Bryant & May - Oranges and Lemons Read online

  Barnacle Bill was Dudley’s ventriloquist’s dummy. With its rolling eyes, lascivious wink and odour of rotting rubber, it haunted the sleep of many an impressionable child. Lately, Dudley had started looking more like his dummy than ever. Both had been at their peak of popularity after the war and were soon to be shut up in boxes.

  ‘I thought you’d retired Barnacle Bill,’ said Bryant, sitting down alongside him.

  ‘That were just me messing about,’ Dudley explained, finishing his fag to the last strand of tobacco. ‘I told the children he’d died of woodworm just to get rid of them. I thought they’d never stop crying. He had a lingering death in Blackpool, I’ll bloody tell you that. We did the panto season there. It were bloody awful. Our Widow Twankey went to prison for molestation. How he got a job asking children to pull his bloomers down I’ll never know.’ He pointed towards the box office. ‘You’re welcome to a comp. There’s nobody in except a party of special needs from Dagenham. They’re not getting many of the jokes but they’re good laughers.’

  ‘Is there an orchestra?’

  ‘Piano, drums and a bassoon. Not exactly the Philharmonic. The producer’s added one of them burlesque acts, a lovely big lass from Huddersfield. She’s got a bust on her that fair makes your ears wiggle. She takes a bath in a champagne glass but it’s not going to hold her weight for much longer. There was an ominous crack last night when she started waving her swizzle stick about.’ He flicked his fag end away. ‘The writing’s on the wall for us lot. This audience is the last generation that’ll put up with such rubbish. I suppose you’re after advice again.’

  ‘I am, as it happens,’ said Bryant. He was still getting over the fact that Dudley was alive, sober and working. ‘You remember that act you used to do with Lavinia?’

  ‘You mean the Ali Baba cabinet of swords? We had to give that up after I nicked her. I thought she was going to bleed out before the band finished.’

  ‘This was different,’ said Bryant. ‘She was in a swimming costume and you filled a shower cubicle with coloured water, and when you drained it she’d gone. She came out from the flies and took a bow in a mermaid tail.’

  ‘She did until the zip went.’

  ‘How did you make her disappear?’

  ‘Oh, that were easy. The water’s inside a double layer in the Perspex, like them old pens you used to get where a girl took her clothes off when you turned them upside down. But the cubicle kept springing leaks. She always gave me grief about soaking her fags. I told her to lay off the roll-ups. A magician’s assistant shouldn’t have a smoker’s cough.’

  Bryant looked disillusioned. ‘It’s a bit of a let-down when you know how it’s done.’

  ‘And even when you don’t.’ Dudley pulled something from under his wig, examined it and tossed it into the gutter. ‘That’s why magicians never give away their secrets. They’re bloody boring.’

  ‘It’s just that I’m faced with a criminal problem and thought of you.’ He explained the circumstances of the attack on Claremont.

  Salterton rubbed his stubble, thinking. ‘It all sounds pretty straightforward to me,’ he said finally. ‘You didn’t happen to find a rope lying around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or something that could move quickly, like a platform on wheels?’

  ‘There was a skateboard found nearby.’

  ‘Was there a vehicle with a high wheelbase behind the van?’

  ‘Yes, a council bin lorry.’

  ‘That would have acted as a good shield. As I understand it, between the pavement and the road this fella was pretty much out of sight. That’s why we put blinds around magicians onstage; the audience sees before and after, and their imaginations fill in the bit they miss. Our eyes aren’t much good by modern technical standards. We see less than the average phone camera, but our brains compensate. What you’ve got is classic stage magic transferred to the street. The fella who got injured – easily recognized, was he?’

  ‘Very. Distinctive clothes and a goatee.’

  ‘And the witnesses, quite far away?’

  Bryant nodded.

  ‘Then I reckon it was a substitution,’ Salterton said. ‘Very easy to stage. The victim came out of his place a few minutes earlier, yes?’

  ‘To talk to the van driver.’

  Enthusiasm descended upon Dudley. His eyes seemed suddenly clearer. ‘Except that’s not what happened, see. When he came down the first time he was pulled into the van and taken care of. The fellow inside put on his clothes or was already dressed like him, down to the goatee. He left the body in the van and used the victim’s keys to go back into the building.’

  ‘We have a view of his back on CCTV doing just that,’ said Bryant.

  ‘A few minutes later he came back out, got himself seen and passed behind the van, pulling the rig down.’

  ‘What do you mean, the rig?’

  ‘Give over, Arthur, you weren’t born yesterday. He pre-loaded his props! A stack of crates with a gap at the bottom, into which he’d dropped the body, rigged to fall down when he touched them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Try not to interrupt, you. Where was I? So, the van driver emerges dressed as your political fellow and walks behind the truck. The bin-lorry driver is high above him and doesn’t see what’s happening, nor do the pedestrians. He touches the rigged crates, drops to the floor and slides under the lorry just as the whole lot comes down, so that when all the debris is removed the original victim is on the ground below the crates and the lookalike has slipped away.’

  ‘Would you need an accomplice for something like that?’

  Dudley resettled his wig. ‘I don’t see why, although it would have to be rehearsed and timed with precision, but that’s any magic trick for you. Anyway, it didn’t go according to plan because he failed to kill him.’

  ‘It just seems risky,’ Bryant pointed out.

  ‘Any riskier than poisoning someone with radioactive tea, like that Russian fella? And what about that MI6 bloke locked in a holdall in his bathtub with the key underneath him? I used to be an escapologist and even I couldn’t have managed that. You say he was a government high-up, so it stands to reason he’d get special treatment.’

  ‘Dudley, you’ve been a great help,’ said Bryant, ‘but I’m going to have trouble selling your theory to anyone.’

  ‘That’s your job, Arthur,’ said Salterton. ‘If I can convince ’em that dragging a half-suffocated pigeon out of a top hat is the height of sophistication, you can make them believe a politician was stabbed in a van.’ He let out a sigh that contained the weight of the world. ‘Life is one big bloody trick played on the unsuspecting.’

  14

  Invisible

  ‘A total salad.’ Meera Mangeshkar tried her other eye at the crack in the door. Beyond it, Tim Floris was talking to Raymond Land at the entrance to his office.

  ‘He can’t help how he looks,’ Colin whispered.

  ‘It’s not his looks, it’s his attitude. Privileged plonker.’

  ‘Apparently he and the Home Secretary are cousins,’ Colin tried to see through the door crack. ‘You haven’t spoken to him yet. He might be very nice. I like the new intern.’

  She threw him a look of deep suspicion. ‘Oh really? I wasn’t aware you’d spoken to her.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘So you’re just rating her on looks.’

  ‘Only to start with. I’ll probably qualify that opinion once we’ve become more familiar with each other.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to you impressing her with the way you eat sausages. Did you rate me on looks before we first talked?’

  ‘No, I didn’t think you were my type.’

  ‘What part? Indian? Female? Breathing?’

  ‘Height. If you must know, I thought you were a bit short.’

  ‘When I first saw you I thought you had arms like a monkey but do go on, this is fascinating.’

  ‘You weren’t like the others. You played hard to get.�
�

  ‘I wasn’t playing. I didn’t fancy you.’

  Colin was affronted. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I thought you’d be my intellectual inferior.’

  He stared at her. ‘How did you decide that?’

  ‘I watched you trying to get a Pringles tube off your fist without letting go of any crisps.’

  ‘But you liked the look of me.’

  ‘I thought you were like a mongrel dog with abnormally big arms.’ She grinned and scratched his cropped head. ‘Good dog. I’m going off to rate the intern.’

  The operations room had not been restored to a level that warranted the recapitalization of its door lettering. Just enough of its Tetris-like floorboards were missing to keep it from looking respectable, or safe. A random assortment of borrowed, stolen and rescued furnishings included a pink dressing table, a child’s chair in the shape of a boat, a horsehair ottoman and the kind of folding seats that were set out for flute concerts. They had been arranged around the room so that staff members could help themselves. The old allocated spaces could still be discerned from the positioning of the floor sockets and chair-leg scuffs, creating the image of a phantom workforce that had died but refused to leave.

  Unbothered, Colin Bimsley squatted on a pile of rubbish with his laptop on his knees. The others had salvaged enough household items from grandparents to make the room resemble an amateur production of The Mousetrap.

  Timothy Floris was clearly amazed to find himself surrounded by working-class people. He wandered about looking like a foreign ambassador visiting a leper colony. But he was young, Longbright decided, and as yet unformed. It would do him good to get his hands dirty and knock some of the edges off his perpetually stunned demeanour.

  ‘Why don’t you grab a folding chair and take that desk?’ she suggested.

  Floris eyed it with trepidation. ‘It’s very low.’

  ‘We nicked half a dozen of them from the primary school around the corner. They’ll have to do for now.’

  ‘I’m meant to be observing,’ he said, ‘but there isn’t anything to observe.’

  Longbright set down another charity shop table with reduced legs. ‘I’m afraid it’s often like this. Mr Bryant tends to pursue his own leads. He rarely remembers to tell us what he’s doing.’

  ‘I don’t understand how it works.’

  Longbright puffed out her cheeks, trying to decide how best to explain the unit’s methodology without sounding certifiable. She was concerned that anything she said would make its way back to Faraday, or worse, go right to the top.

  ‘Our senior detectives decide the course of the investigation and brief me on everyone’s respective roles. Mr Bryant has a separate set of contacts, mostly field authorities who can provide specialist information. Mr Land oversees operations and approves the collated reports in terms of effectiveness and expenditure.’

  When put that way it sounded almost plausible, she decided, omitting to mention that the reports usually appeared to have been assembled by stroppy art students and the field authorities were certifiable.

  Floris nodded thoughtfully. Just as Longbright thought she had got away with it Raymond Land came in. She knew at once that he had already forgotten there was a spy in the room.

  ‘Right, you shower, let’s see if we can give old Faraday a knicker sandwich by burying this as soon as poss.’ He rubbed his hands with static-building energy. ‘We’ve got testimonials from two colleagues saying that Claremont is medicated up to his hairline and has been “in a state of anxiety” for several months. You’ve got all the bits, they just need tarting up before I bang them off to Fatso.’

  Floris watched Land from behind his miniscule desk. The recipient of his congealed stare looked as if he had been caught standing before a broken window with a brick in his hand.

  ‘What I mean is,’ Land said with a cough, ‘we now have significant intelligence that should reassure the Home Office, so if you could carefully review your data and submit it before midday tomorrow I’ll set about closing the investigation.’

  With Raymond on our side we don’t need enemies, thought Longbright. She became aware of something blocking the doorway.

  When Arthur Bryant crossed a floor, one could never be entirely sure that he would end up at his chosen destination. He liked to time his entrances, and this one was only impeded by his need to check that there was a floor beneath his boots. His clothes looked as if they were attempting to consume him. He was buried to his ears inside his red and green scarf and had a bag slung over his shoulder like an itinerant.

  ‘You can’t close the investigation. I have evidence that the attack on Claremont was carefully planned.’ He set down the black bin bag and tore it open, revealing a skateboard. ‘This was found stuck under the back wheel of the council bin lorry. We have been deceived.’

  Making his way to the whiteboard, he drew the positions of the van, the lorry, the Marconi building and the church, then pointed them out with the broken end of a Harry Potter wand (Banbury’s son had foolishly left it on his chair).

  ‘The first time Claremont went down to the van he was pulled inside and stabbed.’ He prodded the diagram with half a wand. ‘The attacker took his place and went back inside Marconi House. Being a lookalike merely involved wearing a similar jacket and a goatee. If you dress as a sailor and walk along a pavement, the uniform is the only thing anyone remembers. He knew that when he re-emerged he would only be seen for a moment. All he had to do was trigger the van doors and scoot under the bin lorry as Claremont’s body fell out with the crates. He emerged from the rear, walking away as the crowd gathered, all of them facing in the other direction.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ cried Land. ‘What made you even think of it?’

  Bryant tapped his buttonhole. ‘He was wearing a carnation in his lapel. Both witnesses commented on it. But Koharu Takahashi said, “Flower, no flower.” She meant there wasn’t one on him afterwards, because his attacker had lost it in the jacket swap.’

  ‘Why make it look like an accident at all?’ asked Janice. ‘Why not attack him on the street?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Bryant admitted.

  ‘What about the inside of the van? Wouldn’t there be blood everywhere?’

  ‘We don’t know because Westminster won’t release the vehicle to us.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ asked Floris.

  ‘Their officers say the interior was clean, but they’ve refused to cooperate with us in the past, so perhaps you can have a word with your cousin.’

  ‘Tissues,’ said Sidney, perched demurely on a wooden children’s stool shaped like a duck. ‘Knocking Claremont out creates the anterior skull wound. Then he’s stabbed in the stomach through a wad of tissues. The stake is left in place to keep the wound staunched, the tissues are taken away. There are probably traces of paper on the stake.’

  Everyone stared at her.

  ‘What?’ she asked. There was something impassive in her gaze. She might have been considering a chess board.

  ‘You haven’t even spoken to anyone at the site,’ said Bryant.

  ‘You can gather evidence without interpersonal skills,’ Sidney countered.

  ‘Let me explain something to you, Miss Hargreaves. Beat coppers are nurses. They have “interpersonal skills”. Detectives are doctors. They search for the truth, as unpalatable as it often turns out to be. In 1963 Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper tracked down the Great Train Robbers—’

  ‘Before I was born,’ Hargreaves pointed out.

  ‘So was Queen Marie of Romania but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know who she was.’

  ‘I don’t know who she was.’

  Bryant begged the ceiling for strength. ‘While we rewrite history to include only the people we can be sure were around after the momentous advent of your birth, Miss Hargreaves, consider Slipper of the Yard. His imprimatur was stamped on every case he handled. The great detectives think differently because they develop a si
ngular outlook. Share your ideas with everyone and you end up in a committee that achieves nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll agree to disagree on that,’ Hargreaves observed.

  ‘No, let’s just disagree,’ said Bryant.

  ‘You’re very old,’ she said suddenly, as if she had just noticed.

  Bryant’s nose hairs bristled. ‘This conversation is ageing me.’

  ‘I meant in a good way.’

  ‘When you get up four times a night to pee you’ll realize there is no good way.’

  Sidney was about to reply but Longbright touched her lightly on the shoulder.

  Bryant studied the girl with interest. ‘Are you on the spectrum?’

  There was a small horrified pause, although not from Sidney. ‘I prefer to think of it as somewhere over the rainbow,’ she said.

  ‘Interesting.’ He tried to steal a glance at her forearms to see if there were any scar-obscuring tattoos. Her skin was clear. She was of slight and slender build, but commanded an audience. He noticed that she sat on the edge of her seat as if ready to sprint off at any moment.

  Banbury drew their attention with a counterfeit cough. ‘Thanks to the wonders of modern tech, it looks like we may be about to get an address for Mohammed Alkesh.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be prioritizing the investigation into Claremont’s mental health?’ Floris asked. Nobody answered.

  Land looked for somewhere to sit, and sank on to a pink boudoir chair that accompanied the dressing table. ‘Where’s the forensic proof for all this?’

  ‘Oh, evidence.’ Bryant batted the idea aside. ‘This isn’t about Claremont revealing state secrets.’

  ‘Hang on, hang on.’ Banbury held an index finger to the side of his head.