“Well, she didn’t seem crazy to me,” observed May as they left the house. “If anything, I thought she was pretty damn smart. She’s about craft, artistry – and making money.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree with you,” replied Bryant glumly. “My biggest problem is that I can’t see what she would have to gain by killing. But her fascination with the morbid fits a certain pattern.”
“I’ll do some checking into her background, look for the usual signs, but we’re going to need more than circumstantial evidence if we’re going to make anything stick to anyone. It sounds like they all had access to the Hangman puppet.”
“Did she have any unexplained absences during the party?”
“She’s another smoker. I think she slipped out for a snout a couple of times, but wasn’t gone long in either case. Sounds like we can’t prove where she was when Gregory Baine died.”
“Too many suspects, and none of them entirely fit – yet. Bloody annoying.”
They returned to the Unit and worked separately for the rest of the day. After the Unit had finally closed for the night, Bryant told his partner to put on his coat and follow him to the King Charles I pub. He appeared to be troubled by something; his brow was even more rumpled than usual. Over pints of Bombardier, he explained his problem.
“I think we can rule out Robert Kramer now,” he began, leaving a foamy moustache on his upper lip. “I’m afraid we have to assume you were fed a dud lead by the Home Office.”
“How do you work that out?”
“I realized that Kramer doesn’t fit the pattern. He might have reached the top by behaving in an immoral manner, but he certainly isn’t an anarchist. If anything, he’s an arch-conformist. He abides by the status quo. He doesn’t want to upset the ordered world, he simply wants to exist in its upper echelons. He might assume he has something in common with the myths of strong leaders, but he behaves in the prescribed manner of all rapacious businessmen.”
“Well, he’s all we have right now, even though he has no motive for killing his own partner.”
“I read the email Lucy Clementine sent you. Fond of detailing her boss’s bad behaviour, isn’t she?”
“If she’s right, we’ve got enough to hold Robert Kramer on suspicion,” said May. “We’re not subject to the rules governing the Met.”
“You won’t get a confession out of him. He’d fight every step of the way.”
“You sound as if you don’t want to make an arrest.”
“Of course I do, but we can’t afford another mistake. You’ve no concrete evidence, only hearsay. We need more proof than the word of a disgruntled former secretary. He fired her, John. Lucy Clementine sued Kramer for wrongful dismissal and settled compensation out of court, but the amount she received was the lowest that could have been awarded.”
“How did you find this out?”
“I didn’t. I got Dan Banbury to run a background check on her. What he found was that she had no background.”
“You mean someone erased it?”
“Afraid so. Their mistake was taking out the whole of the period when she worked for Kramer. It would have been more convincing if they’d left something in. Her testimony is compromised.”
“Why were you suspicious?”
“The Department of Social Resources is housed in the same Whitehall Home Office building as the Department of Internal Security – the department that’s run by Oskar Kasavian.”
“It could just be a coincidence.”
“And it might not be. All I’m saying is, you can’t trust your source.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“The same as you. I want to get to the truth before anyone else is hurt.”
“You think it will happen again if we don’t stop it?”
“I know it will.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Our murderer is winning. Nobody has been arrested. He’s getting exactly what he wants.”
“But we don’t know what he wants.”
“I have a shrewd idea now. I just don’t know which one of them it is.”
“Still going to play your cards close to your chest, then.”
“I have to. If I’m wrong, I can’t afford to drop us both in the merde. It would be better if I took the fall.”
“So what happens next?”
“We need to keep a close watch on everyone who was at that party.”
“You know we can’t do that. We don’t have enough staff.”
“If we don’t, somebody may die.”
“Then we have to decide who to prioritize. I’m assuming Judith Kramer is high risk.”
“You mean because she collapsed after the death of her son she can’t possibly be guilty.”
“Someone set out to hurt her by killing her child.”
“But she wasn’t hurt by Gregory Baine’s death.”
“Giles says he can’t entirely rule out suicide. There’s still the idea that Baine might have killed himself over his debts. If I had to choose the person most at risk right now, it would be someone involved in the love triangle. Marcus Sigler or Kramer himself.”
“Really? Interesting. That’s not who I would have picked.”
“Then who do you think is the most exposed?”
“Ray Pryce, the writer, because he’s as nervous as a cat and knows more than he’s letting on. I think he saw something at the party. What did he witness that he’s not telling us?”
“OK, anyone else?”
“Yes, that obnoxious critic, Alex Lansdale.”
“The critic?”
“Of course. We’re looking for a very unusual killer. Someone who’s a careful planner, but also capable of murderous rages. Remember what Janice said about Mrs Kramer? That she always felt stranded on the outside. Nearly everyone else there was directly connected with the play, but one man was a traitor and did his best to close it down – Lansdale. That puts him on the wrong side.”
May drank up and set his pint down. “Call me old-fashioned, but I think we should protect the women first. Everyone who attended that party is technically a suspect.”
“Not true, John. The timings have ruled at least three of them out.”
“Nevertheless, we need to keep them all close by. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll have another pint,” said Bryant, peering through the bottom of his empty glass.
∨ The Memory of Blood ∧
31
Despair
DS Janice Longbright returned to Bermondsey late, because she wanted to catch the Hagan family by surprise. She was required to make the visit in the company of another officer, and took Jack Renfield with her.
The lights were on in the corner house behind Jamaica Road. “Who’s in there?” Jack asked as they approached.
“Five teens, three girls, two boys. One of the girls is fifteen and has a new baby. Their father lives there with his girlfriend. I think the original mother took off some years ago. And there are the grandparents – his, I think. None of them have ever held down legal jobs, the father and the grandfather have both served time for armed robbery, the oldest daughter has a soliciting record, the youngest son was admitted to a methadone programme at the age of fourteen. Anna’s mother reckons her daughter’s first mobile was taken by one of the boys. She saw him running away. The police searched the place and found nothing. The family know their rights.”