Bryant & May 06 - The Victoria Vanishes

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘So you think she was plastered and missed the kerb?’

  ‘No, funnily enough I don’t.’ Kershaw swept a lick of blond hair behind his ear. Like Finch before him, he seemed determined not to wear protective headgear in the morgue. He tipped his head, studying the dead woman’s physiognomy. ‘I think she fell, all right. The impact point is consistent with a kerb fall, a real jab of a blow.’ He gestured with his knuckle. ‘The sort of thing you’d get from tripping over something sharp-cornered in the way of pavement furniture, but you’d have to fall very heavily. Something wrong about that, I think. You put your hands out when you fall, even if you’re drunk. Her palms were completely clean. So no, not just plastered.’

  ‘Do you have an ID?’

  ‘She was reported missing by her partner at around two a.m., and a local officer was told to keep a lookout. Carol Wynley, forty-six, divorced, kept her married name, did part-time secretarial work in Holborn. She’d told her fella she was going for a drink with colleagues after work. She’d often done it before and they usually went on until nine or ten, birthday bashes and leaving parties, that sort of thing, so he hadn’t been worried. They live in Spitalfields.’

  ‘So it wouldn’t have taken her long to get home, even if she had trouble finding a cab.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what time it was when you saw her?’

  He remembered the darkened dog-leg, London planes and copper beeches rustling dusty leaves above a battered brick wall. The black-painted bollards, the rendered keystone, the wreath-shaped door knocker, the ornamental wrought-iron railing, the carved blind window. Pushing deeper into his recollections, he saw the figure of Carol Wynley weaving slightly as she moved towards him, almost stumbling on the edge of the kerb.

  How close had she come to falling at that moment? In his mind’s eye he saw the frosted lower windows of the public house on the corner, the beery amber glow surrounding the gold lettering on the clear glass that read THE VICTORY – no, THE VICTORIA CROSS. A date of establishment that he couldn’t recall. He saw a few beer and spirit bottles on sparse shelves, the opening door as she pushed inside. He heard the rise of saloon chatter, somebody laughing too loudly, the clink of glasses. A youthful figure appeared through the darkened doorway behind the bar, coming out to serve a customer. He could not bring to mind a face. The barman was ahead of her, already starting to take the order. as if he had been waiting for her to walk through the door.

  ‘I wasn’t the last person to see her alive,’ he said with finality.

  ‘You’re quite sure this is where she was?’ John May asked for the second time as they walked through the alleyway towards the top of Whidbourne Street.

  ‘Yes, but obviously I was coming from the other direction, heading up to the Euston Road,’ said Bryant. ‘Do you want half of my Mars Bar?’

  ‘Bit mainstream for you, isn’t it, a Mars Bar? I thought you’d be breaking out the aniseed balls, milk gums, sugar shrimps, or some other brand of confectionery not seen since the last war.’

  ‘My supplier’s been closed down,’ said Bryant gloomily, sounding like a drug addict who had lost his connection. ‘I suppose I could order them over the internet but it wouldn’t be the same. And I’ve a sweet tooth, as you know.’

  ‘Your teeth are false. Go on then, give me a bit.’ May accepted a chunk and popped it in his mouth. He stopped at the corner of the pavement, removing the blue adhesive tape left for him by one of the Albany Street officers. ‘Spot where she was found,’ he said, poking a toecap against the kerb. ‘Nothing much to be seen here. No sharp corners except that low wall, which I suppose would do it.’ He indicated an area of broken brickwork. ‘Dan will have taken a sample. No scuff marks, no signs of violence.’ He glanced up at Bryant, who had suddenly turned pale. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘No pub,’ said Bryant in a small strangled voice.

  11

  * * *

  MISTAKEN

  The pair were standing at the dog-leg in what Bryant now saw was Whidbourne Street. They looked up at the corner, which was occupied by the Pricecutter Food & Wine Store, its yellow-and-green livery coated with dust, the window plastered with stickers for the unlocking of mobile phones and the arrangement of cheap calls to Ethiopian towns. It had clearly been there for a number of years.

  May shot his partner a glance. ‘This can’t have been the right corner.’

  ‘But it was, I’m positive,’ said Bryant, although he didn’t sound too sure. ‘She went into an old boozer with its name, The Victoria Cross, picked out in gold lettering over the window.’

  ‘Then you must have seen her on another street, before she reached this point.’

  ‘No, it was here, because I remember the way the light from the saloon bar fell on the opposite wall and over the trees above it. The clock tower of St Pancras station was exactly in that position. She stopped right there,’ he pointed to the edge of the pavement, ‘then crossed the road and went inside.’

  ‘The streets around here look very similar to each other.’ May was trying to be kind.

  ‘I’m not losing my mind, John. I remembered thinking that I didn’t know this street. I thought I knew pretty much every route through central London, so I was surprised when I came across one I hadn’t seen before. Have forensics been here?’

  ‘Kershaw and Banbury were ahead of us, but I don’t yet know if they found anything out of the ordinary. If you’re not imagining things, someone in the shop might be able to shed some light on this.’

  May led the way inside. An elderly Indian man was virtually invisible behind the counter, buried beneath racks of gum, mints and phone cards. May introduced himself as a police officer.

  ‘They found some old lady in the street last night,’ the shopkeeper told them. ‘Dead, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. What time did you arrive this morning?’

  ‘I live in Enfield,’ said the old man. ‘This is my son-in-law’s shop. We open at eight.’

  ‘And last night?’

  ‘Close at ten, same as always. It’s nothing to do with us, what goes on over there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The estate, those boys hang around here at night causing trouble, we don’t know what they get up to. That’s why we’ve got steel shutters. I have to close them every night. I complain to the police but nothing happens. They never do anything.’

  ‘Mind if we take a look around?’ May led his partner away by the arm. ‘Is it just possible you made a mistake, Arthur?’ he asked. ‘It was late and we’d been drinking for hours.’

  ‘No,’ Bryant insisted, but suddenly faltered, looking around at the shelves. ‘Well, I don’t think so. It occupied the same footprint as this building, with the door in the same place – but . . .’

  ‘That’s understandable. Areas like this would have been planned by a single architect, so most of the streets have the same-sized building plots. Why don’t we take a walk around the neighbourhood, retrace your steps and see if we can find your pub elsewhere?’

  Bryant allowed himself to be led between the racks of crisps and bottled drinks, but stopped by the front counter. ‘Do you know a pub around here called the Victoria Cross?’ he asked.

  The old Indian shook his head without even stopping to think. ‘Not around here. There’s the Skinner’s Arms, the Boot and Mabel’s Tavern, but I don’t drink so I wouldn’t know. The pubs are all trouble, boys getting drunk and spray-painting their filth all over the shop.’

  Outside, May pointed at Number 6A, the single remaining dwelling that stood at the end of the dog-leg, surveying the street like a sentinel. ‘What about that house?’ he asked. ‘Maybe the owners saw something.’

  They approached the front door and rang the single bell, but there was no answer. May peered through the letter box and saw bills and flyers spread across the hall carpet. ‘Looks like they’ve been away for some time.’

  ‘All the lights were off,’ Bryant recalled.

  ‘All
right, forget the name of the pub,’ May told his partner, ‘you might have got that wrong. Just concentrate on finding a place that looks like the one Mrs Wynley entered.’

  The pair followed a rough ziggurat back along Bryant’s route, passing half a dozen public houses on the way, but none of them seemed entirely right. It was as if parts of them had been incorporated into a single phantom composite.

  ‘I’m not going mad,’ said Bryant anxiously. ‘I saw her go into the saloon bar and get served by the barman.’

  ‘Wait, you sure it was the saloon? Arthur, pubs haven’t been divided into public and saloon bars for years.’

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean. It was old-world, not messed about with. No beeping fruit machines.’

  ‘Can’t you give me more descriptive detail than that?’

  ‘Yes – no, I mean, perhaps I was a little drunk.’ He rubbed his forehead, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. ‘I don’t remember as clearly as I thought. I’ll have to sit and think.’

  ‘Did it smell different, this alternative space-time continuum you ventured into?’

  ‘Why should it smell different?’

  ‘You know, Victorian smells. Horse dung, tobacco, sewage, hops.’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember. I don’t suppose Victorian London smelled any worse than the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street does during the present day.’

  May didn’t mention it, but he was reminded that hallucinations could often be accompanied by sharp changes in one’s sense of smell. Savoury odours of leather and burning were common. ‘Are you still taking your medication?’

  ‘You mean have drink and drugs addled my brain, causing it to slip into the febrile desuetude of Alzheimer’s? No, they have not and it has not, thank you so much.’

  ‘Then let’s go back to the unit and see what else we can uncover.’

  At the PCU, John May’s granddaughter came in and set several pages before them. ‘There are eight public houses named after Queen Victoria in London,’ she explained, ‘plus the Victoria Park in Hackney, the Victoria and Albert in Marylebone and the Victoria Stakes in Muswell Hill. The nearest Victoria to Bloomsbury is just over the road, off Mornington Crescent. Actually, I think I’ve been there with you.’

  ‘There you are, you see? You’ve muddled the memory of another pub with the one you passed,’ said May soothingly.

  ‘I did not muddle them!’ Bryant all but shouted. ‘Good God, do you think I can’t tell the difference between Mornington Crescent and Bloomsbury? She went into the pub on that corner, and then left and died or was killed on the street outside.’

  ‘We could settle this if you knew the exact time you passed each other,’ said May. ‘We know she was alive when you saw her, so if Kershaw can pinpoint the time of death we’ll be able to see if there’s a discrepancy.’

  ‘I want an artist,’ said Bryant stubbornly. ‘I need someone who can draw what I saw.’

  ‘I can draw,’ April volunteered. It had been one of the many talents she had perfected during the flare-up of her agoraphobia, during which time she had rarely left her shuttered apartment in Stoke Newington.

  ‘There are sketchpads and some pens in the evidence room,’ said May. ‘You’ll have to get Renfield to unlock it for you. What else have we got on Carol Wynley’s movements last night?’

  ‘I was about to give you this,’ said April. ‘I’ve put together a timeline from statements volunteered by her partner and work colleagues. Wynley worked at the Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury, but was meeting up with friends from a former workplace, a charity organization working with Médecins Sans Frontières. They had drinks in a pub called the Queen’s Larder—’

  Bryant perked up. ‘I know that watering hole. It was named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III. He was being treated for insanity at a doctor’s house in Queen Square. The queen leased the cellar beneath the pub to keep the king’s special foods there.’

  ‘Wynley left the Queen’s Larder some time after ten – no one’s been able to pinpoint the exact time – and made her way up to the Euston Road, but then she doubled back into Bloomsbury, which suggests a deviation from simply returning home.’

  ‘I told you so,’ said Bryant. ‘She had another destination in mind.’

  ‘Then perhaps you made a mistake about the name of the pub,’ May suggested.

  ‘We’ll soon see.’ Bryant climbed the small stool behind his desk and reached up among his books, pulling down a green linen volume with untrimmed pages. ‘Here we are, The Secret History of London’s Public Houses.’

  ‘Wait, when was that printed?’

  Bryant checked the publisher’s page. ‘1954. Not one of my more recent acquisitions.’ He flicked to the index. ‘Here you are. Going mad, am I? Look at this.’ He turned the book around and held it up with the pages open.

  The others found themselves looking at a photograph of a public house built on the corner of Whidbourne Street, Bloomsbury, but they did not seem pleased.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Bryant. ‘I was right after all, wasn’t I? We just overlooked it. Let’s go back and—’

  ‘Arthur, this can’t be the place,’ said May. ‘This picture was taken two years before the pub was demolished, in 1925. It’s been gone for over three-quarters of a century.’

  12

  * * *

  ECDYSIAST

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asked DC Colin Bimsley. ‘That belongs to Mr Bryant.’

  ‘It’s a marijuana plant,’ said Renfield, dragging the great ceramic pot along the corridor towards the top of the stairs.

  ‘It’s for his rheumatism.’

  ‘And it’s illegal, or did nobody bother to point that out to him?’ asked Renfield.

  ‘Give him a break, Jack – he gets pains in his legs.’

  ‘Then he should be retired and relaxing at home. He could be working as a consultant.’

  ‘It’s not your job to decide what he does.’

  ‘It is if he can’t do his job without the aid of psycho- active narcotics.’

  ‘Wait, what else have you got there?’ Bimsley pointed to the battered cardboard box Renfield had also dragged out of the office.

  ‘Old books. They’re everywhere, even blocking the fire exits. I’m stacking them by the rubbish. They can go to charity shops.’

  ‘You can’t do that, he’s taken a lifetime to collect them.’

  ‘Land has asked him to take them home dozens of times, but they’re still here, so out they go.’

  ‘But he needs them for research.’

  ‘Really?’ Renfield bent down and retrieved a stack of slender volumes. ‘Let’s see what he’s been researching, shall we? Yoruba Proverbs; The Anatomy of Melancholia; Embalming Under Lenin; Cormorant-Sexing for Beginners; The Apocalypsis Revelata, Volume Two; A Complete History of the Trouser-Press; Financial Accounts for the Swedish Mining Board, Years 1745–53. I suppose the next time they bring a gunshot victim in from Pentonville, he’ll be able to use these in his investigation.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Bimsley, ‘how an intimate knowledge of the workings of the trouser-press might aid in the capture of a determined rapist.’

  ‘Are you making fun of me?’ asked Renfield suspiciously.

  ‘You’ll never know, will you?’ Bimsley stood his ground.

  ‘I say, what are you doing with Mr Bryant’s books?’ asked Giles Kershaw, who had found his path blocked upon entering the hall. ‘He’ll go bananas if he sees you’ve moved them. They’re very useful.’

  ‘Not you as well.’ Renfield was starting to wonder if the senior detectives had brainwashed the unit staff. Kershaw raised his long legs in a spidery fashion to climb over the obstruction, and admitted himself into the detectives’ office.

  ‘I’m thinking the bash was incidental,’ he began, throwing himself into the guest’s armchair.

  ‘I’m sorry, what are we talking about?’ asked May.

 
; ‘Mrs Wynley. There’s an abnormality in the base of her skull. The bone is extremely thin. It wouldn’t have taken much of a knock to damage it. But even so, I think it occurred as the result of something else.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked May.

  Kershaw sucked his teeth pensively. ‘Not entirely sure yet. Gut feeling. People don’t usually keel over like fallen trees, with their arms at their sides. Not very scientific, I know, but there’s something else. Midazolam – it’s a fast-acting benzodiazepine with a short elimination half-life. A pretty potent water-soluble sedative, but the imbiber doesn’t actually lose consciousness unless it’s taken in overdose. I found a tiny trace of it inside her mouth. If you were to inject it between the gums and the inside of the cheek, it could enter the bloodstream immediately. She would have dropped like a log.’

  Bryant wrinkled his face, thinking. He looked like a tortoise chewing a nettle. ‘This is making less sense by the second,’ he said. ‘A woman walks into a pub – which, by the way, hasn’t existed for the best part of a hundred years – gets injected in the face and leaves without complaint. She falls down outside, bashes her head, and is left for dead by everyone else who leaves the pub, including the staff. I don’t suppose we have any suspects, either.’