“What about the paradox of the Highwayman himself?” asked Bryant. “You don’t attend a fancy dress party if you don’t want to be seen. So why go to the trouble of leaving no trace at the murder site if you’re then planning to parade around in period costume? He wanted someone to spot him. Why else would he wear the outfit?”
“He could belong to one of those historical societies,” said Longbright. “You know, Cavaliers, Roundheads, guys who dress up and reenact the Battle of Culloden. I can run a check on memberships.”
“You don’t have much of a physical description to go on,” warned May.
“We know he’s tall, about six six, broad-chested, black-haired – ”
“The hair sounds like a part of the disguise.”
Longbright tapped at her notepad. “The witness reports suggest he might have five o’clock shadow, which makes him dark-complected. No fingerprints, because he’s wearing leather gloves that appear to be part of the outfit.”
“We can’t go to Land with this,” said May, shoving back his chair. “None of it hangs together.”
“That’s what bothers me most,” Bryant admitted, tipping back his chair dangerously. “He leaves an elaborate calling card at the first crime scene, then leaves a very different one at the second. He dresses conspicuously and chooses to attack in public places, but nobody sees him in the act of taking lives. And – ” Bryant’s watery blue eyes dilated, refocussing across the room at a point halfway up the wall, like a cat. Everybody waited.
“And what?” prompted May.
But Bryant was thinking of the symbolic head on the logo of the Roland Plumbe Community Estate, and had decided not to speak.
He looked at the anxious faces surrounding him, and found himself unable to elucidate his half-formed thoughts. Kershaw had placed the Highwayman’s age between twenty-five and thirty-five, the statistical range for a serial killer, but Bryant was sure these were no crimes of passion; they were calculated for some other purpose entirely. He wanted to explain that they were not looking for a stalker or a madman, but for a very moral human being, someone filled with a righteous sensitivity and the invisibility of ordinariness. In the eyes of the killer the victims were immoral, and in the hearts of the public, they deserved to suffer. It was why the Highwayman wanted to be seen. He desired acknowledgement, recognition for his services, perhaps even hero worship. The choice of clothes, grand and elegant; the deliberate appearances in crowded spaces.
Bryant wanted to say all this but something stopped him, because he felt he would lead them all to a strange and dangerous place. It would confirm Faraday’s worst suspicions and jeopardise the unit’s existence. There is another, far more sinister force at work here, he thought, and I daren’t trust myself to voice my darkest feelings.
♦
The Right Honourable Leslie Faraday MP was seated behind the most imposing desk Raymond Land had ever seen, an acre of green glass that made him appear to be sitting upright in a stagnant pond. The pudgy, wide-eyed young man with slicked sandy hair whom the detectives had first met in the 1970s was now a bloated, bald, and bad-tempered time server who had never managed to shake off his image as the government’s most pedantic minister.
In a long and almost entirely unmeritable career he had been shunted all over Whitehall. When civil servants are bad at their jobs, they are never cast out and prevented from pursuing their chosen career; they are merely moved elsewhere until they find a department that will have them. As Minister of State for the Arts, Faraday’s remark about Andy Warhol’s work consisting of ‘boring old photos painted in the kind of colours black people like’ had resulted in the outraged cancellation of a major exhibition. As minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality, he had managed to bring the nation’s low-waged road-gritters out on strike during the worst blizzard in a century after calling them ‘a bunch of work-shy Irish layabouts’. As Minister of State for Sport, he had sparked off a race riot by inviting a white South African paramilitary leader to a Brixton Jail cricket match. After spending two years as a Minister Without Portfolio (where, by definition, he was unable to find anyone to offend) he was rehabilitated in the Home Office with a new brief: to make specialised police units pay, or shut them down.
Incompetent men exist in every profession, but they are easily dealt with. Faraday remained in Whitehall because of his single great talent, also his curse, which was that he never forgot anything.
“Mr Land,” he announced. “We met on August seven, 1971, did we not? It rained all afternoon. Then I met you with Mr Bryant, and again with Mr May two years later, under more clement circumstances. How are you?”
Shaking his hand, thought Land, was like dipping your fingers into warm Swarfega: clammy and clinging. As Faraday reseated himself, his brown suit constricted his stomach and his shirt collar throttled his throat seemingly to the point of asphyxiation. He tapped at an old-fashioned intercom. “Diedre, could we have two teas? Brooke Bond, very weak for me. And see if we have any of those ginger biscuits, the oblong ones with the little bits of peel in.” When he suddenly tipped his chair back, Land thought for a moment that he had submerged, but he bounced up again in a move that had been practised across an eternity of dull Whitehall afternoons. “I must confess I’m at a bit of a loss to know what to do about your two detectives,” Faraday admitted. “I mean, they’ve been at the unit a jolly long time, so they must be doing something right.”
“I was hoping you’d give me some advice, sir,” said Land. He waited for a response. A clock ticked distantly. Dust settled.
Faraday sighed like a leaking, tired balloon. “From your memorandum, it’s clear that you’d like to transfer to a more – professional – unit. I’ve given the problem some thought, and have decided that, because I know Mr Bryant and Mr May personally, I’m probably not the right chap for the job, so I’m going to hand the matter over to my new assistant. He has the kind of specialist knowledge that might be required for a more covert operation.” Faraday pressed a buzzer on his desk. “Diedre, would you send in Mr Kasavian?”
Land had only met Faraday a handful of times, but their wives had once been crown green bowling together, and he thought he had the mark of the man. Now, though, he sensed that he might be getting out of his depth.
As Oskar Kasavian entered, the sun passed behind a cloud outside Faraday’s office, and the room was plunged into shadow. Kasavian looked as if he was used to the recurrence of this effect. Tall, dark, and – well, saturnine was really the only word; there was more than a touch of Mephistopheles about him, and he would probably have enjoyed the comparison. His slicked-back hair and jet-black suit lent him the air of an Edwardian funeral director.
“I’ll take over now, sir,” Kasavian warned Faraday, effectively dismissing him from the conversation. He towered darkly between them, folding his hands behind his back with an unsettling crack of the knuckles.
“I read your memo with interest, Mr Land, and found that it suits our current need to cut spending by a third across the specialised units. The simple fact is that murder is becoming far too expensive. As I’m sure you know, the cost of a single investigation can take up a tenth of an area’s annual budget. The Serious Organised Crime Agency is planning to use the National Intelligence model to coordinate cross-agency operations for now, but their long-term plan is to consolidate all specialist units with the minimum of disruption. I hardly need outline the benefits; an end to so-called blue on blue clashes, and a huge financial saving for the government. It is imperative, therefore, that we arrange for the PCU to be closed down. And to do that, we must remove its senior detectives. The problem is that they command a certain amount of respect amongst older law enforcement officials, so they must be quickly discredited.”
“Mr Bryant and Mr May are entirely decent men,” said Land. “Their intentions are honest, if a little misguided.”
“Come on, Mr Land, you can’t have it both ways.” When Oskar Kasavian hooded his eyes at the subject of his att
ention, it was as though steel shutters had slammed down, screening off the weaknesses of the human heart. “You described specific instances of their incompetence to Mr Faraday in writing. I’ve begun checking into Home Office records on our dealings with your unit, and there seem to be an astonishing number of irregularities, including – if we can lay our hands on the original documents – some of an extremely serious nature involving a number of illegal immigrants. Clearly, we’ve only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. If these detectives have been allowed to twist the system to their own ends, there will be others who are just as guilty. All those who support and admire them must be made to see the truth. Who knows how deeply this corruption runs through the unit? For all I know, even you may be involved.” Mr Kasavian’s black eyes glittered with malice. “Later today I have a meeting with representatives of the Fraud Squad to begin auditing your casework. You may consider this the start of the PCU’s first internal investigation, and hopefully their last. I suggest that if you personally wish to remain untainted, you had better make sure that your own dealings are in order.”
Now that he was finally getting what he had wished for, Raymond Land started to have doubts. If Kasavian could so quickly agree to dismissing two senior members of the force, he would easily turn his attention to others. But it was too late; the wheels of Whitehall were slow to grind forward, but once started would not be stopped.
∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧
19
Arrhythmia
It was cold enough to condense breath in the converted school gymnasium, and that was how Oswald Finch liked it. Some nights he worked until his fingers and nose turned blue. The lower half of the room was below the level of the street, and remained cool until the two sticky months of the English summer, when everything, including Oswald, started to smell bad. Where climbing frames had once stood against the tall, narrow windows, there were now six body lockers. The sprung wooden basketball floor had been covered with carpet tiles that retained the acrid reek of spray bleach.
“Are you still here?” asked Bryant, leaning in the doorway. “I thought you’d have gone by now.”
“How can I, when you keep sending me bodies?” Finch complained. “Raymond Land refuses to accept my resignation, says it will have to wait for a few weeks while he’s sorting something out. It’s unfair, keeping me at my post like this. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get up in the morning? If I’d known it would get so difficult to tie my laces, I’d have bulk-bought elastic-sided shoes back in the fifties.”
“Come on, I know there’s nothing you’d rather be doing than opening up a cadaver. It’s unnatural, but nothing to be ashamed of. I see you’ve got Danny Martell on the slab. What have you found for me?”
“Someone should run statistics on how many television comedians suffer untimely deaths.” Finch prised open a fatty yellow flap of chest flesh and peered inside, wrinkling his long nose. “They seem to peg out at an earlier age than the rest of us, and in more unusual ways.”
“Not strictly true,” said Bryant. “Look at Bruce Forsyth. He’ll live forever, or at least his wig will. For most celebrities, the trick is surviving the scrutiny of the gutter press.”
“If you make a deal with the devil you must expect to be damned,” said Finch gloomily. “This man Martell – his body was not in good shape. Take a look.” He unfurled another section of the black micromesh Mylar sheet from his dissection tray and revealed the bloated corpse of the entertainer in full. “This is what years of fast food, high stress, and sitting in cars shouting at the traffic does to you. That’s not a liver, it’s low-grade foie gras. To be honest, I only opened him up out of nosiness; a first-week intern could look at his face and say what caused his death.” Finch tapped the chest with the car antenna he used as an indicator. “Dicky pump. His valves are leaky, his pipes are furred, his blood’s virtually all fat. He’s suffering from arteriosclerosis, so I’m looking at ventricular fibrillation that went into a fatal heart attack. But then I have to add the witness reports about this so-called lightning flash. Did they really see some kind of electrical pulse strike Martell?”
“I wondered if it might have been the reflection of a distant lightning strike on the window of the apartment,” said Bryant. “That would have been an easy mistake to make. The storm looked close but had no accompanying thunderclap, because the real distance was greater.”
“But if it was an electrocution, that gives us a cause for the VF. An electric shock will cause the heart’s ventricles to twitch – it will applied to any of the body’s muscles – but the electrical cycle is so fast and erratic that it can interfere with the normal contractions of the heart. The muscles quiver without pumping, and a fatal arrhythmia occurs. It happens with low-voltage appliances like hair dryers and toasters. The current needs a single point of entry.” He turned over Martell’s hands and pointed to a pair of faint red blotches on his palms. “We’ve got something more dependable here: marks indicating that a shock passed from one limb to the other, right across the chest, deregulating the heart.”
“We considered that,” said Bryant, “but Banbury failed to find anything on his initial examination of the room. None of the equipment is operated electrically. Nautilus weight-lifting equipment is based on mechanical leverage. There are a couple of wall plugs for vacuum cleaners, but they have safety caps that haven’t been touched in a couple of days.”
“I can only tell you what killed him, Arthur, not how it was done.” Finch folded the fatty flaps of Martell’s chest shut like the curtains of a toy theatre. “It wouldn’t take a very powerful electrical device, just one with an alternating current. You can survive a low DC; it’s AC you have to watch out for.”
“There was nothing in the room, Oswald,” Bryant insisted.
“Then I’m afraid there’s something you’ve missed,” replied the pathologist. “How are you getting on with White?”
“It seems increasingly likely that Calvin Burroughs was the father of her child, but it’s too early to say for sure.” Bryant sniffed the air. “If you let me smoke my pipe in here, it would get rid of the ghastly smell.”
“This is meant to be a sealed sterile area. You are not allowed to smoke your disgusting Old Navy Rough Cut Sailors’ Shag in here. I found fag ash in my body tray last week and knew it was you.”
“I mix it with eucalyptus leaves. It’s medicinal.” Bryant picked up a pair of steel rib-cutters. “Can I borrow these? I’m thinking of having a barbeque at the weekend.”
“Just leave things alone.” Finch snatched the instrument from him. “If you really want to help, get me Giles Kershaw as an assistant.”
Bryant smiled slyly. “Will you stay if I do?”
The ancient pathologist went to wash his hands at the sink. “I’ll think about it,” he said, making a bear-catching-salmon motion that told Bryant the water was too hot. “But things will have to improve around here,” he added, shaking off water.
“Then I’ll have a word with Raymond.” Bryant tipped his head back at Martell’s corpse. “The zips on his tracksuit top were welded shut, by the way.”
“They were?” Finch looked up, amazed. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this?”
“You complained about bodies arriving with their clothes on.”
“You remember those two Japanese ladies who sheltered under a tree in Hyde Park during a thunderstorm? They were struck by lightning, and their zip fasteners melted. Judging from the marks on Martell’s wrists, it sounds like the same thing. That changes everything. All you have to do now is find out how it was done.”
“On the case, old sausage,” said Bryant, slipping the rib-cutters into his overcoat pocket and sauntering from the room.
∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧
20
Ancient Blood
Dan Banbury and Giles Kershaw had so little in common that they were ideally suited to work together.
There were some similarities: Both were in their late twenties, both had been
high scorers at university, neither had much field experience. Despite their intelligence and enthusiasm, the unit was able to buy them cheaply, because each possessed a flaw; Banbury had spent his entire childhood in his bedroom in Bow operating increasingly sophisticated computer networks while his parents explored new methods of destroying each other downstairs, and the period had taken its toll by leaving him with no social skills. He assumed everyone was interested in crime scene technology, and bored civilians into submission at the slightest provocation. Years of junk food and immobility had left him with the unprepossessing air of a root vegetable, a turnip in shape, a parsnip in colouring. Women made a special effort to avoid him. Lately he had dieted, exercised, and taken advice on a haircut, most of which had rendered him the approximation of a normal human being, but he still fell short in the area of normal conversation, and women still avoided him.
Giles Kershaw came from a posh, impoverished family whose country home had been sold to the government in 1976 and turned into the National Museum of Farming Implements. His speech was so strangled that his tongue fell over in conversation, and hardly anyone in London could understand him. The police force is no place for the upper classes. He was the first person in his family ever to have a job or buy his own furniture. As a consequence, he had suffered snubs from his friends and ridicule from his colleagues. At least he had social skills – rather too many, in fact – and was prepared to teach Banbury the basics. It was no secret that Bryant and May saw the duo as potential counterparts to themselves who might one day come to inherit the unit, should it miraculously survive that long.
Still, Banbury and Kershaw had never worked closely on a case together before, and bets were being taken in the unit staff room as to whether they would prove a successful combination or end up conducting a class war. The PCU’s new independence meant that its component parts had to fit as tightly as members of a football squad. That meant no stars, no upstaging, no missed passes. Their first test came the following morning, in the sealed-off gym behind Farringdon Road, as the pair unpacked their equipment: bags, pots, sacks, swab kits, water bottles, tape, labels, print powders, flatpacked boxes, cameras, and a mobile Smartwater Index tracer that Banbury was dying to try out.
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