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

by Christopher Fowler

  “Here. Do you want me to read them back?”

  May was about to protest but decided against it. His granddaughter was clearly interested in helping with the case, and perhaps it was better to hear her out.

  April began to read aloud. “‘Between 1788 and 1790, women in Mayfair were terrorised by ‘The Monster’, who would creep up to them, mutter indecencies, and then stab their buttocks with a thin, sharp instrument.

  “‘The Bow Street runners failed to catch him, so a wealthy Lloyds insurance broker called John Julius Angertstein offered a reward of fifty pounds for his capture. The money encouraged false accusations and vigilante attacks as passersby hysterically screamed ‘The Monster!’ at anyone they didn’t like the look of.

  “‘Such a sense of panic settled over the capital that the lives of innocent men were endangered. Fashionable women were encouraged to wear copper-plated petticoats to protect themselves from attack. After over fifty females had been assaulted, a young artificial-flower maker called Rhynwick Williams was arrested when one of the more unstable victims pointed him out to a vigilante. He was convicted after a couple of ridiculous show trials, despite the fact that he had a cast-iron alibi for one of the worst outrages.

  “‘The London Monster wasn’t alone; the Hammersmith Monster also scratched lonely women, and despite being caught and committed for trial, he seems to have reappeared eight years later for further attacks. By now, though, he had been branded a ‘ghost’, appearing in a large white dress with long claws.

  “‘This version has an interesting coda: One hundred years later, in 1955, he acquired a retroactive history via the West London Observer, which stated that he appeared every fifty years in St Paul’s churchyard when the moon was full. He walked between the tombstones with blazing eyes, wrapped in a white winding sheet. At the date of his next visitation, four hundred ghost-hunters turned up in the churchyard. The police were forced to seal off the area until midnight, when the ghost was due to walk, but nothing happened. Then someone remembered that British Summer Time had made the visitation an hour late, so the crowd stayed on, and were rewarded with the sight of a ghostly floating creature in brilliant white, with no legs, rising on a strange wind and drifting from the church porch into one of the tombs. The legend was now complete.’” She slammed the diary shut. “In fact, he’s due to walk again this very month.”

  “So you’re saying that these London myths are created by fearful populations rather than the villains themselves?” asked May, trying to understand.

  “Obviously there has to be a defining action at the start,” said Maggie, “but remember what happened when the News of the World released information concerning convicted paedophiles to their readers: rioting, hysteria, mob violence. It’s not just an English phenomenon. Look at Nancy Reagan and the ‘Just Say No’ campaign that had parents submitting their children to drug tests. In Lagos, Nigerians started believing that they could be killed by answering specifically numbered calls on mobiles after midnight. And the London Ambulance Service recently fell for the old story about gang members driving without car headlights, believing that if they flashed the oncoming cars to warn them, they would be shot dead as part of an initiation ceremony. Scaremongering panics like these surface regularly, only to be debunked as nonsense before rising again.”

  “But the Highwayman has actually killed two people.”

  “Look at his victims: objects of hatred, misunderstanding, and public ridicule by the middle-aged middle classes. Think of vilified TV comics whose careers nose-dive after scandals. The public reaction: ‘No smoke without fire.’ Worst fears are confirmed: ‘I always felt there was something odd about him.’ But if the public figure is admired, the public is prepared to overlook faults. The politicians and actors we know to be gay will be accepted if they show themselves to be honest people. Politicians with murky histories and an inability to speak plainly – one thinks of Michael Howard, Mark Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer, and that ghastly ex-politician with the publicity-mad wife – are subject to confirmed suspicions and receive no aid. Those who remove objects of public suspicion are therefore in a position to become celebrities.”

  “Good God, does this mean we have to start protecting every disliked celebrity and parliamentary member in the city?” asked May. “We’d never be able to do it.”

  “Exactly. The Highwayman has found himself a perfect modus operandi. He’s impervious to anticipation. And no doubt he’s relying on the fact that we will never be able to follow his game plan, assuming he has one.”

  “So you don’t think he’s randomly picking victims according to his own temperamental outbursts?”

  “No. The acts are far too premeditated to make me believe he has no plan. He craves popular support. He won’t attack anyone the public truly admires.”

  “That still doesn’t help us.”

  “Perhaps not, but it helps to build a profile of the person we’re searching for. The case histories of the past always shed light on the present.”

  “But we’re not talking about hysterical outbreaks in Mayfair – these are perverse, clever cruelties.”

  “I agree that the attacks differ in one crucial aspect,” said Bryant. “They’re not designed to frighten the public but to reassure them; to prove that someone is on their side, acting on their behalf. The Leicester Square Vampire fits the former category. He inspired fear, clearing the streets at night by reminding everyone that they were vulnerable. His acts were unfathomable, possibly politically driven, but it’s likely that the Vampire himself had no explanation for his actions. Our Highwayman is of a different psychological make-up. He’s unemotional, an insider, a calculator of odds, above average intelligence, multifaceted, perhaps even a split personality. But he wants to be seen as a champion. And we haven’t seen the last of him.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “There are always more than two items on any plotted agenda.”

  “So the Leicester Square Vampire had no agenda?”

  “Hard to tell, but he appears to have been operating over an unusually long time scale. April, are you serious about sightings dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century?”

  “There are listings with descriptions here, but you know what the Internet is like; UFO sightings are given the same weight as accepted historical truths. It’s as much a source of rumour as it is of factual reference.”

  “We still have to close his case before Faraday and Kasavian can use it to shut us down,” said Bryant. “I suppose we could reexamine the physical evidence, open the bodies of his victims, and arrange for Longbright to visit his survivors – although I should think their memories will prove unhelpful after all this time.”

  For once, May gleaned a practical purpose in talking to the white witch. He began to see how Bryant connected people and events, across decades and districts, through history and hardship, applying their shared tragedies to the present problem. “Fair enough,” he agreed. “We’ll divide the unit staff into two groups. You lead the cold case, I’ll take over on the Highwayman. We share the information, and if either team hits an impasse, we agree to swap investigations. Meanwhile, we stay out of Faraday’s way as much as possible. And if anything goes wrong, you do what I tell you.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Bryant, eagerly shaking his partner’s hand.

  “I still can’t believe you gave away my birthday present,” said May, shaking his head in wonderment.

  ∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧

  27

  English Cruelties

  His real name was Alexander Garfield Paradine, and he was related to the Earl of Devonshire, but everyone called him Garfy, and thought he was the son of a taxi driver who had been discovered in a Skegness talent competition.

  You needed the common touch to succeed on television; it levelled the playing field between you and the viewer. While his fans imagined that he drank at his local and ate in chip shops, he had been dining at the Groucho Club and hooking slices at
Sunningdale. It was part of the pact to allow them their dreams, that they too might one day become like him.

  He’d been lucky in the early years, becoming an alternative comedian without having to haul a one-man show around Edinburgh for several festivals. He’d become popular on the university circuit, garnering a strong student following, but he longed for a wider audience, and as his career shifted from late-night cult shows to Saturday evening clip-fests like You’re on Camera, the pact with his youthful fan base had become strained. His privacy was repeatedly invaded by viewers who felt they owned him. They clambered over the wall of his house in Henley-on-Thames, and followed his wife back from Waitrose, photographing her on their mobiles.

  To reduce the pressure, he reinvented himself, but by the time he was cutting his teeth on dramatic soaps like Manchester Emergency, his fans had turned on him. No-one, neither critics nor audiences, was prepared to accept him as a serious actor. Taking a role in the BBC’s prestigious two-parter Dombey and Son, his mannered performance was disastrously received. His Christmas single proved popular with mums and dads, but he was derided in the West End musical Don Juan, so he began missing performances, pleading laryngitis. As a consequence, the 2.5-million-pound show ran for just seventeen performances, making enemies of his backers.

  He caught sight of his profile in the glass doors, and didn’t like what he saw. At thirty-seven, his boyish looks were going; he had to face the fact that he was starting to look too used-up for romantic leads. His eyes had bagged; his jowls had sagged. He looked tired all the time. He made the tactical error of appearing in a Conservative party broadcast advocating the rights of fox hunters, and lost his remaining student fans overnight. Then came the drunk-driving ban, and the unsuccessful spell in rehab. He gained a reputation as the tabloids’ favourite drunk.

  Now he hated his former fan base, never more than when they shouted “Oi, Garfy!” across busy streets, or bellowed his catchphrases as he alighted from cabs. With the grim predictability of a star on the downslope, he punched a photographer outside Stringfellow’s, and was filmed intoxicated and crying in the Met Bar. Knowing that it was a small step from here to playing villains in seaside pantomimes, he reinvented himself again. He became a bornagain Christian, went to Capetown for a face-lift, and hosted a morning cable show that picked up a surprisingly loyal following. His ghostwritten book Loving Someone Other Than Yourself became a top-ten best-seller at the expense of using up his savings. But his fickle TV fans had moved on. The younger generation, whose attention he sought and craved, now loathed him as the representative of everything their parents respected.

  As he pressed the entry buzzer beside the glassed doorway in St John Street, Clerkenwell, he considered the thought of another makeover. He needed to choose a charity, one with a high profile, preferably involving children. His agent could do all the sourcing. He’d agree to sign over a percentage of royalties, attend some photoops, perhaps even adopt a Romanian orphan so that teenagers could see he was sincere. They were the audience that counted; they had the buying power that excited sponsors. Hell, at least it was a game plan.

  At his back, the swollen pale green sky prepared to release expectorations of rain. He cupped his hands over the glass and tried to see inside, then checked the address on his printout. The offer of the radio voice-over had come to him directly at his home computer, bypassing his agent, the message merely specifying the time and place. He would have binned the request, but it was for a teen magazine and he couldn’t afford to pass up the chance.

  He cupped his hands again – no-one in the foyer, all lights out; it felt like the wrong address, except that the number was stencilled above the door in chrome. He tried the handle, and was surprised to find the door unlocked. As he entered, hard neon fuzzed on overhead. He noted the sign pinned on the deserted steel reception desk – Sound Studio 4th Floor – and summoned the elevator.

  ♦

  Anthony Sarne swam with the same languor he possessed out of the water, his tanned arms lifting and falling through the warm blue shadows. He was most contented like this, on his own in the calm evening gloom. Rolling onto his back, he studied the glass roof as he lazily drifted beneath it. He had swum thirty lengths of the tiled Victorian pool; now he could relax in the last few minutes before dressing and going to dinner.

  The tight-fitting plastic goggles dyed his cool green world. Chlorine affected his vision adversely. More than ever he found himself wearing shaded lenses of some kind; his eyes were increasingly sensitive to light. He was forty-eight and in good shape, happy with his body, vain about his ability to maintain a flat stomach. He still had his pick of the girls, and his current mistress, an astonishingly athletic nineteen-year-old from Korea, watched him with a possessiveness that made his enemies hate him even more. His wife pretended everything was fine, of course, and rarely came up to town anymore.

  At this time of the night there were usually a few lane-ploughing high-flyers left at the Oasis Swimming Pool in Holborn, but tonight they had showered and dressed, to disperse from the city, where they could hone their aggressive business techniques on their loved ones. One other swimmer remained, a boy with cropped black hair and defined musculature, seated motionless on the edge of the deep end. He leaned back, staring into the sharp mesh of light that filtered from an arabesque of glass bricks set in the side wall. Above the diving board, buttresses of bright light from the overhead neon splintered the refracting depths.

  Sarne’s feet reached down and touched the sloping floor of the pool. Standing very still, he allowed the water to settle. The boy rose from the poolside and padded away to the changing rooms.

  Now there was nothing to keep him in the water. Lately, to his consternation, he had begun swimming almost every other evening. It had taken him a few months to understand that he was not drawn here by the determination to get fit, but by the thought of boys in their swimming trunks. This sea change in his sexuality was unexpected and unwelcome. He was revolted by the surfacing of this secret objective, but found himself helplessly returning to the baths.

  The boy had gone. The water stilled and fell silent. It was time for him to exit the pool and dress. The sense of excitement he had briefly shared with his swimming companion faded away as he rose from the chlorinated water.

  The shower was capricious. He had learned by now to hammer the temperature dial with the heel of his hand. The baths had individual booths, but only low tiled walls separated them. He had covetously watched young men soaping themselves from here, prepared to take the risk of someone spotting his sidelong glances. Ashamed by his desires, he knew he deserved to be caught. He thumped the dial and water began to flow. Overhead, rain started to course down the glass panels of the roof. The nearby laser lights in Oxford Street designed to fanfare London’s Olympic bid traced Möbius patterns across low yellow clouds. The sensuality of warm shower water unlaced his thoughts, and his mind drifted.

  It snapped back into focus when he saw a cloaked figure in a tricorn hat outlined against the roof glass, illuminated by the reflecting water.

  ♦

  Paradine alighted at the fourth floor and found himself in a nondescript corridor, dimly lit and decorated in the grey gloss paint and smoked-pink pastels of buildings constructed in the late eighties. He wondered if the whiskies he had consumed half an hour earlier would reveal themselves in his voice. Following the hand-printed signs to the studio, he struggled to imagine who would use such a place – a local radio station, perhaps? Columns of mortar-crusted bricks leaned against the wall to his right. Bare wires hung down from a pair of missing ceiling panels like the roots of forced plants. As he followed the paper arrows, Paradine grew more suspicious.

  His suspicion turned to amazement when he saw the leather-clad figure – was he a motorcycle courier? – leaning in shadows against the end of the corridor, motionlessly watching him.

  ♦

  Absurd. He had to be imagining things. Could his alcoholism have advanced to the stage of hallucin
ation so quickly? Before Anthony Sarne had a chance to think through the answer, the cloak above swept open to reveal a blood-scarlet lining, and a steel-shod boot heel stamped on the glass above the swimming pool, sending sharpness through the still air. Some kind of ridiculous film stunt, he thought vaguely, wondering if hidden cameras were capturing the event. Or a reveller in fancy dress, a drunken fugitive from an office party about to make the kind of mistake that would get him arrested. But the figure was already pounding away across the skylight, and the shower water was turning cold – colder still and reeking – and he glanced up at the battered steel nozzle to be blinded by something that seared his eyes, and he recognised the smell even as its greasy viscosity caused him to slip and land on the tiled floor of the shower stall with a bony crack.

  It seemed as absurd as the vision overhead, but the shower nozzle was spraying him with petrol.

  ♦

  The courier raised a gloved hand and beckoned as Alex Paradine kept walking forward. The caped figure was almost a welcome sight, an indication that someone else here was prepared to risk making a fool of himself. A smile showed beneath his eye mask: a Mardi Gras carnival character, got up as a night rider, but for what purpose? His beckoning right hand slowed and raised itself, so that the black palm showed – the universal symbol to halt – and Paradine found himself responding. Now the index finger alone was raised, and the rider twisted his fist, pointing down to the floor. He followed the courier’s indication with his eyes, and felt the carpet tiles shift ominously beneath his feet.