Bryant & May - London's Glory: (Short Stories) (Bryant & May Collection) (12 page)

Suddenly he realized what was bothering him. Why on earth would he have shown her a picture of his
wife
?

Just as he paused to consider this, she brought her right hand around in a swift, practised movement and closed a white plastic tie over his wrist. He looked down in astonishment and found the tie zipped into place. It was the unbreakable kind they put on packing crates, with a small square lock that could be moved forward but not back, the kind his own factory workers had frequent cause to use.

She looped the tie through something imbedded in the walkway. He recognized it as the grille of an oblong steel drain; they sat in recessed trays around the pool’s tiled edge.

Knowing better than to pull on the tie, he yanked himself close and tried to grab at her leg, but she moved too quickly for him.

‘I remember you,’ was all he could manage. ‘You wouldn’t come home with me. Take this damned thing off.’

May felt inside the evidence envelope on his desk to see if there was anything else at all. Giles had included a photograph of the only mark on the body, a very faint red line on Madden’s left wrist, underneath the slender silver band he wore. That bothered him. How had the band left the mark? It didn’t appear to be very tightly fixed to his arm.

One other detail. The thumbnail on Madden’s right hand was split. He was the kind of man who had regular manicures and never undertook any manual work. So why was the nail torn almost to its base?

He looked back at the young woman opposite, who was calmly waiting for him to finish. ‘Do you have anything at all to add to your statement?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Do you have any further questions?’

‘She was a piece of work,’ he later told Bryant. ‘I’ve never dealt with anyone so calm.’ But right then he wondered what she was really thinking.

She smiled at Madden reassuringly. ‘The tag is just there to make sure that I have your full attention. I’ll take it off once we’ve talked. You still don’t remember my name, do you?’

‘No,’ Madden admitted. ‘I don’t remember your name. Sophie, Emma, Kate. Names are all the same. But I remember who you are. I met you a second time. You’re the shopping woman.’

‘That’s right. I told you I was looking for a job, and you said your wife needed a personal shopper for when she came to town. You wrote down her number for me. But then I wouldn’t come back to your flat. You got pretty steamed up about that.’

‘And you still had the nerve to call my wife about the job?’

‘She didn’t really need someone to shop for her, she just needed someone to talk to. She was lonely and desperate to tell someone about her life.’

He remembered their second meeting now – he had been buying a gift for his girlfriend at Harrods, and had bumped into his wife and the personal shopper. To cover his guilt he’d offered to pick up his wife’s bill. Without batting an eye she’d added a pair of amethyst earrings to it, putting a price on her pain.

‘I’ve heard all about you,’ said the young woman.

‘What, from my wife?’ he said scornfully. ‘Have you also heard about all the holidays and trinkets and parties I pay for?’

‘She pays for them.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘By putting up with the insults. The cruelties. The infidelities. The little hurt looks you give her when you’re after sympathy. She knows all about your girlfriends. And other things.’

‘Then why doesn’t she leave?’

‘Because of the children. And because she’s too scared of you to do anything about her situation.’

‘She confides in you about all this, does she?’ he asked heatedly. ‘The personal shopper? You shouldn’t listen to anything she tells you. She’s got her art classes and her cookery clubs and her clothing allowance, what more does she want? And anyway, what the hell has it got to do with you?’ He plucked at the plastic strap, leaving a red mark on his wrist. A second attempt to break it split his thumbnail.

‘You’re right, it has nothing to do with me,’ said the young woman. ‘Do you know what my job is actually about? It’s not helping my clients to choose cushions or curtain materials. It’s listening.’

‘Rather you than me,’ said Madden. ‘I don’t need to do that. You all sound the same. A distant background noise, chirruping away about your feelings.’

‘Well, it seems to me that you’re listening now.’

‘What do you want? Is this about money?’ He pulled at the strap but knew that he would never break it.

‘I’m a very good personal shopper,’ said the young woman. ‘We’ve become quite close, your wife and I.’

‘Well, that’s fine when it comes to cushions,’ said Madden, his voice honeyed with sarcasm. ‘I’m her husband. She listens to me.’

‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘Women do all the listening. I told your wife I could get her anything. That it was just about cutting the best deal. Do you know what she asked me for, what she wants most in the world?’

Madden stopped tearing at the cable tie long enough to look at her. ‘What?’

‘Freedom. She wants you to die.’

‘You mean she wants a divorce. Well, she’s welcome to it. I’ll sign the bloody papers tomorrow.’

She bit her lower lip. ‘No, she actually wants you to die. A divorce settlement wouldn’t be freedom, it would be a negotiation, and that’s what you do for a living, isn’t it? Always looking to increase your advantage?’

‘I honestly don’t understand what she expects,’ he said, hurt. ‘We’ll sit down with lawyers. I promise I’ll give her a reasonable deal.’

‘That isn’t what she’d get, though. Your lawyers would tear her to shreds.’

‘Well, that’s business.’

‘Your wife trusts me.’ She leaned forward, resting a cool hand on his shoulder. ‘In my own small way I’m a negotiator too. We’re both looking for the seller’s break point.’

He glowered at her. ‘If you don’t let me go in the next ten seconds you’ll be in so much trouble—’

‘Ah, threats and consequences,’ she said, as if remembering a section from a negotiation handbook. ‘I can tell I’m dealing with a professional. Let’s not waste any more time. I’ll make you an offer. If you can remember my name, I’ll advise your wife to meet with your lawyers. If you don’t …’ She reached forward and pulled the plastic cable tie one notch tighter on his wrist.

For the first time he felt a twitch of panic. What the hell
was
her name? Lisa? Hannah? Sarah? Usually when he asked a woman her name he didn’t bother listening to the answer, and called them
darling
or
sweetie
. His mind rushed back to the restaurant … Nothing, a total blank. What about when they came face-to-face in the department store? He tried to recall the exact conversation between them.

He suddenly remembered the earrings his wife had casually added to the bill. He remembered the look on her face, the glance she gave the woman in front of him. She hadn’t been buying them for herself.

‘Amethysts,’ he said aloud, triumphant. ‘I knew I’d get it. You’re Amy.’

She turned her back to him, and for one joyous moment he thought she was crumpling in defeat. But she was trying to lift the grating from its place in the trough. That was the thing about an old-fashioned club like this. Their builders had no love of lightweight modern materials. They had opted to use solid steel grids around their pool. She turned to him with the grating hoisted in her hands, forcing him to move his wrist with it.

‘Amy,’ she said.

He nodded frantically.

‘You’re quite sure of that.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What colour are amethysts?’ She sounded almost regretful as she asked.

John May leaned forward, looking into his suspect’s eyes. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. She was wearing a strong perfume but he had never been any good at identifying scent.

‘I’m someone you’ll never have to see again,’ said the young woman. She checked her watch. It was the first time she had betrayed any anxiety, and was a mistake.

‘I think we need to go over this from the top in much more detail,’ said May with a friendly smile that said,
I have all the time in the world.

‘What colour are amethysts?’ she asked again.

When no answer was forthcoming she released the heavy steel block, which toppled into the pool with a bass splash, setting the surface in motion once more as it swiftly dragged Joel Madden down to the bottom of the pool.

His ears popped as he sank. The breath burned in his lungs. He fought against the weight of the water but in his panic he accidentally sucked the stinging chlorine into his throat. He coughed, choked and breathed in again, and now his fate was sealed. Something burst behind his eyes. Crimson floated through aquamarine to become—

Violet
, he thought.
Oh God, Violet.

‘Goodbye, Joel Madden,’ said Violet.

May listened, of course, but he watched her more carefully than ever. In all the time she had been in the unit’s interview room she had barely moved a muscle. Her self-control was superb. He found himself grudgingly admiring her.

The file on Joel Madden didn’t make for very pleasant reading; he negotiated deals for a living and specialized in mercilessly crushing his competitors. He treated his wife and girlfriends the same way. Three A4 pages held the bare facts; it wasn’t much of a total for a man’s life.

But if this young lady had killed him, she deserved to be punished. He thought about the mark on the dead man’s wrist. The longer he studied the photograph, the more convinced he became that the bracelet hadn’t caused it. But what else could it have been? There was nothing else in the evidence envelope, only a brochure from the sports club which was proud to point out the attractive specifications of its amenities. In particular it mentioned the swimming pool, and the fact that its deep end was a full ten feet. Joel Madden was five feet ten inches tall. It was almost as if she had managed to drag him down to the pool’s floor and hold him there until he drowned, but she didn’t appear capable of such a feat …

Violet stood by the edge of the pool’s light-cracked surface, staring into the glaucous corner where Madden’s body slowly thrashed, his brown limbs waving hopelessly beyond reach. He released a blast of bubbles that rose to the top like silvered jellyfish, but it took another minute for him to stop plucking at the grate and grow still, and for the pool to glaze over once more.

Violet climbed the ladder and executed a perfect dive into the water, swimming down to him and snipping the plastic tie free with a pair of nail scissors. It was hard work dragging the drainage block back to the shallow end, then hoisting it out and replacing it in the floor, but she had trained for it, so it didn’t take very long.

As she changed from her bikini into a little black dress and heels, she started to think about treating herself to a dozen oysters.

John May looked up at the interview room’s clock, sensing that it would make no difference how long he kept her here; she would never crack. A woman who could walk into a police unit and calmly announce she was going to kill a man in a week’s time would have thought of every last detail.

If he could just find out how she did it, how she
might
have done it, he would have a reason to keep her here until the wife could be brought in and further connections surfaced.

The pair of them sat facing each other, a staring contest in which nobody cracked, as the time ticked slowly past.

Suddenly the door banged open and Arthur Bryant wandered in carrying a large cardboard box. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, unfurling his scarf. ‘I just ran over the neighbour’s cat. He made an incredible fuss about it. I offered to buy him a new one as the old one looked worn out anyway but he threatened to punch me in the face.’ He turned to face the young woman in the chair. ‘Sorry, miss, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.’ He waved his snub nose above her hair. ‘What a lovely smell. Violets, isn’t it?’

May saw a faint shift in her features.

Bryant turned his attention back to his partner. ‘Anyway, here’s the rest of your mail. Janice just threw a strop about having to lug it upstairs.’ He dropped the box on the desk.

May looked at the box. It was held together with two white plastic ties.

‘And good luck getting that open,’ Bryant said as he left. ‘Janice just split her thumbnail on it. You’ll need a pair of nail scissors.’

May looked back at the nameless woman and smiled. ‘Violet,’ he said.

The circuses and freak shows of the past always had a sinister side to them. A few years ago I went to a display of period sideshows, and they confirmed my worst fears – that the old displays of headless women, two-headed creatures and lizard babies were far creepier than anything you could see today. I have a painting that shows a carnival barker calling to the crowds while, partially hidden by his sideshow curtain, an unconscious man is being dragged offstage, and I always remember Tobe Hooper’s underrated monster movie
The Funhouse
, so pitting Bryant and May against a criminal in one of these travelling shows was a no-brainer.

‘I’ve reached the age,’ said Arthur Bryant with the weariness of a man who has just realized that his library card’s expiry date is later than his own, ‘when my back has started to go out more often than I do.’

‘That’s because you have no social life,’ his Antiguan landlady Alma Sorrowbridge pointed out as she passed him a fresh slice of buttered lavender cake sprinkled with hemp seeds. ‘You spend all your time in that filthy old office of yours. And you do go out. You went to see your old friend Sidney Biddle the other day.’

‘Alma, I went to his funeral,’ said Bryant testily. ‘I don’t call that much of a day out. He was as adamantine in death as he was when he was alive.’

‘I don’t know what that word means.’

‘Unyielding, like your sausage rolls. Mind you, the ones at the wake were better than yours. I swiped some and ran chemical tests on them. Caramelized onions, apparently. You may wish to take note.’