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

by Christopher Fowler

  The second-floor front door opened to reveal a slender, delicate-boned young woman with large, expressive eyes, her blonde hair knotted in a graceful chignon. She was wearing a black and silver T-shirt that read ‘Wild Girl’, very tight jeans and high heels. For a moment, Bryant assumed it was the maid. Then he remembered the photograph.

  She studied the detectives in puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry, I was expecting you to be more, well, Scotland Yard, you know? At home we used to have an old English television programme with a detective, always doing crossword puzzles and breaking secret codes.’

  ‘Ah, you were expecting someone in a gabardine mackintosh with a pencil moustache and a pipe,’ said Bryant. ‘Possibly wearing a bowler hat. Actually, I’m very good at breaking codes and I do have a pipe.’

  ‘No,’ said Sabira, ‘I just meant he was younger.’ Her blue eyes widened and her hand rose to her mouth. To their surprise, she started giggling. ‘Oh God, I’ve done it again,’ she said, horrified and amused in equal measure. ‘Lately I seem to have offended every English person I’ve spoken to.’ She ushered them into a narrow painting-filled hall that led to the drawing room.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ said Bryant, revealing a crescent of bleached false teeth. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of tea?’

  ‘Of course – the tea, always the tea!’ Settling the detectives, she ran to the kitchen, her heels clicking on the oak floor, and called back over her shoulder: ‘Do either of you know a cure for a hangover? I feel terrible this morning.’ She sounded unrepentant.

  Bryant had already found an armchair. He pointed back at the wall mirror behind him; a bolt of black velvet material had been thrown over the glass. ‘She’s behaving very oddly,’ he whispered. ‘You’d better go and see to her.’

  May raised his hand. ‘Leave this to me.’

  He joined Sabira in the kitchen. ‘Mrs Kasavian—’ he began.

  ‘Oh, call me Sabira, I can’t bear being so formal.’

  ‘I have something that might sort out your head. But I’ll need—’

  ‘Just dig around in the cupboards for anything you want. I have a tiny man with a road-drill behind my eyes.’ She was racing around in the tiny space, boiling water, spilling milk, rattling cups, nearly dropping them.

  May found what he needed. Filling a tumbler with milk, he added a dash of Worcester sauce, chilli sauce and black pepper, and cracked an egg into the mixture. ‘You must drink it straight down without breaking the yolk,’ he explained. ‘The egg contains cysteine, which helps fight the free radicals in your liver.’

  Sabira gave the tumbler a mischievous sidelong glance, and then grabbed it and downed it in one, slamming the empty glass into the sink. ‘Gëzuar!’ she shouted. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, flicked a loose blond curl away from her eyelashes and grinned. ‘That was truly – disgusting.’ She laughed again.

  Bryant had settled so deeply into the armchair that he looked as if he came with the room. ‘You were a long time,’ he complained, helping himself to biscuits.

  ‘We were getting rid of an annoying little man,’ said Sabira, dropping on to the sofa opposite. ‘I suppose you’re here to tell me off.’

  ‘I think it goes beyond that,’ said May. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you’re married to a very high-powered official, and he has many enemies. They watch and wait for incidents like last night’s, and use them against your husband’s department.’

  ‘Oh, the woman was rude, the speeches were long and boring, and I got drunk. In my country such a thing is not important. We laugh because there is so much pain in our lives. Sometimes there is nothing else to do but laugh – you understand this?’

  ‘But your situation is very different now. Your husband is a very important man.’

  ‘I know! Everyone keeps telling me about the important man! Don’t you think I know that I have shamed him? Of course I know! But there are things you don’t know.’ She stabbed a painted nail at both of them in turn.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell us,’ said Bryant.

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘I’m too old for games,’ said Bryant. ‘If you can’t trust a man of my advanced years, who can you trust?’

  ‘That is a fair point,’ Sabira conceded. ‘I’ll try to answer your questions.’

  ‘Was this the first time such an incident has occurred?’

  ‘In public, yes. I’ve been upset for a while now.’

  ‘What about? Why are you so upset?’

  Sabira leaned forward with her head in her hands, trying to compose her thoughts. ‘This is the fine English society I heard so much about. When I married Oskar, I knew things would not go easily for me, but I did not think I would be shut out so completely. Right from the start, I would walk into a room and feel it go cold. The women are the worst. At least the men fancy me. The women look at my clothes, my face and go – poof!’ She flicked up her nose, imitating their disdain. ‘They ask who are my people, where do they live, what do they own and I tell them with complete honesty. I say I was born Sabira Borkowski, and I grew up with the smell of a smelting plant in my nostrils. Oskar always said I would have to be less honest, but it’s not in my nature. About a year ago I came to the … understanding? Is that the word? … that this was how it would always be from now on. I would be a social outcast.’ She looked from one of her guests to the other, anxious to make them understand. ‘I thought my marriage would open the doors, not slam them in my face. They think I’m stupid, common, a gold-digger, a whore. I was largely self-educated, but I am a clever woman. Since coming here I have studied English literature and art history as well as the history of London. I am better than these dried-up snobs, but perhaps not as confident.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked May, ‘You seem to know your own mind.’

  ‘I’ll never be accepted by the people closest to my husband, and I really don’t care. The old ones with their inherited furniture, their horses and boat races and seasons at Glyndebourne – boring, boring. Who cares? They talk about breeding, they trace their history back through the centuries but it’s really just about who owns the most. Many of these people are Oskar’s colleagues. It’s as if they all belong to some big private club that no one else is allowed to enter. I smile and keep my mouth shut. I dress nicely and behave well and I outsmile every last one of them.’

  ‘You didn’t last night.’

  ‘No, a demon came out of the brandy bottle.’ She laughed again.

  ‘But something else happened, didn’t it? Tell me what occurred six weeks ago.’

  ‘Did Oskar tell you that?’ For the first time the pair saw a flicker of fear in her eyes.

  ‘He says he saw a change in your behaviour from that time.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Some things are personal.’

  ‘Then we can’t help you,’ said Bryant, putting down his cup. ‘Ta for the biscuits.’ He made to get up, but couldn’t get out of the armchair.

  ‘No, wait, please. Ask me something else.’

  ‘All right. How do you get on with your husband’s colleagues?’

  ‘Which ones? The people in his department?’

  ‘Yes, Edgar Lang, Stuart Almon and Charles Hereward,’ said May. He saw Bryant mouthing ‘Who?’ at him. ‘They’re all in Mr Kasavian’s division, and they’re also his business partners. That’s correct, Sabira, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, they own a company together. Oskar is very careful about declaring his interests. He places great value on honesty.’

  ‘Pegasus Holdings provides intelligence to the scientific community,’ May told his partner. ‘They check for security leaks and make sure data doesn’t get passed to the wrong parties. It’s part-funded by British and American homeland security interests.’

  ‘There’s no conflict with the ministry?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘It’s the kind of public–private initiative this government loves. There are guidelines governing the run
ning of such companies. The Home Office isn’t allowed to outsource to Pegasus without holding an open tender.’

  ‘Stuart Almon fell out with Oskar and is now just doing the books,’ said Sabira. ‘They are colleagues but not friends.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ said Bryant. ‘You must meet these people socially. It was Edgar Lang’s wife you threw the drink over, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t care for Edgar or his wife. I find them insufferable. Charlie seems less pompous. I don’t think he went to Eton. Stuart is simply invisible. I’ve met him dozens of times but can’t even remember what he looks like.’

  ‘And their wives?’

  ‘They don’t like me, of course. They spent their lives being groomed to marry powerful men, and along I come and steal their husbands’ boss. I hate them all. But it doesn’t matter what I think. I suppose they are all very clever men, and their wives – well, they do what such wives are trained to do.’

  ‘Why did you cover up the mirror?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘There are bad things here.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Devils. In my country we call them devils. I don’t know what you call them.’

  ‘You mean spirits?’

  ‘They can be in many forms. They can be the ghosts of the dead, or people who are not what they say they are.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘They take different shapes,’ Sabira warned. ‘Some of them are Oskar’s friends. Some of them can walk through the walls.’

  ‘Walk through walls?’

  ‘Yes, in places where they should not be.’

  May felt a growing sense of frustration. Each time he thought they were getting somewhere, Sabira’s answers became abstract.

  ‘Let’s see if we can cut through some of the mystery,’ said Bryant impatiently. ‘You covered the mirrors because you didn’t want to see these spirits? Or you didn’t want them to see you?’

  ‘That spirit waits for me in the dark. He glares over my shoulder. He will kill me if he can.’

  Bryant clambered to his feet and walked over to the mirror. With a flourish, he whipped away the bolt of black cloth. Sabira gasped and turned her face aside. To May, it seemed like a piece of terrible overacting.

  Bryant stepped back and examined the mirror’s surface. ‘See? There’s nothing.’

  ‘He’s not there now.’

  ‘Your husband says you talk to strangers in churches.’

  ‘Certainly. Why not? I feel safe there. When I was a little girl, if I ever felt sad or frightened I would go to the mosque and the feeling would go away.’

  ‘So why do you go to churches?’

  ‘What, you think because I was once a practising Muslim I cannot enter a church? It is a sanctuary to me, nothing more. A mosque is where my thoughts can be heard, but a church will do almost as well.’ She laughed. ‘I’m glad my parents can’t hear me say that.’

  ‘But your husband also says you believe there is some kind of … satanic club—’

  ‘You have met Oskar’s colleagues. They all belong to clubs, Boodle’s, the Devonshire, White’s, but sometimes there are clubs inside of clubs and this – this’ – she stamped her palms together – ‘is where they plan their evil.’

  ‘But you don’t honestly mean they’re satanic?’

  ‘Well – perhaps this is the wrong word.’

  ‘Do you have many friends of your own age?’ asked May, changing tack. ‘Anyone in whom you can confide, have a good honest conversation?’

  ‘Only in Albania. No English. My husband does not approve of my Albanian friends because they are low class.’

  ‘You’re not wearing any jewellery,’ said Bryant, cutting in. ‘Do you normally?’

  The question took Sabira by surprise. ‘Sometimes, for formal occasions only. But not like the other women. You hang baubles from a straggly tree to distract from the meanness of its branches.’

  Bryant laughed but May could see they were not going to get any further. ‘I think that’s all we have to ask you today,’ he said, rising. ‘I hope we’ll meet again.’

  ‘I hope so too,’ said Sabira, smiling warmly. ‘My head is feeling much better now.’

  ‘Well, I thought she was delightful,’ said May as they headed back across the square. The sky had clouded over and a strand of grey shadow was massing above the church. ‘But highly strung. All the paranoid stuff, it’s just in her mind. She feels cut off from her friends, she hates the circles she’s forced to mix in, and when she picks a fight I imagine her husband refuses to take her side.’

  ‘I think it’s something more than that,’ murmured Bryant. ‘Come over here. Children don’t use this square. Hardly anyone cuts across it because the back gate is kept locked, and they certainly don’t deviate from the path if they do. Take a good look at the grass.’

  He wandered over to a patch of green within the boundary of the church and poked at it with his walking stick. Then he looked back at the Kasavians’ second-floor apartment.

  ‘This is the area of the street she sees reflected in the mirror. That’s why she keeps it covered. Look.’ He directed his stick at a lamp-post on the path. ‘She sees a man standing under the lamplight at night, watching her.’

  He bent and examined the flattened area. ‘It rained on Saturday night. Someone stood here on the wet grass.’ There were several cigarette butts tightly grouped in among the crushed blades. ‘I think he stood here and watched her. And she’s terrified of him.’

  9

  PERMISSIBLE MATERIAL

  ALMA SORROWBRIDGE DRAGGED the last of the cardboard cartons inside the front door and kicked it shut with her slippered foot. When the removal men refused to pack up Bryant’s chemistry experiments and transport them, citing health-and-safety regulations, her church group had kindly undertaken the task.

  Now everything from his reeking Petri dishes to his mummified squirrels and the stuffed bear inside which Kensington Police had once discovered the body of a gassed dwarf had been shifted into the new flat’s spare room, in an almost perfect replica of Bryant’s old study.

  Alma picked up a book and checked its spine: Intestinal Funguses Volume 3. None of Mr Bryant’s books seemed to have been arranged alphabetically, but were grouped by themes and the vagaries of his mind. She set the tome between A User’s Guide to Norwegian Sewing Machines and The Complete Compendium of Lice and hoped it would eventually find its place. After setting his green leather armchair behind his stained old desk and arranging what he referred to as his ‘consulting chair’ before it, she satisfied herself that everything was in its rightful place, gave the shelves a final flick of her duster and sat down to await her lodger’s arrival. Bryant had been sleeping in his office, and had yet to see his new home.

  The move to number 17, Albion House, Harrison Street, Bloomsbury, had been delayed because the council painters had decorated the wrong flat, but as she checked each of the rooms she saw much that was to her liking. The windows were large and let in plenty of light. The oven had already been put to good use and the kitchen was filled with the smell of freshly baked bread. Best of all, her bedroom was at the far end of the corridor away from Mr Bryant, so she wouldn’t be disturbed by his appalling snoring.

  The impatient knock at the door suggested that he had already mislaid his keys. ‘You never told me we were on the third floor,’ he complained before she had even managed to open the door wide.

  ‘There’s a lift. Why didn’t you take it?’

  ‘It smells of wee.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I just bleached it.’

  ‘Aha, then it did smell of wee.’

  ‘Of course not, I just knew you would make a fuss.’

  ‘I really didn’t realize we’d be all the way up here.’ Bryant sniffed and peered about himself in vague disapproval. ‘There are lots of bicycles chained to the railings downstairs, and there’s an Indian man in a string vest watering some kind of vegetable patch. He offered m
e a turnip.’ He unwound his moulting green scarf and took a tentative step inside. ‘Hm. Nice paintwork. Did you do that?’

  ‘No, the council sent someone round.’

  ‘What, they paid for it?’

  ‘Yes, they pay for maintenance and upkeep.’

  ‘That’s a good wheeze. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this years ago. And you say the rent’s very low?’

  ‘You’re classed as an essential worker, Mr Bryant, although I can’t imagine why.’

  ‘Where’s my study?’

  Alma pushed open the study door with a little pride, although pride was technically regarded as a sin by her church. ‘Here we are,’ she said, stepping out of his way.

  Bryant walked around his desk, shifting books and ornaments by an inch here, an inch there. ‘Where’s my Tibetan skull?’

  ‘Exactly where it always is,’ said Alma. ‘In your office at work.’

  ‘And my Mexican Day of the Dead puppets?’

  ‘You gave them to Mr May’s sister’s children the last time you went down to see them. She confiscated them from her boys after one of them cut himself on a crucifix and came up in boils.’

  ‘Just testing. My books are out of order.’

  ‘Well, that will give you something to do when you’re home, won’t it?’

  ‘And where’s my marijuana plant?’

  ‘This is a council block. You can’t keep it here any more, the police have dogs.’

  ‘I am the police, you silly woman.’

  ‘I sent it to your office. Honestly, I thought you’d be pleased. It took half a dozen of us to move all your stuff in and lay it out correctly. There’s a nice southerly light.’

  Bryant sniffed. ‘I suppose it’ll have to do.’

  ‘It’ll have to do,’ Alma repeated. She was a large, cheerful woman predisposed to a kind smile, but right now the smile was fading to a scowl. ‘It’ll have to do? You ungrateful, miserable old man! You didn’t help me in any way. I had to attend the court hearings and deal with the compulsory purchase order of our old place, then search for accommodation and apply for the flat and deal with the council, a job I wouldn’t wish on a dog, then move everything by myself and reinstall it here without a single thing broken, missing or out of place, and all you had to do was walk out of your old home and into this one with nothing more than the clothes on your back. I still have relatives in Antigua; I could have left you and gone home to live somewhere happy and sunny, but I stayed here. If I wasn’t a good Christian I’d smack you around the head until your ears rang.’