The Victoria Vanishes

∨ The Victoria Vanishes ∧

23

Vandalism

Stanhope Beaufort drained his pint and wiped his white beard. He had put on an enormous amount of weight since Bryant last saw him. Squeezed into a shirt clearly purchased before this gain, he looked like a sheep in a corset. “What the hell are you doing here, Arthur?” he asked with characteristic brusqueness. “You only track me down when you want something, so what is it?”

“Actually I happen to be a semi-regular among this crowd,” Bryant pointed out. “But seeing as you’re here too, tell me, how long would it take a man to build a Victorian pub from scratch and then dismantle it again? Could he do it in a single night?”

Bryant explained his predicament.

Beaufort’s initial look of surprise transmuted into concentration as he applied himself to the puzzle. “It would be easier to go the other way around,” he said. “Hide the pub behind a shop, because the Victorians built things to last. They used stronger mortar, thicker tiles, denser metals. But you could get a shop front up in an hour just by whacking a few sheets of coloured Perspex over the brickwork and holding them in place with a handful of screws. Cover the windows with posters, strip the interior furniture, hide the bar behind racks of magazines, hire some old guy to sit at a counter and fob you off with some story about how he’d been there for years. Pubs usually have the capacity to be brightly lit, because the lights are traditionally turned up after time has been called, so they wouldn’t have to replace the lighting. I can see how that might just work.”

“I don’t know,” Bryant admitted. “It sounds loopy even to me.”

“I didn’t say it was a sane idea, just that it’s possible. There’s one way to find out,” said Beaufort. “I’ve got a crowbar in my car.”

“Are you suggesting we try to take the front of the store off?” said Bryant.

“You’re a police officer, aren’t you? You can do whatever you like.”

“Sadly we can’t,” said Bryant, “I have a tendency to get caught.” But he was already rebuttoning his coat.

They found a parking space for Victor, Bryant’s decrepit Mini Cooper, in the next street over, and Beaufort slid the crowbar inside his coat as they walked to the corner of Whidbourne Street. The Pricecutter supermarket was in darkness. After checking that the coast was clear, Beaufort slid the steel stave from his coat and applied it to the oblong of orange plastic that covered the base of the store. He levered the crowbar back until there was a loud crack, and a two-foot-long triangle shattered, clattering to the pavement. Beaufort dropped to his knees and examined the brickwork underneath.

“The fascia is screwed directly into the stonework,” he pointed out. “With the right tools it could be removed in a few minutes, all of it, but the bad news is that the stonework underneath dates from the 1970^s. Nothing is left of the pub that used to be on this site.”

“Are you sure?” said Bryant. “Couldn’t we get one of the upper panels off?”

“This amounts to vandalism, Arthur.”

“It’s a murder investigation.”

“All right.” Beaufort hoisted his bulk up on the low window ledge and wedged his crowbar under the shop’s nameplate. It came away in an explosion of brickdust and plastic. “The same cement finish,” he tutted. “Hopeless rendering, very disappointing. Still, the original structure of the building is intact. If you could get all this off, I suppose you’d be able to build a false front over the top of it, but you’d need several strong lads and plenty of specialist equipment. Help me down before I fall.”

“That’s no good,” said Bryant, holding out a hand. “I’m looking for a lone murderer, thin, slight build, late twenties or early thirties, not someone travelling around with a team of builders. Besides, even assuming that the killer arranged to meet his victim here, with all the real pubs in London to choose from, why would he feel the need to re-create one from the past? Damn, there’s someone coming. We’d better get out of here.”

“I thought you’d be officially sanctioned to commit wanton acts of destruction,” said Beaufort.

“Er, no, not exactly,” Bryant admitted, looking around. “Time to scram.”

Feeling like a pair of teenaged vandals, they shoved the broken plastic back in place and scooted across the pavement with Bryant using the crowbar as an impromptu walking stick. Dropping into the Mini Cooper, they struggled to regain their breath.

“Well, I’m stumped,” said Bryant, thumping his wheezing chest. “I most definitely saw the victim in that street. The St Pancras clock tower was directly behind her like a full moon. Can I give you a lift anywhere? I’m driving back to the PCU.”

“You’re not going to carry on working tonight, surely?”

“Just a few notes. I’ve asked everyone to come back. We need to create a more accurate profile for this gentleman.”

“And how are you intending to catch him?”

“That’s the tricky part. He appears to have come up with one of the simplest killing methods ever devised, which makes him either very smart or incredibly stupid.”

“And which do you think he is?” asked Beaufort.

“Both,” said Bryant.