‘Actually, I had a medical at lunchtime and was sent for a chest X-ray. Had to wait for ages. I tried calling you when I got out, but your mobile wasn’t answering.’
‘No, it wouldn’t. It got wet, so I tried to dry it out in Janice’s sandwich toaster. The toaster and the phone sort of-
‘What do I tell Bayham Street?’ asked Kershaw with a faint air of desperation.
‘Tell them you’ll take a wander over with Mr Banbury after you’ve visited the crime scene, give them the kind of report they love-yards of statistics, no opinions. Not that you’ll find anything at the site after Camden’s gormless plods have trampled around in their size tens. And be careful near Finch, he bites.’
May looked up from his newspaper. ‘Do you know that’s the third mobile you’ve destroyed this year, not counting the one you lost when the unit blew up?’
‘Surely not. I quite fancy one of those video-phones. I’m surprised no one’s created a collective noun for them yet, or even any decent short-form generic terminology. I thought we were supposed to be an ingenious race, but I fear America has the edge on us when it comes to branding. Have we got any biscuits, Janice? Not Hobnobs, they get under my plate.’
The streets around Mornington Crescent station were quiet for a Monday afternoon. If you had been walking past, and had looked up at the arched first-floor windows above the Tube entrance, rebuilt in their original maroon tiles, you would have seen Arthur Bryant and John May in silhouette against the opaque grey glass beneath the station logo, Bryant seated under an ‘N’, May tilting his chair below the ‘S’, as sharply delineated as Balinese puppets.
‘Tell John about your old lady,’ Longbright suggested.
‘What old lady?’ asked May. ‘Have I missed something interesting?’
‘Do you remember a fellow called Benjamin Singh? Ah.’ Bryant found the keys and released a traumatized Crippen from his cabinet. A less appropriately named kitten was hard to visualize. ‘Expert on English occult literature and pagan mythology. I used him as a consultant a few times in the eighties. His sister died this morning, and he came here.’
There was a bang as DC Bimsley nearly went through the window with a box of stackable files. Everyone flinched except Bryant, whose deafness was highly selective.
‘He wanted her to be seen by someone he trusted, so I went round there and took a look.’ Bryant patted his pockets for a match. ‘She was in her late seventies. Body was in the basement on a very hard upright chair, and there was water in her throat. I’ve given Banbury the sample, and I’m waiting for a quick confirmation from the child Kershaw, but it would appear to have been a dry drowning.’
‘What’s a dry drowning?’ asked DC Bimsley, listening in.
‘No water in the lungs, death as a result of laryngospasm-constriction of the windpipe. Quite rare, but not unheard-of,’ May explained without thinking.
‘The problem is, it’s an unprovable method of death. Most drownings are accidental, often because the victim is pissed. A deep breath is taken in shock, and the lungs inflate like balloons. There was a small contusion on the back of her head, might have been an old mark but I’m inclined not to think so.’ Bryant, ignoring the newly installed No Smoking signs, poked about in his coat and produced his pipe. He started to light it but Longbright snatched it out of his mouth with a tut. ‘I got Oswald in to take a quick look at her.’
‘No wonder Kershaw’s upset with you,’ said May. ‘Oswald Finch is retired, you can’t just call him in over the new boy’s head.’
‘I can do what I like,’ Bryant reminded him. ‘I don’t trust someone whose surname sounds like a sneeze. I was going to use him, but Finch is an expert on drowning. You know how instinctive he is about such deaths. He reckons there’s no mucus in her air passages, nothing agitated by an attempt to breathe, no real distension in the lungs, no broken blood vessels in the nostrils. He’s opening her up tonight but doesn’t think he’ll find diatomic particles in the heart ventricles because she went into spasm almost at once.’
‘Could she have drowned at her sink?’
‘It’s possible, except that we found her bone-dry and fully dressed for going out, seated in a chair. She could have drowned in half an inch of water if she’d been unable to get up, but not in a chair.’
‘Did she have swollen ankles, bare feet?’ asked May suddenly.
‘Not bare-old-lady bootees, the non-slip kind-but swollen.’
‘I was thinking footbath. You know what old ladies are like. Was the floor wet?’
‘Yes, a little. There’s a rug over parquet.’
‘You didn’t ask the brother if he’d moved anything?’
‘I’m losing my touch, John, forgive me, I’ll call him right now.’ He turned to Longbright. ‘Why is everyone else’s phone connected except mine?’
‘Forgive me for pointing this out,’ said Longbright, ‘but Mrs Singh’s case hardly falls within our official jurisdiction.’
‘I do recall the tenet under which this unit was set up, Janice.
Bryant had an offensive way of dismissing what he called ‘ordinary crime’. He looked from one face to the other with such an air of childish enthusiasm that both Longbright and May wanted to slap him, even though they realized that he was simply happy to be back. Today he was alive with a restless excitement. For decades, he and his partner had divided their workload along the lines of their personalities. May followed the ingrained rules of Metropolitan Police detection, handling the groundwork, chasing up the most obvious and logical leads, interviewing family members, appealing for witnesses, covering tracks, proud of being thorough. His skills were technical because he enjoyed working with new technology, and observational because he liked people. Arthur had never exhibited sociability. He preferred to be left alone, taking off at tangents, following lateral hunches and sensations, enjoying the jolt of unlikely synaptic responses. Bryant did the heavy thinking, May did the heavy lifting. ‘Come on,’ he nudged. ‘Aren’t you even a little curious?’
‘Well, yes,’ May admitted. ‘But it can’t take precedence over the caseload Raymond’s handing us.’
Bryant knew he had won. ‘Fine. I thought I might work late tonight. My new kitchen’s not connected up and the plumber’s behaving like the last of the Romanovs, refusing to visit until Wednesday. You’re the only one with a dependent, Janice, you should go home. There’s nothing more you can do until tomorrow.’ Most of the new computers had yet to have their software installed, and the only items to survive the blast undamaged were still packed in boxes.
‘Ian’s going to leave me if I go back on regular shifts,’ the detective sergeant agreed. ‘But I should make myself useful. Now that you’re both here, perhaps I’ll stay a little while longer, just to get things shipshape.’ She looked around the partially painted room. ‘I must say it’s good to be back.’
‘Excellent, you can give me a hand unpacking my reference books. I don’t do manual work with my back.’ Bryant slapped his hands on the desk. ‘Lend me your phone. I won’t break it.’
‘Yes you will. I thought you lost all your books.’ Longbright examined the flyleaf of
‘Incoming email marked urgent,’ warned Meera Mangeshkar, getting wet paint down her sleeve as she looked in. ‘Do you know anything about a Christian Right minister from Alabama whose legs were found in a bin-bag behind Camden Stables?’
‘Is his name Butterworth?’ asked Bryant.
Mangeshkar ducked back and checked her screen. ‘No, Henderson.’
‘Wait, I’m thinking of a Baptist, torso in a bin-bag behind Sainsbury’s.’
‘Home Office wants a unit representative to go up there this evening. Angry Republicans placing phone calls to Westminster, doesn’t look good.’
‘Ah, Arthur, John.’ Raymond Land squeezed past Mangeshkar and hailed them with patently false bonhomie, which faded as he tried to climb around the partially assembled photocopier. ‘I’m glad you’re both here. The Home Secretary would like to see you for a brief chat tomorrow. He’s very upset that you’ve been rude to his brother-in- law.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Bryant told him. ‘Who the hell is his brother-in-law?’
