of build, but oddly nondescript in appearance, except that he was wearing a crimson papier-mâché fox’s mask, like the ones sometimes worn on Guy Fawkes night. He turned to stare at the detectives as they appeared in the tunnel entrance.

  “Why would you want to do this, Mr Fox?” called Bryant. “Everything else you’ve done has made a sort of sense, but this is sheer madness. You’re being somewhat overly theatrical, if you don’t mind my saying so. Do you mind if I sit down? I’m beat.”

  May was looking to his partner for a cue to act, but nobody seemed inclined to make the first move. He could feel the tension rising in the cold damp air.

  “I thought Mr Toth told you about the temple, but I suppose it might have been Mr Kareshi,” Bryant continued cheerfully. “Really, though – a sacrifice? Who do you think you will appease? You learned to steal knowledge from other people, but you really shouldn’t start believing in too much of it, you know. You think it will come to an end and you can start all over again if you shed young Alexander’s blood on this spot? You sold your case rather too well, Mr Toth.”

  May had heard Bryant use this technique before, keeping up a soothing level of conversation with his adversary, gently disarming through the simple humanity of a caring voice. Except that Bryant sometimes got carried away and went for the Oscar.

  “But I’m afraid you can’t begin anew, because this is where it ends. We have officers here at the church and at Spring Place, too. All your exits are cut off. So you might as well let Mr Toth go. And it is my duty to arrest you for the murder of Terence Delaney.”

  “I am here at the church from ten in the morning until ten at night.” Mr Fox’s voice was surprisingly thin and light. “I put in twelve-hour shifts. Barton will vouch for me.”

  “I’ll also be taking into account the murders of Adrian Jesson, Richard Standover and Maddox Cavendish.”

  The crimson fox mask tilted slightly, regarding Bryant. Then it looked up into the darkness of the stairwell leading from the temple to the church above. Mr Fox seemed to have no fear. He was weighing up his options.

  May saw the sharpened silver skewer glitter in his hand, and turned the flashlight directly into his eyes. He knew Mr Fox would expect to be attacked, so instead he kicked out at Xander Toth, knocking the bound man over on his side and slamming Mr Fox against the temple wall – it wasn’t a bad move for a senior.

  The skewer swung out but missed its mar
k. May’s boot kicked again and he managed to trap Mr Fox’s wrist, pinning him in place. Two of the candles were knocked out, then a third. Only one remained alight. The temple was flickering into darkness.

  “Keep back, Arthur,” May warned as Mr Fox rose to his feet.

  Now we’re in trouble, Bryant thought, taking in the scene. We’re all trapped together here. His only way out is through us. He has the only weapon. And he’s insane. My, it’s nice to be back.

  “You’re Arthur St John Bryant,” Fox said. “You still blame yourself for the way your wife Nathalie died. Your partner’s wife is in a mental home. Who are either of you to tell me what to do?”

  Bryant was taken aback. How could he have known such things? I’ve underestimated this fellow, he thought. We’re for it now.

  But that was before DS Janice Longbright leaned over the stairwell and dropped a sizeable chunk of paving stone on Mr Fox’s head.

  In the light of the guttering candles, she bore a striking resemblance to Saint Helena.

  ∨ Bryant & May on the Loose ∧

  50

  The Lie of the Land

  Events moved fast after Mr Fox was captured. The Home Office was informed that even in its etiolated state, the PCU had performed a service that no branch of the Metropolitan Police could have managed. Leslie Faraday hurried into his superior’s office, and Oskar Kasavian sent word to the Prime Minister and the capital’s news agencies. No-one congratulated the men and women of the Peculiar Crimes Unit for their dedication to duty.

  When Bryant and May arrived back at their headquarters, they spent the next three and a half hours talking with Mr Fox, who seemed surprisingly keen to unburden himself to them. Without resources, it was impossible to impound evidence yet, but the PCU team was prepared to work through the night if Bryant and May were satisfied that they had their man.