White Corridor

24

She should have felt safe, but knew she was still in danger, even though it seemed Johann had lost them. She sensed him out there, prowling along the straggling line of stalled vans, grocery trucks and half-buried cars. She wondered how long their hiding place would remain safe. The gale had whipped the snow to such a blinding intensity that he was probably in danger of losing his bearings. She had bruised his leg and forehead, but were his injuries and the adverse weather conditions enough to protect them?

Johann felt no pain in the subzero temperature as he limped beside the traffic. Some vehicles had come to a stop after sliding from the icy camber of the road into the gorse and hawthorn, and proved impossible to climb around. Some had been abandoned to elemental forces, and were being mutated into molten white shapes. Others showed vague dark figures huddled within.

He had not come dressed for this kind of weather; England was supposed to enjoy mild winters, not suffer arctic conditions. He felt as though everything was starting to slip from his control. In France he had enjoyed freedom to do what he pleased, but now a real threat hung over him. He had managed to outwit the local police before, but if he was captured here, where police technology could identify him in an instant, his past would count against him. It was no longer about the passport she had stolen; it was about his love for Madeline. If he could win her back and save her from herself, he knew she would never betray him. If he failed-well, she was English, and would do the right thing by going to the police to make sure he was locked away.

The boy was her weak spot, and she knew it. Wherever Ryan hid, she would always be close by, somewhere here in the quarter-mile column of blocked traffic, slowly being obliterated by the narrowing white valley, surrounded by treacherous moors. He swore under his breath, shaking his head in bitter laughter as he trudged through the thickening drifts, his trainers soaked, his leg starting to ache, his feet wet and numb. What a fix, what an idiot. This is what happens when you let a woman in.

He knew that if he didn’t protect himself from the blizzard, he would gradually succumb and freeze to death. In the mountain schools they taught you all about subacute hypothermia, and how your metabolism got damaged if your body temperature fell below thirty-two degrees centigrade. It was important to keep checking for warning signs: rapid breathing, confusion, forgetfulness, blue fingers, swallowing difficulty, unsteadiness, the need to urinate. He had been in snowstorms far worse than this, but never without shelter or the right clothes. Nothing looked familiar. The cars had become organic and mysterious, dying creatures whose steel carapaces were rimed with ice. He turned around and tried to shield the snow from his eyes. That was when he spotted Danny’s frosted-over Spar truck, twisted across the road at a perilous angle. He made his way back in the direction of his ride and hammered on the passenger window.

Danny leaned across and grinned, flicking open the door. “Blimey, you picked a good evening to go for a walk, didn’t cha?”

“I can’t find my friend.” Johann pulled himself into the warm cockpit of the cab and stamped snow from his numb feet.

“Thought you said she was your wife. Course, that’s your business. Nobody’s going anywhere in this, mate. You’re better off in here with me. There’s a generator in the back, and cans of spare petrol, loads of grub. I do this trip every winter, and I’ve been caught out before. The wind comes off the moor and builds drifts across the road. Never seen it this bad, though.”

“You think everyone is still here?”

“What can they do but stay put? The nearest village is six miles away, and there are rivers and ponds all over the place. You wouldn’t want to fall into one tonight. I spoke to my missus in Guildford, and she says it’s nearly as bad there. Biggest temperature drop ever recorded in a single day, she reckons.”

“Then we must wait together, where we are safe,” said Johann, as he began to regain the sensation in his limbs.

“Princess Beatrice of Connaught?” Bryant pulled a horrified face. “How typical of Faraday to think that sucking up to a minor royal is more important than tackling a murder investigation.”

“This is Kasavian’s doing,” said May. “Raymond Land has a hold over him that prevents him from personally closing the unit-‘

“-because he knows about the minister’s affair with a married woman-‘

“Exactly, so Kasavian is craftily getting someone else to provide the ammunition for him while we’re stranded here.”

“Can’t you turn the heater up? My nose is turning blue.”

“I’m rationing our energy. Those veal-and-egg pies you ate should keep you warm for a few hours. I don’t know where you put it all. Besides, you’ve got plenty of blankets.” May plugged his phone charger into the cigarette lighter. “I wonder how they’re getting on at the PCU.”

“I need to be there,” muttered Bryant. “I’ve failed poor old Oswald. I can’t be of any use stuck in a snowdrift without my walking stick. Ironic, isn’t it? My greatest field of expertise is completely wasted here. There’s nothing I don’t know about the streets of London. I know where the iron from St Paul’s railings came from, and who haunts the Rose and Crown in Old Park Lane, and what went on in the Man-Killing Club of St Clement Danes and the Whores’ Club of the Shakespeare’s Head Inn, and how to play Mornington Crescent without cheating, and why there was a London craze for electrifying yourself in the mid-eighteenth century, but I know absolutely nothing about the countryside. Here I’m simply a very, very old fish out of water. If you opened that car door right now and shoved me out, I’d simply lie there and die in the snow. I don’t know how to make a bivouac out of curlews’ nests or how to tell whether sheep have got conjunctivitis. I can remember only one old country saw, and that’s relating to the sighting of one-legged ducks: Mallard with less than two good feet, rainy day and then some sleet. I can’t look after myself in the open air. In fact, the very term ”open air“ is anathema to me. I come from a city of closed air.”

“Just as well we don’t have to do anything except wait for the emergency services to come and dig us out, then,” said May. “I suppose I might try one of your boiled sweets.”

“You won’t like it,” Bryant warned, watching as his partner popped it in his mouth and pulled a face.

“What flavour is that meant to be?” May asked, tentatively moving his tongue about.

“It’s either gooseberry or Bovril. They’ve been in the same bag for the last five hours, so they probably taste of both. Put me out of my misery and call Janice, would you?”

May speed-dialled the number and spoke to the sergeant. “Your hunch with the old lady paid off, Arthur,” he said, after listening to her report. “They’ve found their witness. A seventeen-year-old West Indian kid called Owen Mills. They’re interviewing him now.”

“What time was he sighted leaving the morgue corridor?” asked Bryant.

“Hang on. Janice, Arthur wants to know what time the boy was seen exiting from the corridor-nine-oh-five A.M.”

“So unless Giles’s estimated timings are off, he didn’t kill Oswald. How did he get inside?”

“Arthur wants to know how he got in,” May asked, then turned to his partner. “He just pressed the buzzer.”

“That means Finch admitted him. I wonder why he would have done that. Can you ask her-‘

“God, you ask her,” said May, thrusting the mobile at him. “I can’t keep relaying the conversation.”

“Janice, the boy wasn’t just loitering; he went there with a specific purpose. Ask him what it was. Act like you know why; you’re just seeking confirmation. No, I’ll wait.” He rattled the sweet bag at May. “Want another one?”

“No, thank you.” He spat the brown-and-purple drop into a tissue.

Bryant returned to the phone. “Just passing by? Well, he’s lying. He’d seen someone punch that code and repeated the action to speak to Oswald, who would never have let him in without a very good reason, so the lad must have thought about what he was going to say. Keep trying, I need to talk to John for a mo.” He turned to May. “What’s the one thing that was different about the morgue this morning?” he asked.

“There was a fresh cadaver in it,” said May as an idea dawned.

“Precisely. I’m betting Mills knew the deceased, which was why he went to the morgue: to see the body. Why won’t he admit it? Because she was found dead in a shop doorway, and he’s frightened of being implicated.”

“So he probably knows she died of an overdose, and that means he might even be the one who supplied or administered it.”

“Possible, but not quite what I’m thinking. If he suspected he’d killed her, he’d be reluctant to walk into a Metropolitan Police compound. Janice: Renfield’s overdose case, you need to quiz Mills about his possible relationship with the girl. He may be able to confirm an ID. Okay, I’ll call you back.”

Bryant replaced the mobile in its dashboard cradle and briskly rubbed his hands together. “I think perhaps this could work, crime investigation by remote control. I could do this from the comfort of my armchair at home and never have to visit any more crime scenes. It would be interesting if the boy’s appearance at the morgue had some direct influence on Oswald’s death, wouldn’t it? It might mean the dead girl held a secret worth killing for.”

He picked up the mobile once more and redialled. “Janice, I know you don’t want to let the others out of your sight, but I think it’s important that Dan and Giles work together at Bayham Street. I think they’ve missed something. Yes, I do have an idea but I’m not going to tell you what it is, because this is your chance to prove yourselves. Get them to call me back.” He grinned at May. “We’ll have this whole thing sorted before Princess Poison sticks her royal nose around the door, trust me.”

May knew it was the worst possible declaration Bryant could make, because in his experience, a remark such as this usually heralded the arrival of the moment when everything started to go horribly wrong.