Strange Tide

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘He’s had a quick look,’ said Land.

  Link paced heavily about the room. ‘I’m guessing the river may have removed some evidence, and we can argue that there’s been contamination caused by multiple first responders, but there could be other matches. They won’t be able to claim that there’s an actual crime scene as the body was found in the water, which may help matters. It moved downstream.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bryant has a theory—’

  ‘I’m sure he has, and it probably involves sunspots and pyramids so let’s not go there. Depending on the amounts we may not be able to claim transference. They’ll go for epithelial evidence.’

  Land knew that this was a big problem. The scarf around North’s neck had been pulled so tight that it had abraded the skin. Forensic serology was about identifying traces containing antigens and polymorphic enzymes from blood. Touch DNA – epithelial evidence – lay in the skin cells, as few as five or six, that could be transferred from a body to an object. If North’s coat buttons had any cells dislodged from May’s hands that had survived immersion, there would be just cause for conviction.

  ‘He made a mistake, he should never have met up with her,’ said Land. ‘He knows that. So what can we do?’

  ‘Pray he’s not a shedder,’ said Link. Some people lost more skin cells than others. The number of cells lost dramatically increased with applied pressure, so if May was telling the truth and had touched the victim lightly he might have only resettled material that had since washed off. ‘I can’t give you advice on this, not without being accused of exerting influence on the investigation,’ Link warned. ‘John can’t have any further contact with his partner.’

  ‘But they talk every day – they always have.’

  ‘You do understand that it’s possible your senior investigating officer could be charged with murder? Read my lips; he must have no more contact with Bryant.’

  Land’s voice went up half an octave. ‘What about the rest of us? Bryant’s at home but he still has lucid periods, and he’s using them.’

  ‘So he’s still working on the case? God, what does it take to stop him?’

  ‘It comes as naturally to him as breathing.’

  Link jabbed his index finger in Land’s direction. ‘I can’t prevent you from speaking to him but you cannot pass on anything he tells you that pertains to the case. You need to keep the rest of the staff away from him too, so that you’re the only point of contact. I’ll provide an internal investigations officer with immediate effect, and John is on gardening leave until the investigation gets handed over to another body.’

  ‘Could we get someone in from outside and sort of make it look like we’re impartially co-operating?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Link. ‘No outsiders. This case can’t take any more clowns.’

  Land waited until the Serious Crimes superintendent had left, then grabbed his coat. ‘I have to go out for a while, Janice,’ he told her. ‘I’m putting you in charge.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Longbright.

  ‘I’m taking Darren Link’s advice: “Don’t bring in an outsider.” There’s only one person who can save us now,’ said Land. ‘Link says he can’t prevent me from speaking to him, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

  33

  SPOONS & SPADES

  ‘Don’t let him in,’ called a wavering voice from the living room. ‘Tell him I’m having another one of my attacks. He’s up to something. There’ll only be trouble.’ The doorbell rang for the third time. ‘Tell him I think I’m at the battle of Waterloo or something. There’s trickery afoot or my name isn’t . . .’ There was an unfeasibly long pause.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Alma, dragging a trolley full of religious pamphlets along the hall. ‘I have to go out. He can at least sit with you for a while.’

  ‘I’m not five years old!’ The doorbell rang a fourth time. ‘Where are my jelly babies?’

  ‘They’re in your head.’

  ‘I’m not imagining things!’

  ‘I mean in that horrible Tibetan head, where they always are. I’m going to let him in.’

  ‘If you do I’ll never eat any more of your cabinet pudding again.’

  ‘Then I’ll take it to my parishioners.’

  ‘Why would you be so cruel? You could sell that stuff to Holloway Prison and no one would ever have the energy to try and escape. Please don’t open the—’

  It was too late. Alma had undone the London bolt and flicked up the latch. ‘I need to talk to you, Arthur,’ said Raymond Land, handing Bryant’s landlady his wet umbrella like a curate entering a country house. ‘I know you’re there, I saw your wrinkly little head poking out of the window just now. This is no time for messing about. Are you all there?’

  Bryant appeared at the living-room door in an indigo quilted dressing gown and matching slippers, a Turkish potentate exiled to Bloomsbury. ‘If you’re referring to my mental state it’s a mixed bag,’ he admitted. ‘As you’re already in you might as well come in.’

  ‘He had a blackout in the bathroom last night,’ Alma mouthed.

  ‘It was not a blackout, you silly woman,’ said Bryant. ‘I nodded off and woke up thinking I was in Spain because I’d been staring at your stupid matador poster.’

  ‘Alma, could you leave us for a few minutes?’ asked Land. ‘Arthur, I wouldn’t turn to you unless the situation was desperate, you know that.’

  ‘Thank you for your confidence.’ Bryant wandered into the kitchen and began rummaging in the fridge.

  ‘You know what I mean. You have to listen to me very carefully. If you don’t, you’re going to lose your partner, the unit and everything you’ve ever held dear, do you understand?’

  ‘You have my undivided attention,’ said Bryant, pulling out a strange-coloured piece of cheese and tentatively sniffing at it. ‘I think this is Stinking Bishop,’ he said. ‘Welsh rarebit?’

  Land sat at the table putting Worcester sauce on his toasted cheese and explained the situation in as much detail as he could muster, but Bryant’s first question still caught him by surprise. ‘Why is Giles so sure she was strangled?’

  ‘There are ligature marks on her neck,’ said Land.

  ‘No water in her lungs then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Clearly Giles doesn’t think so. I only had a short conversation with him. We’re firefighting here, Arthur. I’ve not caught up with all the reports.’

  ‘How is John handling it?’

  ‘Not well. He’s as shocked as any of us.’

  Bryant sat silent for a minute, then rose and left without a word.

  What have I done? Land wondered. What if I’ve pushed him over the edge? He turned in an agony of faltering indecision. How did we ever get in this mess? John framed for murder, and the only person who can help him has lost his wits.

  Bryant reappeared in the doorway. ‘I have decided,’ he announced. ‘I accept your challenge.’

  ‘I haven’t given you a challenge yet,’ said Land.

  ‘You were about to ask me to take charge once more.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’

  ‘No, not in my present state, but I have a spade up my sleeve.’

  ‘You mean an ace.’

  ‘No, one of these.’ Bryant produced a small trowel in his right fist. ‘I can’t help John unless I first help myself.’

  ‘Mr Bryant, you’re not making any sense,’ said Alma, appearing in the kitchen doorway with her coat on.

  ‘And I’m not about to start now,’ said Bryant. ‘Go about your business, both of you. I have to get started. There’s no time to waste.’ He shooed them towards the front door. ‘Raymondo, give my lovely landlady a hand with her biblical tracts, would you? She’s off to thrust them into the hands of poor dupes outside King’s Cross Station. Don’t read any of them yourself; they’ll make your brain fall out. I know a thing or two on that subject, trust me.’

  ‘But what are you going to do?’ asked Land.
‘Where do you even start?’

  ‘Spoons!’ said Bryant, slamming the door on them and bolting it.

  The head of the PCU and the chief steward of the United Church of the Holy Saviour found themselves locked out on the third-floor landing of number 17, Albion House, Harrison Street, Bloomsbury while its tenant got to work.

  Bryant ran to the window in his bedroom and opened it. He thrust his trowel into the wooden plant box outside and began digging, showering earth on someone below.

  ‘Oi!’ shouted a familiar voice. ‘What the bleedin’ ’ell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Who is that?’ Bryant squinted over the window ledge. ‘I don’t have my trifocals on.’

  ‘Brad Pitt,’ the unhappy man in the XXXL Arsenal T-shirt covered in earth called back. ‘You just chucked dirt all over me.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Pitt, I remember you. You’ve put on weight. I thought it turned out that your name was Joe; I wish you’d make up your mind. It wasn’t dirt, it was compost mixed with aluminium sulphate and iron filings designed to increase the soil acidity.’

  ‘I’ll come up there and increase your acidity in a minute,’ warned his next-door neighbour, who had been taking out the rubbish when he was hit with debris.

  ‘Yes, you must pop up sometime and regale us with some more of your colourful working-class exploits,’ Bryant called back, shovelling more earth out. ‘Not now, though, I’m busy.’

  Something else fell out of the window box. Joe was hit on the head with a spoon.

  ‘I say, could I have that back?’ Bryant called. ‘I have some more but that one’s part of the control experiment.’

  It’s fair to say that Mr Bryant’s next-door neighbour was steaming by the time he reached the front door. ‘This is a block of flats, not a bleedin’ science laboratory,’ said Joe, holding the spoon in one meaty fist. ‘We have to live here.’

  ‘Yes, I know – ghastly, isn’t it? I never thought I’d end up in a council flat, but it’s been instructive. I’ve learned a lot about hip-hop, swearing and vehicle maintenance. I’d invite you in for a sherry but I don’t want you sweating on our furniture. Thank you kindly for this. Give my regards to Mrs Pitt.’ Bryant took the spoon and closed the door.

  Back in his bedroom he laid the spoons out side by side and noted the difference between them.

  Oddly enough, it was the long-dead Brighton entertainer Dudley Salterton who had planted the thought with his remarks about cockles and people who had a natural ability to control others. What he needed now was the book. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember what it was called, what it was about or where he had left it. He began calling around. On his fifth phone call he found himself talking to Dr Gillespie.

  ‘Ah, Mr Bryant, how are you feeling?’ Dr Gillespie enquired unenthusiastically. ‘Mr Land tells me you’ve been suffering from waking nightmares. Why didn’t you come in to see me?’

  ‘Visiting you is one of them,’ said Bryant. ‘How’s your neck?’

  ‘It’s rather worse than I—’

  ‘I’m not actually interested, just being polite. They’re not nightmares, more like lucid dreams, and they’re proving rather enlightening. I’m calling to see if I left a book with you.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ said Gillespie.

  ‘You don’t happen to remember what it was called, do you?’

  ‘I have it here. Diseases and Treatments of Congolese Tribal Elders 1870–1914.’

  ‘Did you have a chance to read it?’

  ‘I had a flick through the photographs,’ Gillespie admitted. ‘The chapter on body scarification was positively revolting. I’m not sure what point you were trying to make.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d take more than a cursory glance at the text,’ snapped Bryant. ‘Physician, forget healing thyself, I wanted you to heal me. What an utter poltroon you are. No matter, I’ll work from my notes.’ He rang off and returned to the study of his spoons. The coatings on the various pieces of cutlery had eroded to markedly different degrees.

  At least Dr Gillespie had served his purpose by jogging Bryant’s memory. In the book, all of the elders in the M’boochi tribe had started suffering from depression, forgetfulness and blackouts, and had later experienced powerful lucid hallucinations culminating in loss of sanity, attempted suicide and, ultimately, death. No common factor could be discovered between them until a Victorian anthropologist named Bertram Siddeley investigated their ceremonial drinking cups.

  He discovered that the cause of the disease was not genetic, as had first been assumed, but could be traced to the traditional silver alloy goblet from which each elder daily drank. The author had proposed various theories including a reaction between the acidic liquids they consumed and the alloy, and another caused by the home-made fillings in their teeth reacting with the cup itself, but the mystery had never been fully unravelled.

  As Bryant studied the damaged spoons, he realized he had the answer lying before him. In most cases the plating had burned off to reveal a brownish compound metal underneath. Clambering on to the corner of the ottoman, he grabbed a filthy leather-bound volume from the top of the bookcase and threw it open. It didn’t take him too long to find the section he needed. He read:

  Some metals become toxic when they form poisonous soluble compounds in certain forms. Particles of lithium, aluminium, iron and beryllium can build up in the body to form highly toxic bioaccumulation. The toxicity of metals depends on their ligands. Organometallic forms such as tetraethyl lead and methylmercury may prove fatal. Toxic metals are elements and therefore cannot be destroyed. They can, however, be quickly treated by dilution or chelation, which introduces agents that can remove the accumulated particles. Chelation therapy is a relatively simple but very specific medical procedure with a high risk factor that can leave lasting health problems if incorrectly administered. Its effects are immediately felt.

  It was a risk he was willing to take, particularly as he had no other options left. Casting the book aside, he headed for his bedside table and lifted the offending item in his hands.

  The Tibetan skull. It had sat there beside him grimacing for so many years that he never even considered it. When they had moved to Harrison Street it had been transferred from his office to this apartment. The skull had been plated in silver panels with chased swirls and curlicues running over its frontal and temporal bones and around its mandible, its teeth capped with matching silver crowns, its eye sockets filled with false opals and metal ruffles. The brain pan opened to reveal a tray lined with another heavily patterned alloy on its lid and base, but as Bryant ran his fingers over it now he saw that the chased sections had exposed dark metals beneath the thin silver plating just like the spoons – and it was into this that he had insisted on Alma placing his uncovered sandwiches, sweets and cakes for the past months. All that time, the particles were being transferred to his food and ingested to form a residue in his system.

  He considered lobbing the skull from his bedroom window but realized that it would prove useful in testing for specific toxic elements. This time, though, he would not go to his hopeless GP. It was a rush job for an old friend.

  Jamel Letheeto had been working at University College Hospital, specializing in toxicity therapies, until he was thrown out for stealing medical instruments. The hospital board was not mollified by his explanation – that he had been stockpiling them for the coming nuclear winter – and had demanded that he undergo psychiatric evaluation, which had found he was suffering from Apocalypse Syndrome. Letheeto was still a good doctor, even after the nervous collapse that had been brought on by his long hours and over-dedication to work, and with any luck he could still lay his hands on chemicals. Bryant set about finding his phone.

  ‘If we can get the process started straight away you’ll still be able to work, if that’s what you’re asking me,’ said Letheeto. ‘I can run chromatographic tests on the metal and tailor a specific drug cocktail to remove its particles. We’ll need to get rid of the most serious symptoms befor
e they cause permanent brain and liver damage, but I’m afraid there’s a strong chance that you’ll still experience disturbing side effects for the remainder of your life.’

  ‘The remainder of my life could be the length of time it takes to get through a box set of Breaking Bad, so let’s do it and be damned,’ Bryant pointed out. ‘Can you get me into a surgery?’

  ‘No need,’ said Jamel. And Bryant could almost hear him grinning down the line. ‘I have everything I need in my underground bunker.’

  ‘Jamel, do you think there’s a chance you can cure me?’

  ‘Mr Bryant, if I can’t do this without killing you, I’ll be very disappointed in myself.’

  ‘So will I,’ said Bryant. ‘Let’s do or die.’

  PART TWO

  COMING BACK

  ‘What strange tides bring a man to London, where o’ervaulting ambition swiftly washes him back to earth!’

  ALEXANDER BENDO (1676)

  34

  ROOT & BRANCH

  Imagine we are in a plane above the United Kingdom, the third most populous island in the world. Great Britain is surrounded by over one thousand smaller islands with names like Arran, Jura, Benbecula, Ulva, and Bardsey, which has just four inhabitants. Looking down through clouds of charcoal, slate and pearl to its rain-grey capital, we see the jigsaw pieces of a medium-sized transverse city built around a switchback river: London in the second decade of the third millennium. Thanks to the fact that it set the world’s time zones it is very rich, as Venice and Constantinople had been in earlier centuries. For London’s bankers the working day is seventeen hours long, so that more money can be made. It is a very fast city that can only become faster.