Bryant & May 09; The Memory of Blood

? The Memory of Blood ?

30

Morbidity

Ella Maltby lived in a redbrick Jacobean-style house overlooking the north end of Hampstead Heath. It rose in magnificent isolation on the brow of the hill, rendered almost invisible by the profusion of damp greenery that surrounded it. Here kestrels, tawny owls and woodpeckers made their homes in the trees, and London, blue and misted, was spread out below, its glass financial towers placed to one side, like condiments at a picnic feast.

“This is probably the grandest building I’ve ever attempted to enter legally.” Bryant looked up at the door with approval. “It makes Hampstead Golf Club look like Bethnell Green Slipper Baths.”

“I wonder why she works if she lives in a place like this?”

“I don’t know. Ray Pryce said she was very odd. Let’s find out just how very odd.” He gave the iron bellpull a tug.

“Is my tie straight?” May turned to Bryant with his chin forward.

“It’s fine. I don’t know why you feel the need to straighten a piece of silk dangling from your neck whenever you visit a woman.”

“I don’t want to look an utter scruffbag like you.” May looked down at Bryant’s knees and recoiled. Blue and white striped material was sticking out of his trouser bottoms. “Please tell me you’re not wearing pyjamas underneath your strides?”

“It was cold when I got up, so I just put another layer on. Is that so wrong?”

“I can’t believe you have to ask.”

The door was opened by Ella Maltby herself. She was clearly unhappy and unprepared to find the detectives standing on her doorstep.

“Ms Maltby, we need to talk to you about a purchase you made from Pollock’s Toy Museum six weeks ago,” said Bryant.

“You’d better come in before anyone sees you,” Maltby said, looking behind them.

She led the way into a wide, oak-panelled hall hung with cobwebbed chandeliers. When May studied them, he realized the cobwebs were stage effects that had been carefully sprayed onto the candlesticks.

“Well, they say you never can tell what’s behind an Englishman’s front door,” said Bryant in a not entirely complimentary tone.

“I am not English and I’m not a man,” Maltby pointed out. “I am German, originally from Hamburg. My father anglicized our family name after the war.”

“Ah, a Jerry, yes, well, I imagine he would. We had quite a few family friends who visited Hamburg. Didn’t stop, just flew over it and returned to base. Never mind, forgive and forget, eh?”

“Give me strength,” May muttered under his breath, but Bryant was on a roll.

“It probably explains your fascination with torture, I mean with the Hun being a notoriously cruel race, but you gave us our royal family, even though we dumped the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha surname because it was simply too embarrassing.”

Maltby froze Bryant with a cold stare. “You wanted to talk about a purchase.”

“A Hangman doll, I believe.”

“That’s correct.”

“What puzzles us is this: Robert Kramer is a collector of Punch and Judy memorabilia. Bit of a coincidence that you are, too, isn’t it?”

“I’m not,” Maltby said. “I bought the doll for Robert while I was buying the rest of the props for the play. That way it goes through the business books. They’re rare and very expensive.”

“Kramer already has a complete set of puppets.”

“Not true. There’s no single agreed set of characters. The productions varied across the centuries and the only surviving sets that match are in museums and private collections. They hardly ever come up for auction. The only way to collect them now is to buy the characters piecemeal. Mr Granville had heard of an original Hangman going, so I obtained it for Robert.” She looked from one detective to the other. “I’m assuming this has something to do with the death of Robert’s son?”

“A puppet of the Hangman was found beside Gregory Baine. Nobody’s told you?”

“I had no idea. What happened?”

“He was found hanging under Cannon Street Bridge.”

“I assume he killed himself.” She sounded curious but not surprised.

“Why would you think that?”

“Everyone knows he had money worries. He asked for a loan, but Robert turned him down.”

“Where were you on Wednesday night?”

“Here at home, by myself.”

“Where did you last see the puppet?”

“In Robert’s office at the theatre. I think he intended to keep it there. It was certainly there on Monday, before the party.”

“You’re quite close to Robert, aren’t you?”

“It pays to be. He employs me.”

“Friendly with his wife?”

“Not especially. She doesn’t talk to other women.”

“How about the mistress?”

“I didn’t know she had one.”

“Robert Kramer’s mistress.”

“I didn’t know he had one.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“You’re a policeman. Do you believe anything?”

“Sorry to hear about your girlfriend, by the way. Left you, did she?”

“It’s common knowledge.”

“Anyone else at Robert Kramer’s party you’re especially friendly with?”

“I don’t know any of the others that well. I keep my distance.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re not my kind of people.”

“I heard they don’t much care for you. They think you’re weird. Your girlfriend did, too.”

“I imagine they all do.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Because of my… predilections.”

“And what are those?”

“Come and see for yourself.”

Maltby led them to the staircase at the end of the hall and started to descend. “I’m a model maker,” she explained. “That’s how I got into props and set design.” At the bottom of the staircase, Bryant and May found themselves faced with a double-width wooden door covered in square iron studs, closed with an iron ring. She grabbed the ring and twisted it. The door swung wide with a theatrical groan.

The detectives found themselves inside a dungeon, complete with perspiring grey stone walls, a full-sized rack, a gibbet, thumbscrews, a scold’s bridle, a brazier with a red-hot branding iron sitting in it and various implements of torture. But more alarming than this were the full-sized mannequins that writhed in agony in the contraptions, burned, scarred, pierced and stretched. A hooded figure with a bare chest stood beside them holding tongue pincers. Another was posed standing over a screaming naked girl with a pair of eye gougers in his hand.

But the tableau that interested Bryant most was the one that featured a corpse hanging from a perfect hangman’s noose.

“And you wonder why your girlfriend walked out,” murmured Bryant.