Bryant & May and the Invisible Code (Bryant & May 10)

by Christopher Fowler

  Ten minutes later, the detectives had hailed a taxi and were heading south towards Victoria. ‘My guess is he wants an explanation about the memoir,’ said Bryant.

  ‘Then why would he ask to see me as well?’

  ‘You’re mentioned in the title of the book, John. You’re as involved in this as I am. I think he might have found something unpalatable in one of the chapters and taken objection.’

  ‘I wonder if it’s the part where you refer to MI7 as a secure ward for the mentally disenfranchised, or the bit where you describe his department as a hotbed of paranoid conspiracy theorists with a looser grip on reality than a stroke victim’s hold on a bedpan handle?’

  ‘I’m impressed you remembered that,’ said Bryant, pleased. ‘There’s nothing in the book that breaches the Official Secrets Act, and that’s the only thing he can get me on. Anna triple-checked it.’

  ‘Yes, but Anna Marquand is dead.’ Bryant’s biographer had supposedly died of septicaemia in the South London home she shared with her mother, but she had passed away shortly after being mugged by an unknown assailant. The case remained unsolved.

  ‘You know my feelings about that,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m sure Kasavian’s department is implicated somehow. He might not have been directly involved, but I bet he knows who was.’

  ‘I’m not so convinced any more,’ said May. ‘You honestly think the Home Office found something in your memoirs that was so damaging they would commit murder to cover it up? They’re part of the British government, not the Vatican.’

  ‘I think they might have gone as far as condoning an unlawful killing, if it involved the Porton Down case.’ Bryant sucked his boiled sweet ruefully.

  Porton Down was a military science park in Wiltshire, the home of the Ministry of Defence’s Science & Technology Laboratory, DSTL. The executive agency had been set up and financed by the MOD to house Britain’s most secretive military research institute. Three years ago there had been a rash of suicides at a biochemical company outsourced by the DSTL. The project leader at the laboratory had turned whistle-blower, and had been found drowned. At the time, Oskar Kasavian had been employed as the head of security in the same company. It might have been coincidence – government defence officials moved within a series of tightly overlapping circles – but the absence of information made Bryant suspicious.

  ‘Why do something so dramatic?’ asked May. ‘Why not simply slap an injunction on the book?’

  ‘That would be the best way to draw attention to it, don’t you think? Do you honestly imagine governments can’t make people disappear when they want to? Looks like we’re here.’

  The taxi was pulling up in Marsham Street, the new Home Office headquarters. The building had won architectural awards, but to Bryant’s mind its interior possessed the kind of anonymous corporate style favoured by corrupt dictators who enjoyed picture windows in the boardroom and soundproofed walls in the basement.

  ‘A word of advice, Arthur,’ May volunteered. ‘The less you say, the better. Don’t give him anything he can use as ammunition.’

  ‘Oh, you know me, I’m the soul of discretion.’

  May’s firm hand on his shoulder held him back. ‘I mean it. This could go very badly for us.’

  ‘That’s fine, John, so long as you remember that he is our enemy. Anna Marquand was more than just my biographer, she was fast on her way to becoming a good friend; someone I trusted with the secrets of my life. And she may have paid for it with her own.’

  In the immense open atrium, the detectives appeared as diminished as the figures in a Lowry painting. A blank-faced receptionist asked for their signatures and handed them plastic swipe cards.

  Three central Home Office buildings were connected from the first to the fourth floors by a single walkway. This formed part of a central corridor running the length of the site, commonly known as the Bridge. Kasavian’s new third-floor office was in the only part of the building that had no direct access to sunlight. As the detectives entered his waiting room, they felt the temperature fall by several degrees.

  Kasavian’s assistant looked as if she hadn’t slept for months. ‘Perhaps he drains her blood,’ Bryant whispered from the side of his mouth. She beckoned them into an even dimmer room. Kasavian was standing at the internal window with his back to them, his hands locked together, a tall black outline against a penumbra of dusty afternoon light. In this corner of the new century’s high-tech building it was forever 1945.

  May glanced across at his partner. Arthur Bryant had no interest in what others thought of his appearance. His sartorial style could most easily be described as ‘Post-war Care Home Jumble Sale’. It was usually possible to see what he had been eating just by glancing at his front. John May prided himself on a certain level of elegance, although his police salary did not run to handmade suits. When Kasavian turned, May instantly recognized the Savile Row cut of charcoal-grey cloth, the lustrous gleam of Church’s shoes, the dark glitter of Cartier cufflinks, and felt a twinge of jealousy.

  ‘Take a seat, both of you. I’m sorry about the light. Sometimes when I’m stressed my eyes become hypersensitive.’

  Bryant shot his partner a meaningful look. Something’s wrong here. Kasavian never revealed anything that could be interpreted as a human flaw; it wasn’t in his DNA to do so.

  Kasavian sighed and absently ran a palm against the side of his oiled black hair. As yet he had looked neither of them in the face. He stalked around his chair, picked up an onyx-handled letter opener and set it back down, then suddenly seemed at a loss. Searching about in vague confusion, he eventually planted himself on the edge of the desk and carefully studied each of them in turn.

  ‘This isn’t about your memoir,’ he said finally. ‘Our legals gave it a cursory glance when it was still proofing.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Bryant. ‘The galleys were locked away.’

  Kasavian waved the implication aside. ‘We let you off because it appears your early cases weren’t covered by actionable security regulations, and the department has resolved not to take a stance on your more provocative jibes. We like to think we can take a joke, and besides, your personal opinions don’t matter to us. This – well, it’s about something else entirely. And it occurred to me that you might be able … that is, you might be the only ones … who could help me out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked May.

  ‘Perhaps I’m not making myself clear,’ said Kasavian, rising and starting to pace about. ‘I want to hire your services.’

  6

  PERSECUTED

  BRYANT WAS TAKEN aback by the tone of Kasavian’s voice. The civil servant he knew had a steely grimness that turned the lightest remark into the pronouncement of a death sentence, Judge Jeffreys with a gastric complaint. Now he sounded unsure of himself and almost human.

  ‘I know there has been a certain level of … dissension between us in the past, but I want to put that behind us.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Bryant, ‘but could you sit down? You’re making me nervous.’

  Kasavian went behind his desk and sat. Bryant was amazed. It was the first time the security chief had ever heeded one of his requests. Steepling his long, crab-leg fingers, Kasavian thought for a moment. ‘I don’t want this to go beyond my office, do you understand?’

  ‘Of course,’ May readily agreed, inching forward on his chair. Bryant shot him a jaundiced look.

  ‘I have a problem. It has nothing to do with the antagonism between your unit and my department. This is a purely personal matter.’

  Bryant was clearly fighting to suppress a grimace. He liked his enemies cold and bitter, like his beer. Anything less weakened them in his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know if either of you has ever met my wife?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Bryant. ‘I never pictured you being married to a—’ He was thinking of human being, but hastily ended the sentence.

  ‘She’s – very beautiful. Very young. Perhaps too young.’ He lifted a framed ph
otograph from his desk and showed it to them. ‘In this job one expects to be vetted for many different degrees of security clearance, but one thing they don’t do is decide whom you fall in love with. Perhaps they should do. How can I describe Sabira? She’s wilful and easily bored. Rather like a Christmas tree: beautifully adorned but likely to burn the house down if left unattended.’

  For Bryant, this was intolerable. The last thing he wanted was to know about the private life of his arch-nemesis, but the framed photograph was extraordinary. It showed an extremely attractive woman with a heart-shaped face, an absurdly flat stomach and cantilevered breasts, lying in a cheesecake pose on a sun lounger in a candy-striped bikini. It looked less like she was absorbing the rays of the sun than radiating them. She did indeed appear to be very young. If Kasavian had to be married at all, surely his wife should have had a face that could send a dog under a table?

  Meanwhile, May was taking another look at the security supervisor and trying to imagine how on earth women could find him attractive. There was, he supposed, power and gravity in his bearing, authority in his saturnine features. A wife would be able take shelter if not comfort, and some were more concerned with finding a safe harbour than igniting passion.

  ‘She is the light of my life. Everything changed after I met her. But now there’s something wrong between us. It’s hard to explain. In the last six weeks her personality has undergone an extraordinary transformation. She is angry all the time – very angry. Not just with me but with everyone around her.’

  ‘We’re detectives, not marriage-guidance counsellors,’ said Bryant. ‘Have you tried taking her to the pictures occasionally?’ May fired off a warning look.

  ‘I’m not explaining myself very well. I’m not used to having this kind of conversation. Let me tell you more.’

  Bryant’s intestines cringed. He forced out a staggeringly insincere smile.

  ‘We’ve been married for almost four years. Sabira is eighteen years younger than me.’

  May gave a low whistle. Kasavian glared at him before continuing. ‘Yes, I know it’s a big gap. And on the surface, we have few common points of interest. She left school at fifteen to work in a biscuit factory; I went to Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. Her parents used to manage an industrial aluminium smelting plant in Albania and still live on the contaminated site; mine are landowners in Herefordshire and breed horses. She was raised a Muslim, I was High Anglican.’

  ‘But you love each other very much,’ said May, leaning further forward in his seat. Disgusted, Bryant unwrapped a Hacks cough sweet and crunched it noisily.

  ‘Our affection for each other is beyond question. I don’t want you to think this is some kind of lovers’ quarrel – there’s been a tangible and dangerous psychological change in her.’

  ‘Can you give us an example of her behaviour?’

  ‘I knew Sabira was raised in a religious household, but by the time she left home she was no longer a practising Muslim. I discovered she was superstitious when she began covering all the mirrors in the house.’

  ‘Why did she do that?’

  ‘She said there was an evil presence nearby.’ Kasavian shook the thought aside, impatient with its absurdity. ‘She said she could feel something following her around, intending harm. Believe me, I am fully aware how ridiculous this sounds.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said May. ‘Please go on.’

  ‘At first it just seemed like another of her quirks. Albania is one of the most religious countries in Europe, and she was raised in a small village, the kind of place about which they have a saying: “In order to live peacefully here, you must first make war with your neighbours.” Coming to London must have been a profound shock for her. Lately her belief in this so-called evil presence has escalated. She started ransacking the house, but wouldn’t tell me what she was looking for. One evening I came home and found her burning books and letters in the garden. She talked about devils taking human form, about satanic conspiracies and witchcraft and a plot against her and God knows how many other crazy notions. It’s not as if this happened slowly; the change occurred over two, perhaps three weeks.’

  ‘How did you cope with this?’

  ‘I was very busy here. I had just taken over the development of the new UK border-control directive, so I wasn’t at home much. It’s by far the largest project the department has ever undertaken, a pan-European initiative designed to curtail the movement of members of terrorist organizations within the EU. As the head of the UK delegation I’m representing the wishes and intentions of Her Majesty’s Government.’

  ‘What does that mean exactly?’ asked Bryant.

  Kasavian levelled ebony eyes at him. ‘It means I don’t get home in time for supper.’

  ‘Does your wife have many friends here?’

  ‘Hardly any. We met during her second London visit, and soon after she moved here to be with me.’

  ‘You said the psychological change in her was dangerous – what do you mean by that?’

  ‘Mr May, my job is to establish a rational explanation for why things go wrong and come up with practical solutions. But what do you do when your wife suddenly announces that she is being chased by demons? She swears there’s someone in the grounds of the house at night, someone who watches her all the time and wishes her harm. She believes she’s the victim of a witch-hunt. She says she only feels safe in a place of worship, so she spends more and more time in mosques and churches. One night she dragged me into the garden to look at a pattern carved on a tree and said it was a satanic sign, that she had been marked as a victim. I can’t talk to any of my colleagues about this, and I certainly couldn’t go to the police without any evidence. There’s no proof, no consistency to these absurd stories. I thought if anyone could understand, it would be you. You seem to know a lot of abnormal people.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Has she seen a doctor?’

  ‘She absolutely refuses to do so, and I can’t force her. She tells me there is a history of mental instability in her family, and fears becoming like her grandmother or her aunt, both of whom were sectioned after years of aberrant behaviour. She thinks a doctor will look at her past and make assumptions about her mental health.’

  ‘But if she’s delusional it seems she needs a therapist, not a detective.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Kasavian. ‘I and my entire department operate within the confines of the Official Secrets Act, and although I’ve told her virtually nothing about my work over the time we’ve been together, she is my wife. Within a marriage there can be no absolute guarantee of privacy. And now she is running around talking to complete strangers, telling them people are casting spells on her. I have no idea what else she’s saying to them. My position here is being compromised. It’s as if she’s two people, ecstatic one minute, suicidal the next. If I thought she was going mad I would force her to seek psychiatric help, but I suspect there’s something more to it.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because this cult of Devil-worshippers she imagines lurking behind every car and tree – I have a feeling she thinks I’m their leader.’

  ‘Well, you must admit you do look—’ Bryant began, but once again thought the better of it. ‘What do you imagine brought on this sudden change in her behaviour?’

  ‘I can only think something happened around six weeks ago – perhaps she met someone unsavoury, or did something foolish. Got herself into some kind of trouble. She won’t give me a straight answer.’

  ‘Then what do you expect us to do?’

  ‘I need you to find out if there’s anything behind these fantasies of hers,’ said Kasavian. ‘Obviously I wouldn’t be able to grant the case official status, but if you get to the root of the problem I think I can promise a very agreeable recompense.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘A full exoneration for the unit, an amnesty on your memoirs and a permanent guarantee of official status within the Cit
y of London Police structure. You’d no longer face challenges from the Met or the Home Office.’

  ‘We’d be reinstated and officially recognized?’ asked Bryant, staggered.

  ‘I just want my wife back,’ said Kasavian, looking suddenly pitiful. ‘Please, find a way to make her sane again.’

  ‘I haven’t felt this revolting since we wormed Crippen,’ said Bryant as they headed towards Victoria Station. ‘Dracula seeks our services and asks us to sort out his barking wife’s persecution complex? The very unit he’s spent the last few years trying to close down?’

  ‘You heard him,’ said May. ‘He has no one else to turn to.’

  ‘Of course not, everybody hates his guts. But we’re not experts on mental health. Quite the reverse, if anything. Besides, if I know Kasavian he’s less concerned about his wife’s sanity than he is about making sure his department isn’t brought into disrepute.’

  ‘That’s understandable. He’s about to represent British interests in Europe. The last thing he needs right now is something that will break his concentration and damage his reputation. And we might be able to deal with the problem quickly. It sounds as if Sabira’s parents live on a chemically contaminated site, and presumably she was raised there as well, which might explain her mental problems now. We have nothing to lose by taking on the case.’

  ‘Oh no? What if we fail? He’ll have the perfect ammunition against us.’

  ‘You heard him say that our involvement would be kept strictly off the record. He won’t be able to blame us if we fail. What have we got to lose?’

  ‘Do I have to remind you?’ asked Bryant. ‘Anna Marquand may have been murdered because somebody wanted to destroy the notes she made from my interviews.’

  ‘It would help if you could remember what you told her about your past cases.’

  ‘The sessions took place over a two-year period. I have no idea what I might have said. You know what my memory’s like. I can’t even remember where I’m living.’