Wild Chamber

by Christopher Fowler

‘We think one was a case of mistaken identity. But she was a junkie, so maybe.’

  ‘There have been cases where the killers of addicts have left bodies displayed with the track marks on their arms exposed in order to shame them. Are you OK?’

  May wiped his forehead and found it covered in sweat. ‘I have to tell you something,’ he said. ‘A short while ago I was accused of a similar crime. I was with the deceased shortly before she died. It was an unusual situation but not unique in our profession.’

  ‘And you think something has changed in you.’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ May admitted.

  ‘It’s called transference, Mr May. You’re empathizing with the victim. I know your partner doesn’t have a reputation for being very empathetic—’

  ‘That’s putting it mildly.’

  ‘But you do. Did this accusation involve someone with whom you were intimately acquainted?’

  ‘You could say that, yes.’

  ‘Then I have a suggestion for you, although you won’t like it.’ Shoemaker set aside her coffee and rose. ‘Get your team taken off the case. Give it to someone who doesn’t care about it as much as you do. If there’s another attack, and from what you’ve told me it sounds likely that there will be, the perpetrator will enjoy taking you down with him.’ She smiled a little ruefully. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

  ‘I’m sorry it came in a jam jar,’ said May.

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Shoemaker. ‘Their chicken wings are served on typesetting boards. One person’s attempt at originality is another person’s stress trigger.’

  The chain was threaded through the railings in a series of clanking loops, and the padlock was placed through the chain and closed with a key. The warden of Bloomsbury Square stepped smartly away and pocketed the key in his jacket. The gates of the square were now closed until further notice. A great roar of disapproval went up from the crowd. People from every walk of life had assembled around the railings and had remained silent until now, but the sealing of the lock was their cue to express anger. Arms were raised in protest, placards appeared, torches were lit and suddenly fists contained rocks.

  All across the city, outside every garden and square, the same scene was occurring. Only the eight royal parks remained open, but in the face of massive government cuts, Leslie Faraday knew that these would not prove immune for long.

  The taking of London’s last great spaces had begun.

  26

  ‘HE DOESN’T LOOK THE TYPE’

  Before it became the centre of London’s Chinatown, Gerrard Street had been the home of the literary club at the Turk’s Head Tavern, where Samuel Johnson met Joshua Reynolds. The former location of artists, essayists, jazz players and glamour photographers had housed French hotels and gay bars, patisseries, a trumpet shop and the actress Glenda Jackson, who took a flat there for a romantic comedy. The real Chinatown had been in Limehouse, where London’s Chinese population set up shops for sailors uncrating tea and opium. Only Chinese males were allowed to settle, so a bizarre idea blossomed: that they were kidnapping Caucasian girls and selling them into slavery.

  With the new diaspora came integration. Now Gerrard Street was like every other Chinatown in the western world, a pedestrianized avenue of restaurants and supermarkets, with rows of vacuum-packed jackfruit and pomelos and glistening Peking ducks on butchers’ hooks, bordered by lacquered crimson gates and golden lions. The dodgy pubs and semi-legal drinking dens had vanished, but there were still passageways and basements where few westerners were invited.

  In one of its back alleys, behind the dim sum parlours, Jack Renfield and Colin Bimsley waited to meet a contact who had promised to talk to them about Sun Dark.

  ‘How do we know he’s going to tell us the truth?’ asked Bimsley, bouncing on and off a kitchen step slick with cooking oil, waiting for someone to answer their knock.

  ‘Don’t worry, I have a copper’s sixth sense that informs me when blokes are lying,’ said Renfield. ‘It’s only women who have the eerie power to cloud men’s minds. Speaking of which, how are you getting on with Meera?’

  Bimsley sucked his teeth, thinking. ‘To be absolutely honest, I’m not quite sure where I stand any more. I mean, she seems to like hanging out with me but we never get any closer.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t got your leg over.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it as crudely as that, Jack, but no. She came over to my gaff at the weekend and we watched Game of Thrones together. I thought the saucy bits might get her in the mood.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She picked all the topping off my pizza, finished my beer and fell asleep. How’s Janice? Is she going to take you back?’

  Renfield scratched at his chin, considering the question. ‘I don’t reckon so. She’s still pretty annoyed with me. Anyway, we can’t all be going out with women from the unit – it looks like we lack imagination. Do you ever see anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not, loyalty?’

  ‘Fear of being caught. She’d set fire to me, then wait ten years and come after my kids. The thing is with Meera – I love her.’ Bimsley surprised himself so much that he said it again. ‘I love her.’

  ‘Then you need to tell her as soon as possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Tax relief. And you’re in a dangerous job. She’ll need the pension.’

  The door opened and they found themselves confronted by a Chinese man dressed as Fu Manchu. His face was rouged and he wore grotesque blue eye make-up, a tall lacquered black wig, a slender drooping moustache and red silk robes.

  ‘Are you the cops?’ he asked in a broad cockney accent, scrutinizing the astonished detectives. ‘Come in, mate, I’m Lee, the geezer you made the appointment with. Sorry about the outfit, I’m playing the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado. We just finished rehearsals. These sleeves are driving me bleeding mad.’

  ‘Is it OK to talk in here?’ asked Bimsley as they stepped inside a narrow black-painted corridor.

  ‘Yeah, no worries, all our staff are Bubbles. You know, Greeks. They don’t give a toss what we talk about. You wanna drink?’

  ‘Well, we’re technically off duty,’ Renfield began, shrugging to Bimsley.

  ‘Cool, I’ll get some lagers in. You like Romanian beer? Get sat down in there.’ He indicated the private room of a restaurant on his left, and returned a couple of minutes later with a tray of Ciuc beers. The smell of crispy fried duck was in the air. ‘I’ll be glad to get out of this sodding outfit,’ he said. ‘It’s nylon. I nearly electrocuted myself on the radiator. It’s for the Soho Theatre – they got a bollocking for casting Caucasians so we stepped in to help out. About this bloke you’re after. You’re not gonna get near him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The CCTV shot you sent over – that wasn’t him, for a start. It’s one of his lads. He’s got heavies all over the place. Nobody knows what Sun Dark actually looks like. He never leaves Switzerland.’

  Renfield caught Bimsley’s eye. ‘I thought he was based in Shanghai and Hong Kong?’

  ‘No, he runs a consortium in Geneva and he puts out a lot of misinformation. He’s part French; his name is actually Sun Darque. Q-U-E.’

  ‘Is he in the habit of slaughtering his debtors? It seems a bit drastic.’

  ‘Not usually. If someone rips him off they just get the innards kicked out of them.’

  ‘How do you know about it?’ asked Colin, popping his beer.

  ‘The consortium owns four restaurants in Gerrard Street. One of our lads defaulted on a loan last year.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Lee winked. ‘Well, he doesn’t go to glove sales any more, if you get my meaning. No one can touch Sun Dark. The companies he owns here are clean but he has informants all over the place.’

  ‘So he’s not involved in human trafficking, then, which is what we heard?’ asked Renfield.

  Lee pulled his robe away from his neck, fann
ing himself. ‘I know what you’re thinking, sinister Orientals, all a bit Yellow Peril – it’s just an image he likes playing up. He’s a property developer, a businessman, hard to catch out.’

  ‘The guy in the CCTV footage,’ said Renfield. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know his name but we see him around a lot. He fancies himself as a bit of a hard-core Jack the Lad. But he ain’t a killer. If he’d caught your bloke he’d probably just have broken his arm.’

  ‘He threw a bunch of knives at his victim.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, and that. He was probably told to put the frighteners on his target,’ said Lee. ‘But he’s under instruction not to bring down trouble. I can’t vouch for what he gets up to in South East Asia but here Dark’s businesses are legit.’ He glanced from Bimsley to Renfield. ‘Look, you seem like nice lads, but you’re wasting your time with this. Dark will want to make sure his investment is returned. Loan sharks have sharp teeth, big surprise.’

  Folding his hands into the sleeves of his robe, Lee saw them back into the alley.

  ‘Well, that was weird,’ said Bimsley as the pair headed back towards Leicester Square. ‘An Oriental bloke impersonating an Englishman playing an Oriental.’

  Renfield gave him a funny look. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Mikado is about the English. Gilbert and Sullivan, innit? They only came up with the idea because Japanese imports were fashionable in London households.’

  ‘God, now you sound like old Bryant.’

  ‘After a while he starts to rub off on you,’ said Bimsley. ‘You should try reading a book occasionally.’

  ‘Nah, you can’t play games on a book.’

  ‘We wasted our time here.’

  ‘Hard to tell. If Sun Dark’s that slippery, who’s to say his informants aren’t playing the same game?’ Renfield slapped him harder on the back than he meant to. ‘For now Forester’s our only real suspect.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  Renfield stepped aside to allow a vegetable porter through. ‘He brings the chaos of gangland London into his household because he’s greedy and overambitious, right? He loses his job, gets into a lethal debt spiral, panics, kills his wife and nanny in a mistaken-identity Lord Lucan-type deal, fails to get hold of his passport and tries to do a runner. End of.’

  Bimsley wiped his cold nose on the back of his glove. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Renfield.

  ‘Have you never noticed? Most major investigative units come on board after the crime, but we always seem to get involved while they’re still unfolding. If it ends here, maybe you’re right. But we still have to find a way of proving it. Besides, you’re forgetting the gardener.’

  ‘What, Jackson? Come off it.’

  ‘He was there when Helen Forester died.’

  ‘Nah, he doesn’t look the type.’

  ‘Doesn’t look the type? That’s not very scientific, is it?’

  ‘You don’t need science to spot a walking apology. He’s the sort of bloke who’d buy a non-lethal mousetrap. He likes plants, Colin.’

  They threaded between shoppers drifting past the tinselly tourist shops of Newport Court, their windows filled with waving ceramic cats, and headed for Leicester Square tube station, arguing all the way.

  While the staff of the PCU became increasingly disoriented and lost in the undergrowth of circumstances surrounding the case, the general public were taking action. All across the city protest groups had begun chaining themselves to park railings, and eighteen police officers had been hospitalized. News stations were warning of an escalation in violent clashes.

  Leslie Faraday was unavailable for comment.

  THE FOURTH DAY

  27

  ‘I HAVE A HEAD FOR THE PECULIARITIES OF HISTORY’

  Thursday dawned with grudging apricity. The sky was clothed in pink and silver, as gaudy as a Christmas cake. Ice rimed the branches, starred the pavements and crystallized litter in sharded gutters. The canal water had hardened, its surface as cloudy as an antique mirror. Geese and moorhens skidded about on it, more awkward than teenagers.

  Looking down on King’s Cross you’d have noticed an odd phenomenon: every other roof was covered in white frost, forming a patchwork quilt, an indicator of which properties were owned by overseas investors and which had warm families inside.

  Arthur Bryant was always frozen in midsummer, so now he layered himself like a shoplifter in Primark.

  ‘I’m surprised you can move about in all that,’ remarked May as he picked his partner up from the flat in Harrison Street.

  ‘It’s bad weather for the chest,’ Bryant explained as he attempted to wedge himself into the passenger seat of his partner’s BMW. ‘I’m not taking any chances. I’m wearing my string vest, undervest, thermals, shirt, cardigan, scarf, jacket and topcoat. If I fall over you’ll have to help me up. We need to hurry.’

  ‘Why, where are we going?’ asked May, starting the engine.

  ‘Colin just got a tip-off on Sharyn Buckland,’ said Bryant, trying to drag his seatbelt over his stomach. ‘Someone saw a woman fitting her description a few minutes ago at Fenchurch Street Station. He and Meera have gone on ahead.’

  ‘How do they know it’s her?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ snapped Bryant impatiently. ‘Do I really have to explain?’

  ‘Yes, it would be helpful.’

  ‘Sharyn Buckland made costumes for the Muswell Hill Community Theatre on Monday evenings, and her sewing partner …’

  A truck overtook them, drowning Bryant out.

  ‘… performing with Les Norman and his Bethnal Green Bambinos …’

  They passed three workmen drilling a hole in the tarmac of the Euston Road.

  ‘… in a charity production of The Duchess of Malfi …’

  May’s thoughts drifted. He’d meant to take his shoes in to get them resoled.

  ‘… to return the sequined headdress before she got fined …’

  He wished he’d had breakfast.

  ‘… and paid with a credit card at the station which was immediately flagged on to the system.’

  ‘So someone recognized her,’ he said impatiently.

  ‘Yes, but not from the payment, from The Duchess of Malfi. You weren’t listening to a word I said.’

  ‘Every other word. Something about sequins. Let’s see if we can get to her first.’ May put his foot down and they headed south-east across the city.

  Helen was dead and nothing would bring her back, but the circumstances of that death made no sense. Sharyn Buckland thought of herself as a calm and rational woman, a fundamentally English woman, someone who wanted nothing more special than the realization of reasonable expectations: a home, a partner, a child, order and peace. Instead, her life had taken a terrible turn.

  It didn’t seem possible that she could be at risk, but Helen and the junkie girl were both gone; Sharyn had heard about the first murder and witnessed the second – had tangentially caused the girl’s death, in fact – and now she in turn was being followed.

  Sharyn chewed at a cuticle, worrying about her next step. What if she went to the police? How could they protect her? Nothing had been right since little Charlie had died, and the situation was worsening daily. She looked around. The streets were emptying as people vanished into their offices to start the working day.

  She needed to sit in a calm place, a safe place, and think it over. St Olave’s was one of her favourite spots in the City because it lacked the melancholy atmosphere of larger churches. Grateful to have someone to talk to, the lonely verger had told her lots of odd stories about the place, and she had taken to coming here whenever she felt conflicted.

  She paused beneath the stone archway leading to the churchyard, the one with three grinning skulls at its centre, and passed inside.

  The neatly manicured churchyard was empty; nobody used its benches in the winter. The sound of traffic faded away. As she walked towards the church’s door
s she had the distinct impression of a shadow moving to her right. She stopped and turned slowly, listening. She heard the steady drip of rainwater dropping from a downpipe, then a ruffle of dead leaves like the breathing of corpses.

  The feeling of being watched returned.

  She continued towards the doors, her skin prickling. There was another dry rattle, and a shift in the gloom.

  Something whistled through the air close to her head.

  She felt a sting at her throat and watched in horror as the dark figure divorced itself from the bushes and something dropped over her with impossible speed.

  May checked his phone. ‘If it’s her, she’s heading along Crutched Friars. There’s an old church on the street – Colin’s ahead of us. He’ll meet us at St Olave’s.’

  ‘It’s been there since twelve hundred and something,’ said Bryant, tapping spatulate fingers on the dashboard. ‘It escaped the Great Fire of London. Samuel Pepys had a staircase built from his office so that he could reach it without being rained on. He’s buried there, under a table. Queen Elizabeth the First gave the wardens silken bell ropes because they had rung the loudest bells in London to celebrate her release from the Bloody Tower. I’m boring you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said May, hanging a left. ‘I love your abstruse arcana. I’m all ears until we reach our destination. Pray continue.’

  ‘Well, it seems Mother Goose is also buried there, I mean the woman who played the original pantomime character, and the grave of Mary Ramsey is there too – she’s the woman who brought the Plague to London.’ Bryant warmed to his subject. ‘And there’s a memorial to the grocers of Fenchurch Street who supplied the tea crates for the Boston Tea Party, although I’m not sure why they wanted to celebrate that. Charles Dickens called the church St Ghastly Grim. In 1941 an incendiary bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe melted the bells, and they were remade by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, who had provided them in 1662.’

  ‘Hm.’ May pulled up at the lights. ‘What’s your home phone number?’