Wild Chamber

by Christopher Fowler

  A moment later, just as the film’s certificate appeared on the screen, Buff felt a tap on his shoulder. It was unthinkable that anyone should interrupt him during his viewing experience. The staff had long ago learned to stay away until after the lights had come up.

  ‘We need to talk to you,’ said Bryant in his worst stage whisper. ‘Police business.’

  Buff was unable to tear his eyes from the credits. ‘Can’t it wait until the end of the film?’

  ‘Come on, up,’ said May, leading the reluctant Buff upstairs. He was not prepared to tolerate any nonsense. ‘What’s so special about that film anyway?’

  To Buff, all films were special, even the really bad ones starring Keanu Reeves. ‘It’s a British art-house classic.’

  ‘Oh, one of those where the actors leave five-minute pauses between lines and the rest is tinkling piano music and a lot of staring out of windows. My colleague wants your advice on a police matter, heaven knows why. Is there somewhere quiet where we can go?’

  The Phoenix Artist Club was the last surviving bastion of old Soho, even though it was not technically situated in Soho itself but on the other side of Charing Cross Road, which divided Soho from – what exactly? An odd wedge of no man’s land once known as St Giles, some rain-blackened houses, an unkempt square, several pungent alleyways and a dilapidated church. For centuries it had acted as the connective tissue to more vital organs. Now it looked as if a bomb had been dropped on the neighbourhood. An insalubrious past had been cleared to make way for a bright, bland future.

  On the corner of one alley stood a lone survivor, the Phoenix Theatre, a curved and colonnaded playhouse constructed in restrained Italianate style. Underneath the building was something odder: the clubhouse, open to members and those who could answer an assortment of whimsical theatre-related questions.

  The detectives made their way down its winding staircase. In the light of the gleaming brass bar Nathan Buff appeared much younger. ‘I thought it had to be you, Mr Bryant,’ he said with a theatrical exhalation. ‘The way you turned up at the door, like Rick Blaine surveying his nightclub in Casablanca. Well, you’ve ruined my evening’s entertainment. How can I help you?’

  ‘Pictures in the Park,’ said Bryant. ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘I set it up.’ Buff flagged down a barman and magnanimously ordered pints. He seemed pent-up with a tremendous energy that could be unleashed by any discussion of films. ‘A fortnightly event sponsored by my paymasters, the philistines at Hard News. Cult cinema attracts an urban audience, solvent and youthful. Our outdoor screenings of The Wicker Man had a positively pagan impact.’ His pint of Guinness had left a foamy stripe across his moustache that Bryant longed to flick away.

  ‘Weren’t you invaded by anti-capitalist rioters?’ said May, looking around at the motley theatricals inhabiting the red velvet bar stools.

  ‘A disruption coordinated by a rival critic,’ Buff explained, wincing at the thought. ‘Just a blogger, of course, not a real writer. We professional critics are losing readers to unpaid amateurs. I was J. J. Hunsecker to his Sidney Falco.’

  ‘That analogy doesn’t run true, though, does it?’ said Bryant. ‘You’re more Sheridan Whiteside to his Hildy Johnson.’

  May had no idea that his partner ever went to the cinema. Just when he thought he knew everything about Bryant that there was to know, the old curmudgeon still had the capacity to surprise him. ‘Once you two have finished out-geeking each other,’ he intervened, ‘could we perhaps get back to the matter in hand?’

  Bryant felt inside his jacket. ‘Do you have a club membership list?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Our investigator turned up this at the crime scene. Unfortunately it was torn in half and has no date.’ He handed over a clear plastic packet. ‘This is a ticket stub to Pictures in the Park, isn’t it?’

  Buff held it to the light and examined it. ‘Yes, but it could be for any performance. We don’t print individual tickets; it’s too expensive. What else did you find?’

  ‘Those interactive screenings where people throw things. Is there any reason why they’d throw lead shot?’

  ‘No, they mostly chuck toilet rolls and confetti, but we stopped them from doing it because it was too expensive to clear up. Now I don’t suppose we’ll ever have another screening in a park, seeing as they’re all shut.’

  ‘Can we see the membership list?’ asked May.

  ‘I always have it with me,’ said Buff, flourishing his phone, only to withhold it. ‘There are over four hundred names and addresses here. I can’t just give you their details. Why do you ask, anyway?’

  ‘Because three women have been murdered in public locations and I suspect their killer chose the spots because he knows them well. Two of the three are sites you use for your Pictures in the Park events. Surely, given your connection with the Metropolitan Film Unit, you’d be keen to help us.’

  ‘I am, and don’t call me Shirley,’ said Buff, who was incapable of leaving a film reference unacknowledged. He saw the world not through the pleasures and pitfalls of grubby-palmed experience, but through the pristine prism of an anamorphic lens flicking light on to a screen. Life became more manageable when it was viewed at a distance.

  May accepted the phone and searched the list, but no names jumped out at him.

  There had to be something else. ‘Strangulation,’ Bryant caught himself saying aloud. ‘How many films are there that feature such a murder method?’

  Back on safe ground, Buff perked up. ‘Well, the obvious one is Hitchcock’s Frenzy, about the Covent Garden necktie murderer, but there are countless others before the 1960s because it’s a bloodless method of killing. Prior to the arrival of Psycho the censors were far more squeamish about showing murders, but they allowed strangulation. No Way to Treat a Lady, The Stranglers of Bombay and The Haunted Strangler are specifically about killers using that method. The trouble is that death occurs in just about every story ever told. We prefer darkness to light. Even Jane Eyre and Rebecca have houses on fire in the final reel.’

  May looked over at his partner and knew he was about to indignantly point out that Jane Eyre and Rebecca were novels, but for once Bryant spotted his look and stayed quiet. ‘Do you personally know all your members?’

  ‘We have some spare time between features so I talk to them, and I guess they’re on nodding acquaintance with each other, but only in the way that men are when they find themselves accidentally sharing the same space,’ said Buff. ‘When we showed Gravity, the bar was crowded with chaps arguing about the impossibility of opening an airlock with a spanner.’ He sighed. ‘We don’t have as many women in the club as we’d like.’

  ‘According to your schedule you repeat a lot of the films,’ said Bryant. ‘Do people come to see them more than once?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Buff looked from one to the other. ‘The same people come again and again. When we ran The Wicker Man we had incredible repeat audiences. Not for the Nicolas Cage version, obviously, but for the extended cut of Robin Hardy’s original masterpiece.’

  ‘Do you get people with, shall we say, special interests at your screenings?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘It depends on what you mean,’ said the film critic. ‘There’s a group that usually takes a whole row of seats.’

  ‘Can you point out their names?’

  Buff gave him a look of genuine apology. ‘I happen to know that one of them is currently under investigation. Flashing in the park.’

  ‘Not at an event of yours, I hope.’ Bryant pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and flattened it out on the bar. ‘There may be a licence problem with your cinema club. Westminster Council has very precise rules about health and safety.’

  ‘Really? Are you threatening me?’ Buff assumed a look of outrage. ‘What are you now, Bad Lieutenant?’

  ‘Which version?’ asked Bryant. ‘Harvey Keitel or Nicolas Cage?’

  ‘Maybe you should recast yourself as Lieutena
nt Kinderman in The Exorcist,’ sniped Buff loftily. ‘He considered himself a movie fan.’

  ‘You’d be better off thinking of me as Richard Attenborough playing Inspector Truscott in Loot,’ Bryant countered. ‘Above the law and liable to lash out when you least expect it. What about film seasons that could appeal to people of an unstable nature?’

  ‘Well, we have our Cold-Blooded Killers season at the Prince Charles. And membership for Pictures in the Park gets you into several other clubs. I can give you some contacts.’

  ‘I want a list of all attendees,’ said Bryant. ‘There may be something we’ve missed.’

  ‘In that case I’ll need to cross-reference them,’ said Buff. ‘I’ll leave you to look under that particular rock because some pretty strange people attend. There is one thing, though. Whenever we show movies with sequences set in parkland we get a slightly different type of audience.’

  Bryant’s ears pricked up. ‘Really? Different in what way?’

  ‘I suppose they’re more romantically inclined. There’s something sensual about grass and trees with a breeze blowing through them, especially on film. Have you ever noticed how Fellini’s movies all use the sound of the wind to indicate sensuality?’

  ‘I can’t say I have,’ said Bryant.

  ‘And there’s often a slightly sinister mysticism. I suppose an obvious example would be Picnic at Hanging Rock, in which three virginal schoolgirls dressed in white simply vanish into thin air in an idyllic pastoral setting. Blow-Up has a famous scene featuring a murder filmed in South London’s Maryon Park. David Hemmings plays a photographer who witnesses the killer and his victim struggling in the distance. He takes photographs, but when he looks at the pictures he can’t be sure if they show a murder. The mood of the film is strangely sensual. There’s a mimed game of tennis, and the trees keep rustling – it’s a sylvan setting that’s poisoned somehow, and maybe someone dies or makes love, it’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Have you ever screened that in Russell Square?’ asked Bryant.

  Buff did not need to check his phone. ‘Just last week, last of the season,’ he answered. ‘The location is so perfect that in some scenes it was hard to tell where the screen ended and the park began.’

  34

  ‘PLACES HAVE THE POWER TO HAUNT AND DISTURB’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ asked May as they left the club and headed out into the crowds of Leicester Square. ‘We’re running out of time to uncover a link between the victims and you’re arguing about obscure films.’

  ‘It’s the only way to get anything out of Buff,’ said Bryant. ‘He wants to believe he’s in the movie of his life, but he loves being involved in real-life crimes. I need him to give me a name.’

  ‘It’s a lot to hang on a torn cinema ticket.’ May pushed through a group of capering silver-clad jugglers tossing burning clubs to each other.

  ‘It’s a long shot, I’ll give you that.’ Bryant parted the buskers with his walking stick, causing them to scatter fiery skittles everywhere. One of them called him a wanker.

  ‘You think someone was corrupted by watching a few weird movies? The idea that films are linked to antisocial behaviour was discredited years ago.’

  They turned into Charing Cross Road. ‘John, there are a huge number of documented cases in which killers have obsessively watched films replicating their crimes,’ said Bryant. ‘Could you slow down a little? I’m still in recovery. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Right now we don’t have much else to go on.’ He looked about at the milling crowds. ‘I’m not ready to go home yet. That last beer cleared my head.’

  ‘I doubt that very much, Arthur.’

  ‘Rubbish, it’s a brain sharpener. They used to give it to children.’

  ‘Only because London water was too disgusting to drink.’ May sighed. ‘Well, I officially have no home life any more so I might as well carry on discussing the case with you over another pint.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said Bryant. ‘What could be more satisfying than your work? Everything else is just marking time until you peg out.’

  They made their way down to the Coal Hole pub on the Strand, thence to the Wolf Parlour, the gloomy Gothic room at its rear which had been christened by the great tragedian Edmund Keane. Since the conversion of the Nun and Broken Compass into luxury flats, the Coal Hole had returned to being Bryant’s favourite old pub.

  ‘I hear Land’s reconstruction footage isn’t usable. He’s probably unhappy with the performances.’ May summoned the barman and ordered two pints of Farmer’s Arse Best Bitter. ‘If the killer used Beauchamp’s leash to strangle Helen Forester, surely he wouldn’t have reattached it to the dog afterwards.’

  ‘But that’s precisely why he would have done so,’ said Bryant. ‘The dog then takes away the evidence. What happened to it, do we know?’

  ‘I tried to find out. The leash was still joined to his collar when Meera found him in Green Park but it went missing some time after.’

  Bryant was appalled. ‘You mean to say we lost the murder weapon? There could be DNA evidence on it.’

  ‘We didn’t know it was the weapon. I asked Meera if she remembered what happened to it, and she thinks it was still on the dog when we took him to Mrs Farrier. The old lady insists there was no leash. Dan got her to search for it but she didn’t find anything.’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t tell Raymond or he’ll inform Faraday and we’ll be crucified.’

  May rubbed a fist across his aching temples. ‘Of all the cock-ups we’ve made, this has to be one of the worst. Dark was right when he talked about other countries being ahead of us. Why are we still conducting investigations without funds or equipment? I read yesterday that everyone in Estonia has a digital identity. They can use hundreds of state services online, access medical records and prescriptions, file taxes, register businesses, manage their education. The system can’t be abused, either, because everyone has equal access.’

  ‘We don’t need to trace electronic footprints,’ said Bryant. ‘You and I should be able to solve this together with the judicious application of logic, an innate understanding of human nature and at least three more of these.’ He peered into his empty glass. ‘And some pork scratchings.’

  ‘Why parks, though? Why does he feel the compulsion to attack them there? That’s what I can’t fathom. There are plenty of other areas not covered by CCTV. It can’t just be that.’

  ‘The deaths have a specific purpose,’ Bryant stated. ‘To bury the truth.’

  ‘Isn’t this the point in the investigation where you drag out some potty academic and go off dowsing for ley lines?’ asked May. ‘We could really use a little help from someone right now.’

  ‘Ah, I thought I’d find you here,’ called a familiar voice. ‘I had to go to Marabelle and Dimmock to get an ectoplasmic shield and thought, I bet they’ve popped into the Coal Hole.’

  Maggie Armitage, the good-natured Grand Order Grade IV White Witch who ran the Coven of St James the Elder in Kentish Town, barely came up above the height of the bar. ‘I say, could I have a milk stout and blackcurrant?’ She dug into her purse and laid out several unfamiliar coins, what appeared to be a dehydrated bat and a receipt for two candles purchased from Our Lady of the Pointless Miracle, Walthamstow. Her fingerless gloves were knitted from rainbow lace and her sparkled nails were chipped to reveal multiple layers of paint, like old doors. May watched her with ill-concealed disgust. ‘All of my small change appears to be Egyptian. Would you stand me a drink, old sock?’

  ‘Of course, Maggie. It would be my utmost pleasure.’ Bryant emptied his coat pocket on to the bar counter and spread out seventeen and sixpence three farthings in pre-1973 money, two tram tickets and a Benwell’s Aerial Bombshell left over from a long-past Guy Fawkes night. ‘Why do you need an ectoplasmic shield?’

  ‘Oh, Dame Maude’s been suppurating again. Her familiar is on the blink. General Fortissimo hasn’t been the same since we got rid of the storage heaters. It’s too damp for him.
When we hold a séance I usually put a dust sheet down for spillages but last night he materialized a psychokinetic membrane that realigned our Sky dish and set off Maude’s car alarm. I miss Rothschild. He was a lovely cat when he was alive, but a brilliant medium after he passed beyond. Of course he was never the same once he got the moth.’ She looked up at the barman, who was still waiting to be paid. ‘I think we may need another sixpence.’

  ‘You’re as bad as each other.’ May surveyed the mess of pocket contents on the bar counter. ‘Let me.’ He swiped his contactless credit card over the machine on the counter.

  ‘There,’ said Bryant, ‘you’ve just sent your electronic fingerprint to China. If you want to evade detection you should stick to hard cash.’

  ‘But I don’t want to evade detection, do I?’ said May, suddenly feeling outnumbered by lunatics. ‘You haven’t been able to use old money for over forty years, and that firework is dangerous.’

  ‘I’m only doing what Jeremy Forester was doing,’ Bryant insisted. ‘He couldn’t use his cards, so he made himself untraceable. But he couldn’t avoid returning to his old haunts. He needed to visit his wife and his assistant in person. Dark knew he’d turn up at one of the addresses as soon as he ran out of money.’

  ‘Is this about catching the park strangler?’ asked Maggie. ‘What larks! Is there anything I can do to help?’

  May considered the proposal. This diminutive smiling lady of an uncertain age, her eyes shining and ever-hopeful, her raspberry-shaded hair sprinkled with gold glitter, her throat and bosom festooned with cheap gilt ropes like chain mail on one of King Arthur’s camper knights, was honestly and wholeheartedly offering her services. ‘What could you do, Maggie?’ he asked as kindly as possible.

  ‘I may not know what drives these people to commit such awful crimes,’ she said, ‘but I do know a lot about the human spirit. The walls between life and death are very thin. I can see them, all of the lost ones. And I know that much ritualized behaviour is associated with green spaces.’