“So they’re traceable but don’t prove he was there. Then we should bring him in,” said May.
“There’s a problem with that,” April told her grandfather. “He’s in a wheelchair after suffering a stroke some while back, can’t do much for himself at all.”
“A legal PA,” said Bryant, looking up from one of the books Renfield had tried to throw out,
“Your point being?” May wondered.
“What? Oh, nothing, it’s just odd, that’s all.” Bryant poked about in his jacket and produced the walnut bowl of his pipe. He peered into it wistfully. “I don’t suppose I might be allowed to – ”
“No,” said May and his granddaughter in unison.
“It’s just that the Swedenborg Society lost another of their legal secretaries at the beginning of the month,” Bryant explained, screwing the pieces of his pipe together. “I believe she was found dead in a London pub, the Seven Stars, just behind Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
“Why on earth would you remember that?” asked May, intrigued.
“Because it reminded me of the nun found unconscious in The Flying Scotsman,” said Bryant, not really managing to answer the question.
“Wait, explain the part about the nun first,” April demanded.
“The Flying Scotsman is one of the most disgustingly awful pubs in London,” replied Bryant, “a grubby little sewer of a King’s Cross strip-joint, crammed for many years with the most unsavoury characters imaginable. But the lady in the wimple who passed out inside it was no ecdysiast, disrobing for a handful of coins collected in a beer mug. When I saw the incident report, I naturally wondered what she was doing in such a place.”
“Ecdysiast?” April raised an eyebrow.
“She wasn’t a stripper,” Bryant explained. “I followed the case and made notes on it. I have them somewhere.”
He withdrew a drawer from his desk, removing a handful of pipe-cleaners, a Chairman Mao alarm clock, a collection of plastic snowstorms and a bottle of absinthe, to finally unearth a small black book.
“Here, in my Letts Schoolboy Diary.” He held open a page filled with tiny drawings of flags. “A full report of the case – well, by the look of it I appear to have written up the salient facts in a code of Edwardian naval signals, but you get the idea. Sister Geraldine Flannery from Our Lady of Eternal Suffering said she was in the pub to collect for charity and was overcome by the pressure of the crowd, but it turned out her robes had been specially constructed to hold wallets and handbags. She wasn’t a nun at all but a dip, and not a very good one, obviously, otherwise she wouldn’t have chosen to pickpocket some of the poorest punters in London. The point is – ” Bryant’s raised index finger wavered in the air. “I’ve forgotten the point.”
“The legal secretary from the Swedenborg Society,” April prompted. The old man really seemed to be losing it. “The Seven Stars.”
“Ah, yes. This time the face on the barroom floor belonged to a respectable middle-aged lady named Naomi Curtis, the daughter of a clergyman. What had she been doing by herself in a pub?” Bryant popped the empty pipe into his mouth. “Most people don’t stray far from their natural habitat, and according to her father, Mrs Curtis was a creature of habit. She liked a tipple, and had been drinking more heavily in the last couple of years, but rarely went to a pub without arranging to meet someone. Suddenly she turns up dead one night in a Holborn boozer. I kept notes on her, too.”
The others looked at him blankly.
“Don’t you see? When something’s out of whack, when people don’t match their locations, a little bell goes off inside my head. There was something else. One of the punters remembered Curtis checking her cell phone at the bar, but by the time the ambulance arrived she had no phone on her. Land wouldn’t allow me to investigate at the time, but he will now. Two women, two public houses and an investigation involving drink, drugs, death and Swedish philosophy.”
“I assume this means you want to handle the case,” said May drily.
“Oh, don’t worry, I will whether I’m allowed to or not. I’m far too old to start obeying the rules now.” Bryant made a hideous draining noise through the pipe stem. “If anyone needs me, I shall be in the pub, conducting a little research.”
? The Victoria Vanishes ?
13
Forgetting
“We can’t take it on,” decreed Raymond Land. “A case doesn’t just come under PCU jurisdiction because you two have a funny feeling about it.”
“Giles and Dan agree with us,” said May. “They think there’s enough circumstantial evidence to link the two cases. The Naomi Curtis death was given an open verdict, although the coroner told relatives that she probably suffered heart failure following heat-stroke.”
“I don’t know,” said Land, wiggling a finger in his ear, then examining it. “All you’ve got is the fact that they both worked for the same organisation as legal secretaries.”
“Which meant that they probably knew each other. And they also died in a similar manner, in or near public houses,” May added.
“But they didn’t, did they?” Land pointed out. “This Wynley woman wasn’t in a pub, unless Bryant somehow managed to cause a rift in the bloody space-time continuum and plunge himself back to Victorian England. He’s gone to Bloomsbury for another look, hasn’t he? It’s not like him to miss coming in here and having a go at me.”
“He doesn’t believe he could have made such a mistake.”
“Look, it was late, he was a bit plastered, the road was dark and knowing Bryant, he was probably thinking about the history of the area. He’d read about the pub or seen a picture of it in one of his weird old books, and superimposed it over the scene. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s been wrong. He’s not infallible, you know.”
May had an image of the retirement letter in Land’s pocket. He would have transferred it to his desk by now, perhaps even left it at home. He suddenly saw a way to protect his partner. If they were given the case, Bryant would be presented with an opportunity to come up with a solution. It was the type of investigation at which he excelled. His confidence would be restored, the letter would be withdrawn and Land would be satisfied that his senior detectives were still on the ball. “There’s the issue of undermining safety in public areas,” he added.
“What are you talking about?”
“If we imagine for a moment that there really is someone out there who has struck at two innocent women in crowded public places without anyone else even noticing their deaths, we have a real problem on our hands.” May knew that one of the less-frequently invoked remits of the PCU was to ‘ensure the maintenance of public comfort and confidence in the free and open areas of the city’. In other words, if someone dangerous was running loose in any building or public space to which the residents of London enjoyed open access, it could undermine their faith in the police, and ultimately, the state, creating scenes of public disorder. It had happened many times before in London’s past.
“You think the Home Office would come down on us?” asked Land, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Like a ton of bricks,” confirmed May. “Leslie Faraday and his sinister boss Kasavian are still angry about us leaping their last hurdle.” The HO had booked a royal visit to the unit, hoping that the detectives would make fools of themselves by incurring the disapproval of a member of the monarchy. Instead, the detectives had seen off their common enemy and resoundingly silenced their critics.
“I’ll make the recommendation.” Land sighed. “You’d better brief the others so we can hit the ground
