“But we have an eyewitness report that she tripped and fell,” said Kershaw. “That doesn’t fit with what you’re reading from the carpet.”
“It’s a recurring MO,” Banbury muttered, lying down with his shoulder against the carpet, examining the skirting boards. “He’s always there, but not, if you see what I mean. He’s seen at the sites, but we have no evidence that he ever touches the victims. That’s a very unusual behavioural pattern, some kind of fundamental disassociation with the victims. Usually I’d expect to find something on the bodies suggesting the identity of an outside party, but there’s been nothing on any of them. It’s as though his mere presence is enough to kill.”
“Why would he go out of his way not to touch them?”
“Being careful about forensic evidence, or maybe it’s part of the image. Nemesis, a figure of dread. Remember Wichita’s BTK killer, all those cryptic messages he sent to the police about his crimes thirty years after he had committed them? Same principle here. The desire to inspire fear and be treated as a celebrity monster. Bryant is right; he has the same profile as the Leicester Square Vampire. No wonder he thinks the cases are related.”
“I take it you don’t,” Kershaw suggested.
“No, I agree that they are,” said Banbury, “just not in the way anyone has imagined. What do you think this is?” He raised a pair of tweezers in his torch beam and showed its contents to his partner.
Kershaw peered at the curved white sliver. “Looks like plaster.”
“There’s nothing made of plaster around here. It’s not from the ceiling. The shape’s too rounded.” It was Bryant who had persuaded Banbury to always carry an old-fashioned magnifying lens. He was glad of it now as he dug it out to examine the splinter. “Appears to have been broken off from the ironwork. Identical fleur-de-lis shape.” He matched it against the design. “Except that there’s nothing missing here, and it’s made of the wrong material.”
“The Highwayman specialises in the impossible. Therefore, if we assume she didn’t fall, he must have wanted to make it look as if she did.” Kershaw bagged the chip for removal, and thought for a moment. “I think I know what this is. He’s making mistakes now. I hope you didn’t make any arrangements for your day off.”
“Actually I was planning to attend my sister’s wedding,” Banbury replied. “I’ll stick a note in with the flowers.”
Loyalty to this unit is going to be the ruin of us all, thought Kershaw sadly.
♦
“Nobody does this kind of thing anymore,” said Felix, lifting away the sticky sheet to reveal a neat square hole in the window. Heavy rain darkened the school, shielding it from the road. The professional burglar set down the pane and proudly brushed back the ends of his grey handlebar mustache. “It’s a lost art. Nobody cares about craftsmanship. The refinement is in the detailing.”
“You’re breaking and entering, not carving a bentwood chair,” said May tersely.
“You’re lucky I’m operating on this side of the law,” said Felix.
“That’s only because we haven’t caught you working on the other side yet. Mr Al Fayed is still hoping to get his diamonds back, despite where they’ve been. We shouldn’t be seen with you. You’re a marked man. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“Ah, you didn’t hear. I faked my own death a couple of times and shook them off.”
“We still managed to find you easily enough, so watch it.” May looked back at the darkened schoolyard. “I thought there would be a caretaker.”
“Caretakers cost money. It’s cheaper to install an alarm these days.” Felix slipped his arm through the window and raised the catch. “All you need to shut this system down is a magnet and a needle. It’s pitiful. They go for the cheapest option because only kids break into schools. What would a professional find worth nicking here? They’re too busy reading pin numbers over punters’ shoulders at cash points. My old man would be turning over in his grave.”
“…if he wasn’t inside,” Bryant pointed out. “Are we likely to find any more alarms?”
“What are you expecting, laser beams across the floors?” He slid up the window and pulled Bryant inside with some effort. “Would you mind telling me what we’re looking for?”
“Just get us to the back of the first floor and we’ll do the rest,” said Bryant.
“It’s a liability having you on the job with me,” Felix complained. “I’m not insured if you break something.”
They climbed the broad oak staircase and made their way past school portraits dating back more than three hundred years. May tried the door to Kingsmere’s room and found it locked. He turned to Felix. “Over to you, Maestro.”
Felix pushed May aside and warmed his fingers. “A Hannen cross-flange switch-bolt, a nice little Victorian number; we don’t see many of them nowadays. The screw gauges are different from modern locks.”
“Can you open it?” asked Bryant.
Felix unfolded a set of tiny screwdrivers. “Victorian equipment requires Victorian tools. Luckily for you I’m a professional.”
Within ten minutes, Felix had removed the entire lock from the door and carefully laid it in pieces on the hall floor. “It has to go back in the same way it came out,” Felix explained. They crept into the room and shone torches over Kingsmere’s elegant glass desk.
“No,” said Bryant, pointing, “start in the cupboards over there.”
“You know where to look, don’t you?” asked May, amazed. “What have I missed?”
“The boys told Longbright that he gave them a lesson using artifacts from his family’s history. I think we’ll find what we’re looking for in there.”
Felix stepped forward and pinged open the tiny lock with a disdainful flick of the finger. Bryant opened the cupboard and checked inside to find cricket pads, footballs, broken pieces of science equipment, a master’s gown, rugby kit, and stacks of schoolbooks. “Funny how school cupboards all smell the same. Give me a hand,” he instructed.
Together, he and May lifted down a cardboard box and removed the lid. This was May’s abiding image of his partner; nosing into some neglected corner of the city to check out its contents. The box had been taped shut, but Bryant happily slit it open with his Swiss Army knife. It was filled with photographs and newspaper clippings.
“Take a look at this,” Bryant suggested. “Kingsmere’s family tree. I knew he would keep his mementoes here. This room is very important to him; it’s where he passes on his wisdom. He couldn’t resist a little show-and-tell with his favoured pupils. The St Crispin’s pupils are at war with the boys on the estate, so the Saladins are always looking for ways to bring them down. And recently I think they made a discovery about St Crispin’s favourite teacher. They were annoyed with Kingsmere because he had the nerve to conduct goodcitizen classes at their centre, so they took revenge on him – and by extension, their enemies – by embedding clues about Kingsmere’s culpability in their graffiti, for all to see. How typical of teenagers to take such an unnecessarily complicated route.”
“You’ve lost me, Arthur,” May admitted.
“This is where a little reading of London history books comes in useful, John. Kingsmere’s grandfather was a legendary fascist. Nobody is given a forgotten Victorian Christian name like ‘Brilliant’ without a good family reason. The name rang a bell the first time I heard it. There’s a famous photograph of Kingsmere’s ancestor throwing a Molotov cocktail at a police cordon in 1935. I saw it at Oliver’s picture library.”