Ten Second Staircase

∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧

48

Sacred Villainy

On the roof of the Roland Plumbe Community Estate, Arthur Bryant faced his imminent demise.

He knew that his career was over but was not sad at its loss. He could do nothing more now, solve no more crimes, save no more lives, because those who committed cruelties were finally beyond his understanding. He had warned John May that he would retire when logic ceased to be of use in criminal investigations. Nothing could ever fully explain what he faced here. The world had moved on into darkness and left him in its wake.

He was afraid only for April’s sake, because she was just learning how to live. She was shivering with cold, kneeling on the gravelled roof before him in torn wet jeans, her arms tied at her sides. She looked at him with pleading eyes.

And he looked back at the Highwayman, not a man, not even a single entity, but a group of boys.

Gosling, pale and blond, dressed in a padded black leather tunic and boots.

Parfitt, spotty, sour-faced, still wearing his soaked school blazer.

Jezzard, bat-eared, red-faced, and overweight, disconsolately picking his nails.

Billings, small and feral, dangerous-eyed, waiting for instructions.

The four teenagers who had disrupted his lecture, who had shouted him down and led the rebellion against him. Four ingenious, privileged, bored, and heartless children who saw themselves above the law because they were more intelligent, more cruel, more willing to risk everything. Because the time was right, and there was nothing at all they cared about.

“What do you think of our invention now?” asked Gosling. “Do you get it? Do you see what we did? It was you who gave us the idea, the day of your stupid lecture. You’ll be the sixth victim of the Highwayman, and there will be one more tonight. Seven carefully staged deaths in seven days, high-profile murders to create a supercelebrity who can never be brought to justice, because he doesn’t exist. The press and the public are willing him into existence. They want to believe in him, and they’ll make him live forever. No-one has ever managed such a stunt in this city’s two-thousand-year history. Fame doesn’t get much bigger than this.”

“What about April?” he asked.

Gosling shrugged. “She can have an accident. Her death won’t count because it’s not part of the plan.”

“You don’t have to kill her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

“It’s not open to negotiation,” said Jezzard, hauling April to her feet. “Don’t you want to know how we did it? We want to tell you ‘cause it’s so cool.”

“I think I already have an idea. Luke lied for you at the gallery, while you – all of you – told the truth. You said no-one else had come into the room, and you were right. Saralla White was already there, checking on her installation, and you simply surprised her, throwing her into the tank. With four of you to hold and lift her, it must have been easy.”

“I wouldn’t say easy,” said Parfitt. “We chloroformed her, but she still kicked me and bit Billings. But she gasped as she went under, and sank quickly.”

“I found this great Web site that tells you how to make fast-acting narcotics,” said Billings. “It’s dead simple. Kingsmere lets us have the run of the school in the evenings – he trusts us to use the labs by ourselves.”

“So – how do you make a man immortal?” asked Gosling. “You give him superhuman abilities. You make him tall, like me, and agile, like Billings here, and strong, like all four of us combined. We take turns being the Highwayman.”

“The different-sized boots, you stored them at the school – that’s where you got wood glue on them,” Bryant comprehended. “A padded jacket, masks, and wigs – all it required was the ingenuity of malicious children.”

Gosling ignored the slight. “I’m taller than everyone else, so I do the big stuff. Parfitt’s a good runner. Billings does the climbing and Jezzard did the camera shots for you, which he paid the estate girls to contact you about. We left you plenty of hints, just to make sure you got the picture.”

“The Thieves’ Key,” said Bryant, recalling Banbury’s discovery in the gallery. “Why did you only leave it the first time?”

“We couldn’t get back into the metalwork shop to make another one,” Gosling explained, amused. “We borrowed the logo from the estate symbol, which was in turn based on the area’s most famous inhabitant. We wanted to watch you at work, but May showed up instead, so we had to keep leaving you more clues. What else do you know?”

“You came up with the Highwayman as a character because you knew about Kingsmere’s father and how the Robin Hood legend had been subverted. Plus, there was the Dick Turpin connection with your school, in the prospectus.”

“He’s on the school weather vane, too,” said Jezzard. “Seems the governors find notoriety more appealing than good scholarship.” He was standing near the edge of the roof with April.

Bryant tried to buy more time. “You got Kingsmere out of the way, didn’t you? You couldn’t afford to have him overseeing your class at the gallery on Monday.”

“Stomach bug. That part was easy. Something we whipped up for him in the chem lab. Keep going, Mr Detective.”

Bryant watched April, trying to keep eye contact with her. “Martell’s electrocution and Sarne’s incineration, that was a bit overelaborate. The sort of thing schoolkids would come up with.”

“We had to keep your interest piqued. That’s why we did two at the same time. And we thought you might enjoy the local history of the area we chose. You’re a sucker for all the old London mythology; we saw you talking about it in your BBC Two documentary. We planned the week like any good media campaign. Seven deaths in seven days, in time for the national press to run the entire story today which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is Hallowe’en.”

“You’re running behind schedule. And you’ve slipped up; Janet Ramsey isn’t dead.”

“We’ll make up for that,” Gosling warned. “I’m interested to know something. We were careful to blame the kids on the estate, but you didn’t go after them. Why not?”

“Your little graffiti message, based on the one left at the site of the Ripper murders. It was a bit too clever. And the K for Kingsmere, rather overemphatic. He thinks you hero-worship him, but you must really hate his guts.”

“Not at all,” said Gosling. “We don’t hate anyone.”

“You should be pleased,” said Jezzard. “You inspired us to create a living legend. Your history will be forever linked with ours.”

“I don’t want the kind of fame you think you’ve bought. You’ve got it without earning it.”

“How can you say that?” asked Gosling. “Do you know how much time and effort we put into this? Those poor morons we killed spent years creating their own images, only to lose virtually everything they’d gained. We’ve bypassed that problem. It takes ten seconds for someone to die. That’s a fast track to immortality. Nobody screws with you if they’re scared of you.”

Bryant thought of the community officer’s comment about building a staircase to adulthood. It was inevitable that someone would try to build a faster one. “Nobody will remember you in a month’s time,” he warned hoarsely.

“They will, though, because the Highwayman is never going to go away. If we don’t choose to keep him alive, someone else will. HydeBrown, Pond, Whitchurch, Ramsden, Armstrong, Ibbertson, Metcalf, Unsworth – any of our friends could take over from us. They all feel the same way.”

“And how is that?”

Gosling looked blankly at him, as if surprised by the question. “We feel dead.”

“It was you who gave us the inspiration to do something about it,” said Billings. “If you hadn’t come to the school, we might never have got our act together.”

“I don’t understand how you choose who should die,” said Bryant, rubbing his temple. Everything seemed overlit and spatially twisted. Jezzard was moving too close to the edge of the roof. April was silent, too immobile. Time itself seemed to have slowed down. Even the rain was falling more slowly, glistening and drifting between them.

“You don’t remember what it’s like to be young, otherwise you’d know who has to go. The liars, the fakes, the hypocrites, the spreaders of poison, the ones with the lifestyles.” Jezzard peered over the low wall, then forced April up onto it.

“I remember what it’s like to have someone claim to represent my generation,” Bryant called in urgency. “The politicians of the past sent us to war. Young men had a reason to fight back. They had a political purpose. You’re just a group of bored children who are upset that their rich parents ignore them.”

“Think what you like, old man.” Jezzard seized April’s arms, untied them, and twisted her to face out over the quadrangle.

“You’ve touched her,” Bryant pointed out. “No matter what happens, you’ll be traced this time.”

They all started to laugh. “Who the hell cares?” said Gosling, the spokesman. “You still don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter who we kill, it’s how we live. Martyrdom is a requirement of immortality.”

Jezzard smiled slowly in agreement and gave April a hard push from the ledge.