“Then there’s the
Bryant sensed progress at last. “You’ve certainly been more helpful than I expected,” he said, somewhat ungraciously. “I’ll see myself out. Good luck with your magazine. I think it’s utterly hideous, but then I’m old and poor.”
The publisher’s choice of phrase had proven interesting. The message he had translated echoed the words stencilled on a wall in the East End, in Goulston Street, supposedly written by Jack the Ripper on September 30, 1888:
As he stepped from the building, he considered the gang on the Roland Plumbe Community Estate in a new light. Not only were they aware of the police investigation; they knew the true identity of the Highwayman.
Now he was faced with a new problem: How on earth could he extract the information from them?
? Ten Second Staircase ?
36
Skulduggery
“I don’t have to do it, John,” said Sergeant Longbright. “This is not part of my job description.”
“What are you talking about? None of us has an official job description, because Arthur deliberately keeps losing the forms.” May was exasperated. He had only asked Janice to attend Brilliant Kingsmere’s Friday night community meeting undercover.
“The last time I did this for Mr Bryant, I ended up in an Egyptian lap-dancing club, remember? I didn’t even get to keep my dress. Whenever I attend a meeting in your place, something odd happens. Switch me with Bimsley and stand me in the rain all night, guarding a witness or running surveillance on a suspect; I’d rather do that. You’ve been to the estate now, you’re known there.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t go, because the kids will behave differently when they see me, and it’s important that they respond with their guard down. I’ve already had one run-in with them.”
“Any evidence I record will be inadmissible, you know that.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to find out what Kingsmere is up to. The Saladins know the truth about the Highwayman. Arthur thinks that they’re trying to point the finger of blame at someone through their graffiti warnings. They could simply be deflecting attention away from themselves, but then why leave any message at all? If any of them, or anyone close to them, attends Kingsmere’s sessions, I want to hear what they have to say. I’d send Meera, but she’s too blunt with men.”
“All right,” Longbright said with a sigh, “but this is the last time. How do you want me to play it?”
“Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t tape or take notes. Just observe and steer the conversation if it’s needed, but whatever you do, don’t lead anyone on. There must be no coercion. As for image, you might try to tone yourself down a little.” He eyed her spectacular breasts with alarm. “Be inconspicuous.”
She threw him a hooded look. “You mean cover up my best feature.”
“Your best feature is your mind, Janice. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Find out something we can use.”
¦
“Guess how many privately managed societies are currently operating in London?” asked Bryant, looking annoyingly pleased with himself.
“You mean with registered memberships?” asked Dan Banbury.
“Registered in the sense that a committee holds member lists with names and contact details, yes. We can’t measure them otherwise.”
“Oh, I don’t know, three hundred?”
“Seventeen thousand. Upstairs in pubs, in halls and churches and living rooms, everything from the Enrico Caruso Appreciation Society to the National Warlocks Confederacy. Fans of Locked-Room Mysteries meet in the Edgar Wallace pub near the Law Courts. Moroccan cooks get together at the Queen’s Head and Artichoke in Fitzrovia. The Metropolitan Police have their own magicians’ Magic Circle. The Pagan Federation meets at The Rose and Crown; Egyptian researchers gather at The Museum Tavern. The Vampire Society and the Dracula Society aren’t on speaking terms at the moment because they’re arguing about Darwinism and an outstanding beer bill. Everybody wants to belong to something. So tonight I’m going to the Grand Order of London Immortals.”
“In heaven’s name, why?” Banbury had yet to adjust to Bryant’s investigative leapfrogging. He was still cataloguing evidence information, and resented Bryant wandering in to discuss his latest fancies.
The elderly detective raised a badly photocopied sheet in triumph. “A somewhat unexpected lead from Frank at the Greenwich Library. I asked him to send me a list of London societies. The order’s Hall of Fame includes the Leicester Square Vampire.”
¦
Over in the converted Catholic school in Bayham Street that housed the unit’s mortuary, Oswald Finch was growing more suspicious by the minute.
He checked the ID sheets against the ziplocked bags, touching the lettering as if expecting to discern some clue in Braille. “I don’t buy it, Mr Kershaw. I saw the e-mail, too, you know. I’m not entirely out of touch with modern ways, despite your boss spreading rumours about my impending senility. If this man Kasavian is really determined to shut down the unit, why would the Home Office allow the exhumations to go ahead? What about the permission of the surviving relatives? Who signed this order? I’ve never heard of permission being granted as quickly as this. It’s all highly irregular.”
“It’s still in their interest to close the case. And technically, the permission was granted several times before but never acted upon, so I didn’t have to return to the relatives. Two of the bodies had been placed in storage at the Central Mortuary in Codrington Street. The third was exhumed last night.”
Finch shrugged. “All right, let’s get it over with.” He handed his young colleague a mouth filter. “I have no sense of smell, so it won’t bother me, but the ventilation unit in here is temperamental, and I don’t want you contaminating the site by throwing up.”
“Let’s do it.” Kershaw’s nervous swallow betrayed his relative inexperience with cold-case cadavers. The three civilian victims of the Leicester Square Vampire who had been granted approval for reexamination lay before them, awaiting assessment of their DNA. Out of deference to John May, only Elizabeth’s body had been left undisturbed.
Finch unzipped the first bag and thrust his head inside with unnerving enthusiasm. “Good, this one’s dry. Nice and easy.” He withdrew two samples from a three-decades-dead black female so withered that only her dyed red hair had survived unravaged. Kershaw pushed a short, razor-tipped needle into her thigh, then took several minutes locating a heart ventricle for a second extraction. “We’re supposed to record this procedure, you know,” he admonished.
“Can’t do it; they won’t buy me a new camera, and old Bryant accidentally dropped the last one off Brighton Pier taking pictures of seagulls.”
Finch rezipped the first bag and gingerly prodded the second. “Watch out, this one’s going to be a leaker.” He opened six inches at the top and shone his pencil torch in. “Very runny. I had an Italian cheese with this consistency at a restaurant in Lake Como. I’ll do it.”
“Do you need a broader-gauge syringe?”
“For bodies like this I used to use a soup spoon, but the lab techs don’t like you giving them too much. You get students who fill stool sample tubes so full that they can’t get the lids on. On very recent exhumations, colon matter is still usually on the move.”
