Bryant & May 08; Off the Rails

nervous breakdown two years later. Her parents tried to have her institutionalised. It’s probably just a coincidence that the symbol somehow became attached to her, but I thought you’d want us to investigate all avenues.”

“I suppose you all think you’re very clever,” Land blustered lamely. “I’m sure you imagine you can run this place without me, but I’m here to make sure you can’t. Because you don’t think of everything, you know. There are two workmen brewing up tea on a Primus stove in the hall, both apparently called Dave, and they don’t seem to have been given any instructions about what to do.”

“That’s because they’re your responsibility, old sausage,” Bryant reminded him. “You specifically said you wanted to take care of them, remember? I imagine you don’t, otherwise you’d have arranged a work schedule for them. Okay, someone deal with the Daves for poor old Raymondo here; I’ll put the kettle on and let’s all get back to work.”

Having returned the acting temporary chief to his usual state of incandescent frustration, Bryant strolled out to the balcony for a smoke, but Land followed him.

“And there’s another thing I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Land hissed. “Your memoirs. You can’t be serious.”

“I have no idea to what you are referring, mon vieux tete de navet.”

“You should; I found a manuscript of the first completed volume when I was unpacking one of your boxes yesterday morning. What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?”

Bryant regarded him with wide blue eyes. “I’m writing down histories of our cases at the Unit precisely as I remember them.”

“That’s the problem – you don’t remember anything precisely.”

“Oh, I have a system for that.” Bryant screwed up an eye and peered into his pipe stem. “When I remember two facts but can’t recall the event that connects them, I use the bridge of my imagination.”

“All I can say is it’s a bloody long bridge. You wrote up a full account of your first case – ”

“The business at the Palace Theatre, the crazed killer who struck during a rather saucy production of Orpheus in the Underworld. You read it?”

“Yes, I did, and I’ve never read such a pile of pony old rubbish in my life.”

“Obviously I had to make a few changes to protect the innocent.”

“A few changes? You say it took place during the Blitz, for God’s sake! I know for a fact that you didn’t meet John until the 1950^s.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t. You met when you were working out of Bow Street Station.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. Apart from anything else, if your account was true you’d be in your late eighties by now, whereas you’re clearly not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not denying the basic facts – I’ve seen the official case notes – but you’ve moved the whole investigation back by about fifteen years.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have. Stop contradicting me!”

“I’m not. You only think I am.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“Just stop it! I know what I’m talking about. The Unit was founded in September 1940, but you weren’t in it then. I’ve read the Home Office file on the place. It was called the Particular Crimes Unit at that point. It didn’t become Peculiar until you came along.”

“That’s not how I remember it. And if that’s not how it happened, it’s how it should have happened. Far more colourful background material.”

“What, so the Palace Theatre murderer was killed by a bomb while escaping, instead of getting banged up in Colney Hatch Asylum until finally being carried out in a box?”

“Poetic licence. If I wrote down your days exactly as they happened, my readers would be asleep in minutes.”

“Well, I hope we’re not going to be treated to revised versions of all our cases.” Land had a sudden frightening thought. “And I hope I’m not featuring in any of these lurid fabrications?”

“Oh, I’m weaving you in all the way through, dear chap.” Bryant patted him consolingly on the shoulder. “My publisher said I should make it as amusing as possible, so I shall be popping you in whenever my readers are in need of a cheap laugh.”

He closed the balcony doors behind him and lit up a satisfying pipe.

? Off the Rails ?

19

Nikos

As John May descended the basement steps and entered the University College Cruciform Library on Gower Street, he realised he had no description of the man he was there to meet. He needn’t have been concerned, however, as Nikos Nicolau was waiting for him.

May knew it was wrong to judge by appearances, but it seemed that Nicolau had gone out of his way to appear unprepossessing. He had been put together wrongly; his head was too large, his back slightly hunched, his eyes protuberant. Thinning hair was slicked across a broad expanse of skull bone, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one. He was wearing a crumpled baggy T-shirt bearing the slogan A Joy to Have in Class, which seemed unlikely, as he didn’t smell very fresh. The senior detective was fastidious about personal grooming, and it bothered May to admit that he was adversely influenced by its lack in others.

“Mr May? There’s a corner over here where we can talk.” Nicolau led the way to a pair of red sofas screened off from the central part of the library. “I have trouble working down here because there’s no natural light. I have a melatonin imbalance, and get extremely claustrophobic, but it’s necessary for me to be here because they have good pharmacological reference tools, and that’s my study area.” He spoke with the clipped North London accent of a transported Greek, but sounded as if he had trouble with his sinuses.

“I appreciate your making the time to see me.” May seated himself and extracted a notebook. “Cassie Field gave me your details. She works for the Karma Bar just behind here?”

“Oh, the babe.” Nikos gave a snort of delight and was forced to wipe his nose. “She knows who I am?”

“Well, she must, because she gave me your number.”

“I give out my number all the time but people don’t usually – especially – ” He could see how that was starting to sound, and killed the rest of the sentence. “How can I help you?”

May produced the sticker in its clear plastic slip case. “Seen one of these before?”

“Yeah. They’re from the bar.”

“Were you aware that it’s an early Victorian symbol denoting lunacy?” He had promised Bryant he would ask.

“No, I had no idea. Interesting.”

“This one’s hand-coloured. Like the one on your bag.” May pointed at the satchel between Nicolau’s boots.

“Yeah, I coloured it in.”

“Any others like that?”

“A few of us have them, I guess.”

“Are you some kind of a group – a club?”

“Just friends. Some of us started on the same day. The guys are doing urban planning, I’m in biochemical engineering, ah – ” he scrunched his eyes shut, thinking, “ – and we have a girl doing computational statistics. There are six of us altogether, sharing the same house.”

“I can’t imagine you would have that much in common, doing different courses.”