Bryant still felt deeply aggrieved. He sat up in bed, thumbing through some old reference volumes, notably Cryptozoology & Creation Myths, Sheep and Goats’ Death Loss Figures for 1952, Victorian Romantic Suicide Ballads and an exhausting tome entitled Avian Longevities and their Interpretation under Evolutionary Theories of Senescence.
There seemed to be a lot of superstitions concerning ravens. Specifically, they were associated with royalty and bereavement. Legend had it that King Arthur turned into one, and a raven circling a house was said to predict the demise of someone within. In Somerset, locals used to tip their hats to ravens in order not to offend them. In many parts of the country they were associated with the Devil. In Yorkshire children were threatened with a giant raven which would carry them off if they were bad. It was said that if a raven’s eggs were stolen, a baby would die.
Eventually Bryant rose and shaved. He bypassed the PCU offices in Caledonian Road, making straight for the Rooks & Emeralds Magic Suppliers, Hatton Garden. Trudging through the ward once known as Farringdon Without, he peered from the dripping edge of a half-collapsed umbrella that flapped like a crippled bat, and remembered the tumbledown bookstalls that had lined Farringdon Road for over a century, right up until the last decade. The book market had vanished entirely now, to be replaced by yet more coffee shops and cocktail bars.
Passing down Herbal Hill to Clerkenwell Road, he found himself entirely alone on the narrow pavements. In every other direction the city’s great arteries were choked with traffic and pedestrians, but on a rainy morning the hilly backstreets of the Italian quarter were silent and deserted. Elsewhere only scraps and fragments of London’s ancient fabric remained, but here, in the very oldest part of the city centre, it was easy to spin back the clock to the late nineteenth century. Once there had been a great convent at this spot, and a stream that marked the dividing line between the city’s two police forces. The Hasidic diamond merchants of Hatton Garden were fewer in number now, but the street was still aglow with jewellers’ shops, their windows gleaming with amber and amethyst, emerald and sapphire – but mostly the sharp white sparkle of diamonds.
He stopped before a mean black doorway, checked the number on a scrap of paper, then rang the top bell of six. The door buzzed and admitted him to a second door that only opened after the first was shut. The terrace looked like a normal row of Victorian houses from outside, but within were all sorts of surprising security systems. They had been installed to protect the diamond polishers and traders of precious stones from burglaries. The smash-and-grabs of the pre-war years were unheard of now, but elaborate money-laundering swindles still took place occasionally, the most celebrated being the loss of the Congolese ‘North Star’ diamond in 1997. Hatton Garden was a fortress disguised as terraced housing.
Bryant found himself in a dingy hallway barely wider than his shoulders. Shaking out the umbrella, he left it just inside the door and made his way up the sloping stairs. He could smell damp, leather, cigarettes, cooking – old smells.
The top landing was occupied by two businesses: Messrs Rowland & Goldberg, Necklace-Makers, and the Rooks & Emeralds Magic Suppliers, Proprietor Maurice Weiss, maker and supplier of traditional bird tricks to the magic trade. Bryant was greeted by an immaculately dressed old man in a black satin waistcoat criss-crossed with a silver diamond pattern.
‘I’ve got the kettle on,’ said Maurice, holding the door wide. ‘Fresh-leaf, none of your teabag rubbish. Come in and make yourself at home.’ He lifted a packing case full of playing-card decks from a chair and bade Bryant sit. ‘I was surprised to get your call, Arthur. I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.’
‘I was just as surprised to find you still in business, Maurice,’ said Bryant, eyeing the orderly, overcrowded room with undisguised pleasure.
‘We very nearly folded, like most of the magic suppliers, but we’ve still got the shop down the road – not that it makes much money these days.’
‘Then how do you survive?’
‘The internet, my dear fellow – a lifeline for us. There are a great number of budding young magicians out there, thank goodness. Not so many professionals now that the variety shows have all gone. There’s not much call for a rabbit out of a hat or a flight of doves from the flourish of a lavender glove.’
‘Which rather brings me to the purpose of my visit,’ said Bryant. ‘Birds, the disappearing of. How big can you go?’
Maurice poked about in a tea caddy. ‘What, you mean in physical size? Like could you make a swan disappear? Only by using the sort of special-effects trickery they get up to on television nowadays. Most of the new generation of magicians are more interested in performing flashy stunts like making Ferraris explode. Doves aren’t exciting enough for them.’
‘Could you make a raven vanish without anyone knowing about it, for instance?’
‘What, the common Corvus corax?’ Maurice thought for a minute. ‘It wouldn’t be easy. They grow to over two and a half feet in length, and they’re heavy. Not quite the size of a writing desk but not far short.’
‘Ah, Lewis Carroll,’ said Bryant. ‘He never intended an answer to his riddle, you know, although he later provided one. He said, “Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front.”’
‘They’re noisy buggers, too,’ said Maurice, warming the pot. ‘Making that low guttural rattle, sort of a toc-toc-toc sound.’
‘Yes, I’ve been reading up about them. Apparently they’re very intelligent, playful but quarrelsome when you get a few of them together.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I can’t tell you that just at the moment. It’s a case I’m working on.’
‘What a pity. I always liked hearing about your cases. They’re not endangered in some way, are they?’
‘No, I don’t think so. If anything their population seems to be growing. They’re pretty much omnivorous.’
‘They’d be all right around here, then. All the old diamond shops are going, Arthur. We’re getting more and more junk-food outlets and trendy restaurants, so all the rubbish gets left outside. They’d do well scavenging in these streets.’ Maurice rattled old grouts into his bin, an expert in the art of tea-making.
‘Let’s assume for a moment that I needed to make one vanish,’ said Bryant. ‘What would be the best way to do it?’
‘Well, magicians like doves because they’re stupid and docile, and you can make them appear out of virtually anything. They’re the only bird that can be completely dehydrated, stored in a tiny space, then rehydrated and instantly returned to life with no more damage than a bit of a confused look in their eyes. They’re incredibly flexible. Of course, you have to train them carefully. A raven does have one advantage, of course: its colour. We like doves because their white feathers look good against a black suit. But if you could get a raven into a triangle-pouch …’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s rather like a purse that hooks on to the inside of, say, a top hat. You release the catch and out comes the bird. The case then folds flat. If you were wearing all black, the raven would blend in nicely. But there’s still the size, and it’s not a docile bird. It’s got a long, sharp beak. I imagine you’d have to stupefy it in some way. I couldn’t recommend doing that. You’d have Animal Welfare down on you like a ton of bricks.’
Bryant looked around, noting the catalogued tidiness that signified a man living alone. ‘Your wife was Uzbekistani, wasn’t she? Dolores.’
‘Her stage name.’ said Maurice. ‘I miss her every morning. Not every evening, though. She was …’
‘Controlling.’
‘I was going to say wonderful. After she died it was a chance to get this place sorted out. On the whole, though, I think I preferred it messy.’ He looked around in sadness, then pulled himself together. ‘Anyway, a raven.’
‘More than one.’
‘How many?’
‘Seven.’
/>
‘Lumme. Perhaps a really good magician could pull it off.’
‘How?’
‘Hang on, I’ll show you. I haven’t got a raven, but there’s a frozen chicken in the fridge.’ Maurice rose and went into the little kitchen off his studio. He emerged a couple of minutes later wearing a black jacket and white gloves. Standing directly in front of Bryant, he circled his hands back and forth as if they were hinged at the heel of each palm. When he parted them, he was now holding a black velvet cloth. Unfolding it like the petals of a rose, he revealed a pallid supermarket chicken that had not been there before. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘it can be done.’
Bryant was delighted. ‘You should put that down. Sir Francis Bacon froze to death conducting experiments with frozen chickens. Where did you hide it?’
Maurice set the chicken aside and showed him. ‘I wrapped the bird in the cloth then knotted the whole thing to the underside of my right forearm. My prestiges – that’s the distracting movements I made with the gloves – they kept you from noticing the lump, black on black, until I was ready to unfold it.’
‘Very impressive,’ said Bryant. ‘I suppose he could have taken them one at a time and transferred them to a larger holdall.’
‘Are we talking about the ravens in the Tower?’ Maurice asked.
‘You’re not supposed to know,’ said Bryant, who was never less than fabulously indiscreet.
‘That’s a rum one. They say when the ravens leave, the Crown falls.’
‘An old wives’ tale, luckily, but bad for public morale. Think it could be done?’
‘Yes, but he’d need something like a big black cloak. Not the sort of outfit you’d see in the street without arousing suspicion.’
‘Don’t worry. I have an idea how that part might have been managed. The executioner.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Just thinking aloud.’ Bryant rose to his feet. ‘Lovely to see you again, Maurice. You’ve been a great help.’
As Bryant headed back into the rainy street of diamonds, the elderly magician watched from his upstairs window. He was glad he had chosen not to mention his doctor’s gloomy prognosis; Bryant looked as if he had enough troubles of his own. But he couldn’t help wondering if he would live to see his old friend again.
16
THE BLEEDING HEART
‘Jack and Meera reckon someone was watching the schoolgirl’s flat,’ said Janice Longbright. ‘Unfortunately he got away, but it could be evidence of a link.’
‘Did they find any physical proof that she’s being stalked?’ asked Raymond Land. ‘If not, it’s not enough. What about the lad?’
While Bryant was studying the teleportation of frozen poultry, Raymond Land had demanded an update on Romain Curtis.
‘Some of his schoolfriends were in the Scala with him,’ Janice said. ‘We’ve talked to a couple of them. They didn’t sound that fond of him, but he didn’t seem to have any real enemies. One of them saw him trip up the stairs of the club as he left, said he looked drunk.’
‘Hearsay, Janice – come on.’
‘Still nothing on where he got the MDMA. The club has a strict no-drugs policy, but you know how well those work.’ She flicked through the other pages on her desk. ‘The Congestion Zone CCTV hard drives don’t show anything unusual. No vehicles hanging around outside the club. It’s a one-way street with red no-stop zoning. Nothing from the office cameras in Britannia Street either. Most are trained on their reception areas. No reliable witnesses so far. The entrance to the club is right on the corner of the crossroads, and the queue to get in runs all the way down one side. There were just too many people milling around for anyone to stand out.’
‘Don’t you have anything positive for me?’ asked Land.
‘Wallace’s client, Krishna Jhadav, surrendered one interesting titbit yesterday – he says Wallace had a morbid fear of premature burial, and had arranged for someone to dig him up if he died suddenly. It suggests that someone either carried out his wish or played a sick joke on him.’
‘But the man committed suicide.’
‘I know. We’re seeing his doctor later to try and work out if anything was missed.’
‘Is that it? There must be something else.’
‘I’m afraid not. You took Arthur off the case, remember?’
‘Please try to see my problem, Janice,’ Land pleaded. ‘I simply cannot have him running around hiring witch doctors and conducting séances just when we’re trying to prove ourselves.’
‘You can’t make us into something we’re not, Raymond.’
‘Well, we can’t bloody stay as we are.’ Land winced and shook a kitten from his foot. ‘I wish somebody would get rid of these damned things; they’re spreading like coathangers. I need results, Janice, something I can report back.’
‘Then get Arthur back on the case,’ she said simply.
Bryant was now on his way to Bleeding Heart Yard, just a short walk from Maurice Weiss’s studio in Hatton Garden. Stopping outside the tavern by the entrance to the T-shaped courtyard, he leaned on his stick and watched the rain bounce off the cobbles. He knew that the area had long been associated with religion, murder and the black arts, but today he had come to find number 17, the home of Paul McEvoy, a Royal Academy painting restorer who was the country’s leading expert on premature burial.
What interested Bryant was the reason behind McEvoy’s specialist knowledge. For a while now he had heard rumours in academic circles, but had never been given good reason to check them out. He knew he was breaking Land’s rule about not interfering in the Wallace case, but McEvoy’s home was just around the corner and, after all, what harm could it do to have a chat in passing?
He had last walked these backstreets in the purgatorial month of February. Dickens had pointed out that here even the snowflakes were covered in soot, ‘gone into mourning … for the death of the sun’. There was something about the low level of light that muted the shades of brick and concrete, turning homes into prisons. The geography of Farringdon and Clerkenwell matched its weather, being perverse, grey, unsettled and confusing.
The empty roads were never less than atmospheric, and made fertile ground for the creation of dark mythologies. Many stories of murders, hauntings and hangings were associated with the old Smithfield Market, where the bones of slaughtered animals washed down from the butcheries to the riverbank. Bryant found it impossible to pass over the pavements and not be aware of what lay below. He could see the forgotten tributaries of the River Fleet through the drain covers, hear the rushing waters and follow the chain of underground wells from King’s Cross down through Farringdon to the river. He caught himself thinking; There’s more death here than life …
McEvoy was waiting at the door to greet him. Wrapped in a maroon quilted dressing gown over a Jamaican kaftan and baggy blue silk trousers, he looked more than a little mad. ‘You must be Mr Bryant,’ he called. ‘Come in from the rain,’ and he waved him inside.
Bryant followed his host to the second floor and was ushered into a room that reeked of wet dog, furniture polish and air freshener. In the centre, a polished coffin lay on a trestle table. The copper-coated casket had a number of riveted metal tubes extending from it, to which were attached a system of bells, the whole contraption affixed to hooks in the peeling, bowed ceiling.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said McEvoy. ‘It’s a security coffin. The smallest movement of the corpse’s hands, feet or head rings the bells, and the graveyard’s nightwatchman comes running.’
‘Assuming he hasn’t gone to the pub,’ said Bryant, walking around the device. ‘When was this made?’
‘Oh, it’s just a facsimile, but it’s based on a design from 1829, German manufacture, obviously. Taphephobia was a very powerful thing.’
‘Taphephobia?’
‘The fear of being buried alive! These things weren’t just to stop the living from being trapped below ground,’ McEvoy explained. ‘They were intended to ward off the resurrection men,
too. Digging up the dead to sell their bodies to anatomists was once an integral part of London life. Mind you, that’s not really my field. If you wanted to find out about snatching the dead, you’d have to consult a real resurrectionist.’
‘There are no such people any more, Mr McEvoy.’
‘Aren’t there now.’ His host rolled beady, knowing eyes at him. ‘And you’re so sure of this?’
It didn’t seem to occur to McEvoy to introduce himself or to ask what his visitor was doing here. He excitedly ran around the coffin, demonstrating the various bell-pulls. ‘Of course, there’s a modern version that substitutes electronics for the mechanics, but what if the electrical supply is cut? Then what, eh? There was a London Society for the Prevention of Premature Burial, you know. It was formed in 1896 by the spiritualist Arthur Lovell, a rather dubious character by all accounts, but at least he alerted people to the dangers of being buried alive. Before that, of course, there were the waiting mortuaries, special chapels where the dead could be housed in case they woke up. Some of the cadavers were long past their best, so they had to fill the room with flowers to disguise the smell of putrefying flesh. There were plans to construct a Totenhaus, or house for the dead, in every German town. They were built in Ansbach, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, and spread to Brussels, Prague, Amsterdam, Lisbon, even New York.’
He’s completely barking, thought Bryant. I’ll have to humour him until I can get away. This was what came of finding field experts on the internet. ‘I heard you were the right man to ask about premature interment,’ he said.
‘Absolutely,’ McEvoy agreed. ‘I began my researches while I was a student in Edinburgh, but the more I learned, the more I feared it might happen to me. It happens all the time, far more frequently than people realize. Misdiagnosed coma states in this day and age, can you believe it? I have a history, you see. It used to be known as lucid hysterical lethargy, but now they call it narcolepsy. I could fall asleep at any time and not wake up for hours, days, years. The heartbeat slows and becomes quite undetectable, even to the finest electronic instruments.’
Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart Page 12