Ten Second Staircase

by Christopher Fowler

  His opposite equals were laughing behind his back. The unit staff ignored him. His superiors could barely remember his name. His wife was in the process of leaving him for a younger man, and was prepared to take their children. His only friend was Sergeant Renfield, the astonishingly unpleasant desk officer at Albany Street nick, and Renfield only bothered calling up to arrange a drink because he knew he could thrash Land at billiards. Stanley Marsden, the former DCS HMCO liaison officer, had been allowed to escape with his pension, so why had he been left behind?

  Land had stopped hoping for a transfer or a promotion years ago. All he wanted now was a little appreciation. He would settle for a grudging acknowledgement that he had managed to wrangle his wayward detectives out of lambastings, lawsuits, and lynchings. Surely he deserved the smallest nod of respect? Truth was, nobody liked the facilitators, but they were necessary, like men who unblocked drains.

  Strangling his tie into a tiny knot and flattening his straggles of greying hair in the mirror, he set off for the formal meeting with Leslie Faraday in the minister's Whitehall office. He had been warned not to mention anything to his detectives, who had just arrived and were compiling information in Mornington Crescent's conference room, oblivious to the ax hanging over their heads. He felt guilty, but something had to be done in order to save his own sanity.

  'Before we go any further today, let's review,' said May, drawing on the whiteboard behind him. 'Saralla White and Danny Martell, both low-grade celebrities, both killed in highly unlikely circumstances. And in both cases, we have sightings of this gentleman.' He taped up an artist's impression of the Highwayman. The morning's newspapers carried new renderings of their supposed nemesis, one computergenerated from a description provided by a pedestrian on Farringdon Road.

  May slapped the board, startling PC Colin Bimsley, who was still recovering from his dog's birthday party, an excuse to visit the local pub for a lock-in the night before. 'No fingerprints at either crime scene, no fibres, nothing except a couple of incomplete bootprints in the gallery. Dan—do the honours on those, would you?'

  Banbury rose and pulled up a sheet of paper covered with lifted prints. 'Perpetrators always leave footprints at a crime scene; my problem was locating them, and I found none outside the gallery itself. I shot monochrome film to punch up the contrast on the ones raised from inside. These pictures were taken with a diopter lens and oblique lighting, and it's fairly apparent from the scale bars that this is a rubber-soled motorcycle boot of an unusually large size. I underestimated just how big they were. I'd say we're looking for someone of around a hundred ninety-eight centimetres height—that's six feet six inches, sir. Electrostatic lifting got me a couple of flecks of metal in the tread, miniscule traces of aluminium, but they could have been picked up anywhere. Nobody in the gallery was wearing boots, unless somebody changed their footwear, in which case we should have found the original pair. We ran the prints through Shoe-Fit—'

  'I'm sorry, what's that?' asked Mangeshkar.

  'Shoeprint Image Capture and Retrieval software. We now have a confirmed brand, but it's common and available from just about any motorcycle shop in the country. Moreover, the tread is worn, so it's no use looking through recent pairs sold. I'm concentrating on Martell now. Giles and I are going to the gym to see if we get anything more in natural light, and I hope to have something to report by the end of the day.'

  'Meanwhile,' said May, 'in the absence of any other physical evidence, what conclusions can we draw about the circumstances surrounding these two deaths?'

  'Don't worry about speaking out of turn or sounding stupid,' Bryant added. 'You know how John and I operate. Nothing you say has to go outside this room. We're not minuting the session.'

  Meera Mangeshkar was the first to raise her hand. 'Both victims had enemies they'd never met,' she pointed out.

  'How do you know that?'

  'It stands to reason. They'd both expressed controversial opinions in the public arena. White was picketed by pro-lifers because of her statements on abortion. Martell was getting hate mail from family groups because of his remarks on TV. They could have attracted a stalker with strong right-wing views.'

  'That would fit with the traditional profile,' said Giles Kershaw. 'White male, mid-twenties to mid-thirties, unemployed, interrupted education, few friends, penniless, embittered. Classic serial killer stuff, in fact.'

  'Dear God, let's not jump to conclusions about a bloody serial killer,' warned May. 'The press will be running photos of Anthony Hopkins in seconds—"What Serial Killer May Look Like"—and we'll end up starting the kind of social panic this unit was originally set up to defuse.'

  'Besides,' added Bryant, 'I'd say the use of the highwayman costume has a profound resonance that goes beyond the knowledge of most uneducated men.' He sat back, refusing to elaborate.

  'Both of the victims had fights just before they were murdered,' Bimsley suggested. 'And they both had estranged ex-partners who were upset with them. White's mentor and the possible father of her child, Calvin Burroughs, and her ex-husband, Leo Carey. And there's Martell's ex-wife.'

  Emboldened by the others, April half-raised a hand. 'Anyone could find out where the victims were,' she offered timidly.

  'What do you mean, April?'

  'Well, their movements are published on Web sites and in celebrity lifestyle magazines. Their favourite restaurants, even their home addresses are easy to discover. Anyone could have figured out the times of their appearances at the gallery and the gym.'

  'Very good point,' said May. 'Anything else?'

  'The physical impossibility of the murders,' suggested Banbury. 'We've been over the figures a hundred times. Not a single person unaccounted for in the gallery. Thirty-three adults and fourteen children surrounding the room in which she was killed. No other way in or out except via the electronic turnstiles. The same situation with Martell; no-one else in the gym, which was locked from the inside. White was dropped into a tank over eight feet high, as if she really had been thrown by someone on the back of a horse. Martell had been hit by lightning in a room that has no electrical appliances apart from the recessed neon lighting panels overhead, none of which had been tampered with, by the way.'

  'What about the paradox of the Highwayman himself?' asked Bryant. 'You don't attend a fancy dress party if you don't want to be seen. So why go to the trouble of leaving no trace at the murder site if you're then planning to parade around in period costume? He wanted someone to spot him. Why else would he wear the outfit?'

  'He could belong to one of those historical societies,' said Longbright. 'You know, Cavaliers, Roundheads, guys who dress up and reenact the Battle of Culloden. I can run a check on memberships.'

  'You don't have much of a physical description to go on,' warned May.

  'We know he's tall, about six six, broad-chested, black-haired—'

  'The hair sounds like a part of the disguise.'

  Longbright tapped at her notepad. 'The witness reports suggest he might have five o'clock shadow, which makes him dark-complected. No fingerprints, because he's wearing leather gloves that appear to be part of the outfit.'

  'We can't go to Land with this,' said May, shoving back his chair. 'None of it hangs together.'

  'That's what bothers me most,' Bryant admitted, tipping back his chair dangerously. 'He leaves an elaborate calling card at the first crime scene, then leaves a very different one at the second. He dresses conspicuously and chooses to attack in public places, but nobody sees him in the act of taking lives. And—' Bryant's watery blue eyes dilated, refocussing across the room at a point halfway up the wall, like a cat. Everybody waited.

  'And what?' prompted May.

  But Bryant was thinking of the symbolic head on the logo of the Roland Plumbe Community Estate, and had decided not to speak.

  He looked at the anxious faces surrounding him, and found himself unable to elucidate his half-formed thoughts. Kershaw had placed the Highwayman's age between twenty-five and thirty-
five, the statistical range for a serial killer, but Bryant was sure these were no crimes of passion; they were calculated for some other purpose entirely. He wanted to explain that they were not looking for a stalker or a madman, but for a very moral human being, someone filled with a righteous sensitivity and the invisibility of ordinariness. In the eyes of the killer the victims were immoral, and in the hearts of the public, they deserved to suffer. It was why the Highwayman wanted to be seen. He desired acknowledgement, recognition for his services, perhaps even hero worship. The choice of clothes, grand and elegant; the deliberate appearances in crowded spaces.

  Bryant wanted to say all this but something stopped him, because he felt he would lead them all to a strange and dangerous place. It would confirm Faraday's worst suspicions and jeopardise the unit's existence. There is another, far more sinister force at work here, he thought, and I daren't trust myself to voice my darkest feelings.

  The Right Honourable Leslie Faraday MP was seated behind the most imposing desk Raymond Land had ever seen, an acre of green glass that made him appear to be sitting upright in a stagnant pond. The pudgy, wide-eyed young man with slicked sandy hair whom the detectives had first met in the 1970s was now a bloated, bald, and bad-tempered time server who had never managed to shake off his image as the government's most pedantic minister.

  In a long and almost entirely unmeritable career he had been shunted all over Whitehall. When civil servants are bad at their jobs, they are never cast out and prevented from pursuing their chosen career; they are merely moved elsewhere until they find a department that will have them. As Minister of State for the Arts, Faraday's remark about Andy Warhol's work consisting of 'boring old photos painted in the kind of colours black people like' had resulted in the outraged cancellation of a major exhibition. As minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality, he had managed to bring the nation's low-waged road-gritters out on strike during the worst blizzard in a century after calling them 'a bunch of work-shy Irish layabouts.' As Minister of State for Sport, he had sparked off a race riot by inviting a white South African paramilitary leader to a Brixton Jail cricket match. After spending two years as a Minister Without Portfolio (where, by definition, he was unable to find anyone to offend) he was rehabilitated in the Home Office with a new brief: to make specialised police units pay, or shut them down.

  Incompetent men exist in every profession, but they are easily dealt with. Faraday remained in Whitehall because of his single great talent, also his curse, which was that he never forgot anything.

  'Mr Land,' he announced. 'We met on August seven, 1971, did we not? It rained all afternoon. Then I met you with Mr Bryant, and again with Mr May two years later, under more clement circumstances. How are you?'

  Shaking his hand, thought Land, was like dipping your fingers into warm Swarfega: clammy and clinging. As Faraday reseated himself, his brown suit constricted his stomach and his shirt collar throttled his throat seemingly to the point of asphyxiation. He tapped at an old-fashioned intercom. 'Diedre, could we have two teas? Brooke Bond, very weak for me. And see if we have any of those ginger biscuits, the oblong ones with the little bits of peel in.' When he suddenly tipped his chair back, Land thought for a moment that he had submerged, but he bounced up again in a move that had been practised across an eternity of dull Whitehall afternoons. 'I must confess I'm at a bit of a loss to know what to do about your two detectives,' Faraday admitted. 'I mean, they've been at the unit a jolly long time, so they must be doing something right.'

  'I was hoping you'd give me some advice, sir,' said Land. He waited for a response. A clock ticked distantly. Dust settled.

  Faraday sighed like a leaking, tired balloon. 'From your memorandum, it's clear that you'd like to transfer to a more—professional—unit. I've given the problem some thought, and have decided that, because I know Mr Bryant and Mr May personally, I'm probably not the right chap for the job, so I'm going to hand the matter over to my new assistant. He has the kind of specialist knowledge that might be required for a more covert operation.' Faraday pressed a buzzer on his desk. 'Diedre, would you send in Mr Kasavian?'

  Land had only met Faraday a handful of times, but their wives had once been crown green bowling together, and he thought he had the mark of the man. Now, though, he sensed that he might be getting out of his depth.

  As Oskar Kasavian entered, the sun passed behind a cloud outside Faraday's office, and the room was plunged into shadow. Kasavian looked as if he was used to the recurrence of this effect. Tall, dark, and—well, saturnine was really the only word; there was more than a touch of Mephistopheles about him, and he would probably have enjoyed the comparison. His slicked-back hair and jet-black suit lent him the air of an Edwardian funeral director.

  'I'll take over now, sir,' Kasavian warned Faraday, effectively dismissing him from the conversation. He towered darkly between them, folding his hands behind his back with an unsettling crack of the knuckles.

  'I read your memo with interest, Mr Land, and found that it suits our current need to cut spending by a third across the specialised units. The simple fact is that murder is becoming far too expensive. As I'm sure you know, the cost of a single investigation can take up a tenth of an area's annual budget. The Serious Organised Crime Agency is planning to use the National Intelligence model to coordi nate cross-agency operations for now, but their long-term plan is to consolidate all specialist units with the minimum of disruption. I hardly need outline the benefits; an end to so-called blue on blue clashes, and a huge financial saving for the government. It is imperative, therefore, that we arrange for the PCU to be closed down. And to do that, we must remove its senior detectives. The problem is that they command a certain amount of respect amongst older law enforcement officials, so they must be quickly discredited.'

  'Mr Bryant and Mr May are entirely decent men,' said Land. 'Their intentions are honest, if a little misguided.'

  'Come on, Mr Land, you can't have it both ways.' When Oskar Kasavian hooded his eyes at the subject of his attention, it was as though steel shutters had slammed down, screening off the weaknesses of the human heart. 'You described specific instances of their incompetence to Mr Faraday in writing. I've begun checking into Home Office records on our dealings with your unit, and there seem to be an astonishing number of irregularities, including—if we can lay our hands on the original documents—some of an extremely serious nature involving a number of illegal immigrants. Clearly, we've only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. If these detectives have been allowed to twist the system to their own ends, there will be others who are just as guilty. All those who support and admire them must be made to see the truth. Who knows how deeply this corruption runs through the unit? For all I know, even you may be involved.' Mr Kasavian's black eyes glittered with malice. 'Later today I have a meeting with representatives of the Fraud Squad to begin auditing your casework. You may consider this the start of the PCU's first internal investigation, and hopefully their last. I suggest that if you personally wish to remain untainted, you had better make sure that your own dealings are in order.'

  Now that he was finally getting what he had wished for, Raymond Land started to have doubts. If Kasavian could so quickly agree to dismissing two senior members of the force, he would easily turn his attention to others. But it was too late; the wheels of Whitehall were slow to grind forward, but once started would not be stopped.

  19

  ARRHYTHMIA

  It was cold enough to condense breath in the converted school gymnasium, and that was how Oswald Finch liked it. Some nights he worked until his fingers and nose turned blue. The lower half of the room was below the level of the street, and remained cool until the two sticky months of the English summer, when everything, including Oswald, started to smell bad. Where climbing frames had once stood against the tall, narrow windows, there were now six body lockers. The sprung wooden basketball floor had been covered with carpet tiles that retained the acrid reek of spray bleach.

 
'Are you still here?' asked Bryant, leaning in the doorway. 'I thought you'd have gone by now.'

  'How can I, when you keep sending me bodies?' Finch complained. 'Raymond Land refuses to accept my resignation, says it will have to wait for a few weeks while he's sorting something out. It's unfair, keeping me at my post like this. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get up in the morning? If I'd known it would get so difficult to tie my laces, I'd have bulk-bought elastic-sided shoes back in the fifties.'