‘I don’t think you do, Mr Harghzyszabó. You’re far too old for a start, and this is my office.’
‘You could have just said this is your office.’
Deciding that the best solution was partial honesty, May showed her his ID. ‘We’re working on an investigation into the death of one of Mr English’s colleagues, Jackson Crofting. We’d heard that Mr English would be in this morning and were hoping to interview him.’
The young woman peered at them narrowly. ‘He’s never here at the weekend. You could have called me and saved yourself the trip. Is it something I can help you with at all?’
‘We need to see certain documents pertaining to his deal with Mr Crofting,’ said May.
‘Unfortunately I’m afraid it’s beyond my power to grant you access.’ She had adopted a thermometer-lowering British tone that directly contradicted what she was saying.
‘It’s an official police investigation,’ Bryant pointed out.
‘Then I’m surprised you didn’t arrange the interview in advance.’ She checked her watch. ‘It would be so much better if you weren’t here.’
May squared up to her. ‘Do you understand that we are senior law enforcement officers conducting a murder inquiry?’
She set her coffee down, ready for a fight. ‘You may well be, but this is a public company sanctioned and represented internationally by the government that employs you, so I think you’ll find you’re beyond your jurisdiction.’
‘Peter English does not make the law,’ said Bryant.
‘He doesn’t need to. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave now.’
‘So soon?’ Bryant lifted up his boot. ‘Can you direct me to the lavatory? I think I trod in something on the way in.’ Much to her horror, he showed her. She pointed to a door in the corridor opposite, and Bryant limped theatrically over to it, followed by his partner.
‘Who the hell does English think he is?’ May fumed, closing the door behind him. ‘God, you really did tread in something.’
‘No, it’s my chocolate éclair,’ said Bryant. ‘Give me a hand.’ He leaned on May’s shoulder and surprisingly nimbly climbed on to a counter holding three washbasins.
‘She’s probably calling English right this minute,’ said May.
‘Then let’s give her something to call him about.’
Hauling a length of iron pipe from inside his coat, he reached up and smashed the overhead sprinkler. A moment later water began spraying from points all over the ceiling and an electronic alarm sounded.
‘You maniac!’ May grabbed his partner and pulled him down. Outside, sprinklers had detonated in the corridor too, staining the walls and flooding across the polished wood floors.
‘Wow,’ said Bryant, ‘I didn’t expect that to work.’
‘Be careful you don’t slip.’ May took hold of his partner’s arm.
The assistant stood aghast, phone in hand, as sirens wailed above her and the detectives moved carefully on, leaving the building with as much dignity as they could muster.
The receptionist rose from his chair as they passed him, shaking themselves off like wet dogs, but decided he was not being paid enough to wrestle a pair of soaked seniors to the floor.
‘I can’t believe you brought an iron pipe with you,’ said May as they hastened down the steps.
‘It was part of that old rocket launcher. The one I used to fire chickens across the road with.’
‘I can’t even remember why you were doing that.’
‘Neither can I.’
‘What do we do now?’ May asked.
‘We wait,’ said Bryant, wringing out his hat.
Meanwhile, Raymond Land had arrived at the unit and opened his emails to find something disturbing. He stared at his screen and wondered what on earth he’d done wrong. A note he had dashed off to Leslie Faraday in hasty anger had gone astray, and he couldn’t tell where it had ended up. It was embarrassing having to call in Floris for help, so he tried turning his computer off and turning it on again. As his mailbox reopened he realized he had received a notification not intended for him because the sender had accidentally left him on a thread. It read:
Leslie –
Thanks for your note. On further investigation it appears to be distantly related to progeria. The disease in its purest form is incredibly rare and no one has survived it beyond the age of twenty-six, but there are more common versions with progeria-like side effects.
He was about to dismiss it as some bizarre form of spam but a name further down caught his eye. Before continuing he checked the word ‘Progeria’ and got ‘an extremely rare autosomal dominant genetic disorder in which symptoms resemble the physiological ageing process’.
He read on:
One variant is not always fatal but indicates that the patient is subject to premature ageing. Unfortunately this isn’t the only symptom as the disease also affects the brain, often causing hallucinations and reducing the patient’s ability to tell dreams from reality, as well as adversely affecting their decision-making process.
I was not happy about releasing these details to you prior to my conversation with Mr Bryant, but I understand that, given the extreme seriousness of the unit’s ongoing investigation, the circumstances in this case are exceptional. I suspect that Mr Bryant has long known about his illness and has never disclosed the facts about it. If for no reason other than withholding information, he should be removed from operations forthwith.
Arnold Gillespie
Land was astounded. The email was attached to some previous correspondence between Faraday and Dr Gillespie about staff medical insurance, and Gillespie had accidentally copied him in.
The more he thought about it, the more everything began to make sense. While the rest of the team, including his partner, had been immersing themselves in the nuts and bolts of the investigation, Bryant had been away with the fairies, chatting to his usual assortment of marginalized idiot-savants.
Something needed to be done. Bryant had to be taken off the case as quickly as possible.
38
Insoluble
Hard News Video Report from Paula Lambert timed at 10.30 a.m. Saturday 13 April
A series of killings in broad daylight has placed Londoners on high alert this week. The latest victim has been confirmed as Jackson Crofting, CEO of the videogame company Geniusly. He was discovered outside St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch, apparently the victim of a bizarre accident, but there are suspicions that he was murdered by the Oranges & Lemons Killer. The police unit in charge of the investigation is refusing to comment on the risk to Londoners. In the meantime members of the public are warned to stay alert and avoid dimly lit areas.
‘She’s completely contradicting herself,’ said Arthur Bryant indignantly, spanking his laptop screen. ‘Why would you need to avoid dimly lit areas if the attacks occur in broad daylight? Why is daylight always broad? And why is the article headed with a photo of an unrelated woman?’
‘Video games – that’s Angelina Jolie,’ May explained. ‘She was in films based on a game. Hard News can link any story back to a celebrity.’
‘Well, I hope nobody’s stupid enough to fall for this rubbish.’
‘People can only react to what they’re told,’ May replied reasonably. ‘It’s not their fault if they’re fed lies.’
‘It is if they believe them without evidence. Where’s Paula getting her information from?’
‘I think Raymond’s been speaking to her. I just saw him in the corridor and he scuttled past me like a crab.’
‘Do you think he’s all right? Perhaps I should go and talk to him.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ May said. ‘It usually has a deleterious effect.’
‘There is something very odd going on around here.’ Bryant prowled to the window and wiped it with his sleeve. ‘There are people outside just standing around and staring up at the building.’
‘Have you looked at our website?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘There’s some pretty fierce feedback on it today about taxpayers’ money being wasted. Apparently Faraday doesn’t want us to hold a press conference because he thinks it’ll turn into a PR disaster.’
‘Of course, because he’s not interested in whether the Oranges & Lemons Killer is ever found—’
‘Please don’t call him that, Arthur.’
‘—but we have to let Faraday know that he doesn’t control Raymond. We control Raymond.’
‘All right, let’s talk to him,’ said May, grabbing his partner’s hand and dragging him out into the half-repaired corridor.
Land was standing at the window too. His office looked barer and even less finished than before. Above his unstable desk the ceiling’s innards were hanging out. ‘What do those people want?’ he asked as they entered. ‘It’s like … like …’
‘Night of the Living Dead?’ Bryant ventured. ‘The Leeds Dripping Riot of 1865?’
‘You had better have some very bloody good news for me,’ Land warned, turning from the glass. ‘This Jackson Crofting bloke copped it a week after winning the Business Personality of the Year Award. “Entrepreneurial excellence”, apparently, not “Most likely to be brained with a clock”.’
‘He wasn’t,’ said Bryant. ‘He was stabbed in the back of the neck.’
‘Well, that makes it so much better, thank you. What was he doing at a church anyway? Nobody in London goes to church. Why can’t anyone answer the simplest questions? Leslie Faraday seems to have stopped talking to me. He knows we’re dead in the water. This is how dictators feel in their last days of power. Everyone walks away from them.’ Bryant raised a puzzled eyebrow at his partner. ‘And every time I open my computer it fills up with the most appalling lies about us from websites I’ve never heard of. Could you get Dan to come and clean it up for me?’
‘Darling Raymond, as much as we’d love to discuss your janitorial issues, perhaps you could explain why we haven’t held a press conference? I mean, apart from the fact that you always cock them up?’
‘Faraday expressly forbade it—’
‘—because he doesn’t want it to come out that MI5 was investigating Claremont’s mental health, I get that, but shouldn’t you hold one anyway?’
‘We need to get the public on our side,’ May urged. ‘We have no evidence and no suspects other than this fellow English and that poor dupe who was given five hundred pounds to stand in a churchyard. We’re supposed to be putting all our energy into policing St Dunstan’s now but we’ve barely started dealing with what happened yesterday. We’re one step behind all the time.’
‘St Dunstan’s,’ Land repeated. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a thousand-year-old Anglican church in Stepney,’ said Bryant, ‘the next connection to the rhyme. It’s known as the Church of the High Seas because so many sailors are buried there. It has a delightfully arched nave, if memory serves.’
‘I don’t care if it has a jacuzzi and a disco ball, I don’t want you going anywhere near it. The press will be there ahead of you.’
‘There’s another human life at stake,’ May reminded him, ‘or perhaps the victims have been forgotten in this travelling circus.’
Land stood firm. ‘Your staff were on site at the time of the last attack and failed to catch even a glimpse of the killer, so why go there? It’s physically impossible to run surveillance on the entire borough of Stepney.’
‘We need to be near the church,’ said Bryant.
‘And do what?’ Land almost screamed. ‘You never put batteries in your hearing aid and he’s starting to look like a man who’s been recently shot.’
‘We’re perfectly capable of—’ May began.
‘I don’t care what you’re capable of, I care about what photographers see through their camera lenses, a sepia tint of two mature Victorian gentlemen who’ve just come from the park after feeding the pigeons, not the dynamic leaders of a major murder investigation. Don’t you understand? This is out of your league now. People are saying that a cell of radicals is planning the country’s downfall, warming up for bigger attacks.’
‘We’ve heard that,’ said Bryant defensively. ‘Even if they exist they’re hardly likely to hide clues in an old nursery rhyme.’
‘Well, it’s the word on the street,’ said Land.
‘The street?’ Bryant was incredulous. ‘You’ve never ever been to the street. You’re like the captain of the Pinafore.’
‘I thought he went to sea,’ said May, confused.
‘He never ever went to sea, that’s the whole point,’ Bryant explained. ‘What have you heard about a radical cell?’
Land scrabbled about for his notes. ‘Only that a bunch of disgruntled business leaders are forming a so-called populist political party to “take back control”, as their slogan puts it. Let me tell you how this will play out. At some time in the near future a call will come through to arrest extremists. And that is what Faraday wants. That’s what will clear the streets of dissidents in the eyes of the Home Office and win him a promotion.’
‘I hardly think that’s likely.’
‘What, you think it couldn’t happen here, given the way things are going?’
‘No, Faraday being promoted. He has the mental agility of a beanbag.’
‘I’m warning you to stay here.’ Land was tempted to thump his desk but feared the leg might come off. ‘Let Floris see that you’re performing the duties expected of you. Don’t disappear. You can send off Mangeshkar and Bimsley and anyone else with their body parts in full working order but I do not want to turn on my TV and see you threatening the Channel Four cameras with a walking stick, do you understand? I need a case built on solid evidence. You must have missed the last attack by seconds.’
‘He was watching,’ said Bryant. ‘His clues aren’t actually clues because they’re not solvable, and he knows it. The “Oranges & Lemons” thing is a con.’
‘I’m confused,’ said Land, who was increasingly familiar with the sensation. ‘Is he following the rhyme or not?’
‘That’s the problem,’ said Bryant. ‘It’s not about the rhyme but it could be about the churches. Every ward in the city has at least one venerable place of worship. The general public barely notice any of them, whether they’re Catholic, Anglican or pagan.’
‘There aren’t any pagan churches,’ said Land irritably. ‘Pagans are just nutters in headbands forming a conga line around old rocks four times a year.’
‘You misunderstand, my dear old mumper. Historically, churches have a connection with paganism because many were built on top of temples, including our very own St Paul’s Cathedral. The central image of Catholicism, Mary seated with her son, is drawn from the depiction of Isis with her child Horus. It’s known as the lactans pose, and is—’
‘Enough!’ Abandoning caution, Land slammed his hand so hard on the desk that his tea mug slopped, surprising everyone, including himself. ‘You’ve done this for the last time. I want you to catch a murderer, not give me a lecture in philately.’
‘That’s stamp collecting,’ said Bryant calmly. ‘Perhaps you mean theology – it’s hard to tell when you get het up like this. Have one of your pills.’
‘I don’t need to take a Valium, I am quite—’
‘Second drawer down.’
‘—capable of—’
Bryant quietly slid his tea in front of him. ‘Better take two.’
‘Get him out of here,’ Land pleaded to May, ‘and don’t let him leave the building. If anyone from the press calls you, you are not to speak to them.’
As soon as the detectives had gone, Land opened the drawer and reached for his tablets. After he reread Dr Gillespie’s email about Bryant’s health, he was left wondering what to truly believe.
39
Devil’s Breath
The operations room looked like an abandoned cinema. The two Daves’ plasterboard panels had been propped against the windows to block out light and increase the contrast of Banbury’s image
s. Looped segments of camera footage stuttered across screens, flecking the walls with fragments of repeated action.
Janice Longbright looked around for her coffee cup and found it cold. She had catalogued the footage codes for Dan so that they could be edited into a single film clip that even Raymond Land, who had the attention span of a sugar-addicted toddler, could follow.
‘The hardest part is working out where the killer is standing in all of these takes.’ She pulled out chairs in front of the main monitor. Dan waited until the detectives had sat down and began spinning through the footage.
‘In the Strand we have to assume he’s inside the van with the driver. We can see through the window in some shots but the shadows are too deep to make out much. He either threatened Alkesh or paid him to turn a blind eye. No wonder the lad ran off afterwards. MI5 seems to think that Alkesh is no longer in the country. They’re not keeping us informed about their findings.’
Banbury moved to the next sequence.
‘The attack on Chakira Rahman. Two cameras picked her up on the steps of St Martin’s. Watch this: there’s an elderly Indian man, a middle-aged woman and … I don’t know what this guy is, he’s dragging a piece of cardboard around, maybe begging. Here comes Rahman, cutting across the corner of the staircase, not really looking where she’s going. Now, a little further on’ – he checked the coding note and flicked forward – ‘the cardboard guy passes closest.’
‘How close?’ asked John May.
‘It’s hard to tell exactly because the cardboard is under his left arm, which obstructs our view. Here’s the crucial moment. We can see him start to raise his right hand. That’s where the contact occurred.’
Banbury moved through the frames. Two grey figures were visible in a tangle of arms and coats. Nothing was clear, nothing definite.
‘We can’t see Rahman’s face so we don’t know what her reaction was. The cardboard guy moves on but doesn’t speed up or change the way he’s moving. His body language should give him away but it doesn’t. Then nothing for three seconds, and finally we see Rahman go down the steps, here. We had Colin re-enact it and he nearly broke his nose. The cardboard sheet worked as a screen for the stabbing action.’
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