The Memory of Blood

∨ The Memory of Blood ∧

32

Older Ladies

Saturday morning dawned but nobody noticed. It barely grew light. The sky had tilted and was moving fast. The racing clouds bulged so low that the spires of St Pancras threatened to tear them open. The lack of a rush hour today meant that most of the shops and offices in King’s Cross were shut, but the lights were on at the PCU. A seven-day policy had been placed in effect while the investigation remained active.

Unusually, Raymond Land was the first one in. Last night Leanne had sent him an email saying that she couldn’t join him on their sailing holiday in the Isle of Wight because she had accidentally made a double booking. This morning she had gone off to a retreat in Wales to practise tantric yoga with an old family friend. In a way Land was quite pleased, because he needed to get the investigation closed, and was a lousy sailor.

He made himself a cup of coffee, then wandered into Bryant’s room and stood before the case containing Madame Blavatsky. Looking around to check that he was alone, he felt in the coin slot for an old penny, inserted it and waited.

The medium’s eyes glowed and buzzed. Her cogs turned and she withdrew a card, jerkily reaching forward to drop it into the metal tray. Land plucked it out and turned it over. It read:

NOBODY DOES YOGA IN WALES

“Ah, there you are, mon petit oiseau tot.” Bryant was standing in the doorway with a dreadful grin on his face.

“What?” said Land, shocked, tucking the card behind him.

“Early bird. You. In early.”

“Ah. Yes. Couldn’t sleep.” Mortified, he hastily dropped the card back into the tray.

“Just as well. There’s a lot to get through today. We went to Ella Maltby’s house yesterday.”

“Remind me?”

“The set designer. She has a dungeon filled with people being tortured. Wax mannequins.”

“How extraordinary.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t exactly move her forward as a suspect. Questions, questions everywhere. The most obvious one – is the case closed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did Gregory Baine hang himself? If he did, why did he take a Hangman doll with him? Could it be he committed suicide because he felt guilty about Noah Kramer’s death?”

“Why would he have had reason to kill a child?”

“You see, another unanswered question. Anyway, he didn’t kill himself, I’m just being theoretical.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. Dan tells me the bulbs were burned out in the safety lights by the duckboards beneath the bridge. With the best will in the world Baine wouldn’t have been able to find his way to the hole in the boards and attach a rope. It was prearranged by someone else. And where are the motives? What are they? Revenge, profit, love – hate? Well, that one’s obvious, at least.”

“It is?”

“Hate. Somebody hates Robert Kramer very badly indeed. They kill his child. They kill his best friend. The pair owned a company together, Cruikshank Holdings. That’s what gave the game away.”

Land looked lost. “What do you mean?”

“The name Cruikshank.” Bryant widened eyes and raised hands, expecting Land to get it. “Obviously Kramer chose it. George Cruikshank was the greatest-ever illustrator of Punch and Judy. His book is still the key text on the subject. I found details on the register at Companies House. Cruikshank Holdings operated out of the Cayman Islands. It was their nest egg, and Baine was in charge of it. He’d been making some heavy withdrawals. The rumour is that he played the Stock Exchange and hit a losing streak. Oh, Robert Kramer has the business sense but Baine was the money man. His death effectively destroys Kramer’s financial power, because Baine has been prevented from making the money back. There’s nobody else in yet – mind if I smoke?”

“Oh, go on then, just this once. It’ll help get rid of the smell of damp.”

Bryant enthusiastically stuffed his pipe with Old Mariner N°2 Rough Cut British Navy Shag and lit up. “What’s the matter, old boot? You look like you have the cares of the world upon your shoulders.”

“It’s just – ” For a moment, Land thought about confiding in Bryant. Then he came to his senses. “Nothing. I just want to get the case closed.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be going on holiday today?”

“I changed my mind. The case is more important.”

“That’s impressive. Not like you.” He cascaded a graceful funnel of blue smoke into the air. Land coughed.

“There’s a terrible smell of burning rope on the landing,” said John May, unbuttoning his coat and throwing a copy of the Guardian onto his desk. “Or someone’s hair is on fire. Oh, it’s you, Arthur.”

“Raymondo’s letting me smoke today. I feel most privileged.” Bryant swanned to his desk, wreathed in smoke, and flicked open the programme of The Two Murderers.

“Well, it’s good to see both of you in the same place for once,” Land said. “It seems to me the more time you spend together, the closer we usually get to a solution.”

“I think he just complimented us, John. That’s a first. I had no idea you were capable of pleasantries, Raymondo.”

“I don’t see why not, I was well brought up. Some of the older ladies in our family – ”

“Oh, my lord! Older ladies!” Bryant sat up suddenly, catapulted by his chair.

“What’s the matter?”

“Older ladiesl I’m a total idiot!” He climbed onto his desk and began pulling at a dusty leather-bound volume at the top of the bookcase.

“Do you want me to get that?” asked May, concerned.

“What did I say?” asked Land, but nobody was listening to him now.

“Why did I not think of it at the time? Somebody take this from me.” Bryant passed Land the volume and toppled off his desk, just in time to be caught by May. The book was Twentieth-Century British Theatre, Volume 2 by A.A. Gingold. Bryant began feverishly searching it.

“What on earth’s he so excited about?” Land asked May, bewildered.

“I really have no idea,” May admitted.

“Here it is,” Bryant announced. “Of course. It all fits together perfectly. But we may be too late.” He squirmed around in his chair, trying to get his arms into his coat.

“For goodness’ sake, let me do it.” May threaded one of his partner’s arms into a sleeve.

“Have you got your car here?”

“No, I got the tube in today. Why?”

“Then we need a cab. Hurry.” With half his coat still trailing on the floor, Bryant was pulling him towards the door like a dog that had been offered a walk.

Out on the street it was just starting to rain. “Damn, the taxis will vanish in seconds,” Bryant complained. “Wait, there’s one.” He threw himself into the street, slipped in front of the taxi and nearly disappeared under it.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

“The New Strand Theatre, Adam Street. Fast as you can.”

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” asked May as they fell back in the seat.

“Echoes,” said Bryant enigmatically. “There are echoes everywhere. I thought there was something vaguely familiar about that blasted play when I saw it. Then when Raymond mentioned the older ladies in his family – you see, I was coming out of the performance and bumped into Ray Pryce. He mentioned that Ella Maltby kept wax dummies. And Maltby told us that the talent had always been in her family. Then I went to get a programme and had a bit of a row with the seller – ”

“Why am I not surprised at that part?”

“– and she said the older ladies in the cast remembered the days when the theatre had a nicer class of clientele – then I remembered the book.”

“Arthur, I struggle to make sense of you at the best of times, but you’ve completely lost me.”

“And I thought older ladies? There’s only one older lady in the cast – Mona Williams, the one who kept flirting with me during the interviews – and the programme seller must mean her. So I was wrong, it’s not Alex Lansdale, he’s not the one.”

“He’s not the one what?”

“The one who’s in danger. It’s Mona.”

“Why are we going to the theatre?”

“Because according to Janice’s notes, that’s where she is this morning.” The taxi got stuck in traffic halfway down Gower Street, but the driver turned off sharply and gunned his way through Holborn, coming into the other end of the Strand in record time.

“That was a nifty piece of driving,” said Bryant, throwing a note at him. “You’ll go far.”

“Not if it involves going south of the river,” said the cabbie with a laugh, roaring off.

“Stick!” said May. “You’ve forgotten your walking stick!”

As they watched, the cab screeched to a stop, reversed, stopped and Bryant’s walking stick was thrust from, the open window. The pair raced into the theatre.