Ten Second Staircase

by Christopher Fowler

  Stamos led the way to a graceful white box with free-floating backlit walls and chocolate leather sofas. 'Perhaps you'll find this a little more comfortable.' He indicated a seat partially occupied by Lazarus, his snuffling Vietnamese potbellied pig, a retro-eighties pet accoutrement currently favoured by style gurus all over Hoxton.

  'My sergeant tells me you're the country's leading expert on graffiti.'

  'Street art is a movement with its roots in folklore. It protests against the system and creates beauty from dereliction.'

  'It's also illegal.' Bryant hefted the glossy fat copy of GRAF, flicking past the slick ads for Land Rover, Nike, and Nokia. 'I can't believe this retails at twenty quid a copy.'

  Stamos decided he was dealing with an idiot. 'It's bought by art directors, fashion photographers, music video producers—they're not buying it with their own money.'

  'The examples of art in here are very beautiful,' admitted Bryant.

  'They fetch high prices, too. Many artists have become highly collectible.'

  'But their work is not what I see on the street.'

  'No, ninety percent of that is admittedly bad. Tagging, piecing, and bombing over each other on trains and scratching on windows, that's not the real stuff. Graffiti is about possession and ownership, making a name for yourself.'

  'You said this was art from the street, but your magazine shows work in galleries and is full of ads placed by corporations. You're encouraging kids without training to make the environment even more polluted, threatening, and ugly.'

  'Who's to decide what's ugly?' said Stamos hotly. 'Those seethrough posters for underwear that cover the backs of busses? That's just corporate crap. Is graffiti any more of an urban blight than advertising? Public spaces are tightly controlled by capitalist interests. Unless you're rich, access to public walls is blocked, and if you do get into a public space, chances are you have to be selling something. The average London resident is subjected to hundreds of ads every day, and at least ten percent of them are illegally sited. Graffiti is social communication from the heart. It creates folklore because every act of tagging has its own dramatic story of why and how it was sprayed.'

  'Yes, I saw what kids did to the Olton Hall,' said Bryant. Graffiti artists had spray-painted several carriages of the elegant old Scarborough-to-York steam train, wrecking it and earning the outraged hatred of the public.

  'Yeah, you can't buy publicity like that.'

  'Perhaps not, but your advertisers can discreetly sponsor it in your magazine.'

  Stamos sighed. 'No-one's denying that the media is complicit. They see it as shorthand for cool. I presume you didn't come here to give me a lecture on morality, Mr Bryant.'

  'If I gave you a lecture, it would be on hypocrisy, Mr Stamos. Can you identify particular kinds of graffiti?' Bryant opened his scarred leather briefcase and pulled out the photographs Banbury had taken at the Roland Plumbe Community Estate. 'I need to understand what these mean.'

  'Graffiti means "little scratches," from the Italian graffiare, but it's also from the Greek word graphein, meaning "to write,"' said Stamos, surveying the pictures. 'Examples have been uncovered in Pompeii. Much of it was political, related to specific social events, and usually appeared under authoritarian governments. The state removes such graffiti in order to depoliticise the marginalised. After this, you get personalised graffiti, racial and sexual slurs from men, very little from females. Gang graffiti hit-ups convey identity and territorial supremacy. What you have here is the most common kind of graffiti, tagging, which began at the end of the sixties and is largely associated with hip-hop culture. The idea is to get up in as many places as possible to establish territorial rights. This is from central London, north side of the river, right?' Stamos examined each shot carefully. 'Police try to create links between taggers and organised crime, carjacking, drug use, but in truth there are rarely any at all. You've got tagging and piecing here.'

  'What's the difference?'

  'Tagging only takes a few seconds—it's about sticking your signature somewhere. Piecing is rarer and altogether more elaborate. You can trace it back to the artist more easily, and it requires a lot more talent. It started within black subcultures but has moved out into a white middle-class arena.'

  'Can you identify the gentlemen behind these markings?'

  'That's harder. Artists frequently change their tags. Not that they're worried about getting caught; it only means a bit of community service, repairing bikes, folding leaflets, or power-jetting walls. But there are some telltale symbols here. What are you expecting to find?'

  'My partner has a suspicion that the boys who created these signs may be involved in a number of serious crimes,' Bryant explained.

  'I don't think so. These elaborate arrows here? They indicate territory. These numbers, one eighty-seven, refer to the Californian penal code for murder. The large red-coloured K stands for Killer. Most of this style is just copied from the USA, American gun culture, reused by European wannabes. These drawings, a slice of bread and what looks like a duck and a chicken, are marks of disrespect against rivals who are trying to use the same area. The drawings of hands represent a personal warning. The arrow points to the initials NJ, which stand for "New Jerusalem," an immaculate Christian city where "nothing unclean may enter."'

  'From the Book of Revelation,' said Bryant, intrigued. 'Chapter twenty-one, verse twenty-seven, if memory serves.'

  'Then there's the K wrapped around by the symbol for a rival gang. Finally, these tiny initials, NSED, are a mark of defiance and conviction. They stand for "No Surrender Every Day." So what you've got here is a reiteration that this is pure, or innocent, territory, with the arrows and initials pointing elsewhere. You could literally read the entire wall as follows: "We are not the ones who should take the blame. We're wrongly suspected but we're clean, and you should be seeking amongst the ranks of our enemy, because they're hiding a killer." However, there's also a confirmation that they will not help you by revealing information.' Stamos thought for a moment. 'There's another reading for the wrapped K—it could be the initial of the person you seek.'

  Bryant sensed progress at last. 'You've certainly been more helpful than I expected,' he said, somewhat ungraciously. 'I'll see myself out. Good luck with your magazine. I think it's utterly hideous, but then I'm old and poor.'

  The publisher's choice of phrase had proven interesting. The message he had translated echoed the words stencilled on a wall in the East End, in Goulston Street, supposedly written by Jack the Ripper on September 30, 1888: The Juwes are the Men That Will Not be Blamed for Nothing.

  As he stepped from the building, he considered the gang on the Roland Plumbe Community Estate in a new light. Not only were they aware of the police investigation; they knew the true identity of the Highwayman.

  Now he was faced with a new problem: How on earth could he extract the information from them?

  36

  SKULDUGGERY

  'I don't have to do it, John,' said Sergeant Longbright. 'This is not part of my job description.'

  'What are you talking about? None of us has an official job description, because Arthur deliberately keeps losing the forms.' May was exasperated. He had only asked Janice to attend Brilliant Kingsmere's Friday night community meeting undercover.

  'The last time I did this for Mr Bryant, I ended up in an Egyptian lap-dancing club, remember? I didn't even get to keep my dress. Whenever I attend a meeting in your place, something odd happens. Switch me with Bimsley and stand me in the rain all night, guarding a witness or running surveillance on a suspect; I'd rather do that. You've been to the estate now, you're known there.'

  'That's exactly why I can't go, because the kids will behave differently when they see me, and it's important that they respond with their guard down. I've already had one run-in with them.'

  'Any evidence I record will be inadmissible, you know that.'

  'It doesn't matter. I want to find out what Kingsmere is up to. The Saladins k
now the truth about the Highwayman. Arthur thinks that they're trying to point the finger of blame at someone through their graffiti warnings. They could simply be deflecting attention away from themselves, but then why leave any message at all? If any of them, or anyone close to them, attends Kingsmere's sessions, I want to hear what they have to say. I'd send Meera, but she's too blunt with men.'

  'All right,' Longbright said with a sigh, 'but this is the last time. How do you want me to play it?'

  'Don't ask too many questions. Don't tape or take notes. Just observe and steer the conversation if it's needed, but whatever you do, don't lead anyone on. There must be no coercion. As for image, you might try to tone yourself down a little.' He eyed her spectacular breasts with alarm. 'Be inconspicuous.'

  She threw him a hooded look. 'You mean cover up my best feature.'

  'Your best feature is your mind, Janice. Don't let anyone tell you different. Find out something we can use.'

  'Guess how many privately managed societies are currently operating in London?' asked Bryant, looking annoyingly pleased with himself.

  'You mean with registered memberships?' asked Dan Banbury.

  'Registered in the sense that a committee holds member lists with names and contact details, yes. We can't measure them otherwise.'

  'Oh, I don't know, three hundred?'

  'Seventeen thousand. Upstairs in pubs, in halls and churches and living rooms, everything from the Enrico Caruso Appreciation Society to the National Warlocks Confederacy. Fans of Locked-Room Mysteries meet in the Edgar Wallace pub near the Law Courts. Moroccan cooks get together at the Queen's Head and Artichoke in Fitzrovia. The Metropolitan Police have their own magicians' Magic Circle. The Pagan Federation meets at The Rose and Crown; Egyptian researchers gather at The Museum Tavern. The Vampire Society and the Dracula Society aren't on speaking terms at the moment because they're arguing about Darwinism and an outstanding beer bill. Everybody wants to belong to something. So tonight I'm going to the Grand Order of London Immortals.'

  'In heaven's name, why?' Banbury had yet to adjust to Bryant's investigative leapfrogging. He was still cataloguing evidence information, and resented Bryant wandering in to discuss his latest fancies.

  The elderly detective raised a badly photocopied sheet in triumph. 'A somewhat unexpected lead from Frank at the Greenwich Library. I asked him to send me a list of London societies. The order's Hall of Fame includes the Leicester Square Vampire.'

  Over in the converted Catholic school in Bayham Street that housed the unit's mortuary, Oswald Finch was growing more suspicious by the minute.

  He checked the ID sheets against the ziplocked bags, touching the lettering as if expecting to discern some clue in Braille. 'I don't buy it, Mr Kershaw. I saw the e-mail, too, you know. I'm not entirely out of touch with modern ways, despite your boss spreading rumours about my impending senility. If this man Kasavian is really determined to shut down the unit, why would the Home Office allow the exhumations to go ahead? What about the permission of the surviving relatives? Who signed this order? I've never heard of permission being granted as quickly as this. It's all highly irregular.'

  'It's still in their interest to close the case. And technically, the permission was granted several times before but never acted upon, so I didn't have to return to the relatives. Two of the bodies had been placed in storage at the Central Mortuary in Codrington Street. The third was exhumed last night.'

  Finch shrugged. 'All right, let's get it over with.' He handed his young colleague a mouth filter. 'I have no sense of smell, so it won't bother me, but the ventilation unit in here is temperamental, and I don't want you contaminating the site by throwing up.'

  'Let's do it.' Kershaw's nervous swallow betrayed his relative inexperience with cold-case cadavers. The three civilian victims of the Leicester Square Vampire who had been granted approval for reexamination lay before them, awaiting assessment of their DNA. Out of deference to John May, only Elizabeth's body had been left undisturbed.

  Finch unzipped the first bag and thrust his head inside with unnerving enthusiasm. 'Good, this one's dry. Nice and easy.' He withdrew two samples from a three-decades-dead black female so withered that only her dyed red hair had survived unravaged. Kershaw pushed a short, razor-tipped needle into her thigh, then took several minutes locating a heart ventricle for a second extraction. 'We're supposed to record this procedure, you know,' he admonished.

  'Can't do it; they won't buy me a new camera, and old Bryant accidentally dropped the last one off Brighton Pier taking pictures of seagulls.'

  Finch rezipped the first bag and gingerly prodded the second. 'Watch out, this one's going to be a leaker.' He opened six inches at the top and shone his pencil torch in. 'Very runny. I had an Italian cheese with this consistency at a restaurant in Lake Como. I'll do it.'

  'Do you need a broader-gauge syringe?'

  'For bodies like this I used to use a soup spoon, but the lab techs don't like you giving them too much. You get students who fill stool sample tubes so full that they can't get the lids on. On very recent exhumations, colon matter is still usually on the move.'

  Kershaw's face remained stony, but his cheeks paled a shade. They worked in silence for the next few minutes, until it was time to open the last corpse bag. The sound of the zip was loud in the former gymnasium.

  'Wait a minute, someone's playing silly buggers.' Finch checked the accompanying file again. 'This is not a woman who has been in the ground for thirty years.' He shone his torch down, puzzled. 'Furthermore, this is not a woman. She possesses what those of us in advanced medicine refer to as a willy.' He tapped Kershaw's clipboard. 'Show me Bryant's signature. I hate to say it, but he doesn't normally make mistakes of this kind.' Finch switched to a second pair of spectacles and examined the writing. 'It's a perfect facsimile, but this is too steady to be Arthur's hand.'

  'What do you think's happened?' asked Kershaw, puzzled.

  'Something rather nasty, I fear. This isn't the kind of mistake that happens anymore. As you get older, you become more suspicious. I think our Mr Kasavian is chasing an accusation of negligent procedure, and is tipping the scales in his favour. The trouble is, when men in unassailable positions start taking the law into their own hands, nobody is safe anymore.'

  'You mean he deliberately forged an approval slip on the wrong body?' asked Kershaw. 'What can we do?' Nothing in his training had allowed for such a situation, but Finch had seen all kinds of cover-ups after the war, when so many bodies had lain unidentified and unclaimed.

  'Give me the file.' Finch tore the exhumation order into pieces and dropped it into his lab coat pocket. 'We have to get the body put back at once. It was never here, you understand? There are a couple of people I trust at University College Hospital. I'll make the call, wait for them, and clean everything up here. Time is of the essence. If I was Kasavian, I'd send someone around to check that we took the samples.'

  'But your friends, how will they know where to—'

  'Stop worrying, Mr Kershaw. As far as you're concerned, all three cadavers came from the same site—I'll reassign the paperwork. Two DNA samples will be enough to bear out Bryant's theory, but I bet we'll need a confirming third in court. I'm sure Kasavian will be counting on something like that.'

  'Mr Bryant will really appreciate what you've done for him tonight,' said Kershaw admiringly.

  'I'm not doing it for him,' Finch snapped. 'I won't have skulduggery of any kind in my mortuary. A medical examiner builds his entire career on absolute truths, and I will not be derailed from this path in my final moments.' As he drew himself upright, he was filled with the ideals of his youth. For a moment the years dropped away, and Kershaw glimpsed the determined young scientist inside.

  37

  LONELINESS

  It was the first time Detective Sergeant Janice Longbright had gone out in public without makeup since John Lennon was shot. In a world of fleeting fads, she was a benchmark of consistency, wearing her mother's lipstick and the k
ind of wired undergarments that narrowed her waist and accentuated her bust to the point of altering her uniform into fetishwear. She was used to spending two hours in wardrobe and makeup listening to old Beverly Sisters albums before venturing out. Now, as she approached the grey concrete box of the community hall in cheap sweatpants, uncombed hair, a hooded top, and trainers, she felt perversely conspicuous. Through the rainsmeared glass of the small, grimly overlit hall, she could see nearly twenty people slumped in orange plastic chairs waiting for the meeting to begin.

  Nobody noticed as she entered and took her place at the rear of the room. She discreetly examined the audience. Most were kids in their early to mid teens. No adults were present. Longbright wondered how they could have been coerced into attendance.

  Brilliant Kingsmere made his appearance with a theatricality that suited his Christian name, appearing onstage apparently from nowhere. Watching him stride confidently towards the only upholstered swivel chair in the room, she knew he would use the kind of Blairite semantics that designated males and females alike as guys, couching conversation in such reasonable tones that he could make the Final Solution sound like a fair deal. She hoped there would be no roll call; the last time she had been expected to provide a false identity on the spot, she had dredged up the name Diana Prince without recalling that it was the secret identity of Wonder Woman. Don't do anything that might arouse his suspicions, she reminded herself, scraping her chair with a squeal that made everyone turn around.