Bryant & May 08; Off the Rails

is to move, understand?”

Bryant headed for the nearest CCTV point, a dusty camera wall-mounted at the cross-path to the Piccadilly Line. He waved his arms in front of it, hoping that Dutta’s crew was paying attention. The stairs would take him to ground level, where he could call an ambulance.

¦

Pinpoints of sound sparkled in Mac’s brain. His senses seemed to be shorting out. He was lying on his back, with something warm and wet around his neck. The dirt-streaked tiles of the tube tunnel drifted into his vision. Dumped out with the rubbish, he thought without rancour. Well, this is pretty much how I expected to die.

¦

Bryant got through to the London Ambulance Service. The emergency crews were always stretched on Mondays. Fewer patients were discharged by hospitals at weekends because it was harder to find staff who could assess them, so they stacked up in the wards, meaning that A&E trolleys could not be found for incoming patients, and medics were forced to slow down. Luckily, University College Hospital was close by, and their EMTs came charging down the stairs in under six minutes.

Years of heroin addiction had damaged Mac’s lungs. He developed breathing difficulties in the ambulance, and started to undergo respiratory collapse just as the vehicle was pulling into the A&E bay at UCH.

When Bryant arrived at the hospital to give his report, the staff nurse told him they weren’t sure whether their patient would survive the night.

? Off the Rails ?

13

Memento

“I don’t understand.” Raymond Land stalked back and forth past Bryant’s desk. The floorboards nearest the metre-wide hole creaked dangerously as he did so. “How did you manage to lose the witness?”

“I was forced to leave him with the others while I called the ambulance.” The detective had a conjuring manual open on his desk, and was attempting to shuffle a pack of cards.

“Couldn’t someone else have gone?”

“I knew the EMT codes, I knew the equipment we needed, it was faster for me to go. Time was of the essence.”

“This late display of efficiency isn’t like you, Bryant, but I’d be more impressed if you hadn’t lost him. Any of the others in your group know this bloke?”

“They’d all just met for the first time. Most of them pay in advance, so the company has their booking details. Don’t worry, Janice will find him. She’s on his case right now.”

“What about an ID on the victim? Can you put those things down for a minute?”

“We’re working on it, but there was nothing in his jacket or jeans.” Bryant attempted to shake out the nine of clubs. “By the way, there was a journalist in the station when it happened. Followed the ambulance to the hospital. Got a good look at the victim even before they bandaged him, I’m afraid.”

“So what? Stabbings aren’t news anymore.”

“There was something unusual about the attack. The boy was hit twice in the neck. The attacker knew exactly what he was doing and punctured the carotid artery, but unfortunately the wound looked a bit like a bite- mark.”

Land was even more confused than usual. “You’ve lost me.”

“You do remember, I suppose, that we investigated the Leicester Square Vampire?”

“Oh, no.” Land rubbed a hand over his sagging features. “Tell me this hack’s not going to run a ‘vampire running amuck on the London Underground’ story. He’s not, is he?”

“It’s not a he,” Bryant replied. “It’s our old friend Janet Ramsey, the editor of Hard News. That awful Botox-faced woman who could put a frost on a cappuccino from twenty paces.” He lost control of the shuffle. One card pinged off the vase on his mantelpiece. Crippen ran for cover.

“She’s on the story? What was she doing at the station?”

“Catching a train, I imagine.”

“You’ll have to stop her. Wait, I’ll do it.” Land punched through to Ramsey’s desk on his phone.

“I can’t prevent her from reporting the facts, Raymond, you know that,” Bryant told him cheerfully. “I’ve warned her that if she tries to foster an atmosphere of panic, we’ll have her under the Public Order Act. Where’s John?”

“He’s gone to St Pancras station, said you’d understand what he was up to. Really, why must there always an air of mystery about everything you two do? I’m surprised you don’t leave each other messages in code.”

“We do sometimes. Well, I do, just to annoy you.”

“Hello? Janet Ramsey, please.” Land covered the phone. “Could you put down those bloody cards for a second?”

Bryant set the pack aside and dug in his pocket for the parts of his pipe. Land was about to protest, but thought better of it. “All right, you can have a smoke just this once. After all, we’ve got the Unit back and a chance to put things right. I suppose that’s something for you to celebrate.” He turned back to the phone. “Well, when will she be out of the meeting?”

“Oh, for God’s sake give me that,” said Bryant, waggling his fingers at the phone until Land reluctantly handed it over. “Put Miss Ramsey on right now,” he bellowed into the receiver. “Tell her it’s Arthur Bryant and if she doesn’t pick up at once I’ll send someone around to have her arrested for obstruction. And you, too, while we’re at it. Janet, hello, next time you get your assistant to lie for you, try not to be heard in the background. You think you’re speaking softly but it sounds like someone mooing through a traffic cone. Possibly you’re going deaf. Listen, if you publish one single reference to vampires or madmen running loose in the underground I’ll bring you in for questioning and keep you here for so long that by the time you get home all your houseplants will be dead. Yes, I know I’m a horrible old man but at least I’m attractive on the inside, which is more than you’ll ever be, unless you become a nun.” He threw the phone back to Land. “So, they’ve officially given us Gloria Taylor, the woman who was pushed down the escalator?”

“Camden Met found nothing to go on, so they’ve turned the case over to us. It clearly falls under our jurisdiction. Risk of causing panic at London tube stations, etc., etc.”

“Good news for once. You could break open that bottle of Greek brandy you keep under your desk.”

“I haven’t got a desk. I have two packing crates held together with bits of duct tape. But all right, yes.”

“Excellent. It will kill some time while I’m waiting for Meera to come back with the X-rays.”

“What X-rays?”

“Sorry, vieille chaussette, I forgot to mention. The stab victim, we’re getting X-rays ahead of the post-mortem, not that he’s quite dead yet, but he’s on a respirator, and I don’t suppose he’s long for this world. The entry wound suggests he was stabbed with a skewer, and they should tell us if he was, which would mean that Mr Fox has resurfaced, just as he said he would.” Bryant lit his pipe and sucked pensively. The smell of burning leaves filled the room. On the desk before him lay the note. “Take a look at that,” he said.

“So this is the famous warning? Not very informative, is it?”

“It’s suggestive. Foxes live underground. Hell is underground. And the misspelling of chaos, there’s a sense of timeless tragedy.”

“A sense of illiteracy, more like.” Land gave a harrumph. “Wishful thinking on your part.”

“Not at all. Mr Fox’s growing in confidence, but perhaps he also wants to be stopped. Something torments him. Why else would he bother to send a message like that? There’s another thing. May thinks the sticker on Gloria Taylor’s back is a letter K. Suppose it stands for Kaos?”

“Are you seriously suggesting he attacked two different people in the same tube station a little more than two hours apart? Why didn’t he use the same method for both?”

“I don’t know. Do me a favour, will you, and pick a card.”