The Victoria Vanishes

∨ The Victoria Vanishes ∧

25

Rite of Passage

The atmosphere at the PCU had changed from a state of indecision to one of purpose. Like it or not, Longbright knew that this was partly down to Jack Renfield. There was a general feeling that the newcomer’s pragmatic approach to policing was just what the PCU might need to survive.

The detective sergeant was forced to consider the idea that her bosses’ old-school methods were reaching the end of their natural life span. Renfield came from a world that dealt in quantifiable results. Under Bryant and May, the PCU was like an old-time publishing house that nurtured talent and won out on aggregate, but its new accountability required it to operate on case-by-case wins. Longbright wondered if she was the only one to feel that something unique and precious was about to be lost.

She needed to be useful. There was no point in thinking about her passing life, her unpaid bills, her empty fridge and even emptier bed. Whipping out a mother-of-pearl compact made for Alma Cogan in 1958, she applied a fresh layer of makeup, then repainted her eyes. Within seconds she began to feel calmer. Right, she thought, cracking her knuckles, witness statements, let’s close the net on this son of a bitch.

“You missed the debrief.” Meera Mangeshkar was not good at hiding her feelings. Right now she had a face like a half-sucked lemon. “Everybody else managed to get here.”

“I got a lift,” Bimsley explained. “Someone kindly dropped me off.”

“From what I heard, you had trouble getting out of the car.”

“What do you care? I thought I didn’t exist in your world. The only time you stop ignoring me is when you’ve got something horrible to say. Stop the press, a woman found me appealing.” He glared at her.

“Are you going to see her again?”

“What am I, stupid? No, don’t answer that, I think I know where you stand on that question.”

“You were supposed to be working, not picking up girls.” The room temperature dropped another eleven degrees.

If Bimsley was even dimly aware of the reason for Meera’s annoyance, he might have displayed a glimmer of understanding about female nature, but he was not, and so could not. Instead he blinked and stared and frowned and fidgeted, before his confusion was replaced with the warm memory of Izabella’s perfumed embrace, at which point he smiled with a scrunch of his freckled nose, only to recoil in surprise when Meera stormed past him and slammed out of the room, making the same kind of noise that the Concorde managed when it passed through the sound barrier.

♦

On Friday morning it was decided to split-shift the unit so that a team would be working around the clock, and Renfield seemed happy to be put in charge of the organisation.

After grabbing a nap on his couch, Bryant headed off for the second of his hypnosis sessions with Mrs Mandeville. Everyone was searching for a lead on their common suspect. In the meantime, April and Janice Longbright ducked out for a working breakfast on the terrace of Camden Town’s Roundhouse, the site of the giant railway turntable that had been renovated as a concert venue.

Longbright patted the pockets of her blazer. “You haven’t any gaspers on you, I suppose?”

“Why would anyone smoke these days?” asked April, studying the menu.

“Actually, I don’t. It’s affectation. Gesturing has more of a point with a snout in your hand. You’re right though, I shouldn’t. I’ve been a little wound up lately.”

“You have your own style,” said April approvingly. “Your shoes, your Ruth Ellis haircut, the weird colours of lipstick you find, the way you grind out a fag-end in an ashtray when you’re angry. You always manage to be so noticeable. I feel quite invisible beside you.”

“Listen, darling, I grew up in a household where the rent money was always spent by mid-week. After the war, my auntie Dot was employed as a theatrical costumer at the Duke of York’s. When she died she left me her entire wardrobe, so I adopted it. I found her old ration book inside one jacket pocket. The smell of mothballs never bothered me. I tried the look and it stuck. I can’t be doing with modern clothes. I’m too fleshy for most of them.” She looked out across the stables, early morning sunshine striping the roofs. “You wouldn’t have been able to sit out here a few weeks ago. Too much open space.”

“My agoraphobia seems to have subsided,” April agreed, “but I can’t help feeling it will resurface in some other form the next time I get stressed. It always does. I have a compulsive personality. My mother had me checked for autism.”

“Everyone has some damage. You learn to work around it. And at least it’s put to practical use at the unit.”

April barely heard her. She pushed her newspaper across the table. “My God, check this out. They’re running a frontpage article about the dangers of women drinking alone in pubs.”

“This is going to be a godsend for the tabloids,” said Longbright. “They’ll be able to attack any number of targets from promiscuity to the collapse of the family unit before pleading for higher security and more police on the streets.”

April scanned the subheads. “The breach of the last male stronghold: Why no woman can now feel safe. How they’d love to explain the dangers of independence to us. I hope we can expect plenty of rebuttals from women journalists.”

Sensing a juicy public debate, the talk shows had already begun to line up their guests. It was all as Bryant had predicted; the tense issue of safety in public areas was set to return to a level last seen in London during the IRA pub bombings of the 1970^s, but this time around, no-one knew what they were looking for. Everyone was suddenly a suspect. In the rush to apportion blame, it seemed that only the victims were ignored.

“These were the kind of crimes our unit was created to prevent,” said Longbright. “How difficult can it be to put a name to this guy?”

“The problem is in the nature of the pubs themselves. They’re warm, intimate places full of total strangers. You can have an argument about politics, fashion or football with someone for an entire evening, and leave without any clue to their identity. People seem to drop into an amnesiac state in pubs. They emerge without any knowledge of what’s occurred in the course of the evening.”

“Which reminds me, have you had any luck locating Oswald’s urn?”

“Not really,” April admitted. “It seems certain that somebody removed it from the bar during the wake, but the barmaid didn’t see who it was. I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good detective.”

“Rubbish, you’ve got exactly the right attitude. You quietly watch and see how everything fits together, and keep us supplied with all the information we need. We never had someone who could do that before John brought you in.”

“I’m sure the others think I got the job because I’m his granddaughter.”

“That might have been true at first, but you’ve earned your place with us.” Longbright smiled over the coffee nested between cherry-glossed fingertips. “Your grandfather and Mr Bryant still have what it takes, you know. They’re a wonderful team. The place wouldn’t survive if anything happened to either one of them. Did you know they sent me flowers on Monday, for my birthday?”

“That was Uncle Arthur’s doing,” said April. “I know because he asked me on Friday night to remind him of your address.”

“But even I had forgotten the date. I never celebrate it. How did he remember something like that when he’s supposed to be suffering from memory loss?”

“Well, if there’s nothing wrong with his mind, that would mean he really did walk into the past after Oswald’s wake.”

“Or someone wanted him to think he had,” said Longbright. A thoughtful silence fell between them. Longbright’s coffee cup was marked with a fluorescent arc of lipstick. “Listen, we’d better get back before they miss us.” She rose and pushed in her chair.

“I think Meera’s going to leave the unit. She seems really unhappy about something.”

“She’s very angry with herself.”

“Why?”

“Because she had a chance to be much happier than she is right now, and she blew it.”

“She has a lot to prove to herself.”

The DS shook out a melancholy smile. On her left hand there was still a pale line where her engagement ring had once been. “Look, we’ve all made tough choices. It’s a rite of passage for just about everyone who’s ever worked at the PCU. Lost friends, missed love, wasted opportunities. Maybe it’s something we share in common with the women who’ve been preyed upon in pubs.”

“What do you mean?” asked April.

“We’re the ones who got left behind, and to someone out there, maybe it’s as noticeable as a birthmark.”