tight they fall back on old material, repackaged compilations, safe stuff they can hawk around to advertising agencies. The superclubs are dead, the bands are crap and the industry is heading down the toilet. Everyone’s downloading, who needs to buy CDs? If we’re going to stay here, I’ll have to make a complete career change.’
‘What do you mean, if we stay here?’ she asked. ‘I’ve put every penny I have into this house. We made the decision jointly-where else can we go?’
The ensuing silence worried her more than any answer. She knew he had viewed the move as a way of giving up his old life rather than starting a new one.
The television had no aerial and reception was lousy, but Paul sat before it anyway, opening his third beer while she went downstairs and tackled the painting of the built-in cupboards. She had set up a battery-powered lamp in the bathroom now, making the room a little more cheerful, and further dousings of disinfectant beneath the bathtub had taken care of the spiders. The room still seemed abnormally large compared to the kitchen, and she disliked the fact that it was below street level, but Benjamin Singh had explained that part of the basement was once a coal cellar. Kallie tried to imagine the rumble of coal in the chute, the stone-floored scullery and outside plumbing, but the history of the house had been erased by successive owners.
She remained unbothered by the idea of Mrs Singh dying at home in unexplained circumstances. She considered herself practical, rarely given to overactive flights of imagination. And yet there was something. .
Kallie was moving the lamp when she saw the damp patch on the far wall, beneath the tiny window, a creeping sepia stain roughly the shape of Africa. Perhaps it had been there all along, but this was the first time she had noticed it. Her fingers brushed the brickwork and found it dry to the touch. Could coal dust have permeated the walls to the extent that it returned, spreading through paint and plaster like asbestos powder silently accreting within the lungs?
Perhaps she had taken on too much. Paul was unhappy and unhelpful. Later, as she lay in the cool, darkened bedroom nursing a headache, she wondered if they had really done the right thing. The property anchored them more firmly than any child. Certainly, Ruth Singh had never stirred from the house. Kallie couldn’t let it have the same effect on them.
13. EVERYONE IN THE STREET
‘We’ve got a match on Greenwood’s client.’ May came through the hole where the door should have been with an air of triumph.
Bryant was taking tea with two of the workmen who had set up a primus stove in the hall to make their own refreshments. ‘Ah, so what’s the score with your cuckold?’ he asked. The carpenters looked at May with fresh interest. They clearly enjoyed chatting with Bryant, and had settled in so comfortably that May suspected they were hoping to drag out the work until Christmas.
‘I do wish you wouldn’t call him that,’ snapped May, uncomfortable at having to discuss his private affairs in front of strangers. Such openness never bothered Bryant, who always behaved as if there was no one else in the room.
‘I’m sorry, the situation intrigues me, that’s all. You know how unlucky I’ve been in my own romantic affairs.’
‘Oh, come on, it hasn’t been all bad. There was that girl in 1968.’
‘
‘Not at all. You’ve always been horrible to people.’
‘That’s very hurtful,’ Bryant complained, attempting an empathetic response. ‘Do you have any idea how alone you can feel when you think differently from everyone else? You can be as alone as-that cat.’ He pointed to Crippen, who was sitting with his back to them, staring intently at a spot on the skirting board. ‘Look at it. There’s nothing happening in its head at all except for a vague idea about fish and radiators. It’s probably been neutered and has lost the will to live. No wonder we relate. Don’t talk to me about romance. Let’s see what your gizmos have managed to come up with.’
May waited until the listless workmen had taken their leave, then called in Dan Banbury to explain the process to his partner.
‘OK, the Bluetooth images are fairly low-res, given the poor light,’ Banbury pointed out, tapping his computer screen. ‘But the unique thing about the phone is that it takes micro-sequential shots from three separate angles. Of course the electronic images are constructed of code translated into pixels, so they can be translated back using a different program that fills in perception gaps. From here it’s a simple matter to wire-frame a 3-D image, plugging the missing pixels with similar textures and colours taken from surrounding surfaces to give a fully fleshed shape. This means that the chances of finding a file match are multiplied a hundred times over, because we can run database checks from almost any angle.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ warned Bryant, ‘but go on, it’s terribly interesting.’
‘I ran the shots against everyone entered in the system with a visual reference-that includes Index Offenders, people who have been put into the mental-health system, as well as standard AMIP files, SPECRIM reports and central Met database convictions. The problem with the system-’
‘I knew there had to be one,’ Bryant grumbled.
‘-is that we’re only dealing with priors, naturally,’ Banbury continued. ‘The software hasn’t been invented yet that can finger someone before they’ve committed a crime. I’m not Cassandra.’ He gave a shrill laugh. Bryant looked at him as if he was mad. Banbury coughed awkwardly, then punched up a file on his screen. ‘But we did come up with a match. Here’s your man. Jackson Ubeda, aged fifty-one, three priors for fraud and intent to deceive, couple of B and Es, one grievous bodily harm, likes thumping people and rather fond of bankruptcy, usually disappears owing a small fortune to investors. No reason why your academic-’
‘Gareth Greenwood.’
‘-Greenwood, would know any of this, although a couple of the financial papers have run steer-clears on him in the past.’
‘So what does this fellow want with an expert on underground rivers?’ Bryant wondered, shifting closer to the computer.
‘That’s our job to find out.’ May steered Bryant’s hovering hand away from the keyboard.
‘It’s OK, Mr May,’ Banbury smiled. ‘The equipment is drool-proof.’
‘How dare you,’ said Bryant, affronted.
‘He means even you can’t damage it,’ May explained. ‘Longbright is keeping the Met off our backs by helping them with the Camden bin-bag killer, which means that Bimsley and I are free to go back to the Clerkenwell site this evening for a nose around. We’re waiting for a premises code, but the fire officers can argue that the blocked alley is a health hazard if we have to sort it out quickly.’
‘Not like you to steam in without a Section 8,’ Bryant sniffed. ‘I suppose you think I’d be holding you back. That’s fine, take Bimsley, because I have something to do tonight anyway. And it’s business.’
‘What are you up to?’ May asked suspiciously.
‘I’ve been invited out,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m going to a cocktail party.’
The gathering was uncomfortable. The hosts were nervous, the guests suspicious and argumentative. From Bryant’s point of view this made it interesting, as the bad atmosphere encouraged people to make mistakes. They had gathered in the knocked-through ground-floor rooms of number 43 Balaklava Street, home of Tamsin, Oliver and Brewer Wilton, ostensibly to celebrate their son’s birthday and to welcome Kallie to the street-but as no details of Ruth Singh’s death had been made public, everyone was anxious to know what the police thought.
‘And this is Mr Bryant,’ said Mr Singh. ‘Tonight I am saying farewell to my old friend.’ If Benjamin was upset with the outcome of the investigation into his sister’s death, he managed not to show it as he introduced the police officer to the assembly.
‘So you’re the detective-how exciting,’ said Lauren Kane, a thickly painted blonde who appeared to have designed her own clothes by removing strategic buttons. ‘This is my partner, Mark.’
A bulbous thirty-five-year-old in a straining blue-striped shirt reached over and shook Bryant’s hand
