Kirkpatrick ran his finger down the page, looking for the relevant section. ‘Here we are. “We could find no steps within half a mile of Montague House.” That’s the building which existed before the British Museum.’ He went on:
‘We were almost out of hope, when an honest man who was at work directed us to the next ground adjoining to a pond. There we found what we sought, about three quarters of a mile north of Montague House, and about five hundred yards east of Tottenham Court Road. They are of the size of a large human foot, about three inches deep. We counted only seventy-six, but we were not exact in counting.’
He closed the booklet. ‘Now, Southey’s directions don’t match other descriptions, so we think he was guessing about the location. Some put the prints beside a Baptist chapel on Keppel Street, where Senate House now stands. The librarian of Lincoln’s Inn first showed Walsh the steps twenty-eight years earlier, and he remembered them being there at least thirty years, and the man who first showed them to him about thirty more. The story of the duel caught the public imagination. Right through the nineteenth century playwrights produced dramas about the phantom footsteps. We’re pretty sure now that they were just north of Senate House and in front of Birkbeck College, on the remains of the old Torrington Square. The piazza was recently rebuilt, and suddenly the footsteps have reappeared.’
Bryant was unconvinced. ‘As much as I adore old London legends, this one seems pretty hard to swallow. Why would they come back now?’
‘I’m sure psychogeographers would be happy to offer all kinds of explanations about the past pushing up through the soil,’ said Kirkpatrick as he put the pamphlet away. ‘I think it’s a load of old bollocks, but the odd part of this particular legend is its longevity. Three centuries is a long time to keep up a hoax, don’t you think?’
* * *
—
On his way home that night, Bryant considered the point. Three possibilities loomed before him. First, perhaps it was just chance that the grass had worn away in a similar pattern. Second, students who had read about the legend could have decided to re-create it. Or third, somebody knew and was using the story for reasons of their own.
He could not resist returning for one more look at the footprints. The grass around the edges of the prints appeared to have been burned. Kirkpatrick had said that the footsteps went from top to bottom, and when Bryant put the grass under his magnifying glass he found that the professor was right. The leaves were crushed at the heel and dragged at the toe, indicating a clear direction. There were just fifteen individual footprints altogether, not forty pairs, and some of them were only partial.
Bryant hauled himself upright and followed the footprints back. On either side of him were rows of postwar college buildings, but the nearest block appeared to be lived in. He stopped a young Lebanese woman weighed down with folders that looked about to slide out of her arms.
‘Excuse me, what’s in that building?’
‘They’re using it as temporary student accommodation until the new dorms are finished,’ the student explained before hurrying off.
He entered the reception area and showed his PCU card to the girl at the desk.
‘Are you here about Alysha?’ she asked.
‘Why should I be?’ Bryant countered, removing his hat. ‘Did something happen?’
‘Sorry, I thought you knew,’ said the girl. ‘The police were here before. Alysha died here last Thursday evening. Nobody’s told us what happened.’
* * *
—
‘Alysha Hussein, twenty-one,’ said Bryant, dropping into his desk chair and sliding a page across to his colleague.
John May raised it and squinted. ‘It’s very small type.’
‘If you weren’t so vain you’d wear glasses and be able to read things properly. She was found unconscious in her room overlooking the square at eleven forty-five P.M. last Thursday. At first the admitting doctor at UCH thought she’d suffered heart arrhythmia. Your heart rate is usually between sixty and a hundred beats per minute but it can become irregular.’
‘I’ve read about that somewhere,’ said May. ‘Doesn’t it particularly affect people in their early twenties? Students have been known to die in their sleep.’
‘Exactly. They’re supposed to be more at risk because they suffer from stress, and that’s what this was put down to.’
‘So why has it come to your attention?’
‘Because her father kicked up a fuss and got a second opinion. And this time they decided it was something she ate.’
‘Students eat a lot of rubbish,’ May remarked. ‘I lived on tins of tomato soup and packets of processed cheese at college. I imagine today’s students are more conscious of what they eat. What did she consume on Thursday evening?’
‘She was seen sharing a takeaway with a friend, sitting on a concrete bench outside her flat.’
‘Have you spoken to the friend?’
‘Nobody knows who it was. The girl who saw them together recalls he was male and young, around the same age as her, possibly of Middle Eastern extraction, that’s all. But here’s the funny thing. They were eating the same meal from a silver foil container.’
‘So he would have got sick, too.’
‘I called the college infirmary but they’ve had no cases of food poisoning reported. We don’t know if he became ill because we can’t find him.’
‘Can we even get involved?’ May asked. ‘Is this our case?’
‘It falls under our remit,’ Bryant replied. ‘I’m going to ask for an analysis of her stomach contents.’
An hour later, the breakdown of ingested foodstuffs came in from the pathologist. ‘An excessive amount of dichlorophenoxyacetic acid,’ said May, tapping his laptop screen. ‘Not enough to kill her on its own, but there are several other unspecified trace chemicals in her system. So if we find who she was with…’
‘…and he’s not sick, we could be looking at murder,’ said Bryant, raising an eyebrow.
The door handle suddenly rattled. ‘Why is this thing locked?’ called Raymond Land.
‘Do you have your membership card?’ Bryant called back.
‘No, I came out in a rush and left it at home.’
‘Then you can’t come in.’ He shot a cheeky look at his partner.
‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ their superior complained. ‘Unlock it at once.’
‘We’re admitting you this time,’ said Bryant, opening the door, ‘because we’re keen to show you that the management listens to its members.’
‘I’m management, not you,’ said Land testily. ‘I’ve told you before, you cannot turn government-owned rooms into private clubs. What’s this about you making requests to UCH about a case? You need to run it by me first.’
‘We didn’t want to trouble you with it,’ said Bryant. ‘It may be nothing.’
‘If it cuts into your time I have to charge it back. Why didn’t it come to us in the first place?’
‘Because according to this, the coroner hasn’t posted anything conclusive yet,’ said May. ‘She’s trying to avoid an open verdict. Perhaps we can help her.’
Behind them, the door unlocked and Janice Longbright came in.
‘How did you get in?’ asked Land, amazed.
‘I don’t need my membership card,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got a VIP pass.’
‘Well, obviously there’s a two-tier membership system in place,’ Bryant explained. ‘I didn’t mention the case because we don’t know what we’re dealing with yet. Janice, did you get anything?’
Longbright dropped some notes on the detectives’ conjoined desks. ‘Everyone says Alysha Hussein was a good student and a hard worker, majoring in urban sociology. Nondrinker, nonsmoker, no one she was especially close to, not much of a mixer. Very quiet. Plenty of people saw her around but not many spoke to her. A
pparently her father examined her dorm room after the emergency services had been through it, but he found nothing unusual.’
‘So based on a single witness report it looks most likely to have been food contamination,’ said May.
‘She met someone she liked enough to share his meal,’ said Bryant.
* * *
—
That evening at seven, May, Bryant and Longbright set off for the old Torrington Square site together. The pleasant weather had been knocked aside by a thunderous sky that chose to empty itself just as they moved beyond the shelter of the plane trees. The college’s quadrangles and open passageways were now deserted, and had a melancholic, forlorn air. When they reached the corner of the square they found it harder to find the footprints in the rain.
‘The legend has them reappearing throughout history,’ Bryant said, pointing down at the bald patches.
‘You do realize this is completely bonkers?’ said May. ‘If we want to find out what happened to her we should talk more to her friends.’
‘And we will,’ Bryant replied. ‘I have a feeling about this. Someone has heard of the legend and is using it to bring us in.’
‘No, Arthur, even you didn’t know about it and had to be told by that mad head-banging professor.’
‘I don’t understand, either,’ said Janice. ‘How did you get from the footprints on the lawn to a dead student?’
‘I followed them back.’ Bryant pointed up at the student’s window behind them.
‘So what happens if you follow them forward?’ asked May.
The trio looked through the falling rain towards the grey building in the lower right-hand corner of the square.
* * *
—
There were seven males and fourteen females renting rooms in the block at the opposite corner. Four of the male students were Caucasian and two others were away, leaving a single economics student, Raj Kamesh.
May’s knock was answered by an exhausted-looking stick insect with bed hair and a distinct odour of weed hanging about him. His room looked like it had been turned on to its ceiling and suddenly righted. After the preliminary introductions had been made the group invited itself in. May crossed to the window and noted that Kamesh had a clear view of Hussein’s flat. He could see into the kitchen and bedroom.
Bryant was about to start questioning the student when Longbright stayed his hand and stepped in. ‘It’s just a formality,’ she explained gently. ‘We think a friend of yours may be in trouble. How long have you known Alysha Hussein?’
Kamesh’s eyes widened, making him even more insectlike. ‘Alysha?’
Longbright knew he was buying time to think of an acceptable answer, so she kept talking. ‘She’s virtually your neighbour. You grabbed a bite to eat with her last Thursday, remember? You were seen on that bench over there. What were you eating?’
‘What? Ah—I don’t—’
May held his breath. It was obvious that Kamesh knew her. The question now was whether he would admit it.
‘The people who saw you guys thought it was noodles—was it noodles? We think there may have been a hygiene issue with the food preparation—did you get gastric problems afterwards? Alysha did…’
‘Yeah, I had a bad stomach.’ Kamesh pulled his hair straight. ‘I was up all night.’
May breathed out, relieved. ‘Have you seen her since?’ he asked.
‘No, I’ve been trying to catch up on my coursework.’
‘How well do you know her?’
‘I just see her around sometimes and we get something to eat.’
‘Where did you go for the food?’ asked Bryant.
‘There’s a pop-up on the quad called Curry in a Hurry.’
‘So it was a curry you ate last Thursday. One last thing.’ May stopped in the doorway. ‘What did you take?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Kamesh looked even more confused.
‘For your stomach, when you got sick. What did you take for it?’
‘Oh. Nothing, it wasn’t serious. What is this about, anyway?’
‘Let’s hope it’s nothing.’ Bryant’s smile did not inspire confidence.
* * *
—
The detectives took Colin Bimsley with them, as he had something of a reputation as a human waste-disposal unit. The next day at 11:30 A.M. the curry stall appeared as part of the Bloomsbury Farmers’ Market at the north end of Torrington Square. The pop-up was covered in red and yellow bunting, and had rows of gaudy condiment bottles lined up along its counter.
‘You eat more curries than anyone I know,’ said Bryant. ‘You can tell us if it’s any good.’
‘Are you going to judge that by whether it kills me?’ Colin asked. ‘I love a good Ruby Murray but I don’t want to die over one.’ He turned to the proprietor. ‘Can I get a pork vindaloo with extra habaneros?’
‘Make it really hot,’ said Bryant, digging for change.
The girl behind the counter pointed to the condiments. ‘The ones at the end are the hottest.’ She handed him a bottle of water. ‘You’ll thank me for making you buy this.’
‘Oh well, in for a penny.’ Colin selected two of the most lethal-looking spices in the row, then added a third.
They took him to the bench and sat him down, waiting. ‘Don’t all look at me,’ he said, unwrapping his spork and peeling the cardboard lid from his curry container.
While May waited for Colin to eat, he looked around and spotted a green plastic gardeners’ hut in the corner, wedged between two hedges. ‘Where was the witness when she saw them?’ he asked Janice.
She pointed to the edge of the quadrangle. ‘Somewhere over there, coming out of the main hall.’
‘Quite a distance.’
‘She insists she saw them clearly.’
Bimsley was tucking in. After five minutes he wiped his forehead and blew his nose. At ten he started sweating profusely.
‘What do you think?’ asked May.
‘There are noodles and slices of mango in here, which is just wrong.’
‘Apart from that.’
‘I think it’ll take six weeks for my taste buds to grow back.’ Bimsley fanned his mouth. ‘I shouldn’t have added any more chillies.’
‘Condiments,’ Bryant repeated, his eyes narrowed. ‘Hm.’
‘I hate it when you make your eyes shrink like that,’ said May. ‘Like you know something the rest of us haven’t figured out.’
‘I think I do.’ He rose from the bench. ‘Colin, thank you for your help. I’d love to stay and listen to you eat longer, but I have work to attend to.’ He drifted off, thrashing at some litter with his walking stick.
‘You heard the old man—work,’ said May, rising. ‘We need to talk to anyone who knows Kamesh. I know he studies economics, not English history, and there’s no earthly reason why he should know about these stupid footsteps, but I’m starting to have my doubts about him.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Colin, attempting to fold the foil container in half without squirting curry down his jacket.
‘He says he was up all night, then says he took nothing for his stomach because it wasn’t serious. It felt like a lie. I don’t think he got sick.’
‘Are you always this suspicious?’ Colin asked.
‘Of course,’ said May. ‘I’m a cop.’
* * *
—
Over that afternoon they found half a dozen students who were prepared to offer an opinion on Raj Kamesh:
‘He’s very ambitious. He’s running this big-deal start-up at night. I don’t know when he ever sleeps. There’s a girl who likes him. How much? Oh, a lot.’
‘He told me he doesn’t have time for a relationship right now. He needs to get on with building his career. He’s got no social skills and isn’t interested in other people.’
‘The girl was sending him little notes all the time and driving him nuts. No, I don’t think anyone spoke to her much, she was kind of shy. He said he would deal with it.’
‘Were they together? Not to my knowledge. He’s not much fun to be around, but she liked him for some reason. All Raj ever does is work.’
‘Well, I think he showed an interest at first, then he realized she was going to be too needy. He’s behind on his coursework because he spends too much time building his online company. He has nothing left for anyone else.’
And finally:
‘I think things were coming to a head. She was always hanging around the hall waiting for him. He told a friend of mine he was going to get rid of her.’
* * *
—
‘What do you reckon, John?’ Bryant asked the next morning, creaking back in his desk chair. ‘Do we have enough to make a case?’
‘What, he couldn’t get rid of her so he killed her? Don’t you think there are easier ways to deal with that situation?’
‘Kamesh is ambitious and prioritizes his career above everything else, and she was annoying him. He could have purchased rat poison and sprinkled it on her side of the curry.’
May tried to imagine the scenario and shook his head. ‘No, no. The thing about curry is that it’s gloopy, and Colin said it had noodles in it, which means it would have been impossible to separate it into two neat halves. He would have poisoned himself as well. Why am I even thinking like this? It’s your fault, you always assume people murder their way out of situations, and you know why? You love murders.’
‘No I don’t.’ Bryant looked quite horrified at the thought. ‘There is no circumstance on earth that allows one person to take the life of another. Although I’ll admit a certain fascination with devious minds.’
‘Tell you what, let’s have a little wager, you and I.’ May took out his fountain pen and found a sheet of paper. ‘I think I know what happened, and I have a way to prove it.’
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