We have to find him today, John. Judging by the number of empty ampoule boxes in his room, he’s carrying enough lethal doses to take out a dozen people.”
¦
Back at the unit in Mornington Crescent, Dan Banbury had looked in on May’s granddaughter and found April frowning over her computer screen. He was starting to worry about how much time she was spending at the PCU. The others were used to it; April had only just managed to reconnect with the world, and he couldn’t help feeling she had swapped one cage for another. “You’ve got that look on your face again,” he warned, seating himself beside her. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve been studying the photograph,” said April. “Naomi Curtis. Jocelyn Roquesby. Joanne Kellerman. I don’t think they just bumped into each other in a pub and had their picture taken together.”
“Why not?” Dan studied the digitised photograph on her screen.
“Look at the way they’re standing. These women haven’t just met. They’re too close. I’d only relax like that if I was with a best mate. It doesn’t look right.”
“Maybe they had to squeeze in for the photo.” Banbury squinted at the picture, tilting his head. “It bothers you?”
“Enough to make me run some more checks. I finally managed to track down their resumes for date comparisons. It looks like all three changed jobs at the same time, in September 2005.”
“You mean they were working together?”
“No, that’s just it.” She pulled up the documents and opened their windows beside each other on the screen. “Curtis was at a place called Sankari Exports, Roquesby was at Legal and General and Kellerman worked for a loss adjustment company called Cooper Baldwin, but they all left in the same month.”
“Probably just a coincidence.”
“That’s what I thought. So I called Legal and General’s HR department, just to get a general idea about why she left. No-one by the name of Jocelyn Roquesby ever worked there. And it gets better. Sankari Exports in High Holborn ceased trading in 1997, and according to Companies House, Cooper Baldwin doesn’t even exist.”
“People exaggerate their resumes.”
“Come on, Dan. Three impossible jobs, three matching departure dates, three deaths?”
“What about start dates?”
“They’re all different.”
“Have you checked the other two victims?”
“I’ve ruled out Jazmina Sherwin because she doesn’t fit the pattern, and I’m waiting for Carol Wynley’s partner to e-mail me back. It should be in any minute.”
“Then hold off until you’ve got Wynley as well,” advised Banbury. “If they did all know each other, it would mean Bryant was right; these women weren’t chosen at random.”
“I don’t know where that takes us,” April mused. “I never go to a pub unless I’m meeting someone. What if Pellew worked with them somehow, perhaps even employed them? He arranges to meet each in turn, which is how they let him get close enough to jab them with a needle.”
“I don’t see how that could happen. He’d been locked up for years.”
“Do you think he would have had Internet privileges? Could it have been some kind of on-line deal?”
Banbury rubbed at his eye, thinking. “I don’t know. How can we tell if Pellew’s even the right man? He’s not in custody yet.”
“There’s one other thing. Cochrane, the warder at Twelve Elms Cross, sent through Pellew’s medical file. There’s a photograph of him taken at age eight without the crimson blemish on his face. And another one taken when he was seventeen, still clear-complected.”
“So if it’s not a birthmark, what is it?”
“A disguise,” said April.
? The Victoria Vanishes ?
31
The Angerstein
It was said that the Angersteins descended from Peter the Great himself, that John Julius Angerstein was the illegitimate son of either Catherine or Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, but the truth was somewhat less salubrious. John Julius, a Lloyd’s underwriter, had grown rich from his West Indian slaves, and parlayed their miseries into an art collection that became the envy of kings, and the foundation of the National Gallery.
The Angersteins made their home in Greenwich, the birthplace of Henry VIII and the home of time itself. Woodlands, their house in Greenwich Park, was built to house his growing collection of Rembrandts and Titians, and a grand Victorian hotel commemorated his name.
But part of the maritime town had been allowed to die. Away from the splendours of the Royal Naval College, the Royal Observatory, the Queen’s House and the
John May edged his BMW through the isthmus of the oneway system and parked by the entrance just as Meera Mangeshkar arrived on her Norton, with Bimsley riding pillion. He opened his window and called over to the two young officers.
“We’ve spoken to the pub’s manager. He was a bit shocked when I explained he might be harbouring a murderer in the building, but he’s going to co-operate. He says Pellew’s hiding place can only be upstairs, as the basement is pass-code protected.”
Shielding their eyes from the breaking rain, they looked up at the hotel, as arrogant and imposing as a battleship.
“Looks like more than twenty rooms, plus a fire escape and a basement exit,” said Bimsley.
“The second and third floors are accessible by a small side entrance round the corner, but the manager keeps the gate locked. If he’s in there, Pellew’s only escape route is down through the bar and out the front, or down the rear fire escape.”
“How do you want to do this?”
“You two, cover the floors above. Arthur, you’re staying on the ground floor. The bar staff are ready to close the main doors once we’re inside. I’ll get the fire escape.”
“No-one except the manager sees what we’re doing, understood?” said Bryant. “If Pellew is panicked into running again, he may hurt someone or try to take a hostage. There’s no way of getting all the drinkers outside without tipping him off. Don’t forget that he’s armed with the kind of weapon we may not even notice him discharging.” He struggled to unlock his recalcitrant seat belt. “For heaven’s sake get me out of this bloody thing, John.”
They went in. “Bloody hell, it’s mobbed!” said Meera. “What’s going on?”
“Charity match,” a punter shouted back. “Charlton Athletic.”
Just as she asked, a mighty cheer went up. The crowd was watching their local team charge across a luminous emerald screen.
“You know what he looks like; shut everyone else out of your vision and concentrate on his face,” said May. “The birthmark makes him stand out.”
On the narrow sepia-wallpapered second floor, Bimsley ran forward with the manager, a slender Asian man armed with a fat bunch of master keys for the rooms. “We’ve hardly anyone staying here at the moment,” he explained, “certainly no-one fitting your description. There’s a service room at the end, a storeroom and another guest bedroom, but we’ve stopped renting it out because it’s got some damp problems.”
“Open it up.”
The room smelled of wet wood, old newspapers, standing water. Black stalactites crawled down the discoloured plaster cornicing of vines and grapes. A reproduction of a painting, a black boy in a golden turban,
