Bryant & May - The Burning Man (36 page)

‘Which question do you want answered first?’ asked May.

‘Work with me,’ Land pleaded.

‘We didn’t get a chance to bring you up to speed. Joanna Papis was attacked at her home this morning. The press found out. They’re already linking it with the deaths.’

‘How? Why the devil would they do that?’

‘It started with another arson attack. One of the firefighters must have spoken to a reporter. Janice will fill you in on the rest. I have to go.’

‘Wait, wait, where are
you
off to?’

‘I have to do something for Arthur.’ John grabbed his overcoat. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘You’re in contact with him?’ snarled Land. ‘This is completely unacceptable. I cannot be expected to run this unit unless I know where you all are.’

‘You never did run the unit,’ rejoined May, ‘it was always us.’
I shouldn’t have said that
, he thought as he headed down the stairs.

He found Maggie Armitage anxiously awaiting his arrival in the reception area of the London Library, at the deepest corner of St James’s Square. She was so sombrely dressed that for a moment he failed to recognize her. Usually the Grand Order Grade Four-registered white witch wore fabrics that appeared to have been stolen from a particularly lurid 1970s game show. Bryant joked that Maggie was the only object apart from the Great Wall of China that could be seen from space, but today she was dressed entirely in black. May followed her to the members’ lounge and they seated themselves in a sequestered nook.

‘I know you think I’m a flake,’ Maggie began, ‘but Arthur asked me to help him. That’s why I’m dressed like this, so I don’t stand out. I even covered up my tattoo.’

‘I didn’t know you had one.’

‘Oh, yes, the family escutcheon, crossed spears, ducks rampant. It’s a long story.’

‘He’s not supposed to break confidentiality on this,’ said May. ‘We’re in enough trouble as it is.’

‘I understand, but I’d have thought that by now you’d know I can be trusted.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’m here because there’s an original Dead Diary kept in a subsection of the Crace Collection.’

May knew that for decades his partner had kept daily files on those who died in suspicious or unusual circumstances in London.

‘Arthur told me he originally got the idea from the volumes stored in the London Library’s basement,’ Maggie explained. ‘He wanted me to find historical precedents, and sent me a set of guidelines.’

‘You mean he actually figured out how to send an email?’ May was astonished.

‘No, of course not,’ Maggie said. ‘I asked Deirdre to pop over on her scooter. She was in the area visiting her spiritual chiropodist. She gets her bunions smashed up by lifewaves, swears by it. Arthur has a theory about your killer’s psychology.’

‘Do you know where Arthur is?’

‘Oh, around and about,’ she replied nebulously. ‘There are angels looking after him.’

‘I’m worried he’s going to join them,’ grumbled May. ‘I suppose he told you he’s not well.’

‘Yes, he talked me through the whole thing, but right now he’s lucid and he needs to get to the bottom of this while he still can.’

‘You don’t sound overly worried, Maggie.’

She peered over her bifocals and arched an eyebrow at him. ‘I see very little difference between the living and the dead, Mr May. If Arthur passes over, I’ll still be able to talk to him. This case of yours. You understand the significance of its occurrence between Samhain and Guy Fawkes Night, I take it.’

‘I can see that someone might believe they could hide their crimes in this particular period. You know I don’t have much faith in signs and portents, or supernatural conspiracies.’

‘But fire and insurgence! Conflagration and rebellion! This is a man who wants to take his place in history –
Catholic
history.’

‘I have to be honest with you, Maggie, I don’t know where you’re getting this or what you expect to find in here.’

‘Arthur has already followed this further than you realize,’ she whispered. ‘Did you know that Dexter Cornell is one of Kensington’s biggest property tycoons, and that he’s been illegally selling buildings to the Chinese by getting his lawyers to delist them from preservation orders? Cornell’s not his real name. He’s originally from Latvia. He was a small-town fire-and-brimstone evangelist who reinvented himself when he arrived here. We think he might be symbolically seeking to send his victims to hell, as others have before him.’

‘Apart from the fact that you clearly have no idea how insane you sound, I’m Arthur’s partner and
he
should be telling me this, not you.’

‘He knows that you wouldn’t go along with him.’

‘Fine, but searching through the past …’ He sighed wearily.

‘It’s a perfectly valid method of investigation,’ Maggie insisted.

‘I seem to remember that you also believe cats can sing.’

‘If you’re referring to Admiral Fanshawe, my feline conduit to the netherworld, I’ve retired him. A fine castrato, but all he ever does is go on about the First World War. I’ve a new spirit guide now, Fifi Lamour. I’ve started picking her up on my toaster. The only trouble is that it has to be turned on and she has a tendency to chat, so we get through a lot of bread.’

‘Right, that’s it.’ May rose to leave. ‘Good luck finding the spirit of Guy Fawkes, Madame Arcati or whoever it is you’re looking for. Meanwhile, in the real world, we’ll be sifting through the forensic evidence.’

‘Fine, make fun of me,’ said Maggie, looking hurt, ‘but let me give you some advice, John. Just once, try seeing things from a different point of view. The term “bonfire”? It originated in Scandinavia, specifically Denmark. It marked the celebration of a battle victory, when the bodies of the dead were piled and burned. The fire provided warmth and light for the survivors’ party. The word was used to describe any large celebratory fire, but there’s another interpretation. The words “Bon Fire” are supposedly taken from Tudor history.’

‘Maggie, this is pointless—’

‘No, John, listen to me. In 1555, Edmund Bonner was the Bishop of London. Acting on his orders, over three hundred English men and women were burned at the stake for their faith, and because of Bonner’s actions we now call them Bon’s fires. The Sussex bonfire societies are gathering in the town of Lewes right now, ready for tomorrow night’s celebrations. They’re preparing to commemorate the burning of seventeen Protestant martyrs by Catholics in the reign of Mary Tudor. Have you checked the religions of those who have died?’

‘Wait, you’re saying this is about
Catholics and Protestants
?’

‘There were a great many reprisals in the years that followed the dissolution of the monasteries,’ said Maggie. ‘But your murder plot could be more to do with sectarianism than mere anarchy. And it will end in Sussex tomorrow night, at the martyrs’ site.’

‘Did you tell Arthur this?’

‘No, no.’ Maggie shook her head so fiercely that her silver earrings jangled. ‘He told
me
.’

‘Know what I usually love about this job?’ said Dan Banbury as he looked around Joanna Papis’s fire-damaged flat. ‘Crime scenes are never quite what you expect. But what am I supposed to do here?’

Senior Officer Blaize Carter turned on another of the freestanding LED lights that had been set up in the only unburned part of the hall. The ceiling bulbs had all burst and the main window had split and was blackened with soot. The ceiling was still dripping. ‘At least everyone else in the house got out alive. You can thank the Swedes for that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Cleaner design lines,’ Carter explained. ‘Curtains connect floors to ceilings, but they’re out of fashion these days. Everyone wants blinds, and they’re usually flame retardant.’

‘You think it’s the same MO as in De Vere’s flat?’

‘Yes, but this time he didn’t come inside.’

‘Why not?’

‘Look at the place.’ Carter banged the back of her hand on the wall. ‘It’s a cheap, badly finished conversion. He must have known it would go up in seconds, but it didn’t burn as fast as he expected. There was a rubber mat inside the front door which caught most of the ignited fuel and reduced the spread. There’s a reason why we don’t see many premeditated arson attacks. British houses are too solidly built. I’m not saying they don’t catch fire – they do if they’re full of clutter and chintz – but it’s hard to predict the patterning. It’s usually a spontaneous crime.’

‘Give me something to take back to the unit,’ Banbury pleaded.

‘It’s going to sound kind of crazy.’

‘You don’t know the chaps I work for,’ said Banbury.

‘All right.’ Carter folded her arms, regarding the blackened hall. ‘My job is to figure out fires, not understand human nature. But when incidents like these are clearly connected, you get a sense of the person behind them. This guy can’t bear to look at his victims. He didn’t see Freddie Weeks, he covered Hall’s face with tar and he masked De Vere. He blew up Frank Leach with a pressure device, and sprayed petrol under the door in here.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that despite what you may think, your killer’s got a conscience. He’s after some kind of skewed justice. In his hands, fire
is
justice.’

‘That’s not just you talking, is it?’ said Banbury. Fire officers were practical people who dealt with physical problems. Psychology wasn’t their strong point.

‘No,’ Carter admitted. ‘I had a discussion with your Mr Bryant. He called me a little while ago.’

He’s like the Wizard of Oz
, thought Banbury.
Even when he’s not around, he’s always behind the curtain working the levers.

‘I came to you because I thought you might know all about sedition,’ said Bryant.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Raymond Kirkpatrick, the ursine, heavy-metal-loving English-language professor who worked at the British Library. ‘The only time you ever come and see me is when you want something you could just as easily google.’

‘First of all, I don’t use the Google,’ retorted Bryant indignantly. ‘And point B, your brain is filled with the sort of libellous rubbish that never makes it into history books. Either you’re happy knowing that the repository of arcana that exists inside that hairy and somewhat unwashed-looking bonce of yours will go to the worms unused, or you’d like to help the police in their inquiries, the police in this case being my good self.’ Bryant flashed his pearly false teeth in a rictus of a grin that he wrongly considered endearing.

‘It doesn’t say much for the science of investigation in the twenty-first century, does it? Come on then, you can buy me a cake and a coffee in the café, if it’s not completely clogged up with cadaverous students poncing off the free Wi-Fi.’ Kirkpatrick slipcased a pair of rare pornographic incunabula and took off his white cotton gloves. Together they pottered off to find refreshment, two more scruffy eccentrics in a neighbourhood where you could attract a dozen of them just by waving your arms about.

‘I can no sooner give you a simple answer about the riots than I could milk a pigeon,’ he warned, easing his ample rump on to a frail and spindly café chair. ‘I don’t understand people. We once had rebellion ingrained within our souls. Until the nineteenth century the only way we had of addressing our grievances was by holding violent protests. Unlike our American cousins, we have no enshrined constitution. Why else would we have set up safe areas in the capital especially for dissenters? We’ve always considered those in power to be intrinsically corrupt, but were we any better?’

He took a chunk out of a piece of fruit cake, scooped the crumbs out of his beard and flicked them at a passing student. ‘You only have to look at the disrespectful language we used for bad behaviour. When a thief married a prostitute it was known as a Westminster wedding, and if you were vice admiral of the Narrow Seas, it meant you were drunk and had slipped under the table to piss in your neighbour’s shoes. Hell, we even kept special stones for chucking at the rich called Beggar’s Bullets. And the way we treated each other in the streets! We armed ourselves to the teeth and donned home-made body armour before venturing out. And when we did, there was always a chance that someone would present us with a Tower Hill play – that’s a kick up the arse and a slap in the face. And in revenge we would ‘make a lion of them’ by sticking two fingers up their nose and pulling hard.’

‘It’s funny,’ said Bryant, warming his hands around his mug. ‘Foreigners think we’re so polite. My father said you could tell a working-class Londoner because he smoked by holding his cigarette the wrong way around, with the tip facing in towards the palm so that he didn’t get smoke in anyone’s eyes. He always doffed his cap to anyone he considered to be a class above him, but thought nothing of giving his wife a clout.’

‘Well, we’ve always been hypocrites,’ said Kirkpatrick. ‘But that’s what being human is all about, isn’t it? Holding opposing views in one’s head and learning to calibrate them? We happily allowed certain parts of London to become havens of lawlessness. Did you know there were so many whores and thieves in Southwark that in 1181 we allowed it to become an official sanctuary for fugitives? If you stayed put there for a year and a day you got your “thrall”, which meant you were safe from prosecution.’