Bryant & May 06; The Victoria Vanishes

How close had she come to falling at that moment? In his mind’s eye he saw the frosted lower windows of the public house on the corner, the beery amber glow surrounding the gold lettering on the clear glass that read The Victory – no, The Victoria Cross. A date of establishment that he couldn’t recall. He saw a few beer and spirit bottles on sparse shelves, the opening door as she pushed inside. He heard the rise of bar chatter, somebody laughing too loudly, the clink of glasses. A youthful figure appeared through the darkened doorway behind the bar, coming out to serve a customer. He could not bring to mind a face. The barman was ahead of her, already starting to take the order. As if he had been waiting for her to walk through the door.

“I wasn’t the last person to see her alive,” he said with finality.

¦

“You’re quite sure this is where she was?” John May asked for the second time as they walked through the alleyway toward the top of Whidbourne Street.

“Yes, but obviously I was coming from the other direction, heading up toward Euston Road,” said Bryant. “Do you want half of my Mars bar?”

“Bit mainstream for you, isn’t it, a Mars bar? I thought you’d be breaking out aniseed balls, milk gums, sugar shrimps or some other brand of confectionary not seen since the last war.”

“My supplier’s been closed down,” said Bryant gloomily, sounding like a drug addict who had lost his connection. “I suppose I could order them over the Internet but it wouldn’t be the same. And I’ve a sweet tooth, as you know.”

“Your teeth are false. Go on then, give me a bit.” May accepted a chunk and popped it in his mouth. He stopped at the corner of the pavement, removing the blue adhesive tape left for him by one of the Albany Street officers. “Spot where she was found,” he said, poking a toe cap against the kerb. “Nothing much to be seen here. No sharp corners except that low wall, which I suppose would do it.” He indicated an area of broken brickwork. “Dan will have taken a sample. No scuff marks, no signs of violence.” He glanced up at Bryant, who had suddenly turned pale. “What’s the matter?”

“No pub,” said Bryant in a small strangled voice.

? The Victoria Vanishes ?

11

Mistaken

The pair were standing at the dog-leg in what Bryant now saw was Whidbourne Street. They looked up at the corner, which was occupied by a Pricecutter Food & Wine store, its yellow and green livery coated with dust, the window plastered with stickers for the unlocking of cell phones and the arrangement of cheap calls to Ethiopian towns. It had clearly been there for a number of years.

May shot his partner a glance. “This couldn’t have been the right corner.”

“But it was, I’m positive,” said Bryant, although he didn’t sound too sure. “She went into an old boozer. Its name, The Victoria Cross, was in gold lettering over the window.”

“Then you must have seen her on another street, before she reached this point.”

“No, it was here, because I remember the way the light from the bar fell on the opposite wall and over the trees above it. The clock tower of St Pancras Station was exactly in that position. She stopped right there” – he pointed to the edge of the pavement – “then crossed the road and went inside.”

“The streets around here look very similar to each other.” May was trying to be kind.

“I’m not losing my mind, John. I remembered thinking that I didn’t know this street. I thought I knew pretty much every route through central London, so I was surprised when I came across one I hadn’t seen before. Have forensics been here?”

“Kershaw and Banbury were ahead of us, but I don’t yet know if they found anything out of the ordinary. If you’re not imagining things, someone in the shop might be able to shed some light on this.”

May led the way inside. An elderly Indian man was virtually invisible behind the counter, buried beneath racks of gum, mints and phone cards. May introduced himself as a police officer.

“They found some old lady in the street last night,” the shopkeeper told them. “Dead, wasn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so. What time did you arrive this morning?”

“I live in Enfield,” said the old man. “This is my son-in-law’s shop. We open at eight.”

“And last night?”

“Close at ten, same as always. It’s nothing to do with us, what goes on over there.”

“What do you mean?”

“The estate. Those boys hang around here at night causing trouble; we don’t know what they get up to. That’s why we’ve got steel shutters. I have to close them every night. I complain to the police but nothing happens. The police never do anything.”

“Mind if we take a look around?” May led his partner away by the arm. “Is it just possible you made a mistake, Arthur?” he asked. “It was late and we’d been drinking for hours.”

“No,” Bryant insisted, but suddenly faltered, looking around at the shelves. “Well, I don’t think so. It occupied the same footprint as this building, with the door in the same place – but…”

“That’s understandable. Areas like this would have been planned by a single architect, so most of the streets have the same-sized building plots. Why don’t we take a walk around the neighbourhood, retrace your steps and see if we can find your pub elsewhere?”

Bryant allowed himself to be led between the racks of jumbo crisps and bottled drinks, but stopped by the front counter. “Do you know a pub around here called The Victoria Cross?” he asked.

The old Indian shook his head without even stopping to think. “Not around here. There’s the Skinner’s Arms, The Boot, and Mabel’s Tavern, but I don’t drink so I wouldn’t know. The pubs are all trouble, boys getting drunk and spraypainting their filth all over the shop.”

Outside, May pointed at Number 6A, the single remaining terraced dwelling that stood at the end of the dog- leg, surveying the street like a sentinel. “What about that house?” he asked. “Maybe the owners saw something.”

They approached the front door and rang a single bell, but there was no answer. May peered through the letter box and saw bills and flyers spread across the hall carpet. “Looks like they’ve been away for some time.”

“All the lights were off,” Bryant recalled.

“All right, forget the name of the pub,” May told his partner, “you might have got that wrong. Just concentrate on finding a place that looks like the one Mrs Wynley entered.”

The pair followed a rough ziggurat back along Bryant’s route, passing half a dozen public houses on the way, but none of them seemed entirely right. It was as if parts of them had been incorporated into a single phantom composite.

“I’m not going mad,” said Bryant anxiously. “I saw her go into the saloon bar and get served by the barman.”

“Wait, you sure it was the saloon? Arthur, pubs haven’t been divided into public and saloon bars for years.”

“Oh, you know what I mean. It was old-world, not messed about with. No beeping fruit machines.”

“Can’t you give me more descriptive detail than that?”

“Yes – no, I mean, perhaps I was a little drunk.” He rubbed his forehead, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. “I don’t remember as clearly as I thought. I’ll have to sit and think.”

“Did it smell different, this alternative space-time continuum you ventured into?”

“Why should it smell different?”

“You know, Victorian smells. Horse dung, tobacco, sewage, hops.”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember. I don’t suppose Victorian London smelled any worse than the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street does during the present day.”

May didn’t mention it, but he was reminded that hallucinations could often be accompanied by sharp changes in one’s sense of smell. Savoury odours of leather and burning were common. “Are you still taking your medication?”