Off the Rails (21 page)

‘Absolutely. It’s a bloody good idea to frighten Whitehall once in a while.’

‘Odd about the stickers being a symbol for anarchy. The mad are often seen as free instead of prisoners.’

‘I had the same logo on an old Vivienne Westwood T-shirt, back in the 1980s.’ Longbright emptied the last of the bottle into their glasses. ‘This brings me back to the old days, when the three of us would take on lost causes, the cases no-one else believed in, like your Deptford Demon, the Oxford Street Mannequin Murderer, and that business with those glamour models, the Belles of Westminster. You should put them in your memoirs.’

‘I will if I ever find the energy,’ Bryant promised. ‘There are so many projects I’d like to embark on, I can’t imagine finishing them all. I sense a gathering darkness, Janice, not just in me but in the world outside. Perhaps it’s something everyone of my age feels. But I do wonder if anyone really cares about the same things anymore. Who honestly wants to know about the history of pubs or hidden waterways, or mysterious goings-on underneath the streets? I have no conversation about diets and celebrities or the bad habits of television personalities. Just once I’d like
some bottom-feeding media slug to be caught in a criminal situation more imaginative than one involving call girls and drugs. Their world is too predictable and mundane for me, but it’s what everyone else seems to be interested in.’

‘You can’t blame people for being fascinated by their own species,’ said Longbright.

‘That’s where John comes in. He genuinely likes people. I think I’m more of an ideas man. But I do care.’ He removed his glasses and smiled at Longbright with suddenly diminished eyes. ‘I know it seems John and I disagree about everything, but we don’t about the important stuff. He has very sound instincts. I believe in him. And in you. I remember when you used to come to Bow Street with your mother. She’d leave you to play with us while she was on duty, and I used to threaten to lock you up when you became annoying. Once I even marched you down to the cells. I had every intention of leaving you there, because I’ve never been able to abide children. But even then you knew how to twist me around your little finger. I’m so sorry you lost him.’

‘Liberty? I’m sorry for him, not me. I’m still here. Don’t start getting sentimental in your old age.’ She made a show of looking stern.

‘I know everyone thinks I’m difficult. It’s just that as I’ve got older I’ve become less gullible. And that makes me harder to control. I don’t listen to my peers anymore, but that’s because most of them are either dead or have gone mad, so now I’m free to explore anything I want.’

‘Then why not apply a bit of free thinking to this case?’ Longbright suggested. ‘What’s the most unlikely thing you can come up with?’

Bryant studied the cracks in the ceiling for a minute. ‘The most unlikely thing? That Gloria Taylor was deliberately targeted
and attacked by someone who thought he could get away with it,’ he answered finally.

‘Then that,’ Longbright announced, flourishing her palms, ‘should be your starting point.’

Their conversation was interrupted by a crash from above. ‘There’s no-one else in the building, is there?’ Bryant asked.

‘You stay here.’ Longbright jumped up and headed for the stairs. Bryant listened to the creaking floorboards over his head, and the chill memory of the attack on Liberty DuCaine crept up on him. He was sure he and Longbright were the only ones left in the old warehouse, but it had sounded as if someone was walking directly above.

The DS returned with a frown on her face. ‘There’s nobody,’ she said, puzzled. ‘I definitely heard someone, didn’t you?’

‘You don’t think Raymond’s ghost is putting in an appearance, do you?’ he asked, lightening the moment, but it wasn’t enough to remove her anxiety. Longbright, too, was remembering the murder of a police officer on the floor above.

T
hursday morning. With the arrival of bitter blasts from the northeast, the temperature plunged, and the office roofs of central London were pearlised with late frost. In the PCU’s warehouse, Arthur Bryant had cleared away the evidence of last night’s drinking session, and was buried within a tottering fortress of soot-encrusted ledgers.

‘How are you getting on with the anarchists?’ asked May, tossing his elegant overcoat onto the armchair that sat between their desks.

Bryant had enjoyed less than three hours’ sleep. He peered over the printed parapet and rubbed at his unshaven face. ‘I’ve found a link with the missing boy, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.’ Reaching down to pull a bundle of straw from a crate, he unloaded another ledger and blew the dust from it.

‘You’d better tell me while I’m still in a good mood. We can’t
keep all of those books in here. Where are you getting them from?’

‘Don’t worry, they’re on loan from the London Metropolitan Archive. They’re going back after I’ve done with them.’ Bryant raised his watery blue eyes to his partner. ‘I was having another look through the patient files for the Royal Bethlehem Hospital, Moorgate, 1723 to 1733.’

‘As only you would do.’

‘Ah, well, yes. You see, back in the early 1700s, some anarchists were arrested and labelled “incurables” because they wouldn’t renounce their beliefs. These are the ones who were banged up in Bedlam and left to die, chained to the cell walls. You see where I’m going here.’

‘The sticker.’

‘Precisely. The London Anarchists was a society formed to avenge the Bedlam Martyrs. It survived for half a century, then died out.’ He tapped the bright red paperback in his hand. ‘This is the
Time Out Guide to Alternative London, 1971
. Gosh, we did a lot of protesting in those days, didn’t we? There’s an article in the Agitprop section here—imagine, political agitation had its own section!—all about the revival of the London Anarchists, one branch of which was a protest group called Bash the Rich.’

May maintained his patience with dignity. ‘We had a few punch-ups with them at Bow Street, if I recall.’

‘That’s right. Bash the Rich was rather a sad little gang, not much of a threat to the established order. Their rallies rarely involved much more than some synchronised chanting, the odd scratched Mercedes and a few broken windows in a wealthy neighbourhood. I always felt we were ordered to come down too hard on them. But they used the same logo. So now we have
an active symbol of anarchy with a three-hundred-year history attached to it.’

‘The bar designer probably found it in a copyright-free book, liked the look of it and adapted it for commercial use.’

‘No. I took the liberty of calling Miss Field. The symbol was suggested by someone in the bar who knew its meaning. She liked the anarchy connection and added it to the existing lettering. But she can’t remember who suggested the idea.’

‘This is really clutching at straws, even for you.’

‘All right, but in turn the symbol gets used by a group of students who all live in the same Bloomsbury house, one of whom is now missing. Have I got it right so far?’

‘Yes, but as is so often the case, I don’t quite see the point you’re trying to make.’

‘Have you considered the idea that these students might belong to a revived society of secret anarchists?’

May felt his tolerance level start to slip. ‘Arthur, what is it with you and secret societies? These young people hang out—along with hundreds of other students—in the same bar because it’s the cheapest and nearest watering hole outside the university. There are no underground organisations, satanic sects or secret societies anymore, okay?’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. There are terrorist cells.’

‘I met Theo Fontvieille, one of the flatmates, and I can tell you that the only private club that spoiled brat is likely to belong to is one that serves vodka martinis on a Soho roof terrace. The girl, Ruby Cates, is so obsessed with her future career that the only way she can relax is by running marathons. Nikos Nicolau looks like he’s been locked in a windowless library for the past decade. Students have changed, Arthur. They’re more focussed now, more concerned with personal growth.’

‘I was never a student,’ Bryant admitted. ‘I was chucked out
at fourteen to work, so perhaps I feel an affinity with London’s rowdier residents. This city has an extraordinary history of anarchy, you know. In the eighteenth century it was virtually ruled by rioters. The mob was referred to as the Fourth Estate in the constitution, because it decided which laws would be enforced.’

‘And I suppose you’d like to return to those times.’

‘Heavens, no. The lower classes specialised in public disorder, perhaps because they lived so much of their lives on the streets. They expressed violent opinions at every level, kicking pregnant women in their stomachs for begetting illegitimate children, exposing the private parts of enemies. Attacking someone’s nose in public was considered an act of defamation because you were suggesting they had a sexual disease—it was where syphilitic infections became most visible. And of course the city was filled with small businesses that existed on credit, so if you humiliated a merchant in front of his customers, you could ruin him. The crowd, the so-called King Mob, could destroy reputations. It must have been a fascinating time.’

‘Well, Gloria Taylor worked for a shop.’

‘She sold cosmetics. How angry would a woman have to be to shove her cosmetician down the stairs?’

‘I don’t know, Janice tells me she gets pretty annoyed when they don’t have her eye-liner in stock.’

‘Most of us tend to limit ourselves to verbal assaults these days. But in some ways, the cities of the past weren’t much different to the present. The main thoroughfares were just as noisy. Imagine the processions and pageants, the duels, cockfights and boxing matches, crowds jeering at prison-carts, public hangings, floggings, and everyone having their say.’

‘Hm. I can see you at a public hanging.’

‘The point I’m making is that they were there.’

‘What? Who? Where?’

‘Do try to pay attention, John. The anarchists, they shared a house in Bloomsbury. And these students of yours—’

‘You’re not going to suggest they’re living in the same building as the anarchists. It’s nearly three centuries later!’

‘No. But they were in the same street, right next door, in fact. And back in 1725, the two buildings might once have been one.’

‘So you think a bunch of university students are running an organisation of secret anarchists just because they’re on the same spot? Everybody in central London is living where someone else lived. That doesn’t make us adopt their habits.’

‘I’m not saying they’re all anarchists. Perhaps only one, for reasons of his—or her—own. And somehow it involves the taking of life.’

‘I can guess where you’re going with this, Arthur, but you’re way off track. These students don’t look like anarchists. I imagine they do a little ethical shopping and wear a badge or two, but they’re more concerned about their future prospects. A fall down some stairs and a missing lad, that’s everyday life in the city, not a criminal conspiracy. Don’t you have any better ideas?’

The ringing of Bryant’s old Bakelite phone made them both jump. May answered the call and listened for a minute. ‘Tony McCarthy’s off his respirator,’ he reported.

‘What, dead?’

‘No, it sounds like he’s going to be okay.’

‘A witness. Hallelujah. Can he talk?’

‘Nurse says we’ll be able to see him late this afternoon.’

‘Why not now?’

‘He’s just had a tube down his throat, Arthur, and he’s heavily doped up. His doctor doesn’t want him seeing anyone before five
P.M.
at the earliest.’

‘Book us in,’ announced Bryant. ‘As long as he survives, he’ll remain a threat to Mr Fox. I stayed up late last night thinking
about everything. I’m starting to see a way forward, but it will require diligence, nerve and a complete lack of scruples. Best not to tell Raymond what we’re up to.’

‘What are we up to?’ May wondered.

‘Let’s see the boy first. Make sure nobody else goes near him. Meanwhile, perhaps Janice could arrange a little informal gathering of your students for me in about an hour. I want to meet them alone. I don’t care where they are or what they’re doing; have her find them, pull them out of class, but get them waiting for me at their house.’ Bryant bared his false teeth in an approximation of a grin. ‘You know how I always enjoy meeting young people.’

S
ome of you met my partner, John May.’ Bryant was fumbling in his voluminous coat for a toffee éclair and searching for somewhere to sit.

‘Yes, he was very nice,’ said Ruby, clearing an armchair for him.

‘Well, I’m the other one.’ Unable to locate the sweet, he pulled out one-half of his pipe and waved it about. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘Yes, we do actually,’ said Nikos, with a censorious look.

‘Ah. Only I saw the ashtray …’ He pointed to the side table.

‘We use it as a paperweight,’ said Ruby hastily.

‘Odd that it has ash in it, then.’

‘I’m the only smoker, but I use the balcony.’ Ruby indicated the others. ‘This is Nikos—’

‘I met Detective May at the library,’ Nikos interrupted. ‘He was asking me about some stickers. I couldn’t help him.’

‘You gave him my email address,’ said Ruby with a trace of indignation.

‘Theo Fontvieille,’ interjected Theo, jumping forward to pump Bryant’s hand.

‘That must be your car outside,’ said Bryant. ‘You’re very lucky to have such a beautiful motor.’

‘Yes, it’s funny,’ said Theo, ‘the harder my parents work, the luckier I seem to get.’ He threw himself back in his armchair with an annoying
ack-ack
laugh. ‘It’s a reward for getting good grades, Mr Bryant. It has nothing at all to do with luck.’

‘I meant no offence. You’ll know when I do.’ He glanced at the slender Indian boy sitting beside Fontvieille. ‘And you are?’

The student looked about theatrically. ‘I am what?’

‘Your name. The question was in simple enough English.’

‘Well, that’s not my nationality.’