The Memory of Blood

by Christopher Fowler

  The lights were on in the corner house behind Jamaica Road. ‘Who’s in there?’ Jack asked as they approached.

  ‘Five teens, three girls, two boys. One of the girls is fifteen and has a new baby. Their father lives there with his girlfriend. I think the original mother took off some years ago. And there are the grandparents—his, I think. None of them have ever held down legal jobs, the father and the grandfather have both served time for armed robbery, the oldest daughter has a soliciting record, the youngest son was admitted to a methadone programme at the age of fourteen. Anna’s mother reckons her daughter’s first mobile was taken by the middle boy. She saw him running away. The police searched the place and found nothing. The family know their rights.’

  ‘They always do,’ said Renfield. ‘It’s usually their one area of expertise. Let’s get this over with.’ He rang the doorbell, stepped back and looked at his watch, counting down.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Longbright asked.

  ‘There’s going to be a thirty-second gap while somebody checks us out from upstairs. That’s the trouble with families like the Hagans. The sheer bloody predictability of their behaviour.’

  Sure enough, half a minute later the door opened and they found themselves faced with the kind of man who was physically incapable of looking innocent. A shaved head, a bulldog face, a thick tattooed neck, the body pitched forward slightly on the balls of the feet, the arms barely restrained at his sides.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Renfield mentally checked Longbright’s list. This was obviously Joseph Hagan, the father, middle generation, an eight-year jail sentence behind him. ‘Joe, we need to talk to your boys for a minute. Are they around?’

  ‘You ain’t coming in.’

  ‘We don’t need to come in. But we’re not leaving until we talk to them.’

  ‘You ain’t from round here, neither. Show me your ID.’

  Renfield flashed his PCU badge. He hated its design. He would probably get more respect from waving his coffee loyalty card around. ‘It’s about Anna Marquand.’

  ‘She been complaining again? Her bloody mother wants to learn to keep her mouth shut.’

  ‘Anna Marquand is dead.’

  Joe’s voice dropped. If nothing else, he had respect for the dead. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. But it’s nothing to do with us.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was. Natural causes, very sudden.’

  ‘She been buried yet?’

  ‘No, not yet. The coroner’s inquest still has to be closed.’

  ‘But if it’s natural causes—’

  ‘The Unit doesn’t operate under normal police and medical jurisdiction.’

  ‘Let me know when it is. We’ll send flowers.’

  ‘Okay, but I’d still like to speak to Ashley Hagan.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got him ID’d for nicking her mobile phone.’

  ‘ID’d? Round here? You sure?’ Joe Hagan was clearly certain that no-one was brave enough to make a complaint.

  ‘He was identified by Anna’s mother.’

  ‘That old cow sits at the window all day looking for trouble. You can’t believe a word she says.’

  ‘Probably not. Listen, I’m not going to get a search warrant over a bloody phone, but I have to talk to him, just to say I did, okay?’

  Joe blew out through his teeth, thinking. ‘All right, stay there.’

  For once, Janice was glad that Renfield had accompanied her. She felt sure Hagan’s attitude would have been more obstructive and antagonistic with her. After a few minutes, Ashley Hagan came downstairs. Longbright immediately saw his past laid out before her. He was a user. She could discern the shape of his skull beneath his yellowed skin. His arms were covered in tattoos, the designs clearly traceable to around 2008. They’d been created to hide track marks. Since then he had probably switched to the backs of his legs. His eyes were turned off. He would steal anything, say anything when the need arose again.

  She had seen his type before. But he wasn’t the man who attacked her at the lido.

  ‘You’re Ashley Dean Hagan, twenty-two years old, yeah?’ said Renfield, checking his pad. ‘You know Anna Marquand of 14 Hadley Street, Bermondsey? Just say yes, lad.’

  ‘I seen her. Course I seen her. She’s like eight doors along. She had a fight with my sister over bins or summink, I don’t know. I seen her, though.’ Ashley’s speech was rapid-fire and anxious, the kind of speech you used when asking a punter for money and needed to get the sentence out quick before they turned and started to walk away.

  ‘You were seen taking her mobile phone, so let’s not even argue about that. But she’s dead and I want to know—’ He got no further. Ashley fell back and ran toward the rear of the house with surprising speed. A second later Renfield launched himself inside and Longbright followed.

  They ran through the house to the kitchen door, already thrown open, and out into a small square yard filled with children’s toys. Two chained bull mastiffs started jumping up and barking.

  Ashley was already over the rear wall. He had climbed on a crate left there for the purpose, and had kicked it aside with practiced ease as he went over.

  Longbright had seen this kind of manoeuvre many times before, and knew what to do. She doubled back to the front of the house and followed the side wall around. Families like the Hagans had chosen their position as carefully as English chieftains building fortresses. The intention was to confuse, but any officer worth their salt could see that only one direction led to escape. The boy needed to find crowds, not empty roads where he would stand out. And the only crowded area around here was the tube station, which meant cutting through to Jamaica Road.

  Longbright was ahead of Renfield, behind Ashley Hagan. She surveyed the scene ahead and saw his leg vanishing from sight. Renfield was strong but packed weight—the boy would be able to stay ahead of him. She was faster. Turning into Jamaica Road, she saw the streaming traffic and knew he would run out into it with the feral awareness of a fox or cat.

  He was dead ahead, vaulting the central railing, and she had no choice but to follow. A gap in the cars allowed her halfway. Renfield was closing behind. Hagan was all the way across. The new glass station shone in a row of unlit shops. She took a chance and ran, ignoring the squeal of tyres on tarmac, knowing she had just caused a truck to shift its load.

  A train had just come in, and Hagan was trying to lose himself in the discharge of commuters, but people moved aside because of the way he looked, revealing him.

  He was already over the barrier, and now Longbright knew there was a real chance of losing him, but as he pushed down the escalator, opening the gap between them, the moving staircase suddenly slammed to a stop, sending everyone forward. She looked back and saw that Renfield had hit the red emergency button.

  Three people had fallen but nobody seemed hurt. Hagan was blocked by a tumble of luggage that had pitched forward across the stairs. Locking an arm around his neck she pulled him back, checking his right hand to make sure it was free of a weapon. Renfield grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, and together they pulled him from the escalator.

  Longbright was surprised to see that Ashley Hagan’s face was wet with tears. The boy could not raise his eyes to hers and seemed barely capable of standing, so they sat him against the corridor wall, one on either side.

  ‘Get your breath back, son,’ said Renfield.

  ‘I didn’t know she was dead,’ he moaned. ‘Yeah, I took the phone but it wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t want to sell it. I took it ’cause it was hers, you know?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Longbright.

  He wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. ‘She was—special, you know? She stood up to my sisters. My sisters are bitches, and she stood up to them. An’ they wanted me to hurt her but I couldn’t so I just took the phone and kept it, because it was hers. ’Cause she was decent and I wanted—I can’t believe she’s dead. I don’ know how—’

 
; ‘She cut herself, a stupid accident,’ Longbright told him, bluntly. ‘Because she was still shaken up after being mugged.’

  ‘Wait, she can’t be dead. She can’t have died.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’re talking about the same thing, right? This was months ago.’

  ‘No, it was this week. She was attacked on Monday night and her phone was stolen from her shopping bag along with some keys.’

  ‘But that wasn’t me. I took her phone after she had the fight with my sisters, that was back in February. I’ve still got it at home. I can show you. Her mum will tell you it’s her old phone.’

  ‘Where were you on Monday night at around nine?’

  ‘I was at the clinic waiting to see my doctor. There was a long wait—the nurse knows me, she’ll tell you—’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘About ten-fifteen. They’ll tell you.’

  ‘Give me the address.’

  Ashley Hagan dug into his jacket pocket and handed over a grubby, creased card. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ he said again, looking for something he could not find in their faces.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Longbright, touching his shoulder. ‘Stay with your family tonight. Remember what she meant to you. Don’t let her down by doing something she’d have hated.’

  ‘The bloke who attacked me was older, heavier,’ Longbright told Renfield on the tube back. ‘He had a lot of upper body strength. He wasn’t wasted away like Ashley. I think he must have got away with whatever was in Anna’s locker.’ She turned to look at Renfield. ‘You don’t suppose this has anything to do with Arthur’s stuff, do you? His memoirs?’

  ‘I don’t see how. The old man’s indiscreet, but he wouldn’t put anything in there that was worth all this hassle.’

  ‘Civil servants have topped themselves over leaking sensitive material. Look at David Kelly. Or they’ve been killed by the Russians.’

  ‘You lot always seem to think there’s a conspiracy going on.’ Renfield said it disapprovingly.

  ‘That’s because sometimes there is.’

  At London Bridge they changed to the Northern line and flopped down into seats. The train was almost empty.

  ‘So, where did you learn all that stuff?’ Renfield asked.

  ‘All what stuff?’

  ‘The way you talked to Ashley Hagan. That don’t do anything she’d have hated. You know, being nice. He’s scum.’

  ‘He was a kid once. Now he’s half dead and in despair. He hates his family and he’ll never be able to get away from them. Kicking him around isn’t going to change anything.’

  Renfield had been a desk sergeant with the Met, where they behaved differently. He sat back, lost in thought as the train rattled through the tunnel, heading north toward King’s Cross.

  Saturday morning dawned but nobody noticed. It barely grew light. The sky had tilted and was moving fast. The racing clouds bulged so low that the spires of St Pancras threatened to tear them open. The lack of a rush hour today meant that most of the shops and offices in King’s Cross were shut, but the lights were on at the PCU. A seven-day policy had been placed in effect while the investigation remained active.

  Unusually, Raymond Land was the first one in. Last night Leanne had sent him an email saying that she couldn’t join him on their sailing holiday in the Isle of Wight because she had accidentally made a double booking. This morning she had gone off to a retreat in Wales to practice tantric yoga with an old family friend. In a way Land was quite pleased, because he needed to get the investigation closed, and was a lousy sailor.

  He made himself a cup of coffee, then wandered into Bryant’s room and stood before the case containing Madame Blavatsky. Looking around to check that he was alone, he felt in the coin slot for an old penny, inserted it and waited.

  The medium’s eyes glowed and buzzed. Her cogs turned, and she withdrew a card, jerkily reaching forward to drop it into the metal tray. Land plucked it out and turned it over. It read:

  NOBODY DOES YOGA IN WALES

  ‘Ah, there you are, mon petit oiseau tot.’ Bryant was standing in the doorway with a dreadful grin on his face.

  ‘What?’ said Land, shocked, tucking the card behind him.

  ‘Early bird. You. In early.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Couldn’t sleep.’ Mortified, he hastily dropped the card back into the tray.

  ‘Just as well. There’s a lot to get through today. We went to Ella Maltby’s house yesterday.’

  ‘Remind me?’

  ‘The set designer. She has a dungeon filled with people being tortured. Wax mannequins.’

  ‘How extraordinary.’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t exactly move her forward as a suspect. Questions, questions everywhere. The most obvious one—is the case closed?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did Gregory Baine hang himself? If he did, why did he take a Hangman doll with him? Could it be he committed suicide because he felt guilty about Noah Kramer’s death?’

  ‘Why would he have had reason to kill a child?’

  ‘You see, another unanswered question. Anyway, he didn’t kill himself, I’m just being theoretical.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Dan tells me the bulbs were burned out in the safety lights by the duckboards beneath the bridge. With the best will in the world Baine wouldn’t have been able to find his way to the hole in the boards and attach a rope. It was prearranged by someone else. And where are the motives? What are they? Revenge, profit, love—hate? Well, that one’s obvious, at least.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Hate. Somebody hates Robert Kramer very badly indeed. They kill his child. They kill his best friend. The pair owned a company together, Cruikshank Holdings. That’s what gave the game away.’

  Land looked lost. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The name Cruikshank.’ Bryant widened eyes and raised hands, expecting Land to get it. ‘Obviously Kramer chose it. George Cruikshank was the greatest-ever illustrator of Punch and Judy. His book is still the key text on the subject. I found details on the register at Companies House. Cruikshank Holdings operated out of the Cayman Islands. It was their nest egg, and Baine was in charge of it. He’d been making some heavy withdrawals. The rumour is that he played the Stock Exchange and hit a losing streak. Oh, Robert Kramer has the business sense but Baine was the money man. His death effectively destroys Kramer’s financial power, because Baine has been prevented from making the money back. There’s nobody else in yet—mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Oh, go on, then, just this once. It’ll help get rid of the smell of damp.’

  Bryant enthusiastically stuffed his pipe with Old Mariner No.2 Rough Cut British Navy Shag and lit up. ‘What’s the matter, old boot? You look like you have the cares of the world upon your shoulders.’

  ‘It’s just—’ For a moment, Land thought about confiding in Bryant. Then he came to his senses. ‘Nothing. I just want to get the case closed.’

  ‘Weren’t you supposed to be going on holiday today?’

  ‘I changed my mind. The case is more important.’

  ‘That’s impressive. Not like you.’ He cascaded a graceful funnel of blue smoke into the air. Land coughed.

  ‘There’s a terrible smell of burning rope on the landing,’ said John May, unbuttoning his coat and throwing a copy of The Guardian onto his desk. ‘Or someone’s hair is on fire. Oh, it’s you, Arthur.’

  ‘Raymondo’s letting me smoke today. I feel most privileged.’ Bryant swanned to his desk, wreathed in smoke, and flicked open the programme of The Two Murderers.

  ‘Well, it’s good to see both of you in the same place for once,’ Land said. ‘It seems to me the more time you spend together, the closer we usually get to a solution.’

  ‘I think he just complimented us, John. That’s a first. I had no idea you were capable of pleasantries, Raymondo.’

  ‘I don’t see why not, I was well brough
t up. Some of the older ladies in our family—’

  ‘Oh, my Lord! Older ladies!’ Bryant sat up suddenly, catapulted by his chair.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Older ladies! I’m a total idiot!’ He climbed onto his desk and began pulling at a dusty leather-bound volume at the top of the bookcase.

  ‘Do you want me to get that?’ asked May, concerned.

  ‘What did I say?’ asked Land, but nobody was listening to him now.

  ‘Why did I not think of it at the time? Somebody take this from me.’ Bryant passed Land the volume and toppled off his desk, just in time to be caught by May. The book was Twentieth-Century British Theatre, Volume 2 by A. A. Gingold. Bryant began feverishly searching it.

  ‘What on earth’s he so excited about?’ Land asked May, bewildered.

  ‘I really have no idea,’ May admitted.

  ‘Here it is,’ Bryant announced. ‘Of course. It all fits together perfectly. But we may be too late.’ He squirmed around in his chair, trying to get his arms into his coat.

  ‘For goodness sake, let me do it.’ May threaded one of his partner’s arms into a sleeve.

  ‘Have you got your car here?’

  ‘No, I got the tube in today, why?’

  ‘Then we need a cab. Hurry.’ With half of his coat still trailing on the floor, Bryant was pulling him toward the door like a dog that had been offered a walk.

  Out on the street it was just starting to rain. ‘Damn, the taxis will vanish in seconds,’ Bryant complained. ‘Wait, there’s one.’ He threw himself into the street, slipped in front of the taxi and nearly disappeared under it.

  ‘Where to?’ asked the driver.

  ‘The New Strand Theatre, Adam Street. Fast as you can.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about?’ asked May as they fell back in the seat.

  ‘Echoes,’ said Bryant enigmatically. ‘There are echoes everywhere. I thought there was something vaguely familiar about that blasted play when I saw it. Then when Raymond mentioned the older ladies in his family—you see, I was coming out of the performance and bumped into Ray Pryce. He mentioned that Ella Maltby kept wax dummies. And Maltby told us that the talent had always been in her family. Then I went to get a programme and had a bit of a row with the seller—’