Bryant & May 04; Ten Second Staircase b&m-4

by Christopher Fowler

  But Martell was a bigger challenge. He wasn’t likely to kill himself, and he wasn’t likely to get another high-profile job after this, either. It wasn’t his first slip from grace; this particular romp was the third in an ongoing series of dropped hurdles. Freelance paparazzi spoke disparagingly of his weakness for Brazilian supermodels, so clichéd, so vanilla, but they were happy to exploit it.

  For the past two years, Martell had been hosting Britain’s most popular Saturday teenage lifestyle show on ITV1. Now he could see himself having to present lunchtime cookery quizzes on zero-audience channels like ChefTV. He was going through a bad patch; his wife had left him, which would have gained him sympathy except that he had sold his side of the story to Sunday People, and it wasn’t very sympathetic, or even feasible.

  No-one understood the pressure he was under. Danny was a perfectionist. He had turned a lousy show into a smash hit; work ate up every hour of his day. How could he hold down a relationship, or have any stability in his life? Who could he trust?

  Even when you’re a success, he thought, it becomes a matter of degree. You’re not as successful as a hit show on another channel, you’re successful in England but not the U.S., you’re successful for a season but not on a yearly aggregate. These days even his leisure time was pressurised. Celebrity is about access, he remembered. It’s your only weapon: Someone pisses you off, you deny them access. But he could no longer afford to do that.

  One lousy Monday evening in a Clerkenwell lap-dancing bar – a couple of short lines, a few cocktails, and home to bed; he hadn’t exactly behaved like Caligula. He hadn’t seen anyone he’d recognised, either, hadn’t had his picture taken, so where were the shots coming from?

  His agent told him to expect a headline in the national tabloids, and at least four pages of revelations, maybe more, in the Sundays. In just a few hours his career would be downgraded, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  As he pushed open the door to the gym, he wondered if the channel would carry out their threat to terminate his contract. He was due to start a new season of shows but was still in pay negotiations. At the very least, they’d bargain a cut in salary.

  For a second he thought he heard something, a sound he hadn’t heard in years – but it disappeared before he could properly register it.

  As he headed for the changing room, he told himself there was no point in stressing about the future. Worrying would only spoil his workout. He insisted on having the entire gym to himself; it had caused a fuss at the time, especially as it meant evicting the women’s group that met here on Tuesday evenings, but he had stuck to his guns and asked his agent to strike a deal with the owner, booking out the entire final hour for his exclusive use twice a week. Actually, it hadn’t been that tough to arrange; the gym was badly in need of renovation, and most of its users had moved to a more fashionable fitness centre in High Holborn.

  He had put on twelve pounds in the last few months, and his doctor had warned him about the consequences of neglecting his regime while working in such a high-pressure job. Stepping into the weights room in coordinated blue-and-white Lycra gym gear and rubber sport sandals, he caught sight of his belly in the mirror and felt a twinge of embarrassment. Thank God there are no photographers to get a shot of me like this, he thought.

  He puffed for ten minutes on the rowing machine, watching the rain as fat grey droplets started to spatter the first-floor windows of the renovated Smithfield apartment building opposite. There was a storm coming, and he’d just had the Jaguar washed.

  He wished he’d never made the fitness video; it had been intended as a bit of fun, but now every crew he worked with expected him to give them dietary guidelines. Didn’t they realise he had simply been given a script and told where to stand? Didn’t they have any idea how many times he’d been swabbed with towels and fresh make-up between takes? Fitness wasn’t necessary when you had good lighting.

  Needles of pain flittered between his shoulder blades. Pain is good, he told himself. This is helping. I could shed a stone, lay off the chems, and stop having to pay for sex, really turn my life around.

  On the wall opposite was a luscious poster of an impossibly slender Brazilian girl in a tiny white string bikini, her skin the rich umbrous colour of dates. She was probably eighteen, no more than twenty, high buttocks, flat stomach, large luscious breasts. He pulled at the oars, stretched his legs, felt a warm lolling in his shorts. Girls like that can have anything; the rest of us have to work at it. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, so he slowed his pace and groped about for a towel.

  How many weeks would it take, he wondered, how many hours spent on this damned Californian torture rack, to burn the extravagances of the last few years from his body? The effort of climbing out of the rowing machine nearly sent him reeling back to the changing room.

  I shouldn’t feel this bad at forty-eight, he told himself. People forget all the years I worked the clubs before I got a break. Now all they can do is shout at me in the street: “I won’t try that again!” Why did he ever come up with such a stupid catchphrase? He should have known it would shadow him to the grave, probably be carved on his tombstone. He moved to the pectoral press, adjusted the seat, and lowered the weights. Fifteen reps on this, if he was lucky, then some abdominal crunches and off for a shower.

  A low rumble of thunder vibrated the windows. The approaching storm outside made the empty gym a melancholy place. Its brightly painted walls required music and a foreground of pumping athletes to bring the room to life. He was about to raise his hands to the rubber grips and begin his set when he heard the noise again. This time it was clearer, louder, more defined. A horse’s galloping hooves, a rush of wind, even a whinny, as tailored and distinct as a BBC sound effect.

  It sounded as if it was in the next room. The gymnasium had been constructed across the first floor of the converted warehouse. There were apartments above, behind, and below – somebody had their television up too loud.

  He began to work out, feeling the now-recognisable streak of pain flash along the line of his buried musculature, and wondered if he had set the weight too high. Beginners always did that, the trainer had warned him. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a bright idea, firing her, but it would have been too distracting trying to exercise while catching glimpses of her moist tanned cleavage.

  Forked lightning forms a zigzag; it takes the path of least resistance through the air. He saw it but didn’t believe what he was witnessing, because it was here, inside the room with him, a crisp white line tinged blue at the edges, passing before his eyes.

  He felt the arrhythmic pulse deep within the cage of his chest, like soldiers breaking step, or a band squeezing an unfamiliar chord into a well-known song. Something bad was happening. His heart hadn’t skipped a beat; it was beating too often, and could not regain its rightful balance.

  Extreme heat in his flesh – the palms of his hands – a searing pain that reached to the insteps of his feet – a plunge into icy bitterness – a hollow forming deep inside, as though something had just jammed and collapsed. A tangle of seared nerves, and a sensation of falling, dropping away.

  He had been pushing the elbow pads of the Nautilus machine forward, but now they whipped back, releasing him. As he fell, he knew that the terrifying silence in his chest was caused by the sudden stopping of his heart.

  He was almost relieved to know that he would not have to suffer the indignity of seeing tomorrow’s headlines.

  ∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧

  16

  Voluptuous Harm

  “I’m sorry to pull you out in such disgusting weather,” Dan Banbury apologised. “Nobody saw the storm coming in.” The young cockney crime scene manager had been playing squash at Islington’s Sobell Centre when he received the summons, and was still sweating so much that he had trouble fitting his disposable gloves. “I rang your mobile for ages, but there was no answer.”

  The pair were standing outside the first-floor door of the Smithfield Fitte
r Body Centre. Arthur Bryant undid the buttons of another shapeless raincoat he had purchased from Caledonian Road market. He had taken his partner’s advice to treat himself to some more clothes. Unfortunately, the ones he had chosen were every bit as horrible as the items in his existing wardrobe. “No, it doesn’t ring anymore. I only realised someone was calling when I saw it vibrate across the table into my landlady’s Ruby Murray. We had a date in Brick Lane with a biryani. I’ll be tasting it all evening now.” He picked a piece of curried prawn from his jumper and flicked it over the stairwell.

  “You’ll be glad you came, though. I think you’re going to like this.” Banbury spoke without a trace of irony. “Ostensibly, we’re looking at a heart attack on an exercise machine. No-one’s been into the gymnasium apart from Mr Martell himself.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Bryant.

  “The owner is a German gentleman who apparently loves Martell’s TV show. He cleared the gym at eight-fifteen P.M., ready for Martell to come and do his workout at eight-thirty P.M. There’s a bit of resentment from the city boys over the fact that Mr Schneider closes the gym for private sessions several times a week, but his name is on the lease, and there are no bylaws preventing him from doing what he likes with the place. Presumably he gets paid well for the service.”

  Banbury tapped a grey metal box beside the entrance door. “Standard smart-card system. One swipe gets you in and out. Each card is registered to its member, so the staff know exactly who’s in the place at any given time. It’s also a security measure – they have a few minor celebrities using the place and don’t want photographers grabbing shots of people in the showers. The point is, all the cards are accounted for. Everyone came out, the room, showers, and toilet stalls were all checked, then fifteen minutes later Martell arrived and swiped himself in. He never checked out. The box hasn’t been tampered with, so it looks as if he was the only one inside.”

  “Who found his body?”

  “The cleaner came in to turn off the running machines and wipe down the wash basins. She called the owner, who called Clerkenwell nick, who called us. I took a quick look and closed up again, because I wanted you to see exactly what I saw.”

  “Let’s cut through some of the mystery, shall we?” Bryant shoved at the door but couldn’t open it. Looking around, he lifted the entry card from Banbury and swiped himself inside.

  “Hang on, sir, we haven’t – ”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch anything.”

  “I was going to say we haven’t checked that it’s safe.”

  “Why would it need a safety check?” called Bryant, searching for the lights. “I thought you said he died of a heart attack.”

  “It looks that way,” replied Banbury, moving ahead to where the body still lay. “There are – anomalies.”

  “You’re being cryptic, Banbury. Kindly stop being so.”

  “It’s just that we have two witnesses, two old birds in the apartment opposite. They called the police. I think you’ll be rather interested in what they have to say.”

  Bryant halted and raised a finger. “Wait, when you say ‘interested,’ you mean ‘irritated and frustrated,’ don’t you. Kershaw’s oddly euphemistic speech patterns are starting to rub off on you.”

  Banbury looked sheepish. “What I mean is, they’re a bit of a handful. I think it will be a late night at the unit. The Highwayman’s back.”

  Bryant’s watery blue eyes widened. “You’re calling him that as well?”

  “Everyone’s picking up on the nickname, sir.”

  “Did he leave another calling card?”

  “Not that we can see. He did better than that this time – ”

  “Let’s have a quick shufti at the crime scene first, eh? Where’s John?”

  “I believe he’s on his way. He was – ”

  “Out with Monica Greenwood, his married lady friend; yes, I know. While her husband is still lying comatose in hospital. The man has no scruples when it comes to attractive women. He behaves like a racing driver around them. Always leaves them windswept and out of breath. Either it’s the effect of his overbearing charm or he only dates asthmatics. I don’t know where he finds the energy.”

  “Actually, sir, you seem to have more energy than any of us,” Banbury admitted. “You’re a positive inspiration.”

  “Don’t be obsequious, Banbury, nobody likes a creep. And I don’t have excess energy, I’m just on these new tablets. Two sets of gel capsules for different times of the day. The blue ones fire my engines and the red ones leave me utterly disoriented. Pray I don’t get them muddled up. Now, where’s the body?”

  The gymnasium ran in an L-shape around the apartment building, its exterior wall cut with tall Gothic windows overlooking a quiet side road leading away from the cavernous meat market. St John Street could be glimpsed in the distance, a broad curve of Victorian turrets and sharp glass boxes. The building was a former furniture repository for Gamages, the long-vanished department store in Holborn. The wide, bright space and high ceilings had made it ideal for conversion, although to Bryant’s thinking it seemed perverse to fill the place with running machines when there were perfectly good pavements passing beside the Thames.

  They found the lights and flicked them back on. One side of the L was dedicated to cardiovascular equipment, the other to controlled weight systems. At the far end of the latter, Danny Martell lay facedown on the blue carpet tiles, where he had fallen onto his knees, a portly supplicant worshipping in the temple of Narcissus. Motes of dust filled the still air, lending the fitness room a hazy, dreamlike aura.

  “Do you feel it?” asked Bryant, taking stock of the scene. “Something strange, an odd presence.”

  “The air is ionised, but I think I know what you mean. And I’m not normally sensitive to bad feelings.” Banbury looked about uncomfortably as the skin on his arms prickled.

  “Do you believe in the physical manifestation of evil?” Bryant was staring at him oddly.

  “I’m a scientist, sir. But as a Christian, I believe” – he chose his words carefully – “in the absence of good.”

  “Hm. It’s just that some death sites – ” Bryant thought for a moment, and decided not to share his philosophy. “Why isn’t Kershaw here?” He looked around for the unit’s crime scene manager. But for the photographer and the two Met officers guarding the gym entrance, he and Banbury were alone.

  “He had to go to Orpington tonight, sir. His sister’s getting married at the weekend. She’s having a hen night and asked him to look after the kids.”

  “Her second marriage?”

  “No, sir, first.”

  “Charming. She’s not supposed to already have progeny if she’s only just getting to the altar; it’s like ordering dessert before your main course. Next you’ll be telling me they’re from different fathers.”

  Banbury could never be sure when his boss was joking, although he knew that the old man was not as conservative as he sounded. Indeed, Longbright had warned him to treat the detective’s outbursts with caution; Bryant’s sense of humour at crime scenes was hard to fathom, as if he deflected his feelings about death with swift changes of topic.

  The old detective used his hated walking stick to lower himself beside Martell. Without Kershaw to examine the body, he would have to rely on his own observations. “Very florid in the face. The burst blood vessels are suggestive. Should he have been using these ridiculous things without supervision?” He peered into the dead man’s eyes, staring from different angles like an optician checking for glaucoma. Martell’s pupils beamed down into the floor unnervingly.

  “Good question. He’d only started here the previous month. The owner tells me he hired a personal trainer, but she quit after he touched her up. Martell fancied himself as a bit of a ladies’ man.”

  “I can’t imagine a lady who could find him anything but skincrawlingly repellent.” Bryant wrinkled his nose in distaste. “He was some kind of celebrity, I understand?”


  “If you count TV game shows, Saturday Night Laughter, stuff like that. Rather on the smarmy side for my taste.”

  “Not a reason to purchase a television, then.” It was bad enough that Bryant could hear Alma’s set through the wall of his lounge without having to buy one of his own.

  “It’s funny, he starred in the biggest-selling health and fitness DVD in Britain, but look at the state of him. He must have worn a corset for the cameras.”

  “How do you know it was a heart attack?”

  Banbury knelt beside the body. “Without Giles, it’s a bit of a guess. The high sclerosis, the fact that he’s quite a few kilos overweight and was exerting himself. There’s booze on his breath. There’s also blood in the eyes. Heart attack victims feel a pressure, a squeezing sensation in the centre of the chest that stays for a few minutes. They tend to sit down and wait for the symptoms to go away, but the pain spreads to the shoulders, neck, and arms. They get light-headed and feel nauseous, sweat, or get short of breath, so Martell might have figured it was the effect of the workout. But then there’s this.” He carefully lifted Martell’s right hand to reveal a small triangular mark on his forearm. “There’s another on his left arm, and one in the middle of his chest.”

  “They look like burns.”

  Banbury pushed back the left sleeve of Martell’s sport top and turned the cuff inside out. “I think they were made by the heads of the zips on his workout gear, one on each sleeve, one running up the middle. They’re all welded shut. Extreme heat.” He pulled down the neck of the top to reveal a livid crimson scar across Martell’s throat. “He was wearing a medallion on a chain. That’s left burn marks, too. In light of these, I’d have to say we’re looking at signs consistent with electrocution.”