Wild Chamber

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Can you not bring up body parts where there’s food about?’ cried Alma, exasperated. ‘A human being is not a turkey. Or a halibut. You have no idea what I go through, Mr May. This is a council flat; we’re not allowed to make any alterations. He took the floor up!’

  ‘I wanted to see if a corpse would fit underneath it,’ said Bryant reasonably.

  ‘And you encourage him,’ she accused. ‘Every day there’s a new problem. He should never have had that locust farm in here. There used to be topiary by our main entrance. Then the drains caught fire. And he threw next door’s cat out of the window.’

  ‘It was on a parachute,’ Bryant pointed out. ‘It’s amazing how they always land on their feet.’

  Alma would not be mollified. ‘Mr Pitt downstairs thinks I’ve got Care in the Community people up here. What am I supposed to say to my ladies from the church when they come round for hymn practice?’

  ‘You could invite him to attend,’ said May, amused.

  ‘And have him telling them about the seven levels of hell again? Bringing out his picture books of demons pulling the heads off toddlers.’

  ‘That was the illustrated Malleus Maleficarum, madam. A rare and marvellous artefact. I was trying to teach them about Asmodeus, the spirit of vengeful lust.’

  ‘They don’t need to know about lust, they’re married. You frightened the life out of them. It reflects badly on me. When I’m finally called to meet my maker he’s going to say, “No, you lived with Mr Bryant, you can’t come in.”’

  ‘He won’t be going by your postcode, you silly woman,’ said Bryant.

  Alma’s eyes brightened. ‘So you admit he exists. That’s why you came to church with me last week.’

  ‘I like going to St Gandalf’s—’

  ‘St Andrew’s.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Bryant. ‘In order to stop myself from going mad or falling asleep during your vicar’s fist-bitingly dull sermon I drew on my inner mental resources and ran through the evidence in a theoretical murder investigation. It’s the perfect retreat from reality. Now, we have work to do here, so hop it.’

  Alma rose and adjusted her intimidating bosom. ‘If you’d like some warm lavender cake, Mr May, just knock on the wall.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ May asked when they were alone once more.

  ‘Right.’ Bryant perched on the edge of his armchair. ‘If the killer made his own key it’s because he specifically planned to kill Helen Forester in the park, yes? And that means this is about gratification, not expedience. It’s where he needed to be.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I think he wanted to pose her in an idyllic natural setting as she died,’ said Bryant. ‘In my hallucination I saw couples making love on the grass. It’s a recurring symbol in British life, like Titania’s bower. It reminded me of something that happened when I was twelve years old. I’d bunked off school and had come up to Hyde Park with some pals – it was wilder and more overgrown then than it is now. I ended up wandering into the long grass by myself. It was in August, at dusk. There were people coupled together, a demobbed soldier and a girl, almost hidden until I stumbled upon them. The man shouted; the girl laughed. I was shocked, but there was something else in me, some frisson of excitement.’

  ‘You? I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘That’s not my fault. Feelings were never discussed in our family. My mother considered sex less important than making sure she had clean net curtains. My sex education had consisted of my father coming into the kitchen one day and asking, “Do you know about the birds and the bees?” When I shyly nodded he said, “Thank Gawd for that,” and went outside for a fag. But here it all was on shameless display in the open air. To this day some part of me links parks with illicit passion.’

  ‘You’re not alone.’ May helped himself to one of Alma’s rock cakes. ‘I think the associations exist for many people.’

  Bryant withdrew a book from the side of his armchair. In it was a woodcut of lovers entwined in the roots of a tree. ‘London has a long history of public licentiousness. The Elizabethans, the Georgians, even the Victorians.’

  ‘You know a little too much about the past, Arthur.’

  ‘It’s true, and I know very little of the present.’ Bryant shook his head ruefully. ‘It’s all second-hand knowledge and no first-hand experience.’

  ‘Then perhaps it’s time to turn the case over to the Met,’ May suggested.

  ‘We’ve already done what they would do, John. Jeremy Forester was desperate enough to beg his assistant for help. He was acting like one of those Hitchcock characters – a case of mistaken identity, on the run from both sides.’

  ‘Are you saying you want to rule out both Forester and Jackson?’

  ‘No, I can’t. They were witnesses. But we have no clues. Dan says we aren’t going to get any DNA from a wringing wet garden. Please tell me we don’t have to resort to psychological profiling. Winnowing out the most crooked needle in a vast haystack of damaged people is just something I’m not very good at – you have to be a Baryshnikov.’

  May brushed rock-cake crumbs from his shirt. ‘A Baryshnikov – what’s that?’

  ‘Oh, they always said that Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev were equal opposites. Baryshnikov was capable of maintaining his stamina for an extraordinary length of time while Nureyev weakened faster – but Nureyev could spike his performances with the kind of energetic leaps that Baryshnikov couldn’t achieve. It takes long-term stamina to find a serial killer. You look for years, maintaining a steady pace, sifting through suspects until you narrow down the search pool to a single culprit. I can’t do that. I’m a Nureyev.’

  It was typical of Bryant to compare detectives with ballet dancers; he thought differently to everyone else. Even so, May knew it was true. He would never have the patience or energy to locate such a murderer.

  ‘You think we’re looking for a serial killer?’

  ‘No. Helen’s husband was being hunted by loan sharks, John, let’s not complicate the situation further. The only person who can help us now is lying in the University College Hospital.’ Bryant closed his book and replaced it.

  ‘But you said you thought someone else was going to die,’ May reminded him. ‘If Jeremy Forester is unconscious and you’re ruling out Ritchie Jackson, who exactly are we looking for?’

  ‘Whoever else was in that garden yesterday morning,’ said Bryant. ‘And we’re running out of time. There’s a rumour going around that Leslie Faraday has a plan to close us down. He knows we still have a few government allies, so he’s planning to turn the public against us.’

  ‘How could he possibly do that?’ asked May.

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Perhaps by removing something they value and blaming the unit for its loss.’

  May worried at a knuckle, thinking. ‘What could he possibly take away from people? All we’ve done is investigate a death in a …’ Realization dawned. ‘The parks.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Bryant clapped his hands. ‘He was behind the attempt to privatize park security last summer. What if he tries to reintroduce the bill by playing up the risk to the public?’

  ‘Then we have to give him no reason to act.’

  ‘It may already be too late for that,’ said Bryant, quietly pushing the door shut.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think he’s getting information from someone inside the unit.’

  ‘Who would be so stupid?’ May asked.

  In his office, Raymond Land looked at the note on his screen: Faraday wants you to call him back urgently.

  21

  ‘SHE WAS WALKING DEAD’

  At half past ten on a Tuesday evening there were few people in the wet streets. Sharyn Buckland kept to the brightly lit areas while trying to decide what to do for the best.

  It wasn’t safe to go back to the town flat. There were plenty of anonymous Travelodges on the Euston Road where she could stay overnight under a false name before heading out
of the city first thing in the morning. She had friends in other parts of the country and a brother who lived in Dartmouth, although she rarely spoke to him. There were people with whom she could stay. This was what London came down to: the number of real friends you could call at short notice to help you out. There really weren’t many.

  Tottenham Court Road was a wasteland of demolition and reconstruction that left her feeling exposed and unprotected. The road’s few remaining department stores had closed for the night, and the wet pavements were now deserted. Her suitcase was in a left-luggage locker at King’s Cross. She had no idea when it would be safe to return to London. Four days earlier she had visited Helen Forester to tell her what she had discovered, but even as she had arrived in Clement Crescent she’d realized the hopelessness of her position. How could they go to the police without evidence? She and Helen had never been close, but there was no one else in whom she could confide.

  Helen had almost succeeded in convincing her that she was imagining things, but now, in a stroke of awful irony, her death provided proof that her fears had been real.

  It appeared that Sharyn had massively underestimated the seriousness of the situation. It was impossible to know how long she had been watched and followed, or how much danger she was in. Part of the story remained elusive. There had been an error of judgement, a mistake, a misunderstanding, a sequence of seemingly ordinary events that had somehow provided an opportunity for murder.

  How easy it would have been not to notice that anything was wrong. If she had kept her mouth shut and looked the other way, Helen would still be alive now.

  The emptiness of the road was making her paranoid. A chill wind blasted at her back, virtually pushing her into a side street. Skirting the puddles, Sharyn crossed over and headed towards the British Museum, past a row of small, pretty hotels on Montague Street. Her red overcoat had been a bad choice – it had made her too visible. What if she’d been seen coming out of the tube? She was as bright as a flag.

  Russell Square Gardens were supposed to close at dusk, but were often open after dark because the winter light disappeared as early as four p.m., long before the surrounding offices emptied out. It was much easier to cross Bloomsbury in a diagonal line, skirting the central fountain, and the paths were usually full of students. Besides, it took forever to walk the long way around the square.

  The gardens were busy and well lit. Just inside the gate a girl approached her and asked for spare change. She had the gaunt features of a washerwoman in a Victorian photograph. There was no light in her sunken eyes. Her bleached hair was tied into a ponytail with a rubber band, above the collar of a grubby blue Puffa jacket.

  Sharyn was about to apologize and brush past when the idea occurred. Digging into the pocket of her jeans she produced a twenty-pound note. The girl was so disconnected that at first she could not understand what Sharyn was saying, but it only took an instant to make her appreciate the deal. Her nicotine-stained fingers twitched as she tried to take the money. Sharyn walked away wearing the girl’s jacket, which was thin and reeked of stale sweat and cigarettes.

  When she reached the far side of the gardens she found a damp wooden bench behind a trellised walkway and sat down. She could see the red coat plainly from here. The girl seemed in no hurry to leave the park, and it was easy to see why; this was where she operated, accosting tourists who came in through the gates heading for the opposite corner, where the great Gothic frontage of the Hotel Russell loomed like some fantastical edifice from a Bram Stoker novel.

  Approach and rebuff, over and over. The junkie darted forward every minute or so, trying to catch unwary pedestrians by surprise, but her wheedling put them off. They slipped past without giving her money.

  The Puffa jacket let in the cold night air. Maybe I was being paranoid, Sharyn decided, watching the girl’s unsuccessful attempts to elicit cash for another minute before rising. She was reluctant to leave the scene and found herself almost willing something to happen.

  The Hotel Russell had a bar overlooking the gardens, so Sharyn headed there. The doorman cast a glance at her shabby coat but said nothing. She sat by the window, sipped a fiery Mae Nam and enjoyed the sensation of the rum lighting her throat. The peculiarity of exchanging clothes with a stranger and covertly watching her while sipping a cocktail in leafy Bloomsbury did not escape her. By turning off the standard lamp beside the table, she was able to bring the gardens into sharper focus.

  She cupped her hands against the glass, peering across the road, trying to see if she could still spot her red coat between the trees.

  The girl remained in place under a yellow lamp, repeatedly snubbed by those who passed. Sharyn almost admired her determination until she remembered what drove it. A couple walked briskly into the gardens and the girl moved forward once more, only to be ignored, the woman walking around her as if avoiding a piece of street furniture.

  The next figure moved jerkily along one of the walkways. Sharyn watched as the red coat turned. The shapes of their bodies moved so close that they seemed to merge. Something white flashed. The girl’s arms went up, then came sharply down.

  Sharyn stepped back from the glass, almost tipping the table over. Her cocktail landed messily on the carpet. She pushed herself against the window, trying to open it, but successive layers of paint had sealed the frame.

  As she watched in horror the red coat flared and spun, then dropped. The figure beside the girl moved away swiftly, shifting awkwardly, more animal than human, to be lost in the murk of the trees a moment later. That was when Sharyn knew that the little junkie who haunted Russell Square Gardens had fallen, and now lay beyond reach in the muddy flowerbed beneath the lime trees.

  ‘I bloody hate this time of year,’ Meera Mangeshkar complained as she and Colin Bimsley made their way across the muddy grass of the cemetery at St Pancras Old Church. ‘The light’s so bad I feel like I’m on the Alien planet – Sigourney Weaver’s in the mother ship telling me where to go.’

  They had left for the night and were bundled under scarves, heading in the direction of the cheap Indian restaurants on Drummond Street, when the call came in that a body had been taken to Giles Kershaw for examination, so Longbright had asked them to swing by and report back.

  ‘What, a butcher’s at a junkie’s corpse followed by a chicken jalfrezi? Sounds like the perfect night out to me,’ said Bimsley, ringing the bell of the St Pancras Coroner’s Office.

  Giles Kershaw opened the door wide and admitted them with a sigh. ‘Let me guess, old Bryant sent you over to check on me because he thinks it’s a related killing,’ he said, leading the way. ‘Tell me I’m right.’

  ‘Actually it was Janice’s idea,’ said Colin. ‘I’m just following instructions, Mr Kershaw.’

  ‘Then you can give her the full report.’ The coroner handed him an envelope. ‘I’ve emailed it to Bryant but he doesn’t usually respond so I have no idea whether he ever receives them.’

  ‘He’s not great with computers,’ said Meera.

  ‘Of course not, they’ve only been in popular use for a quarter of a century. I’ll tell you what I’ve told him in this.’ He tapped the envelope.

  ‘Could we come in so you can tell us?’ Colin asked. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here.’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Giles. ‘Rosa’s just mopped the floor and she’ll go bananas if I let you plant your size twelves all over it.’

  ‘So you’re scared of her, too.’

  ‘Did I ever say I wasn’t? We have a young woman, Paula Machin, a twenty-seven-year-old registered heroin user with a string of minor convictions, last known address 140, Torrington House, Building C, colloquially known as the Fritzl Suite.’

  ‘You mean the rehab centre off the Cally Road?’

  ‘The very same. She was found strangled in Russell Square Gardens almost’ – he checked his watch – ‘two hours ago.’

  ‘And is it?’ asked Meera.

  ‘Is it what?’

  ‘A related killin
g?’

  Giles waggled a finger between them. ‘How much do they tell you two?’

  ‘You used to be based full-time at the unit,’ Meera replied. ‘We share everything.’

  Kershaw shrugged. ‘You know I’ll check. There’s a strong likelihood of the deaths being linked, and not just because of the park setting. Machin’s throat has the same ridged marks I found on Helen Forester. I don’t suppose it took much to kill her – she was a very sick young lady. She’s covered in unhealed scars and hadn’t eaten in two days. Dan’s over there right now, and I imagine the old man won’t be far behind – maybe you should take this straight over to him.’

  ‘There goes my chicken jalfrezi,’ said Bimsley.

  Dan Banbury had cordoned off the perimeter walkway and was working beneath an arc lamp that threw stochastic shadows across the privet and hornbeam hedges. A nearby statue portrayed the Duke of Bedford in preposterous Roman attire.

  Arthur Bryant stood with his hands in the pockets of his spare winter overcoat, twisting and ducking one way, then the other.

  ‘What?’ asked May, puzzled. ‘You’re like a dog looking for squirrels. I can almost see your ears moving. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m trying to see what she saw,’ said Bryant. ‘This is a cut-through for students. She knew they were more likely to give her money. The doorman at the hotel says she was a regular.’

  ‘So why are you doing your worry face?’ May asked.

  ‘I can’t help being wrinkly, these are my features,’ Bryant replied. ‘It’s just …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Alexander McQueen.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’