The Memory of Blood (16 page)

‘Funnily enough, it’s the one room you need a lock on and the
only one that doesn’t work properly. Someone painted over the hasp. You can get it shut, but you have to push hard.’

Bryant stepped into the toilet and looked around. ‘Another exit,’ he noted.

‘Yeah, the door on the far side opens into the guest double, so it functions as an en suite bathroom or as a stand-alone toilet if you’re having a party.’

‘Righty-ho, so if the culprit had been hiding in there, anyone queuing for the loo would have been able to make them out through the glass.’

‘I understand a number of people ended up waiting out here in the hall, because they couldn’t access the locked en suite bathrooms. Now, let’s check out the nursery.’ Banbury led the way and opened the door. The cot had been left in position. ‘Nothing has been moved. The Mr Punch doll came down from its hook and was found by the side of the cot that faced away from the window.’

‘Just as if it walked over, opened the window, picked up the baby and hurled it out.’

Banbury threw him a look. ‘I think we need to establish something, Mr Bryant. The doll did
not
climb down from the wall and commit murder. I can’t work from that supposition.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m keeping an open mind.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re talking about the supernatural. I have to be more realistic.’

‘I appreciate that. You gather up your spoor—your skin flakes and hairs and particles of food—and ship them off to a company who’ll tell you what they mean. I’ll attempt to communicate with the spirits of the departed.’

‘You don’t mean that literally.’

‘Most certainly. Everyone leaves a trace, Dan, you should know that.’

Banbury tried to work out whether he was being teased, but as usual it was impossible to read Bryant’s thoughts. The detective’s phone bleeped, but by the time he’d removed the bits of string, rubber bands, coins, conkers, boiled sweets, keys and pencil stubs from his pockets, the caller had rung off. ‘Bugger, do you know how to retrieve a call?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure it must be in there somewhere.’

‘Give it to me.’ Banbury snatched the cell phone from him and studied it in amazement. ‘Where did you find this?’

‘I bought it from a splendidly moustachioed Russian gentleman in the Edgware Road. I accidentally microwaved my old one. There’s something odd about it, though. I keep getting crossed lines with angry-sounding foreigners.’

‘That’s because it’s a State Security Agency phone from the Republic of Belarus. It’s illegal to possess one of these. Don’t ever press the red button.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’ll accidentally call the Russian secret police.’

‘Really?’

‘Try it if you want to watch your credit cards get cancelled in under thirty seconds. It’s been reconditioned, but I can’t imagine what made you buy it.’ He handed the phone back. ‘There’s your number.’

‘Thank you. Now what do I do?’

‘Press that one.’ Banbury indicated a button, and watched as Bryant fudged and fuddled his way around the keypad.

‘Hello? Who am I speaking to?’ Bryant bellowed.

‘Hello?’

‘Yes, I can hear you, hello?’

‘What do you want?’

‘You called me. I mean, I called you but only because you called me first.’

‘I’m sorry, who are you?’

‘I’m Arthur Bryant. What do you want?’

‘You called me.’

‘No, you called me.’

‘Dear God, if I ever get like you when I’m old just shoot me,’ Banbury muttered.

‘You just rang this number a minute ago.’

‘Ah yes,’ said a mature Germanic voice. ‘I was given it by a lady at your division. My name is Irma Bederke. I work in the Human Resources Department of Farcom. It’s a telecommunications company.’

‘If you’re trying to sell me broadband, you’re wasting your time,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m broke.’

‘No, I’m in the building opposite the apartments at number 376 Northumberland Avenue. I was working late on Monday evening.’

‘You mean you witnessed what happened?’

‘Well, I certainly saw something. One of your officers called on me but I was out. She left her number.’

‘Are you there now?’

‘I’m in my office, yes.’

‘Can we come over and talk to you?’

‘I am on my lunch break so I suppose it will be all right.’

Bryant and Banbury left the penthouse and made their way across the road. Ms Bederke was waiting for them in the company’s blankly corporate reception area. A small-boned, elegant woman in her late sixties, she led the way to a conference room at the front of the building. ‘We shouldn’t be disturbed in here,’ she told them.

‘Do you mind if I record a statement?’ asked Banbury, holding up his phone.

‘Please go ahead. There’s not an awful lot to tell, really. I didn’t realise what I’d seen at the time, but I heard about the death on the news last night, and thought back about it. I was going to report
it anyway. First I called the Westminster police, but I couldn’t speak to the right person. Then I got your message.’

Banbury repeated Ms Bederke’s contact details, then asked her to explain what she saw.

‘I was required to work late on Monday night. The company is restructuring and we’re short-staffed. I’ve been here longer than anyone else in the organisation and know where everything is. I had hoped to finish by eight-thirty
P.M
. so I could catch the eight forty-five train from Charing Cross to Dartford, but the work ran over. I was packing up to leave—’

‘What time was this?’ interrupted Bryant.

‘A few minutes after nine, perhaps ten past, maybe a little later. I don’t wear a watch but there’s a clock in my office. I put on my coat and walked to the window to see if it was still raining. I’d heard the thunder, but you know what London rain is like, you can usually get away without taking an umbrella. I could see there was some kind of party going on because there was a doorman standing at the entrance to the building, and I could see lots of people in the big semicircular room upstairs. The floor above that is level with my office window. I was idly looking across, wondering who they were—as you do—and while I was watching, the window suddenly opened. It went up with a bang.’

‘Did you see who opened it?’

‘No, but then, I wasn’t properly looking—and it was raining very hard. There was no light on in the room—I suppose I noticed because I usually go home before the tenants arrive, and it was interesting to see who lived there. It looked like a very glamorous party. While I was watching, it appeared.’

‘What appeared?’

‘Well, I don’t want you to think I imagine things—I’m really not the imaginative type—but I couldn’t help but think it odd.’

‘Please, go on.’

‘There was this—
thing
. A horrible old gnome with yellow
striped arms and a bright red face. It had a fat stomach and was wearing a pointed cap. Just under a metre tall, I suppose. It suddenly appeared at the window. It was carrying something wrapped up in its arms. It threw the bundle from the window and stepped back into the dark. I won’t forget the face, because it was so creepy.’

Bryant dragged out a pencil stub attached to a ring-bound notebook and handed it to her. ‘Do you think you could draw what you saw?’

‘I’m no artist but I can try.’

For the next few minutes, Ms Bederke worked on her sketch. Finally she tilted her head and approved. ‘That’s what it looked like. It reminded me of something from one of my childhood storybooks.’

She handed back the pad with a perfect rendition of Mr Punch on it.

D
S Janice Longbright alighted at Bermondsey tube station, stepped out into the drizzle and made her way up Jamaica Road toward Rose Marquand’s house. Here, pale cohorts of low-income houses were arranged in regiments beside the dual carriageway, their front doors turned away from the traffic. Longbright saw the problem at once; residents had to walk twice as far to reach the main entrances of their homes. It would be easier to cut through the alleyways behind the terraces, but a lot less safe. The grim utility design of Hadley Street was an architectural admittance of defeat. As she rang the bell of number 14, she wondered if the planners had ever bothered to visit their designs.

A heavyset, tracksuited girl with a blond ponytail and cheap hoop earrings opened the door. She stared without speaking, her weight hefted to one considerable hip.

‘I’d like to see Rose Marquand,’ Longbright told her, indicating her Unit badge.

‘She can’t move about much,’ cautioned the girl. ‘I’m looking
after her. I’ve had to move her bed into the lounge. It’s a bit of a mess in there.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Longbright, thinking,
You should see my flat. I haven’t tidied the place up since Liberty died
.

The house smelled of stale fried food. It had been lived in too long with the windows sealed. Rose Marquand was younger than Longbright had expected. Her dyed auburn hair had been newly permed, and as Longbright studied the pyjama-clad figure seated before her, she suspected there was little wrong with Anna’s mother apart from obesity and a desire to be waited on.

‘I was reliant on my daughter for everything,’ said Rose, clearly reluctant to thumb the off switch on her TV remote. ‘I don’t get around to the shops much. The plumbing’s packed up in the other bathroom and I can’t fix it. And the magpies are nicking all my nice seaside stones from the garden. The place is falling down around my ears.’

‘What’s actually wrong with you?’ asked Longbright, nettled.

‘The doctors don’t know. I stay well away from them—they’re no bloody use at all. Anyway, I’ve got Sheena to look after me now.’
I bet they told you to eat less and get some exercise
, thought Longbright.
You certainly didn’t waste any time replacing your daughter
.

‘She seems like a good kid,’ said Rose. ‘They don’t feed her properly at home so she’s staying here.’

‘I understand Anna had trouble with the local youths. What happened?’

‘The Hagan family, they live in the corner house, grandparents, parents, kids and their kids, none of them ever had a job in their life, all on the fiddle, all ex-cons. Ashley Hagan, he’s the oldest boy, he’s the worst. We had our car broken into and the radio nicked, had to get rid of it in the end. And Anna had her phone nicked twice, once from the counter in the kitchen—’

‘You mean someone broke in?’

‘No, she left the back door unlocked by accident. It don’t pay to leave anything unlocked around here.’

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Yeah, of course, and Anna told them who did it, but they did nothing.’

‘Did she have proof that it was Ashley Hagan?’

‘She didn’t need proof, everyone knows that when someone gets robbed in this street it’s always the Hagans.’

‘The problem is that she would have needed a little more evidence to pursue the matter further,’ Longbright explained. ‘I checked with your local constabulary and they agree the Hagans are most likely involved in much of the crime that goes on in this neighbourhood. But they also get blamed for everything else that happens.’

‘Seems to me the police are on the wrong bloody side.’

‘They’ve conducted raids on the house looking for stolen goods several times in the past, but haven’t found anything.’

‘That’s ’cause the Hagans keep it in a lock-up on the estate.’

‘Do you know that for a fact?’

‘Common knowledge, isn’t it? Ashley found out that my Anna had reported him, and after that she was given a really hard time by the whole family. It was stressing her out. She couldn’t sleep from worry. Then on Monday night she came home and one of them attacked her right on the doorstep.’

‘Did you see them?’

‘No, I was in here. But who else could it be? She had to go right past their house to get home. They’re always hanging around outside. She got her shopping bag back but they’d got her phone again, and her keys. I’ve had to change the locks. Anna hadn’t been feeling well for a couple of days, and this only made her worse.’

‘What happened after she was mugged?’

‘She came in, made some tea and started slicing up bread for
toast. You know, for her supper. That’s when she cut herself. She showed me—it was just a little nick on her thumb, that’s all. I told her to stick a plaster on it. The doctor said it was some form of blood poisoning, like I keep a dirty house! That knife had only just come out of the dishwasher.’

Longbright was used to dealing with the fallout of sudden death, but was shocked by Mrs Marquand’s lack of grief. She seemed to be positively thriving on the drama of the tragedy.

‘Blood poisoning can be triggered by preexisting damage in the body’s immune system, Mrs Marquand. Or by some kind of organism that’s already in the blood. I looked at the doctor’s notes. Anna was just very unfortunate.’

‘Why had she been to see you, anyway? Nobody has explained what she was doing at your place.’

‘She was working with my boss. Would it be possible to see Anna’s room? Anna was taking care of certain documents for him, and I’m supposed to return them to the office.’

‘You’ll have to take a look for yourself. I don’t do stairs.’