The Victoria Vanishes

by Christopher Fowler

  They went in. 'Bloody hell, it's mobbed!' said Meera. 'What's going on?'

  'Charity match,' a punter shouted back. 'Charlton Athletic.'

  Just as she asked, a mighty cheer went up. The crowd was watching their local team charge across a luminous emerald screen.

  'You know what he looks like; shut everyone else out of your vision and concentrate on his face,' said May. 'The birth-mark makes him stand out.'

  On the narrow sepia-wallpapered second floor, Bimsley ran forward with the manager, a slender Asian man armed with a fat bunch of master keys for the rooms. 'We've hardly anyone staying here at the moment,' he explained, 'certainly no-one fit-ting your description. There's a service room at the end, a storeroom and another guest bedroom, but we've stopped renting it out because it's got some damp problems.'

  'Open it up.'

  The room smelled of wet wood, old newspapers, standing water. Black stalactites crawled down the discoloured plaster cornicing of vines and grapes. A reproduction of a painting, a black boy in a golden turban, leaned against the mantelpiece. It would have been an attractive piece until one considered it against John Julius Angerstein's background. There was no sleeping bag this time, though, no cigarette butts, no ampoule boxes, no sign of habitation at all.

  'What else have you got?'

  'Laundry room on the floor below. There's another small room beside it where the linens are kept.'

  They moved lightly down the fire stairs and checked each room. Bimsley made a supreme effort not to crash into any-thing. There was no sign of human occupancy except a few muddy sneaker prints, an empty pack of gum, and a crumpled piece of notepaper which Bimsley pocketed.

  And yet there was something, a disturbance in the stillness of the atmosphere, a faint trail of warmth that was enough to tip off an experienced officer that the room had been recently entered.

  'He's around here somewhere.' Bimsley sniffed the stale air as if picking up spoor. 'I'll put money on it.'

  In the raucous bar the game had reached halftime, and the punters were heading back to order more beers.

  Bryant leaned against a table and studied the crowd. His fingers were closed around the cell phone in his right pocket. After years of dropping them down toilets and reversing over them in his Mini Cooper, he had finally managed to keep one in working order. He watched and waited.

  There was a high shriek at the corner of the bar, but the cry dropped and curled into hysterical laughter. A collective roar went up from a pride of males. Someone else shouted to mates across the room. Bryant peered through the scrum, watching the behaviour of the pack, the passing of pints over heads, the bellowed orders, the arms rested on shoulders, the hands pressed against backs, the fingers raised to catch the barman's attention.

  The barman.

  The cocky little sod, Bryant thought. He can't actually be working here! But was it Pellew, though? As the man behind the bar turned, no crimson birthmark was revealed. His complexion was quite clear. There was no mistaking his profile, however, or the feral wariness of his eyes, like the dim and dying light within a man suffering from a serious physical illness.

  He's watching the crowd too, Bryant thought. Why is he doing that? Surely he's not thinking of taking a victim here, in front of all these people? Yes, he told himself, because he wants to be seen. He wants so badly to be stopped that there's no other course of action left open to him.

  Their eyes locked, and in the brief exchange of recognition, Pellew bolted.

  The counter flap banged up in a crash of glasses and suddenly he was shouldering his way forward into the human forest.

  Bryant flipped open his phone and hit Redial, knowing that the call sign would trigger his partner's return. He made his way toward Pellew, pushing drinkers aside with his stick.

  One of the other barmen was standing in front of the door, blocking it, suddenly aware of fast movement. A stool rose above heads, wavered and was thrown, smashing the largest window in the saloon.

  He saw Pellew's back and shoulders rising above the assembly as he climbed up onto a table, heard the crunch of glass as he vaulted out into the street. The others were arriving now, and all hell was kicking up—the crowd startled into action, the barman getting shoved aside, the main door slamming back—and then they were out on the road running after him.

  Bryant could not keep up, and leaned against the wall trying to catch his breath as Bimsley shouted for their suspect to stop.

  Meera had been on her way down the stairs when Pellew made his move. Now she too was outside, sprinting after him as he hammered around the corner into Westerdale Road, not realising that he had blundered into a cul-de-sac created by the motorway ahead.

  As she closed in fast behind him, she thought, Where can he go? Into one of the houses? She was drawing neck and neck with Bimsley when Pellew flung himself at the pebble-dashed concrete slabs of the motorway wall. She knew that if he managed to cross the six lanes to its far side, he would be home free.

  'Colin, no,' she called as the DC showed no signs of slowing down. 'You'll get killed!'

  She knew he could hear her but would not stop, and watched in horror as he too jumped at the wall, curling his broad hands over the edge, swinging his legs to one side and hauling himself to the top before vanishing over the other side.

  Colin found himself facing the Friday night rush-hour traffic—three lanes of headlights and three beyond that of tail-lights, racing into the city dusk. Ahead, one lane in, Pellew had lurched to a stop amid honking horns, teetering on the broken line, waiting to run again. If he managed to vault the wall on the far side, he'd hit the railway embankment, which branched and ran for miles in a multitude of directions.

  Having been diagnosed with DSA, the hereditary disease that caused diminished spatial awareness, Bimsley was the wrong man to be dodging speeding cars. The ground always seemed further away from him than it was, and when he walked down a passage he had to concentrate on not blunder-ing into the walls. Now he needed to judge the relative speeds of six lanes of vehicles, and allow enough time to run across the tarmac between them.

  Pellew, on the other hand, was a natural. He avoided launching himself into the paths of trucks, knowing that they would try to brake slowly to avoid shifting their loads. Instead he concentrated on the mid-sized family roadsters that sold themselves on safety features, anti-skid devices and superior braking power. He reached the central divide with ease and hopped the steel barrier to do the same on the other side.

  As Meera watched with her heart in her mouth, Bimsley windmilled his arms and threw himself across two lanes at once. Vehicles swerved desperately around him.

  He had decided that his only way of making it through alive would be to reduce his peripheral vision, so, with his eyes now partially shut, he lumbered toward the central divide and tried not to listen to the sound of squealing brakes.

  Pellew was on the move again, pausing, darting, timing his bursts of energy, nimbly bypassing a Sainsbury's truck as Bimsley reached the middle barrier.

  Only one more lane. Pellew drew breath and lurched for-ward once more. This time, he failed to spot the car that the truck had just overtaken. As he glanced back at Bimsley, who was making a dash directly at him, Pellew was hit full-on by a new silver Mercedes sedan.

  Pellew's body rose and smashed against the windscreen before bouncing away into the path of cars in the slow lane, where he was hit a second and third time.

  One of the swerving vehicles winged Bimsley, flipping him around and hurling him back onto the central divide.

  He landed hard against the corrugated steel barrier, but this time he had the good sense to stay until the other officers arrived.

  32

  PIGMENTATION

  T

  hese days, Arthur Bryant seemed to be spending more and more time in hospital, less for himself than to visit others. So many of his friends had reached the age where their ailments required overnight stays rather than a mere course of pills. This evening, he h
ad Bimsley in one ward getting his ribs bandaged and his left tarsals strapped into an ankle brace, Longbright sleeping off the effects of her poisoning in a nearby bed and Anthony Pellew downstairs in the morgue. Their suspect's legs had been shattered by the first impact, but his skull had been crushed by the second, and he had died in seconds. Although the traffic had been moving at a fairly swift pace, none of the drivers had ended up joining them in the wards.

  Bryant shambled through the ward looking for Bimsley, pulling back curtains and frightening patients. 'Ah, there you are,' he said. 'The shop was out of grapes so I brought you a hat.' He tossed a baseball cap that read WORLD'S BEST MUM on Bimsley's bed and plonked himself down beside it.'Oh, and something for you to read.' He fished out his dog-eared paperback of An Informal History of the Black Death. 'You'll be up on your feet—or at least, foot—in a day or two. You were bloody lucky.'

  'If you call getting hit by the wing mirror of a Ford Mondeo lucky,' Bimsley complained. 'It couldn't have been a Ferrari, could it?'

  'If it had been, you might not be here. What's the damage?'

  'My hip's pretty bashed up, some torn ligaments, one broken rib, left ankle sprained, some surface cuts.'

  'I don't know what you're making such a fuss about, then,' said Bryant. 'Pellew's legs are facing the wrong way and his head looks like a dropped meringue.'

  'Yeah, but I'm on the correct side of the law, sir.'

  'Righteousness does not protect you from injury. I know you meant well, going after him like that, but you might have panicked him into the traffic. Pellew was a former mental patient, after all. Renfield's furious with you, but I've persuaded him not to make a fuss about what happened.'

  'Pellew had been released, sir, even though he was still dangerous.'

  'Well, we've still to get to the bottom of that. It's looking like he deliberately targeted his victims after all. April discovered that three of the five victims falsified their resumes, claimed they were working for non-existent companies or ones that were in liquidation. It would seem they didn't even tell their partners or families the truth about their jobs, just trotted off to work every day and came home in the evening as if every-thing was normal.'

  'I don't understand,' said Bimsley. 'What does that mean? Where were they going?'

  'Where indeed?' Bryant narrowed his eyes.'To a place where they might have come into contact with Anthony Pellew, perhaps.'

  'The Broadhampton.'

  'No—we've already checked the clinic's employment records. Somewhere else. Have a think while you're lying there, old sausage, it'll give you something to do.'

  'Do me a favour and open that, sir.' Bimsley pointed to his locker. 'There should be a piece of paper inside.' Bryant pulled out the single mud-stained sheet and gingerly unscrewed it.

  'I found it on the floor of one of the rooms in the Angerstein,' Bimsley said.'It's not much, but I'm pretty sure Pellew had been there. It might have come from him.'

  Bryant found himself looking at a scribbled doodle. It appeared to be of a bird sitting atop a tree stump. 'Thanks, no idea what this might be but I'll check it out.' He rose to leave, then stopped. 'By the way, young Meera wanted to come and see you, but I had to send her to interview Carol Wynley's partner.'

  'I don't suppose she could be bothered to leave me a message.'

  'Would it raise your spirits and aid your recovery if I told you she did?'

  Bimsley attempted to affect an air of disinterest.'It might.'

  Bryant thought for a moment. 'Fine, Meera said to get well soon and hurry back. No, I'm joking, she didn't say anything at all. Sorry.'

  'What the bloody hell were you doing there by yourself?' asked Renfield, who was attempting to keep his voice down on the women's ward. 'You're not supposed to conduct those kinds of searches unaccompanied.'

  'How long have you been here?' asked Longbright. She tried to focus on the sclerotic sergeant perched on the edge of her visitor's chair.

  'Just for a while. I've been watching you sleep,' Renfield admitted.

  'I didn't need you to come with me.' Longbright pushed at her pillows, trying not to disturb the saline drip attached to her wrist. 'Arthur said that Pellew wanted to be stopped. I've done this sort of thing plenty of times before.'

  'And that's exactly why you had your guard down,' said Renfield. 'You'd be in a body-bag downstairs if he hadn't misjudged your size. Pellew didn't turn himself in, so part of him must have wanted to remain at large, and that made him extremely dangerous. Your boss had it wrong.'

  'Have they said how long I have to stay in here?'

  'They've got to finish flushing out your system. You'll be allowed home tomorrow.' He fought down a smile.

  'What's so funny?'

  'I've never seen you without makeup.'

  My God, thought Longbright, I don't think anyone has ever seen me without makeup. 'I'll stay until the doctor comes by. Give me something to do until then, Jack. Get me the case notes.'

  'You're supposed to rest.' Renfield looked about the ward. Two constables were walking a shouting, handcuffed drunk woman past the beds.

  All right, Steve? Joey?' Renfield called. They nodded curtly to him, but carried on without stopping to speak.

  She watched the officers pass. 'You must be missing your mates in the Met.'

  'Well, they don't bloody miss me,' said Renfield, looking back. 'They won't even say hello to me now.'

  'So you finally know how the rest of us feel. Look at the state of your fingernails. It's stress.' Longbright lowered her head back to the pillow. 'Being on the unit takes over your life until there's nothing else left. The day I joined the PCU even the duty officers at Bayham Street stopped talking to me. They thought I was waving two fingers at them, getting out to move on to a cushy number. They didn't know I took a drop in pay and position just to work where my mother once worked. I slogged away in the Met in order to build up respect and credibility, and lost it all on the day I moved across to join John and Arthur. My partner left me, my civilian friends went away, I have nothing left but the unit. The same thing will happen to you.'

  'It already did.' Renfield looked down at his toe caps. 'Four years ago last month. My girlfriend died in Manchester, on duty.'

  'I never heard about that.'

  'I didn't tell many people. She'd been working up on Moss Side, liaising with immigration officers for a couple of years. One Saturday night in the middle of winter some bloke had a go at her outside a rough-as-guts nightclub, just a punch in the neck, but she'd had a couple of rums before she went on duty. She went down heavily, bruised herself, suffered traumatic shock. Went home not feeling well and died in bed that night. Those two drinks meant the difference between burial with full honours and dismissal with nothing at all. You wonder why I prefer to stick to the rule book. So when you say you have nothing left, you know how I feel.'

  'I think I preferred you when you were being unpleasant to everyone,' she said with a sigh.

  'You know I don't approve of the way the PCU goes about things, but I'm trying to learn, understood?'

  Longbright gave a small smile and held out her unfettered hand. 'Understood.'

  Giles Kershaw was below the pavement of Euston Road, in the UCH morgue, talking to Alex Reynolds, the admitting surgeon. The remains of Anthony Pellew lay in the tray before them, being cleaned, opened and weighed.

  'No birthmark on his face,' noted Kershaw, holding back his hair as he leaned over the body.

  'You were expecting one?' asked Reynolds. 'Shouldn't you be wearing a cap? Or don't they bother with them at the PCU morgue?'

  Actually, we're skilled enough to sort out our own fibres from those of our suspects at the PCU, thanks,' retorted Kershaw coolly. 'We've got this man down with nevus flammem,'

  Reynolds could not recall the term. 'Remind me.'

  'Port-wine facial markings. They're formed at birth.'

  'Then you've got the wrong man, haven't you?'

  'No, I don't think we have. I need to get a
tissue sample.' Kershaw took a closer look. Anthony Pellew had not been taking care of himself. His nails were split, the cuticles bitten and torn. A cracked front tooth, bad skin due to a poor diet, worn-out underclothes, worn-out sneakers. And deep in his hairline, miniscule red specks.

  Kershaw withdrew tweezers and lifted the dots into a small plastic pouch, but he could already identify the substance by its odour: lipstick. Pellew had applied the so-called birthmark with artificial colouring. Why? Was it due to some mental aberration, a form of tribal disguise, part of the ritual of killing? Or could there be a stranger reason that added method to his madness?

  This case isn't over, he thought. It looks like the real work is only just beginning,

  33

  CONSPIRACY

  T

  hey met on the bridge, always on Waterloo Bridge, be-cause the light was sharper here, because the sky was high and wide, because for them it was a part of London that never changed.

  In all the years they had been meeting above the river, the northern horizon had never changed as quickly as it was changing now. Instead of the barges and blackened ware-houses, the working cranes and silhouetted derricks, glass balconies protruded from blank pastel walls like boxes at the theatre. The Thames itself had been transformed from a pulsing aquatic artery to an empty scenic backdrop provided for the amusement of shore-dwelling businessmen, a cosmetic alteration that in Arthur Bryant's opinion mainly benefited the rich in their holiday flats. What else would be provided for them, he wondered, the kind of gaudy floating pageants that had been staged in the presence of Le Roi Soleil? Fireworks and hot-air balloons? But of course the mayor, following in the great tradition of London mayors, was already providing them with such distractions. To be the Lord Mayor of London was to accept the city's poisoned chalice, and always be hated by at least half the capital's residents.