Bryant & May Read online

  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 dustcart. We have been deceived.’

  Making his way to the whiteboard, he drew the positions of the van, the dustcart, 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 the same 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 reemerged he would only be seen for a moment. All he had to do was trigger the van doors and scoot under the dustcart 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 child’s wooden 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 stanched, 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 singular 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 attention. 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 onto 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.

  ‘He’s wearing an earpiece,’ Janice explained to Sidney.

  ‘We have an address for the driver, a flat in South London. He’s not answering. Someone has to go around there.’

  ‘Let me go with Colin,’ Meera suggested. ‘I’ll take the Kawasaki; it’ll be faster at this time of the evening. We know what to do.’

  * * *

  |||

  The Royal Woolwich Dockyards had been opened by Henry VIII, and for centuries after the area remained resolutely military. Even though the Royal Arsenal’s football team had decamped to North London, the town, centred on a rambling market, was rough-hewn and rowdy, beset by squaddies looking for a laugh and a beer. Woolwich had once been distinguished by the great brick wall of the dockyard that loomed over the town, but that barrier had fallen to the wrecking ball, opening up the wide riverside, and with gentrification had come a kind of windswept bareness. Now salvaged chunks of military hardware formed a decorative motif, war fetishized as commercial opportunity. From here to the sea, the southern side of the Thames was ugly and bad-tempered.

  Mohammed Alkesh lived in a prefabricated 1970s block of flats in serious need of repair. Colin had trouble finding a porter who would let them in. The young Bangladeshi sat behind an acid-etched sheet of wired glass and still looked apprehensive even after he had seen their ID.

  They showed him screengrabs of Alkesh. ‘He was here last night,’ said the boy, ‘except that’s not his name around here.’

  ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘Something like Dex or Jax? I heard him on the balcony on his phone. I can take you up.’

  He led them along a corridor that smelled of dope and stale burgers, and unlocked a scuffed door with his master keys.

  Meera went first. ‘Did you ever talk to him?’

  ‘Not much. He’s an illegal.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘You just know. All their stuff fits into one bag.’

  ‘Did he have a vehicle, a pale blue van?’

  ‘No, man, he has nothing. Sometimes another guy lends him a car, a bashed-up Fiat. It’s parked outside.’

  ‘How doe
s he seem to you?’

  ‘Kind of invisible. Skinny, with a busy haircut—I don’t know what. I see guys like him everywhere. He has nothing. No stuff, no family.’

  ‘No furniture,’ said Colin, looking around the bare white-walled flat that smelled of bleach and damp carpet.

  ‘I never seen inside,’ said the boy. ‘Where does he sleep?’

  Meera found a single mattress stored upright in a cupboard. ‘How long has he been here?’

  ‘A few weeks. It’s a sublet. I don’t know who owns it. Not my business. Illegals. Close the door as you go.’

  ‘You don’t want to wait for us?’ asked Meera.

  ‘You see anything worth stealing in here?’ The boy gave a shrug and trudged back to his booth.

  ‘So, nothing for Dan,’ said Meera as they came out of the living room. The slamming back of the bedroom door caught them by surprise. Someone small with ragged black hair went hurtling past them.

  In the corridor Meera saw the fire escape door swinging and ran for the stairs. Colin stayed close behind but stretched out his fingertips to touch the walls, unable to judge the width of the gloomy staircase.

  The boy unlocked the silver Fiat as he was running towards it and launched himself inside. Colin was running towards the vehicle when it pulled away in a blast of blue smoke. Meera was already starting her motorcycle.

  ‘Could he make himself look more guilty?’ she called as Colin climbed onto the pillion of the Kawasaki behind her.

  ‘You can take him, Meera, just don’t smash up half of London this time.’ Colin pushed himself back into the pillion seat as they took off in pursuit.

  The Fiat led them into a shabby high street filled with the kind of shops once associated with rustbelt America: burger joint, nail bar, tattoo parlour, chicken shop, every fifth property empty. There was nothing of this part of old South London left.

  ‘Do you want local backup?’ Colin called.

  ‘No time.’ Meera cut in hard behind the Fiat, watching the traffic up ahead. She would be able to overtake him before they reached the red lights.

  ‘Get ready to drag him out,’ she called. ‘Are you wearing a stab vest?’

  ‘No, they make my nipples itch. I’ll stay out of his reach.’

  As Meera braked and pulled in behind the van Colin got ready to run for the car, but the lights changed and they were off again.

  Grimy Edwardian terraces gave way to unadorned council blocks separated from each other like prisoners ordered to stand apart. The threadbare bushes and trees dividing Bevan House from Chamberlain House turned to indiscriminate brambles that overran fences and substations.

  The Fiat flashed through patches of light and shade, pulling ahead every time Meera accelerated.

  ‘Where the hell are we?’ Colin asked, looking around.

  ‘I can’t get ahead of him,’ Meera shouted back.

  ‘You have to do something. If he’s going to make a move it’ll be now.’

  ‘Hang on to me. This could be more tricky than—’

  ‘The car in front suddenly drops down onto a slip road and vanishes,’ said Colin, talking through a bite of fried-egg sandwich. ‘Meera swings the bike as sharp as she can but he’s gone. They find the Fiat torched in a field near Dartford at two o’clock this morning.’

  ‘It still doesn’t explain how you got that,’ said Niven, pointing to the plaster stuck across the bridge of Colin’s nose.

  At eight o’clock in the morning the Ladykillers Café was already crowded with staff from the railway stations and publishing houses of King’s Cross. What Niven, the proprietor, lacked in stature he made up for in volume, but for once Colin realized it might not be a good idea to confide in him fully. Mr Bryant was notorious for his indiscretion, but even he would think twice about sharing details of the investigation with the owner of a packed café.

  ‘This?’ He touched the plaster gingerly. ‘Meera cut across an emergency access lane but there was a concrete traffic calmer on it. She braked so suddenly my mobile hit me in the face.’

  ‘While you were holding it.’ Niven screwed the lid back on a jar of peach-gin marmalade. ‘What’s the point of pretending you can protect us when you can’t even protect yourself?’

  ‘Give me a cheese-and-chutney on white for Mr Bryant before I arrest you for being irritating,’ Colin said. ‘I have to get a move on.’

  Colin pushed the remains of his sandwich into his mouth and tapped his card on the reader as he left. At least the Unit’s main entrance now had a front door, even if it was only chipboard and the lock didn’t work. He and Meera had argued after losing the van and she had gone home to her own flat, more angry with herself than with him.

  ‘Here you go, Mr B., quartz cheddar and pickle, don’t pay me in old money again.’ Colin threw Bryant the greaseproof paper packet.

  ‘I wasn’t going to pay you at all,’ said Bryant as the sandwich bounced past him. He had not looked up from the document he was reading. Although his old office had been returned to its former glory, he’d found himself unable to settle without his partner, and had temporarily set up in the operations room.

  ‘It’s no use, I can’t work like this.’ Bryant sneezed and blew sawdust everywhere. ‘Why is John lying around at home doing nothing? Why can’t he heal faster?’ He twisted around in his chair to face Floris. The young official looked as if he had spent the night in an airtight container. ‘I can feel your gaze dropping upon me as the gentle rain from heaven, Mr Floris.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The Merchant of Venice. You’re staring.’

  Floris ran a finger through the air. ‘I’m interested in your dynamic.’

  ‘My dynamic what?’

  ‘The way you operate together. You seem to have very little in common beyond the fact that none of you are married or have active social lives. Mr Land accepted the Home Office’s terms without negotiation. He must have known you would all agree to return here.’

  ‘Are you suggesting we have nowhere else to go? There are plenty of other things we could be doing. Are you serious about filing reports on us?’

  ‘I already sent the first one.’ Floris tapped at his tablet. ‘I copied you in out of politeness.’

  ‘I read it, that’s why I’m asking. We had someone in here who used jargon once before. That didn’t end well. I don’t know what interface means when you use it as a verb but it sounds rude.’

  Floris smiled blandly. ‘Mr Bryant, people of my generation prefer to share and communicate.’

  ‘Well, people of my generation—the ones who still know where they are—prefer to get on with their work.’

  ‘I appreciate the difficulty,’ said Floris. ‘I’m not too thrilled about being here, either.’ He checked himself. ‘Perhaps that’s unfair. Perhaps our divergent methodologies can be bridged.’

  ‘Perhaps you should say perhaps less often.’

  Floris had adorned his desk with a framed photograph of Faraday’s liaison team at a formal dinner that ostentatiously included Floris and the Home Secretary himself. Bryant wondered what kind of man would choose photos of office colleagues over family and friends. Perhaps nobody loved him. Good.

  The detective was unwrapping his sandwich just as the door opened and Sidney Hargreaves came in, pulling up a chair and turning it backwards to sit astride it.

  ‘Ah, Miss Hargreaves, how may I offend you today?’

  ‘It’s the millennials who take offence.’ Sidney took the document he was reading from his hands and cast her eye over it. ‘I’m Generation Z.’

  ‘So apart from a short attention span and no working knowledge of Are You Being Served?, what can you bring to the table?’ Bryant asked, snatching back the document.

  ‘I want to be a detective.’ She returned his gaze with a placid frankness.

  ‘So do a
great many others.’ Bryant blew his nose violently.

  ‘But I want to be you.’

  He observed her over the top of his handkerchief. ‘I really don’t think you do. Not with my bowels.’

  ‘You were my case study at college,’ said Sidney. ‘I covered every PCU investigation I could find on file. The ones that weren’t still sealed pro bono publico, anyway. You frighten them.’

  ‘I’m sorry, whom do I frighten?’

  ‘Your superiors in the Special Operations Directorate. I talked to them. They’re scared that your methods are too unique.’

  ‘A tautology, young lady.’

  ‘They could mutate and cause chaos. Law is control. Perhaps we should discuss this another time.’

  Bryant realized he had at last met someone who was completely unknowable. She stared and stared with her china-blue eyes like a rare artefact revealed in torchlight and he had no idea who or what she was.

  ‘We’re all still here, you know,’ said Longbright, sticking her head around the door and passing him her phone. ‘Dan wants to speak to you.’

  ‘Are you checking on the vehicles?’ Bryant bellowed.

  ‘You don’t have to shout,’ said Banbury. ‘Your mystery driver parked his Fiat on some wasteland behind a kebab shop. Nice neighbourhood, the kind of place where you can torch a vehicle and nobody notices. There was nothing left of it. I’m with the fruit van now, in Westminster. I have something interesting for you.’

  Bryant listened and waited. ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘I’d better bring it in and show you in front of our observer. Otherwise Mr Floris will think we’re hiding information.’

  ‘Good plan. Get back here.’

  As he rang off, John May rang in. ‘Arthur, I’ve hit a wall with Peter English. All enquiries have to go through a senior security officer with prior approval of the Home Office. English has a reputation for destroying anyone who tries to humiliate him.’