“No, Arthur, you believed what you wanted to believe, no matter how demented the notion was. You squeezed the facts to fit your theory.”
Bryant was indignant. “I did not!”
“Of course you did. That thing about the high note warning Miles Stone’s mother. The flautist was late that day, remember? There was no high note from a flute, just somebody scraping a violin in the orchestra. And another thing. Edna bloody Wagstaff and her chatty cat. She couldn’t have heard Dan Leno in the Palace, because he never came to the Palace. He died in 1904 without once performing there. She’s just a crazy, lonely old woman. Andreas Renalda’s story appealed to your romantic notions of classical literature and myths, that’s all. Maybe Biddle was right when he asked to leave. You don’t share information and you don’t listen to reason. I’m not sure I’m cut out for the unit any more than he is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You, Arthur. I’ll never get used to working like this. Just sitting in your room is enough, all those volumes on clairvoyants, astrologers, white witches, spiritualism, covens. While everyone else is reading the
Running down alleyways in the dead of night, trying to catch some kind of shapeshifting wraith that sucks the blood out of Norwegians. How do you talk people into believing stuff like that?
Why did DS Forthright spend her New Year’s Eve in a King’s Cross goods yard waiting for a priest to mark out crucifix patterns in holy water? And did you ever catch him? According to her, you’re the only one who saw him dash into that cul-de-sac. He must have run up the wall, you told her, they can do that in moments of stress. You have us all mesmerized under the spell of your insanity. Well, no more. I’ve just not got that turn of mind. It’s the effect you have on people, you mean well but you get everyone caught up in these ridiculous fantasies. Why can’t you just face the truth and admit you’ve not got the right experience for the job? You should be curating in a museum or something, lecturing on ghosts and goblins, digging out Egyptian tombs. It was good enough for Howard Carter, he didn’t decide to be a policeman, did he?”
“May I remind you,” said Bryant, trying to muster some dignity, “that this is called the Peculiar Crimes Unit?”
“The day we met, you told me that their definition of peculiar and yours were different. You just didn’t warn me how different. I know you’re a bit older than me, but I’d like a chance to handle things another way, before Davenport hears what you’ve done and nails boards across the entrance to the office. I should have put my foot down when you brought in the clairvoyant, then perhaps none of this would have happened. Why don’t you take a break, go and give the ARP boys a hand, make use of yourself, and try not to think so much?”
“I’ll admit that as a team we’ve been having a few teething troubles.”
“
“John, at least let’s leave it until the morning,” Bryant pleaded. “You might feel differently then.”
John raised his hands defiantly. “No, because in the morning you’ll try to convince me that Renalda is part of a satanic sect, or that the theatre is built on an ancient Saxon burial ground. Besides, it has nothing to do with me. Renalda – and Biddle, come to think of it – will be on the phone to Davenport right now, and he’ll have taken you off the case before dawn. I’m prepared to go a long way with you, Arthur. I even see some demented sense in what you say. The killer is a psychopath driven by desperation, fine, yes, I agree with that. But Muses, curses, protective spells? That’s where we part company.”
He stopped when he realized that his partner was no longer following him. Looking back, he saw Bryant standing in the rain, his head dropped forward onto his chest. He looked close to tears, but May knew he couldn’t be because nothing ever seemed to upset him.
“Where are you going now?” asked May.
“I promised my mother I’d look in on her,” Bryant replied miserably.
“I’ll drive you. There won’t be any buses running at this hour. Then you must try to get some sleep. At least it’s a quiet night. I’ll go back to the theatre and make sure Forthright has everything she needs.”
“You’re right,” Bryant said softly. “I thought it was – I don’t know what I thought. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, just get some rest. Leave it to me. You won’t have to do anything. I’ll sort everything out with Davenport. Just accept that things didn’t work out with us, that’s all.”
Bryant suddenly looked so pale and fragile that May felt a rush of pity for him.
He drove his distraught partner slowly back through the smouldering ruins of Hackney and Bow, past a makeshift hospital set up on the broken pavements. There were patients lying on brass beds outside McFisheries and Woolworths. A woman was sitting on the steps of a church with her head in her hands. When a nurse tried to comfort her, she pushed her away.
As they drove on, the devastation grew. The house where Bryant asked to be dropped was in a bomb-scarred terrace of slum dwellings long due for demolition. May was shocked to find that his partner hailed from such a rough neighbourhood.
Embarrassed by the events of the night and by his own impoverished circumstances, Bryant stood awkwardly in the entrance to the alley beside his mother’s house and waited until the Wolseley had pulled out into the deserted road, its tail-lights fading in the thickening drizzle.
As he watched John May drive away, he knew that the unit’s last chance for survival was leaving with him.
? Full Dark House ?
52
TAKING LEAVE
Early on Sunday morning Londoners once more awoke to the drone of the bombers, but the drizzle had persisted through the night, and only a few aircraft had managed to drop their loads. Several fires were started, and their smoke added to the city’s dawning pallor of eye-watering gloom. After the RAF released two thousand bombs on Hamburg as a reprisal for Coventry, Germany turned its attention to the Southampton docks, steadily bombing them for the rest of the day. Attack, reprisal; the process continued in a depressing rhythm of retaliation.
Sidney Biddle sat on the bench near the tea stall with his hands stuffed deep in his overcoat, watching the oily water surge back and forth around the barricaded pillars of Waterloo Bridge like the action of some vast diseased lung. Daylight had begun to creep across the sky, and now he could see the silver barrage balloons following the shoreline. One of them was tied to the top of Bank power station’s chimney. Another had partially deflated, and hung amorphously over the river like a creature in a Salvador Dali painting. Biddle’s foot was throbbing, but it was strapped up with splints and bandages and he was able to walk with the aid of a crutch.
“Your char’s getting cold, love,” said Gladys Forthright, churning the contents of her mug with the end of a pencil. “They never leave enough chain on the teaspoon to give you a good stir, do they?”
Neither of them had slept. Biddle was angry and confused, but invigorated by the action of the night before, newly hooked on the case and on the unit. “I mean, you outrank him,” he said finally. “Can’t you do something?”
“It may have escaped your notice, Sidney, but although I have the rank, I’m still a woman. Davenport won’t even talk to me. He acts as if I’m not there. My appointment was approved because women have to be drafted into the force. We’re fine for driving fire engines and ambulances, tracking aircraft and manning switchboards, but they don’t want to give us jobs that involve strategic decisions. You won’t find policewomen in positions of power. The men want to keep those for themselves.”
Biddle took a sip of his tea. “Why does Bryant always come here? PC Crowhurst told me he sits at this spot nearly every day at sunset.”
So that’s it, thought Forthright, he wants to understand. “You don’t know the story?” she asked, surprised. “I thought someone would have told you by now. I know it’s hard to believe, but our Mr Bryant was once a man in love. Back then he was still training out of Bramshill on a one-year intensive. So many were pushed through the courses because of the approaching war. He was very young, of course. Boys leave school at fourteen in the East
