“Good job they were looking out the window, sir,” Banbury consoled as they walked back towards Bryant’s Mini Cooper.
“They had no choice. There was nothing to look at in the flat.”
“There was a fish. I’ve always wanted a pet.”
“Fish aren’t pets, Banbury, they’re ornaments. Why didn’t he leave a calling card this time, that’s what I want to know.”
“If he did, we haven’t found it,” Banbury agreed.
“Why not? He wants us to acknowledge him. Why not make sure by leaving the card again?”
“You don’t think it was some kind of freak side effect of the storm?”
“Lightning has some unusual properties, Banbury, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t come through the windows and strike people indoors,” Bryant snapped back. “Although my mother used to make us cover the mirrors and lay our cutlery flat during thunderstorms. I want that gym taken apart brick by brick. The Highwayman must have gained admittance to the room somehow, in which case he’ll have left entry or exit marks. You of all people should know that.”
Banbury was already shaking his head. “I only had time for a quick look, but unless I’m missing some kind of secret passage, I really don’t see how he could have effected an entry. Apart from anything else, Danny Martell would have seen him; he had an unobstructed view of the door from his seat on the machine. If he’d felt threatened, he would have got up, and we know he didn’t do that.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Bryant. “That we’re dealing with some kind of supernatural agent who walks through walls, the living embodiment of a lousy half-remembered poem that’s come down to earth for the sole purpose of exacting bloody vengeance on minor celebrities?”
“I didn’t say that, sir,” Banbury pointed out. “You did.”
Outside the apartment building, Bryant lit his pipe and leaned against the cool glazed bricks, looking across the street to the gymnasium. If the Highwayman was so determined to make it appear that no killer had been at the scene, why was he prepared to show himself to witnesses? Bryant’s fascination with crimes of paradox was well documented, but even by the peculiar cases of his own past, this was outstanding.
Something else was here, though; the death sites were public areas associated with wealth and security, not squalid back alleys. There was a sense of voluptuous harm, visited upon random strangers by a dispassionate, cruel mentality. The feeling was shocking because it was so alien. Long ago, Bryant had developed a psychic sensitivity to London’s buildings and landscapes, but rarely had he experienced the impression of such a malevolent personality. It tainted the atmosphere and left behind a darkly spreading stain…
The grey dome of St Paul’s rose beyond the low office buildings. The screeching of seagulls reminded him of the river’s nearness. Something tugged at his memory, the faint impression of an earlier case, its detail fading now like a footprint in soft sand. Puzzled by this half-recollection, he crossed the street and walked to the building’s doorway.
There, at the base of the steps, a scratched V in the stonework, with another, inverted, on top of it. With a little imagination, the symbol could be interpreted as a tricorn hat atop a raised collar. The markings were fresh.
The Highwayman had left another calling card.
∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧
17
Renegade Minds
They met in the middle of the bridge.
What had once been undertaken as an evening constitutional had now assumed talismanic value, a requirement of their continued survival. Throughout the passing decades, the pair had walked beside the surging sepia waters of the Thames to the bridge’s centre, and now the habit was unbreakable. They reserved their secret histories for this moment, their private doubts, their hidden knowledge. It was one of the few places where Bryant was still legitimately allowed to smoke his pipe and where May could steal a few puffs on a forbidden cigar. They usually walked at sunset, but early on Wednesday morning the bridge proved to be a convenient meeting place before their return to the unit. A thin dawn mist spiralled from the river, its tendrils clinging to the stanchions of the bridge, sharpening the air with the brackish tang of mud and mildew.
“God, what a business,” said May, passing over a cardboard coffee cup. “We have to keep a united front on this, Arthur. It will sink us otherwise.”
“You pessimist,” said Bryant, sniffing his coffee. “Has this got sugar in?” He leaned on the cold stone balustrade and marvelled at the rising dark outlines of the city. “Look how it’s changing.”
“You always say that,” May countered. “You love St Paul’s, the Gherkin, County Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, and the London Eye. You hate the mayor’s building and Charing Cross Station. I know exactly what you’re about to say because you always say the same thing.”
Bryant was affronted. “I’m sorry to be so predictable. Habit and familiarity provide me with comfort. What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re going to get out those strange boiled sweets now, aren’t you? The ones nobody sells anymore. What will it be today, Cola Cubes, Rhubarb and Custard, Chocolate Logs, Flying Saucers?” He turned to face his astonished partner. “Come on, what have you got?”
Bryant looked sheepish as he unwrapped a crumpled paper bag, revealing strings of red licorice. “Fireman’s Hose,” he said apologetically. “Do you want one?”
“No, I bloody don’t.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Bryant’s trilby had folded down his ears, and his scarf was pulled up to his nose. He looked like a superannuated schoolboy who’d been held back for half a century. Nobody would take him seriously looking like this. May sighed, turning back to the balustrade.
Before them, a pair of police launches were fighting the tide, heading towards the pier at Greenwich. “Look at us. How absurd we are. All these years spent bullying bureaucrats for budgets, working ridiculous hours, losing friends, having no social life, leaving no trace of our efforts. All the stress, all the pain, and we’re no further forward than the day we met each other.”
“That’s not fair.” Bryant dunked a rubbery length of hose in his coffee and sucked on it ruminatively. “Think of the destinies we’ve altered. The lives we’ve saved. The weight of knowledge we’ve accumulated.”
“You understand less now about the criminal mind than when you started,” said May. “You’re always complaining that life is speeding up around you, yet you make absolutely no effort to change.”
“What is this about?” asked Bryant suspiciously.
“Nothing – I’m just frustrated, that’s all.”
“We’re still investigating. We haven’t been beaten yet. You don’t fool me. Something’s happened.”
“It’s our ambitious new Home Office liaison officer,” replied May. “Leslie Faraday has ordered psychiatric evaluation reports on us. He’s gathering background material as ammunition.”
“When did you hear that?”
“I found an e-mail waiting for me from Rufus when I got in last night.”
“Faraday won’t find anything of interest. Why are you so worried?”
“Perhaps you don’t understand the gravity of our situation. He’s looking for a way to shut us down, and he wants it done as quickly as possible.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“You have no friends in the Met, Arthur. I do, and they keep me informed. You forget some of the things Faraday could uncover. We freed thirty illegal immigrants last month. We hid their trail and falsified the case’s documentation. Do I need to remind you that you also placed a minor in a position of danger, allowing him to be lowered into a sewer with a registered sex offender?”