Strange Tide

by Christopher Fowler

  Those who built London thought about their home in the long term. Westminster Hall dates from 1393 and has the largest timber roof in northern Europe. When it needed restoring in 1913 a lot of the roof had to be replaced. The original timbers came from Wadhurst in Sussex. The estate’s owners must have realized that new wood would be needed in roughly five hundred years because they had planted a stand of oaks for that specific purpose. By 1913 the wood was ready to be cut and the hall was repaired. By comparison, many of the City of London’s new skyscrapers are reckoned to have a shelf life of about fifteen years.

  Despite its accelerating pace, the metropolis is ultimately changeless. Its people remain the same because London is a state of mind. They do not make London. London makes them.

  It had certainly made Ali. He thought like a Londoner, was as selfish and curious and impatient as a Londoner, but did not behave like one. It was the secret of his success; beneath a patina of English civility was an alien grace that marked him as exotic and unpredictable.

  That was how it had seemed to Cassie North until her mother had been pulled out of the Thames with dark bruises around her blanched neck. Now she began to think of him as something else entirely. What did she really know about him?

  Although the company was solidly founded on Ali’s charisma and Cassie’s business sense, it wasn’t enough. As time moved on word spread about the deaths of three women connected with the centre, and clients started to melt away. Like coconut oil, YOLO, fixed gear bikes and goji berries, booking a sampler course at Life Options threatened to become another fad that would evaporate overnight. Ali could not control the damage. Their backer sensed the storm before it hit and warned them that if the problem worsened he would be pulling out his money. Life Options attempted to carry on as normal but overnight it ceased to be a centre of calm and became fraught with tension. As nervous creditors began to reduce their payment windows, Cassie fought with Ali. It seemed that their overnight success story would quickly turn into a horror show.

  With May under house arrest and Bryant confined to quarters, it was down to Janice Longbright to finally secure an official interview with the elusive Cassie North. This time she attended in uniform. The effect was deliberate and had a galvanizing effect on the staff, who hastily swept her off to a quiet meeting room overlooking the river.

  ‘I’m burying my mother on Monday,’ said Cassie, standing behind her chair, unable to settle. ‘So you’ll forgive me if I’m not in the best of moods. We’ve had the press sniffing around, it’s been dreadful.’

  ‘I understand and I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Longbright, ‘but you’re central to this investigation now, and I will do whatever it takes to resolve this matter.’

  ‘Fine.’ Cassie pressed her hands together. ‘I’m not sure what more I can tell you. What do you need to know?’

  ‘Did Lynsey Dalladay have many friends here? Lovers, enemies?’

  ‘I counted myself as a friend.’

  ‘A confidante?’

  ‘No. She seemed to have a complicated private life.’ Cassie’s eyes stayed on Longbright’s. ‘I wouldn’t know about lovers, and I’m not aware she had enemies. I think people found her difficult. She was very outspoken.’

  ‘She left Mr Cooper’s house two weeks before she died. Do you have any idea where she was staying?’

  ‘None whatsoever,’ Cassie replied emphatically. ‘She turned up on time for the courses so we mostly talked about those.’

  Longbright switched tack. ‘How did you get on with your mother?’

  ‘Well enough to offer her a job here. We had our differences of opinion.’

  ‘Was Marion seeing anyone? Having problems? Did you talk about stuff like that?’

  ‘We had lunch,’ said Cassie truthfully. ‘We talked. She wasn’t seeing anyone and she wasn’t planning on killing herself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Longbright asked.

  ‘There’s a rumour that you think the women who come here are indoctrinated into some kind of suicide cult.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Longbright asked, intrigued.

  ‘Some muckraker from Hard News has been adding to our problems. She’s been getting information from someone at your unit. We’re not Scientologists, we’re not locking inmates in punishment blocks. Lynsey was here to improve herself.’

  ‘Perhaps she thought the only way to do that was by starting again,’ Longbright countered, but now she wondered who had been leaking information to the press.

  It didn’t take long to find out.

  In his survival bunker, a disused caretaker’s basement in a council block behind the Francis Crick biomedical research institute, Jamel Letheeto tested the metal alloy that had appeared underneath the silver plating in the Tibetan skull, only to discover that it contained fourteen separate poisonous substances. Some, like iron and zinc, were easily dealt with. Others, like cadmium, proved trickier because while the patient showed negligible amounts in his system, his symptoms were consistent with the presence of such a metal. There were further substances that proved impossible to identify. Jamel wondered if they were plant extracts that had been rubbed into the bone to season it.

  The doctor’s chelation therapies involved an alarming series of washes and flushes not sanctioned by the British Medical Association. This was because of the skill required to perform the procedures and the risks they involved, but Bryant knew there was no time to waste. Convinced about the cause of his symptoms, he put his faith in Jamel’s skills. A fibre-optic bronchoscope was used to remove the only visible particles from his chest and left him with an incredibly sore throat, but no invasive surgery was required.

  The testing and flushing ran continuously. At first they left Bryant feeling feeble-brained and weak-bodied, but as the toxins left his system his strength returned with surprising speed.

  ‘How are you feeling, Mr Bryant?’ asked Jamel, tidying away his equipment, pleased with his work.

  ‘Like someone’s been dragging fish-hooks through my pipes,’ said Bryant.

  ‘That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. You’re a man of immense fortitude,’ Jamel replied. ‘You know, there are thirteen thousand different ways that the human body can fail and you had to pick one of the most obscure. It’s a good job you thought of calling me.’

  ‘I like to be different.’ Bryant buttoned his shirt and accepted a hand down from the makeshift treatment couch. ‘Do you still think I’ll make a full recovery?’

  ‘Honestly? No.’ Jamel shrugged. ‘It’s been more complicated than I thought. There could be some permanent brain damage.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. What’s a little brain damage at my age?’

  ‘You probably won’t suffer any more aphasic episodes, but you may never fully get rid of the lucid dreams.’

  ‘I knew I must have come into contact with something harmful,’ Bryant said. ‘I’ve always been selectively forgetful but the blackouts started suddenly, as if I’d reached a point of toxic overload. Then I remembered reading about the Congolese tribal elders and began to wonder about poisonous metals. I wish I’d thought of that damned skull earlier. You may wish to keep it as a souvenir. What can I do for you, Jamel?’

  ‘You can’t help me with the one thing I really want,’ said the doctor sadly. ‘I want my old job back. They’re not going to give it to someone with an apocalypse complex.’

  ‘Is it really that debilitating?’

  Jamel indicated his laptop screen. ‘Some people use the BBC as their home page. I use the Centre for Disease Control. I can’t help stockpiling for the Big One. I know it’s irrational, but all compulsions are. It wasn’t affecting my work.’

  ‘Survivalists need medics,’ said Bryant. ‘I think I could put you in touch with someone who would hire you on a freelance basis. The Safety in Numbers Society has branches in Texas and Virginia. You could probably handle a couple of Evangelist Rapture groups as well.’

  A deal was struck over a handshake. One week
after his treatment began, Bryant went home. The detective decided not to tell anyone about his return to health until he was quite sure that the treatment had worked.

  In the meantime John May was confined to his apartment in Shad Thames, and although the remaining members of the PCU’s staff continued to add information to the case, a resolution eluded them. May had suffered mild bouts of despondency in the past, but now a terrible new darkness fell upon him.

  Raymond Land refused to allow Bryant anywhere near the PCU building, but loyally called him every night to see how he was faring. Janice Longbright co-ordinated searches and interviews, Dan Banbury stockpiled such evidence as there was, and Giles Kershaw delayed the filing of autopsy reports on the victims while Fraternity, Meera and Colin talked to potential witnesses. But somehow every one of them missed making the most obvious inquiry of all.

  The infrastructure of the PCU had fractured. Without Bryant and May to head it up, the unit simply failed to hold together. Raymond Land had always relied on his detectives to tell him what to do. Without them he was utterly bereft. Unable to make even the simplest decisions, he wandered about looking like a funfair proprietor who couldn’t remember if he’d tightened all the nuts on his Ferris wheel.

  To make matters worse, Darren Link’s internal investigations officer arrived. Barbara Biddle was a ruthlessly practical woman attempting to plot a fair course through a tough job, but with over fifty Metropolitan Police officers and nearly thirty staff members suspended for corruption in the past two years, facing allegations of drug dealing, bribery, theft, fraud, dishonesty, sexual misconduct and unauthorized information disclosure, she could not afford to make any mistakes. She had a wide body and a narrow spectrum of interests, and told everyone that she would remain apart from the staff in order to preserve her impartiality, although the real reason was that she had nothing to say to them that did not involve some form of castigation. Her visits soon became feared.

  ‘I think we have to reach an agreement, you and I,’ she said, closing Raymond Land’s office door behind her and sitting down opposite him so quickly that he clutched his pencils. She was as sturdy as a skip, with hard eyes, hard hair and eyebrows painted in great arcs that gave her a look of permanent surprise. ‘It’s obvious you have a major problem here.’

  ‘What sort of problem?’ Land squeaked.

  ‘Imagine for a moment that you’re running a fried-chicken shop and I’m a health inspector. I come in to check on your hygiene and find you blithely battering rats.’

  ‘I’m not good with analogies,’ said Land.

  ‘Let me be blunt, then.’ Biddle slapped her hands flat on his desk. ‘There’s hardly a rule I can find unbroken in this building, from contaminated evidence to unbacked-up computers. These are failures in basic procedure. I don’t really know where to begin. Do you want to start with the lack of security? Are you aware that you’ve compromised this investigation?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You talked to a reporter yesterday.’

  ‘I most certainly did not.’ Land was adamant. ‘I didn’t speak to anyone outside of the unit yesterday apart from my barber at lunchtime.’

  ‘Did it occur to you that he might not have been a barber?’ asked Biddle. ‘Have you seen your hair? You look like a dog after an operation.’

  ‘I was only passing the time of day,’ said Land, crestfallen.

  ‘All right, what about the cow’s head?’

  Land looked startled. ‘What cow’s head?’

  ‘The one with four bullet holes between its eyes in the common-room fridge.’ She sat back, awaiting an explanation.

  ‘That’s probably Mr Bryant’s. He does . . . experiments.’

  ‘I assume he’s also responsible for the marijuana plant, the live rounds of ammunition behind his desk, the stuffed animals and the collection of Victorian arsenic bottles, some of which seem to be full and in one case leaking?’

  ‘Yes, that would be him.’

  ‘There seems to have been a disastrous collapse in the command chain,’ said Biddle. ‘There’s no point in singling out a particular fault. It would be like treating an infected fingernail when the entire body is riddled with leprosy. You see my point?’

  ‘I’m beginning to,’ said Land warily. He should have known she would be trouble. You couldn’t trust a woman with a name like someone blowing through a hose into a bucket of water.

  ‘So here’s my problem. If I start with just what I see walking around this place, the unit would have to be immediately closed with a cease-and-desist order, and that would mean I’d be unable to investigate what I’m actually here for, which is to try and find out why one of your most senior officers has ended up being a suspect in his own investigation. You see the dilemma.’

  ‘Ah, erm, yes.’

  ‘Obviously I want to be able to perform the duty with which I am tasked, and I cannot do that if the unit is closed.’ Biddle found it hard to be officious with a man who looked as if he might shout at himself in bathroom mirrors. ‘So let’s cut a deal. I will continue to investigate the circumstances which have led to Mr May being placed in this invidious position by turning a blind eye to your current working practices. I’ll present my case by keeping within the restrictions of its guidelines and ignoring everything else, for now at least. But I’ll have to make a secondary report to Superintendent Link upon submitting my conclusions.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just – not?’

  ‘How will that help the dead and the living for whom you must bear witness?’ Biddle asked. ‘Your job – in case I have to remind you – is to convict the guilty, protect the innocent and uncover the truth, aims that might be compromised by the revelation that some of the investigating officers are holding bingo sessions in the evidence room.’

  ‘Are they? I’ll have to put a stop to that.’

  ‘There’s also some kind of Victorian coffin in the basement.’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking that’s not ours. We sort of inherited it.’

  ‘You don’t know much about what goes on around here, do you?’

  Land thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘They don’t always keep me in the picture, no.’

  ‘I think I’ve identified the weak spot in the chain of command,’ said Biddle.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Land. ‘Perhaps you can help me to get rid of it.’

  ‘Root and branch,’ said Biddle, smiling for the first time.

  35

  CHAOS & ORDER

  Cassie North buried her mother’s ashes in a short ceremony at West Norwood cemetery on a Monday morning wreathed in discreet veils of drizzle. Her grandfather attended along with her aunt Molly and a few children who barely knew Marion and ran around the flowerbeds in beatific ignorance of death’s wingspan.

  Freddie Cooper came alone and stood off to one side, trying not to look as if he was ambulance-chasing. Cassie couldn’t work out if he was genuinely sorry for her loss or if he was just there to support his investment. Either way, she had to remain on her guard. Two of Marion’s most loyal clients turned up, and just as the service was finishing Ali arrived in his new jeep, dressed in a black designer suit that was too fashionable to be respectful. Cassie left her aunt and tried to head him off.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

  Ali removed his mirrored glasses. The day had barely grown light. ‘She was working for me, Cassie. I came to say goodbye, that’s all.’

  ‘You didn’t know her.’ She looked around herself, unable to stop her anger from flooding out. ‘You think you know us? You don’t have the first idea. You look as if you’re going to a party. This isn’t just another social gathering you can charm your way into.’

  Ali couldn’t understand why Cassie was angry. She and her mother had never seen eye-to-eye, but he figured that loss could resolve differences just as it created regrets. ‘You think I just want to be accepted?’ he asked. ‘That it’s about your class system? I don’t care about any of you, I wa
nt to be rich, that’s all. You act like making money is a sin. You’ve never had to live in a place so screwed up that you’d risk your life to get out of it.’

  ‘We’re all the product of our formative years,’ said Cassie coldly.

  ‘You can’t stop acting spoilt, can you? Look at Lynsey, the way she behaved.’

  She turned on him. ‘And what was your role in that, Ali? What exactly did you do?’

  Conscious that the mourners were staring at them in disapproval, he lowered his voice. ‘You’d better start getting the accounts back in order or Cooper will pull out and we will lose everything.’

  ‘Is that why you came to my mother’s funeral, to discuss our finances?’ Cassie snapped back.

  ‘No, you’re right, this is disrespectful,’ Ali replied. ‘I should not have come here. There is no sight more depressing than seeing the British close their doors. It makes you all look so small.’

  As he walked away, Janice Longbright shut her notebook and headed back to the PCU.

  If the wellbeing centre was experiencing problems, the Peculiar Crimes Unit was by now in a state of abject chaos. On that Monday morning the operations room looked as if medical students had held a party in it, and Janice now kept it locked for fear of providing Barbara Biddle with further ammunition. Elsewhere, photographic evidence, statements and half-finished reports had been shoved into folders to fool the internal investigations officer into thinking that order prevailed, but she wasn’t that easily tricked.

  ‘There’s banana ketchup all over my timesheets,’ said Meera, giving up. She pushed back from the overflowing desk she shared with Colin. ‘I can’t work like this, I’m going to get a coffee.’

  Colin trotted along behind her. ‘There must be something we can do,’ he said. ‘Someone has to take control.’

  ‘I don’t see how any of us can, not when that sodding woman’s creeping about taking notes all the time.’

  ‘She’s just trying to do her job,’ Colin reasoned.