The Memory of Blood (10 page)

‘What, none at all?’ asked May.

‘Well, I got prints from the nanny and Mrs Kramer, but that’s all. As for the floor, it’s hardwood and hadn’t been cleaned in several days, so there are a few scuff marks which we’ll try to identify by matching against the shoes of the guests and those in the Kramers’ closets, but there are no water marks. I’m bothered by the fact that there’s nothing on the rug, because the killer had to have left the room by the window and it would be physically impossible to do so without putting a foot down. There’s simply no other method of exit unless we find some kind of secret panel in the room—’

‘There are quite a few houses in London with secret panels,’ Bryant pointed out.

‘I was joking, Mr Bryant. The house was converted into flats from offices three years ago, it’s not Gormenghast. All the walls are new and solid. So the killer had to climb out of the window, and unless he could fly he would have had to place a foot on the rug. Likewise if he came in that way.’

‘Is there any way he could have scaled the building and entered from the outside?’ asked Meera Mangeshkar.

‘The toilet window is about fifteen feet away and the nearest
drainpipe is at least seven feet away,’ said Banbury. ‘I don’t see how that would be possible.’

‘Parkour,’ suggested Longbright. ‘That jumping thing kids do.’

‘I think you’ll find that’s defined as the art of overcoming obstacles in your path by adapting your movements to the environment,’ Bryant recited. ‘I’ve watched lads doing it down the South Bank on a Sunday morning.’

‘They can climb a wall just using their fingertips, can’t they?’

‘That still leaves the closed and locked window, the print-free rug, the lack of raindrops shaken onto or around the cot—it was howling down outside, remember—and so far no witnesses from the buildings opposite or the street below. Have we got any CCTV cameras outside?’

‘A couple mounted at either end of the avenue but not in the middle,’ said Longbright. ‘We’re checking them for coverage at the moment. Westminster has an e-map of every CCTV in central London.’

‘And no unexpected fingerprints anywhere? You checked the whereabouts of the nanny?’

‘At her mother’s bedside in Kent. And Mrs Kramer was downstairs in the lounge at the estimated time of Noah’s death,’ said Banbury. ‘I want to run checks on fibres from the floor and rugs if we can scrape together the lab costs, but I’ve got nothing out of the ordinary.’ He sat back with his thick arms folded, defying anyone to come up with a theory.

‘Mr Punch,’ muttered Bryant, fishing about for his pipe.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Bryant?’

‘Well, he seems to be the obvious culprit. If Mr Punch had killed the baby, there’d be no conflicting evidence, would there?’

‘That’s right, Mr Bryant. The only thing Mr Punch lacks is the motor movement that usually comes from muscles controlled by the human brain.’

Sarcasm had no effect on Bryant. He located his pipe and
calmly attached the stem to the bowl, patting down his pockets for tobacco. ‘Remote control,’ he said through clenched false teeth. ‘Take it apart.’

‘Where is the puppet now?’ asked Longbright.

‘It’s still with Giles,’ said Banbury. ‘He and I are going to pull it to bits first thing in the morning. Robert Kramer’s already warned us that it’s valuable and we’re not allowed to cut it open, but I chucked him a bit of legal and he shut up sharpish. Makes you wonder if he cares more about a bloody toy than his own flesh and blood.’

‘Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.’ May indicated that Longbright should hand out copies of the witness statements. ‘Everybody take a few and we’ll start going through them. We’re going to be here most of the night.’

‘Whoa, I’m not spending the night in this building,’ said Meera. ‘There’s something wrong with it. Bad karma.’ There had been a number of complaints about strange late-night noises in the Victorian property since the staff had discovered that it had once provided a home for the society of black magic practitioners.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,’ Bimsley said with a laugh. He was more than prepared to, as well—if only she wanted him.

‘Yeah, right, that’s reassuring.’ Meera shot him a sour look and slumped back in her chair to study the pages. ‘It looks like a third of my witnesses left the room to use the bathroom at some point during the forty minutes. This guy, Marcus Sigler, went outside for a ciggie twice.’

‘So did some of mine,’ said Longbright. ‘I don’t think these are going to be detailed enough for us, Dan.’

‘All right, I’ll fix it, but until then we’ll draw up a chart,’ said Banbury, turning over a whiteboard. ‘Time line along this side, guests at the top. Mark every absence to the minute, see where they cross over, get them to verify each other’s movements.’

‘It doesn’t sound very scientific,’ said Meera.

‘Well, I’m sorry I can’t nip over to an American forensics lab and split everything into nucleotides and mitochondrial DNA, Meera, but we’re just a small experimental unit in North London operating on a budget that wouldn’t keep a string quartet going.’

‘I’m going on the balcony for a ponder and a puff,’ said Bryant, ‘unless I’m allowed to enjoy my pipe in here, seeing as it’s raining and I’m a fragile senior with a dreadful chest.’

‘No!’ said everybody in the room.

‘That’s a pity, because I was going to share my thoughts with you.’

‘I’m not sure we’re ready to hear your theories on ambulatory puppets,’ May warned.

‘No, this is about premeditation.’ Bryant hovered in the doorway, shamelessly playing his audience, waiting to be called back. ‘Yes?’ He raised his eyebrows and listened for a response.

‘Oh, all right, then,’ May said finally. ‘Tell us.’

Bryant darted back in and lit up. ‘It’s all right, I’m on the herbal stuff. Old Malahyde’s Tincture of Rose-Mulch.’ It smelled suspiciously like grass. ‘Well, the crime is bizarrely polarized, isn’t it? On the one hand we have factors that point to an act of violence occurring in a flash of temper—the shaking, the throwing—but on the other, everything seems planned—the locked room, the lack of prints suggesting gloves or at least a cloth to wipe up with, the waiting for the perfect opportunity. The party, by the way, provided the perfect cover, because the Kramers’ house is alarmed, so it was the easiest way to gain admittance when the baby was sure to be there. And the window was opened. If it was simply an act of murderous temper, why not hurl the baby to the floor? Why not dash its brains out on the head of the cot? Why go to the window, avoid stepping on the rug, open it and throw the baby out? It really is the most contradictory set of circumstances. And the theatricality of the whole thing smacks of actorly behaviour—you know, a grand dramatic gesture.’

‘What do you think it tells us about the killer?’

‘I think the intention to do harm had been harboured for a while, but something happened at the party to flush it into the open. We need to look at the evening’s events far more carefully. Janice, can you organise that?’

‘All right, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Longbright wearily. ‘Let’s go back to the beginning and see how much more we can wring out of the statements. I suggest we form pairs and keep switching until they’re all covered.’

‘Okay,’ said Meera, ‘but I don’t want to sit next to Colin.’

‘Why not?’ asked Bimsley.

Meera wrinkled her nose at him. ‘You smell like you fell in a vat of cheap scent.’

‘That’s Lynx.’ Bimsley sniffed his right armpit.

‘What are you, fourteen?’

‘It pulls the chicks, this stuff.’

‘I can tell you right now that it doesn’t.’

Longbright watched her teammates bickering like schoolchildren and wondered how they would ever make any headway. She hoped they would remember that at the base of the investigation was the tragedy of a child’s lost life.

J
ust after nine o’clock
A.M
. on Tuesday morning at the St Pancras mortuary, they went to work.

‘Okay,’ said Giles Kershaw. ‘Hold it steady, I’m going in.’ He raised his scalpel above the steel dissection table, sprayed the blade with a neutral oil-based lubricant and inserted it beneath the neck of the prone Mr Punch, just where his hump began.

‘Try to keep it to the stitching,’ Dan Banbury suggested. ‘This one’s worth a fortune. Most of them are in the hands of private collectors or in museums, and Mr Bryant told me this one is part of a complete set from the 1880s, which makes it very rare.’

‘I open bodies, Dan, I can do this, okay?’ Kershaw’s blade snicked the stitches apart. He reached the dummy’s legs and carefully began to remove the kapok-and-horsehair stuffing inside. A jointed brass skeleton was gradually revealed, still gleaming. ‘Amazing bit of workmanship, this. Beautifully put together. The Victorians really made things to last, even toys.’

‘It’s not a toy, Giles; it was crafted like that because it was a way
of earning a living. According to Mr Bryant, the Punch and Judy men were masters of their craft and could make good money. There was one appointed to Buckingham Palace for garden parties. He was granted the royal crest—
By Appointment
—it’s on the back.’

Giles shone a penlight into the puppet’s cranium. ‘The head and hands are made of carved wood, hollowed out but heavy things to lift, performing with your arms raised all the time.’ Kershaw set aside another handful of brown horsehair and peered deeper inside.

‘I think there were usually two men working in the booth. The later models are papier-mâché over a wire frame. See anything?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary. No electrical wiring, no pistons, certainly nothing that could allow the thing to stand up under its own power. There would have to be some kind of support in here. The Japanese currently have a couple of robots that could do it, although I think even they would draw the line at building one that could strangle a baby. There goes the Golem theory.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In the sixteenth century, the Chief Rabbi of Prague brought a huge creature made of clay to life to stop anti-Semitic attacks, but the Golem eventually turned on his creator. I get crazy thoughts while I’m working. It comes from hanging around old Bryant too much. You start to think like him, and then pretty soon no self-respecting CID officer will talk to you.’

‘Okay, what do we do now?’

‘Stitch it back up,’ Giles replied, studying Mr Punch’s angry red face. It seemed the creature was staring at him, its eyes filled with murderous intent.

The classic murder thriller used to be a staple of the West End theatre. Plays like
Maria Marten or, Murder in the Red Barn; Sweeney Todd; Wait Until Dark
and
Sleuth
proved popular with the public, but lately this genre has gone into decline, with only Agatha Christie’s
The Mousetrap
still hanging on for grim death at the St Martin’s Lane Theatre, where the director is still required to follow the original moves laid down in the play’s first production sixty years ago, preserving the whole ghastly farrago in amber for the undemanding non-English-speaking tourists who inexplicably keep it running.