Ten Second Staircase

by Christopher Fowler

  'I see we have some new faces in tonight, which is good,' Kingsmere began, his eyes lingering on her. Longbright looked down at the dowdy trainers with which she had replaced her heels and willed herself to become invisible.

  'Last week we were discussing the unfairness of branding lawbreakers as criminals,' said Kingsmere. 'If you remember, we decided that it's quite normal for us to conduct some form of illegal activity as we grow up, and that sometimes it's the only way we can develop certain skills. In particular, we talked about the territorial problems that have arisen lately from fixing the aerial for a pirate radio station on the roof of the estate's central block.

  'You know, few people in authority consider the amount of hard work that goes into making a living, even when it's something that's considered illegal. Let me give you some examples. In 1703, a young man named George Psalmanazar made a fortune by translating the catechism into Japanese for the Bishop of London. Actually, he didn't speak any Japanese at all, but was such a highly talented linguist that he fooled everyone. In 1993, currency dealer Nick Leeson, a twenty-six-year-old plasterer's son, destroyed the venerable British institution Barings Bank by losing eight hundred fifty million pounds of their money. Both men worked hard for superiors who were blinded by ambition. Which raises the question: How much blame should be shouldered by those in positions of power when they turn a blind eye to the ways in which money is made? If your radio station attracts lots of listeners and enriches their lives, why should you be arrested for running it? And how can you make real money legitimately? Let's start by working out how far each of you would be prepared to go, in order to get the things you want. When does it become a good idea to break the law?'

  This is a familiar recruitment technique, Longbright realised. He's lining them up for something, but what?

  At first she had thought that this lecture on morals was aiming too far above their heads, but the audience quickly responded. She watched and listened as Kingsmere carefully drew experiences from even the surliest attendees. The spirited argument that followed provided the teacher with all the information he needed. At one point he began blatantly making notes on each of the speakers. Longbright knew she was the oldest person in the room, and wondered how long it would be before he picked on her. He was working his way between the rows of chairs, heading her way.

  Kingsmere's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of four smart schoolboys in St Crispin's blazers. The teacher looked up in clear discomfort. 'This isn't your class,' he told them.

  'No, sir,' said Billings, who looked smaller and more ratlike than ever. 'We heard you were here and thought you wouldn't mind us sitting in.' The boys quietly arranged themselves in the front row, acting as a barrier between their master and the rest of the room.

  They know something, thought the detective sergeant. They're shielding the other boys from Kingsmere's influence, policing him. She recalled that he was their favourite teacher. The atmosphere in the room subtly changed. Kingsmere seemed distracted and uncertain, his buoyancy now muted, as though he was anxious to finish and leave. He distributed some leaflets offering gardening work and carpentry, then wrapped up the session in ill-disguised haste.

  Longbright caught up with the St Crispin's boys as they left the hall. They regarded her with the usual suspicion created by the age gap that stood between them. But Longbright had inherited her mother's ability to hold the attention of any male whatever the age difference, and used it shamelessly now, questioning the boys about the school and their teacher as she walked back across the rainy quadrangle.

  'He's a good guy,' said the pustular Parfitt. 'He doesn't just recite stuff from set text. He makes you think in a moral dimension. He tells us there are no clear-cut answers, then gets us to make up our own minds.'

  'Sounds like he wouldn't be very popular with the school authorities,' said Longbright.

  'St Crispin's is a progressive school,' Billings pointed out. 'But he wants his ideas to go wider. That's why he does community work. And he can test out some of the more extreme theories he has about inherited criminal genes, because no-one would ever know that—'

  'We have to go the other way here,' said the gormlessly thin Gosling, throwing an elbow into his fellow pupil's ribs. Longbright watched them leave, wondering how much Billings might have given away if he'd finished his sentence.

  Across town, Arthur Bryant was attempting to enjoy a pint of John Smith's bitter in the smoky brown upstairs den of The Plough in Museum Street, while he listened to several members of the Grand Order of London Immortals entering a spirited debate on the flashhouses of Seven Dials, and why Hogarth used rooftop cats to indicate brothels in his engravings. He was about to add his own opinions when a familiar face bobbed in front of him.

  'You said you'd call on me again after our date, Arthur,' said Jackie Quinten, suddenly elbowing her way to his attention. 'You never came back.'

  'Hullo, fancy seeing you here,' Bryant stalled, eyeing Kentish Town's diminutive local historian, the only person dressed more haphazardly than himself. 'Er, there was a rather important case to deal with; I was very tied up.' He searched for an escape route, but members were blocking the staircase exit, spitting crisps over each other as their arguments grew more heated.

  'I wouldn't mind, but I'd made the most enormous kidney casserole because you said you were a big eater. We seemed to have so much in common when I helped you out on that Water Room business. Did I misread the signs? Am I too old for you? I know I'm not very smartly turned out. It's funny; I don't mind men of my age, but men don't like women of my age. They all want someone younger, and that strikes me as profoundly unfair.'

  'I'm sorry, I can't hear you,' replied Bryant, pretending to fiddle with a nonexistent earpiece.

  Mrs Quinten was on a roll. 'Why is it,' she asked, stabbing the smoky air with a beringed digit, 'that we're expected to put up with old men's ways, all breaking wind and nose-hair and toenail clippings in the bath and not wanting to go anywhere, yet when it comes to the reverse—'

  'What we men have to do in return,' Bryant interrupted, 'is eat our own body-weight in trifle while you Hoover the curtains fortythree times each week. Curtains hang vertically, for heaven's sake, they don't need Hoovering.'

  'I thought you said you'd never lived with a woman,' said Jackie suspiciously.

  'I haven't—I don't think of Alma as a woman; she's my housekeeper, and merely happens to be of the female gender, like a ship.'

  'So you have someone to take care of all your . . . personal requirements.' Jackie couldn't have extracted more innuendo from the sentence if she had been Kenneth Williams.

  'It's not like that at all. Mrs Sorrowbridge is a respectable widow whose duties include washing my clothes whenever they're left without somebody inside them for more than twenty minutes, and the insertion of mothballs into my socks when I least expect it.'

  'But every man has other needs,' Jackie pressed on.

  'Possibly, but my needs are not every man's. They involve the prompt arrival of my Gold Top and finding a shop that still sells sherbet lemons, although I assume you're presumptuously referring to sex, to which all I can say is Self-Control, madam.'

  'Look, I'm a woman of the world,' Mrs Quinten reasoned.

  'Ah, but which world?' asked Bryant. 'What are you doing in this one?' He gestured about the smoky room.

  'The Immortals? It's just a fancy name for a bunch of dry-as-dust historians. They'll talk the back wheels off an omnibus, but this is the only society of its kind, which makes it special. They're interested in London's most infamous characters—political brigands, celebrity criminals, unapprehended murderers, anyone who has managed to become immortalised in the city's collective memory by doing something notorious and getting away with it. Jeffrey Archer used to come until they banned him. A step too far, they felt, but he'll probably enter the pantheon after he's dead.'

  'Murderers who aim for immortality,' repeated Bryant, absently studying the nicotine-stained portraits around the
walls.

  'Oh.' The realisation hit her. 'You're here about the Highwayman. Do you think someone in the society might be responsible?'

  'Not at all,' Bryant revealed. 'I'm here about another case entirely. I imagine these people understand the historical power of manipulation. A killer might well be drawn to such a meeting of like minds. Do you know many people here?'

  'I should do. I'm one of the founding members. We don't get much new blood, I'm afraid. These are all very familiar faces. We occasionally attract researchers and lecturers.'

  'Anyone new in the last few weeks?'

  'A girl planning a documentary for the BBC. And a rather sexy teacher from a nearby school. That's about it.'

  'Tell me about the teacher, Jackie.'

  'He had a funny name. Something Victorian, like Kingdom.'

  'Brilliant Kingsmere?'

  'That's it—you know him?'

  'Our paths have crossed. Do you remember what he was doing here?'

  'He gave us a lecture about the history of Robin Hood. We ended up discussing London murderers, mainly from a political perspective. We mostly attract ineffectual men and bossy women here, not exactly your cup of tea. He made a nice change. Didn't come back, though.'

  'You don't think I might learn anything from him?'

  'Knowing you, Arthur, you've established the psychology behind the murderer's actions without turning up a clue to his identity.'

  Bryant frowned, hating to be found out. 'I've never had less information this far into a murder investigation. All I know is the usual stuff; that he's emotionally frozen, driven by cold ideals. Probably let down by someone in the past, statistically likely to be in his early thirties, guarded, crafty, living a solitary life within a five-mile radius of the deaths.'

  He sighed, his eyes straying to the window. 'There is another city inside London, you know, one that can't always be seen, only sensed from sidelong glances, caught in snatches of conversation, spotted from the upper-deck windows of night busses. Do you have any idea how much of the population lives alone? You only have to examine the backs of flats in Earl's Court or Stepney or Hammersmith or Bow from the night bus. You spot tenants pottering around their conversions, the kitchens overlit and narrow as ship galleys, spindly spider plants neglected on window ledges.

  'Loneliness is such a normal state in this city now that public demonstrations of affection are frowned upon even by lovers. In the 1950s, couples were making love in Hyde Park in the middle of the day. The war had taught people to be glad they were still alive. How quickly we rewrite the past to suit ourselves.' His watery blue eyes seemed focussed far beyond anything in the room. 'But the city is still filled with secret idealists, finding temporary ways to defer pain and solitude. Some are worn down and leave for good; a few grow strong and stay until they die. And there are the others, the odd ones out—who kill to keep the pain of loneliness at bay.'

  'You think killing stops him from being lonely?' asked Mrs Quinten. 'Is that any logical reason to commit murder?'

  'It's been reason enough for many recent murderers. Besides, logic is all I have to go on,' muttered Bryant. 'Take it away from me, and I would have no way of solving anything. These are crimes without anger or financial gain. Loneliness is the only other motive I can imagine.'

  He surveyed the crowd as he turned up his collar. 'You read of detectives who put themselves inside the minds of criminals. I've never been able to do that. I only see ideas and circumstances and secret histories. I can learn nothing more here.'

  'At least let me come with you, Arthur. Just for a while.'

  From the way he looked at her, they might never have met before. 'No,' he said with finality. 'I'm lost, and I will lose those who follow me. I have to make my way through to the end of this alone.'

  She remained watching helplessly as he carefully threaded his way towards the exit.

  38

  HAPHAZARD

  It was a long shot, but worth a try. Kasavian and Faraday were closing in fast, and by midnight the unit still had nothing. It was time for John May to talk to one of the Haphazards, and that meant staying up through the night in order to track him down.

  The detective was presented with several choices. Each Haphazard had his own skill. Nalin Saxena was a disgruntled former member of the Shadwell Posse, in hiding after a scuffle that had caused a fatality on the track of the Docklands Light Railway. He kept watch on the night streets of South and East London, reporting back to the unit once a fortnight with information about the alliances and turf wars of various street factions.

  Rufus Abu was the homeless hacker who had crashed Microsoft's e-mail system with the infamous TooLarge virus, working from the reconfigured computers of an Internet café in Stoke Newington, into which he had broken one night. He Web-logged May daily, keeping him up to date with the latest technological scams.

  Polly Sharrant ran an SM club in Southwark and a number of pirate music companies from a base in Bermondsey. She knew all of the major players in the city's fluctuating club scene, and what they were up to, any time of the day or night.

  After careful consideration, May decided that Rufus was the only one who might be able to help.

  These were kids who often risked their lives to provide information, not through any misplaced sense of altruism, but because the unit provided them with a safety net when vendettas became too dangerous on the street. Bryant referred to them as the Haphazards in homage to the Baker Street Irregulars. They were itinerants, thieves, and scammers, the city's eyes and ears, who kept the detectives in touch with the capital's unruly behaviour. They were not to be entirely trusted, nor were they to be ignored. Bad boys like Nalin and Rufus looked like a million other youths branded by Nike, Adidas, and Puma, low-slung jeans, grey cotton hoodies, and baseball caps with peaks that had been kept to an exact curve by pushing them into coffee mugs overnight; each teenager was an exercise in operational invisibility, working from his or her own peculiar vantage point within the system.

  John May carefully picked his way through the knots of teenagers who filled the rear of the upstairs bar. Now, below him, a thousand people gyrated through shimmering spheres of luminescence, bloodred, turquoise, and vitreous green. The music was so loud that it had lost any sense of form or content. All that was left was a heavy bass throb that vibrated the material of his jacket as he walked. As he searched each face, May hoped that the boy would remember the favour he had promised to repay.

  The detective had not expected to find himself in an Elephant and Castle nightclub at two A.M., but there was no other way of locating Rufus. The thirteen-year-old computer genius spent his life underground, and could only be lured to the surface with a bait of pirated software. May was confident that the package in his pocket would not appear on the hackers' black market for days yet, and would be enough to gain an offer of help.

  Meera Mangeshkar had offered to take his place tonight, being nearer to the clubbers' age group, but the young black boy was wary of strangers. Nobody seemed to know where he came from, where he lived, or who his parents were, if indeed he had any. He spoke with a terrible New York accent and used a cheesy brand of street slang, but was smart enough to assume this as a disguise.

  Rufus had been known to help the police on several occasions in the past, but only if the case suited his sense of the bizarre, and only under conditions of strict anonymity. He had an IQ in excess of 170, but what he saw as attempts at exploitation by adults had led him to a life beyond the law. These days his whereabouts could only be ascertained by following newsgroup rumours and checking recent hacker outrages. His exploits left a luminescent trail through the electronic ether, faintly glowing blips in the virtual darkness.

  As if identification wasn't hard enough in the club, ducting pipes now jetted clouds of dry ice across the dance floor, filling the air with a searing crimson haze. The dancers were moving in a grey concrete cave the size of an aircraft hangar which remained nightly filled until the sun rose over the river beyo
nd. May narrowed his eyes and peered into the stifling mist, but could see nothing. It was the third place he had tried tonight and definitely the last, although he had to admit he was starting to enjoy the music. He was about to leave when he felt a tugging at his sleeve.

  'Hey, Incoming Blues, is this a raid?' shouted Rufus, glaring up. He turned to a tall blond girl who stood beside him in a tight black rubber dress, and pressed a stack of notes into her hand. 'Take a cab, baby. I got business to attend to.'

  Rufus held out his hand and buzzed the detective with an absurdly complex handshake. He was four feet eight inches tall, and in his baggy sweatshirt and baseball cap appeared even younger than his thirteen summers. May wondered how they ever let him in. Behind them the bouncers were frisking clubbers for weapons and drugs.