Off the Rails (15 page)

‘Killing people is not normal work, Arthur,’ May pointed out gently. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to act as if you admire him.’

‘Of course I don’t.’ Bryant’s watery blue eyes rolled behind his bifocals. ‘I think he’s horrible. But if something wriggles under a rock, don’t you want to pick the rock up and take a look? I wouldn’t be much of a criminologist if I wasn’t intrigued.’

‘Then I shall leave you to your intrigues.’ May searched around
for his coat. The two Daves were standing by with screwdrivers raised, listening with undisguised interest. ‘I’m going to try and throw some light on why an innocent woman died. Perhaps you’ll give us the benefit of your intelligence by doing the same.’

‘I have my suspicions about her death,’ Bryant told his partner’s retreating back, ‘but you’re not going to like it. You never do.’

‘You’re not going to win this one by ploughing through a bunch of old books, Arthur,’ May called back serenely. ‘It’ll come down to modern detection techniques. I’m willing to put money on it.’

‘So am I,’ said one of the Daves. ‘Twenty quid says he proves the old codger wrong.’

‘Make it fifty,’ said the other, ‘and you’ve got yourself a bet.’

R
ain was tumbling through the office ceiling. Everyone looked up as a piece of plaster divorced itself and fell into a bucket with a plonk. They dragged their attention back to the acting head of the Unit.

‘Words fail me,’ Raymond Land continued, despite the fact that they clearly did no such thing. ‘What more am I supposed to do, for God’s sake? You get your old jobs back, we might finally be allocated a decent budget thanks to Giles Kershaw’s old-school network, our enemies at the Home Office have heard the news and are wandering around with faces like slapped arses, we even get a case that fits the Unit’s mission statement and what happens? I ask you,
what happens
?’

Ask he might, but there was no response. The assembled staff of the PCU looked at one another in puzzlement. Outside the door, one of the Daves was hitting a pipe with the desultory air
of a Victorian nanny beating a child. Land squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the workman to finish.

‘Exactly. Nothing. Twenty-four hours is a bloody long time in this area, and the trail has wiped itself clean. I walk around the offices—if that’s what you can call this doss-house—hoping to see someone in the throes of a revelation, or at least bothering to fill in their paperwork, and what do I see?’

‘Is this going to take very long, sir?’ asked Meera.

‘You’ll stay here until I’ve finished, young lady.’ Land tried to take his eyes from her and failed. ‘What … what is all that stuff on your face?’

‘Lip gloss and blusher, sir. Janice gave me some makeup tips. I had a makeover.’

‘During your duty hours? What the hell is going on here?’

‘Not here, at Selfridges, in the cosmetics department where Gloria Taylor worked. I got more out of her colleagues that way, catching them while they were working. Taylor took the same train home every night. She was in perfectly normal spirits when she left, looking forward to seeing her daughter because she was going to take her to the cinema for the first time, to see an old Disney film they just re-issued at the Imax,
The Lion King.
She’d bought the kid a stuffed lion from the Disney Store, but hadn’t taken it home with her. It was still in her locker. I filed my report and emailed it to you.’

‘Oh. Well. I suppose that’s all right. But the rest of you …’ His attention fell upon Colin Bimsley, who was reading a cookery book. ‘I assume that’s not a police manual in your hand?’

‘No, sir, it’s aubergine and mozzarella parcels. I’m thinking of taking a course in Italian cuisine.’ He had found the book in one of the trash bins while he was staking out Mr Fox’s apartment, and had decided it was about time to learn a new skill. John
May encouraged them all to do so whenever they were inundated with paperwork, to keep their brains sharp. Besides, Longbright had tipped him off that Meera liked Italian food.

‘What about the requisition forms I asked you to handle? You can’t have finished those already.’

‘They’ve all gone off. John created online spreadsheets for us, so we wouldn’t have to print hard copies anymore. But I printed out some sets for you and Mr Bryant because I knew you’d prefer paper. They’re on your desk.’

Land wasn’t keen about being yoked with Bryant. ‘I know how to open a spreadsheet, thank you; I can do that. I do know about computers, Bimsley. You don’t have to patronise me.’

‘Good, because I didn’t fix your printer utilities, so I guess I can leave you to upgrade the file manager for—’

‘Fine, fine, whatever, and I suppose the rest of you have completed your duties for the day.’

‘No, sir,’ answered Banbury, ‘obviously, we won’t have done that until we find out who was standing behind Gloria Taylor. I’ve been through every second of the CCTV footage covering the escalator, but we have no clear shots of her falling. The movement is just too fast. I’ve sent some frame grabs out for enhancement. I’m just waiting for them to come back.’

Land was starting to suspect that he had been set up. ‘Then where has John got to? I’m supposed to be informed whenever anyone goes out.’

‘John is interviewing a student at UCL,’ Longbright told him, ‘following up a lead on Taylor.’

‘Well, somebody should have told me.’ Land turned to Bryant in desperation. ‘What about you?’ he pleaded. ‘What do you expect to find in that huge filthy-looking book?’ He pointed at the leather-bound volume wedged under the arm of London’s most senior detective.

‘This? Glad you asked. It’s a copy of the asylum records from Bedlam, after it moved to St George’s Fields, Southwark,’ said Bryant, happily holding the book up for Land’s perusal.

‘You can’t tell me that this has something to do with the case.’

‘Actually, I can. The sticker found on Taylor’s body is a re-interpretation of a design used by the hospital. As you can see here, the patient’s arms and legs are held apart by iron rods which are then chained to the walls.’ He pointed to the inked symbol within the pages. ‘At first I thought the drawing was taken from Leonardo da Vinci, but then I noticed the thin black bands on the wrist and the ankle, see? The illustration here is described as “an unspecified method of coercion for violent lunatics and proponents of unwarranted anarchy, 1826.” Gloria Taylor told everyone she was twenty-three, but she was younger. She became pregnant at the age of sixteen and suffered a nervous breakdown two years later. Her parents tried to have her institutionalised. It’s probably just a coincidence that the symbol somehow became attached to her, but I thought you’d want us to investigate all avenues.’

‘I suppose you all think you’re very clever,’ Land blustered lamely. ‘I’m sure you imagine you can run this place without me, but I’m here to make sure you can’t. Because you don’t think of everything, you know. There are two workmen brewing up tea on a Primus stove in the hall, both apparently called Dave, and they don’t seem to have been given any instructions about what to do.’

‘That’s because they’re your responsibility, old sausage,’ Bryant reminded him. ‘You specifically said you wanted to take care of them, remember? I imagine you don’t, otherwise you’d have arranged a work schedule for them. Okay, someone deal with the Daves for poor old Raymondo here; I’ll put the kettle on and let’s all get back to work.’

Having returned the acting temporary chief to his usual state of incandescent frustration, Bryant strolled out to the balcony for a smoke, but Land followed him.

‘And there’s another thing I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,’ Land hissed. ‘Your memoirs. You can’t be serious.’

‘I have no idea to what you are referring,
mon vieux tête de navet.
’

‘You should; I found a manuscript of the first completed volume when I was unpacking one of your boxes yesterday morning. What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?’

Bryant regarded him with wide blue eyes. ‘I’m writing down histories of our cases at the Unit precisely as I remember them.’

‘That’s the problem—you don’t remember anything precisely.’

‘Oh, I have a system for that.’ Bryant screwed up an eye and peered into his pipe stem. ‘When I remember two facts but can’t recall the event that connects them, I use the bridge of my imagination.’

‘All I can say is it’s a bloody long bridge. You wrote up a full account of your first case—’

‘The business at the Palace Theatre, the crazed killer who struck during a rather saucy production of
Orpheus in the Underworld.
You read it?’

‘Yes, I did, and I’ve never read such a pile of pony old rubbish in my life.’

‘Obviously I had to make a few changes to protect the innocent.’

‘A few changes? You say it took place during the Blitz, for God’s sake! I know for a fact that you didn’t meet John until the 1950s.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘No, you didn’t. You met when you were working out of Bow Street Station.’

‘No, we didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did. Apart from anything else, if your account was true you’d be in your late eighties by now, whereas you’re clearly not.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘No, you’re not. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not denying the basic facts—I’ve seen the official case notes—but you’ve moved the whole investigation back by about fifteen years.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Yes, you have. Stop contradicting me!’

‘I’m not. You only think I am.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You do.’

‘Just stop it! I know what I’m talking about. The Unit was founded in September 1940, but you weren’t in it then. I’ve read the Home Office file on the place. It was called the Particular Crimes Unit at that point. It didn’t become Peculiar until you came along.’

‘That’s not how I remember it. And if that’s not how it happened, it’s how it
should
have happened. Far more colourful background material.’

‘What, so the Palace Theatre murderer was killed by a bomb while escaping, instead of getting banged up in Colney Hatch Asylum until finally being carried out in a box?’

‘Poetic licence. If I wrote down your days exactly as they happened, my readers would be asleep in minutes.’

‘Well, I hope we’re not going to be treated to revised versions of all our cases.’ Land had a sudden frightening thought. ‘And I hope I’m not featuring in any of these lurid fabrications?’

‘Oh, I’m weaving you in all the way through, dear chap.’ Bryant patted him consolingly on the shoulder. ‘My publisher said I should make it as amusing as possible, so I shall be popping you in whenever my readers are in need of a cheap laugh.’

He closed the balcony doors behind him and lit up a satisfying pipe.

A
s John May descended the basement steps and entered the University College Cruciform Library on Gower Street, he realised he had no description of the man he was there to meet. He needn’t have been concerned, however, as Nikos Nicolau was waiting for him.

May knew it was wrong to judge by appearances, but it seemed that Nicolau had gone out of his way to appear unprepossessing. He had been put together wrongly; his head was too large, his back slightly hunched, his eyes protuberant. Thinning hair was slicked across a broad expanse of skull bone, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one. He was wearing a crumpled baggy T-shirt bearing the slogan
A Joy to Have in Class,
which seemed unlikely, as he didn’t smell very fresh. The senior detective was fastidious about personal grooming, and it bothered May to admit that he was adversely influenced by its lack in others.

‘Mr May? There’s a corner over here where we can talk.’ Nicolau led the way to a pair of red sofas screened off from the central part of the library. ‘I have trouble working down here because there’s no natural light. I have a melatonin imbalance, and get extremely claustrophobic, but it’s necessary for me to be here because they have good pharmacological reference tools, and that’s my study area.’ He spoke with the clipped North London accent of a transported Greek, but sounded as if he had trouble with his sinuses.

‘I appreciate your making the time to see me.’ May seated himself and extracted a notebook. ‘Cassie Field gave me your details. She works for the Karma Bar just behind here?’

‘Oh, the
babe.
’ Nikos gave a snort of delight and was forced to wipe his nose. ‘She knows who I am?’

‘Well, she must, because she gave me your number.’

‘I give out my number all the time but people don’t usually—especially—’ He could see how that was starting to sound, and killed the rest of the sentence. ‘How can I help you?’

May produced the sticker in its clear plastic slip case. ‘Seen one of these before?’

‘Yeah. They’re from the bar.’

‘Were you aware that it’s an early Victorian symbol denoting lunacy?’ He had promised Bryant he would ask.

‘No, I had no idea. Interesting.’

‘This one’s hand-coloured. Like the one on your bag.’ May pointed at the satchel between Nicolau’s boots.

‘Yeah, I coloured it in.’

‘Any others like that?’

‘A few of us have them, I guess.’

‘Are you some kind of a group—a club?’

‘Just friends. Some of us started on the same day. The guys are doing urban planning, I’m in biochemical engineering, ah—’ he
scrunched his eyes shut, thinking, ‘—and we have a girl doing computational statistics. There are six of us altogether, sharing the same house.’

‘I can’t imagine you would have that much in common, doing different courses.’

‘The bar. We have the Karma Bar in common. It’s a good place to meet girls and just hang out. There are a few pubs nearby but they get too crowded with suits in the evening, and they all have TVs tuned to sports channels. None of us is very interested in football.’

‘So—what? Miss Field gave each of you a sticker? Or did one of you hand them out to the others?’

‘I don’t remember, but I can tell you why we put them on our stuff. Nearly everyone who goes in there is carrying a laptop bag. They get piled in a heap by the bar, and many of them look the same, so one evening we coloured the stickers, so that we’d be able to find our gear when we were leaving.’