Wild Chamber

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Tell me something,’ said May. ‘Do you think those hallucinations of yours served a practical purpose?’

  ‘Indubitably,’ replied Bryant. ‘I’ve spent all of my life trying to re-create London’s history and imagine what its residents would tell me if they could reach out across the years.’

  ‘So what have you learned?’ Colin wanted to know.

  ‘That the past is just a variation of the present, and that the future will twist the skein a little further. It’s not about the city; it’s about the people who inhabit it. If we stop talking to them – even the dead ones – we cease to learn about human nature.’

  ‘You think we can actually improve?’

  ‘With all my heart,’ promised Bryant, placing his hand over his ratty cardigan.

  ‘In that case I’m going to chuck out that bloody business manual.’ Land rose with renewed determination and strode from the room.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Longbright, ‘there’s hope for him yet. Who’s coming to the pub?’

  Everyone rose. ‘This is a tradition for you, I think,’ said Steffi, pulling out her scarf.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Longbright. ‘It’s been a pleasure having you with us. Will you be sharing what you’ve seen this week with your colleagues in Cologne?’

  ‘I think not, no,’ said Steffi, wrapping the scarf around her long pale neck. ‘They would not appreciate your methods, which I still believe are ridiculous and highly illegal. But for myself, I am’ – she sought the correct phrase – ‘made richer by your friendship, so I thank you.’

  ‘Then perhaps we’ll see you in Germany one day, Steffi,’ said John May.

  ‘Please,’ said Vesta, ‘call me by the name my friends use. Swan.’

  Raymond Land appeared in the doorway, looking shocked. ‘Well, I did it,’ he announced. ‘I threw the manual out of the window.’

  ‘That’s a result, Raymondissimo,’ said Bryant.

  ‘It caught the pigeon right between the eyes,’ Land admitted. ‘That’s put his beak out of joint.’

  ‘This calls for a proper drink.’ Renfield held out a hand to Longbright. Colin thought about doing the same but Meera shot him a look that could have punched a hole in a windscreen.

  Arthur Bryant had gone on ahead in order to secure a table in the pub. As he stood at the edge of the kerb carefully refolding his striped scarf over his bruised throat, he watched in amazement as a slender woman with bobbed blonde hair materialized on the other side of the road, stepping with one silver high heel in front of the other, as if she was on a catwalk. She wore a clinging, strapless silver gown, and a spotlight followed above her.

  Bryant was transfixed. The woman glided along the pavement, past the kebab shop and the Achilles’ Heels Shoe Repair Bar, past the Ladykillers Café and the Rooster Barn, singing as she went. None of the pedestrians seemed to react.

  ‘“All I want is a room in Bloomsbury …”’ she warbled in a high thin voice, but not even the people at the bus stop thought it odd. Passers-by behaved as if she wasn’t there.

  Bryant made his way across the road and watched in awe. As she approached he stood before her in the middle of the pavement, mesmerized.

  ‘Twiggy,’ he said. ‘I’m dreaming again. It’s 1966, isn’t it? England has just won the World Cup and I’m in love with you!’

  ‘Oi, mate, get out the bloody way, will you?’ called one of the shoot wranglers, pointing back at the camera. ‘It ain’t 1966, we’re shooting a Marks and Spencer commercial here.’

  ‘Stone me, she looks good for her age,’ said Bryant, watching a moment longer before heading for the pub.

  ‘Maybe that’ll finally cure your lucid dreaming,’ said May, catching him up. ‘Let me get you a pint.’ He turned to the extravagantly bearded barman. ‘What’s good tonight?’

  ‘I can heartily recommend the Spitalfields Colliery Brain-Smasher, squire,’ said the barman, pushing his topknot into place.

  ‘Tell him it’s not the Middle Ages, you’re not his squire and we’ll have two regular pints of bitter,’ said Bryant, tugging at his partner’s arm. ‘And a couple of Scotch eggs.’

  Behind them the door opened and in came everybody else: Dan, Colin, Meera, Jack, Janice and Raymond Land, holding Crippen. Giles, Maggie and Kirkpatrick followed them in.

  ‘Bugger, they’ll want something celebratory and complicated,’ said May. ‘I’ll never be able to remember the round. Have you got something to write the order down with?’

  Bryant felt the top pocket of his overcoat and patted W. S. Gilbert’s silver fountain pen. ‘Don’t worry, I think I can remember it,’ he said.

  8 p.m., back bar, the Scottish Stores, Caledonian Rd, London N1

  KIRKPATRICK: Don’t talk to me about property prices. London’s now more expensive than living on Saturn. I read that a pair of knocked-through biscuit tins in Dalston sold to a pair of Russian mice for £750,000. I’m considering renting out the space under my sink to Italian students. Whose round is it?

  MAGGIE: I bought my house in Highbury thirty-five years ago for £2,000. I wonder what it’s worth now?

  BRYANT: About £2,150, I should think. Your gaff is subsiding, Maggie. It’s only the wallpaper that’s holding it up. I’ll just have a half. Make it a pint.

  MAY: Arthur, did you take that pickaxe out of the electrics?

  9 p.m., back bar, the Scottish Stores, Caledonian Rd, London N1

  MAGGIE: Is anyone coming to the bus stop with me?

  KIRKPATRICK: Only if you stop trying to score free bus trips by guessing the driver’s birth sign. ‘Best out of three’ doesn’t count.

  MAGGIE: I’m heading to Waterloo Bridge to cast an urn of magical herbs on to the Thames. I won’t throw the actual urn this time, now that I know tourist boats pass underneath. I’m going to ensure that it’s a wonderful year.

  BRYANT: Hm. I predict another year of Heraclitian ghastliness. Maggie predicts a year of Eudaimonian joy. Take your pick.

  LAND: Knowing long words doesn’t make you smart. My glass is empty.

  MAY: So, whom do we believe about the year ahead? My partner, who kept a flea circus in his desk drawer until we made him get rid of it, or the witch who leaves her front-door key in a flowerpot? How many times were you burgled last year?

  MAGGIE: Three. The thieves were looking for spiritual appeasement.

  KIRKPATRICK: The thieves were looking for your credit cards, you daft cow.

  10 p.m., back bar, the Scottish Stores, Caledonian Rd, London N1

  KIRKPATRICK: Don’t get me started on The Mousetrap. The detective did it, OK? Now you can go and see something decent instead. If you couldn’t get your arse down to the theatre during its first sixty years you’re never going to bother seeing it. And if you’re willing to pay ninety squids to see Phantom, you deserve to be hit by a train. Twice. Right, whose round is it?

  Colin held the pub door open for Meera, and for once she didn’t tell him to stop being soft. The air was dry and clean, or at least clean for King’s Cross, and the sky had cleared.

  ‘Can I walk you to the station?’ Colin asked, ready to back off if she tried to punch him.

  ‘No, tonight I feel like celebrating,’ Meera replied, turning up the collar of her black PCU jacket. ‘I’m going to push the boat out and get a taxi.’

  ‘Could you drop me off on the way?’

  ‘I’ve a better idea,’ said Meera. ‘Let’s go to yours.’

  Colin looked as if he’d been hit with a house brick. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Come here.’ There on the wet neon pavement in front of the Rooster Barn, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

  Above them a rocket exploded in a shower of blue and silver stars.

  Colin turned to see Renfield standing in the road with a milk bottle and a lit match, grinning.

  ‘Jack,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘I know,’ said Renfield, laughing. ‘Got you. Good one, eh?’

  ‘No.’ Colin pointed more ur
gently. ‘Behind you.’

  Renfield’s smile faded. ‘What?’ He turned.

  ‘The unit’s on fire,’ said Colin.

  On Monday morning, one week after the body of Helen Forester was found in Clement Crescent, Leslie Faraday’s initiative was reversed by his superiors and the locks were taken off the gates of all London parks. Faraday was hauled before an investigative commission and questioned about his links with commercial developers.

  Arthur Bryant stood at the entrance to Russell Square Gardens and looked across the sparkling lawns to the central fountain. The first commuters were heading to their offices, an Old English sheepdog was being walked and a businessman stood motionless with his briefcase in one hand, staring into the middle distance as if he had forgotten something important but trusted the park to remind him what it was.

  ‘It’s the closest I ever get to the countryside,’ Bryant told his partner, who was just arriving with cups of coffee. ‘How’s the fire damage?’

  ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know,’ said May, taking a sip. ‘If you want to see some real countryside, my sister lives by the South Downs. The invitation still stands. Her turnip chutney’s inedible but her heart’s in the right place.’

  ‘Thank you, but no.’ Bryant looked about unsurely. ‘The problem with all this space and greenery is that it slows you down and gives you too much time to think. You either find it peaceful or disturbing. I don’t have time to reflect. There’s still too much to do.’

  ‘You know you could take it a little bit easier now,’ said May.

  Bryant looked horrified. ‘And do what? Boredom is the enemy of age. Besides, we have myths to disprove.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So long as people continue to judge us by the way we look, we need to show them just what we’re made of.’

  ‘So you want to go on? You don’t want to turn back the clock after all?’

  Bryant scrunched his face into something approximating a resigned smile. ‘No. I have enough memories. Let’s live in the present. How did that fire start, by the way?’

  ‘Harry Prayer tried to cook some sausages in the microwave and it blew up.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  ‘Well, he’s a friend of yours. It’s the sort of thing that usually happens to your friends. He’s unharmed, by the way. Just in case you were concerned. Of course, you didn’t help matters by leaving a pickaxe sticking out of the mains.’

  ‘Hm.’ Bryant sipped his coffee ruminatively. ‘You don’t think it odd that just after the body in our basement is identified as the US ambassador’s son, the unit catches fire?’

  ‘Are you saying there’s a conspiracy?’

  ‘Are you saying there’s not?’

  ‘I think we’d better head for the unit, don’t you?’

  ‘With all possible dispatch.’

  Together they left behind the tranquillity of the park and walked back into the rushing pandemonium of the London streets.

  Bryant and May will return.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  London is like an old man’s nostrils: alarmingly fecund, and you never know what you’re going to find in there. Consequently, each Bryant & May novel contains more peculiarities than I’d ever intended to put in.

  Last year councils decided to start charging personal trainers who use parks, a move opposed by 99 per cent of the general public. They then hired spies to look out for trainers and fine them. It’s one of the reasons why I was drawn to writing about parks in Wild Chamber. The greenery is all around and barely noticed until it falls under threat. Naturally our moral guardians are forever seeking to monetize these special places. In my neighbourhood, three such areas remain in dispute as the council craftily outmanoeuvres beleaguered residents. Sometimes all that’s being lost is sunlight or a view. But I remember the argument that was put forward when the first office block rose behind Tower Green and bisected one of the last unspoilt views in London – the one Anne Boleyn had from the execution block. The pro-development lobby said, ‘You can’t make money from a view.’

  The Bryant & May novels are about Golden Age detectives in a modern world, and I’ve never enjoyed writing them more than I do right now. This is partly because surviving in London is more challenging than ever, but also thanks to a wonderful team who have now been with me for quite a while, headed by James Wills and Mandy Little, my agents, forever amenable, wise and honest.

  Simon Taylor, my editor, has a uniquely laid-back style that perfectly gels with my own, and as time goes on we seem to read each other’s thoughts about the manuscript. Kate Samano and Richenda Todd manage to locate the logic gaps in my narrative and come up with perfect ways of solving editorial problems. Cheers to PR guru Sophie Christopher for organizing me. A tip of the hat to Jan Briggs, Porl Cooper, e-book designer Martin Butterworth, the real Maggie Armitage and of course Pete for listening. Further thanks must go to the many libraries and bookshops that are foolish enough to keep inviting me back, and to the judges who recently described me as ‘a new discovery’. It takes a long time to become an ingénu.

  You can argue with me at www.christopherfowler.co.uk, where my website is updated every day of the year, or on Twitter @Peculiar.

  About the Author

  Christopher Fowler is the award-winning author of more than forty novels – including the classics Roofworld and Spanky, and fourteen featuring the detectives Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit – as well as short-story collections. The recipient of the CWA ‘Dagger in the Library’ award, Chris’s most recent books are the Ballardesque thriller The Sand Men, Bryant & May – London’s Glory, a collection of ‘missing cases’, and Bryant & May – Strange Tide. Other works include screenplays, video games, graphic novels, audio plays and two critically acclaimed autobiographies, Paperboy and Film Freak. A collection of his ‘Invisible Ink’ columns for the Independent on Sunday is due to be published this year. Christopher Fowler lives in King’s Cross, London and Barcelona. To find out more, visit www.christopherfowler.co.uk

  Also by Christopher Fowler, featuring Bryant & May

  FULL DARK HOUSE

  THE WATER ROOM

  SEVENTY-SEVEN CLOCKS

  TEN-SECOND STAIRCASE

  WHITE CORRIDOR

  THE VICTORIA VANISHES

  BRYANT & MAY ON THE LOOSE

  BRYANT & MAY OFF THE RAILS

  BRYANT & MAY AND THE MEMORY OF BLOOD

  BRYANT & MAY AND THE INVISIBLE CODE

  BRYANT & MAY: THE BLEEDING HEART

  BRYANT & MAY: THE BURNING MAN

  BRYANT & MAY: STRANGE TIDE

  Short Stories

  BRYANT & MAY: LONDON’S GLORY

  Memoir

  PAPERBOY

  FILM FREAK

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Doubleday

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Christopher Fowler 2017

  Cover illustration by Max Schindler

  Christopher Fowler has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473526198

  ISBN 9780857523433

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ced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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  Chapter 6

  fn1 John May was falsely accused of murder in Strange Tide.

  Chapter 14

  fn1 A long-standing matter of confusion between Arthur Bryant and his neighbour, who had sarcastically identified himself to the detective, only to end up regretting it.