Ten Second Staircase

by Christopher Fowler

  'Not that we can see. He did better than that this time—'

  'Let's have a quick shufti at the crime scene first, eh? Where's John?'

  'I believe he's on his way. He was—'

  'Out with Monica Greenwood, his married lady friend; yes, I know. While her husband is still lying comatose in hospital. The man has no scruples when it comes to attractive women. He behaves like a racing driver around them. Always leaves them windswept and out of breath. Either it's the effect of his overbearing charm or he only dates asthmatics. I don't know where he finds the energy.'

  'Actually, sir, you seem to have more energy than any of us,' Banbury admitted. 'You're a positive inspiration.'

  'Don't be obsequious, Banbury, nobody likes a creep. And I don't have excess energy, I'm just on these new tablets. Two sets of gel capsules for different times of the day. The blue ones fire my engines and the red ones leave me utterly disoriented. Pray I don't get them muddled up. Now, where's the body?'

  The gymnasium ran in an L-shape around the apartment building, its exterior wall cut with tall Gothic windows overlooking a quiet side road leading away from the cavernous meat market. St John Street could be glimpsed in the distance, a broad curve of Victorian turrets and sharp glass boxes. The building was a former fur niture repository for Gamages, the long-vanished department store in Holborn. The wide, bright space and high ceilings had made it ideal for conversion, although to Bryant's thinking it seemed perverse to fill the place with running machines when there were perfectly good pavements passing beside the Thames.

  They found the lights and flicked them back on. One side of the L was dedicated to cardiovascular equipment, the other to controlled weight systems. At the far end of the latter, Danny Martell lay facedown on the blue carpet tiles, where he had fallen onto his knees, a portly supplicant worshipping in the temple of Narcissus. Motes of dust filled the still air, lending the fitness room a hazy, dreamlike aura.

  'Do you feel it?' asked Bryant, taking stock of the scene. 'Something strange, an odd presence.'

  'The air is ionised, but I think I know what you mean. And I'm not normally sensitive to bad feelings.' Banbury looked about uncomfortably as the skin on his arms prickled.

  'Do you believe in the physical manifestation of evil?' Bryant was staring at him oddly.

  'I'm a scientist, sir. But as a Christian, I believe'—he chose his words carefully—'in the absence of good.'

  'Hm. It's just that some death sites—' Bryant thought for a moment, and decided not to share his philosophy. 'Why isn't Kershaw here?' He looked around for the unit's crime scene manager. But for the photographer and the two Met officers guarding the gym entrance, he and Banbury were alone.

  'He had to go to Orpington tonight, sir. His sister's getting married at the weekend. She's having a hen night and asked him to look after the kids.'

  'Her second marriage?'

  'No, sir, first.'

  'Charming. She's not supposed to already have progeny if she's only just getting to the altar; it's like ordering dessert before your main course. Next you'll be telling me they're from different fathers.'

  Banbury could never be sure when his boss was joking, although

  he knew that the old man was not as conservative as he sounded. Indeed, Longbright had warned him to treat the detective's outbursts with caution; Bryant's sense of humour at crime scenes was hard to fathom, as if he deflected his feelings about death with swift changes of topic.

  The old detective used his hated walking stick to lower himself beside Martell. Without Kershaw to examine the body, he would have to rely on his own observations. 'Very florid in the face. The burst blood vessels are suggestive. Should he have been using these ridiculous things without supervision?' He peered into the dead man's eyes, staring from different angles like an optician checking for glaucoma. Martell's pupils beamed down into the floor unnervingly.

  'Good question. He'd only started here the previous month. The owner tells me he hired a personal trainer, but she quit after he touched her up. Martell fancied himself as a bit of a ladies' man.'

  'I can't imagine a lady who could find him anything but skincrawlingly repellent.' Bryant wrinkled his nose in distaste. 'He was some kind of celebrity, I understand?'

  'If you count TV game shows, Saturday Night Laughter, stuff like that. Rather on the smarmy side for my taste.'

  'Not a reason to purchase a television, then.' It was bad enough that Bryant could hear Alma's set through the wall of his lounge without having to buy one of his own.

  'It's funny, he starred in the biggest-selling health and fitness DVD in Britain, but look at the state of him. He must have worn a corset for the cameras.'

  'How do you know it was a heart attack?'

  Banbury knelt beside the body. 'Without Giles, it's a bit of a guess. The high sclerosis, the fact that he's quite a few kilos overweight and was exerting himself. There's booze on his breath. There's also blood in the eyes. Heart attack victims feel a pressure, a squeezing sensation in the centre of the chest that stays for a few minutes. They tend to sit down and wait for the symptoms to go away, but the pain spreads to the shoulders, neck, and arms. They get light-headed and feel nauseous, sweat, or get short of breath, so Martell might have figured it was the effect of the workout. But then there's this.' He carefully lifted Martell's right hand to reveal a small triangular mark on his forearm. 'There's another on his left arm, and one in the middle of his chest.'

  'They look like burns.'

  Banbury pushed back the left sleeve of Martell's sport top and turned the cuff inside out. 'I think they were made by the heads of the zips on his workout gear, one on each sleeve, one running up the middle. They're all welded shut. Extreme heat.' He pulled down the neck of the top to reveal a livid crimson scar across Martell's throat. 'He was wearing a medallion on a chain. That's left burn marks, too. In light of these, I'd have to say we're looking at signs consistent with electrocution.'

  'So he was sitting on the seat—how do you operate this thing?' Bryant peered around the back of the machine. 'What on earth does it do?'

  'Builds the pectoral muscles, sir, like this.' He held his arm with the radius bone at right angles to the humerus. 'You raise your hands and hold the grips above your head on either side, pushing the pads forward with your forearms until they meet in the middle, then slowly releasing them.'

  'What on earth for?'

  'It's good for the chest.'

  'Not in his case. Looks as if he was seated here and fell forward after overexerting himself.'

  'That's what I thought, sir. In which case the burns make no sense. I don't see how he superheated so suddenly.'

  'There have been numerous documented cases of spontaneous combustion,' suggested Bryant. 'Nothing left of people but their shoes.'

  'Beg to disagree, sir. None ever properly substantiated, bit of a folk myth.'

  'But I've seen photographs of the process occurring,' Bryant insisted.

  'With all due respect, you've seen pictures of the aftermath, charred remains. It's an old wives' tale stemming from a single photograph of a woman who fell into a fire, taken in the 1920s, although it's true that the body can change its temperature very quickly. We're extremely adaptable machines.'

  Bryant wasn't happy about being corrected but was willing to concede the argument. 'Do you have a workable theory about this?' he asked.

  'Think we should talk to the witnesses now, sir. They can shed some more light.'

  Channing Gifford and her partner whose name Bryant failed to catch, lived in a first-floor apartment of such minimalist design that he thought they must have been recently burgled. Thieves had made off with most of the furniture, leaving bare floors of black slate and tall, clear vases of calla lilies perched starkly against hard white surfaces. In a thin blue tank running the length of one wall, a single angelfish hovered listlessly. Bryant and Banbury were ushered in, but there appeared to be nowhere to sit. Channing wore a white leotard with a black shift over
the top, and looked as if she had got dressed twice. She was as elegant as an ostrich, minus the exuberance of plumage, and clearly adored her partner, who was giraffe-tall, and moved with the same loping gait.

  'We teach modern dance, you understand,' Channing explained. 'We were warming up at the window, doing some gentle stretches—'

  '—very gentle stretches—' confirmed the partner unnecessarily.

  '—and watching the storm break. There were quite a few flashes of lightning, but far away, in the direction of Lambeth.'

  '—Lambeth. Then we saw the flash inside,' said her partner, whipping her long head in the direction of the gym opposite. 'A lightning flash, and we—'

  '—we saw him.'

  'You saw Danny Martell?' asked Bryant.

  'We know he works out there because fans sometimes wait—'

  '—they wait outside the door of the gym. They call his catchphrase up at the windows.'

  'We've had to get your officers out on numerous occasions, but you never do anything.'

  '—do anything at all.'

  Bryant didn't notice their sudden accusatory tone. He was too busy wondering how anyone could live in a lounge without seats. 'And you saw him in the room, working out?'

  'We weren't looking,' said Channing hastily, 'but a man that size is hard to miss. He blew up after his wife left him.'

  '—blew right up,' her partner agreed. 'Poor diet.'

  'We saw the lightning flash inside the room. It looked as if it came from the ceiling, a thin blue streak.'

  'Or perhaps through the window,' added her partner. 'But it hit him.'

  'You're sure of that?'

  'Most definitely,' said Channing. 'He screamed and fell forward. That's when I called the police.'

  'You didn't think of going over to see what had happened.'

  'No, we have a history with that gym—'

  '—an unpleasant history.'

  'It would be a great help if only one of you spoke at a time,' snapped Bryant, who hated couples completing each other's sentences.

  Channing looked at her partner and silently acknowledged an agreement to take over the story. 'We went to the window, to see what was happening, and—'

  Channing's partner opened her mouth. Everyone held their breath. Bryant shot her a filthy look. She shut it again. Channing continued. '—and we saw this man leaving the building. He was closing the main door behind him.'

  'Why did you notice him particularly?' asked Banbury.

  'He was a tall man. But it was the way he was dressed; you couldn't help noticing. At first I thought he was a motorcycle courier. You know, a black leather suit, tight-fitting, big black boots. But he was wearing a black half-mask that stopped at his cheekbones, and above that he was wearing a black hat, but quite small, like a futuristic version of a traditional highwayman. We once did a modern-dress production of The Beggar's Opera, with Macheath wearing something similar. And he had a little pigtail, like they used to, at the back. It put me in mind of that dreadful poem.'

  'Have you seen any pictures of him in the press?' asked Bryant.

  'No, we don't buy newspapers; they're full of lies. Why?'

  'Did you see where he went?'

  'He looked around, then ran off in the direction of Farringdon Road.'

  One of the busiest thoroughfares in central London, thought Bryant. Somebody else must have seen him.

  'If you think of anything else—' Banbury began, closing his notepad.

  'Well, of course we did, because of being dance teachers.' Channing's partner could not resist speaking out. 'It was the way he moved. Great strides, unnatural and awkward, as if walking hurt him. You see it in dancers all the time when their muscles are healing.'

  Bryant moved to the window and looked down into the shining yellow puddles below. In his mind's eye, he saw the Highwayman turn from the deep grey shadows of the building's archway and lope away towards the lights. Almost as if he wanted to draw attention to himself.

  'Good job they were looking out the window, sir,' Banbury consoled as they walked back towards Bryant's Mini Cooper.

  'They had no choice. There was nothing to look at in the flat.'

  'There was a fish. I've always wanted a pet.'

  'Fish aren't pets, Banbury, they're ornaments. Why didn't he leave a calling card this time, that's what I want to know.'

  'If he did, we haven't found it,' Banbury agreed.

  'Why not? He wants us to acknowledge him. Why not make sure by leaving the card again?'

  'You don't think it was some kind of freak side effect of the storm?'

  'Lightning has some unusual properties, Banbury, but I'm fairly sure it doesn't come through the windows and strike people indoors,' Bryant snapped back. 'Although my mother used to make us cover the mirrors and lay our cutlery flat during thunderstorms. I want that gym taken apart brick by brick. The Highwayman must have gained admittance to the room somehow, in which case he'll have left entry or exit marks. You of all people should know that.'

  Banbury was already shaking his head. 'I only had time for a quick look, but unless I'm missing some kind of secret passage, I really don't see how he could have effected an entry. Apart from anything else, Danny Martell would have seen him; he had an unobstructed view of the door from his seat on the machine. If he'd felt threatened, he would have got up, and we know he didn't do that.'

  'What are you suggesting?' asked Bryant. 'That we're dealing with some kind of supernatural agent who walks through walls, the living embodiment of a lousy half-remembered poem that's come down to earth for the sole purpose of exacting bloody vengeance on minor celebrities?'

  'I didn't say that, sir,' Banbury pointed out. 'You did.'

  Outside the apartment building, Bryant lit his pipe and leaned against the cool glazed bricks, looking across the street to the gymnasium. If the Highwayman was so determined to make it appear that no killer had been at the scene, why was he prepared to show himself to witnesses? Bryant's fascination with crimes of paradox was well documented, but even by the peculiar cases of his own past, this was outstanding.

  Something else was here, though; the death sites were public areas associated with wealth and security, not squalid back alleys. There was a sense of voluptuous harm, visited upon random strangers by a dispassionate, cruel mentality. The feeling was shocking because it was so alien. Long ago, Bryant had developed a psychic sensitivity to London's buildings and landscapes, but rarely had he experienced the impression of such a malevolent personality. It tainted the atmosphere and left behind a darkly spreading stain. . . .

  The grey dome of St Paul's rose beyond the low office buildings. The screeching of seagulls reminded him of the river's nearness. Something tugged at his memory, the faint impression of an earlier case, its detail fading now like a footprint in soft sand. Puzzled by this half-recollection, he crossed the street and walked to the building's doorway.

  There, at the base of the steps, a scratched V in the stonework, with another, inverted, on top of it. With a little imagination, the symbol could be interpreted as a tricorn hat atop a raised collar. The markings were fresh.

  The Highwayman had left another calling card.

  17

  RENEGADE MINDS

  They met in the middle of the bridge.

  What had once been undertaken as an evening constitutional had now assumed talismanic value, a requirement of their continued survival. Throughout the passing decades, the pair had walked beside the surging sepia waters of the Thames to the bridge's centre, and now the habit was unbreakable. They reserved their secret histories for this moment, their private doubts, their hidden knowledge. It was one of the few places where Bryant was still legitimately allowed to smoke his pipe and where May could steal a few puffs on a forbidden cigar. They usually walked at sunset, but early on Wednesday morning the bridge proved to be a convenient meeting place before their return to the unit. A thin dawn mist spiralled from the river, its tendrils clinging to the stanchions of the bridge, shar
pening the air with the brackish tang of mud and mildew.

  'God, what a business,' said May, passing over a cardboard coffee cup. 'We have to keep a united front on this, Arthur. It will sink us otherwise.'

  'You pessimist,' said Bryant, sniffing his coffee. 'Has this got sugar in?' He leaned on the cold stone balustrade and marvelled at the rising dark outlines of the city. 'Look how it's changing.'

  'You always say that,' May countered. 'You love St Paul's, the Gherkin, County Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, and the London Eye. You hate the mayor's building and Charing Cross Station. I know exactly what you're about to say because you always say the same thing.'

  Bryant was affronted. 'I'm sorry to be so predictable. Habit and familiarity provide me with comfort. What's wrong with that?'