Bryant & May 06; The Victoria Vanishes

“That’s absurd.”

“Absurd or not, it’s a fact,” he said impatiently. “She died in the Old Bell tavern in Fleet Street. Rather, I should say she was killed, just like the others.”

“In another pub…it doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it does.” Masters placed a ruler on the page and carefully drew a line in blue ink. “That was the way he worked.”

“But that just leaves me, Mary and Jennifer. I mean, out of the mothers.”

“You weren’t real mothers or even surrogate ones; you were little more than day nurses.”

“We became attached to our charges. How could they have expected us not to?”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. There’s no room for sentiment where science is concerned. He would have come after the rest of you as well, but the police stopped him. He’s dead.”

“My God.” Jackie drew out a chair opposite Masters and sat down heavily. “I can’t believe somebody would have done this. Was it really so important that we knew?”

“Don’t be so naive; of course it’s important. You can’t compromise in a situation like this.”

“Then I don’t understand why the press aren’t making more of it. Surely people want the facts?”

“Really?” He looked up at her now and slowly removed his reading glasses. “Don’t you think it’s in the ministry’s interests not to let it get out?”

“We still live in a democracy, Harold, no matter how tainted it’s become of late. Things like this can’t – ”

“Things like this,” he cut across her, “happen all the time in places where the powerful gather. What about Litvinenko? His dinner at the Sheraton Park Lane was poisoned with polonium-two-ten, for God’s sake. A series of government murder plots involving Russian spies, death and a trail of radioactive contamination? It sounds more suited to the plot of a James Bond film, but it happened right here. Nobody cares about a relapsed psychotic putting a few alcoholic middle-aged legal secretaries to sleep. How many times have stories about re-offending ‘care-in- the-community’ patients made the papers for a couple of days before being forgotten?”

“How do you know so much about it?” she asked, suddenly suspicious. She had once valued Masters’s friendship, had comforted him during his wife’s decline and death, but his defensive attitude was starting to disturb her.

“The MOD re-hired me on a freelance contract.”

“I thought you said you would never go back there.”

“They had an academic problem that I found intriguing. I said I’d help them out.”

She glanced nervously back at the door, and he caught her looking. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “What happened to you?”

“You may ask, what is the purpose of an academic? What are we for? I thought it was to make discoveries, to render visible the lines that bind civilisations. Then one day I made a discovery that called into question everything for which I thought I stood. It’s not just the slow accumulation of empirical data, you know; we are granted epiphanies occasionally. We may even pronounce them to the world, but like the Oracle, we are doomed never to be believed.”

“What did you do for the Ministry of Defence?” she persisted.

“There’s such a thing as accountability, Jackie. The research teams there couldn’t be seen to – they needed a solution to a thorny ethical problem. You must understand. I didn’t know any of them except you, of course.” He pushed his writing pad back with careful deliberation.

She spoke in shocked gravity. “What did you do?”

“Society must abide by the rules it creates, otherwise we descend into moral anarchy.” He spoke with the clarity of a man who had something to hide. “You know how the law works in cases like this. You were sworn to secrecy, and now you’re in breach of your contracts. The documents you signed – you all signed – are still legally binding. And you were paid well. Do you want to betray your country?”

“It was blood money, and you know it!”

Masters sighed. “This is all water under the bridge. Everything has been cleared up now. There’s no reason why any of it should ever get out.”

“It will get out, Harold. Mary and Jennifer are still here. I’m still here,” Jackie persisted. “I’m still alive.”

“No, I’m afraid you’re not,” said Masters, wearily rising from behind his desk.

? The Victoria Vanishes ?

43

Beneath the Antiquities

The British Museum was the oldest public museum on the planet.

It had been built to house the purchases and gifts collected from around the world by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, items of such antiquity that appreciating the convoluted circumstances of their history had become a challenge in itself. Almost every exhibit told an extraordinary story, from the graceful Portland Vase, produced before the birth of Christ only to be smashed into two hundred pieces by a drunken sailor in 1845 and then painstakingly reassembled, to the Lindow Man, a two-thousand-year-old peasant preserved in the acids of a Cheshire peat bog.

It was not a particularly friendly or accessible museum. Artefacts withheld their secrets, and the weight of lost empires hung heavily about the remains. A mere stroll through chambers of glass cabinets taught little, and left no impression; the museum worked best when no more than half a dozen objects were examined at one time.

Janice Longbright and Jack Renfield had managed to get themselves admitted, but the girl who had opened the side door thought Masters had gone for the night, and went off to look for him in the direction of the Egyptian Hall.

“I’m not going to wait for her,” said Renfield. “She could be up to something dodgy. He’ll be out of the toilet window before we can grab hold of him.”

“He’s a senior curator and lecturer at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions,” said Longbright, studying the Grecian statues at the top of the stairs. “He doesn’t leap out of lavatory windows. You have a suspicious mind.”

“I’m a bloody copper. Come on, let’s have a shufti. You’re going to have trouble keeping up with me in those shoes. I can’t believe they let you get away with breach of uniform regulations like that.”

“I’ve always worn heels on duty; it’s my look. Mr Bryant says he believes in the foolishness of consistency.” Longbright reluctantly followed her opposite number up the south staircase. Dominating the entire landing was a white marble discus thrower, devoid of its correct setting, out of place and time.

“You don’t have to get all toffee-nosed about it, Janice. I know where you come from – you’re South London workingclass just like me. Either you want to catch a lawbreaker, in which case you do everything within your power to do so, or you’re happy to let him get away.”

“We don’t usually do a lot of running about,” she said lamely. Renfield made her realise how sheltered she had been at the PCU. There had been one hundred and eighty murders in the capital over the last year. Two and a half thousand reported rapes. Nearly two hundred thousand instances of violence against the person. And nearly one million men and women in the Met. Perhaps now she would have to go back into the force and deal with the crimes they faced every day of their working lives.

“Do you know what this bloke looks like, Janice?”

“I’d recognise him, but you’re going the wrong way. He’ll be in the basement at the back of the building, where the researchers’ offices are.” She hunted about for the correct avenue. “Down here.”

“This isn’t the way my old squad would have gone about it,” grumbled Renfield. “If she’s with Masters, do we take them both in for questioning? As far as I know, they haven’t broken any law.”

“We talk to them honestly, Renfield; that’s what the PCU does best. It’s not always about following rules.”

“Yeah, I figured that much out. This geezer’s not dangerous, is he?” Renfield tried the door opposite, but it was locked. “She’s not at risk? Not that I’m bothered. If we find ‘em and he cuts up rough we’ll be all right, ‘cause you’re big, I’m stocky and he’s just a bookworm. Now which way?”