“In conspiracy theory there’s the issue of
“Someone who featured in all of their lives. Someone who was important to each one of them.”
“Someone you haven’t found.”
“We’ve made detailed examinations of their recent movements.” Bryant sighed. “There’s a dark patch on the X ray, so to speak, a period when they all just – went missing.”
“There you are,” said Dame Maud, who had been so sensible up until this point. “Alien abduction.”
“No, dear, he thinks they worked together,” Maggie explained, “doing something they couldn’t tell their relatives about.”
“Oh, ladies of the night? Jezebels, is it? Painted harlots?”
“No, in an office,” said Bryant, giving Dame Maud a wary look. “Legal secretaries.”
“I’m confused. Why would they lie to their loved ones about working in an office?”
“That’s rather the question,” Bryant admitted.
“ATM machines,” said Dame Maud, perking up suddenly.
“They’ll have needed lunches, won’t they? Find out where they drew their money from. Women have to eat in the morning, it’s a metabolism thing. Read their journey details from their Oyster cards, then check the coffee bars nearest to the stations from which they all alighted.”
“Are you sure you haven’t worked with the police before?” asked Bryant. “You have a criminal turn of mind.”
“No, dear, I haven’t worked with the police.” Her moon-eyes swam innocently behind aquarium glass.
“No, but you’ve been in trouble with them a few times,” Maggie pointed out.
“It wasn’t my fault that last time; it was your Maureen and her familiar, pulling my skirt off like that.”
“You were in the Trafalgar Square fountain swearing like a navvy.”
“I was in a state of advanced transcendentalism.”
“You were in a state of advanced inebriation, dear.” As Bryant left the witches arguing in the little terraced house, he found himself wondering what a handful of kindly, maternal legal secretaries could have done to place themselves on the death list of a deranged killer.
? The Victoria Vanishes ?
37
Open and Shut
“What do you mean, the case isn’t closed?”
Raymond Land looked like someone had just thrown a bucket of iced water over him. Bryant had never seen him looking so tired. There were bags like suitcases under his eyes, and for once he hadn’t tried to plaster his remaining strands of hair across his head.
“I’ve just told you; we think there may be at least two more victims, people we haven’t considered. They could have been kidnapped by Pellew before he made a run for it. And there’s something else. Pellew was being monitored by a community warden called Lorraine Bonner. When he skipped his apartment, she notified his probation officer. The authorities knew he’d broken the terms of his release, but it looks like they did nothing about it. Why?”
“I can’t go back to Faraday and tell him the case is still open. He’ll have kittens.”
“I don’t care about upsetting Faraday’s little world when there may be human lives at stake.”
“And anyway – I suppose I’d better tell you – there’s another problem.” Land’s sigh was like air leaking from an old accordian. “Kasavian’s closed the unit.”
“
“Listen to me, Arthur: This time it’s for good. They’ve removed our lease on the building, with immediate effect. We’re required to vacate the premises today.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bryant scoffed, before suddenly losing confidence. “You’re not serious?”
“As a heart attack. They’ve sold the property. There’s another department moving in on Monday at noon.”
“How long are we supposed to vacate for? Where are we to go?”
“Kasavian says we’ll be rehoused eventually, but I don’t believe it for a second. It really is the end of the line.”
“Oh, you’ve said that before. We’ll continue on, we always do. I haven’t finished my autobiography yet.”
“For God’s sake, Bryant, be realistic for once in your life!” Land shouted, startling them both. “We have no funding, no offices, nowhere to work, no support – nothing, you understand? It’s all gone. Everything you worked for all these years, it’s finished, over.” He dropped his head into his hands, surreptitiously eyeing the aspirin bottle on his desk. “Go home, I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“Well, I’m very disappointed that you won’t go to bat for us,” said Bryant. “It can’t end here, you know. So long as we can prevent a single death, there’s cause to go on.”
“Really? Are you sure you’re not doing this for yourself, because you know that without the unit you have absolutely nothing left?”
“That was cruel, Raymond.” Bryant did his best to look hurt.
“You’ve been hanging around with people from the Home Office for too long. There was a time when you cared about doing the right thing.”
“I have to be practical about this. I looked inside the envelope you put in my jacket at Oswald’s wake, Arthur. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but curiosity got the better of me. You’d reached the decision to resign, and I know how you feel. Out of step with the present day. Heaven knows I’ve felt that often enough. I have no idea what people are thinking anymore; all I know is that I don’t like anyone very much. Some evenings I walk to the station and it seems as though every Londoner under forty is completely drunk. I’m getting to the point where I hate everyone. No wonder people shut themselves away. So you see, I understand your position. That’s why I have to accept your resignation.”
“But I don’t want to resign now. I have a reason for not doing so.”
“The case is closed.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You identified the murderer.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You caught him red-handed.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“And now you’re saying he didn’t do it after all.”
“No, I’m saying he did.”
“Then how in God’s name can someone else have done it?”
“I! Don’t! Know!” Bryant realised they were shouting at each other, and turned his hearing aid down a fraction. “But. I. Am. Going. To. Find. Out.”
He saw Land turning red and shouting something back, but had no idea what he was saying. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad that’s settled. I’ll get back to work.”
Land’s next sentence was more creatively constructed than anything he had said in the last five years, mainly because it was spectacularly obscene, but Bryant heard nothing at all as he left the room.
¦
“I’ve got something for you,” April told her grandfather, commandeering his laptop and flipping open a file before him. “You’ll love this; it’s technology gone mad. In November 2005 Jocelyn Roquesby caught a flight to Ancona in Italy. She returned from Rome five days later. Giles found a torn piece of the ticket stub in the bottom of
