“ – Sir, your boots – ” began the attendant.
“Sorry about this, I missed breakfast. All these corridors seem to turn back on themselves. I’ve never seen so many commemorative plaques. They’ve left the old GLC fittings up, all those councillors’ names like Wiggins and Trusspot and Higginbottom, how they loved congratulating themselves on their civic duties, you can smell the self-importance.”
All the attendant could smell was sardines. “ – Sir, your boots are damaging – ”
“And how appropriate that it should become an art gallery, and continue enraging the public. Hullo, what have we here?” Bryant waggled his sandwich at the clouded green-tinged tank, scattering pieces of tomato everywhere.
“One more body in the formaldehyde than is meant to be there, sir.” Mangeshkar thumbed at the glass.
Bryant’s face fairly lit up. When the creases vanished, he held the delight of a naughty child in his features. “Eternal Destiny. So this is what all the fuss is about; got a couple of horrified leaders in the Daily Mail last week, didn’t it? ‘Why This Sick Art Must Be Banned,’ the usual outraged rent-a-quotes from the porcine adenoidal baconheads who act as our moral guardians.”
“They’re human foetuses, sir; it’s hardly surprising people are upset,” Bimsley pointed out.
“Oh, pish-tush,” said the detective, with a mouthful of sardine. “Some middle-class artist is trying to shock the masses and the tabloids are putting the wind up their readers as usual. So this notorious piece just became even more infamous. Well, well. Do we know who’s bobbing about in there?”
“Not yet, sir. The photographer hasn’t arrived, and we’re waiting for Giles Kershaw to come back. He’s getting some lads with a block and tackle.” Kershaw had been promised that he could head the unit’s new forensic team, before discovering that he was the team, apart from their ancient part-time pathologist, Oswald Finch.
“I wouldn’t go walking about near the – ” began Meera, but it was too late; Bryant’s boots were already trailing spilled formaldehyde across the floor.
“Oh, very cunning,” Bryant was muttering, studying the glass case from every angle. “A very slick piece of showmanship, sadly ruined now, of course.”
“What’s he saying?” asked Bimsley, mouthing the words at Meera, who shrugged back.
“I have a new battery in my hearing aid, so I advise you to be circumspect,” warned Bryant without turning around. “Did you do everything I asked?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Meera. “The entrance doors have been sealed. You should have seen some officers posted there when you came through.”
Bryant grunted. “A couple of single-cell constables from Lambeth, hardly a watertight cordon. I suppose the Met are too busy sorting out motoring fines.” When the PCU had been separated from London’s Metropolitan Police Force and placed under Home Office control, the move had ostensibly been made to provide the unit with new powers. The truth, however, was a little more complex. Home Office officials wanted to keep a closer watch on the PCU’s spending, and prevent further antagonism between Bryant and the Met officers who wanted him disciplined for continually breaking their rules.
“There’s only one way into the gallery apart from the emergency exit, and that’s now locked,” said Dan Banbury, snapping on a fresh pair of plastic gloves with unnecessary theatricality. “The outside of the building is also being monitored.”
“You’re confident that whoever did this is still inside here, then.”
“Don’t see how he could have got out, sir,” said Bimsley with inspiring conviction. “The guard shut the doors the moment he found the body.”
“What about the visitors, where are they?”
“They’re all in the café, sir. Sergeant Longbright is taking their details. Somebody must have seen something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, there were people in just about every room,” Bimsley explained.
“You there, how often do you make your rounds through the gallery rooms?” Bryant tapped the redheaded attendant on the arm with his walking stick.
“They were asking me that and I was trying to explain – ”
“It’s not their job to ask you, it’s mine. Try not to waffle. How often?”
“It varies, but at a rough guess – ”
“I don’t want a rough guess. I want accuracy.”
“It’s hard to say, but – ”
“Is there something wrong with you that requires all answers to be preceded by a conditional clause?” Bryant turned his full attention to the attendant. “A straightforward answer, is that too much to ask?”
“Every fifteen minutes,” replied the attendant, swallowing.
“When was the last time you came through the room and found everything fine?”
“Er, I think it might have been – ” Simon caught his inquisitor’s eye and began again. “Ten-thirty A.M.”
“And you returned at ten forty-five A.M. to find the body in the tank.”
“No, sir.”
“What, then?”
“I heard a noise and started walking back. I hadn’t got much further through the gallery; it must have been about five minutes after I’d left the main chamber.”
“What kind of noise was it that required you to walk but not run?”
“That was it, you see, just a sort of shout, but then a crash, like someone hitting glass but not breaking it.”
“What did it sound like to you?”
“Like someone messing with an exhibit. There had been a bit of commotion in here since we opened, because of the press conference.”
“You had a press conference this morning?”
“Yes, sir. Three of the most controversial artists, a chance for them to answer their critics. We had most of the national press here.”
“No television crews?” Bryant looked for a place to throw the rest of his sandwich and momentarily considered adding it to a bronze sculpture of objets trouvés.
“No, sir, Mr Burroughs wouldn’t allow them in.”
“Mr Burroughs is the new gallery owner, I take it.”
“That’s right. He didn’t want television crews because of the documentary.”
“Ah, yes – I can understand his point.” A week earlier, Channel 4 had broadcast an inflammatory programme about the new owner of the former Saatchi gallery, implying that he was merely a showman and self-publicist, attempting to ape his predecessor by commissioning outrageous works of art at inflated fees.
“The press conference finished at ten, but a few guests were still inside when we opened the doors to the public at that time, and – ”
“I’m sure you’ll give the others a full report,” said Bryant dismissively, heading back towards the tank. He cupped his hands over the glass and peered through the eerie green fluid, where six curled pink babies hung on wires, suspended like sea-horses beneath the murky sun-shafted verdure of a pond. The corpse floating facedown above them was clearly that of a female, her hands splayed beneath her torso, her long brown hair spread wide and held in still suspension by the viscosity of the liquid, magnified by thick glass as in an aquarium; a modern Ophelia, distracted and driven into harsh chemical waters. Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted in an attitude of surprising calm. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she disrupted the symmetry of the installation, she might almost have been a part of the piece. A single slender brown strand of blood curled around her head and chest like drifting pipe smoke. Distorted by the green tank and surrounded by infant corpses, her body had taken on the timeless density of a painting; a damned soul fallen from the raft of the Medusa, left to drift in Géricault’s icy green ocean…