A light went on above Land’s head. Quite literally, as it happened, because at that moment Alma came in and switched on the standard lamp behind him. ‘Hereward, Lang or Almon would be poised to take over,’ he said. ‘They might even have hatched it between them. Or they could have another partner we’ve yet to meet, someone who has successfully kept themselves out of the limelight.’
‘You see, now you’re using the parts of your brain you don’t usually use, which in your case is pretty much all of it,’ said Bryant cheerily. ‘I mentioned that it was John who came up with the Three Solutions theory.’
‘It doesn’t matter whose idea it was—’
‘In this case it does, because I intend to propose a fourth solution. The Arthur Bryant solution.’
Land groaned silently, but even so a little bit of disappointed noise came out.
‘And this solution involves witchcraft, madness, secret codes and an ancient London myth – perhaps its greatest and most terrible secret.’
‘Oh no …’ Land buried his face in his hands.
‘But I don’t want you to worry,’ Bryant reassured him. ‘I’m on the case. Although in the coming week, you may find me doing some very strange things.’
Land winced. ‘How strange?’
‘Oh, strange even by my standards.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I think we have to chase down the culprit in order to prevent the deaths of others,’ said Bryant. ‘I knew we were wrong to try and do this by the book. There’s no more time left for strategies and suppositions. We need to start fighting back.’
Land looked faintly unwell. ‘Is this likely to get us into trouble?’
‘I should think so, yes.’
‘But you think it’s the only way?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Get ready to take cover,’ said Bryant. ‘There’ll be a lot of flying debris.’
PART TWO
The Chase
24
THE ESCAPE
SABIRA KASAVIAN WAS beset by devils.
She opened her eyes to find them crawling up the bedspread towards her face. Tiny blood-blackened imps with scratchy claws and seed-like eyes, they pulled at the counterpane and tried to slip under the sheets with her.
Screaming, she awoke.
Amelia Medway appeared at the door within seconds. ‘Were you having a bad dream?’ she asked solicitously.
Sabira decided not to answer. Speaking to the enemy would only place her in danger. She checked under the sheets and scratched furiously at her hair.
‘Come along, then, sleepybones, it’s nearly nine o’clock.’ Medway parted the curtains on the kind of glorious summer morning London sometimes springs on the unwary, momentarily fooling them into believing the weekend will be fine. ‘You can have breakfast in your room today. We have some new arrivals. Everyone’s rushed off their feet downstairs. Get yourself into the shower and I’ll bring you up something nice in a few minutes. I think it’s time you washed your hair, don’t you?’
She looked around the room, checking that everything was in order. A pair of nail scissors had appeared in the top of Sabira’s make-up bag. ‘I think I’ll have to take these for the time being,’ she said, pocketing them. ‘Just in case of accidents.’ She wasn’t going to be caught out twice.
Medway was not prepared to take any nonsense today. Spike, the burned-out musician across the hall, had already thrown his toys out of the pram this morning after having his tattooing needles confiscated. It always surprised her how many of them were like children, squabbling over places at the dining tables, accusing others of taking their seats and stealing their magazines. Much of it was connected to the physical symptoms of withdrawal, of course, a rising and falling ache that contracted the muscles and burned the stomach lining.
Sabira Kasavian had dabbled with drugs, but wasn’t an addict. She was clever and bored and fearful, but there was no craving in her eyes. Medway knew all the signs and found few in her new patient. So much rubbish was talked about addiction, now that everyone was an expert. Just last night some television doctor had been telling his audience that there was no way of stopping someone who wanted to do drugs, that addicts had to hit rock bottom before they could start healing, that they had to want help; all stupid, wrong advice in her opinion.
Sabira puzzled her, though. In one way she seemed exactly the type who might end up inadvertently escalating her use of recreational drugs, but there were glimpses of a steelier woman inside. It didn’t add up. And it seemed there was a pattern to her behaviour, an erratic but calculable change of mood as each day progressed.
She took one last look at the wild-haired young woman sitting lost on the edge of the bed and resisted the urge to reach out to her. Some of the patients were devious, and if you became involved in their power plays they would make sure you’d suffer. She went to get the breakfast.
Sabira walked to the window and looked out at the day. The milky mist was burning off, and would unveil a pitiless blue morning too grand to last. Such mornings were dangerous; everything could be seen. She pinched the skin on her right arm hard, rousing herself from her torpor.
It was time to move fast.
There was no point in heading for the front door in daylight. The manager’s office was right beside it, and she always kept her door propped open. Sabira pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers, added a scarf, and then went back to the unbarred window. The room beneath hers had a bay, which meant she could climb down on to its slated roof. It belonged to a woman called Francina who was in thrall to some vague pervasive sorrow and never got out of bed before noon. With any luck she would still be asleep.
Sabira opened the window as quietly as she could and climbed out. The drop seemed greater from the outside and she had second thoughts. But even falling and breaking her ankles would be preferable to another night spent with the tiny crawling creatures that invaded her dreams.
She stretched as far as she could and let her trainers find purchase on the angled roof of the window. She could see that the room below still had its blinds closed, so she was able to take her time, gripping the guttering and carefully lowering herself on to the sill before dropping to the wet grass.
She felt sure she would be seen if she went up the garden, so she ran down the alley at the side of the house and opened the gate into the front, quickly swinging behind the box hedges, where she could not be seen from the manager’s window.
Then she set off down the hill towards the Tube station.
London starts slowly on Sunday mornings, but the walkers were up and out in Hampstead, reining in their straining dogs until they were within sight of the woodland, then slipping their leads and yelling out names intended to show that their owners were also from good breeds: ‘Jasper!’, ‘Montmorency!’, ‘Florinda!’
Sabira kept her head lowered and her pace steady. She had her mobile and purse, but no credit cards and just a small amount of cash. She needed to formulate the next part of the plan. If she had stayed at the clinic they would have found a way to kill her before the psychiatric hearing, just to be on the safe side. She had to make the detectives understand. Mr Bryant seemed the most sensitive to her situation. But she had to let him know without alerting his superiors. What could she do?
Her enemies had occult powers, of course, ways of watching her from afar, ways of turning her purpose and changing her direction. They could cloud her brain and render her dumb, or invisible, or simply mad. They could reach her anywhere. But this morning something had gone wrong. They were still asleep, perhaps, for she could see things clearly for the first time in days and act upon her instincts.
She had a chance.
Behind Hampstead’s white pillars and grand porticos were council estates, flats for the porters and nurses of the Royal Free Hospital, lives less celebrated but more essential to the running of what residents still termed ‘the village’. Sabira had to be suspicious of them
all. No turning head could be trusted. Trotting briskly to the Tube, she descended in the lift and found a southbound Northern Line train waiting at the platform with its doors open. She avoided the most obvious carriage and moved further down, watching to check that no one else boarded, but her view was blocked by an immense woman festooned with shopping bags.
The train sat in the station with its doors wide while the driver apologized for the delay. She had no clear destination in mind, and badly needed to order her thoughts for the day ahead. She needed to be somewhere calm and safe.
But that’s what poor, scared Amy O’Connor had told herself. She had gone into her church and died. Even there, they had got to her.
Well, it wouldn’t happen again. She could think properly now, although who knew how long this clarity would last, and she wasn’t scared but filled with righteous anger.
Alighting at King’s Cross she changed lines, heading for Great Portland Street. There was one place where she would be safe long enough to come up with a stratagem.
The unit was usually closed on a Sunday, but today Raymond Land had asked for all staff to be on hand.
At Bryant’s request, the emphasis was on May’s third solution: that someone in power was framing Sabira Kasavian to destroy her husband’s career and advance themselves. But everyone could sense that even as they made calls and conducted interviews, the traces of guilt were being covered over. It was a race they could feel themselves losing.
Raymond Land usually enjoyed being in the office when it was like this: quietly humming with purposeful activity. If he was honest with himself, he was no longer upset that the case hadn’t been solved after a week; being here stopped him from thinking about his suddenly empty home. People only really cared about themselves. It wasn’t their fault – Banbury always said humans were hardwired that way. If you applied that to the case, for example, a real survivor would do everything necessary to keep a secret, and keep on keeping it until it was truly buried again …
He hurried to Bryant’s office.
‘Arthur, I’ve been thinking. If we accept your idea that everything is linked, this has to have started in O’Connor’s past, and it occurs to me that we still know nothing about her.’
‘I’m way ahead of you, old sausage,’ said Bryant. ‘That’s why I’m going to Bletchley this afternoon.’
‘That’s somewhere near Milton Keynes, isn’t it? I’ve no details of her ever living there.’
‘She didn’t. I’m looking up an old friend of mine. Didn’t I tell you? I’ve received a most suggestive communication from Sabira Kasavian.’ He held up a Hallmark greetings card featuring a cartoon duck and the words ‘Thank You!’
Land was puzzled. ‘Did Banbury find that in O’Connor’s flat?’
‘No, it’s from Sabira to me. Posted to the unit yesterday. I’m afraid I only just got to it.’
‘It looks like a thank-you card.’
‘That’s exactly what it is.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I do. She’s sending me a message.’
‘Yes, it says thank you.’
‘No, it says something else. I’ll be back with the answer in a couple of hours.’
The London Central Mosque stood at the edge of Regent’s Park near the top of Baker Street. It had been founded during the Second World War in recognition of the British Empire’s substantial Muslim population and their support for the Allies during the war. The Churchill War Cabinet requisitioned the site and King George VI opened an Islamic cultural centre. A mosque was the crowning touch, adding a golden dome to the London skyline.
It was the first mosque Sabira had visited in London, and still the place where she felt most at home. The minaret and dome provided a change from the surrounding 1970s architecture, and on a Sunday morning the park opposite was filled with walkers.
Slipping off her shoes and placing them on the rack, Sabira covered her head with her scarf and slipped inside. The thick red carpets and great gold chandelier above her reminded her of the mosque in Tirana; unlike the churches she had visited in England, most mosques were fundamentally the same, the better to concentrate one’s attention upon prayer and reflection, but this one had immense windows filled with peaceful greenery.
She made her way up to the women’s balcony, thinking, This is how she died, ending her fears within the sight of her God. If I am to be taken, do it now and cleanse me of my fears.
But she did not die. After an hour of reflection, Sabira rose and left the mosque. Now that she was thinking clearly once more, she considered calling the PCU to check that they had received the card – but what if her calls were being monitored?
While she had been in the mosque an idea had formed in her head; she had no proof of any kind to offer, and yet there might still be some gesture she could make that Mr Bryant would pick up. It had to be something her tormentors would never understand. Assuming the detectives were smart enough to appreciate her motives, she would give them as much as she dared, then head for Victoria Station to lose herself somewhere in its rural branch lines.
She set off in the direction of London’s law courts.
At Holborn Tube station she alighted and tried to see if anyone was following her, but the platform was crowded with Sunday tourists now, and she had no idea whom she might be looking for.
Slipping behind the station, she headed into the green square of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here, in the dappled shadows of the great plane trees, she felt protected. It seemed that fate had drawn them all in this direction. It had brought Amy O’Connor to St Bride’s Church just up the road, and Jeff Waters to Coram’s Fields, within five minutes’ walk of here. Now she too had returned, to leave a trail that only someone with a very particular turn of mind might think of following.
Across the road was number 13, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, one of the strangest buildings in London. Without looking back she climbed the steps and pushed open the front door.
There was nobody at the reception desk. The great room to her right appeared to be empty as well. Ahead was the narrow hallway that led to the stairs and the secret gallery. But now that she placed her foot on the first stone step, she started to feel a familiar dizziness.
She could not allow the imps to return. Swallowing hard, she rubbed at her arms and climbed the gloomy stairway, but she could see them suddenly swarming in from every corner of the dark, divorcing themselves from the dusty shadows, the heavy velour curtains, the bookcases and skulls, the busts and statues.
You don’t exist, she shouted silently. But the house was designed for ghosts, and she realized she had fallen into a trap. There was no worse place to be in the whole of London for having tricks played on the mind.
Fighting blindly on, she made her way to the first floor, but the imps were batting at her face and arms, scratching at her legs, and now the voices began, urging them on.
I know what I must do, she told herself, and all the demons of hell can’t stop me.
25
DEATH’S PUZZLE
LONGBRIGHT BROKE THE cordon of yellow plastic tape and rolled it up. ‘Let’s not draw attention to this,’ she told Renfield. ‘Keep the door shut. If anyone wants to come in, they can knock.’
She stepped into the hallway of number 13.
‘There’s supposed to be somebody on the door all the time,’ said Renfield. ‘She’s a voluntary helper. Things were a bit slow because the listings magazines had the place down as closed. Usually it’s open from Tuesday to Saturday, but they just added Sunday mornings. She went off to get a cup of tea. Said she wasn’t gone longer than a couple of minutes. She’s very upset. The EMT couldn’t hang around; they had an emergency call to Holborn tube station so I let all but one of them go. He’s upstairs.’
‘Wait until Kasavian finds out what’s happened,’ said Longbright. ‘Have you managed to get hold of Arthur?’
‘His phone’s off, or maybe his train’s in a tunnel. He didn’t drive to Bletchley, did he?’
/> ‘God, I hope not. John’s on his way over with Dan. He’s trying to find a place to park. Security’s tight around here.’
London’s legal centre consisted of two Inns and two Temples, each complex with its own great hall, chapel, libraries and barristers’ chambers, built around a garden covering several acres, like an Oxford college. They operated as their own local authorities, a miniature city within a city.
May was not far behind them. ‘Arthur’s going to blame himself for this,’ he said, looking around as he entered the hall. ‘What the hell was she doing in here? Are there any other visitors?’
‘A few of them on the lower ground floor,’ said Longbright. ‘Chinese architectural students.’
‘Nobody on the first floor or above?’
‘No, just downstairs.’
‘You’d better go and take statements. Does everyone have to sign in when they arrive?’
‘It’s not compulsory.’ Longbright pointed to an old-fashioned leather-bound visitors’ book lying open on the hall desk.
‘I’m thinking the killer probably wouldn’t have signed in,’ said Renfield sarcastically.
‘No, but I want to see if the victim did.’
May checked down the brief list of the morning’s names and found Sabira Kasavian’s signature clearly written. It was the sort of thing Bryant would have checked at once. ‘Five past eleven,’ he noted. ‘She left the clinic at nine. Why did she take two hours to get here? Where else did she go? No sign of the City of London Police, then?’
‘I think as soon as they got the victim’s ID they stepped back. Home Office turf.’
‘I presume someone’s spoken to her husband?’
Renfield looked blank. ‘We figured you would do it. Not sure anyone else is up to the job.’
‘Great, thanks for that. I can’t wait to tell our client that his wife is dead.’ He checked his watch. ‘Where’s Dan? I need to get some idea of the situation before I talk to him.’
Bryant & May and the Invisible Code (Bryant & May 10) Page 16
