Bryant & May 09; The Memory of Blood Read online

  Christopher Fowler

  The Memory of Blood

  Bryant & May #9

  2011, EN

  The indomitable duo of Arthur Bryant and John May, along with the rest of their quirky team, return to solve a confounding case with dark ties to the British theater and a killer who may mean curtains for all involved. For the crew of the New Strand Theatre, the play The Two Murderers seems less performance than prophecy when a cast party ends in the shocking death of the theater owner’s son. The crime scene is most unusual, even for Bryant and May. In a locked bedroom without any trace of fingerprints or blood, the only sign of disturbance is a gruesome life-size puppet of Mr. Punch laying on the floor. Everyone at the party is a suspect, including the corrupt producer, the rakish male lead, the dour set designer, and the assistant stage manager, who is the wild daughter of a prominent government official.

  It’s this last fact that threatens the Peculiar Crimes Unit’s investigation, as the government’s Home Office, wary of the team’s eccentric methods, seeks to throw them off the case. But the nimble minds of Bryant and May are not so easily deterred. Delving into the history of the London theater and the disturbing origins of Punch and Judy, the detectives race to find the maniacal killer before he reaches his even deadlier final act.

  Whip-smart and endlessly entertaining, The Memory of Blood is an ingeniously intricate mystery from the deliciously inventive Christopher Fowler.

  Table of contents

  Prologue

  1: Chamber of Horrors

  2: Clairvoyance

  3: Indiscretion

  4: Atmospherics

  5: Ominous

  6: Fracture

  7: Entropy

  8: Punch

  9: Shaken

  10: Polarity

  11: Parallels

  12: Rictus

  13: Theories

  14: Relationships

  15: Storybook

  16: Misery

  17: Highways

  18: Submerged

  19: Rope

  20: Ketch

  21: Victoriana

  22: Mammet

  23: Operations

  24: Scaramouche

  25: Girltalk

  26: Disinformation

  27: Source

  28: Performance

  29: Automata

  30: Morbidity

  31: Despair

  32: Older Ladies

  33: Bridle

  34: Guignol

  35: La Ronde

  36: Knowledge

  37: Bacteria

  38: Hypnotized

  39: Cruelty

  40: Pride

  41: Pitch

  42: Escape

  43: Admission

  44: Intruder

  45: Genesis

  46: Party!

  47: Eleventh Hour

  48: Strung Up

  49: Temple Magic

  50: The Sibyl

  ∨ The Memory of Blood ∧

  Prologue

  The following undated document appeared on Wikileaks and is now the subject of a government investigation. It may be read before the case which follows, skipped, or used for reference.

  EYES ONLY – THIS COMMISSIONED OBSERVATION REPORT (COR) BG298/10-14 WATERMARKED TO H.O. WHITEHALL – INTERNAL SECURITY POLICY UNIT – EYES ONLY

  A GUIDE TO THE PECULIAR CRIMES UNIT, ITS STAFF AND AIMS

  This is a restricted communication. No part of the following personnel report is intended for public release. No reference copies may be reproduced from this document, and reading may only take place within the Records Office upon the receipt of signed approval.

  AN EXPLANATORY NOTE ON THE ORIGIN OF THE PECULIAR CRIMES UNIT, 231 CALEDONIAN ROAD, KING’S CROSS, LONDON N1 9RB

  The Peculiar Crimes Unit is not like other police divisions.

  It was founded soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, as part of a government initiative to ease the burden on London’s overstretched Metropolitan Police Force. In this time of desperation most able-bodied men had been taken into the armed forces, and seven new experimental agencies were proposed by the Churchill government. The Peculiar Crimes Unit was one of them.

  Its aim was to tackle high-profile cases which had the capacity to compound social problems in urban areas. The affix ‘peculiar’ was originally meant in the sense of ‘particular’. The government’s plan was that the new unit should handle investigations into those situations deemed uniquely sensitive and a high risk to public morale. To head this division, several young and inexperienced students were recruited from across the capital.

  The crimes that fell within the Unit’s remit were ones that could potentially cause social panics and general public malaise. Its staff members were outsiders, radicals and freethinkers answerable only to the War Office, and later the Home Office.

  THE OTHER LONDON UNITS

  One of the other experimental units created at that time was the Central Therapy Unit, set up to help the bereaved and the newly homeless cope with the psychological stresses of war. This unit closed after just eleven months because bombed-out residents continued turning to their neighbours for support rather than visiting qualified government specialists.

  A propaganda unit called the Central Information Service (later to become the COI) was set up to supply positive, uplifting news items to national newspapers in order to combat hearsay and harmful disinformation spread about our overseas forces, and to fill the void left by the blanket news blackouts.

  A further unit based at the War Office employed a number of writers and artists, including members of the Royal Academy and novelists Ian Fleming and Dennis Wheatley, to project the possible outcome of a prolonged war with Germany, and to develop stratagems for deceiving the enemy. The most famous wartime deception created by this unit was Operation Mincemeat, in which the corpse of a dead Welsh tramp was disguised as a drowned naval officer, planted with false plans and left for the Germans to find.

  The most successful of the seven experimental units launched by the Churchill government in wartime was the cypher-breaking division based at Bletchley, where Alan Turing and his team cracked the Enigma Code, and in doing so laid the foundations for modern computer technology.

  THE PCU SINCE 1945

  The PCU remained in operation through the war and has continued in one form or another ever since that time. In the past two decades, reorganization of the national policing network has aimed at reducing the influence of individual units and creating standardized practices operating from guidelines laid down for a national crime database, subject to performance statistics.

  The PCU unofficially aided a number of high-ranking politicians in the past, and as a consequence has remained exempt from these measures. Subsequently, a series of high-profile embarrassments has placed the Unit on a cross-governmental blacklist of Organizations of Potential Detriment, which is the reason for this ongoing internal surveillance.

  The following notes are supplemental to official PCU personnel career details (see attached D/SC12-649). They are not intended to be comprehensive and represent public observations made by various co-workers. As such, they are provided to act as guideline opinions only.

  RAYMOND LAND

  TEMPORARY ACTING HEAD OF THE PCU

  Raymond Land’s original PCU contract was intended to last for eighteen months but was extended indefinitely after no other applicants could be recruited. He has applied for a transfer from the PCU on no fewer than seventeen separate occasions, which gives some indication of his dissatisfaction with the Unit.

  Land comes from Luton, which says it all. He’s never really lost his suburban temperament. He finds it h
ard to work with his detectives, who appear to pay no attention to his directives and treat him with amusement and disdain. His attempts at discipline go unheeded.

  As a former graduate of the Central London Criminal Biology Unit, Land has on occasion proven himself to be intelligent, driven and meticulous, but I once heard it said about him that ‘he could identify a tree from its bark samples without comprehending the layout of the forest’. Most members of the PCU seem to share this flaw.

  In the past he has shown himself to be a strong government ally, but he can’t be trusted to toe the party line, and has switched sides on more than one occasion. He could probably be easily manipulated with a promise of relocation/early retirement.

  ARTHUR ST JOHN BRYANT

  SENIOR DETECTIVE

  Where do I start with Arthur Bryant?

  Bryant is the original thorn in the side of the establishment. I could point out that he managed to blow up his old headquarters, that he released illegal immigrants into the underground system, infected a Ministry of Defence outsource unit and offended a member of royalty, but let’s stick to the more salubrious facts.

  Bryant was born in Whitechapel, East London. Formerly of Bow Street, Savile Row and the North London Serious Crimes Division. In policing terms, Bryant has really covered the waterfront. He’s handled just about every type of case, including multiple murder, kidnap, vice, burglary, public affright, terrorism, the disappearance of a pub and the theft of forty cats. Typically, it was the solving of this last case that most endeared him to the general public.

  Formerly of Hampstead and Battersea, he’s currently sharing habitation in Chalk Farm with his landlady, one Alma Sorrowbridge. His brother died on a Thames barge, parents lived in Bethnal Green, father was a street photographer and a drunk. Bryant had a French wife, Nathalie, who died after falling from a bridge. He was devastated and never remarried. A loner by nature, he’s rumoured to sleep no more than four hours a night. Has commited numerous driving offences, incurred in an ancient Mini Cooper apparently called Victor (187 TWR).

  Bryant is past Civil Service retirement age and his health is far from good, but despite having had a heart attack and needing a walking stick he seems surprisingly robust. He’s extremely eccentric, offensively rude and is known to smoke cannabis, supposedly for his arthritis. We could probably get him for that.

  Bryant’s success rate in investigations is far above the capital’s average, and this is the main reason why Whitehall continues to sign off on his budgets. Arthur Bryant and John May have a long history of refusing promotion, and the loyalty this engenders allows them to maintain control of the Unit. They are still well connected in political circles.

  Bryant garners much of his information from a loose network of psychics, healers, New Age fringe-dwellers, police time-wasters and anarchists, many of whom have lengthy arrest files. He is also an expert on the subject of London and its history, and conducts guided tours of the capital in his spare time.

  Bryant’s oddly lateral thought processes remain a total mystery to us. University College London is currently offering a course that attempts to explain his methods. Whether deliberate or inadvertent, he has a habit of making us look bad. He has broken local, national and international laws on numerous occasions, but somehow always seems to get away with it. He remains entirely beyond the reach of influence. I simply wouldn’t go there, if I were you. Personally, I find him incomprehensible and utterly ghastly.

  JOHN MAY

  SENIOR DETECTIVE

  Bryant’s partner was born in Vauxhall, South London. He’s the human face of the team, and could be considered to be Bryant’s alter ego. There’s one sister, Gwen Kaye (married name), living in Brighton, married with two children. May moved from Hampstead to St John’s Wood, and now resides in Shad Thames. He was married to Jane Upton, now divorced, has an estranged son, Alex, and had a daughter, Elizabeth, who also worked for the PCU until her death on active duty.

  The source of the estrangement between May and his son is not known. May’s ex-wife was declared mentally unstable soon after their divorce. His granddaughter, April, suffered from agoraphobia until she had resolved issues about her mother. She worked at the Unit for a while, but we understand she now lives with her uncle in Canada.

  May is a pragmatic, determined worker well liked by his colleagues, but, like Bryant, he has a few secret anti-government contacts we’re not happy about. On a personal level, he’s fitter, friendlier and certainly a lot more pleasant to deal with than his partner. He is three years younger than Bryant, drives a silver BMW, knows a surprising amount about new technology.

  On a personal level he has loneliness issues, and continues to date women the department classifies as high security risks. May suffers from high cholesterol and has a history of lower back pain. His continuing loyalty to Bryant is complete and unfathomable; there seems to be little likelihood that he could ever become an ally of the department.

  JANICE LONGBRIGHT

  DETECTIVE SERGEANT

  Longbright’s parents were Gladys Forthright and Harris Longbright, both highly respected former Metropolitan Police officers. She was once an Olympic javelin hope until an injury ended her career. Janice Longbright has been employed by Bryant & May for almost her entire adult working life, and is fiercely loyal to them, largely because of their relationship with her mother.

  She dated DCI Ian Hargreave for ten years, but inexplicably chose not to marry him. Her last partner, Liberty DuCaine, died on active duty. She lives alone in Highgate. Not to be underestimated. Lately there have been odd rumours about her supposed clairvoyant abilities, although perhaps someone is pulling our leg on this. There was also some kind of scandal involving her role in the running of a Soho burlesque club, but we haven’t been able to uncover any details.

  GILES KERSHAW

  FORENSIC PATHOLOGY

  Kershaw was a child prodigy who dropped out of Queen’s College, Oxford, after his wealthy family became newly impoverished, but he subsequently took his medical degree at UCL. He has now left the Unit to become the St Pancras coroner, but continues to work with the PCU on special investigations. By a peculiar coincidence, an earlier St Pancras coroner, Sir Bentley Purchase, was the supplier of the corpse for Operation Mincemeat (see above). When a government representative had trouble finding the coroner’s office, Purchase famously suggested that he would get there quicker if he got hit by a bus. Kershaw’s brother-in-law was the last Home Secretary. His reputation is unimpeachable, and his loyalty to the PCU is also entirely unfathomable.

  DAN BANBURY

  CRIME SCENE MANAGER/INFOTECH

  Banbury is the only staff member who seems completely normal. Born in Bow, London. Married with a ten-year-old son. Lives in Croydon. He’s a solid worker, eager and enthusiastic and reputed to show intuitive brilliance at crime scenes. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool tech-head who once ran afoul of the Official Secrets Act while still a teenager. The case file on that incident appears to have been mysteriously erased. Another loyal supporter of the PCU, despite the fact that his wage level has remained unchanged for nearly three years.

  JACK RENFIELD

  SERGEANT

  Formerly a duty sergeant based at Albany Street police station, Renfield’s a bit of a thick-eared old-school copper, and has a reputation for playing it by the book. He’s on record as being an outspoken critic of the PCU, but lately appears to have been won over and has started siding with them, which turns him into a liability. I’d love to know what Bryant & May put in the water that makes their staff become so doggedly loyal.

  MEERA MANGESHKAR

  POLICE CONSTABLE

  This one’s a tough South Londoner from a large Indian family, hardworking, responsive, with a strong sense of duty. She has argued with her superiors and lodged complaints against them in the past, but things seem to have gone quiet on that front. However, there are rumours that she’s not happy in her current position. Has anger management issues. Could be exploited.


  COLIN BIMSLEY

  POLICE CONSTABLE

  Another inherited employee; his father and uncle were both former members of the PCU, so he’s pretty much bound to the Unit for life. By all accounts decent enough, he suffers from Diminished Spatial Awareness (DSA), which made him a liability at the Met. Trained at Repton Amateur Boxing Club for three years until suffering a head injury. Maybe Health & Safety could look into this?

  FRATERNITY DUCAINE

  POLICE CONSTABLE

  This chap appears to have joined the Unit without any Home Office approval. It seems Bryant took it upon himself to offer the lad a job. Can somebody do some digging on him?

  NB There have been numerous Health & Safety infringements at the Unit, including unsecured weapons in the Evidence Room, illegal wiring and dangerous chemicals stored on-site. There also appears to be a cat called Crippen (a surviving relative from Bryant’s feline investigation) wandering around the place. Unfortunately, although the Caledonian Road building is unsafe, it was privately rented by Bryant in a deliberate attempt to exploit a legal loophole, and therefore does not technically fall under the jurisprudence of the Home Office.

  Although it is entirely possible that the HO could find a way to close the Unit down, the basic problem continues: so long as the PCU is useful, it remains a necessary evil.

  On a personal note, I find it astonishing that these officers are allowed to remain on active public duty. If Bryant and May were removed, the place would collapse like a house of cards. Just a thought.

  This report commissioned by Leslie Faraday (Home Office Liaison) for Oskar Kasavian (Internal Security)

  ∨ The Memory of Blood ∧

  1

  Chamber of Horrors

  Arthur Bryant stood there pretending not to shiver. He was tightly wrapped in a 1951 Festival of Britain scarf, with a Bloody Mary in one hand and a ketchup-crusted cocktail sausage in the other. Above his head, a withered yellow corpse hung inside a rusting gibbet iron.