Bryant & May 08; Off the Rails

∨ Off the Rails ∧

46

Joker in the Pack

According to the reports reaching John May, three of the five housemates were making their way separately to King’s Cross station, along with Longbright, Renfield and Tony McCarthy. Only Sangeeta and Nicolau were away from the site. Did that remove them from suspicion, or implicate them further? And why were the others all heading to the one place where the PCU was most likely to catch Mr Fox? You’re being paranoid, thought May as he tacked through the stalled traffic. Arthur’s done it to you again, forever trying to join the dots where no links exist. It’s a massive terminus, it’s the weekend, and students are more likely to use public transport, that’s all.

The rain pockmarked the pooled tarmac into shadows of clouds. May darted under the station awning and joined a line waiting to enter the station, several rows back from Ruby Cates, who was no longer sporting her cast.

What am I doing here? he asked himself angrily. I swear, this really is the most chaotic investigation of my career. When I look at our methodology through the eyes of Home Office officials I can honestly see why they’re so keen to retire us. The Unit’s working methods confuse its own staff, so God knows what they do to outsiders. Arthur put his faith in me to close this quickly, but I’m damned if I can see how to do it. There’s something missing that I’m simply not equipped to spot. And now he’s back at the Unit with his jigsaws and his playing cards, letting me slowly hang myself. It’s as if he no longer cares what happens to the Unit or to any of us.

He angrily pushed his way down the steps into the ticket hall, where he was spotted by Longbright. She shook her head at him. No sign of Mr Fox. But there was McCarthy, having some kind of arm-waving argument with a baffled barrier guard.

Looks like everyone’s decided to travel today, thought May. He checked his watch: 3:39 P.M. Not a very satisfying end to our careers, a dead officer and two unsolved cases.

The problem with the students of Mecklenburgh Square was not one of culpability but motive. Without that, the investigation could never be resolved. It seemed to May that the suspects, the victims and the investigators had created a perfect deadlock. As the minutes ticked away, May patted the rain from his jacket, stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the tiled wall, watching and waiting as the human whirlpool swirled aimlessly around its axis. There was nothing else he could do.

♦

Arthur Bryant’s office had started to resemble a magician’s display room. In addition to the books of magic, there were now a model guillotine which worked and a full set of Chinese linking rings on his desk. Packs of cards were strewn over the floor, along with random items of evidence, including a number of volumes on the London Underground, the paperback edition of Mind the Ghosts, the students’ opened laptops, Hillingdon’s rainbow raincoat and a series of enlarged frame grabs of tube train seats from a phone.

At times like this, Bryant found it helpful to break confidence and discuss the case with a complete outsider, although he took the risk that Fraternity DuCaine might simply think him unhinged.

“You see, I keep coming back to the cards,” he said, spreading a pack across his desk. “I can’t explain my thinking to you because I can’t entirely explain it to myself.”

“Let me get this right,” said Fraternity. “You see a connection between the playing cards and the death of a woman on a staircase?”

“Believe me, I know how that sounds. But the colours and shapes keep repeating themselves in my head.”

Fraternity looked more confused than ever. “No, I’m still not getting it,” he said, shaking off the idea.

“Let me see if I can explain.” Bryant opened Professor Hoffman’s manual of card conjuring. “I’ve been trying to learn the system of finding marked cards that’s recommended in this book, but I don’t have a mathematical mind. One way of doing it is to locate imaginary points on the backs of the cards. Hoffman teaches you to superimpose patterns over seemingly random choices. If you’re careful, you can divide the back of a card up into thirty different points. I look from the diamonds and hearts on the faces to the photos taken of the tube station seat covers, and every illogical cell in my brain starts to vibrate. But what exactly am I looking at?”

“I have no idea,” Fraternity admitted. “We didn’t do anything like this at Henley.”

“What happened to you there? Do you have any idea why you failed?”

“It couldn’t have been anything that occurred during the training period. My course-work was good and I got on just great with everyone.”

“Then it must have been somewhere else. Where did they put you out in the field?”

“I did two weeks at Albany Street station. That seemed to go okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Well, until the end at least. I was reporting to some uptight dude who seemed like he’d skipped a few stages of his diversity training.”

“He had a race problem?”

“No, not that. The inner city boroughs would collapse without a heavy proportion of ethnic staff. Besides, I got the feeling that if you really have issues you can get posted to an area where you only have to deal with your white brothers.”

“So what was it?”

“I was supposed to go for a drink with the team at the end of my last day, and my ex-partner came by unannounced. I was kind of embarrassed about that.”

“Why?”

“At the time, he was one of the principal dancers in Matthew Bourne’s production of Swan Lake.”

“Ah. Yes. I can see how that would do it.”

“Look, he was between performances and wanted to wish me well. You wouldn’t know – ”

“You don’t need to explain. Officers always know. Your mentor had championed you to the others and suddenly felt he’d lost face.”

“I guess that’s a possibility.”

“And he was in charge of your field report. Why didn’t you say something?”

“It would only have made matters worse. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it. And I had no real proof.”

“I can look into this for you. Do you remember the name of your senior officer?”

“Sure. He was a sergeant. A guy called Jack Renfield. I tried to get in touch with him one time, but they told me he’d moved on. They wouldn’t say where.”

“I won’t be able to retroactively change your report,” said Bryant, “but if we survive beyond the end of the afternoon, I may be able to recommend you for a position here.”

Fraternity’s smile was sunlight after rain. “You really think that’s a possibility?”

“It would mean confronting Renfield. He’s at the Unit, you see. I’m surprised you didn’t bump into him. Albany Street was angry about losing Renfield to us; that’s why they refused to tell you where he went. You think the two of you could discuss the matter civilly, without any bloodshed?”

“Could I hit him once, maybe?”

“All right, but first help me with the cards. What am I missing here?”

“Okay.” Fraternity narrowed his eyes at the card backs, then glanced across at Professor Hoffman’s manual. “You’re learning how to mentally mark cards so you can track them through the pack, right?”

“Right.”

“And you got these seat patterns. Why would anyone take pictures of those?”

“To track something – somebody – from line to line.”

“That’s what I see. There are twelve underground lines, right?”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve got thirteen shots. This one isn’t a line. Okay, it’s a bit out of focus but it looks like red polka dots to me.”

Bryant mentally slapped himself. “That’s a close-up of the dress Gloria Taylor was wearing when she died.”

“Man, that’s a hell of a dress. She must have been the most noticeable woman on the tube that day.”

“Of course – it made her easy to follow. She got on at Bond Street and changed at Oxford Circus. Maybe the killer was with her all the way. It’s like tracking a playing card through the deck. He chose her because of the dress.”

“A sexual obsessive?” Fraternity suggested.

“Then why not simply touch her or try to strike up a conversation? Why push her down the stairs?” Bryant realised he could answer his own question. “She almost left the station, then turned around and went back. She’d forgotten her daughter’s birthday present. And then she was pushed because someone was angry with her. Angry that she didn’t go through the barrier and leave. You track the card through the pack. But the card lets you down, and you lose your temper and knock the cards over. Everything else that has happened is because of that one moment of anger.”

“It’s a game,” said Fraternity, looking at the fallen cards. “And someone didn’t like to lose.”

“What kind of stakes could be so high in a game that you’d actually shove a stranger down a flight of stairs?” He looked back at the pack of cards, and the upturned nine of clubs. “I marked that one so I could trace it through the pack.”

“Sorry, Mr Bryant, not with you.”

“You don’t mark a card the second before you turn it over. You mark it right at the beginning, so you can keep an eye on it through the shuffle. The killer didn’t put the sticker on Gloria Taylor’s back just before he killed her. He did it so that he could prove that she was the marked card. She wasn’t hard to keep track of in the tube crowds, because of the way she was dressed. But he had to show someone else that she was the victim. Matt Hillingdon’s phone was taken because it revealed the marked card. But the killer didn’t think to check his laptop.”

“I’m still not getting a clear signal from you, Mr Bryant,” said Fraternity. Getting used to Bryant’s way of thinking sometimes took decades.

“I need to run the security camera footage from Monday evening at Bond Street tube.” Bryant indicated that Fraternity DuCaine should grab the nearest phone. “Then I’ll know who killed Gloria Taylor.”