∨ Full Dark House ∧
58
LIVING LEGEND
“What’s going on?” asked Janice Longbright, trying to catch her breath. An absurdly long McDonald’s truck had nearly run them down on the Strand. “Where are we heading?”
“There’s not a moment to lose,” May warned. Longbright strode beside him as they raced off along the pavement. May was forced to push his way through a slow-moving crowd of backpacked tourists, and for a moment the detective sergeant was worried that she would lose him.
“What have you got there?” She pointed at the bulky plastic Sony bag slung over May’s shoulder.
“Something I thought we might need. Keep up with me, the sun’s nearly set,” May called back. Lorries and vans chugged sluggishly onto the bridge, their exhaust fumes obscuring the kerbs with grey waste. Longbright caught up with her former boss as he waited for the pedestrian signal to change.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes, turning to face the stale breeze from the river. “Tell me what happened. Did you have any luck with the dentist?”
“He’s in Sydney, Australia. I woke him in the middle of the night. Arthur had an appointment with him just before he left. He’d cracked the top plate of his false teeth and wanted them replaced. The dentist didn’t have time to cast new moulds before he left, and typically Arthur had lost the old mould he was supposed to keep safely stored away for just such an event, so he had to make do with a pair that didn’t fit. They were far too big.”
“I don’t understand,” said Longbright. “Why does it matter how big his teeth were?”
“According to my next-door neighbour, the intruder who she thought was trying to break into my apartment had beady eyes and abnormally large teeth. Do you know anyone with beadier eyes than Arthur? Alma Sorrowbridge said that someone had been in Arthur’s room, but the front-door lock hadn’t been forced. There are few things more personal than your dental records. Who else would take them?”
“Wait a minute. You’re telling me Arthur’s alive?” shouted Longbright.
“Oh, he’s alive all right, but I think he’s suffering from amnesia. Over sixty years ago, Elspeth Wynter’s deranged son climbed out of the well at the Palace via its drainage tunnel. Bryant recently tracked him down to the Wetherby clinic. He disturbed a forgotten history, even added a footnote to his memoir before changing his mind and hiding it. Todd followed him back to the unit with the intention of attacking him.
“I think Todd took some kind of explosive device along, but it went off at the wrong time, and Todd was killed. He was only five years younger than Bryant. We found the remains of Todd’s body, and Bryant’s old teeth. Bryant had been placed at the site, and we weren’t looking for anyone else. I think he survived, but he’s confused, or concussed or something. He went home, but didn’t stay. He came to me, but couldn’t get in. I’ve been stalked by Arthur, not Todd. And if there’s anywhere in the world that he does still remember, it’s here, on Waterloo Bridge at sunset, where he’s walked every night for most of his life.” He pointed across the dual carriageway. A blood-red sun shimmered through exhaust fumes behind the Houses of Parliament. “You take one side, I’ll take the other.”
It was May who saw him first.
Bryant was standing at the spot where his fiancée had died, peering over the edge of the balustrade into the opalescent brown water. He was wearing his favourite gaberdine coat, several filthy scarves and a torn hat. He looked – and, as May got closer, smelled – like a very tired tramp.
“Arthur, it’s you. It’s really you. I thought you were dead.”
May grabbed his arm and twirled him round for a better look. Bryant had a raw-looking gash on his head which he had tried to bandage with an old tie. He was sporting a set of ridiculous illfitting teeth that looked as though they had been made for someone with a much bigger head.
“Look at me.” May grabbed his empty face and tilted it up. “It’s me, John May. You’re here on the bridge, on Waterloo Bridge where we always go, where Nathalie died. You’re Arthur Bryant of the Peculiar Crimes Unit and you’re my best friend. Look at me.” He held Bryant’s face steady in his strong hands, but the old detective’s eyes remained impassive.
“For God’s sake, Arthur,” May shouted, “you’d remember Edna bloody Wagstaff well enough if she was still alive. Well, take a look at this.” He dumped the carrier bag on the pavement and pulled the stuffed cat from it. Time had not been kind to the Abyssinian. Most of its fur had been eaten away with mange, its remaining eye had fallen out and one of its back legs was missing.
“You remember Rothschild?” May thrust the deformed cat carcass in his partner’s face. “It was her familiar. Squadron Leader Smethwick used to send messages through it. Edna left it to Maggie Armitage in her will.”
It was the only thing he had been able to lay his hands on that Bryant might recognize. Rothschild had sat on his desk like a moulting familiar for over twenty years. Slowly, very slowly, the light of recognition began to return to the elderly detective’s eyes. Finally, he opened his dry, cracked lips.
“John, what are you doing here?”
“It lives! It speaks!” He turned excitedly to Longbright, who had reached them. “Look who this is – Janice is here!”
“Why are you talking to me as if I’m a child?” Bryant complained. “Is there something wrong with you? Hello, Janice. Have you got anything to eat?”
Then he fainted.
May caught him and sat him against the balustrade while Longbright rang for an ambulance.