Bryant & May 07; Bryant & May on the Loose b&m-7

by Christopher Fowler

  It was now late in the afternoon, and their suspect had been placed in the building’s only lockable room until the staff could be debriefed and the suspect’s examination could be resumed. Time was of the essence in the initial interview process, and the detectives needed to bring everyone up to speed. On that point, it probably wasn’t the best idea to let Bryant do the talking, but the old man relished explaining his thinking to others and would not be dissuaded, despite the fact that he was prone to lethologica, not to mention an annoying habit of wandering off-topic at the most crucial moments.

  “The roots of this case go back almost as far as I do,” said Bryant, hovering uncertainly above the battered sofa Longbright had managed to dredge up for the briefing room. He failed to lower himself gracefully into the seat, so he simply fell backwards. Once he had settled, Longbright handed him a mug of murky tea. The others sat wherever they could find a space. Everyone was impatient to hear how the arrest had been made.

  “It goes all the way to 1940, when a bomb fell on Mrs Porter’s house.” Bryant took a sip of his tea, looked for a place to set it down and ended up cradling it in his lap. “But in a broader sense, it began several thousand years before that.”

  There was such a collective groan and rolling of the eyes from the rest of the gathered staff that he decided not to follow that particular avenue of investigation. “All right, let’s start in 1940. A bomb destroyed a house in King’s Cross, the surviving member of the family moved away, and for over sixty years the deed to the property was not missed. That is, until the conglomerate entrusted with the regeneration of the area tried to identify the owners of every single parcel of land. And Maddox Cavendish, the architectural planner entrusted with this task, belatedly realised that a key piece was missing.

  “It wasn’t the end of the world; an occupier needed to last for eleven years on property before claiming the right to own it, and the ADAPT Group had been registered there for nine years. So, in order to comply with the law, all Cavendish had to do was wait two more years for change of ownership to become available. Except that ADAPT didn’t have two years to spare. Thanks to its agreement with the Prime Minister, it has to meet government targets on a very strict schedule, and is subject to a system of fines if this is not achieved. Cavendish’s failure to notice the problem earlier suddenly looked like gross incompetence.

  “Then, during the clearance of the ground, one of the construction workers, Terry Delaney, discovered the deed in the remains of the well. Delaney went to Cavendish to ask his advice about what to do. I think we can guess that Cavendish offered to take care of the matter, because we know from his assistant just how driven and paranoid he was about his career. The architect made a disastrous move: He invited the construction worker to lunch – was his plan to get him drunk? – and during the course of this charm offensive, Delaney grew suspicious, resisting offers and even threats from Cavendish about handing over the deed. Instead, he announced that he would find the rightful owner and return it himself.

  “This is the point at which Cavendish had his hopes dashed; he realised that Delaney was smart, decent and determined to do the right thing.

  “Of course, it was the worst possible outcome for the architect. Now Cavendish got himself into a panic. He set out to find someone who could burgle Delaney’s flat. Of course, if there was a burglary, Delaney would have a certain amount of justified suspicion about who commissioned it. But it was a chance Cavendish was desperate to take; he’d already sailed close to the edge of the law on a number of previous occasions. And Mr Fox was fully prepared to go further than mere B and E. Cavendish emptied his bank account and paid his man some cash up front – perhaps he went through a go-between to do so – but he bought himself a far more serious criminal act: murder.

  “Mr Fox broke into Delaney’s flat, and meticulously searched for the deed. If he didn’t find it, he would be able to offer photographic proof that he had been there and had ransacked the whole flat.

  “But Delaney came back from work early. He was a gentle man, and before he knew what was happening – probably while he was still trying to reason with the intruder – Fox stabbed him in the neck with the skewer. Then he carried Delaney’s body downstairs into an unmarked white van. Mr Fox says the vehicle wasn’t his, but we’ve yet to find out who it did belong to.

  “It was late afternoon, the locals were still at work; he timed it well and he knew how not to be noticed. Fox remembered the empty store on Caledonian Road from a conversation he’d had with a local property agent. The shop was full of plastic sheeting and buckets, and even had a freezer. Using the surgical skill he’d been taught by Professor Marshall at the morgue annexed to the St Pancras Old Church graveyard, he severed Delaney’s head. Then he shoved the body in the freezer, taking the head away with him. He rightly figured that the mutilation would delay the identification process.

  “At this point we have to leave Delaney for a minute and backtrack a little, because by now another murderous situation had arisen. It’s the sort of thing that could only happen in a place like King’s Cross, where so many stories overlap simultaneously.

  “A man on the wrong side of the law is always on the lookout for work. Mr Fox had met a man named Richard Standover, who needed a similar task performed on his rival, Adrian Jesson; a robbery that had to take place before Jesson moved his collection of rare Beatles memorabilia to a more secure venue. Like Cavendish, Standover was disturbed by the thought that if a crime was committed, suspicion would fall on him. It was just meant to be a burglary, but perhaps Mr Fox was filled with the adrenaline of his earlier kill – ”

  “Oh, really,” May protested. “Supposition, Arthur.”

  “So what? We’re not in a court of law. Anyway, Mr Fox visited Jesson and murdered him, taking away the precious packet of photographs. He drove the body to York Way and dumped it on the deserted waste ground in the early hours of the morning. Then he delivered the photographs to Standover. This time he was a little more circumspect about what he told his client. But he didn’t realise that Standover and Jesson operated in a very small world, one rife with rumour and gossip, and that it wouldn’t be long before Standover discovered that his rival was dead. Standover had no qualms about hiring someone for a little larceny, but he certainly hadn’t agreed to murder. However, Mr Fox was nothing if not ingenious. He told Standover that he had bought his client some time, and encouraged the collector to leave the country fast.”

  “What do you mean, he bought him some time?” asked Longbright, bewildered.

  “Mr Fox is no ordinary criminal. He’s a networker. No knowledge goes to waste. He learned burglary skills by spending months with the local locksmith. He made friends with Alexander Toth and was taught to appreciate his hometown’s history. He found out about the empty shop from the estate agent. He investigated our own backgrounds. He was employed by the vicar of St Pancras Old Church, Charles Barton. He knew about boundary lines – which follow the ancient lines of the parish – as well as the area’s mythology. And he discovered there was a strip of land running through the area not covered by either of the local police forces, which was why he left the bodies there. He wanted to provide Standover with some room to run or concoct an alibi before Jesson’s corpse turned up. It made sense to put the coincidence of the two deaths to some use. So he severed Jesson’s head, and switched it with Delaney’s.”

  “Wait a minute, you’re saying Fox changed the identification expecting no-one to notice?” Banbury gave a look of disbelief.

  “It probably occurred to him when he took off Jesson’s clothes to get rid of the evidence. Jesson and Delaney were very similar in body type and colouring. They were also alike in height and weight. Tanned, dark, minimal body hair. He was certain both bodies would be badly decomposed by the time they were discovered. He cut the second corpse in the exact same manner as the first, severing carefully between the cervical vertebrae; he’d been taught by a surgeon, after all. So when the body was dug up by workmen, we
thought for a moment that we’d found Delaney, whereas in fact we’d found Jesson. Mr Fox didn’t expect anyone to find the remains of Terry Delaney for a while, but unfortunately for him they were discovered first by Bimsley here, setting us on the right track. Thanks to the boundary line, even the police didn’t know who would be in charge of the investigation. Mr Fox is the eyes and ears of the neighbourhood. He says he asked around and was told that some disgraced unit would be handling the case, that they had no forensic equipment, no legal powers. And then he probably watched and saw me doddering out of the building. He knew we were being forced to work from physical evidence without access to police databases.”

  “How would he know that?”

  “Because he talked to one of us. Didn’t he, Meera?”

  “Oh, my God.” Meera’s hand went to her forehead. “That was him? I was just having a cigarette outside. He started to tell me about the building, how it had once been owned by a Satanists’ society, how he didn’t think it was habitable. I didn’t mean – ”

  “That’s what he does. He ingratiates himself. He draws out the knowledge he needs from others.”

  “I’m amazed he could get anything out of her,” said Bimsley grumpily. “She won’t even talk to her colleagues.”

  “I imagine that if you compared your notes on him with everyone else who had undergone the same process, you would all describe him differently. He’s colourless unless adopting a role, like a character actor who only comes to life onstage. So, now Mr Fox decided to clean house. First he took care of the complaining Cavendish.”

  “Why did he cut off Cavendish’s head?”

  “Because of what Xander Toth had told him about the history of the area – the severed heads, the sacrifices. He saw how appropriate his behaviour had been to date. Was it accidental, or the subconscious act of a sensitive? No matter; the more he kept to the same methodology, the more it placed Toth under suspicion.”

  “He told you all this?” Banbury asked.

  “For a multiple killer, he seems anxious to get everything off his chest,” said May.

  Bryant glared. He hated interruptions. “When he discovered that Richard Standover had been told that his rival was dead, Fox went after the remaining man who had hired him, before Standover decided to talk to anyone else. Which brings us to Toth. Mr Fox’s relationship with Xander is a rather interesting one. Not only did he use Toth’s detailed knowledge of the area, he was encouraged and inspired by him. But it still didn’t stop him from making Toth a scapegoat. He planted fur from Toth’s outfit on Cavendish’s body, and all the while, continued to be his friend. Fox kept a mental note of the wasteland near the railway; it was an ideal place to leave a body. He persuaded Toth to continue dressing as the stag-man – not that I suppose he took much persuading – thinking it would keep workmen away from the site. Instead, Toth, ever the showman, attracted unwelcome attention, and finally had to be dealt with.”

  “Why did he bother to take him to the temple? Why not just kill him?”

  “As we were interviewing Mr Fox, I wondered if he might have come to trust in the power of the area’s protective mythology. He had beheaded his victims in the time-honoured fashion. He had acted in accordance with the traditions of the region. And he had seen the figure of Saint Helena on the wall of the temple. Saint Helena, the British equivalent of the Roman goddess Diana, the huntress, upon whose temple St Paul’s itself now stands. But she was more than this. She was a symbol of the river Fleet, from whence came the Bagnigge well beneath the church. Mr Fox even lived above the site of the original spring. How could he not have felt the hand of destiny pressing heavily upon him? It seemed entirely appropriate to bring matters to an end by sacrificing Toth to Saint Helena. By returning Toth’s spirit to the well, Fox would close this chain of bizarre and disastrous events. It makes me think of the Stockholm Syndrome, only in reverse; the felon came to believe his victim.”

  “Bloody hell.” Renfield drained the rest of his tea in one gulp. If he had not believed in Bryant’s powers before, he did now. “What set you off in the right direction?”

  “One question John had asked kept buzzing around inside my head. If Mr Fox had gone to the trouble of cutting off the heads, why would he then allow the first two to turn up? There had to be a purpose to such extravagant executions, and it could only be to misdirect us away from the commonplace issue of identification. But once he’d started following the pattern of the past, he couldn’t stop. The third death had to be similar to the others in order to implicate Xander Toth. There was only one way to bring the cycle to an end: sacrifice the man who had accidentally encouraged him to initiate it. Such acts are rare but not uncommon.

  “I must confess Mr Fox fascinates me. I’ve never encountered such a mentality before. He’s psychotic, brazen, and in his own way, supremely rational. The thing I want to concentrate on in our next interrogation session is his real identity. On that subject he has so far refused to be forthcoming.”

  “I have a question.” April timidly raised her hand. “If Mr Fox found nothing in Delaney’s flat, who has the deed to Camley Lane?”

  “Come on,” said Bryant, pleased with himself. “You can work this last part out for yourselves.”

  Everyone looked at each other blankly.

  “Delaney liked studying historical records at Camden Council. So naturally, he sent the deed to the one man who could trace its rightful owner – Ed Tremble, Camden’s land purchase advisor. I spoke to him a few minutes ago. Thanks to our rubbish postal service the delivery was only made last night, but it’s still in time to be registered in Ellen Porter’s name. Now she can decide whether to sell it or not.”

  “So you set out to catch a stag and ended up with a fox,” said Banbury lamely. Nobody laughed. “What happens now?”

  “After we’ve formally charged Mr Fox, it will fall upon me to make Mr Faraday’s life a living hell. I’ll demand a full reinstatement of our powers, our equipment and, most importantly of all, our salaries.”

  “Did you torture Fox?” asked Longbright. “I mean, how come he volunteered so much information? Why would he do that unless he knew he could get off?”

  “Or get out,” said April suddenly. “You said he studied with a locksmith. Who’s guarding him?”

  “Liberty,” Longbright found herself calling out. The back of her neck prickled with ice.

  They all ran for the stairs, Longbright leading. The holding room was on the third floor. As Longbright climbed, the sense of dread deepened within her. They entered the dim corridor. She saw the dark, prostrate bulk and her stomach turned.

  Liberty DuCaine was lying on his side across the hall floor. The boards were bisected by a single spray of arterial blood, as thin as a line of red ink from a fountain pen. DuCaine’s right hand was cupped below his left ear. He had tried to staunch the flow from the puncture wound, but the skewer had been pushed deep in one thrust before being swiftly removed.

  “No,” said Longbright, reaching out for the wall, “not him.” She dropped down beside DuCaine and felt his neck for a carotid pulse, then began to massage his heart, but experience had taught her that it was already too late.

  She tried to follow the path of the wound. Could the skewer have pierced his brain? Mr Fox had received some form of medical training, hadn’t Bryant told them that? A single centimetre would mean the difference between death and survival. The attack had been so sudden that DuCaine had fallen before he could call out for help.

  She continued to press his chest, to ensure there was pressure to take the blood to his heart. Death or brain damage, she thought angrily. One moment of lost concentration and this is what it causes.

  “I’ve got an ambulance coming,” May said. “Leave him, Janice. He did a pretty good job of blocking the blood flow. Don’t move him. Any extra movement now could disrupt the clotting.”

  “I’ll go with him,” said Longbright, numbly brushing her hair from her face. There was nothing more to be done, but she found
it impossible to look away. As the medics arrived and took over, she rocked back on her heels, watching DuCaine’s immobile face. She willed him to see her one more time, to register her presence before he was removed and placed out of her reach within the system, but there was no flicker of sentience.

  May checked the holding room and found the door wide open. The lock was undamaged. It had been firmly closed, but Mr Fox had managed to spring it. He had jumped DuCaine as he left the room. May didn’t understand; they had carefully searched their suspect for weapons upon arrival at the PCU. They had taken his shoes and most of his clothes, and checked his underwear; he had nothing on him. What the hell had they done wrong? What had they overlooked?

  “My God.” With difficulty, Bryant knelt and held Longbright tight. “I’m so sorry, Janice. This should not have been possible. We thought he’d be safe there. I’ll never forgive myself – ”

  “You have to get that bastard,” whispered Longbright, pulling away and looking at Bryant with a ferocity he had never seen before. “I don’t care what you have to do. If you don’t catch him, Arthur, I swear to you I will.”

  ♦

  Mr Fox slipped between the backpacking Italian students pouring out of King’s Cross tube station. He had perfected a way of insinuating himself through the tightest crowds without ever touching anyone. He paid cash for a ticket so that it would leave no record, and avoided the searching gaze of each hidden camera with ease.

  He was glad his little trick had come in useful; it had been incredibly difficult to master. He had secreted the silver skewer in his throat by attaching a piece of fishing nylon to a tooth, an old trick used by drug smugglers to sneak their personal stash through customs. He was surprised he had been able to hold it there for so long without gagging while they removed his clothing. Transferring it back into his armpit without anyone noticing had been the easy part.

  He was disappointed with Bryant and May. He had expected to outwit them, but thought they would at least be able to discern his purpose in taking Xander Toth through the tunnel to the church and dressing in the mask. He had been about to place the Fox’s head on Toth when the detectives arrived.