“We don’t know that, Arthur.” May disliked his partner’s habit of forming speculative connections but was usually powerless to stop him. “Let’s stick to the basic facts for now.”
Bryant dug about for his pipe, saw eight pairs of eyes facing him, and thought better of it. “Fine by me,” he told them. “Here are some facts you might like to consider. One, the Burroughs gallery has a single entrance through which every visitor must pass. They can’t be admitted to the artworks without a bar-coded, timed ticket. Without the ticket, the main glass doors can’t be opened.
“Two, the register has been tallied and matches the exact number of visitors County Hall received yesterday morning. The employees have their own passes, all of which are accounted for. If any of them had arranged to slip someone else into the gallery, the counter clerks seated on either side of the narrow entrance hall would have seen them, and besides, they wouldn’t have been able to access the main gallery.
“Three, there are two emergency fire exits, neither of which, according to Mr Banbury here, has been opened in several days. There are no keys missing and no signs of forced entry. All the windows are designed to open no more than three inches, due to health and safety regulations.
“Four, in order to enter the octagonal central chamber and kill Saralla White, the murderer would have had to pass through at least two other rooms. All of the rooms were occupied by several visitors, but nobody passed them. There were even some occupants in the main chamber – schoolkids drawing at the far end of the room – but they didn’t see anything. Which just leaves sensitive little Luke Tripp sitting near the tank when it happened, and he has maintained a consistent story – despite some probing trick questions from Janice here – that he saw a horseman in funny old clothes ride up on a glossy phantom stallion and make off with the nice lady.
“Finally, we have this.” He held up the bag containing the aluminium key. “The attendants swear it wasn’t there when they opened up. A stencilled pictogram of a man’s masked face, and he’s wearing a tricorn hat, just as Luke said he was.” Bryant tried to sound annoyed, but everyone could see the excitement in his eyes. “On the other side of it is a date, the twenty-first of September, 1705. It’s this date that convinces me young Luke Tripp isn’t lying, or even mistaken in what he saw. On this day, an Essex butcher’s wife gave birth to a legendary criminal, one Richard Turpin. So now we have a physical description of the man for whom we are meant to be searching.” Bryant conveniently ignored the fact that the highwayman had died over two hundred and sixty years earlier. “Etchings of Dick Turpin depict him at around twenty-six years of age, in a wig and tricorne, fresh-coloured features scarred with smallpox, broad cheekbones, narrow chin, at least five feet nine inches tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully built. He was arrested for horse-stealing and executed at York on the seventh of April, 1739. So what do we have? A politically sensitive situation, an impossible crime, a murky motive, no obvious leads, and a suspect who’s been dead for nearly three centuries. Although of course we might simply be searching for a phantom who models himself on a hanged highwayman. I think you can see why the call came through to us.”
“This means that we’ve been given another chance to screw up in front of our peers,” warned May. “No-one is to make a move without clearance from Mr Bryant or myself. Any questions at this juncture?”
“You don’t think this is some kind of setup?” asked Bimsley. “I mean, to make the unit look bad.”
“I can think of a dozen easier ways to do that,” said May.
April raised a tentative hand. “Are you speaking to Ms White’s former lovers? There’s been quite a lot of acrimonious stuff printed about them in the papers lately, because of her abortions.”
“If you have any useful news items, I’d like to read them.”
“Calvin Burroughs was having an affair with her; that’s why she – ” April looked around and shrank back into her seat. “Sorry.”
“Please, if you’ve heard anything, April, you must share it with us. And that goes for all of you. We’ll be interviewing her fellow artists, her work colleagues, and anyone who was close to her. Janice has task lists to distribute. Let’s get started.”
As the meeting broke up, Bryant lit a surreptitious pipe at the window, and allowed his thoughts to wander to nooses and duelling pistols. Most of all, he wondered why anyone would link himself to an almost forgotten breed of British criminal, and what he might gain by doing so.
? Ten Second Staircase ?
10
Vulnerability
He stood above London and surveyed his rain-swept domain.
The black cape cracked about his boots, and the wind tried to tear the tricorne from his head. The brief heat spell had quickly broken, and the city had begun a slow slide into winter. Flat-bottomed clouds the colour of charcoal scraped the peaks of the city’s financial towers. Great planes of shadow darkened the postwar concrete of the office blocks behind Smithfield, endless grey buildings medievally arranged. The city was silvery, parchment and teal, oddly homogenous in the face of indifferent planning, as though its spirit was deliberately seeking to impose order on chaos.
He stood astride the parapet but could not yet be seen, for he did not exist.
¦
Janice Longbright knelt on the wood flooring and swept broken glass into a dustpan. Someone had kicked in the front door, popping the latch from the strike-plate, splintering the jamb from the brickwork. The lounge was trashed, the television receiver and CD player were now just dusty dented boxes spilling bare wires. They had urinated in the bedroom, and split a sofa with a bread knife; pointless, random acts reeking of bitterness. A neighbour – young, single, nursing a sick daughter – had seen them, but had been too frightened to respond. The cheery constable sent over by Haringey nick had joked with his print man as if enjoying a beer with him. The occasion was too ordinary to care about. Nurses were the same, chattering around terminal patients.
Longbright was sanguine about such thefts. No matter how many times the mayor told residents that crime was his priority, she knew that it was the real price of living in London, paid by almost everyone during their tenure here. Insurance would cover the loss, but it could not replace the torn-up photographs of Gladys, her mother. When she spotted them in pieces on the floor, then, and only then, did she allow a brief tear to fall.
¦
“I say, do we have any money?” asked Giles Kershaw, flicking a flop of blond hair out of his eyes as he peered around the door.
“I wish you’d go to a barber. You look like a footballer. What do you want money for?” asked Bryant, crinkling his eyes suspiciously.
“I want to run some more thorough tests on the aluminium key, which will necessitate an omnibus trip to the delightful borough of Peckham and an exorbitant invoice for the use of their equipment.”
“Give it here. I’ll show you how we used to do it in the old days.” Bryant pulled his antelope-horn magnifying glass from a drawer and twisted an anglepoise lamp into position.
“Really, Mr Bryant, I hardly think – ”
“I know; that’s your problem, old sock, coupled with an overreliance on technology. What is it you’re looking for?”
“That’s precisely the point, Mr Bryant. I don’t have to go in with a prepared agenda; electronic examination will tell me what there is to see.” Kershaw snatched back the bag. “A magnifying glass might have been good enough in the olden days, but it’s not now. All I need you to do is sign the evidence out and wait until I deliver my report.”
There was a time when Bryant would have argued the point until dusk, but the humiliating circumstances of his recent lecture continued to crimp his confidence. Perhaps Kershaw was right. May had long insisted on the importance of modern technology in criminal investigations. What point was there in clinging to past habits? “Fine.” He sighed. “Run it through your spectromolo-thingie, you’ll probably find out a lot more than I would. Just remember to fill out your documentation.”
Kershaw seemed taken aback, disappointed almost. “Oh,” he said, non-plussed. “Thanks.”
He took off quickly, before Bryant could change his mind, squeezing past John May in the hall.
“What’s the matter, Arthur?” asked his partner. “You look like you’ve lost a shilling and found sixpence.”
“Will you show me how to work the computer properly?” Bryant nodded curtly at his new laptop.
“Of course not. In between asking lots of fantastically annoying questions, you’d find a way to destroy the
