of teeth. “The days of the British owning everything on their terms is coming to an end. Future fortunes will be made with the involvement of international cartels such as ours.”
“I understand very little about the workings of the business world,” Bryant admitted, remembering his father in Petticoat Lane. “What do you intend to do about Charles Senechal? You’ve lost a first-class baritone.”
“I am sorry for his family, but there are plenty of other good voices. I understand you wish to place an order restricting access to the theatre’s backstage areas.”
“That’s correct. From now on nobody comes in or leaves without signing with my men. You’ll appreciate that we need to know who is in the building at any time.”
“We have many people who need to hold meetings with Helena Parole and the production staff.” Renalda swung out his left leg and moved forward, standing free in the middle of the floor. The callipers gave his body a fragile sense of stability.
“Then they’ll have to sign in with the front-of-house manager or be arrested.” Bryant stuck his hat on his head and tipped it back at a rakish angle. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”
“If there is anything more that I can tell you, perhaps you will let me know?” Renalda’s courteous smile closed over his teeth.
Bryant turned at the door and looked back across the room. This was Renalda’s inner sanctum. Bare walls, glass coffee table, mahogany desk, cream blinds. No photographs, no plaques, no papers. Not a scrap of personality showed. There was damage in the family’s history, enough to make a man hide his feelings. “I’ll make sure you’re kept in the picture once our information has been verified.” He paused, thinking. “Are you close to your mother, Mr Renalda?”
“My mother is dead, but yes, we were very close.”
“And I suppose your relationship with your brother – ”
Renalda cut him off. “I see no reason to provide you with further personal details unless you intend to charge me with an offence.”
“I’m sorry, I was thinking aloud, it’s a bad habit.” He smiled, brushing his fringe back from his high forehead. “I’ll see myself out.”
“Mr Bryant.” Andreas Renalda swivelled to face him. “I would prefer it if you would obtain all the information you need about my company directly from me in the future. It will save you telegraphing Zurich.”
Renalda was still smiling when he made the offer, but as he left the building Bryant couldn’t help feeling that it had been a threat.
? Full Dark House ?
32
INFERNAL MORTALITY
For the next five decades, the two detectives made it their habit to walk along the south bank of the Thames around sunset, from the Houses of Parliament to Blackfriars, and if the weather was especially fine, all the way to Tower Bridge. After this the river grew too wide to cross as it made its way to the sea.
They argued about criminal psychology, endlessly revising their conclusions, but sometimes, when the sky was lower and the colours were drained from the Embankment buildings, they talked of women they had loved and lost, of plans made and abandoned, of outlandish ideas and unrealized dreams; often they just walked in comfortable silence, enjoying the lightness of air across the water, letting the sunlight fall on their faces.
On days like these they set each other questions about the city that, for all its faults – and there were an increasing number – they still liked best. Their second visit to the river took place on Thursday, 14 November 1940, and it was John May who came up with the first question, setting a course for years to come.
“Look at that.” May pointed to the damaged dome of St Paul’s, fires smouldering behind it like the distant horizon of a forest. “Still standing.”
“Only just,” said Bryant sadly. “Most of the bookshops in Paternoster Row have been burned out. I spent many happy hours browsing there as a child.”
“I bet you don’t know where you can see a second St Paul’s Cathedral, a replica in miniature.”
“I do, as a matter of fact,” replied Bryant, who had dandified him self today with a silver-topped umbrella, a gift from his landlady.
“There’s a big architectural model made of wood in St Paul’s crypt.”
“I was thinking of another one,” said May with a grin. “We’ve walked past it. Give up?”
“You’ve got me there, old bean.”
“It’s held in the arms of one of the bronze female statues on Vauxhall Bridge.”
“Well, I never knew that.”
“I’ll point it out to you next time.”
Bryant paused and looked out over the water, pretending to watch a boat, but May knew he had stopped to catch his breath. He had first noticed the problem when they had climbed the stairs together at the theatre. His partner had been panting with exertion by the time they reached the landing, and had made an effort to hide the fact. He charged about in a mad rush, refusing to give in to his heart.
“Two flamboyant deaths, the first without an audience, the second on stage before several people. Murders are prefaced by violence, John. They don’t just come out of the blue. It makes no sense.”
“Does it have to make sense?” asked May kindly. “Take Miss Capistrania. Whoever killed her must have wanted to humiliate her, carting off the feet like that. With Senechal, perhaps the killer just saw his chance and seized it.”
“Without a motive we have nothing. There can be no witness appeals, no knocking on doors, no one to pull in for questioning apart from the theatre staff and cast. The interviews I’ve dumped in Biddle’s lap so far are among the most unedifying I’ve ever heard. We have a murderer acting in freefall, panicking, not caring who he strikes. I hate not finding a pattern.”
“There is a bit of one, though,” said May.
“Well, I’m damned if I can spot it.”
“Have you not noticed? He has only attacked during air raids. There was one around the time of Capistrania’s death, another just before the globe fell, and another last night, when Miss Trammel frightened him away. Crowhurst took a look around on the roof this morning while you were in Victoria, and found absolutely nothing. Perhaps he can get into the theatre only during blackouts, or when everyone is off the street. Judging from Betty’s description, people would certainly notice him if he was walking about in broad daylight.”
“You’ve a point there,” agreed Bryant. “Was it windy late last night?”
“I can’t remember. I can easily check. Why?”
“Just an idea I had about our ghost who walks through walls. Let’s find some shelter, I don’t like the look of those clouds.” The rain funnelled into iron gutters and rattled through drainpipes. The sky had a bare, washed-out look, as though the darkened world beneath it had been finally forsaken. The cafe that stood beneath the brick railway arches of Waterloo Bridge looked closed until they saw that the lights had been turned low.
“When I was a child I used to believe that bad people always acted for a reason. Now I’m starting to think criminal behaviour is inexplicable,” said Bryant, disconsolately stirring his tea. “There have always been individuals who are prone to murder. They’re methodical, but not logical. Look at Crippen, Wainwright, Seddon, Jack the Ripper – they weren’t driven by quantifiable needs but by aberrant impulses. And now the world has become an irrational place. That’s why the Sherlock Holmes method of detection no longer works; logic is fading. The value system we were raised by in the thirties has little relevance. Beneath this stoic attitude of ‘business as usual’ there is madness in the very air.”
“I don’t know how you can think that.” May wiped a patch of window clear with his sleeve and watched the sheets of obscuring rain slide across the road like Japanese paper screens. “Throughout history, human nature remains unchanged. The world’s oldest questions are still being asked. Medea, Oedipus, we’re not adding anything that the Greeks didn’t already know. If you believe our knowledge has no relevance, why have you become a detective?”
“I thought I could be useful, so long as I could prove it to Davenport and the Home Office.” Bryant carefully set aside his teaspoon. “You clearly have other interests apart from your work. I’m not sure I have anything else. I
