The Memory of Blood

by Christopher Fowler

  Longbright called Anna’s mother.

  ‘I can’t talk to you right now,’ said Mrs Marquand. ‘I’ve got all this washing up to sort out, and then the laundry. I have trouble getting around with my back, and there’s so much clearing up to do.’

  ‘I thought you had Sheena helping you.’

  ‘So did I, but she buggered off.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Bloody little thief. I went upstairs and found her going through Anna’s bedroom. All the drawers open, all her papers out. You can’t trust nobody no more.’

  ‘What about her safe?’

  ‘Wide open. I was going to call the police but she ran out of the house. This was yesterday morning. I haven’t seen her since, and her mobile number isn’t working.’

  ‘Is there anything missing?’

  ‘Not that I can see. Anna has files for all her clients and they’re numbered, one to thirty. It looks like all the files are still there.’

  Except one. Arthur told her he’d let Anna look after the disc, because he was likely to lose it. Anna knew what was on it. Her attacker had been through the shopping bag and the lido locker—maybe he hadn’t found it after all. Maybe she’d been too smart for him. So what the hell had she done with it? Longbright rang off and went next door to see Bryant.

  ‘Arthur, are you free for a moment?’

  ‘For you I have all the time in the world.’ He aimed her at a ratty armchair she had not seen before. ‘It was in the attic,’ he informed her. ‘I found a swastika flag down the back of the seat but apart from that it’s very comfortable. You should come up there with me—there’s all kinds of strange stuff stored away.’

  ‘Was there anything in your memoirs that could have been considered dangerous?’

  ‘Anna removed the most contentious passages. There were some bits about past prime ministers that weren’t very flattering. A few mentions of missile bases, Russian spies, the pensions scandal—’

  ‘But does any one thing stick out above all the rest? Anything worth killing for?’

  ‘You think Anna Marquand was murdered? It was blood poisoning. You can get that from virtually anything.’

  ‘I know, but it’s the timing that makes me suspicious. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but Anna’s mother was befriended by a girl who just turned up on her doorstep one day offering her services as a carer. Then, when Mrs Marquand caught her going through Anna’s belongings, she fled. If someone had been monitoring Anna’s electronic mail, they would have known what she was working on. I want Giles to talk to his opposite number at Bermondsey mortuary. I need to know if there was anything at all suspicious about Anna Marquand’s death. I think there was something in your memoirs that could be considered a danger to national security, and Anna knew what it was, even if she didn’t realise the importance of it.’

  ‘That’s the trouble.’ Bryant shook his head. ‘I’ve only got Anna’s edited final version of the book to go on—some of the notes were written, some were dictated. I simply can’t remember what might have been in the original. Talk to Giles anyway, see if he can pull any strings with the coroner.’

  ‘Are you sure there’s absolutely no possibility of you remembering all the things you wrote about?’ Longbright pressed.

  ‘I suppose there might be one way,’ said Bryant. ‘Hypnotism. If I was put under, I might be able to recall what it was. And I know the very person who could do it.’

  ‘You’re a bit out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?’ said Dr Leo Hendrick, resident coroner at the Bermondsey mortuary. The young Jamaican’s borough was a tough beat that suffered a statistically disproportionate level of violent crime, but he was fast building a reputation as the most ambitious medical officer in town. ‘I suppose we should be flattered, a specialist coming south of the river to see us at work.’

  ‘It may be nothing,’ Giles Kershaw admitted, setting down his briefcase. Clearly, Bermondsey had more money than St Pancras; the building was new and fitted with state-of-the-art equipment. Hendrick received him in a carpeted visitors’ room that was as smart as a hotel suite.

  ‘It was kind of you to see me. We just wanted to run something by you.’

  ‘Yes, I read your email. Not being rude, but it sounds to me like you think I made a wrong call, and you’re fishing for a different verdict that’s a better fit with your investigation.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m perfectly happy to let your diagnosis stand. But there’s been some additional information about the case that we thought you should know.’ He explained about the coincidence of Anna Marquand’s property being searched, and her role in handling sensitive information for government departments.

  ‘Why was I not told of this?’ Hendrick complained, checking Anna’s notes on his laptop.

  ‘This kind of information doesn’t just drop into the case files,’ Giles explained. ‘It’s part of the PCU’s brief to make such connections.’

  ‘When Anna Marquand came in, there was nothing in the patient notes about her background. Her address told me she’s from a low-income housing estate. She suffered from a stomach ulcer but seemed healthy enough apart from that. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what these girls get up to. We have to make some assumptions.’

  ‘She went to Nuffield College, Oxford. Surely that should have given you a clue to her background. She was an academic.’

  ‘A university background is no signifier of class. She could have had a college education and become a junkie. She had tetanus. It’s a soil-based infection, Mr Kershaw. In other words, dirt. Clostridium tetani is very hardy. The spores get into a wound and spasm the muscles, locking the jaw and forcing air from the body. It’s found in the environment, not transmitted from person to person. More common in developing nations than over here. Soil, dust, animal waste. The bacteria enters through puncture wounds. I’ve seen it caused by rusty nails, insect bites, a wooden splinter, a torn nail. IV drug use, obviously, but she wasn’t a user. The only wound on her body was a tiny nick from the bread knife.

  ‘I checked the knife blade and found traces of the toxin Tetanospasmin on the serrations. There were further traces on the breadboard. It seems fairly clear to me that the knife had fallen on the floor at some point earlier in the day and had been replaced without being washed. My assistant spoke to the mother and she remembers picking it up from the kitchen floor. The Marquands have a small garden. If any local dog sometimes did its business on the path, and the mother rarely cleaned up the mess … Poor hygiene. It’s unfortunate, but hardly uncommon.’

  ‘It’s my understanding that tetanus takes a while to become established,’ said Giles. ‘Anna Marquand died quickly.’

  ‘There are exceptions to every rule,’ replied Hendrick impatiently.

  Giles thanked the doctor and took his leave, but he was not convinced. On his way back to the station he rang Longbright. ‘Something feels wrong,’ he told her. ‘Didn’t you say there was a packet of Handi Wipes in Anna’s shopping bag?’

  ‘That’s right. There was a small plastic bottle of antibacterial stuff in her handbag, too.’

  ‘Then I think Anna knew what her mother was like and was careful at home. I don’t think it’s very likely that she would have used the knife without washing it first. Wait. The shopping bag was taken away from her and returned.’

  ‘That’s right. The mother says Anna came out of the house and found it on the back step.’

  ‘Can we get everything in it tested?’

  ‘I’ll do it right now.’

  Longbright ran the bag up to Banbury, who was working in the makeshift laboratory he had been rigging on the floor above. She explained the problem as Dan debouched the shopping items. ‘Give me a couple of hours,’ said Dan. ‘I’m sorry, I should have done this at the outset.’

  ‘You had no reason to be suspicious then,’ Longbright reminded him.

  At six-thirty P.M. he came down to find her. ‘You were right. It’s in the bread,’ he said.

  ‘The bread
wasn’t in the shopping bag I gave you.’

  ‘No, it was in the shopping bag originally, and she took it out to make a sandwich. I just had the remains of the loaf brought over from the house. It was still in her mother’s cupboard, untouched. The cut on Anna’s finger was incidental. She ingested poison. Not tetanus but strychnine. It’s quite similar in chemical structure. Hendrick wouldn’t have expected to test for that. He went with the most likely cause of death.’

  ‘We should call the supermarket and warn them.’

  ‘No, I mean it’s in the bread. Injected into it. I found a pinprick in the plastic covering that corresponds to a mark on the crust, both with traces of poison. It got to her internally. Anna Marquand had a bleeding ulcer. The poison killed her in a fairly short space of time. So I think you can call Giles and tell him the cause of death was strychnine poisoning. The mugger took the bag and returned it with a lethal addition.’

  ‘This is much bigger than a mugging,’ said Longbright. ‘The girl in the house, the man in the alley. There are others involved.’

  Maggie Armitage, Grand Order Grade IV White Witch of the Coven of St James the Elder, Kentish Town, was having problems of her own. ‘We’ve got sprites,’ she complained as she opened the door to Arthur Bryant. ‘Come in but be careful. They’re everywhere, getting into the cupboards and breaking things. They’re especially fond of custard.’

  ‘Are you talking about mice?’ said Bryant, checking to see if he’d brought his hearing aid. He rarely used it in the PCU building because it kept picking up old episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour, which was very distracting.

  ‘No, these are white and made of discarded ectoplasm, but they have little legs and can really shift. They appeared after a séance and now we can’t get rid of them. I can’t see them but Daphne swears she can, ever since her accident. She says they moved into the back of the television, but something has repelled them. The poor quality of programmes, I imagine. Perhaps they don’t like Simon Cowell. It’s nice to see you, give me a kiss.’

  Bryant proffered his cheek and received a lipstick brand.

  ‘How are you getting on in your new building? Had any manifestations yet?’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘Oh, the usual things that get left behind after a séance. Spirit dregs. Every building keeps a ghost imprint of its past, and for over a decade yours was full of people contacting the dead, so you must have all sorts of things floating about in there. Don’t you hear strange noises at night?’

  ‘All the time, but I think it’s mostly Raymond swearing.’

  ‘The signs of manifestation include speaking in tongues, the gift of prophecy and damage to skirting boards,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ll come over with my thermal scanner one evening. I suppose you’re here wanting information. There was a time when you’d pop by for my banana trifle, but these days you just use me as a resource.’

  ‘I’ll have some trifle if it’s going, but I do have a question for you. Do you know anything about stage magic, how the effects are achieved?’

  ‘A fair bit. Shakespeare was a dab hand, Banquo’s ghost pointing an accusing finger at his killer, that sort of thing. Early melodramas often materialised pale, melancholy figures from behind folding doors. Sometimes they burst sachets of blood under their white gowns. But I think the Victorians did it best. They had phantasmagoria, magic lantern shows which projected images of the dead onto smoke, looming menacingly over the spectators. And in 1863 there was Pepper’s ghost, of course.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Oh, that was a marvelous effect, by all accounts. Professor John Pepper lit a sheet of glass so that it looked like people were walking through walls and gliding across the set. Thanks to the illusion, the London stage was soon awash with disappearing ladies, dancing skeletons and babbling severed heads. And they came up with something called the “ghost glide.” An actor would ascend through the floor of the stage, moving forward without taking a single step. Of course, most mediums were more like stage magicians than real psychics. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘We’re dealing with a very peculiar case.’

  ‘Well, that is your remit, isn’t it? The peculiar?’

  ‘It was never meant to be,’ Bryant admitted. ‘Anyway, it’s not why I’m here. I have another problem. I need you to hypnotize me. I have to recall something I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy enough. Didn’t I regress you to your past lives once?’

  ‘Yes. You went back too far. I couldn’t speak, remember?’

  ‘Oh that’s right, I think I turned you into protoplasm. It’s not my fault that you’re so susceptible. Go and make yourself comfortable on the chaise longue, I’ll brew us some seaweed tea. What exactly do you need to remember?’

  ‘I gave all my file notes to the girl who was helping me with my memoirs. I told her I remembered everything, but I don’t. Now she’s dead and I need to find out what it was in those notes that killed her.’

  ‘Well, that’s as clear as mud. You weren’t there when her soul departed, were you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good, I can’t be dealing with a case of possession tonight, I haven’t got enough salt. You need to recover what you wrote, yes? So let’s go back through the process. Hang on a minute.’

  She returned with bowls of tea the colour of a rough sea, and a covered plate. ‘Take a couple of these first. They’ll help you relax.’

  ‘What are they?’ Bryant peeked under a tea towel.

  ‘Custard creams. They always work for me. Now, you need to find yourself in a comfortable place.’

  ‘I can’t, I’m in your house.’

  ‘I mean, imagine you’re on a beach.’

  Bryant closed his eyes, laced his fingers and lay back. ‘All right, Hastings.’

  ‘Not Hastings. Not somewhere with a burnt-down pier and a juvenile delinquency problem. Pick somewhere warm, safe and relaxing.’

  ‘All right, I’m at home with Alma sitting in front of the fire, reading my copy of London’s Disused Underground Stations 1920–1959 Volume 3, the annotated version.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me everything, just imagine it. It’s warm and you’re feeling sleepy. Your heartbeat is slowing down—’

  Bryant opened one eye. ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘It’s fine. You’re relaxed. You’re starting to fall asleep.’

  Bryant promptly fell asleep.

  ‘No, you’re not supposed to actually fall asleep. Wake up.’

  Bryant released a snore. His head lolled. Maggie slapped his face gently. Then harder.

  ‘Ow. What’s happening? Did you do it?’

  ‘You fell asleep.’

  ‘You told me to.’

  ‘Let’s try again. I’m going to count back from ten to one, and you will feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper into a state of relaxation.’

  Maggie counted back, and Bryant slipped into a light hypnotic state. In fact, he relaxed so much that he almost vanished into the sofa. Bryant had always been open to new ideas and beliefs. He was highly susceptible and in many ways naïve, but she loved him for his refusal to become regimented in his habits and thoughts.

  ‘You are in your office, assembling your notes and thinking about your memoirs. They are laid out in front of you on your desk. What cases are you considering for inclusion in the first volume?’

  ‘The Palace Phantom, the Deptford Demon, the Belles of Westminster, the Battersea Cat Batterer, the Flying Dragons of Soho, the Blood Thrower of Belsize Park, the Butterfly Killer, and that strange business in the Elephant and Castle Odeon that led to the building being demolished. We called the case the Fall of the House of Usherettes—’

  ‘Apart from the criminal cases, was there anything that would have breached the Official Secrets Act or any freedom of information rulings? Try to see yourself typing up the pages, and wondering Should I be putting this down on paper?’

  ‘Oh, I never think that. Put it all down, I say.’
<
br />   ‘Didn’t you have a problem with the Ministry of Defence?’

  ‘What kind of problem?’

  ‘I don’t know, you came around here and told me about it.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About seven years ago.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. The researchers.’

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  ‘They were working on a secret project down in Wiltshire. Some kind of weapon. The work had been outsourced to a private company jointly owned by US and UK executive bodies. There had been a high number of suicides over the year, research scientists, all males in their twenties, mostly Asian. None of them had shown suicidal tendencies before, and all were working on the same project.’

  ‘What was your involvement?’

  ‘We’d been called in by an independent think tank to look at the situation. I handled the assignment personally, as a favour. I didn’t involve John. I delivered a report, but no action was ever taken. My findings were ignored.’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  For the first time, Bryant hesitated. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ he said slowly.

  ‘How much of this did you put in your notes to Anna?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I never include the boring bits. I probably edited it a little. Oh.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I gave her the file of background material, just for fact-checking. I meant to go through it, to make sure there wasn’t anything sensitive. But then we got involved with the Highwayman case and I didn’t get around to it.’

  ‘How would an outsider find out what she’d read?’

  ‘John explained it to me. If she’d grown curious enough to run searches online they would have been flagged up in the Cyber-Defence Security Department of the MoD. They could have traced the requests right back to her.’

  ‘You think they would do that?’

  ‘Of course. Defence of the Realm. Oh, what have I done?’

  ‘All right, you are rising back to the surface now as I count down to zero, and you will remember everything we discussed. When I reach zero you will be awake.’ She brought Bryant back to full alertness.