Bryant And May On The Loose - A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery Part 9

'Don't be pedantic. Come back to the s.p.a.ce which I plan to turn into our centre of operations.'

They walked together into a dingy, cobwebbed front room overlooking the Caledonian Road. 'Pull up a crate,' said Bryant magnanimously. He seated himself in his cracked leather chair and lifted a yellowed scroll of paper from the floor, wiping dust from it. 'Right, this is King's Cross during Mesolithic times.'

'Dear Lord, do we have to go back that far?' asked May, fearing the meeting would be a long one. He knew that the disturbing myths and mysteries of old London were Bryant's obsession. Besides, it was getting toward lunchtime and he'd had no breakfast.

'Now, we know there was a Mesolithic settlement just up the road from here, on Hampstead Heath, but most pre-Christian tribal activity was in the district we now call King's Cross, near the Battlebridge Basin. The area was still unspoilt countryside a couple of centuries ago, filled with meadows, streams and wells. Water drained from Hampstead Heath down to King's Cross, which was then the Bagnigge Wells, then to Sadler's Wells and Clerkenwell-all wells, you see, and very healthful because they contained so much sodium, iron and magnesium sulphate, although they can't have tasted very nice.'

'I get the idea. You've told me all this before.'

'Just checking that you were paying attention.' He threw open a filthy, dog-eared book and stabbed at a lithograph. 'In the Middle Ages, the area of St Pancras was part of the great forest of Middles.e.x. The last remaining piece of that is Caenwood-what we now call Kenwood-in Hampstead. Where you get water, you get villages, crops-and fertility rites. Now, around 1550 a fable resurfaced about the Pindar of Wakefield. The pindar warns that no-one may trespa.s.s upon his land, is challenged, and acquits himself by winning a sword fight. He appears in folk songs and his story forms the basis for part of the Robin Hood legend, where he becomes a man named George-a-Green, and his challenger is Little John.'

'I really don't see what on earth this has to do with a bloke abducting girls outside a nightclub.' May was exasperated. 'What is a pindar, anyway?'

'He's a man who keeps the village's stray cattle in a pen, or pinfold. The pindar's story goes back much further, all the way to Paleolithic times, because he's based on a pagan British G.o.d, the lord of the forest beasts, the stag-headed "Horned One." This character reappears throughout our history as Herne the Hunter, and represents the fertile male power of nature. In prehistoric times he would be portrayed by a shaman dressed in deerskins and a headpiece decorated with stag horns, a man undergoing transformation into a G.o.d.'

'You think we've got someone who knows his history.'

'Or his pubs. After catching our pub killer, you'll agree that I know an awful lot about houses of refreshment. Now until recent times, the inns in Highgate still practiced Swearing on the Horns, a debased fertility rite for visiting strangers who were required to worship the G.o.d and kiss a maiden. The Pindar of Wakefield pub nearby in Gray's Inn Road only changed its historic name in 1986, to The Water Rats. But here's a strange thing. In 1517 when it was built, the landlord's name was George Green. The whole area is a.s.sociated with the most ancient pagan G.o.d in British folklore. There was even a pub called The Horns right on the site where this stag-man has been spotted.'

'What on earth can he want?'

'Well, there's a sinister side to all of this.' Bryant's blue eyes glittered as he found another lithograph. ' George-a-Green, or Herne the Horned One, is also Jack in the Green or the Green Man, the spirit of vegetation. The Green Man is a story that predates Christ. Uniquely, it has its roots in both pagan and Christian history. The legend tells how the dead Adam had the seeds of the tree of knowledge planted in his mouth. From this mix of fertility and soil grew a sinister G.o.d, the Oak King, the Holly King, the Green Man-the symbol of death in life. The Green Man is found in a great many English churches. I understand that there are over sixty Green Men in Exeter Cathedral alone. He appears both in church carvings and at May Day celebrations, as a sort of primeval trickster, a symbol of spiritual rebirth, but also as a vengeful rapist and bloodsucker. Look at this.' Another etching, this more disturbing than the last. 'The Green Man is a forest creature with the power to wipe out cities and return them to nature. He destroys men by unleashing natural forces upon them, and reappears when the earth is threatened. He can be benign and healing, but there's a wildness about him, a dangerous cruelty-and a terrible madness.'

May studied the pictures. He opened his mouth and shut it again. 'No,' he said firmly, 'I'm not going to buy into this, Arthur. You always do this to me, you sidetrack me from the business at hand. The sighting and the killing are not connected. We're after someone who has been punished for flogging dodgy drugs or black-market fruit machines, not some-vengeful G.o.d.'

Bryant wasn't listening. His face was transformed with youthful excitement. 'Don't you see? The stag-man is being perfectly clear about his intentions. It's all in the flyer he's been handing out. The rivers will rise forth from oblivion's bed and manifest their vengeance to mankind. He wants to reclaim the ancient woodlands.'

'But it hasn't been woodland for two hundred years.'

'Hasn't it? Take a look at the area between St Pancras Old Church and the new rail link. Apart from the odd warehouse and a few streets that were knocked down during the war, there's nothing there.' He thrust his hand in the direction of the window. 'The land behind King's Cross is finally about to be concreted over and densely populated. For the first time in two and a half million years-humankind's entire time on earth-the forest will become a town. Someone is trying to stop that. And they're prepared to kill in order to do so.'

18

THE WATCHER

It was safe to say that things had not gone according to plan. Standing beside the green park bench beneath the rustling beech trees, Mr Fox tried to understand how it had gone so badly wrong. He had painstakingly followed his own rules. He should have been prepared for anything. Instead, his anger had resurfaced at the wrong time, unfolding like a malignant bloom, spreading poison and panic across the situation. No matter how hard he tried to behave like a machine, the dark devil inside him returned to make him human.

In a way, Mr Fox had got his wish. He had moved up, because there was no going back. He had been suddenly thrust into the big league. Now that he was a murderer, the word defined who he had become, and who he would always be. It was the ultimate description of a human being, how the rest of the world would see him if they ever found out. The term overrode any other that could be applied. What he needed to do was stay calm and find a way to turn the situation to his advantage.

Murderer. He actually felt different. The word freed him. He had nothing more to lose. If he could guarantee that no trace of his path was left behind, the way ahead was clear. He could kill again, and again. His new life required no great change in the patterns of his behaviour. It was merely an adjustment. He had always known how to make himself invisible. His unique skill had always been to absorb the talents and knowledge of others, use what he needed and discard the rest. He never allowed anyone to get too close. He kept the world at arm's length in order to look down on it.

Checking across the road he saw three women standing beside their prams in the forecourt of a block of flats. Jasmine Wincott, whose husband had left her for a girl half his age; Paula Trainer, whose teenage son was now mainlining heroin; and Sylvia Crane, whose oldest boy had been stabbed to death in a territorial fight between two gangs that had been disbanded by the time the case went to trial. In the road, working on his van, was Casey Potter, who'd done time for B&E, and was now studying chemistry at UCL. Mr Fox looked at the rows of boxy windows above them and knew who stood in every room. He had made it his business to know.

He watched as the shabby old detective marched past on the other side of the road, his walking stick held jauntily at his shoulder. That was Arthur St John Bryant; the middle name was not p.r.o.nounced 'sinjon' 'sinjon' in the traditional way. He had been given the name because his mother had been delivered to hospital in a St John's ambulance. Not even his partner knew of this, but Mr Fox had been determined to find out as much as possible. Bryant was formerly of Bow Street, Savile Row, and the North London Serious Crimes Division. Although he had been born in the East End, the old man had lived in Hampstead and Battersea, and was now residing in Chalk Farm. His parents came from Bethnal Green, and his brother had died after suffering an accident on a Thames barge. He had never remarried after his wife's death. He was a rebel and a nuisance, but not someone to be dismissed lightly. in the traditional way. He had been given the name because his mother had been delivered to hospital in a St John's ambulance. Not even his partner knew of this, but Mr Fox had been determined to find out as much as possible. Bryant was formerly of Bow Street, Savile Row, and the North London Serious Crimes Division. Although he had been born in the East End, the old man had lived in Hampstead and Battersea, and was now residing in Chalk Farm. His parents came from Bethnal Green, and his brother had died after suffering an accident on a Thames barge. He had never remarried after his wife's death. He was a rebel and a nuisance, but not someone to be dismissed lightly.

Mr Fox made it his business to know everything about everyone. The price of freedom was eternal vigilance. This was his area. He had learned the history of the Bagnigge Wells, with its lake of swans, peac.o.c.ks and seash.e.l.l grottos. He had been to the British Library and studied an on-line copy of the Domesday Book in order to learn about the four ancient prebendal manors in his parish-Pancras, Cantlowes, Tothill and Ruggemure. He knew how the bucolic village of Battle Bridge had become the sprawling chaos of King's Cross, how the vast piles of ashes from Harrison's Brickworks that had acc.u.mulated in Battle Bridge Field were eventually sold to the Russians, to help rebuild Moscow after Napoleon's invasion.

He had discovered that the name King's Cross came from the unpopular octagonal monument to George IV that once stood at the junction of four roads, less than half a kilometre from where he now stood. The building had been used as a police station and then a tavern before being torn down. Every time he walked through the station, he was aware that he was walking upon the site of a smallpox hospital, and that the Centre for Tropical Diseases still stood nearby. So much had been demolished around here in the last three years, so many road names changed, that it was already becoming hard to recall the streets of his childhood. He had watched the old buildings fall. Only the Coal and Fish Offices and the Granary had been spared the rapacious bulldozers. The Grade II-listed Stanley Buildings had been torn down, and all but one of the famous gasholders had been dismantled. But he knew that no matter how hard you tried to change a place, it would find a way of reverting to its historical character.

The only way he could stay here was by recording people and events even more carefully than the CCTV lenses that covered the stations. I am the future I am the future, he thought. One day all people will be One day all people will be like me. Not because they want to, but because it will be the only way they can prove they are still free like me. Not because they want to, but because it will be the only way they can prove they are still free.

And I will be free, thought Mr Fox as he watched the elderly detective head off in the distance. No matter how many I have to kill to remain so No matter how many I have to kill to remain so.

19

UNBURIED

I'm only coming along to make sure you don't say anything inflammatory,' warned John May as he and Arthur Bryant picked their way across the torn landscape of the building site. Around them, Caterpillar trucks burrowed and strained beneath a mean-spirited sky. 'But it's as far as I'm prepared to go on your stag-man. After this I'll be helping the others, so you'll be on your own. Okay, what are we looking at?'

'This is the head office of the Albert Dock Architectural Partnership Trust,' Bryant explained, checking the brochure April had given him. 'ADAPT is in charge of planning the entire area. The contract was awarded to a single company so that the new town would "observe a single cohesive vision of design," it says here. I imagine they want to avoid any more ghastly b.a.l.l.s-ups like the Paddington Basin.' Paddington, another derelict area bordered by ca.n.a.ls and railways, had been filled with a mixture of offices, retail outlets and community housing, but the resulting confusion of styles had ended up satisfying no-one.

Bryant leaned back and looked up, holding onto his hat. 'Nice building,' he said. 'It's a pity they pulled down all the others like this.'

They had reached the doors of a huge two-floor warehouse restored in reclaimed yellow brick. The former jam factory was one of the few surviving industrial units left in an area that had once been filled with foundries, flour and timber mills, varnishers, laundries, hat manufacturers and beer-bottle washing plants. Cobbled courtyards had been sandblasted, interior walls removed, roofs renovated and steel walkways added to create a modern version of Victorian architecture, lighter and airier than anything imagined by their ancestral counterparts.

'Who are we seeing?' May asked.

'A woman called Marianne Waters. She's one of the senior partners, certainly the one with the highest visibility. She made a fortune in the city during the eighties, set up this company, the ADAPT Group, with her two former bosses, and became one of the biggest property developers in the city. She's leading the way toward more ecologically responsible building, and has the ear of the environment minister. Their children go to the same school. She wrote a self-help book about running companies while being a single mother.'

'Now give me the bad stuff.'

'Well, ecologically sound architecture comes at a price, and Marianne Waters has a habit of running behind on her projects. This one is no different. They've been slipping back their deadlines; the new shopping mall in the centre of the development was supposed to be finished by now. Before she saw the green light Waters was a great pal of Maggie Thatcher's, and unfortunately, London's arch-villainess, Lady Porter. There are stories about her that she doesn't enjoy seeing repeated in print. They mostly involve persistent rumours about her involvement in the "Building Stable Communities" scheme.'

Councillor Dame Shirley Porter's infamous secret policy was the stuff of London legend. She sold off Westminster council properties and shifted homeless voters from marginal wards because they were less likely to vote Conservative. Despite being described as the most corrupt British political figure in living memory, the disgraced council leader still protested her innocence. 'There's also been talk about the strong-arm tactics being used by property developers like ADAPT to seize the leases of buildings that stand in their way. Critics say that Madame Waters's concern for the environment is just PR spin. This is ADAPT's biggest project, and any negative reaction to the company's plans, mainly posted by community groups, is usually met with a barrage of lawsuits. So if you're asking me whether she belongs to the forces of good or the powers of darkness, I'd have to say that the jury is still out.'

'It's not our job to make a judgement call,' said May, 'but a little background material is always helpful.'

The detectives were greeted by two security guards, a receptionist, a personal a.s.sistant, a group organiser and finally the lady herself. Marianne Waters was in her late forties, with the strong features of a county-bred woman and a cropped coiffure in a thoroughbred shade of chestnut. She looked as though she had what it took to survive in the modern business world. Encased in an open-collared black dress that reset her body to a younger age, she wore surprisingly tall heels for a woman who regularly crossed muddy cobblestones.

'Mr May.' She greeted him with a stern voice and a firm, dry handshake. She looked puzzled by Bryant's presence, as if Harold Steptoe had brought his father along to the meeting.

'Arthur Bryant, John's partner,' said Bryant, unhappy with having to explain who he was. She shook his hand with noted reluctance. It didn't help that Bryant had ma.s.saged Vicks Vapo-Rub into his neck earlier and now smelled pungent.

'You work together at the local crime unit?'

'The PCU handles specialist cases,' May pointed out. 'We deal with particular issues not covered by the local police or the CID.' He was determined not to go into the details of their situation.

'We could do with more community officers,' Marianne Waters said crisply. 'We've had some security issues with undesirable types hanging around the compound at night.'

'That's a matter of local policing policy. Technically speaking, I'm a civil servant and therefore required to be non-partisan,' Bryant a.s.sured her, pulling a face at May that said See? I can be diplomatic See? I can be diplomatic.

'Fine. Shall we walk?' Waters led the way between the renovated buildings. Trestles had been laid through the vast steel framework of the shopping mall. It felt like walking through a three-dimensional blueprint of the new town. Waters navigated the duckboards which lay across the final few metres of mud with an ease that suggested she spent much of her time on-site. 'We've had over a dozen sightings, reliable accounts posted by two or more members of our workforce, but there are supposed to have been countless others. Unfounded rumours have a habit of running around building sites. The men gossip much more than the women. We do what we can to limit the rumours.'

'When did the sightings start?' asked May.

'The first verified sighting we had was about a month ago.'

'Always the same figure, doing the same thing?'

'That's right, just standing there watching. He only ever appears at dusk or shortly after. Many of the witnesses are young, but they're as superst.i.tious as their grandfathers. They're in a strange land, struggling with the language and customs, susceptible to their own imaginations. In their culture, a man dressed as a stag is a malevolent spirit.'

'Have you actually lost any staff over this?' asked May.

'The walkouts started right after the first sighting. They're more serious now. After all, Constantin could have been killed.' She remembers his first name She remembers his first name, Bryant thought. A nice touch A nice touch.

'And you have no idea what this-creature-wants.'

'I didn't take it seriously at first. The nearby nightclub attracts all types. I a.s.sumed the man had mental-health issues, a tendency toward exhibitionism.'

'But now?'

'Now I think he's clearly trying to attract attention to something, but I've no idea what that might be.' She pointed beyond the framework of the mall. Against a green and orange sky, the industrial vista was a Dante's Inferno of steel and concrete, the guts and skeleton of a great body being constructed across the razed land. 'All the sightings have been up there, along that ridge. Somehow he gets inside the perimeter fence.'

'How can he do that?' Bryant asked.

'He only needs a pair of bolt cutters to get in. The grounds are frequently patrolled, but we've had trouble with some of the night security. We think he must have friends on the inside.'

Bryant's forehead wrinkled. It didn't make sense. Why cultivate friendships within the very workforce you were hoping to disturb? 'When building first started here, did any of your employees leave with unresolved grievances?'

'I imagine there were quite a few,' Ms Waters replied, 'but I deal with government ministers and planning advisors, not staffing issues.'

'Then why didn't you send your personnel officer to see us?'

'Because yesterday morning our electricians voted to go on strike. They stay later on the site than anyone else except management, and most of the reliable eyewitness reports have come from their sector. I need to get this matter sorted out quickly. If you want a job done properly-well, you know how that goes.'

'You say he gets inside the perimeter fence. Has he been picked up on your CCTV monitors?'

'It's a huge site and we only keep recorded images for two weeks. Unfortunately, unless he pa.s.ses right beneath the spotlights we can't read the images clearly. We have an IT team looking at the problem.' She had been joined by a small, balding young man with a stressed, purposeful air. 'I'm sorry. This is Maddox Cavendish; he's been here since the project began, one of the original architects.' The two spoke quietly for a moment. Cavendish broke off to study the group of labourers who had cl.u.s.tered around a mechanical digger.

'Excuse me, gentlemen.' Waters left with her architect. As soon as they saw her coming, the workers quickly found their boss a hardhat and overshoes.

'Well, what do you make of her?' asked May as he watched Waters speaking with the foreman.

'She's getting the job done. It can't be easy. But I wonder why she's taking such a personal interest in such a relatively inconsequential problem.'

'You heard what she said; she may have a strike on her hands.'

'Very small beer on a project like this. They must have thousands of employees.'

'Mr May, I wonder if you could help us?' she called back suddenly.

'See, she's calling for you. Women always do that. Why not me?' grumbled Bryant. 'Why do they always ask you first? I look older. It's ageism, pure and simple.'

May made his way across the mud with Bryant following warily at his heels. The knot of workmen untied itself and parted, revealing a mound of clay-streaked earth that the digger had pushed aside.

The pale, naked body reminded Bryant of wartime photographs he had seen, the disinterred victims of concentration camps, except that this one was missing its head.

20

HALLOWED GROUND

It was dark by the time Dan Banbury emerged from the white forensic tent carrying something heavy in a plastic bag. 'I've got a little present for you, Mr Bryant,' he said cheerfully wiping his forehead and leaving behind a streak of dark clay. 'Take a look in here. It got pretty mashed-up by the diggers, but still...'

Banbury was always cheerful when he faced a challenge, which suggested that the contents of the bag were likely to be unpalatable. Bryant allowed his scarf to ride further over his chin, peering in as the Crime Scene Manager carefully opened his find. Inside was the crushed and mud-smeared head of an adult male, one swollen eye open, the other squeezed so tight that the dead man appeared to be lasciviously winking.

Giles Kershaw pointed back at the tent. 'It looks like your killer was interrupted before he could complete his task. He made the amputation but dropped the head near the body. Perhaps he was disturbed by one of the workmen.'

'Got anything to connect this to the first victim?'

'You mean beyond the location?' ADAPT's construction site was only two streets away from where the other body had been found. 'As far as I can see, the MO looks similar: neat single striations from more than one knife, professional stuff, a definite scalpel-blade mark, no other signs of violence on the torso. I'd say without doubt that this is the same chap at work.'

'Did he kill his victim here, then behead him on-site?'

'Hard to tell, old thing. If you're going to leave the body in a different place, why not dismember it first? Even if the killer knew exactly what he was doing, it would take a few minutes of hard work. Then again, he's done it once before so he's probably getting better at it.'

'There's no blood visible in the surrounding earth,' said Banbury, 'but it's clay, and there's been a lot of rain lately. Giles is going to run some tests for us.'

'If he did cut up the body here, why would he take the risk of being discovered in the time it took?'

'Your job to find that out, squire.' Kershaw nodded at Ban-bury for support.

Bryant hitched up his scarf, thinking. 'He doesn't want to leave the body where he's committed the crime because it's not safe to remain in the location, so he takes it somewhere, removes the head and dumps the remains here. This is a man with a plan. The killer's male, because both bodies are heavy to lift and women rarely mutilate. He could have backed a van right up to the perimeter fence and cut his way in. We'll never sort out his tyre tracks from everything else that's been churning around in the field.'

'The head's putrifying,' said Banbury, sticking his own head in the bag and sniffing. 'The body's in really bad shape. Probably because the mound it was concealed in has been driven over by plant vehicles quite a few times, and there are plenty of insects in the ground.'