Bryant & May 01; Full Dark House b&m-1

by Christopher Fowler

  “Then you should find something else to concentrate on. If you imagine that without your job you have no purpose, you must find one.”

  Bryant appeared not to have heard him. He absently tore at a Bath bun. “Have you ever been to the Lower Marsh market in the middle of a workday morning? It’s filled with old people. Half of them can barely walk, and so many are alone. It’s like an English seaside town in winter. Everyone looks so cold and frail, as if death is already touching them. I wonder how they can be bothered to go on amid such devastation. It’s a kind of courage, and I’m not sure I’d have it if I was in their shoes. When the war ends they’ll have lost our generation again.”

  “Oh, this is sheer morbidity. Don’t spend all your time in the unit. Have you considered the option of regular sexual intercourse? I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

  “I’m no longer mentally equipped for spousal duties. My interests are too arcane. The Met boys all talk behind my back, you know. They think I’m obnoxious. They’re waiting for our funding to be pulled away. They’ll all have a good laugh then. I don’t make friends.”

  “Rubbish, Arthur. DS Forthright told me that you’ve made tons of friends, it’s just that, well, you’ve befriended the kind of people nobody else talks to. Or even goes near.” He had heard about Bryant consulting the Deptford medium Edna Wagstaff and her flat full of stuffed tabby cats. “In fact, from the sound of it you’ve made friends with people many others would cross the road to avoid.”

  “You’ll be able to adapt with the times, John. I’m already going in the opposite direction. At the age of seven I was reading Plato and Aristotle. By the time I was fifteen I had finished A la recherche du temps perdu in French. Academic enlightenment is a curse. It’s certainly held me back with the fair sex. Forthright is the only woman I feel truly comfortable around these days, and that’s because I tend to think of her as a man.”

  “Maybe you should try a good nerve tonic.” May looked down at the brown Formica tabletop, resting his broad hands on the cool surface.

  “I’ve tried them all. The unit is being given the difficult tasks to keep it out of the way. It’s easier to separate out the problem cases than to explain to the Home Secretary why they aren’t being investigated. We’re a government expediency.”

  “You think investigating murder is a waste of time?” asked May. “Why, we could have great successes ahead if we learn to apply your ideas. All those listings in your contact files for spiritualists, clairvoyants, covens, cultists. Could they really be of use?”

  “As much use as anyone so rational that they can eventually become a judge and sentence an innocent man to death. If we’re going to run the unit together, you’ll have to agree at least partially with my methods, otherwise you’ll never sanction their use.”

  “I already trust your instincts, Arthur, even if I don’t understand you.”

  “I don’t believe in the innate goodness of people any more, John, if I ever did to begin with. Are you a Christian?”

  “I was raised as one. I’m not sure what to believe now. I know you’ve got a theory about the theatre. Why don’t you tell me?” Bryant looked as if he was about to, then changed his mind. “It’s hard to explain. I think we’re being presented with a challenge. I keep coming back to the Greek gods, the capricious ways they exacted revenge on mortals. We’ve been chosen to make certain that something happens, but I’m not sure what. There’s a Greek god on the roof of the Palace, did you notice? Right at the pinnacle, a fragile-looking thing, still in one piece despite the bombing. I wonder they don’t remove it. I can’t place who it is, but there’s something very odd about it. I believe somebody’s playing a cruel game.”

  “To what end?”

  “I’m not yet sure. To spark an investigation into the workings of Three Hundred International, or to decimate the theatre company. Or perhaps the killer simply can’t help himself. What is it that guides his murderous impulses? How can we know?”

  “There are plenty of practical steps we can take,” offered May. “Start by tightening security, putting men in the building round the clock. We need to be firmer with Stan Lowe, the stage door chap. Will he take notice of us, do you think?”

  “He should do. They all should. I mean, we have government authorization, and you’re over six foot.” Bryant bucked up. “I suppose I’d better talk to Davenport about bringing in officers from another division. When I joined the unit I was promised a staff of twenty. We’re down to half a dozen, and two of those are constables.”

  “Let’s finish the interviews so that Biddle can see if there’s anything anomalous in their stories. Runcorn and Finch can liaise with Lambeth and pull in results from the rest of the forensic samples. We have to locate every entry point in the building to prove that nobody entered the theatre immediately before Senechal’s death.” Bryant dug a florin out of his coat pocket and placed it on the table. He admired the way in which May came up with plans, making everything sound ordered and rational.

  “So, what did you make of the managing director of the Three Hundred?” asked May once they were outside.

  “I found him rather intimidating.” Bryant unfurled his umbrella and raised it. “I wouldn’t like to be his enemy. But he does have a certain menacing charm.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something odd about him. I’d like to dig up some more on his background. Of course it’ll be hopeless trying to get information out of Greece, but an old chum of my uncle’s spent a couple of years in Athens as a correspondent for The Times. I’ll give him a call. Are you around for a drink tonight?” May looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, Arthur, I can’t tonight. I’m seeing Betty again. She was a bit shaken up, and doesn’t want to spend another evening in the theatre.”

  “Oh, right.” He sniffed and looked out at the water as they recrossed the bridge. “Well, I should go back to the Palace, give Lowe a talking-to.”

  “You don’t have to,” said May, feeling guilty. “Look here, you’re welcome to join us tonight.”

  “No, it’s fine. I have my notes to catch up on, anyway.” May watched as Bryant turned away and walked back along the Embankment, ducking beneath his umbrella as he skirted the stippled puddles. He would always see him like this, walking ahead, walking alone.

  ∨ Full Dark House ∧

  33

  AS BAD AS EACH OTHER

  Always ahead, always alone, thought May. If only I’d been friendlier from the outset…

  He returned his attention to the retired pathologist.

  “I haven’t finished yet. I’m eighty-four,” continued Oswald Finch. “I’m slowing down. When you get to be this old, it seems like everyone else is on Rollerblades.”

  “I appreciate that, Oswald,” May insisted, “but you must have removed most of the intact material by now.”

  “Oh, we’ve removed it from the building, all right. Not that it’s my job, you understand. I’m just here because, well, I have an interest in finding out what happened.” He pushed open the door of the evidence room. “Nobody’s had a chance to go through it all.” In front of Longbright and May were around thirty large clear plastic bags filled with chunks of charred wood, blackened files, sticks of furniture, bricks, pieces of broken glass and twisted metal.

  “This is all that’s left of the unit?”

  “Pretty much so.” Finch lowered himself into a chair and grimaced. “Stinks, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t be surprised if there were still bits of Bryant in there.”

  May ignored his remark. The pair of them had never really got on. Even so, he was surprised and rather touched to find Finch in the building. “Did you find any of our office equipment in one piece?”

  “Not actually in one piece, but there are surviving chunks that were shielded by closed doors. Raymond Land thinks the explosion was caused by old hand-grenades, you know. Something about cordite striation patterns.”

  “Surely grenades couldn’t have done so much d
amage?”

  “Well, they weren’t all the same size, some were more powerful than others. The Mills grenade was really a small-barrelled missile containing up to three ounces of amatol. Modern blast sites smell different because they use more sophisticated chemical compounds. This was pure stuff. We found powder burns on the walls. The remains of your photocopier should be over there somewhere.” Finch pointed into a corner, and May and Longbright clambered across the bags in that direction.

  “He was always playing tricks on me, you know,” called Finch as they went through the bags. “Gluing my furniture to the ceiling, putting fleas in my briefcase, weeing into my rain gauges, getting my keys recut so that they only fitted the ladies’ loo, replacing the fish in my tank with piranhas. Remember the tropical plant that made us all sick? A tarantula fell out of it and bit my wife. He had a very strange sense of humour. I suppose I’ll miss him.”

  “Over here.” May unzipped the top of a sack and peered in. “This looks like it.”

  “Let me give you a hand.” Longbright was as strong as her mother had been. Together they lifted out the buckled grey panels of the photocopier and set them on the floor. The quarter-inch plate-glass square was cracked, but had not shattered. Unfortunately, the plastic lid had melted tightly over the top of it, like Cheddar on a piece of toast.

  “Give me your penknife.” May took the Swiss blade from Longbright and inserted it into a corner of the lid.

  “You’re tampering with evidence,” complained Finch, turning his chair round. “I’m not a part of this, I’m not looking.” He couldn’t stop himself from glancing over his shoulder. “Aaah, you’re not even wearing plastics, you’re as bad as Bryant.”

  May sawed the blade through the melted cover and gingerly pulled it away from the glass sheet. There beneath the cover was a single scorched sheet of paper. With the tips of his fingers he lifted it away from the glass.

  “Looks like we’ve got it,” he told Longbright, grinning.

  “You’re not taking evidence away, it’s illegal,” cried Finch. “Sixty years I’ve had to put up with this kind of behaviour. Why me?”

  “Oh, stop moaning, Oswald, you can just pretend you never saw us,” said Longbright.

  “You’re on the CCTV, I’m not going to lie for you and risk my job.”

  “You’re eighty-four, this is no time to worry about being passed over for promotion.” Longbright rose and carried the sheet to a bench by one of the side sinks. “This is odd,” she said, after examining the scorched page for a minute. “It’s got Arthur’s notes scribbled in the margins, but it’s not a list at all.”

  “What is it?” asked May.

  “I think it’s an architectural plan,” she said finally. “Look at the stamp on the bottom. ‘Palace Theatre Revised Edition September nineteen…’ Can’t read the rest of the date.”

  “He must have taken it from the archive room when he went back to the Palace. Then what did he do with the list of patients from the Wetherby clinic?”

  “Maybe it was of no use, and he threw it away. He told you he’d been to the theatre, so he was either looking for this, or stumbled across it while he was researching his memoirs.”

  “But what is it?”

  “Dunno,” Longbright admitted. “Oswald, is there a lightbox anywhere?”

  They laid the scorched sheet on a fluorescent panel and May studied it. “Looks like a layout of two long corridors, bisecting at one end. These shadings…the wall cross-sections look completely circular. What’s he written down the side?”

  “Looks like a circumference measurement. You wouldn’t normally build a corridor with round walls, would you?”

  “I wonder if it could be part of a theatrical set design. It would help to have a complete date. The Palace might keep records of the struck sets.”

  “We could check it against them,” said Longbright. “That’s what Bryant would have done.”

  “We don’t know what he was looking for. Anyway, I have a better idea.” May dug out his mobile. “Arthur had an architect friend called Beaufort. I think we should get an expert opinion.”

  “Wait a minute, you’re not leaving here with evidence,” warned Finch, barring the door.

  “Don’t be daft, Oswald. No one will know unless you tell them.” May moved him gently aside.

  “What you’re doing is illegal,” Finch called as they left with the evidence. “You’re both as bad as him, you realize that, don’t you?”

  ∨ Full Dark House ∧

  34

  JUNO’S SON

  It was still raining hard in Charing Cross Road. The deluge vibrated across the roof of the auditorium. Somewhere, water was dripping onto metal, like the beat of a drum. It was impossible to keep the weather out of a theatre as old as the Palace. There wasn’t a Victorian building in London that didn’t have a damp patch somewhere, and the cracks caused by the continuous bombing made it worse.

  Stan Lowe and PC Crowhurst sat inside the Greek Street stage door, at the rear of the theatre, watching the rain fall. Spatters of water leaked over a handwritten sign that Bryant had made Lowe place on the wall. It read: “NO VISITORS AFTER HALF-HOUR CALL OR DURING SHOW. DO NOT LEAVE THIS DOOR OPEN FOR ANYONE YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE.”

  For the first few weeks of the Blitz Stan Lowe had allowed the well-protected stage door area to be used as a first-aid post, but now he had been forced to add chains and a padlock. Most of the cast, orchestra and backstage crew had been signed in for the technical run-through. Crowhurst had taken names and addresses from everyone. He had heard the same piece of music, something Jack referred to as the ‘Sleeping Chorus’, echo through the backstage areas over a dozen times now, and was growing mightily sick of it.

  “I suppose you know there’s a ghost,” said Stan matter-of-factly, knocking out his pipe on the emulsioned brick wall at his back. “You ain’t got any tobacco to spare, have you?”

  PC Crowhurst poked about in his jacket and produced a halfounce of St Bruno Flake. “You can have that and welcome,” he said. “What sort of ghost? Not Dan Leno?”

  “No, he haunts Drury Lane. Only time Leno’s ever appeared here is in a newsreel.” He pushed a wad of tobacco into his pipe and returned the packet with a nod. “This is some old Shakespearean actor. You know them bleeding great china dogs on the stair landing? They was his. This old cove was playing Polonius, and he gets to the arras scene, only the Dane’s sword is missing its button, see, and when ‘Amlet runs him through, he really runs him through, only nobody realizes because he’s behind the bleeding curtain, isn’t he, so they play out the rest of the scene, and it’s only when he’s supposed to get off the stage that they notices. Well, a’course by that time it’s too late to do anything for the poor old bugger, so every time there’s a new play coming on, he turns up as Polonius in a bloodstained doublet and hose, wandering about backstage putting the willies up the carpenters.”

  PC Crowhurst looked sceptical. “Miss Trammel says he looked deformed, like he’d done something terrible to his face,” he pointed out. “She said it was like a mask of tragedy, you know, like a Greek mask. She was in a right state this morning.”

  “His face was contorted ‘cos he’d been run through with a bleedin’ epinard,” said Lowe sagely. “Actresses suffer with their nerves. That’s why so many of ‘em take to the drink.” He flicked out a match and drew hard on the pipe. “Anyway, he was a bleedin’ awful Polonius. I could shit a better lecture to Laertes than that.”

  Onstage it was the beginning of act two, and the gods slumbered on Mount Olympus. Venus, Mars, Cupid and the chorus went through their paces, but there was no Jupiter. Geoffrey Whittaker, the stage manager, was on the company office telephone trying to organize transport to collect their new head of Olympus, who was stuck on the wrong side of a bombed railway line in East London.

  Helena was tired and irritable. She wanted a break and needed a whisky, but Harry and Elspeth were tailing her around the building to make sure that she didn’t fin
d a way of breaking her contract. The technical run-through was necessary at this point because an unusual amount of scenery had to be flown through the tableaux, and Mouse, Stan Lowe’s boy, had been appointed to transcribe the complex stage manoeuvres in a movement programme as they progressed.

  It didn’t help that the performers were having to work around a central hole in the production. Few of the cast had known Charles Senechal very well, but his absence was acutely felt. The understudy baritone had been approved and cast at the same time as Senechal’s appointment, but he didn’t have the diction quality Helena required for the recitative passages, so she was anxious to give him extra coaching. Senechal’s wife and child were holed up in a quiet Holland Park hotel, and had been visited by Andreas Renalda, who had dispensed with pleasantries and instructed the distraught woman not to talk to journalists. Luckily for him she spoke little English, and her interpreter was employed by the company.

  With the arrival of the auditor, the company secretary and the treasurer’s wife, Stan Lowe gave up trying to keep the area restricted. Happily, Helena remained professional. She’d coped with ranting producers, cheating financiers and lying managers, compared to which the gripes of cast members who found their dressing rooms too far away or their fellow performers impossible to deal with were frankly small potatoes. But, God, she wanted a drink.

  ♦

  Rachel Saperstein was just starting to cope with the idea of her son’s success. She was proud of him, even though the Saperstein family name was apparently not good enough for Miles any more. She had been up to the apartment the company had rented for him, and had found the meat-safe in his scullery completely empty except for a bottle of vodka, which would only ruin his stomach in later life. Now she was seated at the front of the upper circle, watching him perform on the London stage, and her heart swelled with pride as he sang each note.