Ten Second Staircase (4 page)

UNLOCKING DOORS

On the following Monday morning, the twenty-fourth of October, a few minutes north of the school where Mr Bryant had turned a peaceful assembly hall into a brawling dockyard, April stood before her front door with her hand on the lock, waiting for her heart to stop hammering.

'Don't tell me all journeys start with a single step or I'll hit you,' she warned, throwing her grandfather a sour look.

'How long is it since you've been outside?' asked John May.

'Four months, three days.'

'Then today is the day.' May placed a steadying hand on her shoulder as she twisted the doorknob, slowly drawing back the latch bolt. The world outside had lately become as distant and exotic to her as a rain valley seen from an aircraft window. Her friends assumed that agoraphobia was a way of hiding herself, but it was more than that; she feared the removal of certainty, the loss of safe parameters. To be outside was to be placed in an uncontrollable situation. If she stepped into the street, she would no longer be protected by the rain-streaked windows of her barricaded home.

She brushed translucently pale hair aside, revealing the fierce methylene blue of her wide irises. Her hand trembled faintly on the lintel, as though a thousand tiny muscles were correcting her balance. Everything about her was unsteady and, to May's eyes, infinitely fragile.

Opening the door a crack, she looked out and took a deep breath, which was unfortunate as there was a truck going past. The air shook with engine soot.

'It's no use, I can't go through with this,' April told him, fanning away the fumes with a cough, but she could not resist watching the world through the door's narrow gap. On the far side of the road, sodden shoppers mooched past with Safeway bags, unaware of the miraculous ease with which they negotiated the lurking horrors of the high street.

'April, if you don't make it this time, you won't get the job. Raymond isn't prepared to hold it open any longer.'

'All right, you've made your point.'

She pushed the door wider, taking in the expanding view of the Holloway Road, one of North London's grimmest thoroughfares. Opposite, a local newspaper placard read:
Maniac 'Heard God's Voice' Before Stabbing Spree
. The sheer number of
things
alarmed her: bright orange posters and white council vans, pushchairs and bicycles, storefronts, dogs and children, too many erratic, irrational people. They halted, turned, changed direction—what was wrong with them? Their sheer lack of organisation made her feel sick.

All John May saw was an ordinary London street.

An African shop, fortressed by a row of red plastic laundry baskets, its windows banked with fibre-optic lamps, mobile phone covers, signs promising Internet access and cheap fares to faraway townships. A dim, carpeted amusement arcade filled with pulsing bulbs, where a single elderly woman sat mechanically feeding coins into a machine as big as a telephone booth. A betting office with emerald windows depicting idealised race scenes, litter and losers framed in its dark doorway. A McDonald's truck as vast as an ocean liner, with suppurating burgers the size of paddling pools printed along its sides.

Everywhere April looked, fierce colours jumped into her eyeline: cyans, scarlets, heliotropes, garish shapes trapped in the glare of the warm morning sun. Even the grey pavements were unnaturally bright. Rimes of dirt crusted the battered rooftops like dulled diamonds. The buildings looked old and exhausted with overuse.

'Well, here goes.' She took a deep breath and slipped her hand into his. Then she stepped out into the street.

Agoraphobia had been April's latest response to the loss of her mother. Nearly six months earlier, following glimmers of improvement and a positive doctor's report, she had been recommended as a candidate for a new law enforcement training initiative. The Chief Association of Police Officers was inviting nonprofessionals to work alongside detectives, in an exercise designed to bridge the widening gulf between police and public. It had seemed an ideal way for May to protect his granddaughter while allowing her to rediscover some independence, but she had suffered a relapse, retreating further into the shadows of her bleakly pristine flat. May sometimes felt that he was cursed; although his estranged son lived half a world away, his family suffered from similar phobias.

He released her hand and watched as she walked unsteadily to the centre of the pavement. 'That's it,' he encouraged, 'keep going, don't stop to think, you're doing fine.'

Neither of them saw the running schoolboy.

He slammed into April, spinning her down onto the pavement, and skidded around the corner before either of them had time to react. As the detective loped forward and helped April to her feet, she looked around in confusion. 'My bag, he's taken it. My credit cards—everything.'

May reached the corner knowing that it was too late for him to catch up. The boy had dashed across the traffic-dense road, into a crowd of market traders gathered beneath a bridge. He was home free. May called in the theft almost without thinking, relaying the description of the stolen bag, keeping watch on April as her face crumpled and she doubled over.

'Please, April, you mustn't let something like this beat you,' he pleaded, holding the phone to his chest and reaching for her with his free hand. 'It could happen to anyone. Are you all right?'

Clutching a tissue to her face, she slowly rose, barely able to catch her breath.

'Just tell me what was in the bag. I'm sure we can replace—'

He was amazed to see that she was caught in the throes of helpless laughter.

'The first time I step out of the flat in months and I get bloody mugged. The little bastard.' She leaned on him, still laughing, fighting to catch her breath. 'For heaven's sake, let's get to the PCU before something else happens.'

'Are you sure?'

'After this?' She wiped laughter from her eyes. 'Where did you park? You've probably been clamped by now.'

'You mean you still want to come?' May was taken aback.

'You're joking. Think I'm going to let kids like that get away with murder? Just tell me what I have to do.'

This was the April he remembered and loved. It was as though the pain of the last few months had been folded away like an awning, revealing her old self beneath. He had no idea how long her newfound strength would remain, but was determined to make the most of it. April was far too valuable to lose. Her mother had died when she was just nine years old, and the loss had affected her in ways which still adopted new manifestations. May's family life had been tangled and messy, marred by small tragedies, filled with arguments and estrangements, in contrast to his partner's bare, ascetic existence. He wanted April's life to be simpler, and had the notion that keeping her around Arthur Bryant might be the answer. Bryant had a way of making everything seem plausible, possible, and even probable. He cut through impossibilities and protestations. He would be able to help her, if anyone could.

'Is it usual to have a cat flap in a police station door?' asked April, studying the unassuming red-painted entrance that led to the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

'We're not a police station,' May replied. 'Crippen has to use the outside world as a bathroom sometimes, which makes him a very Camden cat. We hide his litter tray because he's not supposed to be living here. Raymond has an allergy.'

April knew that Raymond Land was still waiting to be transferred elsewhere, anywhere that would get him away from Arthur Bryant. It wasn't that they had nothing in common, so much as they shared things they didn't like, mainly each other. Last month, Bryant had accidentally insulted Land's wife at a Police Federation charity dinner when he had mistaken her for a toilet attendant. It seemed that no week passed without some fresh affront to Land's dignity. Worst of all, it occurred to May that his partner was secretly enjoying the feud.

'It's not much, but we like to think of it as home,' said May, pushing the street door wide. 'Top of the stairs and turn right. Sorry, we've been meaning to get the hall bulb replaced. Arthur was demonstrating Tim Henman volleys with a coal shovel and blew the electrics.'

The headquarters of the Peculiar Crimes Unit occupied the single floor above Mornington Crescent tube station. The detectives looked out into the grey London streets from half-moon windows set in glazed crimson tiles. The unit had become almost a local landmark; it was even being pointed out by a guide on his 'Bizarre and Dangerous London' tour, although the guide was unsure which category the unit fitted best.

April reached the landing and looked about, touching a pile of postwar
Film Fun
magazines with the toe of her shoe. A sinister ventriloquist's dummy hung on the wall, just above an original poster for Gilbert & Sullivan's
Ruddigore
and a framed account of a 'Most Dreadful And Barbarous MURDER Committed By Ruffians!' dated April 14, 1826. 'It's less—professional—than I thought it would be. I only ever came to the office at Bow Street.'

'I'm sorry, we don't keep a very tidy house.' May knew that his granddaughter had a compulsion for neatness; her flat reminded him of an operating theatre. 'Why don't you take the room across the corridor?'

'This must be Janice Longbright's room.' April noted the Agent Provocateur boned corset that hung on the back of the door, the thick face-powders and ceramic-bottle cosmetics that spilled from an old Pifco hair-dryer box, circa 1955. May moved a low-cut span gled trapeze dress from a swivel chair and hid it. Lately, Sergeant Longbright's obsession with stars of the 1950s had reached epic proportions.

'Yes, but Janice is very happy to have a guest.'

'You want her to keep an eye on me.' April picked up a dusty bottle of 'Bowanga!' Jungle Red Nail Varnish priced 2/11d, and set it back in place. She had forgotten just how odd everyone was here.

'To begin with. Just until you settle in.'

'How many staff do you have now?'

'There are eight of us if you count Raymond Land, but he's not often here. Spends most of his time creeping around to his officer pals at the Met. Now that we're under the jurisdiction of the Home Office, we're waiting for a visit from their new man. Apparently, he wants to reorganise the unit to make it more accountable and efficient. Arthur and I have the room opposite. Dan Banbury is our ITslash-crime scene manager. Rough and ready, but a good sort. He shares with Giles Kershaw, who's rather too posh and plummy for my taste, but also good at his job. He's the forensics officer and social science liaison—'

'What's that?'

'Not entirely sure,' May admitted. 'He came with the title and noone's got around to asking him what it means. The lovely Sergeant Longbright you know, of course. And there are two detective constables down the hall, Meera Mangeshkar—she can be a bit stroppy, but she's all right once you get to know her—and Colin Bimsley, who has been medically diagnosed with DSA, that's Diminished Spatial Awareness, which explains why he falls down the stairs so often.'

'And that's it?' asked April, shocked. 'This is the crack team that solves crimes no-one else can handle?'

'Not quite,' said May with a smile. 'There's you now. Our first resident nonprofessional. Liaison and communication. At least, that will be the official title until we find out what you're best at.'

Leicester University's Scarman Centre had suggested that the Association of Chief Police Officers should train members of the public to work alongside professional investigators, and the PCU was always an early adopter of radical new ideas. 'Come with me,' May beckoned. 'Let's get you started.'

'I like it here.' April wiped a patch of condensation from the window and looked down into the traffic. 'It feels safe and protected, like a nest. When I look outside, I have to fight a sense of panic. How many active cases are you working on?'

'We've been asked to take on work from other jurisdictions around the country, and there are a couple of interesting matters in hand. A British civil servant named Garrick, on assignment in Thailand, was found in a Bangkok reptile house at the city's floating market, apparently bitten to death by green mambas. When the body was shipped back, Arthur and Giles found traces of old needle tracks in the crook of his left leg. Garrick was right-handed; addicts usually cross sides when they inject, so we figured they were selfinduced. There were unused syringes in Garrick's desk drawer, but no traces of injectable drugs in his system except snake venom. We suspect he was trying to build up his immunity to the snakes by injecting small amounts of poison into his bloodstream.'

'Why would he do that?'

'Our job isn't to fathom the vagaries of the human mind, just to settle the arguments about death. Not that it stopped Arthur from trying to find out. He discovered that Garrick's previous assignment was in Alabama, where he had joined a snake-handling sect. He'd decided to convert the locals in Bangkok, but needed to prove his own abilities first. Case closed. Apart from that, we've another dead biological warfare expert on our hands. That's the twelfth since 9/11—more fodder for conspiracy theorists.'

'I'm a great believer in conspiracies.'

'Then you'll love this one,' said May with a smile. 'Dr Peter Jukes from Salisbury, Wiltshire, found by fishermen floating off Black Head at the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall. The local coroner reckoned it was a straightforward matter of death by drowning, but there were unexplained injuries. Plus, his boat turned up fifteen miles away, washed into a local harbour. The coast guard concluded that it was unlikely he had fallen from the boat, because local tides and currents would have taken it into shore near the spot where he was found. Jukes told some drinking pals he was going fishing with his friend Leo, but no-one of that name has been found. Arthur has turned up some darker connections; Jukes formerly belonged to a Druid sect—his family says it was a hobby—but had lately drifted into Satanist circles. The police refuse to believe there's a connection between his injuries and his interest in black magic, but we're wondering if he became an embarrassment to his employers. Jukes was chief scientist for chemical and biological defence at the MOD's Porton Down laboratory, part of which has recently been privatised by a company now under investigation.'