White Corridor

21

As a child, young Oskar Kasavian had shopped his mother to the police for smoking a joint at a Belgravia embassy party held for King Zog of Albania. This had been a serious matter because his parents both worked in the Foreign Office, and the family were in the middle of delicate negotiations with the Italians. It was only his father’s status as a politically appointed diplomat that prevented severe repercussions. Relations soured between Kasavian and his mother, to the point where she disowned him on her deathbed, but Oskar didn’t care. By then he knew how to operate within the complex ecosystem of interdepartmental government politics, and used it to his full advantage.

By the time he had been promoted within the Home Office to handling matters of national security, he knew how to step on time-serving ministers like Leslie Faraday and gently squash them until they carried out his instructions without ever realising they had lost control of their own departments. The middle managers of Whitehall lived in fear of him, and even his superiors felt a sense of relief when he left the room.

Only Arthur Bryant had managed to bloody his nose over the investigation of the prankster-murderer newspapers had nicknamed the Highwayman. Kasavian’s relationship with a married tabloid editor had been exposed, and the PCU had blackmailed him into dropping his assault on unit funding in return for their continued silence about his affair.

Now, he felt, it was time to take revenge.

Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice of Connaught, who performed no public duties and was known to the press as ‘Princess Poison,“ was the Baroness Katarina-Marchmaine von Treppitz, Viennese daughter of Baron von Treppitz and the Countess Alexandria Spenten-Berger, and was usually in the headlines for the wrong reasons. She had supposedly told a group of Chinese diners in a Chelsea restaurant to ’go back to Chinky Land‘ and had been accused of everything from expressing pro-Nazi sympathies to living in a Regent’s Park apartment subsidised by the Queen. Her office also had occasion to correspond with Oskar Kasavian, and she had been persuaded, in the interest of public relations, to make a rare royal visit to a government law enforcement unit representing experimental policing techniques, namely the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

Kasavian’s plan in arranging the trip was ostensibly connected with the Princess’s desire to take more of an interest in government funding initiatives. She had a reputation for being outspoken and litigious, something journalists rarely forgave, but had seemed perfectly charming on the few times Kasavian had dealt with her. He reasoned that, as his hands were still tied in the matter of closing down the PCU, which he considered a ridiculous squandering of resources, he would get someone else to do it for him. When Princess Beatrice saw the chaotic shambles that existed above Mornington Crescent tube station, he felt sure that her acerbic comments would bring the harsh spotlight of attention onto the PCU and provide him with the ammunition he needed to shut its doors once and for all. Then he would be able to reallocate funding to a new unit under his personal supervision.

When the Princess’s office confirmed that the conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir had slipped and broken his baton wrist outside a Salzburg McDonald’s, the sudden cancellation of his royal performance allowed her to schedule a brief visit to the unit in its place, which meant that she would be stepping daintily from her limousine onto the mean streets of Mornington Crescent this Thursday afternoon at five. Kasavian quickly informed Leslie Faraday, who sent a protocol package to Raymond Land, who was in the middle of opening it and reading the contents with a dropping jaw just as Janice Longbright walked into his room.

“He can’t do this,” Land murmured. “He can’t send a royal visitor around at such short notice, not here, not now-not her.”‘ He had always known that the unit’s victory over Kasavian would be temporary, and that he would come back fighting, but this was more underhand than he had imagined. “They’re heading here for an inspection in less than two days’ time. Our computer system is down, there are cables and equipment boxes and God knows what all over the floor and our two chief detectives are away on some kind of bizarre winter holiday.” Well, the last part was perhaps a blessing, as Mr. Bryant could not be trusted to avoid controversial topics, and had expressed his cynicism about certain members of the royal family a number of times in the past. “Hullo, Janice, what do you want?” Land eyed the strangely garbed sergeant with suspicion. Why is she sporting that outlandish hairstyle and wearing a pencil skirt? he wondered. Would it kill her to dress normally?

“Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news, Raymond. Oswald Finch has been found dead in the Bayham Street Morgue, a heart attack brought on by blows to the neck and the chest, and our lads think it looks like murder.”

“In our own pathology centre?” Land all but squeaked.

“I’m afraid it’s worse, because it looks like an inside job. On that basis, we’re conducting an internal murder investigation with our own staff as suspects.”

“Good God, woman, does anyone else know about this?”

“No, sir. Not yet, at least. Thought I’d better tell you.”

“Then for heaven’s sake don’t tell anyone else. If word of this gets out, it will kill us. You’d better get Bryant and May back here at once. They’ll know what to do.”

Longbright chose to ignore the snub. “I can’t, sir. They’re stuck in a snowdrift on the edge of Dartmoor on their way to a spiritualists’ convention. I haven’t told them what’s happened yet. Do you want me to call them?”

Having to make spot decisions without the advice of a superior was the kind of situation Land dreaded. He worried a nail between his teeth, trying to think. If he turned down Faraday, the minister would be instantly suspicious, and would probably send Kasavian around to the unit to sniff out trouble.

“We daren’t tell them what’s happened,” he said finally. “The Home Office is sending Princess Beatrice of Connaught here for a full demonstration of the facilities. Kasavian’s doing it to embarrass and discredit us, but he doesn’t know the half of it. He thinks Arthur will be here to make a mess of things.

Imagine how thrilled he’ll be when he discovers the truth. They’re expecting to be shown a crime lab, not a crime scene. We can’t turn them down; it would be admitting defeat. There’s only one thing for it: Oswald’s investigation must be concluded before the Princess arrives. There must be no sign of anything untoward having happened.“

“I’m afraid it’s going to be a little more difficult than that, sir,” Longbright informed him. “Access to the morgue was strictly limited to those of us inside the unit, and you know what Finch was like, he pretty much upset everyone in the course of the last week, so our own staff members will have to be kept here under house arrest.”

“Suffering Jesus, if Kasavian finds out we can’t even solve a murder taking place on our own property, involving our own staff, he’ll make damned sure we’ll get shut down instantly, so that he can reallocate his funding elsewhere. To think of the things I’ve survived here, from Bryant blowing up the building to carpenters falling through the floor-you have to sort out this mess.”

“I’ve already grounded everyone at the unit until we have a clearer picture of what happened,” she informed him.

“Good.” He rose to leave. “Well, I suppose that’s a start. You can fill me in on the rest in the morning.”

“I’m afraid that means you as well, sir. You also had access to the morgue keys.”

Land’s eyebrows rose to where his hairline would have been had he still owned hair. “That’s outrageous! Oswald and I were old friends. Our wives went crown green bowling together.”

“You refused to take back his resignation. Did he threaten you in any way? Place you in a difficult position?”

“I will not be interrogated by my own staff sergeant!” Land roared, clearly mortified. “And you have no right to keep me here.”

“I’m afraid I do, sir. I’ve been appointed acting head in Mr. Bryant’s absence-he inserted the clause in my contract when you renegotiated it-so you’d better make yourself comfortable, because I think it’s going to be a long night.”

Longbright left the sputtering department head and returned to her office to call the detectives. May answered on the second ring. “Things are pretty bad here, Janice,” he said before she could speak. “I don’t know how long it’s going to be before we can get free.” There was a hesitation on the other end of the line. “You’re holding something back from us. What’s happened?” He knew instinctively that something was wrong.

“It’s Oswald,” she told him, explaining the circumstances of the pathologist’s death. “This is starting to look like an internecine problem. I think I know what to do, but I need your advice on how to go about it.”

“You’d better tell us everything Giles and Dan have found since the body was discovered,” said May. “Poor old Oswald. I’ll see what we can do to help. After all, it’s not as if we’re going anywhere.”

Just then, Banbury stuck his head around the door.

“Call him back,” he told Longbright. “I need to talk to you right now. I think we have a lead.”