Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart

by Christopher Fowler - Bryant

‘When was the last time it was used as a graveyard before Mr Wallace?’

  ‘About five years ago. And that was just for a funerary urn, I believe.’

  ‘Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Mr Wallace was buried there?’

  ‘Not really. He was placed in a fairly inaccessible corner of the gardens set aside for the remaining interments. I assume he had left a specific request in his will. Either that or he inherited the plot – they can be willed forward, so it would have already been paid for. Why, what happened there?’

  ‘Somebody dug out his casket last night,’ said Bryant, scribbling another note on a photograph.

  ‘Oh my goodness.’

  ‘Has there ever been any vandalism of the graves?’

  ‘Not at all. People barely notice they’re there. A high proportion of the gardens and squares in London have headstones in them somewhere. I think most of us consider it quite picturesque.’

  Bryant consulted his notes. They were still awaiting approval to interview the directors of the funeral parlour. ‘What do you know about Wells and Sons?’

  ‘Apparently it’s a very respectable, upmarket establishment. They’ve buried prime ministers and admirals, and even minor members of royalty.’

  ‘Well, if you think of anything unusual …’

  ‘I’ll tell you, of course. Or you could always pop round, Arthur. We could have a nice meal together.’

  Bryant bridled at the memory of a particularly emetic kidney casserole. ‘Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind the next time I’m very, very hungry,’ he said hastily, and ushered Quinten out.

  Amanda Roseberry was waiting for him when he returned. ‘Can I just say this?’ she offered in a tone that suggested nothing would stop her. ‘That interview wasn’t, strictly speaking, conducted in the manner we’re trained to follow?’ She spoke with a rising inflection, a habit Bryant had noticed was rife among young women of a certain class.

  ‘That’s because I don’t follow any prescribed pattern,’ he replied, gathering his notes. ‘It’s not an exact science.’

  ‘But you know her, you clearly have some kind of history – how can you be sure that’s not unbalancing the impartiality of the interview?’

  ‘Miss Roseberry,’ said Bryant patiently, ‘this city is a collection of tribal villages and, as in any tribe, there are some active and highly visible members and some who are never seen, either because they have something to hide or because they need someone else to speak for them. Over time, the visible ones become familiar to us and prove useful. And because we know them well, we know when they’re exaggerating or omitting information, so in many ways we get a better reading from them than we ever could from complete strangers. Over forty million people pass through King’s Cross Station every year, and a great many of them are visitors, which is why we need a few friendly faces, contacts on the ground like Mrs Quinten. If she remembers something more, I’m sure she’ll call us. In fact, I can’t imagine anything stopping her.’

  ‘But why not start with people who knew the dead man?’

  ‘Because I don’t yet have permission to start questioning a grieving family who probably have nothing to do with this. And because Mrs Quinten was the nearest and easiest to deal with.’

  Roseberry said nothing, but he could tell she did not approve. Bryant studied her and softened. He saw a pretty girl with a hairslide and expensive knee-boots and an air of entitlement, and thought about the years ahead of her. Either the realities of the job would leave her with a more sanguine attitude, or she would become disillusioned and give up. Whichever path she chose, there would be a series of unavoidable rude awakenings, and the last thing she needed right now was an annoying old man telling her how things had always been done in the past. Bryant was a firm believer in the power of history, but also understood that the future lay in the hands of the young.

  He returned to his office and eased himself behind his desk, his head filled with visions of London’s dead. I’ll join them soon enough myself, he thought, but I’d counted on eternal rest, not being disturbed by the living – or something even worse, waking up alive.

  ‘Stop that,’ said May, walking in. ‘I’ve seen that look on your face before, like a tortoise with a liver complaint. You’re getting maudlin. Come on, grab your coat; we’ve got a lead. We’ve an appointment with Thomas Wallace’s widow in twenty minutes, number twenty-seven, Marchmont Street, right on our doorstep if you’re up to walking. Banks just came through with full approval to go ahead. You might be right about her after all.’

  7

  THE PRICE OF FAILURE

  Bryant stopped before the grey-brick Victorian terrace and stared up above the ground-floor stripped-brick coffee shops. Plastic signs had been replaced with artisanal blackboards touting today’s specials. ‘These used to be slums when I was a nipper,’ he said. ‘I suppose they go for a million apiece now. The bookies and bucket shops have all become organic bakeries. Look at that, “Gluten-Free Dairy”. What does it even mean?’

  ‘Bloomsbury has become a fancy neighbourhood once again,’ said May. ‘The high-end publishers are moving back in. Remember when it wasn’t safe for a copper to walk down here at night? Apparently Thomas Wallace grew up in this street and never left.’ He rang the doorbell and stepped back. ‘His wife didn’t want to stay in the city, but he wanted his son to be in London. There can’t be many of the old families left now.’

  The door was opened by a small, tidy woman with the brisk air of someone who was not to be trifled with. It was clear from the look on Mrs Wallace’s face that she wished a great wind would come along and blow the detectives off her front step. Her auburn hair had been knotted in a severe bun that made her look impatient and cross.

  ‘We’re sorry to intrude at this difficult time, Mrs Wallace,’ May began. ‘We need to ask you questions about your husband.’

  ‘Yes, someone called Sergeant Renfield warned me you’d be stopping by,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to be of much use to you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll try not to detain you for more than a few minutes.’

  She held the door, barely allowing them enough room to enter. May could sense the widow’s hostility. They entered a gloomy narrow hallway lined with monochrome photographs of empty beaches and wild moorlands. Although the house was in a smart corner of Bloomsbury, the rooms were more penumbral and claustrophobic than in any Midlands sink estate. As he climbed around a pair of bicycles and was ushered into a bleak grey sitting room, May marvelled at the power of a desirable postcode.

  Bryant shot his partner a look. The room was furnished with a pair of uncomfortable-looking Swedish armchairs. An old oak table was covered in paperwork. ‘I’m trying to sort out Thomas’s documents,’ said Mrs Wallace wearily. ‘His insurance, his bank statements, I don’t know where any of it is.’ In the corner, her teenaged son – for there could be no mistaking the resemblance – had the lank black hair and kohl-rimmed eyes of what used to be called an emo but was now indie. May attempted to update his partner with a guide to teen tribes, but they changed too fast to keep track. The boy was sprawled sideways across a leather sofa, texting on his mobile, and barely bothered to look up at his mother’s visitors.

  ‘I’m Vanessa; this is my son, Martin,’ said Mrs Wallace. ‘Martin, at least sit up while there are others in the room. You’ll have to ignore him – he’s at the age where nothing is of interest unless it directly affects him. Hormones.’

  The sallow-faced boy was in his mid-teens, his legs angled awkwardly, his fringe falling over his eyes in a deliberate attempt to hide them. ‘The school has given him the rest of the week off,’ Mrs Wallace explained. ‘The loss of his father has affected him terribly.’

  ‘No it hasn’t,’ said Martin, barely lifting his eyes from the screen. ‘I’ll still go to school.’

  ‘Why don’t you go and make yourself something to eat while I talk to—’

  ‘John May,’ said May, offering a conciliatory smile. ‘And this is my partner,
Arthur Bryant.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Martin. ‘I want to stay and listen.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘It’s OK; I’m not going to embarrass you, if that’s what you’re worried about. Anyway, you’re the one who always gets upset.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true.’

  ‘Well, it is true.’ Martin stabbed at the phone, concentrating harder than ever. May sized up the situation. It was easy to see why the boy and his mother were at odds with one another. The rival for their affections had vanished, leaving nothing to separate them. By killing himself, Thomas Wallace had let them both down. He had proved that their love and loyalty were not reasons enough to remain alive. Now they were stuck with each other, united only in grief and confusion.

  May remained standing because no one had invited him to have a seat. Bryant plonked himself on one of the chairs, not so much sitting as falling wearily off his walking stick.

  ‘I know you already spoke to an officer, but this call is slightly different,’ May explained, handing her his PCU card, an old-fashioned habit that he found put people more at ease. ‘Mr Bryant and I head up a specialist unit that takes a unique approach to policing. It’s about trying to understand unusual situations, and making sure that they don’t happen again.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen again, is it, ’cause he’s dead,’ said Martin angrily.

  ‘You might want to show a little more respect in front of police officers, sonny,’ said Bryant, who did not enjoy children until they were mature enough to stop hating everyone over twenty. ‘Mrs Wallace, I understand you’ve been briefed about the events of last night.’

  ‘Yes, but I have no idea why something like this should have happened. He hadn’t long been – I mean, my husband was found dead on Wednesday and was buried on Friday morning.’

  ‘That was fast.’

  ‘Well, there were certain – circumstances. There was no church service to arrange. He took his own life.’

  ‘Mum,’ said Martin.

  ‘Well, he did. There’s no use pretending anything else, is there? I was asked to formally identify him. The local police recorded his position and appearance, and interviewed us to try and establish his state of mind. I think they also talked to his work colleagues. There was an external examination by a pathologist the same day, and he seemed satisfied enough to allow a death certificate. My husband wasn’t religious, but he had specified where he wanted to be buried.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather an unusual request?’ asked May.

  ‘Not in his case. Thomas was exact about everything.’ She made it sound like his curse and her burden. ‘His family used to own property in Bloomsbury, and both he and his father had a special dispensation to be interred in St George’s Gardens if they so wished. As it turned out, his father died overseas, but Thomas’s final wish was honoured. The funeral director was most accommodating.’

  ‘How did he die?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘I’m sure you must already have this written down somewhere,’ said Mrs Wallace, looking about herself as if trying to decide an escape route. ‘I found him hanged on the back of our bedroom door. The doctor was called, then the police. They’re required to notify you in cases of suicide, apparently.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said May. ‘I assume you spoke to the doctor to ascertain the … uh, circumstances of his demise?’

  ‘There was hardly anything to ascertain, was there? It appears that he showered and dressed for work, then went back upstairs and hanged himself. He left a note. I suppose you want to see it.’ She walked over to the sideboard drawer, gathered up a single slip of white notepaper and all but threw it at him. It read simply: ‘Vanessa, Martin – I’m sorry for the pain I will cause you both by this action, all my love, Thomas.’

  ‘Not exactly one of the greatest farewell letters in history, is it?’ she said. Her tone was acid.

  ‘He didn’t have anything left to say to you,’ said Martin, adding to the atmosphere of rancour.

  ‘It’s his handwriting, just in case you were wondering,’ said Mrs Wallace.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell us a little more about your husband’s state of mind,’ May asked.

  ‘Thomas had been diagnosed as bipolar some years before. He suffered from extremely debilitating bouts of depression. He was a partner in a small law firm in the City, handling a vintage wine merchant, some finance companies, an auction house. Things hadn’t been going well for a while. There was one particular client who had been giving him a lot of problems. That hardly explains why he should choose to take his own life, but I’m given to understand that such tragedies are rarely explicable.’

  ‘I can explain it,’ said Martin. ‘He was shit scared.’

  ‘Martin,’ Mrs Wallace hissed, clapping her hands together. ‘Can you please go and do something useful elsewhere?’

  The boy remained where he was, still staring at the screen of his mobile, a model of carefully studied self-absorption. ‘I’m not leaving,’ he said. ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘Do you have any theory of your own—’ May began.

  ‘Well, of course I have an idea. Two of the partners had been let go, the practice was about to declare bankruptcy, most of Thomas’s key clients had left, but even so he was in a perfectly good mood—’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Martin cut in. ‘He was worried sick about money. He worried about everything. The doctor always said—’

  ‘He wasn’t worried, it was just you saying that he was all the time,’ Mrs Wallace interrupted. ‘If you hadn’t kept on at him about his job – for God’s sake, put that bloody phone down for five minutes.’

  May knew he needed to break up the pair of them, or their testimony would be of no use to him. Mrs Wallace seemed to intend this as the final word on the subject, but Bryant had not yet had his say.

  ‘Perhaps we can go back to the morning of the suicide,’ he requested.

  Mrs Wallace gave a sharp little sigh of impatience. ‘We have a house just outside Windsor. I’d been down there the night before. Martin was here with his father—’

  ‘I never go to Windsor,’ Martin interrupted. ‘It’s full of disgusting old Tories down there. She’s the only one who likes it.’

  Mrs Wallace ignored him. ‘I came up to town early to do some shopping and walked into our bedroom. Thomas was hanging from the back of the door. He’d been dead for about an hour. Martin was still fast asleep in his room. I’m sure there’s a very detailed report you can read.’

  ‘I prefer to form my own impression,’ said Bryant. ‘Was it readily apparent to you how he died?’

  ‘Well of course. He had kicked over a footstool and strangled himself with his Old Harrovian tie.’

  ‘So there was no evidence of—’

  ‘Oh, please don’t say “foul play”,’ she snapped. ‘It’s bad enough that you have to come here just when we’re trying to put the whole ghastly business behind us.’

  ‘He kicked over a stool and didn’t wake up your son?’

  ‘I’m a heavy sleeper,’ said Martin.

  ‘Teenagers always seem to have the capacity to sleep through anything,’ said Mrs Wallace, a little more gently. ‘Martin’s studying for his examinations next year. He’s brilliant with technology. He may appear untouched by all of this but it’s having a terrible effect on him. He’s very sensitive. I suppose I’m more sanguine about such things. Thomas left his financial affairs in a terrible state. I’m dreading the thought of his accountant finding irregularities.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bryant. ‘Are there likely to be?’

  ‘Well, you hear about people being left in awful situations by their husbands, that’s all.’

  ‘Where was his office?’

  ‘In that funny building in the City, what’s it called …’

  ‘Number One Poultry,’ said Martin. ‘He could have jumped off the roof garden of the Coq d’Argent, that’s what all the fashionable suicides do these days.’r />
  May was dumbfounded. It was true that a number of bankers had thrown themselves from the garden of the building’s rooftop restaurant since the recession, but he was shocked by Martin’s callous attitude towards his father. He was about to move on from the subject when Bryant picked it up.

  ‘Why do you think he didn’t?’

  ‘What, jump from the roof of his office? I don’t suppose it occurred to him,’ said Mrs Wallace. ‘Too untidy.’ It was probably just the anger of bewilderment, but she sounded cruel. ‘He slept badly. He probably would have been awake all night worrying. He did that a lot.’

  ‘Forgive me, but your relationship with your husband sounds strained.’

  ‘You could say that. He wasn’t a strong man. He took everything to heart. As I say, he was about to be fired.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He lost a very big account, some kind of brokerage. They terminated their contract because of him. It was Thomas’s own fault, he admitted that himself. He lost the firm a fortune and only had himself to blame.’

  ‘We’re investigating the doctor’s verdict on your husband’s death,’ said May, ‘because my partner thinks he may have been wrongly declared dead when he was actually in a vegetative state, which would explain why he was able to briefly return to life on Sunday night.’

  That shut Mrs Wallace up. He hated to do it, but it was the only way to make them work together. It was better that the mother and son both hated him.

  ‘You mean he wasn’t dead?’ Martin asked. ‘But I thought you said someone dug him up. There’s some girl at school who knows what happened and she’s online saying that—’

  ‘There is an outside chance that he was still alive. If that proves to be the case, there may be cause to pursue a prosecution.’

  ‘That damned doctor,’ said Mrs Wallace with venom. ‘He was in such a bloody rush, doing too many things at once, taking phone calls, barely bothering to look at my husband.’

  ‘While we’re waiting for a more detailed medical report on Mr Wallace’s condition at the time of interment, I want to talk to a couple of his colleagues,’ said May.