She gathered her coat and left without apology or explanation, unsure of her loyalties – or indeed, of her sanity.
¦
“He’s keeping me awake, Mr May, boots tramping back and forth across the ceiling all night. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I hope he’s not having another one of his brainstorming sessions, smoking that horrible muck in his pipe and listening to his gramophone. He already gave my Hiawatha a nervous breakdown.”
It was true. Every time her tenant opened the front door, the mongrel cat fell over in fright. Alma Sorrowbridge moved along the hall with theatrical delicacy, her plump hands raised, elbows moving in opposition to her broad hips. As always, she wore red washing-up gloves and an apron dotted with tiny blue cornflowers; May had never seen her attired in any other fashion.
John May had brought the bad weather in with him. His umbrella trailed pools on the polished linoleum floor as the landlady led the way to the stairs. He had been visiting his partner here for many years, and Alma Sorrowbridge had always insisted on seeing him up. He suspected that, knowing she housed a detective, she had decided to cast herself as a bizarre South London version of Mrs Hudson to Bryant’s Holmes.
“Arthur was telling me that he doesn’t sleep so much these days,” said May as they edged past a stuffed kestrel squatting beneath a glass dome at the corner of the passageway.
“I don’t mind that, but he plays his music all the time. Gregorian chants,
“I’ll do my best, Mrs S.” May raised the Victorian brass demon head set in Bryant’s door and let it fall. Beyond, he heard a muffled curse and the sound of breaking china. A burglar bolt was withdrawn, and Bryant peered around the lintel, a disgruntled tortoise head fringed with short spines of uncombed hair.
“Oh, it’s you. You’d better come in. Am I supposed to be somewhere?”
“No, but I wanted to talk to you.” May stepped inside, looking around at the framed pictures that covered the walls: Winston Churchill, Dracula, Camus, Nietzsche, Anna May Wong, Laurel and Hardy. There was no recognizable pattern to his partner’s tastes. Beneath the sheet music and first-night programmes for Offenbach’s
May ducked before the hall mirror and smoothed his hair into place. His partner was a collector but not a hoarder, and not much of a materialist, either. Everything here was owned for a reason. Often Bryant took something into his apartment simply to preserve it from destruction. He had once told May that he was conforming to the natural traditions of maturity. “We spend our youth attempting to change the future,” he explained, “and the rest of our lives trying to preserve the past.”
The rising wail of the kettle sounded in the kitchen and Bryant went to deal with it, pulling a patched green cardigan around his shoulders. “You’re just in time, John. Go into the lounge, but be careful where you tread. I see the weather’s still disgusting. We might as well be living in Finland. What brings you here so early?”
“One of the Whitstable children has gone missing.”
Bryant appeared in the doorway with a teapot in his hands. “Which one?”
“Daisy. She’s seven years old. Walked out of her house between three and four yesterday afternoon and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Yesterday? Why on earth didn’t someone – ?”
“We were only just informed. I’d like you to talk to the nanny. Naturally, she’s distraught. West London has over a hundred staff and civilian volunteers out searching the area. The call didn’t come through to Mornington Crescent because nobody made the connection with our case. Either that, or they deliberately chose to ignore it.”
“Then how did you find out?”
“I was visiting the Bow Street incident room when some of the sweep details turned up on the radio.”
“Someone’s obstructing us. I hope to God this isn’t part of the Whitstable vendetta. It wouldn’t be, would it? Not a child? How are her parents?”
“Mother’s under sedation. They’re both at home.”
“And her brother, Tarquin?”
“He’s only just been…How did you know she had – ?”
“I told you, look inside.”
When May did so, he found every cup and saucer, plate, vase, and bowl standing arranged across the floor like pieces in a scaled-up chess game. Coloured lengths of string connected them. Every item of crockery had been given a name and dates with a blue or a red felt-tipped pen. The dining-room chairs had been shifted back against the wall, beside a walnut-faced grandfather clock that ticked sharply.
“The Whitstable family tree,” Bryant explained, entering and setting down his tea tray. “It’s the only way I could get it sorted out in my head. I had to see them properly laid out, who was descended from whom.” He pointed to a milk jug. “Daisy Whitstable is bottom left-hand corner, by the fireguard. Next to her is the egg cup, brother Tarquin. Stepbrother actually, from Isobel’s first marriage.”
In the centre of the china maze stood two upturned vases and a
“What are the blue and red tags?” Some pieces had scraps of paper attached to them.
“Family members killed in the First and Second World Wars. I asked myself why these murders seemed out of place in the present day. The obvious answer is that they originated in events of the past.” Bryant seated himself and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, surveying the mapped floor.
“What do you mean?” asked May, dropping into the opposite chair. Outside, fresh squalls of rain began to batter the glass.
“Doesn’t this feel like an old score being settled to you?” asked Bryant. “William, Bella, and Peter, one after the other, an entire branch of the family tree chopped away for consciously – or unconsciously – committing some ancient offence.”
It had crossed May’s mind that his colleague might be allowing his own interest in the past to colour his perception of the case. For the moment he decided not to voice his concern.
“You mean it’s some kind of long-term family revenge?”
“Well, it’s certainly not for financial gain. This particular branch of the tree was pretty bare. None of them had any heirs, and there wasn’t much ready cash about. As far as I can gather, they have little to leave beyond a small lump sum each, some stock portfolios, and some nice furniture in the attic. There are the paintings, of course, but no one has tried to claim them. On the contrary, nobody even seems to have known of the existence of the Waterhouse study. Now, pass me Marion and Alfred Whitstable over there.”
“What’s their significance?”
“We need them to drink out of.”
As they sat back with their tea, Bryant produced a sheaf of handwritten notes from behind his chair. It irritated May that his partner had continued working without consulting him, but he knew this to be Bryant’s preferred methodology. At least by now he was used to it.
“William, Bella, and Peter Whitstable had no individual or collective power, financial or otherwise,” explained Bryant, donning his spectacles. “The only thing that could be gained by killing them was personal satisfaction. But is the culprit within the family dynasty or beyond it? It might surprise you to know that every single Whitstable, past and present, is cared for by the Worshipful Watchmakers’ Company. That is to say, they would be awarded an annual stipend in the event of personal injury. Relatives to be compensated in the event of bereavement, and so on, although there’s no case for compensation here. Murder makes the claim exempt.”
The remark brought something to the fore of May’s mind. “You don’t suppose the Whitstables’ collective wealth is being stockpiled by these deaths? You know, concentrated, like a tontine?” Tontines were briefly fashionable Victorian insurance policies, but the thinking behind them was flawed. As each tontine member died, their savings accrued so that the holdings eventually fell to the last surviving family member. The temptation to assist fate had proved too much for some policyholders to resist, and led to criminal activity. The system was soon scrapped.
“I wondered about that. If one of them was knocking off his relatives, it would soon become obvious who was
