“Yeah, they did, because by then I’d had time to make a nice little edit of the photos. I just said I didn’t know where Matt had gone. I kind of implied he’d found out about me and Ruby, and had stormed off. But Ruby didn’t believe me. And then Cassie figured it out.” Theo shook his head, irritated by the thought. “Because you went to see her about the damned stickers. She knew one had been placed on the back of a woman who’d died on the tube – you told her. And she told me she knew I was involved. That girl – it was one of the reasons we broke up – she could always see right through me. I asked her what she was going to do about it, and she said she didn’t know. She wanted to talk to an old friend of hers, a lawyer. I knew then that Cassie had to be removed. I followed her to Greenwich – I was still wearing Matt’s coat because I’d put my black leather Marc Jacobs original on him and I didn’t want to get my clothes dirty – but I didn’t find a chance to get her alone. I kept trying to think of a way to kill her, but it was really difficult coming up with something good, you know?”
“You managed it, though.”
“Oh, yeah. I stayed outside the flat, watching as the pair of them got drunk, but I couldn’t tell whether Cassie had told her about me. I couldn’t see properly from outside. I wasn’t about to kill the friend as well – I mean, where would it have stopped? But then Cassie went back to the Westcombe Park station, and there was nobody on the platform. It was too good an opportunity to waste. By this time, I could tell that your investigation was falling apart, because it was so easy to provide a vague alibi.”
“So you pushed her onto the line.”
“Well, I’d managed to kill a complete stranger just by nudging her, so I figured it should work again. I couldn’t think how to guarantee that she’d fall, but then I saw the steel frame of the waiting room door, and it was just like going to the gym.”
“And you implicated Miss Cates by leaving behind a piece of her plastic cast.”
“I thought that was a nice touch, yeah? I came up with lots of cool little touches like that, but I don’t suppose anyone even noticed. I had to deflect attention away from myself, obviously. The last thing I had to do was get the diamond ring back from Ruby – it had seemed like a good idea to have her look after it. But then the little bitch did a runner and pretended she couldn’t get it off her finger.”
“Nice, Theo,” said Ruby softly. “You really are a piece of work.”
“Who told you about the game?” Bryant asked Niko.
“I was talking to some guard at King’s Cross,” said Nicolau, “and he told me about it.”
Bryant shot his partner a meaningful look, as if to say
As the students started squabbling with Fontvieille, John May turned to his partner. “All right, I give up. How did you get to him? What made you sure it was Theo?”
Bryant looked over at Fraternity DuCaine and grinned. “Once we realised it was a game, the rest was easy. You see, it was a cheat.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fraternity and I looked at the players, then took a guess at the type of game they were playing. We saw at once that if it was something that required social skills, then the game was rigged. I mean, look at them. Ruby hobbling about with a cast. Toby, a borderline stalker and a hopeless closet case, which was why he spotted Jack Renfield following him – ”
“You mean he thought I was trying to pick him up?” said Renfield, utterly horrified.
“That’s why he was so cagey about where he went at night,” said Bryant. “So, Ruby was incapacitated, Toby was crippled with shyness, Rajan was downright unpleasant – forgive me, Mr Sangeeta, but you do surely lack social skills – and Nikos was simply unprepossessing. There was only one person in the group whom strangers would truly be comfortable next to.”
“Are you telling me that was all you had to go on?”
“It made sense. Mr Fontvieille here kept mentioning his wealth, but it didn’t ring true. Look at him – he looks like he hasn’t slept for a month. So I ran a check on his car and found it had been repossessed, not stolen. We called his parents and heard about his history of getting into debt. And we checked the security footage at Bond Street tube. Lo and behold, there was Theo, following Gloria Taylor down into the station. Once we had the basic idea, it only took minutes to sort out what had happened. We followed the joker in the pack. Then, when we saw the station besieged by fans of Mr Nicolau’s website, I enlisted Dan’s help.”
“What do you mean?” asked May, puzzled.
“Well, I needed to protect our staff, didn’t I? We had two murderers both on the move in a tight, crowded space, so I asked if he could use the same technology to help us.”
“I downloaded one of Mr Bryant’s databases and sent an urgent text to everyone on it. We thought they’d be in the area.”
“What was it?”
“Friends of the British Library,” said Banbury. “They’re running a series of events just down the road.”
“Textiles and tapestries of the Middle Ages,” added Bryant.
“You mean Mr Fox was stopped by ladies from a
“They’re tough old birds,” said Bryant, patting his pockets. “I wouldn’t want to mess with them. Well, I think it’s time for a pipe. Can I leave you to finish up here? If anyone needs me, I shall be out on my verandah, contemplating the evils of the world.”
Everyone started talking at once. “All right, you lot,” shouted Raymond Land, holding up his hands. “Let’s have some peace and quiet. You might want to start thinking about your statements.” He wagged his finger at Fontvieille, who appeared suddenly exhausted. “You’re not so clever now, are you, sonny? You obviously didn’t reckon on the sheer professionalism of a crack investigation unit.”
Land took a step back and vanished down the hole in the floor.
? Off the Rails ?
50
The Way Ahead
The detectives were standing in the only magic shop actually situated in the London Underground system. Davenports Magic Emporium had existed for decades opposite the British Museum, but had now moved to one of the dead-end tunnels beneath Charing Cross Station. Few commuters know of its existence – why would they? – but its crimson curtains hid a world of misdirection, deception and amazement.
Realising that card tricks were not his forte, Arthur Bryant was shopping for something bigger.
“What are you looking for?” asked May.
“I’m not sure,” Bryant replied, looking around. “Perhaps I could saw a girl in half, produce doves from unlikely places or explode my landlady.” Alma was hosting a charity lunch for the women from her church, and he was keen to provide her with a magic act, whether she wanted one or not.
Daphne, formerly Radiant Lotus Blossom, assistant to the Immortal Mysterioso (available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and children’s parties) came over to demonstrate an illusion. “How are you with rabbits, Mr Bryant?” she asked. “I had to give up the old act because I put on a bit of weight and got stuck in the Cabinet of Swords a few times,” she confided, dropping a startled bunny into a glittery tube and running a sabre through it. “You can do this with a small child, providing they’re not easily moved to tears.”
“I don’t think he should practise on anything living,” said May. “They might not stay living for long.”
“And then of course the Immortal Mysterioso turned out not to be immortal after all. Bowel cancer. So I put away my spangly tights and came to work here.” Daphne held up the gold canister to prove that nothing had actually penetrated the rabbit. “It works on cats, too. Especially if you don’t like them. Could I interest you in X-ray goggles?” She pulled out what appeared to be a diving helmet with rotating spirals over the eye-holes. “Very popular for mind-reading acts.”
“You always accuse me of being a bad judge of character,” said Bryant, poking May in the ribs, “but Theo Fontvieille bothered me from the moment I met him. He was too gaunt, too energetic. He made light of everything, acting as if nothing in the world ever touched him, but behind the banter there was a terrified child, screaming in the dark.”
“That’s true, the first time I laid eyes on him he left me feeling uneasy,” May agreed. “But he kept his nerve, bluffed his way through and almost got away with it.”
