Full Dark House

∨ Full Dark House ∧

51

THE END OF THE ROAD

“You honestly thought I would destroy the Orpheus production and ruin my company’s reputation to take some kind of warped revenge against my dead brother?” said Renalda. “British police. Too much Agatha Christie, no?”

Bryant wasn’t about to give up without a fight. “Can you tell me how you know that Minos is dead?”

“Well, I saw his eyelids and mouth stitched shut with catgut, and I saw him nailed into a coffin and placed in the ground, then the earth put over the top of him, and the shovels flattening down the earth, if you think that’s proof enough.”

“How did he die?”

“He was killed in a car accident near Athens two months before the war started. He had been drinking all day. He lost control of the car and went off the road into a canal. He drowned, and so my wife, in some strange way, is avenged. I saw his body pulled from the wreck and buried in the family cemetery.”

“It doesn’t make sense that Minos is dead,” said Bryant, staring down at the floor in confusion.

“I’m sorry it doesn’t fit your theories. I suppose you can arrange to have his grave reopened if you like – you wouldn’t be able to make yourself any more foolish. My brother’s death is well documented.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I? If you had any connection with your police friends in Europe instead of keeping to yourselves on your funny little island, you would know how many times the press has told the story.”

“I thought you said you sued them all.”

“All the ones I knew about, but there were plenty of others. ‘The cursed family, the child protected by ancient gods.’ Journalists scaled the walls of the house to take my picture, they tried to bribe me, harassed me so much that I moved here, where I thought things would be different. The English, so private, so aloof, so secretive. They would leave the memory of my family alone. But no, along come you two, the music-hall comedians. Yes, I am sure that Minos killed my wife, but I am not glad that he suffocated in the filthy waters of a drainage ditch. He was blood of my blood. And I will not allow his memory to be defiled by young men who think too much about the wrong things.”

“I didn’t mean to imply – ”

“I know exactly what you meant. In your own clumsy way you suggest we are nothing but ignorant pagans. Our private beliefs have been raked over in your News of the World. You think I would slaughter my own cast and wreck my production, you arrogant little boy?” The veins were pulsing in his temples, and he began to shout. “You pious English Christians, always so right, what do you know of the world that you have not read from your precious books? Do you know how many times I have heard these idiocies since my wife died? Her death was a godsend to your journalists, another tragedy in a rich family, and you believe it just because you read some news clippings? Get out of this house now, before I have you thrown out. Get out!”

♦

“Well, that went well,” said May, stepping out into the pouring rain. “I thought I’d discovered something new. I was sure Renalda was setting himself free from his past.”

“No, Arthur, you believed what you wanted to believe, no matter how demented the notion was. You squeezed the facts to fit your theory.”

Bryant was indignant. “I did not!”

“Of course you did. That thing about the high note warning Miles Stone’s mother. The flautist was late that day, remember? There was no high note from a flute, just somebody scraping a violin in the orchestra. And another thing. Edna bloody Wagstaff and her chatty cat. She couldn’t have heard Dan Leno in the Palace, because he never came to the Palace. He died in 1904 without once performing there. She’s just a crazy, lonely old woman. Andreas Renalda’s story appealed to your romantic notions of classical literature and myths, that’s all. Maybe Biddle was right when he asked to leave. You don’t share information and you don’t listen to reason. I’m not sure I’m cut out for the unit any more than he is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You, Arthur. I’ll never get used to working like this. Just sitting in your room is enough, all those volumes on clairvoyants, astrologers, white witches, spiritualism, covens. While everyone else is reading the Daily Mail, you’re studying the Apocryphal Books of the Dead. All the stories they laugh about over at Bow Street while you look for a vampire that preys on foreigners in Leicester Square.

Running down alleyways in the dead of night, trying to catch some kind of shapeshifting wraith that sucks the blood out of Norwegians. How do you talk people into believing stuff like that?

Why did DS Forthright spend her New Year’s Eve in a King’s Cross goods yard waiting for a priest to mark out crucifix patterns in holy water? And did you ever catch him? According to her, you’re the only one who saw him dash into that cul-de-sac. He must have run up the wall, you told her, they can do that in moments of stress. You have us all mesmerized under the spell of your insanity. Well, no more. I’ve just not got that turn of mind. It’s the effect you have on people, you mean well but you get everyone caught up in these ridiculous fantasies. Why can’t you just face the truth and admit you’ve not got the right experience for the job? You should be curating in a museum or something, lecturing on ghosts and goblins, digging out Egyptian tombs. It was good enough for Howard Carter, he didn’t decide to be a policeman, did he?”

“May I remind you,” said Bryant, trying to muster some dignity, “that this is called the Peculiar Crimes Unit?”

“The day we met, you told me that their definition of peculiar and yours were different. You just didn’t warn me how different. I know you’re a bit older than me, but I’d like a chance to handle things another way, before Davenport hears what you’ve done and nails boards across the entrance to the office. I should have put my foot down when you brought in the clairvoyant, then perhaps none of this would have happened. Why don’t you take a break, go and give the ARP boys a hand, make use of yourself, and try not to think so much?”

“I’ll admit that as a team we’ve been having a few teething troubles.”

“Teething troubles? You just accused a man who has the ear of the Home Office of practising witchcraft! Christ on a bike.”

“John, at least let’s leave it until the morning,” Bryant pleaded. “You might feel differently then.”

John raised his hands defiantly. “No, because in the morning you’ll try to convince me that Renalda is part of a satanic sect, or that the theatre is built on an ancient Saxon burial ground. Besides, it has nothing to do with me. Renalda – and Biddle, come to think of it – will be on the phone to Davenport right now, and he’ll have taken you off the case before dawn. I’m prepared to go a long way with you, Arthur. I even see some demented sense in what you say. The killer is a psychopath driven by desperation, fine, yes, I agree with that. But Muses, curses, protective spells? That’s where we part company.”

He stopped when he realized that his partner was no longer following him. Looking back, he saw Bryant standing in the rain, his head dropped forward onto his chest. He looked close to tears, but May knew he couldn’t be because nothing ever seemed to upset him.

“Where are you going now?” asked May.

“I promised my mother I’d look in on her,” Bryant replied miserably.

“I’ll drive you. There won’t be any buses running at this hour. Then you must try to get some sleep. At least it’s a quiet night. I’ll go back to the theatre and make sure Forthright has everything she needs.”

“You’re right,” Bryant said softly. “I thought it was – I don’t know what I thought. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, just get some rest. Leave it to me. You won’t have to do anything. I’ll sort everything out with Davenport. Just accept that things didn’t work out with us, that’s all.”

Bryant suddenly looked so pale and fragile that May felt a rush of pity for him.

He drove his distraught partner slowly back through the smouldering ruins of Hackney and Bow, past a makeshift hospital set up on the broken pavements. There were patients lying on brass beds outside McFisheries and Woolworths. A woman was sitting on the steps of a church with her head in her hands. When a nurse tried to comfort her, she pushed her away.

As they drove on, the devastation grew. The house where Bryant asked to be dropped was in a bomb-scarred terrace of slum dwellings long due for demolition. May was shocked to find that his partner hailed from such a rough neighbourhood.

Embarrassed by the events of the night and by his own impoverished circumstances, Bryant stood awkwardly in the entrance to the alley beside his mother’s house and waited until the Wolseley had pulled out into the deserted road, its tail-lights fading in the thickening drizzle.

As he watched John May drive away, he knew that the unit’s last chance for survival was leaving with him.