“Your grandfather was a great friend of Arthur Bryant’s. He would be ashamed of you now, Mr Biddle.” Longbright slammed down the receiver just as the stack of boxes slid away beneath her.
To calm herself she went to her car for a cigarette. A young girl with a sharp face and scraped-back blond hair challenged her.
“This your motor? You gonna give me a tenner for saving your stereo?” Her hands were thrust defiantly into the cheap cotton of her jacket. Longbright presumed she was carrying a knife. “I’m a police officer. Fuck off before I arrest you.”
“You can’t arrest me, bitch.” The girl stuck out her chin. She was all of fifteen. Longbright knew without looking that she had track marks on the backs of her legs.
“I’ll think of a reason if I have to.” Longbright moved her aside and climbed into the car, quickly locking the door. She watched the girl walk back to her mates, feeling almost sorry for her.
A cigarette soothed her nerves. She exhaled smoke and sat back in the seat as sirens started up in the police station car park. Poor John, she thought. Wherever he is, he’ll have to figure this one out by himself.
∨ Full Dark House ∧
17
IMPRESSIONS
“There is no precedent for what we’re trying to create here, Mr Biddle,” explained Bryant. “There are no superior officers correcting our mistakes. The last thing I need is you going to Davenport and informing him of our progress.”
Bryant had received another scalding telephone call from the unit director about the amount of time the detectives had spent at the theatre, and he could have found out only through his newly appointed agent.
“I’m just doing my job,” said Biddle hotly. “Mr Davenport wants the matter cleared up quickly, and for the law to be observed. How else can he report back to the victim’s father? Your absence from the office contradicts – ”
“You don’t decide how I choose to work.” Bryant ran his hands through his floppy fringe and thumped down behind the desk, then dug about in a drawer for a packet of ‘Nervo’ fortified iron pills. Bryant did not enjoy the best of health, and was forever testing new cold remedies. In this case his cold symptoms were more to do with the resentment he felt at losing DS Forthright to something as pointlessly career-damaging as the state of matrimony. He studied Biddle resentfully. He had seen the type before. Thin-skinned, competitive, angry with the world. School had been filled with boys who saw everyone else as a threat. Half of them became so confrontational that they lost their friends by the time they left and ended up in the Territorials, where the war would take them.
“We can investigate this case in any way we see fit,” explained Bryant. “We have none of the prejudices of the regular police force.”
“You have none of the resources. No equipment. No manpower. They’ve given you nothing at all,” muttered Biddle. “That’s why they leave you alone, you don’t cost anything.”
“We have our minds, Sidney, the most powerful weapons we possess.” As far as Bryant was concerned, his office was a monk’s cell, a sanctified if incredibly untidy billet where acolytes concentrated on their devotions to the cause. It was not simply a cheap place to dump dead cases.
“You’ll see I’m using a blackboard,” Bryant pointed out. “I gave Mr May a chance to explain his audiophonic filing system and it failed to impress me, so I’m falling back on a tried and trusted method.”
“You didn’t give it a chance, Arthur,” May pointed out. “It’ll work if you just learn how to use the deck.” He had borrowed the cumbersome tape machine thinking it might help, but Bryant had managed to wipe the tape clean and irreparably damage the recording heads, although quite how he had managed to do it remained a mystery. It didn’t help that he kept magnets in his overcoat pockets. For Arthur this was the start of a lifelong stand against technology that would one day result in his crashing the entire central London HOLMES database and part of the air traffic control system at Heathrow. The young detective possessed that peculiar ability more common to elderly men, which produces negative energy around electrical equipment, turning even the most basic appliances into weapons of destruction. The more Bryant tried to understand and operate technical systems, the deadlier they became in his hands, until, at some point in the nineteen sixties, just after he had set fire to his hair by jiggling a fork in a toaster, man and machine had been forced to call a truce.
“So,” Bryant brandished a chunk of chalk, “Runcorn’s mysterious footprints suggest a second person at the death site, but not much else.”
“We can’t be sure who was in the theatre at the time,” said May, pulling on the overcoat he had borrowed from his uncle. The office was freezing. The radiators had packed up again.
“Everyone is required to sign in with – what’s his name?” asked May.
Bryant consulted his notes. “Stan Lowe checks members of the company through the rear stage door. Elspeth Wynter keeps an eye on the front of house. Geoffrey Whittaker sees everyone in the auditorium. Between the three of them they usually know who’s in the building. We’ll have a roll call by the end of the day.”
“She was a beautiful girl,” May pointed out. “Too beautiful for others to get close to.” The cast at the theatre had proven reticent on the subject of their friendships with the dancer.
“But somebody did, though, didn’t they?” said Biddle fiercely. “Maybe she led her boyfriend on, drove him to attack her. It happens all the time.”
“No, Sidney, ordinary murders do not happen like this. Most occur at home, within the family unit, where the perpetrator is a spouse, sibling or friend. War changes that. Crimes start to happen without reason, because people are upset, or angry, or just frustrated. Acts of violence are squalid, casual, mundane. Contrition, misery, fingerprints everywhere, children in tears. This death was absurdly theatrical, to mutilate someone in the home of Grand Guignol. That’s what makes it unique, that’s why the case has come here.”
“You think someone in the cast is trying to stop the production?”
“It’s unlikely to be anyone involved with the show, because they’re the ones with the most to lose. If you were working with Capistrania and had a violent grudge against her, why not wait until she left the theatre for the night? Why draw attention to your own workplace?” Bryant’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm. “There’s enough danger out there on the streets right now, what’s one more casualty? Go on, whack her over the head with a brick and dump her on a bombsite, who would know? Anything can happen in the blackout if you’ve a mind for it – a calculating, egotistical, opportunistic mind. One thinks of the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd and his theories of anti-magnetism, brilliant and deranged. The greatest dangers come from the man without a conscience. Look at the photographs of Hitler at Nuremberg two years ago, the deadness behind the eyes that denies humanity, just as it betrays the true darkness of the soul.”
May felt exhilarated around Bryant. He had always imagined that somewhere out there, away from suburban dullness, ardent young people were allowed to give freer rein to their thoughts. He felt as though he had arrived at a place he had always wanted to be. “How can you concern yourself with the mind of the murderer when it’s the victim who’s been done wrong?” asked Biddle hotly. “Because we can do nothing for the victim. John, surely you must agree?”
“I suppose so, but it’s difficult to set aside sorrow for the death of someone young.”
Over the years, the detectives argued so much that eventually their polarized altercations mellowed into the kind of bickering that passed for daily conversation in married households. Bryant was more receptive to unusual paths of thought. May’s attitude was flexible, but he seemed in a permanent state of surprise. He was warmer, more approachable. He empathized with victims. Bryant was the opposite. He hailed from a sphere of arcane textbooks and borderline beliefs. There was something mad about him, as if he had lived in the city for centuries. Biddle couldn’t imagine how his mind worked, or what had made him
place his trust in John May so quickly. Bryant appeared untouched by the horrors of war, except on a level of academic interest, and showed no capacity for kindness. May’s mental processes were easier to follow. Bryant just frightened people. He smelled of some weirdly pungent aftershave and looked like a distracted, misanthropic student. He trusted books more than other human beings.
Biddle was an observer. He stayed silent and noticed the things others missed. He could already feel the undertow of loyalties that might pull the two detectives in different directions. It was worth making a note of. In terms of career advancement, it could prove useful.
“Sidney, we seem to have lost you.” May pointed at the blackboard. “Points of correspondence in these footprints.”
Biddle studied the photographs pinned at the top of the board and tried to concentrate. “The design is similar in shape and dimensions, and there’s what looks like a faint worn area on the instep common to both,” he pointed out. “The moulded sole probably means plimsolls, which is good, given the distinctive patterns produced by different companies.”
“I noticed that many of the cast members wore a specifically styled stage shoe with a rubber sole like that,” added May. “What would you suggest we do with these prints, then?”
“They were made on lino and concrete respectively, so I’d try to raise a more detailed image with an electrostatic mat.” May knew that you could pass an electric charge through a sheet of foil layered between two sheets of acetate, photograph it at an angle that contrasted the surface, and it would reveal details of the shoe that might otherwise be lost.
“No need. I was informed that such shoes come from a specialist shop in St Martin’s Lane. That’s your job sorted out for the rest of the day, Sidney. Till receipts.” Biddle looked uncomfortable. “What’s the matter?”
“We should be looking for her enemies.”
Bryant’s face clouded. “What does forty-eight mean to you, Mr Biddle?”
“The first forty-eight hours are the most important in any murder investigation,” he mumbled.
“And would you mind telling us why that is?”
“The evidence starts to deteriorate.”
“Exactly. The physical surroundings of violent death become muddied. The people who knew this unfortunate young lady will still be around after those barely visible heel marks have gone.”
“I think what Mr Bryant is trying to point out,” said May, “is that no matter how hard we try to preserve the site, someone or something will stir the air, touch the floor, imperceptibly change the scene. The city we live in now is not the city we lived in five minutes ago.”
“Oh, but it is, John,” stated Bryant, annoyingly. “The growth circle sees to that.”
“I’m not sure I follow. Growth circle?”
“Natural forces create order out of chaos in specific sites, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I hardly think this is the time for an argument in semantics,” said May.
“It’s not semantics, it’s psychogeography. Ask yourself to name the most soulless and depressing central thoroughfare in London. New Oxford Street would be high on your list. Why? Because it’s a forced nineteenth-century creation; it was noted to be atmospherically dead when it was built, and it always will be. Natural growth fails in a spot that was artificial to begin with.”
“I must agree with that,” said Biddle, then quickly shut his mouth. “Fine,” said May, surrendering. “Would you like me to check out the number of murders in nineteenth-century Cambridge Circus, or shall we go back further, to the age of the Black Death, say?”
“Where we need to go is back to the theatre,” said Bryant. “You and I will take Miss Wynter’s tour of the building. We shall sense the impressions left behind on the air. The auditorium of the theatre, that’s where the drama is playing itself out.” He waved a warning digit at Biddle. “And not a word to Davenport, you, or I’ll put pinholes in your gas mask.”
∨ Full Dark House ∧
18
GRAND TOUR
Elspeth Wynter replaced the receiver and made a note in her theatre order book. Many of the Orpheus opening-night guests were unable to attend because of war commitments. Even so, word of mouth had provoked enough intrigue to sell out most of December. Audiences scented a success in the making. They recalled snippets in newspapers, heard wireless reports, remembered names, gradually assembled facts. The director was suitably infamous, the cast was on loan from the finest companies in the world, including Offenbach specialists from Lyon, and a strong whiff of scandal hung over the show. The play’s ribald new script had incurred the suspicion of the Lord Chamberlain; there was a rumour that he might have it banned.
Elspeth suspected that Helena Parole wanted to court controversy. She knew what would happen once word reached the censor’s office that this production featured virtual nudity, simulated sex and a salacious translation. There would be demands for its immediate closure. But the owner of the theatre company had apparently made contingency plans, though nobody knew what they were.
Elspeth climbed down off her stool and studied the figures. The production was to be the most spectacular depiction of Pluto’s Underworld ever attempted. The designs for Hades and Olympus were sure to provoke outrage – and generate welcome column-inches. But part of the original cast had been lost to ENSA commitments, most of the chorus girls were inexperienced and under eighteen, and good actors were scarce.
Across from the booking office, downstairs in the auditorium, she could hear the orchestra limbering up as rehearsals got under way. It was a special sound, unique to the theatre. Those tentative first chords told her that a new production had started, and that the public would soon be on its way.
It was cold in the foyer. In the last few days the close dampness of autumn had dissipated, to be replaced by diamond skies and too many freezing clear mornings. It meant that daylight raids could be carried out, and bombers had been sighted brazenly venturing deeper into the city. Messerschmitt 109s, fighters equipped to dart in and drop small-calibre incendiary bombs, were being seen more frequently. Everyone now recognized different aircraft by their outlines and the sounds they made. The Heinkels were German bombers, rearguarded by Junkers during night raids. Hurricanes and Spitfires were ours, and provoked cheers. Sometimes pieces of plane fell right into the road. Oxford Street had been knocked flat, as had the whole of Stepney.
On the first night of the Blitz, the East End fires had burned so fiercely that you could read a newspaper by their light in Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘Get-You-Home’ booths had been set up around town, staffed by officials who could explain alternative routes. Commuter trains were being bombed and strafed with machinegun fire. A direct hit had killed twenty in a Marble Arch subway. A group of teenage girls had been buried alive in a busmen’s canteen. Parachute bombs drifted through the dust-filled skies like deadly jellyfish, frightening the life out of passers-by. A bomb had destroyed a London perfumery, filling the air with the scent of tropical flowers. A sixteen-year-old boy had appeared in court charged with lighting fires to guide German aircraft inland, Nazi paraphernalia having been discovered in his bedroom. These were disturbing times.
Elspeth felt a draught across her legs and looked up, thinking that someone had opened one of the doors, but the entrance hall was empty. She was waiting for the detectives to return for their tour of the theatre. She instinctively knew when someone was in there with her – the foyer of the Palace was more familiar than her own bedroom – but now it felt different, tainted by death.
At the stage door, Stan Lowe set aside his newspaper and listened. The pastry girl in Maison Bertaux swore she had seen a body being carried out to an ambulance parked in Greek Street. Now Stan had been informed that Tanya had gone – you didn’t need a sixth sense to figure out that something wicked had happened to her. Dancers suffered falls that could wreck their careers in a single mistimed step, but to take someone out in silence suggested that she was dead.
> Although he had barely met her, it was the idea of bad luck befalling someone in the theatre that disturbed him. Acts of betrayal and revenge unfolded nightly beneath the proscenium arch, but something like this, with police and doctors spiriting away a covered body, felt like an ill omen.
As the sound of the orchestra died away, the balding velvet curtains tied back above the entrance to the stairs shifted slightly, as though a theatrical ghost had just brushed by them. Could somebody have come in and slipped past the window? The buzz of the stage intercom made him start, but he was thankful for something to occupy his mind.
♦
“The theatre first opened as the Royal English Opera House on the thirty-first of January eighteen ninety-one, five years before the first films arrived in London.” Elspeth Wynter pushed open the rear door to the stalls and led the detectives down the centre aisle. “It was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream for Sir Richard D’Oyly Carte, but the dream lasted only a year. Sullivan’s grand opera Ivanhoe was not the great success everyone had hoped it would be, and as no one else stepped forward to write an English opera, this magnificent building became the Royal English Variety Theatre, then the Palace of Varieties, and finally just the Palace.”
Elspeth had clearly conducted the tour before. Dressed in shapeless brown cardigan and skirt, she marched between the rows, pointing out details as she passed, keeping her voice in a practised low register. “We’ve lost the key to the left-hand pass door, and it’s been painted over so many times I doubt anyone could get it open without a chisel, so we have to use the right one. Stan Lowe keeps the key to that and won’t lend it out to anyone he doesn’t know. Follow me.”
Bryant watched Elspeth’s wool-clad bottom as she walked ahead and wondered what it was that attracted him to older women. He speculated on the idea of asking her out. “Is there any way of turning more lights on?” he asked.
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