Off the Rails

∨ Off the Rails ∧

25

Late Night Conversation

Bryant spent the next few hours in a dim basement library you could only access with the possession of a special pass and a private knock. For the other members of the PCU, Wednesday dragged past in a grim trudge of paperwork, legwork, statements and interviews. Colin Bimsley and Meera Mangeshkar were now resigned to being yoked together, but the paucity of leads made it feel as if there was barely a case to resolve. Meera felt guilty for thinking so, but it was certainly not the kind of investigation upon which reputations were built, not unless there was a racial or political motive for the attack. What did they really have to go on, other than a couple of hunches and the vague sensation that something was wrong?

Just after noon, one of the Daves took the curl out of his hair by slicing through a power cable, which darkened the offices instantly and killed the computers.

At 2:15 Crippen managed to locate the packet of butter that had been used on his paws and ate the whole thing, regurgitating his lunch into Raymond Land’s duffle bag.

At 4:45 the other Dave, now differentiated from his colleague by the lack of singeing in his extremities, removed some plaster from a wall in order to locate a pipe, and in doing so, uncovered an amateurish but alarmingly provocative fresco of naked, overweight witches cavorting in a devil’s circle. It was further proof, if any more was needed, that the warehouse had once been used for something damnably odd. Land had immediately demanded to know what the witches were doing there, and was not satisfied with Bryant’s suggestion that it might be the foxtrot.

By 8:30 that evening having satisfied all existing avenues of enquiry, the exhausted investigators reached a dead end and were sent home, leaving only Bryant and his favourite detective sergeant at King’s Cross headquarters.

DS Janice Longbright pulled the cork from a bottle of Mexican burgundy with her teeth and filled two tumblers. “The trouble with you, Arthur,” she began, with the cork still in her mouth.

“Any sentence that starts like that is bound to end with something I don’t want to hear,” Bryant interrupted. “Take a card.” He held out the pack in a hopeful fan.

“The trouble with you is that once you get the bit between your teeth you can’t be shifted. Two of diamonds. Like this thing with Mr Fox. Take a look.” She spat out the cork and threw a page across his desk. “It’s a screen grab from your security-wallah, Mr Dutta.”

“You weren’t supposed to tell me what the card was.” Bryant fumbled for his spectacles and held the page an inch from his nose. The blurred photograph showed Mr Fox and his victim walking outside King’s Cross station. “Just what I told you. He followed McCarthy into the tube and stabbed him.”

“Come on, even I noticed this.” She threw him another sheet, the same scene a few frames later, as the pair moved into clearer view.

“Oh, I see what you mean,” said Bryant. “That looks like Mr Fox in his earlier incarnation, before he shaved his hair closer to his head.”

“Because it was taken ten days ago. Concrete evidence that they knew each other. You were right. Mr Fox was taking care of business, getting rid of an unreliable junkie who had something on him.”

“Any news from the patient?”

“Nope, he’s still unconscious. There’s a staff nurse on duty outside his room, making sure nobody tries to get in. She’ll call us if and when he comes around.”

“Has anyone tried to see him?”

“He’s had no visitors at all.”

“I wonder if Mr Fox thinks he’s dead. You’d better check and see if anyone’s been talking to the ambulance crew. Take another card.”

“Do I have to?”

“Humour the meagre amusements of a frail old man.”

Janice gave him an old-fashioned look and withdrew a card.

“Remember it and put it back.” After she had done so, he threw the pack at the wall. One card stuck. Grunting, he reached across and turned it over. “Nine of clubs.”

“No, it was the queen of spades.”

“Bugger. You know those television detectives who put themselves in the minds of killers? I’ve never been able to do that. I never have the faintest idea what killers might be thinking. But I would imagine Mr Fox would like to make sure Mac never opens his mouth again. He’ll be watching the hospital, or asking around.” Bryant sipped his wine. “This tastes like that bottle of Château Gumshrinker I meant to throw out when we moved.”

“There was nothing else in the kitchen. Try not to let it touch your teeth.”

“It doesn’t matter, they’re made of plastic. Did you get a chance to look into Mrs DuCaine’s claim that her other son was turned down for the force?”

“I put in a couple of calls to Hendon, but Fraternity’s file appears to have gone missing.”

“You think there’s been some funny business?”

“Not sure,” said Longbright. “I spoke to a guy called Nicholson, who’d been one of his examiners. He says Fraternity was a good bloke, fully expected him to pass with flying colours, doesn’t know what happened.”

“A bit odd. Not like them to be evasive. Who was his supervisor?”

“That’s the funny thing – nobody could tell me. If I can find out the name of the team leader, I might get somewhere. Nicholson remembered that the regular officer had been taken sick, so they had a replacement for a few days.”

“Sounds like someone took a dislike to Fraternity and put the boot in. Keep trying, will you? It’s the least we can do for his mother.”

Longbright sipped some wine, then winced. “I heard Raymond was upset about one of the Daves uncovering another creepy painting in his room.”

“The waltzing witches?” Bryant released a hoot of laughter. “Poor old Raymondo is spooked because he thinks there was some kind of Satanic secret society operating out of this place. He says he keeps hearing strange noises at night. Doesn’t fancy being left alone on the premises.”

“Was there really a secret society here?”

“Oh, absolutely. That’s why the estate agent had trouble renting it. The Occult Society of Great Britain conducted a series of legendary experiments in this very building in the 1960^s. The society was closed down after one of their rituals resulted in a death.”

“How do you know about this?”

“Maggie Armitage still has the press clippings. She never throws anything away.” Bryant’s old friend was the white witch who ran the ailing North London branch of the Coven of St James the Elder. “She reckons the occultists chose the property because it was built on one of London’s strongest ley lines, which runs from the Pentonville Mound to Sadler’s Wells, passing right through the centre of this building. Of course, John thinks I chose the premises just to torment Raymond.”

“Do you think he’s fully recovered from his operation? John seems a bit…”

“He’s fine,” said Bryant, dismissing the idea that anything might be wrong with his partner. “He’s had heart problems before. His doctor has started bleating about retirement again, but we both know where that will lead. I just finished reading John’s notes on the Mr Fox investigation, and I’m starting to think he’s right after all. The deaths can’t be connected. Perhaps it’s wrong of me to try and forge a link between them.”

“So our priority is still to find Gloria Taylor’s attacker.”

“You’d better copy Mr Fox’s updated file, the one with the new photos, get it over to Islington and Camden, and let’s hope the plods at the Met manage to pick him up on their rounds. You know how they think; if he gets rid of a few thieving junkies, it might be better to let him continue clearing the streets.”

Longbright sat back and allowed herself to relax. “I’ve reached a dead end with the witness statements. Nobody remembers who was walking behind Taylor on the stairs. If it had happened on the escalator they’d have been standing still, not concentrating on where to place their feet, and someone might have noticed who was there.”

“Maybe Giles is wrong and it was just an accident. But the man has good instincts. I keep asking myself, how could it have been murder? There are simply too many variables. First, there was the risk of being seen and blamed. Then, the chance that someone else would catch her or merely get in the way and break her fall. Even pushing an old lady down her stairs at home doesn’t guarantee that she’s going to die. It’s best to test these things out with physical experiments. I tried it once before with a pig.”

“What happened?”

“It was very upset, jumped over the banisters and landed rather heavily on our hall table. Alma was furious. I should have used a dead one, but I was minding it for a friend.”

“I notice Taylor’s death didn’t warrant a mention in the press. It’s been written off as an accident. And Janet Ramsey didn’t pick up on Mac’s vampire wound.”

“I’d probably be inclined to think it was accidental if I didn’t share John’s puzzlement over these students,” said Bryant. “If you were going to attempt to take someone’s life in such a damned awkward manner, you wouldn’t risk drawing attention to yourself by whacking a label on the victim’s back. Why leave a clue at all? And once you’ve pushed her, then what do you do? You can’t fight your way up the staircase when everyone’s coming down, so you have to carry on walking to the bottom. Too much of a risk.” Bryant wiped his lips and set down his tumbler. “It’s no good, I can’t drink any more of that. Is there really nothing else?” He tipped the remains into Crippen’s bullet-punctured litter tray.

Longbright poked about in one of the crates. “There’s half a bottle of Merlot here. You try it.” She unscrewed the top and tipped some in his glass.

The bouquet forced his eyes shut. “Well, it’s got a bit of a bite. It would probably burn quite well.” He examined the label. “Produce of Morocco. Why was it in the crate?”

“Old evidence.”

“Not the Lewisham Poisoner? Give me a top-up.”

“When you think about how crowded the tubes get, it’s amazing there aren’t more accidents.” Longbright pulled off her heels and put her feet up on Bryant’s desk, crossing her nylons at the ankle.

“The guards were telling me that drunks tend to fall down the stairs or onto the tracks further out of town, away from the West End stations, because the alcohol is kicking in just as they arrive at their destinations. There are very few deliberate assaults, though. I suppose it’s the proximity of others, the lighting and the CCTV system. No, I think we have to assume the Taylor death is a one-off. The Hillingdon disappearance is bloody odd, though. You can’t disappear on a moving tube train in the two minutes it takes to travel between stops. The boy will probably turn up with some silly-ass explanation.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“As far as I know, there’s never been a serial killer with such a random MO, even in the forties, when entire neighbourhoods slept down on the platforms during the air raids. Once you go down those stairs, it seems as if there’s a separate unwritten code of manners in place.”

“The peer pressure of the crowd,” agreed Longbright. “Everyone has a go at you if you do something wrong. It’s like all these freesheets they give out at the stations. There’s an understanding that you can leave your paper folded on the back of the seat when you leave because someone else will read it. It seems to be a form of recycling that’s acceptable.”

“And this thing with the litter bins.”

“What thing?”

“Well, there aren’t any. Not around the station anyway, because of terrorist threats. So people tuck bottles and coffee cups in every little corner of the street. They can’t be bothered to take stuff home, but they don’t want to leave the place untidy, either. What strange creatures we English are. We make up our own rules, despite the politicians trying to control us. Remember when the mayor banned booze on the tube and everyone had a huge party in the carriages the night before it came into effect? I love a bit of anarchy, so long as it doesn’t harm the undeserving.”

“Absolutely. It’s a bloody good idea to frighten Whitehall once in a while.”

“Odd about the stickers being a symbol for anarchy. The mad are often seen as free instead of prisoners.”

“I had the same logo on an old Vivienne Westwood T-shirt, back in the 1980^s.” Longbright emptied the last of the bottle into their glasses. “This brings me back to the old days, when the three of us would take on lost causes, the cases no-one else believed in, like your Deptford Demon, the Oxford Street Mannequin Murderer, and that business with those glamour models, the Belles of Westminster. You should put them in your memoirs.”

“I will if I ever find the energy,” Bryant promised. “There are so many projects I’d like to embark on, I can’t imagine finishing them all. I sense a gathering darkness, Janice, not just in me but in the world outside. Perhaps it’s something everyone of my age feels. But I do wonder if anyone really cares about the same things anymore. Who honestly wants to know about the history of pubs or hidden waterways, or mysterious goings-on underneath the streets? I have no conversation about diets and celebrities or the bad habits of television personalities. Just once I’d like some bottom-feeding media slug to be caught in a criminal situation more imaginative than one involving call girls and drugs. Their world is too predictable and mundane for me, but it’s what everyone else seems to be interested in.”

“You can’t blame people for being fascinated by their own species,” said Longbright.

“That’s where John comes in. He genuinely likes people. I think I’m more of an ideas man. But I do care.” He removed his glasses and smiled at Longbright with suddenly diminished eyes. “I know it seems John and I disagree about everything, but we don’t about the important stuff. He has very sound instincts. I believe in him. And in you. I remember when you used to come to Bow Street with your mother. She’d leave you to play with us while she was on duty, and I used to threaten to lock you up when you became annoying. Once I even marched you down to the cells. I had every intention of leaving you there, because I’ve never been able to abide children. But even then you knew how to twist me around your little finger. I’m so sorry you lost him.”

“Liberty? I’m sorry for him, not me. I’m still here. Don’t start getting sentimental in your old age.” She made a show of looking stern.

“I know everyone thinks I’m difficult. It’s just that as I’ve got older I’ve become less gullible. And that makes me harder to control. I don’t listen to my peers anymore, but that’s because most of them are either dead or have gone mad, so now I’m free to explore anything I want.”

“Then why not apply a bit of free thinking to this case?” Longbright suggested. “What’s the most unlikely thing you can come up with?”

Bryant studied the cracks in the ceiling for a minute. “The most unlikely thing? That Gloria Taylor was deliberately targeted and attacked by someone who thought he could get away with it,” he answered finally.

“Then that,” Longbright announced, flourishing her palms, “should be your starting point.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a crash from above. “There’s no-one else in the building, is there?” Bryant asked.

“You stay here.” Longbright jumped up and headed for the stairs. Bryant listened to the creaking floorboards over his head, and the chill memory of the attack on Liberty DuCaine crept up on him. He was sure he and Longbright were the only ones left in the old warehouse, but it had sounded as if someone was walking directly above.

The DS returned with a frown on her face. “There’s nobody,” she said, puzzled. “I definitely heard someone, didn’t you?”

“You don’t think Raymond’s ghost is putting in an appearance, do you?” he asked, lightening the moment, but it wasn’t enough to remove her anxiety. Longbright, too, was remembering the murder of a police officer on the floor above.