Strange Tide

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘OK, I’ll take over from here,’ said May.

  ‘No, there was something inside the horse’s mouth,’ said Bryant. ‘I could see it, I just couldn’t reach it. Fat fingers. This.’ Unclenching his fist, he revealed a matt black card. ‘I can tell you a bit about her now.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Banbury, nettled.

  ‘She was a binge eater and serial dieter, she wanted to be a mother, she hated her father, she tried yoga, meditation and prescription medication for stress, she had an addictive nature, she’s travelled all over the world and was thinking of going to Peru, she felt she was a failure, wanted a baby and was thinking of getting a cat.’

  Banbury stifled a laugh. ‘Where did you get all that from?’ He shot May a puzzled look.

  ‘The books,’ said Bryant, waving vaguely at the shelves lining the walls of the next room. ‘They’re the first thing you should always check. It’s all in those volumes, from travel guides to self-help manuals.’

  ‘How do you know they’re hers?’

  ‘Do you see any signs of a flatmate? And she has a silver library punch, one of those things that embosses the title page with the owner’s name. Do wake up. Is it lunchtime yet?’ He pulled a suppurating sardine and tomato sandwich from its paper bag and munched thoughtfully, filling the flat with the smell of vinegared fish. ‘No one else has been here. It’s all very curious. Who’s the daddy, eh? Girls like this – how can they have so much and so little? She could have been anyone she wanted. She had money, looks, youth, and a great empty gap where her soul should be. The children of the privileged: it’s as if some of them are handicapped from birth.’

  ‘She might just have been not very bright,’ May pointed out.

  ‘She was smart enough to read all these,’ said Bryant, indicating the filled bookcase. ‘Hesse, Kafka, Marquez, they’re signposts staked at different points of her young life. And there’s one very interesting one I need you to test for prints.’ He led the way back to the bookcase and pointed. ‘That one. I don’t want to touch it. Sardines.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you,’ muttered Banbury, removing the volume carefully and turning it in his gloved hands. ‘Greek mythology.’

  ‘Check the bookmark,’ said Bryant.

  Banbury carefully removed the marker and turned it over. ‘There’s nothing on it.’

  ‘No, you twerp, see what it’s marking,’ said Bryant, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Prometheus.’ Banbury scanned the pages. ‘“The mortal Prometheus tricked immortal Zeus into eternally claiming the inedible parts of bulls for the sacrificial ceremonies of the gods, while conceding the nourishing parts to humans for the eternal benefit of humankind.” I don’t even know what that means.’

  ‘I thought you were a grammar-school boy? At a ceremonial dinner Prometheus placed two sacrifices before Zeus, one with the edible, juicy bits hidden inside a bull’s stomach, and the other a bunch of bones wrapped in meat and fat. He tricked the god into choosing by looks alone. Zeus went for a superior exterior and got an inferior interior. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Prometheus taught him a lesson, that looks can be deceptive, and it’s what’s inside that counts. Zeus took revenge by hiding the fire Prometheus had brought. Then do you know what he did?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr B.,’ said Banbury, flummoxed. ‘I’m all at sea here.’

  ‘He chained Prometheus to a rock,’ said May.

  ‘What, so this girl marks a passage in a book, then serves someone a duff meal and gets chained to a rock in the Thames?’

  ‘Good heavens, you don’t have to take it so literally.’ Bryant sighed. ‘It’s an analogy. John, you explain.’

  ‘I think what Arthur means is that maybe she feared being punished by someone,’ said May. ‘She knew she’d done something bad. Hiding something inside – it could mean the pregnancy.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to go by signs and portents you might as well make a pot of tea and sit here reading the grouts,’ said Banbury. ‘I’m a simple bloke, Mr Bryant, I go by bloodstains and fingerprints and DNA samples, not Greek myths.’

  ‘I always had you down as an ideas man,’ said Bryant, crestfallen.

  ‘I am, but I need something a bit less conceptual to hang an idea on.’

  ‘Then how about this?’ Bryant held up the black card. ‘It’s a calling card, maybe a company of some kind, just a name and a number. She kept it in the mouth of the statue by her bed, ready to call at any time.’

  May and Banbury studied the card. There was just one word on it: ‘MEDUSA’.

  ‘Greek mythology,’ muttered Banbury, thoroughly annoyed.

  17

  ACCUSATION & DENIAL

  Cassie and Ali. Over time their names had become linked, but why? They had little in common but fitted together, even though there was something missing. They were not in love. They did not share pasts or friends – Ali had none – but had been paired for over a year and a half. And they were on the last leg of what they had come to refer to as the North Circular Tour.

  The Great Hidini had been killed off, to be replaced by the Ministry of Compassion. They had spent the previous week at the Neasden Civic Centre in an auditorium that smelled of too many municipal dinners, in the most relentlessly boring part of London, and had moved on to the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park.

  The venue was steeped in legend. Here Jimi Hendrix had burned his guitar onstage in a carefully choreographed act of rock rebellion, making music history. Pink Floyd, Queen, Marc Bolan, the Beach Boys, Eric Clapton and Bob Marley had all performed in its art deco auditorium, but now the theatre was occupied by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a Brazilian Pentecostal organization that had been accused of everything from extortion and anti-Semitism to charlatanism and witchcraft. That it continued to flourish in a North London suburb was typical of the area’s tolerant attitude to race and faith.

  It was their final show and they had, Cassie decided in retrospect, grown careless. That Saturday night, news of Ali’s talent had spread far enough to pack out the hall and create a queue for returns. He had finely tuned the evening to provide a mix of showmanship, prediction, inspiration and magic. To stay within the Consumer Protection Act he never declared that he could heal, and avoided religious matters entirely. But that was why they came, of course, to be healed. He and Cassie both knew that. And if it was what they wanted to believe, who was Ali to stop them?

  He wore a Savile Row suit these days, and had his own band. His singing voice wasn’t strong enough to sustain a set, but he managed a few inspirational songs between the mind-reading tricks and promenades into the audience. Cassie still sat in the control room feeding him information about the attendees, preselecting them with the help of the girl they had hired to sell merchandise. It was she who listened while they talked to each other in their seats before the show, passing the information to Cassie, who could then run online checks and gather the information Ali needed to make his pronouncements.

  Ali had pushed the boundaries tonight, telling one old lady she would walk again if she believed strongly enough and offered up a bigger donation than usual. They weren’t allowed to solicit money in the venue but it went on, of course, and as they had data from the bookings system it was easy to hit the devoted for subscription fees and donations referred to by a variety of euphemisms. As they were unable to register for charitable status, Cassie had decided that they should launch a gift catalogue. She had already lined up someone who could make ‘lucky’ jewellery.

  ‘You’ll like this one,’ she said, donning infrared glasses and peering over the maroon velvet edge of the balcony. ‘R-14, female, striped tights, multi-coloured sweater-thing, bright red hair, tons of jewellery, looks a bit mad. Lives in Highbury, Islington. She just told the woman sitting next to her that she’s a practising witch.’

  ‘I don’t want to finish this on a nutter tonight,’ said Ali wearily. ‘We had too many of them in on Tuesday and you saw how that
went.’

  ‘I’ve checked this one out. Her coven has its own Facebook page. She gets a lot of hits. It could open us up to a new market of off-the-scale gullible women.’

  ‘I suppose it could close the evening with a bit of light relief. What else have you got on her?’

  ‘She’s got a dear friend who’s very ill,’ said Cassie, checking the notes on her phone. ‘Alzheimer’s.’

  ‘I thought we agreed no incurables.’

  ‘Just getting the disease right should be enough. Remember what we talked about; the secret to controlling people is letting them think they’re controlling themselves.’

  ‘OK – I’m going on.’

  Maggie Armitage, Grand Order Grade IV White Witch of the Coven of St James the Elder, Kentish Town, jangled her jewellery as she fidgeted in the seat. She had spent her life being accusing of charlatanism, and recognized it in others. This fellow was billing himself as the founder of the Ministry of Compassion, but a few online checks showed that the ministry had only existed for four months, and when she searched for images of its founder she discovered a magician with the same handsome face and a similarly truncated history. He had a number of aliases, Ali Hidini, Ali Futuri and now Pastor Ali Michaels, a nice wholesome, comforting name.

  She had to admit that Ali was very charismatic, bounding through the awestruck punters in his elegant suit, but only a few months earlier he had been peddling a clapped-out magic act around the provinces. There was clearly more money to be made here, gypping fearful old ladies out of their pensions.

  She had filled in the request slip asking for Pastor Michaels to come and make predictions about her. Before he would deign to relieve her of her savings she had to give him her email address, tick a confidentiality box and waive her legal rights. After this she was entered into a lottery while his assistant presumably sorted through the candidates’ online profiles to find the ones who had been a little too free with their personal information. Maggie had made sure she was indiscreet, talking loudly to the tiny old lady next to her while they waited for the show to start.

  ‘What are you here for?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Me? I’m shrinking,’ the tiny lady replied. ‘I want Pastor Michaels to tell me if I have a deficiency.’

  ‘Everybody shrinks,’ said Maggie. ‘You don’t need vitamins, you need lower cupboards.’

  And now here came Pastor Michaels himself, dropping down into the aisle as the music picked up tempo. He bounced towards Maggie with his right arm outstretched, his gaze focused intently on hers. The spotlight slid from him to the white witch. She flinched in the glare.

  ‘I’m getting a very unusual feeling from somewhere over here,’ he told the audience. ‘This little lady is a kindred spirit, I believe! You, madam, I can sense a cloud floating over you. Something dark and burdensome.’

  Burdensome? thought Maggie. He must have gone to one of those dodgy English schools behind Oxford Street where they teach students from very old textbooks. She nodded piteously at him.

  ‘You are worried for a friend – worried that he is losing his wits, that he has dementia, is that right?’

  Maggie nodded again and considered dabbing away a tear, but realized she’d used all her tissues mopping up a spilled cappuccino.

  ‘But there’s something else about you,’ cried the pastor, turning to the audience with his head tilted, as if trying to hear a distant radio. ‘You – you also have the power! Is it true, do you have the same gift as me?’

  ‘You’re right, I do have certain abilities,’ she said in a tiny voice.

  ‘Speak up, madam, so that everyone can hear you.’

  Maggie went for the Oscar, laying a hand on her throat and looking pathetic, a sympathy-gaining trick she had learned from Arthur. She beckoned at Pastor Michaels, summoning him to her.

  Ali stepped closer.

  Now, if you’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful city of Hanoi, you’ll know that the Vietnamese have a wonderful way with vegetable knives, which they make and sell at the river market. In fact, they’ve proven so popular that many of these kitchen implements have made their way around the world. One particular pair of scissors has tiny razor-sharp spring-loaded blades, and is used for cutting up herbs. They can be bought in Columbia Road for about a fiver.

  As Ali bent down, Maggie stretched up to whisper to him and used the scissors she had secreted in her palm to snip through the slender white wire that extended from his earlobe into the top of his shirt. It looked like part of his throat-mike but was the transmission device that allowed him to toggle between his conversations with Cassie and his pronouncements to the audience. As Cassie found herself suddenly silenced, Maggie stood up and addressed the stalls.

  ‘This man is a fake,’ she said in a loud, clear and extremely authoritative voice. ‘He and his assistant have been listening to your conversations and pretending to guess your problems.’

  She turned just in time to see a pair of bouncers loping down the aisle towards her. ‘Pastor Michaels does not have healing powers, he’s a liar and a cheat and is stealing your money, and that’s not even his real name.’

  The audience sat there in stupefaction as the security staff seized her. They don’t care, Maggie realized with a sinking heart. I’m the crazy one, not him. It’s not me they’ve paid to see. They’ll do whatever he wants.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Ali, correctly gauging the mood of the auditorium, ‘sometimes we do get non-believers in who try to trick us – and you – into leaving the path of our faith. But they cannot and will not prevent the truth from being told; that there is a world beyond our own and that if we can only open our minds and reach it, we can learn more than we will ever know here on earth, trapped in these too mortal bodies.’

  Up in the box Cassie leaned forward, smiling in the dark. Nice save, she thought. Not that he’d ever lost them. The little white witch in the stalls had completely misjudged the audience. Cassie cupped her hand to her ear as the other line came through.

  ‘What do you want done with her?’ one of the security guards asked her.

  ‘Take her outside, shoot her in the head and throw her into a skip,’ Cassie snapped back. ‘Have you been watching reruns of Breaking Bad? God, she’s an old lady and a paying customer, there’s no harm done. Apologize to her, make sure she’s all right and offer her free tickets for another performance.’ She cut the line and checked her watch. It was just as well that the show was coming to a close; she had no way of contacting Ali now. There had been no harm done but part of her wondered how much longer they would be able to get away with this life without going to jail.

  It turned out that Cassie didn’t have long to wonder. When she got home she found that Maggie Armitage had uploaded the footage she had secretly shot in the auditorium to her website, revealing Pastor Michaels’s tricks of the trade, starting with footage of his assistant singling out the most vulnerable members of the audience and ending with close-ups of the bruises left on her arms by the two security guards who walked her out to the theatre foyer.

  The video didn’t go viral – it only got around four hundred hits – but Ali Bensaud watched his career collapse over the next few days as venue managers ran background checks and cancelled his shows. At night he lay in bed wondering how things had gone so wrong. It seemed to him that his troubles had started on the day he’d convinced Ismael Rahman that they should escape and take their chances at sea. Watching his best friend vanish beneath the black waters had only driven him to greater heights of ambition. But London was not an apple ready to be plucked for the eating. The apples were on higher branches than he’d imagined, and now they had moved far beyond reach.

  This time it was Cassie who found a way to reach them.

  Arthur Bryant sat with the volume propped open at his desk, studying the illustrations as he munched the last squashed piece of his sardine sandwich. Lowering his trifocals, he peered closer until the tip of his snub nose was almost
touching the paper. ‘John!’ he bellowed suddenly.

  ‘I’m standing right here,’ said May. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

  ‘I think it’s a lighthouse.’ Bryant stabbed at the page with his greasy finger. ‘The tapering brickwork, and those things above it could be beams of light – it matches the drawing fairly closely, and that makes it a Russian prison tattoo. A lighthouse means that the owner spent time in jail. It’s a reminder to pursue a life of freedom after a life of crime.’

  ‘What, you mean by going straight?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Bryant read on a bit. ‘It can simply mean that from now on he’ll stay out of jail.’

  ‘The severed hand of a Russian prisoner,’ sighed May, ‘and the fingerprints aren’t on a British database.’

  ‘Unfortunately Putin’s Federal Security Service isn’t very free with its information these days. We can give it a try, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

  ‘Max Wright doesn’t think we should get our hopes up about the hand being connected to the Bride in the Tide.’

  ‘Don’t call her that,’ said Bryant. ‘Point one, she wasn’t a bride, and B – just don’t call her that, all right?’

  ‘Max thinks there are two other possibilities: that the switching current simply deposits random items at the reach, or it was thrown from the window of a building near the foreshore.’

  ‘Maybe Dalladay’s killer had used the spot as a dumping ground before.’ Bryant closed his encyclopaedia of prison tattoos. ‘That would suggest a gang slaying, which fits with the symbol.’

  ‘You think someone with criminal connections at the Cossack Club fathered her child?’ May asked. ‘Is it worth staking the place out for a while?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d be likely to go back there, would you?’ said Bryant. ‘I could go and talk to—’

  ‘For the last time, I can’t have you wandering around on your own,’ said May firmly.