Bryant & May 04; Ten Second Staircase

“I was going to say we haven’t checked that it’s safe.”

“Why would it need a safety check?” called Bryant, searching for the lights. “I thought you said he died of a heart attack.”

“It looks that way,” replied Banbury, moving ahead to where the body still lay. “There are – anomalies.”

“You’re being cryptic, Banbury. Kindly stop being so.”

“It’s just that we have two witnesses, two old birds in the apartment opposite. They called the police. I think you’ll be rather interested in what they have to say.”

Bryant halted and raised a finger. “Wait, when you say ‘interested,’ you mean ‘irritated and frustrated,’ don’t you. Kershaw’s oddly euphemistic speech patterns are starting to rub off on you.”

Banbury looked sheepish. “What I mean is, they’re a bit of a handful. I think it will be a late night at the unit. The Highwayman’s back.”

Bryant’s watery blue eyes widened. “You’re calling him that as well?”

“Everyone’s picking up on the nickname, sir.”

“Did he leave another calling card?”

“Not that we can see. He did better than that this time – ”

“Let’s have a quick shufti at the crime scene first, eh? Where’s John?”

“I believe he’s on his way. He was – ”

“Out with Monica Greenwood, his married lady friend; yes, I know. While her husband is still lying comatose in hospital. The man has no scruples when it comes to attractive women. He behaves like a racing driver around them. Always leaves them windswept and out of breath. Either it’s the effect of his overbearing charm or he only dates asthmatics. I don’t know where he finds the energy.”

“Actually, sir, you seem to have more energy than any of us,” Banbury admitted. “You’re a positive inspiration.”

“Don’t be obsequious, Banbury, nobody likes a creep. And I don’t have excess energy, I’m just on these new tablets. Two sets of gel capsules for different times of the day. The blue ones fire my engines and the red ones leave me utterly disoriented. Pray I don’t get them muddled up. Now, where’s the body?”

The gymnasium ran in an L-shape around the apartment building, its exterior wall cut with tall Gothic windows overlooking a quiet side road leading away from the cavernous meat market. St John Street could be glimpsed in the distance, a broad curve of Victorian turrets and sharp glass boxes. The building was a former furniture repository for Gamages, the long-vanished department store in Holborn. The wide, bright space and high ceilings had made it ideal for conversion, although to Bryant’s thinking it seemed perverse to fill the place with running machines when there were perfectly good pavements passing beside the Thames.

They found the lights and flicked them back on. One side of the L was dedicated to cardiovascular equipment, the other to controlled weight systems. At the far end of the latter, Danny Martell lay facedown on the blue carpet tiles, where he had fallen onto his knees, a portly supplicant worshipping in the temple of Narcissus. Motes of dust filled the still air, lending the fitness room a hazy, dreamlike aura.

“Do you feel it?” asked Bryant, taking stock of the scene. “Something strange, an odd presence.”

“The air is ionised, but I think I know what you mean. And I’m not normally sensitive to bad feelings.” Banbury looked about uncomfortably as the skin on his arms prickled.

“Do you believe in the physical manifestation of evil?” Bryant was staring at him oddly.

“I’m a scientist, sir. But as a Christian, I believe” – he chose his words carefully – “in the absence of good.”

“Hm. It’s just that some death sites – ” Bryant thought for a moment, and decided not to share his philosophy. “Why isn’t Kershaw here?” He looked around for the unit’s crime scene manager. But for the photographer and the two Met officers guarding the gym entrance, he and Banbury were alone.

“He had to go to Orpington tonight, sir. His sister’s getting married at the weekend. She’s having a hen night and asked him to look after the kids.”

“Her second marriage?”

“No, sir, first.”

“Charming. She’s not supposed to already have progeny if she’s only just getting to the altar; it’s like ordering dessert before your main course. Next you’ll be telling me they’re from different fathers.”

Banbury could never be sure when his boss was joking, although he knew that the old man was not as conservative as he sounded. Indeed, Longbright had warned him to treat the detective’s outbursts with caution; Bryant’s sense of humour at crime scenes was hard to fathom, as if he deflected his feelings about death with swift changes of topic.

The old detective used his hated walking stick to lower himself beside Martell. Without Kershaw to examine the body, he would have to rely on his own observations. “Very florid in the face. The burst blood vessels are suggestive. Should he have been using these ridiculous things without supervision?” He peered into the dead man’s eyes, staring from different angles like an optician checking for glaucoma. Martell’s pupils beamed down into the floor unnervingly.

“Good question. He’d only started here the previous month. The owner tells me he hired a personal trainer, but she quit after he touched her up. Martell fancied himself as a bit of a ladies’ man.”

“I can’t imagine a lady who could find him anything but skincrawlingly repellent.” Bryant wrinkled his nose in distaste. “He was some kind of celebrity, I understand?”

“If you count TV game shows, Saturday Night Laughter, stuff like that. Rather on the smarmy side for my taste.”

“Not a reason to purchase a television, then.” It was bad enough that Bryant could hear Alma’s set through the wall of his lounge without having to buy one of his own.

“It’s funny, he starred in the biggest-selling health and fitness DVD in Britain, but look at the state of him. He must have worn a corset for the cameras.”

“How do you know it was a heart attack?”

Banbury knelt beside the body. “Without Giles, it’s a bit of a guess. The high sclerosis, the fact that he’s quite a few kilos overweight and was exerting himself. There’s booze on his breath. There’s also blood in the eyes. Heart attack victims feel a pressure, a squeezing sensation in the centre of the chest that stays for a few minutes. They tend to sit down and wait for the symptoms to go away, but the pain spreads to the shoulders, neck, and arms. They get light-headed and feel nauseous, sweat, or get short of breath, so Martell might have figured it was the effect of the workout. But then there’s this.” He carefully lifted Martell’s right hand to reveal a small triangular mark on his forearm. “There’s another on his left arm, and one in the middle of his chest.”

“They look like burns.”

Banbury pushed back the left sleeve of Martell’s sport top and turned the cuff inside out. “I think they were made by the heads of the zips on his workout gear, one on each sleeve, one running up the middle. They’re all welded shut. Extreme heat.” He pulled down the neck of the top to reveal a livid crimson scar across Martell’s throat. “He was wearing a medallion on a chain. That’s left burn marks, too. In light of these, I’d have to say we’re looking at signs consistent with electrocution.”

“So he was sitting on the seat – how do you operate this thing?” Bryant peered around the back of the machine. “What on earth does it do?”

“Builds the pectoral muscles, sir, like this.” He held his arm with the radius bone at right angles to the humerus. “You raise your hands and hold the grips above your head on either side, pushing the pads forward with your forearms until they meet in the middle, then slowly releasing them.”

“What on earth for?”

“It’s good for the chest.”

“Not in his case. Looks as if he was seated here and fell forward after overexerting himself.”

“That’s what I thought, sir. In which case the burns make no sense. I don’t see how he superheated so suddenly.”

“There have been numerous documented cases of spontaneous combustion,” suggested Bryant. “Nothing left of people but their shoes.”

“Beg to disagree, sir. None ever properly substantiated, bit of a folk myth.”

“But I’ve seen photographs of the process occurring,” Bryant insisted.

“With all due respect, you’ve seen pictures of the aftermath, charred remains. It’s an old wives’ tale