Bryant And May On The Loose - A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery Part 16

'Do you ever watch television, Mr Bryant?' she asked, walking to the window. 'I always enjoy the historical adaptations, all those happy street urchins and ladies in bustle skirts worrying about their suitors. The reality was down there.' She tapped a nail against the double-glazing. 'It's hard to imagine how tough urban life used to be. These buildings were blackened with soot and filled with laundresses who were too old and ill to work by their mid-thirties. A woman of twenty-five looked fifty.'

'At least you were able to save some of the original buildings,' said Bryant, dropping onto the nearest seat.

'These factories were left over from the bad old days. Their staff worked with mercury, lead and a.r.s.enic. The dyes rotted their nails, and mercuric vapour burned out their bronchial tubes. They suffered from anaemia, blood poisoning, cardiovascular disease, dermat.i.tis, kidney damage. The employment laws favoured management, of course. The rates of pay were whatever you could get away with. Now the offices are air-conditioned, and have natural light. We've improved the environment beyond all imagining.'

'I agree that our standards are different now, but the gap between rich and poor remains. It's not your fault. Most of the office workers we interview hate their jobs and are only doing it to pay their bills. They binge-drink and take drugs and go mad with frustration and boredom.'

'You're right. It isn't my job to rebalance the whole of society, Mr Bryant.' Her mood changed as soon as she realised he would not be easily led. 'Why are you here?'

'A rather esoteric subject for an investigation unit, I'm afraid. Land purchases. You made over two hundred and sixty of them in order to secure this land, and it took thirty years. Any problems there?'

'What kind of problems?'

'Well, what do you do about the ones who don't want to sell?'

'You mean do we trick property owners into signing away their homes?'

'Oh, I imagine all the guidelines are carefully followed. At least on paper,' Bryant replied lightly.

'More than that. We have government backing every step of the way, at both local and national levels.'

'So you can't really fail, can you?'

'If you're implying something, Detective, it might be better to just come out and say it.'

'Well, you must admit you're having a fairly unusual month. Body parts turning up on your site, some lunatic stalking the workers in fancy dress. At first I thought someone was out to stop you from finis.h.i.+ng the project. Silly, of course; an international juggernaut derailed by a worker with a grudge. Then I thought, what if he's just trying to draw attention to the company and its work practices? You don't have a high public profile. You get on with your work and keep your heads down. Suppose someone started to s.h.i.+ne a spotlight on you? So, first the culprit dresses as a local hero and marauds around your site, making a mockery of your security system. Perhaps he still has friends inside the company who'll arrange to leave doors unlocked and lights deactivated. And when that has no effect he gets desperate, stepping up his activity until it results in a murder which has to be hidden, which then turns up a second corpse. And he dresses it all up in the myths of local history, just to keep everyone interested. That's why you need to search through your employment records and see if there's someone on your books who's capable of such a thing.'

'We don't have time to do that. We have deadlines to meet.'

'Then we'll do it for you, starting this afternoon.'

'This is a privately owned company, but it's sanctioned by the government,' Waters warned.

'It's publicly accountable. You'd better make sure you have nothing nasty to hide, Miss Waters, because if you do I will find it and I will bring you down to earth.'

'If we wanted to hide something, Mr Bryant, I can guarantee you'd never find it.'

Bryant left in a fury. No-one was telling the truth. Everyone had something to conceal. And an ordinary, decent man had been killed in impossible circ.u.mstances. Another working day was almost over; there was an ever greater danger that the Met would regain control of the investigation, and the truth remained just beyond his grasp.

Worst of all, he could not shake the strange feeling that he was being watched.

30

PREDATOR

Bryant sat in the Costa coffee shop opposite the station entrance, staring into the falling rain. He was thinking about the Sioux star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Chief Long Wolf made it all the way here in 1892 Chief Long Wolf made it all the way here in 1892, he thought, only to die of pneumonia in London's dreadful weather. That says it all. Look at it only to die of pneumonia in London's dreadful weather. That says it all. Look at it.

He had sounded confident in the meeting with Waters but knew that the case was falling apart around his ears. The first victim was bothering him. At least the head had now been found, and was undergoing tests. Why had it turned up on the same site? If the killer had really wanted to keep his victim's provenance hidden, he would have taken the head far away, or simply weighted it and thrown it into the fast-flowing tide of the Thames. The invention of the garbage bag had been a boon to murderers everywhere. If the murderer was that much of a professional, it didn't make sense to bury the head in rubble at the back of the store.

Which meant that their killer was not a hit man at all, but an ordinary fallible human being. No professional would have left the parts where they would be found.

But if there was no hit man, where did this leave the investigation? They had no-one. A face in the crowd. An invisible man. Ordinary people left spoors, and Banbury had turned up nothing, not a hair, not a thread, not a flake of skin. That in itself was rare enough to suggest they were dealing with someone extraordinary.

The ghosts of Battlebridge obliterated those who would desecrate their land. Veles came storming through the dark green forest to take his revenge. A supernatural killer had risen out of the torn soil, from an age so long gone that civilisation did not even have a trace-memory of it. Time fragmented the past into bright moments, tumbling diurnally until they finally faded from view. The pagan G.o.d of all things wild, of woodlands and beasts and storms and rus.h.i.+ng rivers, had come back into a world being re-created in concrete, back just in time to restore it to a natural state where faith in the rising sun and the blossoming of plants could reign once more. And he was removing the heads of his victims in rituals of pagan sacrifice.

Preposterous.

If anyone was to be sacrificed, surely it should be Marianne Waters, or the council members who had approved the desecration of the site, not a workman who never hurt anyone.

I'm going mad, thought Bryant. Well, maybe I've always been a little mad. My father warned me about that, G.o.d bless his beer-sodden soul. We have to close the investigation fast or I get to go back to my fireside and watch the rain running down the windows until the end of my time. We haven't got the staff to go through all of ADAPT's employment records. We're not being thorough; it feels like we're missing something blindingly obvious. There must be a simple answer to all this, something that's right in front of me. Come on, Arthur, use that brain of yours Well, maybe I've always been a little mad. My father warned me about that, G.o.d bless his beer-sodden soul. We have to close the investigation fast or I get to go back to my fireside and watch the rain running down the windows until the end of my time. We haven't got the staff to go through all of ADAPT's employment records. We're not being thorough; it feels like we're missing something blindingly obvious. There must be a simple answer to all this, something that's right in front of me. Come on, Arthur, use that brain of yours.

He realised he was doing what he always did. John May endlessly accused him of failing to make a stand on the side of rationality. He's right He's right, thought Bryant. I'm always drawn to the other side, the spiritual, the instinctive. If we're to survive this, I need to do something practical and useful. I think I need to see a witch I'm always drawn to the other side, the spiritual, the instinctive. If we're to survive this, I need to do something practical and useful. I think I need to see a witch.

It was dark and still raining. Janice Longbright and Liberty DuCaine sat on the brick wall that crossed the ca.n.a.l, although Liberty's legs were so long that they touched the pavement. Longbright dipped into a white paper bag, sharing DuCaine's chips. Blowing on one, she licked tomato ketchup from her fingertips.

'I'm glad John asked you to come and give us a hand,' she said. 'We need all the help we can get.'

'He heard I was taking a sabbatical,' DuCaine replied. 'I needed a break. I was getting burned out.' PC DuCaine was currently on leave from Camden constabulary, but always enjoyed working with the PCU.

'I love eating hot chips in the rain,' said Longbright. 'It reminds me of being a teenager.'

'I bet you were a terror.'

'I was horrible, running around the streets, charging after the night bus with my mates when the pubs shut. Mum was on nights at the PCU a lot of the time, so I was always on the loose in London. I used to resent her for not spending more time with me. We never went anywhere outside London; none of us had any money. I wish I'd travelled a bit.'

'Yeah, me, too,' said DuCaine. 'I'm third-generation Caribbean, from Tobago, but I've never been back. My gran always wants me to go.' The constable had been angling for full-time work at the unit for several months before its closure, and had volunteered to help with the investigation. Tonight, this meant patrolling King's Cross on the lookout for the stag-man.

Longbright watched DuCaine as he neatly rolled up the empty chip bag and folded it into his pocket. He was the kind of man who never went through a door first, and always carried a handkerchief. The huge, muscular young officer often gravitated toward her. At first she thought he might be attracted to her, despite the difference in their ages, but he had never made a move.

'Liberty, seeing as we'll be spending the rest of the investigation together, can I ask you something?'

'Ask away.'

'Don't be offended. It's just that-well, you dress nicely, you're over-attentive to women...'

'Yes...'

'... And every time I see you my Gaydar goes off.'

DuCaine's laugh was so deep it might have been mistaken for a pa.s.sing subway train. 'Yeah, I get that a lot. You're thinking of my brother, Fraternity. I guess it's a genetic thing.'

'I hope you didn't mind me saying.'

'My mother's a control freak, my dad was an old hippie, my brother's gay, my sister Equality is a wild child. We're Caribbean but not at all old school. Anyway, it's about time someone was over-attentive to you. I know how hard you work.'

'That's because I don't have a social life.'

'Maybe it's the other way around.'

A comfortable silence descended between them. 'Ready for another turn?' asked Longbright. They had circ.u.mnavigated the perimeter fence bordering ADAPT's second-stage site three times in the past two hours.

'Go on, then, last one,' said DuCaine.

The rain was descending in misty swathes across the ripped-up fields behind the railway line. Dozens of seagulls stood motionless in the rain beside the natural ponds that had formed in the soil dips. The perimeter fence was illuminated by tall neon lamps that created corridors of silver needles. It was still difficult to believe that such a desolate spot had sprung up in the heart of the city.

Longbright pulled her cap down harder, but the rain was running down her neck. 'We could do this faster if we took one side each and met back in the middle,' she said. 'There's no-one around.'

DuCaine agreed. They set off in opposite directions. The mud sucked at Longbright's boots as she trudged around the steel fence. In the distance, the clock tower of St Pancras rose in spectral splendour. Soon that Gothic monument would be joined by modern equivalents as a new town rose from the s.h.i.+fting wet clay of the hillside. It's easy to forget London's on a slope until you have to climb it It's easy to forget London's on a slope until you have to climb it, she thought, turning a corner into the next lengthy stretch.

She came to a sudden stop. The stag-man was standing on the path no more than twenty metres away from her.

Although he still wore his leather boots and ragged fur jacket, he was no longer trying to a.s.sume the appearance of a wild beast. The headdress of blade-antlers had been replaced with a brown balaclava and cap. His face was smeared with mud. He reminded Longbright of a primitive forest hunter, especially since his right fist contained a large knife with a serrated blade.

Wary of confronting him, she remained calm enough to make a visual a.n.a.lysis. He was muscular, between twenty-five and thirty-two. His boots raised him to an imposing height. His eyes gave less away than she'd expected, but there was something in his posture that recalled John May's description of Xander Toth.

He was waiting for her to make a move.

If she called DuCaine, how long would he take to skirt the perimeter fence and reach her? She pulled out her cell phone to make the call, but to make sure she had a record, snapped a quick photograph first. At that instant he lunged at her, lowering his body like a sprinter leaving the starting blocks. She jumped back, then ran.

'Liberty, I'm heading west around the fence, he's right behind me.' The phone crackled and she heard no clear answer. She had already lost ground. The stag-man was close behind and gaining.

Her shoes were slipping in the mud. She grabbed at the security fence and swung around its corner, running hard as he swung out at her arm, the weapon reverberating against the wires. A feral grunt sounded close behind her, and another, each expulsion of breath matching hers as they pounded beside the fence.

He's within range of the CCTV, she thought. That's it, keep coming That's it, keep coming, and now she saw DuCaine racing toward her, as the stag-man suddenly backed off and she heard him springing up against the steel fence, over the razor-wire on top and down the other side, to be lost within seconds among the heavy plant machinery and stacks of building materials. DuCaine started to go after him, but his concern for Longbright held him back.

'You okay?' he asked. 'You've been cut. I saw him swing at you. I'm glad you didn't turn around and see how close he was.'

'He's stuck inside.' Longbright bent down, hands on knees, panting. 'Blimey, he nicked my jacket. If we can get backup we can keep him in there.'

'No backup,' DuCaine replied. 'Can't call in the Met.'

'Then how do we stop him from getting out?'

'You know how wide the site is. There must be over a dozen other exits. You think it was Toth?'

'We have no proof. Raymond says we'll need a warrant to search his apartment unless we can prove that we're preventing a breach of the peace, and he doesn't think we have evidence for that. I'm happy to go with a gut feeling, but he's insisting on doing everything by the book. I'm sure he thinks we're being monitored. At least I got a photo of our stag-man.' She held up her mobile.

'That's something. Let's get it to Dan and see what he can find.'

'd.a.m.n, if I could have just made an ID, I'd have had him.'

'No,' said DuCaine, 'he nearly had you.'

Rufus Abu was waiting for John May in St Pancras station's champagne bar. He was under the minimum legal age to be served alcohol, so a waitress had given him an orange juice, to which he had added some Bentink's gin from a small silver flask.

'Hey, my man.' Rufus touched May's fingers in a complex salute and waited for him to sit. Rufus was a computer hacker without a base who did not take kindly to being described as 'homeless,' for he regarded the whole of London as his home. He had just entered his teenage years, but showed no sign of growing any taller. With the mind of a university professor and the body of a child, his disconcerting mix of intelligence and innocence gave him an edge no bedroom-bound hacker could beat. He left no signature in the electronic ether and managed to pa.s.s beneath the city's surveillance radar. He could usually only be lured into the visible world with gifts of illegal software, but had agreed to answer May's call-sign because he owed the detective a favour. May had cleared him after a breach in CID on-line security had tagged his name with suspect status, resulting in the police looking for someone they still regarded as a runaway child. But Rufus kept moving on, like the zigzag blur of a nighttime taillight, lost in the rainy static of the night.

It comforted May to know he was out there somewhere, watching and listening. Sometimes when he was at his computer at a late hour, he would pick up a faint vapour trail left by Rufus. Other times, odd events revealed the hacker's mark: a flash mob in Liverpool Street station, where six hundred home-going commuters were persuaded to stage a climate protest via their on-line cell phones; an ugly Trafalgar Square demonstration that turned instantly docile after the receipt of a single text message. Spontaneity and unpredictability were his style, but those were the qualities that made him hard to find.

'How are you doing, Rufus?' asked May.

'Young, gifted and back.' Rufus had an IQ of above 170 and a fondness for cheesy old school slang. 'Not for long, though. With the plurality of CCTV around here I can give you five minutes between sweeps, then I'm ghosted. How's life in the statistic majority?'

'We got disbanded.'

'Yeah, I tracked that. IMHO, you had a good run, man. You're gonna reboot, right?'

'Well, we have a short lease on new premises; it's pretty much make or break. But I'm sure you're already aware of that.'

'I keep you tagged. We configured a handshake long ago, you and I, so I look out for you.'

'That's comforting to know.'

'Besides, I'm still waiting for you to matchcom me with the dominatrix Longbright.'

May was shocked. 'Rufus, she's old enough to be-'

'She appeals to my oedipal streak. Don't sweat it, I'm hooking you.' Rufus's weak spot was sensitivity about his age. He hated the idea of being mistaken for a child, with a child's mind. 'So, I heard you put out an ICQ. What can I do for the PCU?' He pushed back in his chair and sipped his gin-and-orange. His super-white sneakers did not touch the platform floor.

'There's a company called ADAPT Group. Architectural design, planning and construction. I need a list of employee names from their system.'

'What, you can't get some Trilobyte processor to handle that, you need an expert?'

'I'm afraid so, yes,' May admitted. ADAPT is very protective about its workforce details, and we currently have no access to programs that will get us in. I'm a.s.suming it will be a piece of cake for you. I need the information fast. Will you do it?'

'h.e.l.l, this doesn't even count as a favour. I'll have something for you tomorrow.' When Rufus laughed it was the only time he sounded his age. He set down his drink.

'Hullo, John. Janice said I'd find you here.' Arthur Bryant was standing beside them, jauntily leaning on his walking stick. He reached down and ruffled Rufus's hair. 'Hullo, little boy, do you want a sweetie?'

'Do you want a smack in the mouth?' retorted Rufus.

'I remember you, Rufus. I've known you since you were so high.' Bryant held out his hand. 'Oh, you still are.'

'Good to see you too, Mr Bryant,' said Rufus. 'Have you figured out how to open your e-mail yet?'

'Mr May won't let me do it anymore, not since I crashed the interweb. I hope you're taking care of yourself, with so many children carrying knives these days.'

'Don't worry, senex senex, they gotta catch me before they can juke me. I don't want no cellotaph.' He was referring to the plastic-wrapped bundles of flowers that were left tied to railings at murder sites.