Academy into oncoming traffic.
Bryant’s going to kill me if I don’t catch him, thought May as he accelerated. The young detective felt chill rain pitting his face as the wheels lost their purchase on the slippery road, found it again and pushed him on. The buildings on either side were great grey blocks, no light showing anywhere. Ahead, just beyond Green Park, a bomb had heavily cratered the middle of the road, and rubble-removal trucks indistinctly lined its edges. As they came closer, May saw that the entire causeway was cordoned off. He can’t get through, he told himself, watching in disbelief as LR109 pounded up over the kerb and into the long portico under the Ritz. May felt the kerb slam his tyres as he followed, the back wheel juddering as he shot beneath the arches, his engine reverberating in the tunnel as he scattered the shrieking evening-gowned women who were exiting the hotel.
At the end of the colonnade, the bike in front swung sharply to the right off the main road and thundered into the maze of narrow streets that constituted Mayfair. May tried to close the gap between them, but was forced to slow in order to turn the heavy machine. He could hear LR109 revving and braking, but caught only glimpses of its brake light as the machine raced ahead of him. At Curzon Street the lead bike was forced to slow as pedestrians ran for safety, and May gained a few yards. As they turned into the dark chasm of Bruton Street, the detective saw the thick brown earth and bricks strewn across the road, and knew that his tyres would not cope with them. The other bike had bypassed the mess by mounting the pavement. He hit hard, the Matchless’s handles jumping out of his hands as the machine jerked from his control. He knew that if it went over now it would trap his leg beneath the engine, and forced himself to roll backwards, leaving the bike seconds before it toppled and slid along the street in a shower of sparks, to vanish over the side of an unfilled pit.
¦
Bryant ran round to the foyer and checked on the FOH box office. He doubted that May would be able to track their man for long in the blackout. Elspeth was almost asleep when he knocked on the glass, startling her so badly that she nearly fell off her stool.
“Did you see him come past here?”
“No, no one’s been through.” She straightened her cardigan, embarrassed. “I’m afraid I was having forty winks. The phones are down. Seamus told me they’ve found an unexploded bomb across the road and the Heavy Rescue people have severed a line getting to it.”
“Who’s Seamus?”
“Our milkman. He was dropping off some rhubarb from his allotment.” She held up a paper bag full of purple stalks. “I said it would be nice to see a banana again but there are limits to his powers.” She patted a stray lock of hair into place and smiled vaguely. By the entrance doors, a heavyset woman in a pinafore rose from her mop bucket and came over to the detective.
“Did you just wake her up? Poor lady was trying to have a rest.”
“She’s been here with you?”
“All the time. You’re one of them detectives, ain’t you?” she asked. “Several of the chorus girls are talking about a phantom roaming the theatre, have you heard? Apparently it’s got hands like claws and eyes that glow red in the dark. And Miss Betts said it followed her up Tottenham Court Road, wearing a mask.”
“I need to use your phone,” said Bryant.
“I just told you, the lines are cut. And you don’t want to listen to her silly gossip,” warned Elspeth, raising the tone of her voice by half a social caste. “Actresses get such first-night nerves, it always shows itself in silly stories.”
“Where’s the nearest call box?” asked Bryant.
“That’ll be the other side of Cambridge Circus. Oh, it’s quite the norm, lurid imaginations working overtime. During the rehearsals for
“Yes,” agreed Bryant uncertainly, heading for the door. He nodded to the cleaner. “If you hear any more talk about a Palace phantom, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“He’ll be back,” she said cheerfully. “Not that he worries me. I’ve got nothing to fear.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“He’s not real,” the char explained, hitching up her bolstered bosom. “It’s just guilt. These young girls, they’re a bit loose, a bit wild, living for the moment, running around with boys and getting up to God knows what in the dark. Extroverts and introverts, it’s all in their collective unconscious, a manifestation of guilt, if you ask me.”
“Well, your manifestation of guilt just killed someone with a cutthroat razor,” he snapped.
Bryant had not expected an earful of Jungian theory from the charlady. He stepped carefully over the wet marble and stood on the step outside, looking up at the sky. A pall of brown smoke hung over the buildings to the east, most likely dust from building clearance. The clouds were starting to break now, giving the bombers a clear path into the city. He wondered what terrors the night would bring this time.
Poking the last of his tobacco into his pipe, Bryant headed off in the direction of the phone box, a theory shifting uneasily at the back of his brain. The globe, the compass, the flute, the wind, the mask of tragedy, the statue on the roof of the theatre, Stone’s mother, the flower in Darvell’s lapel, things he could not make sense of without sounding deranged.
If he was wrong, it would not just be the finish of a promising career, it would end the credibility of the unit for good.
? Full Dark House ?
36
THE BROADER PICTURE
“What on earth happened to you?” asked Bryant. His partner was covered in streaks of mud, his jacket torn from shoulder to waist.
“Came a bit of a cropper on an army motorbike,” May explained, examining himself. “Our man moved like a bat out of Hell. I lost him in the back streets, didn’t Biddle tell you?”
“He said you stole an army emergency vehicle and smashed it up. Don’t worry, I’ll square it with them later. Are you all right?”
“Took the skin off my hands, no real damage. What are you doing?”
Bryant was standing on an upended metal milk crate in the car park of Bow Street magistrates’ court, preparing to throw a muslinwrapped leg of pork onto an iron sheet that was balanced on a pile of masonry rubble. “I’m testing out a theory,” he explained, swinging the leg and letting it go. “Bloke fell out of the balcony. I suppose they told you. Slashed to bits with a straight razor. Not one of the cast, though.” He climbed down from the crate and bent over the joint of meat, which had landed squarely on the metal sheet. “It’s all right, condemned black- market pork, quite inedible, but it’s about the same weight.”
“As what?” asked May, bemused.
“As a pair of feet, obviously.” Bryant threw him an old-fashioned look as he hoisted the leg for another swing.
May had no time for such foolishness tonight. He was starting to wonder if his partner was all there. “Mr Davenport’s waiting for us in your office,” he warned. “At least, I assume it’s him.”
“Raw-boned, red-faced man, tufts of grey hair coming out of his ears, staring eyes, lots of broken veins in his nose, reeks of chewing tobacco?”
“That’s the one. I hope he doesn’t see your plant.”
“What plant?” asked Bryant, his eyes widening in innocence. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. That one with the serrated leaves. Chinamen dry them out and smoke them. Reefers. Used by Limehouse dope fiends.”
“Are you accusing me of being a dope fiend? Actually, it’s an old herbal remedy.”
“Well, I’ve hidden it under your desk just in case.”
“Thanks, old man.” Bryant grinned. “You’re a sport.”
¦
Farley Davenport stared with distaste at the mouldering Tibetan skull surrounded by African juju charms that inhabited Bryant’s bookcase. “Perhaps one of you can explain what’s going on at the Palace Theatre? Someone just
