Bryant & May - London's Glory: (Short Stories) (Bryant & May Collection) (9 page)

‘I believe so.’

‘And he was an enthusiastic musician?’

‘The neighbours say he drove them mad.’

‘Well, there you go. This place should be sealed off.’

‘It was until you arrived. Where did you get those scissors from, anyway?’

‘I keep them on me just in case.’ Bryant smoothed the plastic back in place like a naughty child hoping no one would spot something he’d broken. ‘The neighbours. Did they say what he played?’

‘I didn’t ask them.’

‘You see, that would have been my first question.’ Bryant’s knees creaked like coffin lids as he rose and dusted himself down. ‘Mr Warren wasn’t involved in a terrorist attack. And it wasn’t murder or suicide, either. Accidental death. Let’s pack up here and go to the pub.’

‘That’s it?’ said May, amazed. ‘Is that all you have to say? That’s the sum total of your investigative technique? “Pack up here and go to the pub”?’

‘It’s either that or return home to Alma’s gruesome leftover Christmas creations. It was thinking about her overcooked turkey drumsticks that did it. You see? Drumsticks?’

‘No,’ said May, ‘I really don’t.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, do you need it spelled out?’ Bryant’s aqueous blue eyes widened in innocence. ‘The windows were
sealed shut
. The door was closed tight, too. There was no fresh air. He made his own music! Look!’

He pointed through the plastic at the stack of homemade bongo drums arranged on the sofa.

‘He covered the drums with uncured animal skins,’ said Bryant. ‘They’re cheaper, and they’re also illegal. And when he thrashed them with his drumsticks he released their toxic bacteria spores, and accidentally ingested them.’

Bryant picked up his battered trilby and found that the trim had been sewn with festive tinsel. ‘How long have I been wearing this?’

‘Since the Christmas party. The girls put it there. They thought it would brighten you up.’

Bryant almost smiled. ‘Only death brightens me up.’ He glanced back at the room. ‘Poor bugger,’ he said, pulling the door closed with funereal respect. ‘He should have realized that music can also kill you.’

I make no apologies for chucking my detectives into the past; I’ve established on numerous occasions that Arthur Bryant’s memoirs are unreliable in the extreme, especially when it comes to dates. This particular moment in London’s history has often intrigued me – it happened before I was born but something about it haunts, especially in atmospheric photographs of the period. I found a monochrome study of a sturdy policeman leading a car through an empty street, the kind of eerily deserted photograph you can never take any more in the metropolis …

It was the thickest fog London had ever seen.

Acrid and jaundiced, it rolled across London on 5 December 1952, and lasted for four days. It was impossible to keep at bay; yellow tendrils unfurled through windows, crept under doors and down chimneys until it was difficult to tell if you were inside or out. The fog stopped traffic and asphyxiated the cattle at Smithfield’s Market. At Sadler’s Wells, performances were halted because it invaded the auditorium, choking the dancers and the audience. Down near the Thames, visibility dropped to nil. Cars crashed into pillar boxes, cats fell out of trees and residents became lost in their own front gardens. On the lowly, lowland Isle of Dogs, it was said that people could not even see their own feet. Only the highest point of Hampstead Heath rose above the dense yellow smoke. From there, all you could see were the hills of Kent and Surrey on the far side of the sulphurous cauldron.

This bizarre phenomenon had been caused by an unfortunate confluence of factors. The month had started with bitterly low temperatures and heavy snowfalls, so the residents of London piled cheap coal into their grates. The smoke from their chimneys mixed with pollutants from the capital’s factories, and became trapped beneath an inverse anticylone. The resulting miasma caused over twelve thousand fatalities and stained London’s buildings black for fifty years. The young and the elderly died from respiratory problems. Their lungs filled with pus and they choked to death.

The thought of suffering in so horrible a fashion clouded Harry Whitworth’s thoughts. In the last few minutes he had found it difficult to catch his breath. Cramps were knotting his stomach, and he had to keep stopping beside the gutter to spit. When he reached his place of employment, the coachworks in Brewer Street, he was surprised to find the place almost deserted.

‘Where is everybody?’ he asked Stan, the slack-boned young apprentice who helped the mechanics tune the engines.

‘Ain’t you heard, Harry? The place has been closed until the fog lifts. We can’t take anything out in this, not without someone walking in front of the vehicle, and we ain’t got the staff. Charlie was supposed to phone you and tell you not to come in.’

‘We’re not on the phone,’ Harry explained. ‘Why are the engines running?’

‘Maintenance. A couple of them are dicky. I thought if we couldn’t take the coaches out, I’d at least be able to get some soot off the pistons.’

‘I think my ticker could do with a decoke,’ said Harry, patting his chest. ‘I feel proper queer. I was sick a few minutes ago, and I’ve got a chronic pain in my guts. I’ve been coughing like a good ’un. Can’t catch me breath. Let me get the weight off me feet, at least.’

‘You know you’re not supposed—’

Too late. Harry had climbed up into the driver’s seat of the nearest coach, sat down and placed his hands on the wheel. With a weary sigh, he closed his eyes.

Two minutes later, he was dead.

Arthur Bryant realized how bad the fog had become when he tried to post a letter in a Chelsea Pensioner. Earlier that day he had asked a lamp-post for a light.

He was on his way to meet John May, his fellow detective at Bow Street Police Station, but had somehow lost his way in the few short streets from Aldwych. Luckily, knowing that his partner was capable of getting lost inside a corset, May had come looking for him. Bryant had a distinctive silhouette, like a disinterred mole in a raincoat, and was easy to spot. When a hand fell upon his shoulder, he jumped.

‘Ah, there you are,’ said Bryant, as if it were he who had found the other. ‘You left a message at my club?’

‘You don’t have a club, Arthur. It’s a pub, and not a very nice one either.’ May linked his arm in Bryant’s and steered him out of the road.

‘Perhaps not, but at least they’ve managed to keep out this blasted muck.’ Bryant was lately in the habit of frequenting a basement dive bar underneath Piccadilly Circus that served high-quality oysters to low-quality clientele. ‘Your note said something about a coach garage.’

‘That’s right. It’s nearby.’ May wiped his forehead and found it wet with sooty black droplets. ‘I’d keep your scarf fastened tightly over your mouth; there’s a lot of dirt in the air. You know you’ve always had trouble with your lungs.’

It took them ages to feel their way to Brewer Street. ‘I got a call from my sister,’ May explained. ‘Her neighbour’s boy, Stan, told her he had a dead body on his hands and didn’t know what to do.’

The main gate to the coachworks was shut, but there was an unlocked side door. The interior of the building was wreathed in mist, but at least it was thinner than the air outside. A gawky lad with a face of crowded freckles lolloped towards them. He waved behind him, distraught. ‘He’s over here, sir. Come with me.’

They found Harry Whitworth behind the wheel of the green and cream coach. His skin was blanched to a peculiar shade of khaki. ‘Did you find him like this?’ asked May.

‘No, sir. He came in for work late this morning, about nine o’clock. He normally starts at eight but I think he had trouble finding his way because of this fog.’

‘Did he complain of any health problems?’

‘Yes, sir, he told me he was having trouble breathing. He’d been sick, and had a sore tummy. And he was coughing a lot.’

Bryant climbed into the seat next to Harry Whitworth, reached over and opened his mouth. ‘He’s got a tongue like a razor strop.’

‘Red, you mean?’ asked May.

‘No, dry. Anybody else here?’

‘No, sir,’ said Stan, ‘they’ve all been given the day off.’

‘So none of the coaches were running their engines?’

‘Two of them were running. I was making some repairs, so the day wasn’t wasted.’

‘Any fog get in here?’

‘Some, sir. It’s difficult to keep out.’ Stan looked distraught.

Bryant looked around. ‘But the doors and windows were all shut?’

‘Yes. On the radio this morning they were telling people to stay indoors and keep everything sealed.’

‘But you’re in an enclosed space, lad. Did you not think about the exhaust fumes?’

‘No, sir. Couldn’t be any worse than the fog.’

‘Actually it could.’ Bryant eased himself out of the coach cabin. ‘I think this chap died of carbon monoxide poisoning.’

Stan’s thin hands flew to his mouth. ‘You’re not saying I killed him?’

‘Not exactly,’ said May, anxious to placate the boy. ‘It would have been an accident.’

‘Surely you knew the danger of running the engines in here?’ asked Bryant sternly. ‘You could have asphyxiated yourself. The engines are off now, though.’

‘Yes, sir, I turned them off to attend to Harry.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Seventeen, sir.’

‘In good health?’

‘As far as I know. I’ve always been good at P.E.’

‘And Mr Whitworth?’

‘He had a bout of pneumonia last year.’

‘He’s a driver, yes?’

‘No, sir, not any more, not since his illness. He does the drivers’ rosters.’

‘So Harry Whitworth had a chest weakness, which is why the lad survived and he didn’t,’ May told Bryant. ‘Open-and-shut case.’

‘Do you know how we can contact Mr Whitworth’s family?’ Bryant asked.

‘That’s easy enough,’ the boy told them. ‘His son Clive works over at the ABC café on Wardour Street.’

‘I’ll call ahead and make sure someone informs him before we get there.’ May tugged at his partner’s sleeve. ‘Come on. Let’s get the rest over with.’

‘I won’t go to prison, will I?’ Stan was wringing his handkerchief in his hands.

‘No. But you’re not to go anywhere until our men get here, do you understand? You’re on your honour. They’ll only be a few minutes.’

Bryant was still hanging around the coach as May made to leave. ‘What’s the matter?’ May asked.

‘Nothing.’ Bryant didn’t sound certain.

‘What?’

‘It’s funny, that’s all.’

‘What’s funny?’

‘If Harry Whitworth had a desk job, why did he get behind the wheel?’

The two detectives left the coachworks and made slow progress through the thickening fog. Their hearing became almost as muffled as their sight. May was forced to yank his partner out of the path of a recklessly driven taxi. ‘Do you mind?’ Bryant complained indignantly. ‘This is my best coat.’

‘You were nearly buried in it,’ May snapped back. ‘There’s the café. On your left. No, your other left.’

Ahead was a soft glowing rectangle of glass. Bryant felt around, located the door handle and pushed. The pair tumbled into the café, which smelled of boiled cabbage and roly-poly pudding. The radio was playing, its thin treble making Winifred Atwell’s honky-tonk piano sound even tinnier than usual. Fewer than half a dozen customers sat at the tables; the fog was keeping everyone out of the West End. A pretty waitress with pencilled eyebrows stood listlessly examining her nails. Bryant went to the kitchen counter and rapped on it with his knuckles. ‘Anyone at home back there?’

A red-eyed young man in a chef’s hat appeared. One glance at the alarming profile of his nose told the detectives that they had found Harry Whitworth’s son.

‘Are you Clive Whitworth?’ May asked. When the young man warily nodded, he continued: ‘I take it you’ve heard the bad news about your father.’

They seated him in the kitchen and gave him a tot of brandy from Bryant’s hip-flask. ‘When did you last see him?’ May probed gently.

‘This morning.’ Clive looked down at his hands. ‘He often comes in for breakfast. Mum died a couple of years ago. He doesn’t cook for himself. Always makes a mess when he tries.’

‘You live in the same house?’

‘I’d like to get my own place, of course. We usually come in together from East Finchley. Not today, though. I had to start early.’

‘How did he seem to you?’

‘He was coughing a lot. I think the fog was getting to him. He said his stomach hurt. I told him he shouldn’t have come in.’

‘How did he get here from the station?’

‘He’d have walked, I’m sure. In spite of the fog. He was stubborn like that.’

‘Well,’ said May, waiting for a suitable break in the conversation, ‘we should be getting along. We’ll make all the necessary arrangements for your father; you needn’t worry yourself about that side of things.’ He gave Clive Whitworth a comforting pat on the back and led the way from the kitchen.

Bryant was unusually quiet as they returned to Bow Street through the sickly yellow fumes. May knew better than to assume it was simply because he was heavily muffled.

‘All right,’ he said as they unwrapped themselves back at the police station, ‘what’s the matter?’

Bryant regarded him with innocent blue eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I always know when there’s something on your mind. You’re not happy. Out with it.’

‘Well, it’s really unimportant.’ Bryant dropped behind his desk and began to doodle aimlessly on a blotter.

‘Really, getting information out of you is like pulling teeth some days. Are you going to tell me or not?’

‘I’ve been thinking. Harry Whitworth had weak lungs, and had been out in the fog. The bloodless dry tongue is a classic sign of oxygen starvation, and it’s also consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning. In both cases it’s a form of hypoxia leading to death, but which of the two causes of death was it?’

‘Does it really matter?’ asked May. ‘Most likely it was a little of both.’

‘He told the boy he had an upset stomach when he arrived. Perhaps we should wait until Oswald Finch has had a chance to conduct a post-mortem.’ Finch was the coroner used by the Bow Street police.