others who died on Balaklava Street? With all the resources at our disposal, we still couldn’t save them. How is that possible?’
‘We saved Kallie Owen’s life,’ said May. ‘And we restored two masterpieces to grateful nations.’
‘I suppose those beautiful tiles in St Pancras Basin will be drilled out to carry computer cables. On cold nights I wonder about our homeless men. I checked with Betty; nobody has yet called the Birmingham coven. Do you think we did the right thing?’
May thrust his hands into his pockets and admired the view. ‘I know you, Arthur. You like the idea of them taking their chances, being masters of their fate, rather than being stranded at the mercy of bloody-minded immigration officers.’
Heather Allen was awaiting trial for murder, but although the detectives had uncovered motive and opportunity, their evidence hinged on the word of an unreliable witness, who was himself still under suspicion of arson. Perhaps the immigrants could have vouched for Tate, but they had disappeared. It was as Bryant had predicted: everyone of real importance had promptly vanished into the urban labyrinth.
‘Did you hear that Kallie’s boyfriend finally came back? Picked up a nice tan, apparently. She chucked him out on the street-for the time being, at least.’
‘He wanted his independence.’ May smiled. ‘Our first duty is to protect those at risk. Homeless people arrive every day in the capital, and instead of making them welcome, we shut our doors in their faces. Where will they go, now that the St Pancras Basin is being dug out?’ He settled on the bench and studied the bitter blue sky. Unlike his partner, May had always been attracted to light and space.
‘I like my cases with fewer loose ends,’ Bryant complained. ‘I want to know what Ubeda’s up to right now, whether he’s hatching some new way of filching relics in Egypt. And I want a full signed confession from Heather Allen, preferably acknowledging that I was totally correct in my assumptions. There are no open-and-shut jobs any more. Too many extenuating circumstances to take into consideration. It’s a crowded and complicated world.’
‘I know what you mean, Arthur. Did I ever tell you why I first became interested in crime?’
‘If you did, I’ve forgotten.’
‘I was a sickly child and spent a lot of time in bed, so my parents used to give me Agatha Christie books to read. I became addicted to unusual crimes. At the end of each book, someone would always stand up and announce, “It’s very simple, Major Carruthers rewound the vicar’s clock and replaced Lady Home-Counties’ mackintosh in the belfry
Bryant nodded in recognition of the memory. ‘I grew up reading about Fu Manchu, Raffles and the Black Sapper. They were even worse, all Limehouse opium dens, fifth columnists, stolen diamond tiaras and “the grateful thanks of a nation”. Of course, we’re virtually the only members of the British police force to have actually read a novel, which places us at a disadvantage. If you’re in public service, it never pays to reveal a sense of imagination.’
May drained his cup and set it down. ‘I suppose that’s a good enough reason for staying with the unit. Where else are we going to find cases that aren’t just about drunken brawls outside pubs or crackheads stealing from each other? God knows I covered enough of those during the two years we were separated and returned to regular duty. How I hated it.’ The unit had once been disbanded on the orders of Margaret Thatcher until it could provide ways of turning a profit. Nobody wanted to remember those times. ‘What have we got on today?’
‘Ah yes, Raymond’s caseload. A couple of Iranian guys found an anaconda in a Bankside fried-chicken outlet- looks like a war between business rivals; a priest set fire to a number of cars at the Elephant and Castle, because Satanists have been causing trouble in a fetish nightclub that’s opened in the precinct of his church-Longbright’s sorting out that one; the King’s Cross Prostitutes’ Collective is complaining that the new one-way system is ruining their trade, and they’re threatening to reveal a client list that includes several MPs-could we look into it? There’s that thing with the deaf circus midget. And of course, your granddaughter April is starting as our researcher at the unit tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps we should take her for a pie at the Nun and Broken Compass. What deaf circus midget?’
‘He was a pimp for some Russian dancers who were caught doping greyhounds with tainted cough mixture at Catford Stadium. They hung him inside the bell of St Mary’s church until the noise ruptured his eardrums. He’s demanding compensation from the bell-ringers, who were bribed to leave the belfry door unlocked.’
‘Oh. Business as usual, then.’
‘Funny how we’ve always attracted peculiar cases. Do you remember that fighter pilot during the War who couldn’t be placed at a murder site because he’d been found tied to the back of a cow in Regent’s Park?’
‘My goodness, I’d forgotten about him. Hell of an alibi.’
‘
‘Yes.’ May accepted a length of liquorice from Bryant and chewed it ruminatively. ‘I suppose it hasn’t been
‘When we were in the St Pancras Basin, I saw something scratched on to the wall of an arch. It showed up in my torchlight. Do you know what
‘
The pair remained side by side, sitting in silence as the golden sunlight of the morning grew around them.
52. NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Heather sat in the bare white interview room with her bag open at her feet and her compact mirror in her hand, carefully repainting the edges of her lips. It was essential, in every circumstance, to maintain one’s poise and keep a smart appearance. There was no reason to stop looking one’s best, simply because one had been arrested for multiple murder. No blanket over the head upon emerging from the station, thank you, nothing less than grace under pressure and calm before the cameras.
The room was so absurdly bright; she felt sure that the flaws in her make-up showed. Institutional furniture and hard-faced officers talking to each other about last night’s television, as if she wasn’t even there. The entire experience was designed to alienate and isolate. But it didn’t, because she had never felt at home anywhere-not with her parents, not with her husband, certainly not at Balaklava Street. A numb void opened in her heart the moment her expectations were not met.
Boring, stupid police, guards and doctors. They would only ever see a selfish criminal, when they should have been looking for a disappointed child, promised so much and given so little-not that she expected or demanded sympathy. They would never understand how few options she had been given, and she would never let them see inside, no matter what they did to her. The truth of the matter was that the taking of life had hardly disturbed her at all. It wasn’t as if she had attacked someone with a knife in a moment of passion; there had been no moments of passion at all, only the nagging ache of failure, and blinding, debilitating panic.
She studied the bare white walls without emotion. From now on her life would consist of being in communal government rooms like this, but it didn’t matter. She had no care for where she lived, because now she lived inside her head.
‘You could do with some paintings on these walls,’ she stated imperiously to no one in particular. ‘You might brighten the place up a little, make it more lived in.’
It was only when no answer came that she realized she would never again find home.
‘What has he been painting?’ asked Alma Sorrowbridge, peering over Sergeant Longbright’s shoulder. The pair of them had decided to tackle the daunting task of clearing up Bryant’s study while he was out, and had discovered the half-finished canvas set on an easel beneath a south-facing window in his cavernous new apartment.
