Bryant & May

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Well, now she’s joined the ultimate private club,’ said Giles. ‘Everyone gets in eventually, you just can’t do it while you’re alive.’

  ‘You did, though,’ said Rosa, making May jump. ‘You came back to us. Did you see the light?’

  ‘No, I saw the floor. I’m sorry, Rosa. If I recall anything about the afterlife I’ll let you know.’ He waited until she’d left the room. ‘Can you make her stop creeping up on people? She’s like an electric car. Give me your initial thoughts.’

  Giles studied his instrument drawer. ‘This lady has only just arrived, John. I don’t know how you got here so fast.’

  ‘I heard about it at home. Thought it might be a good idea to get a head start. I need anything you’ve got.’

  Giles fixed his plastic hair cover. ‘She was stabbed with a thin blade. The heart is a dense muscle that’s not easy to penetrate, and it clenches, so it’s hard to get some knives out. He didn’t want to leave any evidence. Actually his aim wasn’t as good as he’d probably hoped it was, because he only clipped the muscle. I’m wondering if there’s another factor involved. She fell down seven or eight steps.’

  ‘The rain had made them slippery,’ May said. ‘It’s one of the most polluted spots in the West End so I imagine particles of engine oil settle on the stone. And the staircase is on three sides without handrails.’

  ‘So, injuries from a fall.’ Giles leaned in close and checked the limbs. ‘Broken right scaphoid, the most common bone you’d break when putting out your hand. Abrasions on the knees and the right cheek, swelling on the left side of the skull. She landed on a downward slope, which is bad for bleeding out.’

  He ran his thumb down Rahman’s spine, counting the vertebrae. ‘I haven’t found her medical records yet but I’m betting she had a spinal injury in the past. It took away the flexibility she needed to break the fall.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked May.

  ‘The C3 and C4 vertebrae are fused.’

  ‘She’s left behind an ex-husband and two daughters. They’d know.’

  ‘Do you want to stay for the next part?’

  ‘I’ve seen it before,’ said May, taking a seat against the wall while Kershaw opened up the spine.

  ‘You wouldn’t expect a whole lot of flexibility there, but that’s not the problem.’ Giles delicately exposed the vertebrae. ‘The hard landing didn’t damage the fused pair. It impacted upon the one above, C2.’

  May studied the strip lights and tried not to think of what Giles was doing, although he heard an occasional sound like someone cutting a rare steak.

  ‘Yup, we have a bone shard. If it shattered and severed the spinal cord, she would have undergone neurogenic shock, so you could expect circulatory collapse and autonomic dysreflexia.’

  May was forced to look. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A sudden burst of high blood pressure which brings on an aneurism. Obviously I’ll have to open up the brain for that.’

  He watched as the coroner gently closed the spinal skin flap and moved on. He turned Rahman from her side onto her back, then flexed her wrists and ankles. He shook his head, muttered, shoved his hairnet back, muttered again, then gripped her shoulders. ‘John, are you able to give me a push here?’

  May did as he was ordered. Together they lifted the upper torso, then let it sink back. ‘Interesting,’ Kershaw said, putting his hands by his sides once more. ‘Her muscle response is wrong.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘There’s no rigor yet so it might be toxicity of some kind. Could be evidence of Botox, because the neck muscles are too soft. Of course everything’s a poison, it’s just about the dosage. The only other thing…’ He studied Rahman’s lips, then opened her mouth and swabbed it, placing the sample in a dish. ‘Let’s get that checked out.’

  ‘Come on, Giles, you’ve got an idea.’

  ‘I don’t want to jump the gun but at a guess I’d say there was something nasty on the blade of the knife. I hope that’s not the case because we’re not sterile to the level of neurotoxins.’

  ‘Why would he add a poison? Isn’t it enough that he stabbed her?’

  ‘Two possible reasons spring to mind. Either he wanted to be sure, because knife damage is unpredictable, or it was present on the blade without him knowing. People are scared of using poisons on their enemies. Remember the Aum Shinrikyo cult and the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway? Passengers saw liquid leaking from packages. You can’t just spread a toxin around without taking major safety precautions. I think it’s more likely that there were germs on the knife from whatever he sharpened it with, because it was extremely sharp. Anything invasive can cause sepsis. Maybe she would have lived if the knife had been clean.’

  May turned away from the body. It felt as if the line separating life from death was becoming ever more transparent. He might have been looking at himself lying on the steel table.

  * * *

  |||

  By the time he had walked halfway back to the PCU his shoulder had started hurting, so he crunched two painkillers. The building on Caledonian Road was now surrounded by timber sheets and workbenches. He just managed to stop Dave One from slapping him on the back as he reached the entrance, then made his way up to the first floor.

  Very quickly, the staff gathered and followed him like children after an ice cream van. The last to arrive was Bryant, but only because he had become overinvolved with his coat sleeves. May was taken into the remnants of the operations room. Everyone shook his hand and gingerly hugged him.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ Bryant complained, struggling to get his pudgy hand out of his sleeve, ‘nobody ever hugs me.’

  ‘That’s because you carry sharps in your coat,’ Meera pointed out, ‘and you put fishing hooks in your hat and you don’t even fish.’

  ‘And you’re covered in pink paint,’ Colin added.

  ‘And as for you, you’re signed off.’ Land jabbed a finger at May. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

  ‘Too much rest is unhealthy,’ May replied. ‘I want to help. I can’t say I love what you’ve done to the place.’ He eyed the cables dangling like tagliatelle from the ominous hole in the ceiling.

  ‘You can’t be involved, not while your case is under review.’ Land face-shrugged in the direction of Timothy Floris, who was standing at a respectful distance, looking as if he was waiting for a wasp to move away. May only had to glance at him to see the problem. Class was rearing its ugly head in the office. Land’s father had been a shopkeeper. The Unit chief became uncomfortable around the sleekly confident upper-middles. They had business degrees and he had a swimming certificate (bronze).

  May stepped forward with his hand out. ‘Mr Floris, it’s a pleasure.’

  ‘He’s our Home Office observer,’ warned Bryant, ridding himself of his meddlesome coat. ‘He observes.’

  May pumped Floris’s hand. ‘So you’re working for Leslie Faraday.’

  ‘Technically he works for us,’ Floris politely corrected. ‘Our department acts under the command of the Home Secretary. I’m here to make sure that protocol is followed.’

  ‘You’ve come to the wrong unit, then,’ said May. ‘We’re rubbish at rules. We tend to burn things down.’

  ‘I told him that,’ said Bryant.

  Sidney Hargreaves presented herself to May. ‘Hello. I’m working with Mr Land.’

  ‘She’s working for me,’ said Land. ‘An intern.’

  ‘You want to be a detective?’ The girl standing before May wore mismatched clothes in artful composition. He had never seen her before, yet she was entirely familiar to him. It was as if the Unit had always been awaiting her arrival. He tried not to stare.

  ‘I’m more than that. A bee, perhaps,’ she said.

  He could not tell from her deadpan face whether she was joking. ‘A
bee?’

  ‘There are up to a hundred thousand bees in a hive, with thousands of females making honey, hundreds of male drones doing nothing until we evict them and let them die, and just one queen.’

  Meera gave an involuntary bark of laughter.

  ‘Your apiary-based ambitions are duly noted, Miss Hargreaves,’ said Bryant.

  Land called back their attention. ‘Can I remind everyone on my payroll that we are now dealing with a murder case, and that you lot need to start getting some bloody results? Is anybody listening to me?’

  He looked around to find that the others had dispersed.

  ‘It’s good to have you here again,’ said Bryant, leading his partner back to their office.

  Land followed behind them. ‘It was me who made all this happen, you know. Me who got the Unit back, even if it’s only for a week or so—’

  Bryant shut the door in his face.

  ‘It’s not exactly like your old chair but it’s the nearest I could find,’ said Bryant, ushering May to his seat. ‘I’m not sure how poor old Raymond’s going to take it when we break the bad news to him.’

  ‘You mean the oranges and lemons part? I can already hear him.’ May gingerly lowered himself into his chair.

  ‘It’s a disaster.’

  May thought he was talking about the case until he saw Bryant pointing to his bookshelves. ‘Faraday’s gorillas completely wrecked my alphabetical order. It’s obvious that Jellyfish of the Cornish Coast should come before Dutch Chamberpots of the 18th Century, thematically speaking. And where’s my Encyclopaedia of Victorian Drainage gone? What? You’re giving me a funny look. Is your bullet hole hurting?’

  ‘You’re right, it’s good to be back,’ said May.

  ‘I was starting to think you’d never get here. I can’t prove it but I’m sure all three cases are related.’

  May was surprised. ‘Three?’

  ‘Cristian Albu, arson, suicide and the smell of oranges. Michael Claremont, accidental stabbing near a church connected with the same fruit. Chakira Rahman, knifed on the steps at the song’s next site and pelted with farthings just to make sure that we get the point.’

  It seemed to May that as his partner became more enthused the years fell away from him until he seemed suspended in time, held aloft by his passionate curiosity.

  Bryant rapped at the scribbles on his desk. ‘The killings are planned, timed and rehearsed. This is beyond mere premeditation, it’s a battle plan!’

  ‘Presumably Rahman was followed from home,’ said May.

  ‘Yes, but her killer had to act somewhere near the church in order to fit the rhyme. It means he had access to her schedule, John. The same holds true for Claremont; the attacker knew that he was going to be alone at his flat on Sunday morning.’

  ‘But if Rahman was heading to Broadcasting House she could have gone up the other side of Trafalgar Square, then up Regent Street,’ May pointed out. ‘It’s probably faster.’

  ‘But nobody does, do they?’ Bryant pointed out. ‘It means crossing Piccadilly Circus. Most of us would go past St Martin-in-the-Fields and cut behind Leicester Square.’

  May thought for a moment, drawing swirls on his notepad. ‘Could Claremont and Rahman have known each other?’

  ‘Janice thinks it’s possible they met at a government function. Colin and Meera are looking for connections. I’ve been trying to see the broader picture. I keep coming back to the song.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  Bryant got to his feet and dug out his Spitfire. ‘The best known version of the “Oranges and Lemons” song has six calls to action. That leaves four more victims to be attacked in public places. It’s no longer about deciding whether Michael Claremont is a security risk. This is something bigger.’

  ‘You think that’s true?’ asked May. ‘Or is it how you’d like the case to be?’

  ‘You’re suggesting I want the Unit to make a name for itself again? I do, but not this way. Claremont and Rahman both seem to have been forces for good in an increasingly ghastly world. Who would wish them dead?’

  ‘Someone who found them in the way, I suppose. While we’re coming up with crackpot theories, here’s mine. Many of the country’s oldest churches are falling down, ignored and virtually empty. Both attacks have drawn attention to them. What if he’s a religious extremist and is trying to say something about places of worship?’

  ‘I like your thinking,’ said Bryant. ‘Churches are physical expressions of faith, built to lift sinners above the corrupt mire of the capital. Why were so many constructed in London? Because in medieval times the church had total control over knowledge. The counsel of God was deemed far more important than the evidence before your eyes. What if these victims are sacrifices? The churches involved are ancient and built over temples of pagan worship.’

  The door opened. Sidney wandered in and stood before them. ‘Just to say I haven’t been given any structure?’

  Bryant studied her as if examining a particularly trying piece of modern art. ‘What?’

  She looked from one to the other. ‘Support structure? Like who can help me if I need support?’

  ‘First,’ said Bryant, holding up a finger, ‘knock before you come in to this room, then think about the consequences of your action and don’t come in. B, don’t turn statements into questions. And third, along with Santa Claus, the ozone layer and Raymond Land’s love life, Unit support does not exist. In your parlance: It is not a thing. Do you understand? Nod if yes.’

  Sidney rubbed at her nose. ‘That doesn’t make me very comfortable.’

  ‘I’m not here to make you comfortable. I’m here to make you vaguely afraid.’

  ‘Also your connectivity is problematic. I like your office.’

  ‘You’re not having it.’

  Bryant’s sarcasm bounced off her. ‘I’m very pleased to be working with you.’

  ‘We’re in a meeting. What do you want?’

  ‘I should sit in. I want to see how you do it.’

  ‘We are not a magic act,’ Bryant snapped, losing his patience.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Sidney replied, ‘but I don’t see how I can help until I fully understand.’

  ‘Nobody expects you to help, you’re on tea and envelopes.’

  She stared at him with a hardening of the features that could have snapped pencils.

  ‘And stop doing that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That accusing look. It makes you look deranged.’

  ‘You can’t say that to me.’

  ‘Young lady, everyone here lives with their own form of madness. Out there you may be treated differently but in this Unit you are not special. Furthermore, I can say whatever I like because I have long since stopped caring what anyone thinks. I hope one day you discover the delightful sensation of not giving a monkey’s truss.’

  She stared at him for just the right amount of time before continuing. ‘A moment before I came in I overheard you say that the “Oranges and Lemons” song has six calls to action. It has eight. The candle to light you to bed, the chopper to chop off your head. Just because they don’t mention churches is no reason to discount them. Know what they suggest to me?’

  ‘Please do tell us, Miss Hargreaves.’

  She looked from one to the other. ‘That the killer is going to commit suicide after his task is completed. And he’ll do it at night.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He wouldn’t need a candle to light him to bed if it was day.’ She closed the door quietly behind her.

  ‘She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?’ said Bryant. ‘Are all young people like that?’

  ‘Only to you,’ said May.

  * * *

  |||

  ‘She’s making me feel old,’ said Meera. She was standing beneath a fritzing
light in the first-floor corridor with Longbright. They were waiting for the coffee machine to strain out an espresso, something it had been reluctant to do since Dave One had reinstalled it.

  ‘It’s good that she has ambitions,’ said Longbright.

  ‘I don’t want it to turn into one of those situations where women can’t support each other because they’re too busy competing.’

  ‘No, that would be wrong,’ Longbright agreed.

  ‘And she’s obviously smart even if she’s…you know,’ Meera conceded.

  ‘You always feel threatened when someone new comes into the Unit,’ said Longbright. ‘There’s no reason why we can’t all be friends.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Meera.

  Longbright turned to look at her. ‘Then what’s your problem?’

  ‘She’s got the old man wrapped around her little finger.’

  Longbright smiled to herself. The door opened between them, and Sidney came out of the detectives’ office.

  ‘How did it go in there?’ asked Longbright.

  ‘I like them.’ Sidney looked from one to the other, her face blank.

  ‘You mean they liked you,’ said Meera, folding her arms.

  ‘I very much doubt that. I thought I’d walked into a World War Two film.’ She stepped between them and studied the coffee machine. ‘You expect everything to be in black and white.’

  ‘Are you after a permanent position?’ asked Meera.

  ‘That depends. Mr Bryant gave me his case notes.’ She looked down at the manila folder in her hand. ‘Well, he’s given me tree shavings, which is weird. Apparently he doesn’t read screens?’

  ‘But I gave him those notes,’ Meera said.

  ‘Yes, and now he’s given them to me. Don’t feel bad.’

  Longbright tried to formulate a reply and failed.

  ‘Shakespeare,’ said Sidney. ‘You either go after the lead role or you end up in the background playing Randombantz and Palpatine.’

  ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,’ said Longbright.