Bryant raised a fistful of sepia photographs depicting a thin-faced man shouting on a podium at Hyde Park Corner. “He went to jail for attacking the so-called anarcho-socialists he deemed harmful to the well-being of England. Judging from these photographs, he modelled his appearance on a history of earlier protestors. We tend to adopt the look of those we admire; think of the tree-huggers in the nineties, and how they had modelled their appearance on Californian hippies. Kingsmere could have buried his ancestry, but instead he chose to celebrate it and explain it to his class. That says a lot about his state of mind.”
May stood back. “I don’t understand. You think some piece of ancient family history makes Kingsmere the Highwayman?”
“I think he’s been following in his family’s infamous footsteps. This is about their perception of social injustice. Imagine a dynasty of outsiders and anarchists, each generation committing the crimes that it deems necessary to improve society. The grandfather is politically committed and indoctrinates his children, so that eventually Brilliant Kingsmere is encouraged to follow in the family footsteps, and wipe out those he imagines are symptomatic of society’s ills.”
“You can’t honestly believe that’s enough of a motive to turn Kingsmere into some kind of avenging angel,” said May.
“I’d seen the grandfather’s picture on the wall of the Newman Street Picture Library; I just didn’t register the central connection. It makes perfect sense. The old man’s radical background obsesses and poisons his son, and his son in turn. Ergo, Kingsmere is the Highwayman, continuing his grandfather’s work.”
“You’ve come up with some rubbish theories in your time, but this beats them all.” May shoved the photographs back in their box. “You think the grandson’s motive must also be about upsetting the social order? The targeting of celebrities considered to be champions of the masses is a bit of a perverse way of meting out social justice.”
“I haven’t worked out the finer points yet,” Bryant admitted, looking sheepish.
May was unconvinced. “This is one of your potty dot-joining exercises. I don’t see any damning evidence here.”
“You don’t?” Bryant was holding something aloft with a smile creeping across his eerily white false teeth. Dipping into the box once more, he withdrew a black leather eye mask. A moment’s more rummaging brought forth a padded courier’s jerkin, similarly stitched in black leather. “The mask and tunic of the avenger. We’re going to find Kingsmere’s prints all over these. He followed his grandfather’s aberrant ideologies. We’ve found our Highwayman. Let’s bring him in.”
♦
“I know why you’re so out of salts,” said Alma Sorrowbridge, picking up Bryant’s mud-spattered trousers and bundling them for the wash. “You’re working too hard and it’s stressing you out, making you forget things. Worry will play merry hell with the bowels.” The Antiguan landlady tutted and shook her jowls. “Fancy leaving piles of filthy old toothbrushes all over the hall with germs and ungodly crawlies leaping off them, and forgetting the nice packed lunch I made you.”
“It wasn’t nice, it was covered in lard,” Bryant complained. “You need some fat on your chest with the bad weather coming. And eat some fruit. You’re an old man. You got to eat properly and make your peace with God before it’s too late,” she warned.
“Thank you very much; that makes me feel a lot better,” said Bryant with heavy sarcasm. “All this emphasis on youth and fitness is unhealthy. Why, only a few weeks ago I was shut inside a London sewer, and suffered no aftereffects.” He searched the mantelpiece for his pipe, but Alma had hidden it again.
“I had to burn your clothes and fumigate the house,” replied the landlady, releasing a burst of lavender polish into the air and grinding it into her sideboard. “It’s Sunday. Why don’t you come to church with me?”
“My dear good woman, at some point you must realise that you’re wasting your breath. I am quite beyond redemption. I’ll only come to the church with you if the vicar has been found murdered.”
“I don’t care for blasphemy, Mr B. Did you take your pills? You know you mustn’t get them muddled up.”
“Just for once I wish everyone would stop mollycoddling me!” Bryant exploded. “I’m not a six-year-old. I’m in charge of a major murder investigation!”
He managed to beat her to the phone when it rang. “Ah, John, any luck with our man?”
“He’s out of contact at the moment, walking in the country according to his girlfriend, and he doesn’t have his mobile with him,” May replied. “He’s due back in two hours’ time. I don’t like the idea of him being on the loose – could we get him picked up?”
“It’ll take that long just to bring him into the unit,” said Bryant. “He’s got no reason to run. Let’s keep him under close surveillance until the morning, and talk to him the moment he arrives at the school. This needs to be handled with tact and care. I don’t want him put on his guard.”
“All right, but I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control,” said Bryant, swigging his pills down with a small tumbler of whisky. He replaced the tablet box in his pocket, failing to notice that he had switched his energising morning blue pills with his disorienting nighttime red ones.
∨ Ten Second Staircase ∧
44
Lockdown
“What’s the problem?” asked Meera Mangeshkar, drawing alongside and pulling off her motorcycle helmet. It was seven-thirty A.M. on Monday, October 31. Unit staff usually arrived early at Mornington Crescent for a group meeting that decided the week’s schedule, but this morning they were all stranded outside the building.
“The front door’s stuck,” said Longbright, fiddling with the key to the PCU’s main door. She stepped back and looked up at the unlit windows beneath the crimson-tiled arches.
“Let me take a look.” Mangeshkar peered through the keyhole, then tested the latch. “The lock’s been changed. The old one’s been drilled out.”
“That’s impossible, I was the last to leave yesterday evening.” Longbright threw her considerable shoulder against the door, but it would not budge. She dug out her mobile and snapped it open. “I’m going to call Faraday. This is his doing.”
“I’m afraid you won’t get in by bashing the door down.” Leslie Faraday’s tone was regretful when she managed to track him down, apologetic even. “I fear my hands are tied.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Longbright, shielding her mobile from the spattering rain. Bimsley and Mangeshkar were huddled in the unit’s doorway, waiting for her to finish the call.
“Mr Kasavian,” said Faraday. His speakerphone made him sound as if he was in a public toilet. “He’s terribly exercised about the bungled attempt to catch the Highwayman on Saturday. And then the attack on Mrs Ramsey was the last straw, you should have seen him, utterly distraught – ”
“He’s not taking the case away from us?” asked Longbright.
“No,” replied Faraday. “He’s closed your unit down for good.”
The detective sergeant was outraged. “He can’t do that.”
“I’m afraid it’s entirely within his remit to do so. I was hoping to tell you myself, but things are rather hectic here, what with London’s tourism-development seminar occupying all my time at the moment. I have a lot of functions to attend, and frankly, the closure of a small unproductive department is all in a day’s work.”
Longbright decided it might be for the best not to lose her temper. “What happens to the investigation now? All our details are inside the unit.”
“Mr Kasavian has handed this case back to the Metropolitan Police,” explained Faraday. “They’ll take charge of all the contents.”