Ten Second Staircase

by Christopher Fowler

  'You're going to get out those strange boiled sweets now, aren't you? The ones nobody sells anymore. What will it be today, Cola Cubes, Rhubarb and Custard, Chocolate Logs, Flying Saucers?' He turned to face his astonished partner. 'Come on, what have you got?'

  Bryant looked sheepish as he unwrapped a crumpled paper bag, revealing strings of red licorice. 'Fireman's Hose,' he said apologetically. 'Do you want one?'

  'No, I bloody don't.'

  'What's wrong with you?' Bryant's trilby had folded down his ears, and his scarf was pulled up to his nose. He looked like a superannuated schoolboy who'd been held back for half a century. Nobody would take him seriously looking like this. May sighed, turning back to the balustrade.

  Before them, a pair of police launches were fighting the tide, heading towards the pier at Greenwich. 'Look at us. How absurd we are. All these years spent bullying bureaucrats for budgets, working ridiculous hours, losing friends, having no social life, leaving no trace of our efforts. All the stress, all the pain, and we're no further forward than the day we met each other.'

  'That's not fair.' Bryant dunked a rubbery length of hose in his coffee and sucked on it ruminatively. 'Think of the destinies we've altered. The lives we've saved. The weight of knowledge we've accumulated.'

  'You understand less now about the criminal mind than when you started,' said May. 'You're always complaining that life is speeding up around you, yet you make absolutely no effort to change.'

  'What is this about?' asked Bryant suspiciously.

  'Nothing—I'm just frustrated, that's all.'

  'We're still investigating. We haven't been beaten yet. You don't fool me. Something's happened.'

  'It's our ambitious new Home Office liaison officer,' replied May. 'Leslie Faraday has ordered psychiatric evaluation reports on us. He's gathering background material as ammunition.'

  'When did you hear that?'

  'I found an e-mail waiting for me from Rufus when I got in last night.'

  'Faraday won't find anything of interest. Why are you so worried?'

  'Perhaps you don't understand the gravity of our situation. He's looking for a way to shut us down, and he wants it done as quickly as possible.'

  'You don't know that for a fact.'

  'You have no friends in the Met, Arthur. I do, and they keep me informed. You forget some of the things Faraday could uncover. We freed thirty illegal immigrants last month. We hid their trail and falsified the case's documentation. Do I need to remind you that you also placed a minor in a position of danger, allowing him to be lowered into a sewer with a registered sex offender?'

  'When you put it like that, it sounds bad,' Bryant admitted.

  'That's how Faraday will put it. Wait until he discovers how many cold cases we have on our files.'

  'That's part of our remit, John. Half of those investigations were already cold when they came to us.'

  'If he reopens any of them, he's going to find more than just procedural anomalies. We've broken rules. We've faked reports. We've buried evidence.'

  'Only for the benefit of the victims, John, and to ensure that justice is done. Truth and fairness are more important than procedure. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"—Ralph Waldo Emerson.'

  'But when a policeman disobeys the law he becomes the worst kind of criminal in its eyes. We won't just lose the unit. We could both go to jail. We've been behaving like renegades for too long.'

  Arthur selected another strand of licorice and chewed it. 'This morbidity doesn't become you, John. I'm usually the negative one. Put it out of your mind. You know how the system works: If we get this right, everything else will be swept under the carpet. We never make mistakes; when we break the law, it's absolutely deliberate.' He beamed hopefully, his bleached false teeth expanding what he'd intended as a life-affirming smile into something both innocent and creepy.

  'There's something else you should know. The rumours are starting up again. April has only just joined the unit. I don't want her to hear them. I can't have that conversation with her right now.'

  'She'll be fine. You always said we were a family, didn't you? We'll look out for each other and ride it out. Come on, concentrate on the case. I can't do it without you.'

  May shook his head. 'I'm not sure I can walk into the briefing room and face everyone this morning.'

  'You have to see it as a challenge. Two very public deaths, linked by sightings of a horseman.' His scary smile grew wider.

  'They're linked by more than that,' said May.

  Bryant could see that he was holding something back. 'Have you found something out?' he asked.

  'There's another link. I couldn't sleep after reading the e-mail, so I started looking for Saralla White's ex-husband, the executive whose sex life she first exposed. It only took a few minutes to locate him; he'd left a trail through dozens of Web sites. His name is Leo Carey. He was working at Bell and Lockhead in the city, handling public relations for their corporate clients, but was fired because his wife's exposure of their private life destroyed his credibility with clients. Guess what he does for a living now?'

  'I've no idea.'

  'He's Danny Martell's publicist. I got hold of his mobile number and rang him. He told me he'd met up with Martell on the night of his death. Even better—they had a fight.' He raised his fist. 'A proper punch-up.'

  Bryant's smile grew so broad his teeth nearly slipped out. 'You're joking.'

  'It set me thinking. PR agents jealously guard their contacts, but their circles overlap. I'm pretty sure both victims have a number of colleagues in common. We just haven't uncovered them yet.'

  'What did they fight about?'

  'You can ask him that yourself,' said May, checking his watch. 'What time do you make it?'

  Bryant squinted at his ancient Timex. 'Twenty past.'

  'Twenty past seven?'

  'Not entirely sure, old bean. My hour hand appears to have fallen off.'

  'They're holding him for us at Albany Street. I said we'd get there as soon as we could. Did you remember to pay your congestion charge this morning?'

  'Don't be ridiculous; I wouldn't know how to. I've never paid for Victor.' His rust-bucket hippie-era Mini Cooper was hardly worth more than a month's CC fees. 'I keep a length of reflective tape in the glove box, pop it over the plates this side of the cameras, and take it off on the other side. I don't feel guilty for doing so; the unit should be exempt. We've one staff car amongst eight, and I'm certainly not going to wait at a bus stop to get to a crime scene.'

  May broke into a smile, digging a package from the jacket of his smart suit. 'I thought you might like to pay it today.' He handed his partner the box. 'Happy birthday.'

  'It's my birthday? Are you absolutely sure?' He thought for a minute. 'Good heavens, October twenty-fifth, you're right. I wondered why Alma served my eggs with her earrings on this morning.' He tore open the paper and examined his gift. 'This is really most kind of you, John.' He grinned. 'What on earth is it?'

  'It's the very latest in mobile technology. You can access the Internet from it and find your position from satellites, and do all sorts of things.'

  Bryant was touched. He ran his fingers over the sleek brushed metal of the telephone as if handling a piece of Meissen. 'You mean you're actually trusting me with a gadget?'

  May shrugged. 'I have to take a leap of faith sometime. It might as well be now.'

  Leo Carey was more accustomed to conducting consultations in the calm woody gloom of Claridge's or the immaculate etherea of the Sanderson Hotel. He glanced up at the moulting distempered walls of the Albany Street nick with the same level of discomfort on his face that film stars showed when posing for police mug shots. His sleek Bond Street-tailored suit and Cambridge tie did little to erase the image presented by photocopies of him tied naked to a toilet that were currently making their way around the police station. Every few minutes one of the Met constables peered in through the meshed glass of the interview room and smirked
knowingly.

  'Popular opinion is formed by small groups of highly influential people,' Carey told the detectives. 'Everyone else is unimportant. It's my job to ensure that the key opinion-formers attend our events.' The grinning officers at the window were distracting him.

  'Take no notice of them,' May advised. 'Tell us about Saralla White.'

  'I'd been working for British Petroleum as an image consultant,' Carey explained. 'I met Sarah at a launch party, while she was still repping graphic artists around town. She told me she was being kicked out of her Bermondsey flat, and had nowhere to stay. I took her for a bite to eat, and she suggested sleeping on my sofa. We'd only known each other for about an hour! I'd never met anyone like her before. She was so angry and passionate. I had just broken up with Olivia, my girlfriend. I had no experience of girls like Sarah before. She was exciting to be around.'

  'And before you knew it, you'd become involved,' May prompted.

  'She wasn't easy to be with, mind you, too volatile for comfort, but a lot of fun. Life was never boring. Then I found out why she'd lost her apartment.'

  'We know about the drugs. She was dealing cocaine from the premises. We have her arrest details.'

  'It was nothing to do with me. And nothing was ever proven. The case got thrown out of court because someone had messed with the evidence. At that point Sarah decided to stop representing artists and become one herself. She came up with an angle, changed her name to Saralla, and asked me to help her get media attention.'

  'Are you saying that her artistic status was just a pose, that she didn't believe in the causes she supported?'

  'No, she believed in them, but I taught her how to use her own personality to create controversy. Belief isn't enough; you have to go out and stir up trouble in the public arena. I taught her everything I knew, and did my job a little too well. She was keeping a Web log of our life together, complete with photographs and filmed footage, and was publishing it behind my back. We fought and I threw her out, but by that time she no longer needed me. Her career had taken off. That should have been the end of it, but she wouldn't keep her mouth shut. The more the press goaded her, the more she told them. She embellished the truth, then completely reinvented her past. Suddenly I was no longer her mentor, but the man who made her pregnant and forced her to have an abortion. She needed a villain in the story, and had enough photographic evidence to flesh out her fantasy.'

  'When did you last see her?'

  'I didn't. I mean, I broke all contact after hearing about the photographs.'

  'Why didn't you take any legal action?'

  'Damage limitation. The more you defend yourself, the guiltier you look. My clients started cancelling contracts, so I got out before the company folded on me. I came from an entertainment PR background, and needed to build a client base.'

  'So you started low by picking someone with an image problem,' Bryant surmised.

  'Martell came with such a bad reputation that nobody else wanted to touch him. I figured if I could make this a success, other offers would come. I thought that after Sarah I could handle anyone, but Martell was a nightmare. Insecurity is a tough trait to deal with. There were rumours about his private life. The tabloids were suspicious, and went fishing for stories about how he spent his evenings, but he was dumb and vain enough to keep taking the bait. This latest escapade has broken within hours of his death, so everyone will think he killed himself. Martell was convinced he'd lose his TV deal. He'd used up all of his friends. He was still popular with the public, but his ratings were starting to slip. He caused offence on ITV1's breakfast show the week before—he'd been caught on camera making sarcastic comments about his fans—and was getting hate mail as a consequence. If you're going to start manipulating public opinion, you need a clever game plan, and Martell wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the billboard.'

  'Tell us about your argument with him,' May suggested.

  'Martell rang me at four yesterday afternoon and asked to meet me in the café in Russell Square in an hour's time. He admitted that he'd gone to a lap-dancing club on Monday night, where he'd met a couple of girls who took him back to the Great Russell Hotel for champagne, drugs, and a little fooling around—the usual tired old story. Except that the girls told him they were Russian fifteen-yearolds who had come here illegally on a vegetable lorry through the Channel Tunnel. You'd think he would have smelled a rat by now, but instead he went with them. So they're back in the hotel room, and every time the girls break off to take calls on their mobiles, they're actually shooting digital footage of Martell and sending it over the Internet to Hard News. Turns out they were a couple of twenty-something journalists working for the Blue Dragon herself.'

  'Who's that?' asked Bryant.

  'Janet Ramsey is a smart Tory bitch who's obsessed with illegal immigrants, and happens to be the new editor of Hard News. I couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. It was the kind of story the red tops fantasise about in bed at night. I was just getting somewhere with him, and he had ruined our deal. Martell had a family audience. I told him I had no magic formula to rehabilitate him in the public's eyes, especially with the current social panic about paedophilia still raging. Things got pretty heated between us. I was annoyed that his agent hadn't informed me immediately. It didn't help that Martell had been drinking. I told him I wasn't prepared to rep resent him any longer; he told me I was useless. He tried to hit me, but fell over a chair. Finally he stormed out.'

  'What time was this?'

  'About a quarter to six. You can check with the staff in the café. They're bound to remember—we made enough noise.'

  'What did you do then?'

  'I paid the bill and walked off towards Kingsway, trying to clear my head. I had something to eat at a French place near Lincoln's Inn Fields, I can't remember the name, but it would be easy to find. Then I caught a taxi home.'

  'Do you believe him?' asked Bryant as the detectives drove back towards Mornington Crescent.

  'He had a fight in a public place; he couldn't lie about that,' said May. 'But do I believe him? I think so. He had a reason to take revenge against Sarah White, and Martell was about to ruin his new career, but it's hardly enough to make you dress up as a highwayman and construct something so insanely baroque—and that's what we're talking about here, a form of insanity. Carey doesn't seem mentally troubled. Everyone in business operates on the kind of personal agenda that might look odd to an outsider. It doesn't make them a killer. If the only suspects we have are perfectly rational men and women, I don't see how we'll find someone who's insane. We can't employ any kind of deductive reasoning.'

  'Then we must apply the science of irrationality,' Bryant replied. 'You know what I think we need? Some experts in the field of orchestrated mayhem. I'll draw up a list. I may be required to meet with—unusual people.'

  May knew what that meant; his partner would be phoning everyone from chaos theorists to necromancers. 'No, Arthur,' he warned his partner. 'I don't want any of your fringe-dwellers involved, not this time.'

  Bryant was shocked. 'But I've found a new spirit medium who produces electronic ectoplasm that can be charted on a computer—'

  'No, Arthur, not the Camden Town Coven or the Southwark Supernaturals or that creepy biochemist who impersonates his dead wife, or anyone else who could be mistaken for a mental patient. Our every move is being watched, and now is not the time to start behaving strangely. We do this my way or not at all, do you understand?'

  Bryant's pout of disapproval said it all. 'You just admitted that we can't follow the usual routes of deductive reasoning. What are we supposed to do?'

  'I don't know.' May sighed, turning away from the ebbing river. 'But we have to think of something fast, before we find ourselves locked out of our own investigation.'

  'We can't do it by ourselves,' Bryant admitted. 'We need other talents.'

  'Then let's use the PCU staff. There may not be much budget, but we have access to renegade minds.'

  'I like your think
ing. That's Battle of Hastings spirit.'

  'We lost the Battle of Hastings, Arthur.'

  'So we did.' Bryant bit off the last of his fireman's hose. 'But this time we'll win.'

  The detectives returned to work in a mood of doubtful optimism.

  18

  SOMETHING OF THE NIGHT

  Raymond Land was utterly exhausted.

  The years of chasing after devils and phantoms had taken their toll. He couldn't believe he was still stranded here at the unit, like a Japanese soldier guarding a forgotten Pacific atoll decades after the war had ended.

  Because the war had ended. The kind of crimes the PCU had been set up to investigate no longer existed. If anything, it was easier to recognise the kind of cases the unit didn't get. They didn't get ones with identifiable characteristics, criminal associations, reliable witnesses, usual suspects, or even much actual evidence, whether in the form of CCTV footage, DNA, or fingerprints. Those under investigation rarely had previous convictions. The PCU prided itself on tackling original, unrepeatable crimes, but such tragedies were in decline. Despite its recent high-profile successes, the unit was an anachronism. Strong young men and women were needed to combat social disorder and the pervasive influence of drugs across the capital. Scarface-quality cocaine was selling in Florida at thirty-five dollars a gram, and was heading towards London in the form of addictive new compounds. The Met had five areas each the size of a complete force elsewhere in the country, and it still couldn't cope. Prostitution, murder, burglary, and vandalism were all on the increase—right now, a team of Ukrainian gangsters were running around North London attacking people with blowtorches—and here he was, playing nursemaid to a group of addled academics who read science fiction comics and attended poetry readings in their spare time.