The Memory of Blood (25 page)

‘I can’t tell you anything more than that, because the matter remains under investigation, but if you really can shed light on the case, I’d be grateful.’ John May’s weakness for pretty women manifested itself in the gentlest and most charming of ways; he found himself believing almost anything they said. If a woman told him she was cold, he would raise the heat to an unbearable degree. If she told him she believed in astrology, he would follow her horoscope for weeks. And now that Brigitte, his partially present, wholly difficult ladyfriend, had decided to extend her stay in Paris, he was more susceptible than ever.

Lucy was a government employee in a division he was not familiar with, something called the Department of Social Resources. She said she had decided to email May after reading about the case in
The Daily Telegraph
that morning.

‘I worked for Mr Kramer at his property company, Cruikshank Holdings. It wasn’t an easy job. He was nice most of the time, but had—well, let’s say anger management issues. He used to be extremely unreasonable with his wife.’

‘Did you ever see or hear him lose his temper?’

‘Yes, several times. The worst was just after Judith—I mean, Mrs Kramer—told him she was pregnant. She came to the office
one evening—they were going out to dinner—and they had such a terrible argument that she went home in tears. After she’d gone, he told me he didn’t want to become a father, that it would interfere with his career. He used to keep these creepy dolls in his office, Punch and Judy puppets, and I remember something he said that really bothered me.’

‘What was that?’

Lucy looked up at May with sadness in her eyes. ‘He said that Punch had the right idea when he beat the baby to death.’

‘You clearly recall hearing him say those exact words?’

‘Yes, I do. But I don’t know whether he meant half the things he said. I think he liked to shock people.’

‘What was he like to work for?’

‘Very charismatic but a bit frightening—his energy amazed me. He could go out to a fund-raising night until two in the morning and be at work the next day at six
A.M
. I was in awe of him. He told me he was superstitious. That was why he owned the puppets.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He believed in what they represented. Some evenings, if we were working late, he would open a bottle of wine in the office. He would invite me to sit and have a glass with him.’

‘And did you?’

‘No, I don’t drink. But I would listen to his stories. I think he felt lonely, even though he was married. He once explained the whole Punch story, how it was a metaphor about the making of the modern world. He called Punch “the unpalatable face of heroism,” and said that this was the way all successful businessmen would have to behave one day.’

If May was surprised by the luscious Ms Clementine’s rehearsed glibness, he didn’t show it. ‘It sounds as if believing in such things was very important to him,’ he remarked.

‘I think he was always looking for ways to understand his life.
I heard he became rich at a very early age, something to do with creating a website for students. When you make so much money at that age, it’s bound to affect your behaviour, isn’t it?’

As May took his leave, he thought about the Hangman figure found by Gregory Baine’s body. Somebody who had attended Robert Kramer’s party knew about his fascination with the story of Punch, or believed it themselves. And now they were using it to show him how little power he really had over his own life.

Which meant that Robert Kramer might not be the main suspect at all, but the main target.

Arthur had said he was developing two theories. If one involved the investigation of Robert Kramer, what, May wondered, was the other?

T
he New Strand Theatre stood at the corner of Adam Street and York Buildings, just off the Strand itself. The white stone edifice had been constructed in 1920 along clean, elegant lines and peaked with inspirational statuary. It was now mainly filled with offices. The double-height ground floor had belonged to a travel company that had gone bankrupt in the credit crunch, and the building’s landlord had decided to put the entire six-floor property on the market. Robert Kramer had seized his chance and purchased it, transforming the atrium into a gold and crimson mock-Edwardian theatre, seating an audience of 450.

Arthur Bryant settled himself in the middle of the second row with a bag of cheese and onion crisps, and watched the theatre fill up. The audience for
The Two Murderers
was unusually young and mixed. While the middle classes went to the National to see plays about politics and society, a more raucous crowd yearning for sex and sensation headed for West End shows that delivered value for money.

Ray Pryce’s script was unashamedly populist. The play began in a grand Victorian Gothic mansion filled with suits of armour and stags’ heads, where angled shadows strafed the floor in expressionistic patterns. In the first act, the ageing lord of the manor caught his wife in a clinch with the handsome gardener, and imprisoned her inside the wall of his ancestor’s torture dungeon before the illicit lovers turned the tables on him.

Soon the convoluted plot called for a wax dummy of the lord to come to life, and for the wife’s lover to break it open and reveal the real lord imprisoned within. The twists compounded themselves in a satisfying Golden Age fashion, and soon the titular murderers were being placed in torture devices and bodies were returning to life, all part of some grand plan to trick the lord into handing over his estate.

It was neo-Jacobean tosh, of course, but well constructed and packed with stylish jolts. Bryant could see why the snobbish critic Alex Lansdale had taken against it so strongly.

‘Excuse me, can you put those things down?’ said the woman in front of Bryant, turning around to point to his bag of crisps. ‘You’re spoiling my enjoyment of the play.’

‘Madam, your fox fur collar is having the same effect on me, but I restrain myself from complaint.’ He bit into a crisp as noisily as he could and raised his knees against the back of her seat, giving her a good thump. Someone was being strangled onstage. Della Fortess screamed and clutched her breast before falling to her knees. Bryant grinned. At the blood-spattered close of the play, as everyone else sat in stunned silence, Bryant applauded loudly and bellowed ‘Bravo!’ until everyone turned around to stare at him.

‘So I hear you enjoyed our little melodrama,’ said Ray Pryce, stopping Bryant in the foyer as the sickly-faced audience fled to tell their friends how awful the play had been, and how they should definitely go and see it. The writer had been watching the performance from backstage.

‘You heard me?’

‘We could hardly avoid hearing you. You were laughing when everyone else had their hands over their eyes.’

‘Well, I enjoy a good murder. Marcus Sigler is very good, isn’t he? That part where he flew into a murderous rage—how does he manage to achieve that level of fury night after night?’

‘He reckons he harnesses his inner anger—thinks about something that torments him. Stanislavsky and all that.’

‘Tell me, how did you do the bit where the dummy came to life? I thought that was very realistic.’

‘I only came up with the idea on paper,’ Ray admitted. ‘It’s Ella Maltby’s job to make it work. She built the props.’

‘She knows her Victoriana.’

‘It’s a passion of hers. An obsession, almost. Ella has some very strange ideas. That’s why our director picked her for the team.’

‘What kind of strange ideas?’

‘You should see her house. She’s a real-life vamp. She has a collection of African juju dolls, and some ancient Sumerian figurines that are supposed to have the souls of the dead inside them. She used to be a doll maker. Ella told me she genuinely believes that inanimate objects can become human.’

‘Makes a change. In my job I usually encounter the reverse. Sounds right up my street, in fact.’

‘Yours, perhaps, but not Ella’s girlfriend’s. She walked out on her, couldn’t bear to be in the place a minute longer. Said it gave her the creeps. Ella’s been behaving very strangely ever since. She’s stopped socialising with the cast and stays away from the theatre unless she’s absolutely needed.’

‘That’s odd. When did this start?’

‘Let’s see, her girlfriend left last Sunday night.’

‘The night before Noah Kramer was murdered.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Oh, nothing, I’m just thinking aloud. Perhaps I should pay a visit to Ms Maltby.’

‘She won’t like it,’ Ray warned. ‘Ella won’t let you in without a very good reason.’

‘I’m a police officer, I can do whatever I want,’ replied Bryant. ‘It’s fabulous being me. Look, I’ll show you.’

On his way out, he stopped by the concession stand. ‘Can I take one of these?’ he asked, indicating the programmes. ‘I’m a pensioner.’

‘I’m afraid senior citizens have to pay just like everybody else,’ said the old lady behind the counter.

‘Well, I’m also a police officer, so I’m taking one of those as evidence. Chuck it over, Gran.’

‘Charming.’ She reluctantly withdrew a copy and passed it to him. ‘Some of the older ladies in this cast remember the days when we had a nicer class of people in here.’

‘I’m sure you do, back in Victorian times.’ He turned to Ray. ‘See? With your unpleasant turn of mind, you should think of enlisting in the force. The perks are great.’ Bryant opened the programme and began reading it. There were monochrome photographs of the cast members, and on the next page, the production team. ‘Every single one of these people was in attendance at Robert Kramer’s party,’ he told Ray, ‘and most seem to be hiding some kind of secret. But which of them is a murderer?’

‘It’s like a whodunit,’ Ray said, sounding amazed. ‘I thought that sort of thing only happens on TV.’

‘Most investigations are whodunits,’ said Bryant, buttoning his coat, ‘but most are solved before they’ve barely begun. This one is different.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, the murderer is keeping pace with us. It’s not an investigation now. It’s a race.’

A
lma Sorrowbridge always baked industrial quantities of cake and bread before heading to her church on Haverstock Hill, and the smell of hot ginger and corn bread lured Bryant from his bedroom. He drifted into the kitchen in his patched, tasseled dressing gown and seated himself half-asleep at the table like an impoverished Edwardian lord waiting to be fed.

‘Oh, so you are still here,’ said Alma, carrying in a tea tray of spiced pancakes and eggs. ‘I was beginning to think you’d moved out without telling me.’

‘Why would I do that?’ asked Bryant. ‘You feed me.’

‘Not for much longer.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘In case the packing crates in the hall have escaped your attention, we’re moving out.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve hardly been here five minutes. I’m still cataloguing my police manuals; I’m only up to 1928.’

‘We lost the court hearing. They’re tearing this place down and building an apartment complex. I keep telling you but you don’t listen. No-one wants an eyesore like this in their nice upmarket neighbourhood.’

‘Well, can’t they rehouse us temporarily and move us into one of the new apartments?’

‘The starting price of the new flats will be £1.5 million each. Have you got that kind of money knocking around? No, I thought not. I blame Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. When they moved in around the corner, the house prices shot up. But if you have got any savings tucked away in your mattress, now would be the time to get them out.’

‘I’m not sure I care for this new sarcastic side of you,’ Bryant said. ‘Can’t we talk about it another time? I’m in the middle of a case.’

‘You’re always in the middle of a case. I’ve been telling you about the court proceedings for months, but I knew you had your hearing aid turned off. I tried to get you along to the hearings, remember? It’s too late to do anything now—we have to go. The Compulsory Purchase Order was approved.’

‘Oh, this is ridiculous. I can’t be expected to stop everything and move house when there’s a murderer on the loose.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘Hang on, I haven’t anywhere to go.’