“I’m sorry, we don’t keep a very tidy house.” May knew that his granddaughter had a compulsion for neatness; her flat reminded him of an operating theatre. “Why don’t you take the room across the corridor?”
“This must be Janice Longbright’s room.” April noted the Agent Provocateur boned corset that hung on the back of the door, the thick face-powders and ceramic-bottle cosmetics that spilled from an old Pifco hair-dryer box, circa 1955. May moved a low-cut spangled trapeze dress from a swivel chair and hid it. Lately, Sergeant Longbright’s obsession with stars of the 1950s had reached epic proportions.
“Yes, but Janice is very happy to have a guest.”
“You want her to keep an eye on me.” April picked up a dusty bottle of ‘Bowanga!’ Jungle Red Nail Varnish priced 2/11d, and set it back in place. She had forgotten just how odd everyone was here.
“To begin with. Just until you settle in.”
“How many staff do you have now?”
“There are eight of us if you count Raymond Land, but he’s not often here. Spends most of his time creeping around to his officer pals at the Met. Now that we’re under the jurisdiction of the Home Office, we’re waiting for a visit from their new man. Apparently, he wants to reorganise the unit to make it more accountable and efficient. Arthur and I have the room opposite. Dan Banbury is our IT-slash-crime scene manager. Rough and ready, but a good sort. He shares with Giles Kershaw, who’s rather too posh and plummy for my taste, but also good at his job. He’s the forensics officer and social science liaison – ”
“What’s that?”
“Not entirely sure,” May admitted. “He came with the title and no-one’s got around to asking him what it means. The lovely Sergeant Longbright you know, of course. And there are two detective constables down the hall, Meera Mangeshkar – she can be a bit stroppy, but she’s all right once you get to know her – and Colin Bimsley, who has been medically diagnosed with DSA, that’s Diminished Spatial Awareness, which explains why he falls down the stairs so often.”
“And that’s it?” asked April, shocked. “This is the crack team that solves crimes no-one else can handle?”
“Not quite,” said May with a smile. “There’s you now. Our first resident non-professional. Liaison and communication. At least, that will be the official title until we find out what you’re best at.”
Leicester University’s Scarman Centre had suggested that the Association of Chief Police Officers should train members of the public to work alongside professional investigators, and the PCU was always an early adopter of radical new ideas. “Come with me,” May beckoned. “Let’s get you started.”
“I like it here.” April wiped a patch of condensation from the window and looked down into the traffic. “It feels safe and protected, like a nest. When I look outside, I have to fight a sense of panic. How many active cases are you working on?”
“We’ve been asked to take on work from other jurisdictions around the country, and there are a couple of interesting matters in hand. A British civil servant named Garrick, on assignment in Thailand, was found in a Bangkok reptile house at the city’s floating market, apparently bitten to death by green mambas. When the body was shipped back, Arthur and Giles found traces of old needle tracks in the crook of his left leg. Garrick was right-handed; addicts usually cross sides when they inject, so we figured they were self-induced. There were unused syringes in Garrick’s desk drawer, but no traces of injectable drugs in his system except snake venom. We suspect he was trying to build up his immunity to the snakes by injecting small amounts of poison into his bloodstream.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Our job isn’t to fathom the vagaries of the human mind, just to settle the arguments about death. Not that it stopped Arthur from trying to find out. He discovered that Garrick’s previous assignment was in Alabama, where he had joined a snake-handling sect. He’d decided to convert the locals in Bangkok, but needed to prove his own abilities first. Case closed. Apart from that, we’ve another dead biological warfare expert on our hands. That’s the twelfth since 9/11 – more fodder for conspiracy theorists.”
“I’m a great believer in conspiracies.”
“Then you’ll love this one,” said May with a smile. “Dr Peter Jukes from Salisbury, Wiltshire, found by fishermen floating off Black Head at the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall. The local coroner reckoned it was a straightforward matter of death by drowning, but there were unexplained injuries. Plus, his boat turned up fifteen miles away, washed into a local harbour. The coast guard concluded that it was unlikely he had fallen from the boat, because local tides and currents would have taken it into shore near the spot where he was found. Jukes told some drinking pals he was going fishing with his friend Leo, but no-one of that name has been found. Arthur has turned up some darker connections; Jukes formerly belonged to a Druid sect – his family says it was a hobby – but had lately drifted into Satanist circles. The police refuse to believe there’s a connection between his injuries and his interest in black magic, but we’re wondering if he became an embarrassment to his employers. Jukes was chief scientist for chemical and biological defence at the MOD’s Porton Down laboratory, part of which has recently been privatised by a company now under investigation.”
April’s interest was piqued. Denied access to her cigarettes, her hands fluttered at her sides in weak agitation. “The government doesn’t kill staff members for pursuing unusual hobbies, surely.”
“I’d like to think not, but he operated under the Official Secrets Act, after all. Somehow, I doubt we’ll ever get to the truth on this one, mainly because the Defence Secretary is reluctant to acknowledge that there’s a case at all. There are also a couple of outstanding cold cases which act as strikes against the unit. We’re no nearer to finding out the truth about the Leicester Square Vampire, and a recent trail belonging to someone the press are calling the Deptford Demon has also gone cold.” May checked his thoughts for a moment. “You know you’ll come up against some extreme morbidity in this job, April.”
“It doesn’t worry me,” said his granddaughter, offering a tentative smile. “So long as the two of you are nearby to protect me.”
May smiled back reassuringly. But he knew that their tenure here at the PCU was every bit as unsteady as April’s return to the outside world.
“Uncle Arthur says that ancient evils are always waiting to resurface in London,” said April suddenly. “Do you believe that?”
“Yes, I do,” replied May. “None of us ever knows when we are likely to be tested. All we can be sure of is that it will be when we lower our guard the most.”
Looking back, he should have added that evil would take the most unlikely of forms.
∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧
4
The Usefulness of Memory
After weeks of rain, the city spent one glorious week marooned in the stale sargasso of a warm late summer. The streets became sticky and overheated, the residents made bad-tempered by their return from clean beaches to London dirt. A belated silly season hit the newspapers, whose editors could barely be bothered to outrage their readers with amorous sporting scandals and tales of government waste, and had opted instead for food scares and travel indignations. The great engine of the city slowed. Offices were becalmed. It was as though everyone was waiting for something to happen. London residents were seeking someone new to idolise, someone new to hate.