we’re talking about here, a form of insanity. Carey doesn’t seem mentally troubled. Everyone in business operates on the kind of personal agenda that might look odd to an outsider. It doesn’t make them a killer. If the only suspects we have are perfectly rational men and women, I don’t see how we’ll find someone who’s insane. We can’t employ any kind of deductive reasoning.”
“Then we must apply the science of irrationality,” Bryant replied. “You know what I think we need? Some experts in the field of orchestrated mayhem. I’ll draw up a list. I may be required to meet with – unusual people.”
May knew what that meant; his partner would be phoning everyone from chaos theorists to necromancers. “No, Arthur,” he warned his partner. “I don’t want any of your fringe-dwellers involved, not this time.”
Bryant was shocked. “But I’ve found a new spirit medium who produces electronic ectoplasm that can be charted on a computer – ”
“No, Arthur, not the Camden Town Coven or the Southwark Supernaturals or that creepy biochemist who impersonates his dead wife, or anyone else who could be mistaken for a mental patient. Our every move is being watched, and now is not the time to start behaving strangely. We do this my way or not at all, do you understand?”
Bryant’s pout of disapproval said it all. “You just admitted that we can’t follow the usual routes of deductive reasoning. What are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.” May sighed, turning away from the ebbing river. “But we have to think of something fast, before we find ourselves locked out of our own investigation.”
“We can’t do it by ourselves,” Bryant admitted. “We need other talents.”
“Then let’s use the PCU staff. There may not be much budget, but we have access to renegade minds.”
“I like your thinking. That’s Battle of Hastings spirit.”
“We lost the Battle of Hastings, Arthur.”
“So we did.” Bryant bit off the last of his fireman’s hose. “But this time we’ll win.”
The detectives returned to work in a mood of doubtful optimism.
? Ten Second Staircase ?
18
Something of the Night
Raymond Land was utterly exhausted.
The years of chasing after devils and phantoms had taken their toll. He couldn’t believe he was still stranded here at the unit, like a Japanese soldier guarding a forgotten Pacific atoll decades after the war had ended.
Because the war
His opposite equals were laughing behind his back. The unit staff ignored him. His superiors could barely remember his name. His wife was in the process of leaving him for a younger man, and was prepared to take their children. His only friend was Sergeant Renfield, the astonishingly unpleasant desk officer at Albany Street nick, and Renfield only bothered calling up to arrange a drink because he knew he could thrash Land at billiards. Stanley Marsden, the former DCS HMCO liaison officer, had been allowed to escape with his pension, so why had he been left behind?
Land had stopped hoping for a transfer or a promotion years ago. All he wanted now was a little appreciation. He would settle for a grudging acknowledgement that he had managed to wrangle his wayward detectives out of lambastings, lawsuits, and lynchings. Surely he deserved the smallest nod of respect? Truth was, nobody liked the facilitators, but they were necessary, like men who unblocked drains.
Strangling his tie into a tiny knot and flattening his straggles of greying hair in the mirror, he set off for the formal meeting with Leslie Faraday in the minister’s Whitehall office. He had been warned not to mention anything to his detectives, who had just arrived and were compiling information in Mornington Crescent’s conference room, oblivious to the ax hanging over their heads. He felt guilty, but something had to be done in order to save his own sanity.
¦
“Before we go any further today, let’s review,” said May, drawing on the whiteboard behind him. “Saralla White and Danny Martell, both low-grade celebrities, both killed in highly unlikely circumstances. And in both cases, we have sightings of this gentleman.” He taped up an artist’s impression of the Highwayman. The morning’s newspapers carried new renderings of their supposed nemesis, one computer-generated from a description provided by a pedestrian on Farringdon Road.
May slapped the board, startling PC Colin Bimsley, who was still recovering from his dog’s birthday party, an excuse to visit the local pub for a lock-in the night before. “No fingerprints at either crime scene, no fibres, nothing except a couple of incomplete bootprints in the gallery. Dan – do the honours on those, would you?”
Banbury rose and pulled up a sheet of paper covered with lifted prints. “Perpetrators always leave footprints at a crime scene; my problem was locating them, and I found none outside the gallery itself. I shot monochrome film to punch up the contrast on the ones raised from inside. These pictures were taken with a diopter lens and oblique lighting, and it’s fairly apparent from the scale bars that this is a rubber-soled motorcycle boot of an unusually large size. I underestimated just how big they were. I’d say we’re looking for someone of around a hundred ninety-eight centimetres height – that’s six feet six inches, sir. Electrostatic lifting got me a couple of flecks of metal in the tread, miniscule traces of aluminium, but they could have been picked up anywhere. Nobody in the gallery was wearing boots, unless somebody changed their footwear, in which case we should have found the original pair. We ran the prints through Shoe-Fit – ”
“I’m sorry, what’s that?” asked Mangeshkar.
“Shoeprint Image Capture and Retrieval software. We now have a confirmed brand, but it’s common and available from just about any motorcycle shop in the country. Moreover, the tread is worn, so it’s no use looking through recent pairs sold. I’m concentrating on Martell now. Giles and I are going to the gym to see if we get anything more in natural light, and I hope to have something to report by the end of the day.”
“Meanwhile,” said May, “in the absence of any other physical evidence, what conclusions can we draw about the circumstances surrounding these two deaths?”
“Don’t worry about speaking out of turn or sounding stupid,” Bryant added. “You know how John and I operate. Nothing you say has to go outside this room. We’re not minuting the session.”
Meera Mangeshkar was the first to raise her hand. “Both victims had enemies they’d never met,” she pointed out.
“How do you know that?”
“It stands to reason. They’d both expressed controversial opinions in the public arena. White was picketed by pro-lifers because of her statements on abortion. Martell was getting hate mail from family groups because of his remarks on TV. They could have attracted a stalker with strong right-wing views.”
“That would fit with the traditional profile,” said Giles Kershaw. “White male, mid-twenties to mid-thirties, unemployed, interrupted education, few friends, penniless, embittered. Classic serial killer stuff, in fact.”
“Dear God, let’s not jump to conclusions about a bloody serial killer,” warned May. “The press will be running photos of Anthony Hopkins in seconds –
