Bryant & May 07; Bryant & May on the Loose

“You’re telling me we can’t get at it?” Bryant’s watery blue eyes widened in surprise.

“Ah, you finally understand! No, Arthur, we’re not allowed.”

“You mean we’re persona au gratin?”

“Yes. Perhaps now you could go and see your pals at the Home Office and try to pull a few strings for us.”

“Indeed. I exerted a great influence over the last Senior Commissioner. He still owes me a huge favour because I saved his son’s reputation.”

“How?”

“Well, you know the sauna on the corner of Camden Road – ”

“No, I mean how did you exert influence over him?”

“Oh, well, basically I told him what to do. Except I can’t anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for a start he’s dead. Coronary embolism, about two months ago. A damned nuisance. I never liked him much, but I felt sorry for the passengers in his car.”

“Now what do we do?”

“I suppose we’ll have to break the law again. I mean, there’s something wrong here and the Met won’t be able to do anything, so it’s down to us. Meanwhile, strong tea, lots of it. There’s a cafe on York Way that does bacon sandwiches you’ll be pulling out of your teeth for days. I won’t be, of course, because I take mine out and give them a rinse. If you can’t get hold of Dan, put in a call to Jack Renfield and tell him to meet us there; we’re going to need his help. But first let’s get out of this mud.”

As they headed toward the cafe, the trio tried to stamp the dark earth from their shoes but it remained stuck fast, as if the very ground was determined to leave its mark upon them.

? Bryant & May on the Loose ?

12

Reformation

The Cafe Montmartre (Open 24hrs For Hot Snacks ) was the second most inappropriately named restaurant ever to appear in Central London (the first was the Beverly Hills Nail Salon, Whitechapel). The owner, a former nightclub promoter called Alfie Frommidge, had changed the name from Alf’s Cafe in order to attract a new upmarket clientele, but all he had succeeded in doing was annoying the builders who had been using the place for cheap lunches, and who did not take kindly to paying double for the same menu just because it had been rewritten in bad French. Alfie’s plan had been to appeal to Parisians arriving on the Eurostar, but they never ventured this far along the road, and if they did, one look at the first item on the menu – “Saucisses et frites avec un oeuf et Baked Beans” – would have seen them off.

DS Jack Renfield found the three ex-members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit seated in a row behind a wall of dusty plastic ferns. Alfie dropped an absurdly elaborate menu in front of him and continued to address Arthur Bryant.

“Since we got an alcohol licence we get your so-called professionals in the evenings now,” the restaurant owner explained, “all the staff from the new offices next door, the branding company for the new King’s Cross. A million quid for a logo that’s a coloured squiggle my old gran could have knocked out in ten minutes, and she’s only got one eye.”

“I know,” said Bryant. “I’ve seen them in here, braying halfwits and drunk PR girls shrieking like demented chickens. I think I preferred the place when it was a dump with empty scallop shells on the tables for ashtrays.”

“Me too, but you can’t halt progress, Mr Bryant. People want something classier.” Alfie wiped his hands on his apron and headed back to the kitchen to throw a fistful of parmesan shavings onto his instant mash.

“Ah, Renfield.” Bryant turned to his former detective sergeant. “You’ve got good pals in the Met. Most of my influential friends are either dead or not feeling very well. I’ve put a couple of calls out, but no-one’s come back to me yet. Anyone at Islington nick who could smuggle one of us into the mortuary?”

“If you’re talking about Bimsley’s corpse, Islington reckons the south side of the Caledonian Road falls under Camden Council, so they’ve now taken it to the coroner’s office at Camley Street, just round the corner.”

“You don’t know anyone there, do you?”

“I used to go out with a really weird Greek bird called Rosa Lysandrou who worked there as a receptionist. This was a few years back, but I think she’s still there. I could give her a call.”

“Kindly do so, would you? Have we heard from Dan yet? And where’s Longbright?”

“Wait a minute,” May interrupted, “you can’t just go assembling the old crowd again. This isn’t The Blues Brothers, we’re not getting the band back together.”

“Whyever not?” asked Bryant, genuinely puzzled. “Even Kasavian will see the financial sense in reopening the unit. I’ll talk to him and persuade him to recommission us.”

“And what if he won’t do it?”

“We’ll hardly be any worse off than we are now.” On some subconscious level, Bryant knew that the only way to pull himself out of his self-pitying nosedive was to try and solve a murder that no-one else in the Central London area was equipped to handle. The effort of succeeding was possibly the one thing that could restore his self- esteem.

Alfie returned with teas the colour of Thames mud. “Are you going to be using this place as your office?” he asked. “I could rent you a table.”

“Yes, and I could call a health inspector,” Bryant told him. “It’s just until we get sorted out. Tell me, do you get many customers from the nightclub over the road?”

“They come in here off their faces and order big breakfasts, then can’t eat them,” said Alfie.

“Ever get anyone in fancy dress outfits?”

“At the weekends sometimes. Nurses, schoolgirls, vampires, blokes in gorilla suits – we had a bunch of people done up as a bathroom once. Pipes, a bidet, the lot.”

“Anyone dressed as a stag?”

“Stag? Oh, I get it, stag night. No. Hang on a minute.” He went back to the kitchen and returned a minute later. “Yeah, the sous-chef saw some guy dressed as a stag a couple of weeks back. Furry coat, antlers, the works. Just stood outside here having a smoke.”

“A bit of a nuisance, was he?”

“Doesn’t sound like it. Why?”

Renfield snapped his phone shut. “You’re on. Rosa says she can get you into Camley Street right now for a few minutes because the office is closed, but she’ll take only one of you.”

“That had better be me,” said May. “Arthur, wait here. Perhaps you’re interested enough to put in that call to Faraday now. Sound him out about reopening the unit.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Meera.

“If Arthur really can persuade the Home Office to back us, perhaps you should find out about the current availability of our former staff. Just refer them to me if they want to know about salaries. Start with Colin Bimsley.”

Meera grimaced. “Don’t make me call Colin, chief. He doesn’t need the encouragement.”

“Meera, you’re not asking him on a date; this is business. Get cracking. Then round up Raymond Land and the others.” May turned back to find Bryant staring happily at him. “ What?”

“Nothing,” said Bryant, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

¦

“Ah, Mr Bryant, I was rather expecting you to call,” said Leslie Faraday, who wasn’t thrilled about being disturbed at lunch, halfway through a bowl of canteen macaroni cheese. “There’s been some movement on your situation. After my conversation with your partner, I talked with Mr Kasavian. He’s not at all happy about the idea of re-forming the PCU.”

“I imagine he’s even less happy about the idea of criminal gangs returning to an area that will become one of the main arrival points for the 2012 Olympics,” said Bryant. “King’s Cross isn’t the only place undergoing a