Seventy-Seven Clocks (4 page)

Now the system was changing. If the freshly separated PCU worked out successfully, it could affect the structure of the Metropolitan Police. Other specialized units would be formed. John May was aware that quite a few of his colleagues in the AMIPs were happy with the system in its present state, and would be glad to see the new division fail. Consequently, he needed all the friends he could get. More than that, he needed his old partner back. 

‘This office of yours,’ said Bryant, ‘does it have decent-sized windows?’

‘Huge ones.’ 

‘Good. I need more light these days. Could I have the room painted? I can’t think clearly in tasteless surroundings.’ 

‘Choose any colour you like. How’s your present caseload?’ 

‘I’ll follow through this business with the National Gallery. The rest can be dumped on to someone I hate. I must say your proposal isn’t entirely unexpected. You took your time.’ 

‘I had to get the place up and running first. You didn’t think I’d leave you behind, did you?’ May smiled. He knew how much the daily routine at Bow Street bored his old partner, and hated the thought of Bryant’s mind going to waste. As he rose to leave, the afternoon sun threw a lurid glare across the smeary windows of the café.
We finally have a chance to make a real impact on the system
, he thought. He decided not to tell Bryant that they had only a two-month trial period in which to do so. 

‘I made a standard Y incision from the shoulders to the chest and down to the pubis, as you can see,’ Finch began, pointing at the splayed corpse in front of them, ‘and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The organic damage is quite phenomenal.’ 

Finch was tall and thin, with spiky hair and bony raw hands, and his knee joints creaked like desk drawers when he sat down. A suntan gained on a recent holiday was all that prevented him from looking like Stan Laurel. As usual, the sickly smell of cheap splash-on deodorant rose from his skin. 

‘I don’t see anything wrong.’ May forced himself to study the body. The whiteness of the skin contrasted shockingly with the crimson hole that had been formed by pinning back the victim’s flesh. 

‘I’ve seen an awful lot of insides, John, and I know when something isn’t kosher,’ said Finch, wiping his hands on his lime-green plastic apron. ‘Tell me what you know about him.’ He moved to the scales and made a note of the calibrations before removing a kidney from the tray. 

‘Maximillian Jacob, fifty-nine years old, five feet eleven inches, fourteen stone two ounces, partner of the law firm Jacob and Marks, based in Norwich. He checked into the Savoy last Friday. He was visiting London on unknown business—at least, he seems to have given his wife and partner two different stories for leaving town. No history of medical problems, nothing much out of the ordinary, but we’re still searching.’ He looked back at the corpse on the table. It seemed that the more cleanly a man lived his life, the harder it was to find anything out about him when he was dead. ‘At the moment he’s just a statistic, Oswald. I wish he’d been a criminal. At least we’d have somewhere to start.’ 

‘Well, you know that someone hated Mr Jacob enough to want to kill him,’ said Finch. 

‘Nobody mentioned murder.’ 

‘Then let me be the first. Take a look at this.’ The pathologist beckoned May to advance on the cadaver. ‘Jacob’s stomach is a mass of dissolved tissue. Extensive haemorrhaging here, here, and here.’ Finch prodded beneath a bloody flap of flesh with the end of his pen. Thick streaks of yellow fat surrounded an abdominal incision. ‘And here in the heart, the liver, and lungs.’ 

‘What are you putting down as the actual cause of death?’ 

‘Cardial dysfunction. The heart couldn’t pump properly because the vascular bed surrounding it had become riddled with lesions. It had to be some kind of corrosive fluid, but as there were no burn marks in the mouth or trachea I ruled out ingestion and started searching for an injection site. It’s not hard to see once you’re looking for it. Here.’ 

He turned Maximillian Jacob’s head to one side and pointed to a spot below the corpse’s left ear. A swollen patch on his carotid artery was pinpricked with coagulated black fluid. 

‘If you examine the wound closely, you’ll find not one puncture mark but two, like a vampire. Beauties, aren’t they?’ He twisted Jacob’s head and revealed a pair of tiny livid pinpricks. 

‘And it’s become gangrenous. The flesh around it has turned to diseased mush. I carried out the routine toxicology tests, checked for alcohol, cocaine, barbiturates, and so on; nothing much there. I didn’t want to run up a bill testing for more exotic stuff, but this had me beaten. I sent blood and tissue samples to the National Poisons Reference Centre for analysis, not expecting to hear back for several days.’ Finch absently prodded the end of his nose with his pen. ‘Instead, the results were telexed back just over an hour ago. Seems this got them all excited. It’s a cottonmouth.’ 

‘Sorry, what?’ John had been transfixed by the cadaver on the table. It was hard to believe that poor, putrefying Jacob would be stitched back together and buried beneath a headstone engraved with a soothing phrase like
Just Resting
. ‘Foot and mouth?’ 

‘
Cotton
mouth. That’s the common name. Latin,
Agkistrodon piscivorus
, from the family
Crotalidae
.’ The pathologist’s enthusiasm was always more pronounced when he had just discovered something in an opened body. ‘It’s called a cottonmouth because it threatens with its mouth wide open, and the inside of the mouth is white.’ 

‘Oswald, what the hell is a cottonmouth?’ 

‘That’s the odd part.’ He thoughtfully probed his left ear with his pen. ‘It’s a North American snake.’ 

‘You’re telling me this man was bitten by a snake?’ John threw his hands up helplessly. ‘They must have made a mistake.’ 

‘No mistake. They cross-checked their results.’ Finch pointed at the corpse. ‘You can see the extraordinary effect it’s had, even on the minor organs. This is a very particular venom, apparently found only in aquatic pit vipers.’ 

‘God, Oswald—a
water
snake? In the lobby of the Savoy Hotel?’ 

‘I must admit it’s a bit of a puzzle,’ Finch casually conceded. ‘The cottonmouth is more commonly found in marshland.’ 

‘Don’t you find that just a little bit strange?’ 

‘Every unnatural death is strange, John.’ 

‘Did they give you an idea of the reaction time between infection and death?’ 

‘Oh, yes. Immediately after the bite, the wound turns itchy, then the victim gets irritable. After this he settles into a quiet aphasic state, and then he suddenly collapses and dies. Ten minutes in total. There’s one other thing I wanted to show you.’ Finch raised a plastic bag and gently emptied the contents into a bowl. May found himself looking at Max Jacob’s brain. 

‘As you probably know,’ said Finch, ‘the human brain has the consistency of a well-set blancmange. Fluid protects it from thumping into the skull wall. Look at this.’ He touched his pen against a darkened patch on the frontal lobe of the brain. ‘When you’re hit on the head you get a bruise on the scalp, perhaps a fracture underneath it, and a bruise on the brain below that. All three are on top of each other; that’s what we call a coup injury. Jacob’s brain is marked at the front, but there’s no corresponding damage to his scalp.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘Instead there’s a bruise on the back of his head. If someone passes out and the back of their head hits the floor when they collapse, the brain is driven forward and bashes itself on the inside front of the skull. That is a
contra coup
, and that’s what Jacob has. It looks like your man took a fall sometime shortly before his death.’ 

‘Thanks, Oswald, you’ve done a great job.’ May hastily made his apologies and left the room. The combined smell of disinfectant and antiperspirant was starting to get to him. 

‘Let me know how this one turns out,’ said Finch with a cheery wave as he turned back to the corpse. ‘And John—don’t be such a stranger in future. I’m always delighted to see you down here.’ 

The lobby of the Savoy was in chaos. Commonwealth speakers had begun to arrive in force, and stacks of expensive luggage stood in corners among the arrangement of dried plants arranged to resemble harvested corn bales. Jerry had spent the morning easing guests into rooms with the aid of encouraging smiles and pidgin English. 

‘He’s no spring chicken, is he?’ muttered Nicholas disparagingly. ‘They could have sent someone a bit more with it.’ 

‘Keep your voice down,’ said Jerry, embarrassed. ‘He’ll hear you.’ 

‘Intelligence is a compensation for the departure of youth, Sonny.’ John May set a heavy Dictaphone on the counter. ‘As even you may discover one day. I need to talk to this young lady for a few minutes, so perhaps you could busy yourself dealing with the minor grievances of your guests.’ 

Jerry smiled to herself. There was something instantly appealing about the detective. The old guy looked like a man who had retained much of his own youth by listening to the young. ‘There’s a room we can use behind here,’ she said. ‘It’ll be quieter.’ 

Once they were seated in the small cream-painted staffroom, May dragged his own transistorized recorder from his bag and switched it on. ‘I trust you’ve fully recovered, Miss Gates. It must have been a nasty shock for you.’ 

‘I fainted, that’s all,’ she explained. ‘He was spraying blood all over the place.’ 

‘I’ve read your admirably lucid statement. There are just a few points I need to clear up. You checked Mr Jacob in last Friday, is that correct?’ 

‘I took his filled-in reservation form, gave him the carbon copy, and arranged for his baggage to be sent up. He was booked for a double room even though we had singles available.’ She cleared her throat, more nervous than she had realized. ‘Nicholas—the other receptionist— made a remark at the time. He handled the actual room allocation because he’d taken the original telephone booking.’ 

‘You think Mr Jacob was planning to meet up with someone? A female companion, perhaps? He’d left his wife and family at home in Norwich. He didn’t sign in as Mr Smith, did he?’ The detective’s friendly smile was designed to relax. 

‘Mr Jacob didn’t look like an adulterer, if that’s what you mean,’ she replied. ‘You can usually recognize them.’ 

‘Oh?’ May cocked an eyebrow, obviously intrigued. ‘How?’ 

‘Small things. Their clothes are too sharp. You know, dressed up for a date.’ She recalled some of the guests she had checked in. ‘Often they’re not at ease in a smart hotel. They don’t tip at the standard rate, usually go over. Mr Jacob wasn’t like that. He was old school.’ 

‘How do you know that?’ 

Jerry shifted in her chair, trying to visualize the man who had walked toward her across the lobby last Friday. ‘He had a club tie, done up with a small knot. Very neat. Starch in the shirt. A wet-razor shaver.’ She shrugged, hoping she didn’t sound foolish. ‘Well, it was late afternoon when he arrived, and he didn’t have any stubble. Short hair, brilliantined. Expensive shoes, carefully polished. Ex-military, I imagine. He had the look.’ 

‘You don’t miss much, do you, Miss Gates?’ May smiled again, and reexamined his notes. Jerry wished she could see what he had written down. 

‘Let’s move on to Monday. You say he was sitting in the lobby for about half an hour. Did you see anyone approach him in that time?’ 

‘No one. It was raining heavily, and hardly anyone came in or went out.’ 

‘Before he fell asleep with the paper over him, did anything happen that was out of the ordinary? Anything at all?’ 

‘I don’t think so.’ 

‘You seem like a bright young lady, so I’ll let you into a secret.’ May beckoned her closer with his fingertips. ‘I have reason to believe that your guest did not die a natural death.’ 

Jerry had not considered the possibility of murder. The concept seemed so alien and theatrical. ‘I thought he just had a heart attack,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’ 

‘Try to recall the evening in the light of what I’ve just told you, and see if you can think of anything else that happened. Mr Jacob came downstairs, sat down in the chair, and died half an hour later. Knowing what we do, something else must have occurred. Take your time about it.’ 

Jerry thought for a minute, pleased that the detective had clicked off the tape until she was ready to answer. 

‘There was something wrong with the lights. They kept flickering. Because of the storm, I suppose. It didn’t disturb Mr Jacob.’ 

‘Anything else?’ 

‘Wait a minute—I think he went to the washroom,’ she said suddenly. ‘He wasn’t gone for long.’ She hadn’t mentioned this in her statement to the policewoman who had interviewed her yesterday. ‘I guess it’s not the sort of thing you really register,’ she added lamely. 

‘I quite understand,’ said May. ‘Under normal circumstances it’s far too commonplace an event to take note of.’ He had clicked the tape recorder back on. ‘Can you recall any change in Mr Jacob’s behaviour when he returned? Try to imagine him sitting back in the armchair . . .’ 

‘He was scowling,’ said Jerry, surprising herself. ‘Fidgeting about. I remember looking up from the duty book several times. And he kept scratching his neck.’ 

‘Thank you very much for your time, Miss Gates,’ said May, closing his notebook with another twinkling smile and rising. 

The abruptness of his leavetaking unsettled her. Having witnessed such a grotesque departure from life, she was anxious to know more, and to see what the police would do next. To them, it was just another unexplained death. To her, it was a window to a world she had no way of understanding.

5 / Malacca 

Thursday dawned with an unnatural hazy warmth, steam rising from the soaked streets of East London to form dragons of morning mist. Arthur Bryant paid the cab driver and dug into his jacket for his pocketbook, checking the Hackney address of Peregrine Summerfield. He was thinking that it would help to list his acquaintances in alphabetical order, when the art historian found him. 

‘Up here, Bryant!’ came a booming voice from above. 

He looked up to see Summerfield balancing at the top of an extended ladder, his rotund form leaning precariously out to hail the passing detective. The ladder was propped against the end wall of a decrepit terraced house, where Summerfield was supervising the painting of an enormous mural. So far, only the lower third of the picture had been filled, but the full scene was already discernible. Half a dozen schoolchildren armed with brushes and paintpots were working on the lowest portion of the design. Summerfield came thumping down the ladder, causing the surrounding scaffolding to tremble. He pumped Bryant’s hand with both of his, transferring a considerable amount of indigo paint in the process. 

‘This is a pleasant surprise.’ He turned to the children. ‘That’s enough, you lot. Back to the shed for brushwashing. You’ve done enough damage for one day.’ There was a collective moan. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said, indicating his clothes, which were smothered in every colour imaginable. ‘It’s a community project. I didn’t choose the subject matter.’ 

The wall showed a thirty-foot-high psychedelic nuclear explosion, around which strikers marched with banners and clenched fists. ‘It’s the lack of imagination I find depressing, but the council reckons it’ll encourage community spirit.’ Summerfield lost his hand within his bushy paint-flecked beard and gave his chin a good scratch. ‘I suggested a nice abstract, colours reminiscent of lakes and trees, plenty of natural shapes, something to cheer urbanites up a bit. They told me I was being reactionary.’ 

‘Why are the banners blank?’ asked Bryant, studying the mural in puzzlement. 

‘That’s so local people can write in their own grievances against the Heath government. Interactive art. Some bright spark in the planning department came up with that one, I suppose. We’ve already had a few people write things in.
Brian shags dogs, Tracy is a slag
, that sort of thing.’

‘Hmm. I think I prefer your idea of the abstract,’ agreed Bryant. ‘Can we go somewhere to talk?’ 

‘Certainly.’ Summerfield examined the paint on his hands. ‘Give me five minutes to get the lads cleaned up.’ He threw Bryant a set of keys. ‘I live over the road, number 54, the one with the sunrise gate. Make yourself a cup of tea.’ 

Summerfield’s house was cramped and cluttered, and surprisingly devoid of paintings. A great number of reference books were stacked in untidy piles throughout the ground floor. The historian’s knowledge of Victorian art placed him among the country’s top experts, and he was frequently called in to help organize national exhibitions, but Summerfield had eschewed a permanent post in favour of educating young minds at the local primary school. Arthur had always appreciated his directness and lack of pretension when discussing art. He had just located a battered kettle beneath a pile of old newspapers when the historian returned. 

‘I can’t spare much time today, Arthur,’ he apologized. ‘I’ve a life class at eleven. Their usual Christ is off sick, so I’m standing in. I’ve got the beard for it, you see. I don’t mind, but it gets a bit tiring on the arms after a while.’ He approximated the crucifixion, then searched around for a tea towel. ‘Sorry about the mess. I haven’t been able to sort myself out much since Lilian left.’ 

‘I had no idea you two were separated,’ said Bryant, looking for clean cups. ‘My condolences.’ 

‘Oh, none needed. We always had our differences. She was sick of me mixing paint in her Tupperware. I presume this visit concerns the vandalized Waterhouse painting?’ 

‘That’s right. You helped put the exhibition together, didn’t you?’ 

‘Indeed, and it was a pleasure to do so, just to spite the cynics.’ 

‘How do you mean?’ Bryant watched as Summerfield poured mahogany-coloured tea into a pair of mugs and led the way from the kitchen. 

‘Well, the poor old Pre-Raffs have had a pretty rough ride from the critics over the years. Too medieval, too Gothic, too sentimental, too moralizing; there’s never been a school of painting so slagged off. Much Pre- Raphaelite art is narrative, of course, and that’s a form which has fallen from fashion. A lot of it is symbolic, and decorative, and they’re undesirable qualities, too. Who wants art that looks nice these days? We live in a world of strikes and bombings. It’s taken a long time for people to get past the pre-Raff subject matter to the beauty within. Take a look at these.’ He selected several volumes from a shelf and lovingly laid them open. 

‘Artists like Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Millais revived the poetic and spiritual qualities of fifteenthcentury Italian art. Romance and colour for a drab old world. At first everyone made fun of them, but the movement was pretty much legitimized by its popularity. Having lots of tits helped, of course. Victorian nipples were always acceptable in a classical setting. Many a dull parlour wall was brightened up with a nice bit of reprocheesecake.’ He tapped a grimy forefinger on a colour plate entitled
Hylas and the Nymphs
. ‘Look at Waterhouse and his horny ladies of the lake. Landscapes were popular, too, beautifully detailed by artists like Brett and Inchbold. And religious art, like Hunt’s creepy
The Light of the World
, now hanging in St Paul’s. Popular art’s a dirty word today. You can pick up Pre-Raffs for a song. The critics prefer stuff only members of their little coterie can appreciate.’ 

‘Tell me about the exhibition.’ 

‘It was a bugger to organize, because the low values have helped to scatter the paintings into private collections. Manchester Art Gallery has a lot of the decent stuff. The rest are all over the place. We still don’t know where some of the Waterhouse paintings are. This is a study for the one that was destroyed. The finished work is much more detailed.’ 

Summerfield tipped the art volume to the light. The picture was of a young man seated on a throne, feeding pigeons from a salver while his councillors waited for an audience. ‘
The Favourites Of The Emperor Honorius
, an early piece, 1883. Waterhouse’s first serious historical painting. Flavius Honorius, one of the forgotten Roman rulers. He was a bit of an ass by all accounts, lazy, greedy, seen here too busy feeding his pet birds to grant his advisors any attention. Even in this crappy reproduction you can sense the genius of the artist. A moment of anticipation captured for ever. The title is ironic, of course. It refers to the birds, not to the seven men in the picture.’ 

‘How did it end up in Australia?’ 

‘At the end of the nineteenth century the big Australian galleries bought quite a few Pre-Raffs. There are two oil studies for this picture, both in private collections. One had been mistitled
The Emperor and Tortoises
for years.’ 

‘Can you think of any reason why someone would want to destroy such a painting?’ 

Summerfield pulled at the paint-daubed strands of his beard. ‘Certainly no one could be offended at the subject matter. It’s pretty innocuous stuff. Perhaps your vandal wanted to cause some diplomatic damage. The availability of Commonwealth paintings is a touchy subject at the moment.’

‘So I understand. Do we have any other pictures here on loan?’ 

‘Yes, two other Waterhouses, as a matter of fact.
Circe Invidiosa
from Adelaide, and
Diogenes
from Sydney.’ He located the prints in his book. ‘You think these are in danger, too?’ 

‘We’ll have to get them removed from display. I want you to keep thinking for me.’ 

‘That’s just it . . .’ Summerfield glanced from one print to the next. ‘There’s something odd which I can’t quite—’ 

‘Something about the paintings?’ 

‘Not really. More the act of vandalism. There’s a resonance here. Something very familiar. I’ll need to think about it.’ 

‘Well, if you have any ideas at all,’ suggested Bryant, ‘call me.’ 

A shrill beep startled them both. ‘It’s this stupid new radio-pager gadget May makes me wear,’ Arthur explained, rummaging in the folds of his coat. ‘Can I use your telephone?’ 

‘Arthur, I know you’re tied up today, but I need your help,’ May told him. ‘Oh, and there’s a lead on your vandal.’ 

‘Of course, it wasn’t the snake that puzzled me but the bite,’ said May as they crossed Camden Town’s humpback bridge. A thin layer of mist mooched over the surface of the canal below. Bryant pulled his scarf over his nose. If he’d known what global warming would do decades later, he might have enjoyed the vaporous damp. 

‘If you got bitten by a snake you’d run about shouting, warning people,’ May continued. ‘You wouldn’t calmly go back to your seat and resume reading your newspaper.’ 

‘You say he sustained a fall?’ 

‘Backwards, according to Finch.’ 

‘Could be your answer.’ Bryant’s watery eyes peered over the scarf like a pair of insufficiently poached eggs. ‘Suppose he was chloroformed? Once he’d fallen to the floor unconscious, his attacker could have induced the snake to bite his neck.’ 

‘Don’t be daft. The only possible reason for using such a ridiculous murder weapon would be to frighten the victim first. Why go to all that trouble if your victim doesn’t even get to see it?’ 

‘I’ve no idea. It’s not my case. What have you got on my vandal?’ 

‘Seems he damaged something in his flight,’ replied May, savouring his partner’s anticipation. ‘We did a sweep of the gallery stairs and found this.’ He removed a clear plastic sachet and shook out a wooden splinter almost two inches long. Green flecks in the paintwork gave it an iridescent sheen. ‘It appears to have come from his cane. The varnish is new.’ 

May had given the splinter to a colleague who owed him a favour, knowing that this would be quicker than sending it into the system’s Bermuda Triangle of evidence examination. ‘Stokes remembered seeing a unique cane under your vandal’s arm. I popped this over to a cane maker in Burlington Arcade. He agreed that it’s a piece from a hand-turned malacca walking stick. The green flecks are malachite, basic copper carbonate. He knows only one company that still makes them.’ 

‘James Smith and Sons,’ said Bryant, who had purchased something similar a few Christmases ago. 

‘Exactly,’ agreed May. ‘Care to take a stroll down there?’ 

The brass-paneled store on the corner of Gower Street and New Oxford Street had sold canes and umbrellas for ever. Impervious to the changing times, it survived with unmodernized décor and traditional service, a charming oddity from the past, marooned in a fuming sea of oneway traffic. 

The detectives stepped past the freshly polished nameplate and into a room filled with glistening wood. Walking sticks, shooting sticks, canes, and parasols of every size and description hung in racks like forgotten torture instruments. The genial shop assistant required a single glance at the evidence to describe the cane from which it had been broken. 

‘I think we’ll have a record of this particular item, Sir,’ he said, turning the splinter over in his palm. ‘Canes with graining this rich are expensive, and are only produced as special commissions. The customer usually requires an engraved silver top.’ He pinched the wood between thumb and forefinger, and gently sniffed it. ‘Less than a year old, I’d say. Won’t keep you a moment.’ 

He summoned an assistant, and they marched to the rear office. Minutes later, they returned bearing a slip of paper. ‘We’ve made only two of these in the past year, one for a Japanese gentleman—’ 

‘Not the person we’re seeking,’ said May. 

‘The other we engraved for an elderly gentleman.’ 

‘What was the engraving he required?’ 

‘A small symbol, fire in a goblet, surrounded by a circle of flame. The gentleman was very specific about the design, even drew it out for us. I served him myself.’ 

‘Is there an address on your receipt?’ 

The assistant checked the slip of paper. ‘NW3. Looks like somewhere in Hampstead.’ 

‘You don’t recall anything odd about your client, I suppose?’ asked Bryant. 

‘Most certainly,’ replied the assistant. ‘I remember commenting to the cashier that his clothes were more suited to the previous century. Of course, we could have sold him the same cane back then.’