closed before Faraday uses it against us.”
“Then you’re too late. You should have concentrated on the factual evidence, because that’s all the Home Office is prepared to recognise.”
“We still have time to give them the kind of report they’re expecting.” Bryant slapped the engravings he had pinned behind his desk. “There’s a split between appearance and meaning. If we only read the surface signs, we’ll always get it wrong. Has it ever occurred to you that the time period between fear and acceptance has become radically truncated in the modern age? The Vampire attempted to strike fear into people’s hearts, but compared to most modern criminals, he seems quaint and rather absurd. Two weeks ago a man was kicked to death by fourteen-year-olds and thrown off Hungerford Bridge ‘for a laugh.’ How would the Vampire’s antics have struck them? Would they have shown the respect he craved? The Highwayman is merely the externalisation of a centuries-old inadequacy, except that now his actions are accelerated to suit faster, darker times. We have found our motive.”
“What we need is the identity, Arthur. This is about capture and punishment, not apportioning blame to society. Right from the start, this unit should have been dealing in tangibles. You’ve had your chance and wasted another day. No more poking about in archives or consulting with psychics. Oskar Kasavian is not a man to be trifled with. He’s taking us down because we’ve failed to make connections.”
“The victims have no links, John! Don’t you think I’ve looked? They never appeared on the same TV show or were interviewed in the same article; they never met one another; they shared no mutual mourners, no common age, race, or class. The only common factor between any of them is this man Leo Carey, the publicist who was married to White and worked for Danny Martell.”
“There’s one other,” said May. “Elliot Mason. The relief teacher once taught Paradine’s son.”
“I hate to make matters worse,” Banbury interrupted, “but I got the results of the footprints back this morning. It seems we have two radically different sizes of the same boot. The first print, taken from the floor of the Burroughs gallery, is a size eleven. The second, lifted from the roof of the Oasis pool, is a size eight. We know from the height of the gallery tank that he would have to be abnormally tall – and extraordinarily strong – to lift White over the edge. However, we should be able to get another height estimate from the picture taken by the girls on the Roland Plumbe Community Estate.”
“According to Jack Renfield, the picture wasn’t taken there at all,” said May.
“Doesn’t have an effect on the result,” said Banbury, tapping open the photograph on May’s computer. He expanded the background brickwork behind the blurred shot of the Highwayman. “These are half-bond yellow brick balustrades, so by factoring in the standard sizes of brickwork we can calculate their distance from the foreground figure, and work out his approximate height. Either he’s bending his knees, or he’s become shorter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re telling me our Highwayman is capable of changing size.”
“I think he possibly wears something in his shoes to give him added height on certain occasions.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Perhaps he has something wrong with his legs. I suppose it could be some kind of a brace. The gallery prints are deeper and heavier than the rest, as if he was burdened with extra weight.”
“I hate to say it,” said Bryant, “but this supports my hypothesis.”
“I didn’t know you had one.”
“I’m wondering if the Highwayman doesn’t exist.”
He glanced up at the stunned faces of his team.
“I asked myself, was the London Monster a real flesh-and-blood character, or something created for self- publicity? He abused, assaulted, and cut fifty-nine Mayfair ladies in the buttocks until they started sticking frying pans down their knickers. Epidemic hysteria produces symptoms of so-called conversion reactions wherein illogical, aberrant behaviour spreads through the populace. The Monster ceased to operate, and perhaps some other member of the public, taken with the idea, copied the example he had set. He received fan mail from women across the capital. In early twentiethcentury Paris, someone pricked women with hat pins. In 1956 in Taipei, there was an epidemic of razor slashings. In Illinois in 1944, a mad gasser sprayed women with paralysing ‘nerve gas’ that proved to be nothing of the sort. The Leicester Square Vampire was also a manufactured monster. With this in mind, the witness statements from the time could be viewed with suspicion.”
“You’re suggesting he was someone we interviewed?”
“The complicity of the public in creating the myth suggests so, yes. The originator stays around to help fan the fire of notoriety.”
“But we no longer have the statements, and there’s no way of tracing the people we questioned.” May thought for a second. “You think the same is true of the Highwayman? That it’s someone we’ve placed at the crime scenes?”
“You’ve been on the estate where this picture was meant to have been taken,” said Bryant. “You’ve seen the signs and symbols the Saladins scrawl on the walls like talismans.”
“You think a bunch of disenfranchised kids could bring a killer to life and direct him to murder whomever he pleases?”
“History shows us that the poor have to claim back what they should rightfully be able to share,” said Bryant.
“So they conjure up a supernatural hit man from bones and hair and magic tokens.”
Aware of the silence, May looked around to see that everyone was watching them. He had resolved never to argue with his partner in front of the unit, and had broken his promise. Furious with his lack of self-control, he left the room.
“Well, that was a load of bollocks,” said Mangeshkar finally. “Anyone care for a mutiny?” The blank looks provoked her. “You’re a bunch of cowards. Maybe Kasavian has the right idea; shut this place down and save the taxpayer some money.” She, too, stormed out. The remaining staff members could hardly blame her.
¦
With dissent and confusion collapsing the unit, John May took positive action, and borrowed the staff car to track down Lorraine Bonner. When he found her, he tried to find out who Luke Tripp was meeting in the estate’s community centre.
“We keep a room-hire roster.” Lorraine took him to her office and consulted the bulletin board behind her. “I heard about your trouble on the staircase. Sorry we couldn’t be there, but I did warn your partner. Let’s see, we had addiction counselling from two to three, followed by a meeting of the garden committee.”
“This would have been just after four o’clock. Anyone take it out between four and five?”
“That’s a session handled by a teacher from St Crispin’s,” she explained. “He’s a former Crown prosecutor who helps out with some community work on the estates, in collaboration with our anti-gang initiative. Last night was his directional guidance and confidencebuilding task force, a fancy title for improving low self-esteem among disadvantaged children who join gangs to provide themselves with alternative families. Whenever trouble flares up, the usual things are blamed – hip-hop, pop videos, horror films, gaming, violent Web sites – but the kids around here are media-literate, and little of what they see enters their real lives. They don’t believe much of what they see.” She gave a wry smile. “Well, except all those commercials that show the kind of beautiful life you should be having instead of sitting around here smoking dope. They want the things they’ll never have in a straight job, so they set out jacking other kids right on the street.”
“There’s nothing sadder than the poor stealing from the poor,” May agreed.
“Are you a Christian?” asked Lorraine.
“I share certain fundamental Christian beliefs,” May admitted.
“Let me tell you what
“So you set about making your own repairs with community classes.”
“Three years ago we had a problem with methamphetaminebased drugs on the estate that led to several tragic deaths, so the parents got together and paid for a volunteer to come and take a community class.”
“What’s his name, the teacher taking this class?”
