The Victoria Vanishes Part 15

'He finds sanctuary in pubs, and probably salvation. Before Anthony and his mother lived at the Clock House, they came from south of the river, Greenwich. He grew up in a pub, remember. We think that was most likely the Angerstein Hotel, on Woolwich Road. It's the only other location from the old days he mentioned to nurses.'

'Do you think it's still there?'

'I hope so. I'm meant to be playing in their skittles tournament this summer.'

'There may have been other pubs in between. I thought he and his mother moved around a lot.'

'Pellew was at the Angerstein from the ages of eight to fourteen, his formative years. And I know the place; it's huge. That makes it the likeliest venue. He clearly feels most comfortable living and even killing inside crowds. Hardly the usual lone wolf.'

'You can be as alone in a city like London as you can in the secluded countryside, Arthur.'

'Poor Janice, she shouldn't have gone ahead without us. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to her. We have to find him today, John. Judging by the number of empty ampoule boxes in his room, he's carrying enough lethal doses to take out a dozen people.'

Back at the unit in Mornington Crescent, Dan Banbury had looked in on May's granddaughter and found April frowning over her computer screen. He was starting to worry about how much time she was spending at the PCU. The others were used to it; April had only just managed to reconnect with the world, and he couldn't help feeling she had swapped one cage for another. 'You've got that look on your face again,' he warned, seating himself beside her. 'What's the matter?'

'I've been studying the photograph,' said April. 'Naomi Curtis. Jocelyn Roquesby. Joanne Kellerman. I don't think they just b.u.mped into each other in a pub and had their picture taken together.'

'Why not?' Dan studied the digitised photograph on her screen.

'Look at the way they're standing. These women haven't just met. They're too close. I'd only relax like that if I was with a best mate. It doesn't look right.'

'Maybe they had to squeeze in for the photo.' Banbury squinted at the picture, tilting his head. 'It bothers you?'

'Enough to make me run some more checks. I finally managed to track down their resumes for date comparisons. It looks like all three changed jobs at the same time, in September 2005.'

'You mean they were working together?'

'No, that's just it.' She pulled up the doc.u.ments and opened their windows beside each other on the screen. 'Curtis was at a place called Sankari Exports, Roquesby was at Legal and General and Kellerman worked for a loss adjustment company called Cooper Baldwin, but they all left in the same month.'

'Probably just a coincidence.'

'That's what I thought. So I called Legal and General's HR department, just to get a general idea about why she left. No-one by the name of Jocelyn Roquesby ever worked there. And it gets better. Sankari Exports in High Holborn ceased trading in 1997, and according to Companies House, Cooper Baldwin doesn't even exist.'

'People exaggerate their resumes.'

'Come on, Dan. Three impossible jobs, three matching departure dates, three deaths?'

'What about start dates?'

'They're all different.'

'Have you checked the other two victims?'

'I've ruled out Jazmina Sherwin because she doesn't fit the pattern, and I'm waiting for Carol Wynley's partner to e-mail me back. It should be in any minute.'

'Then hold off until you've got Wynley as well,' advised Banbury. 'If they did all know each other, it would mean Bryant was right; these women weren't chosen at random.'

'I don't know where that takes us,' April mused. 'I never go to a pub unless I'm meeting someone. What if Pellew worked with them somehow, perhaps even employed them? He arranges to meet each in turn, which is how they let him get close enough to jab them with a needle.'

'I don't see how that could happen. He'd been locked up for years.'

'Do you think he would have had Internet privileges? Could it have been some kind of online deal?'

Banbury rubbed at his eye, thinking. 'I don't know. How can we tell if Pellew's even the right man? He's not in custody yet.'

'There's one other thing. Cochrane, the warder at Twelve Elms Cross, sent through Pellew's medical file. There's a photograph of him taken at age eight without the crimson blemish on his face. And another one taken when he was seventeen, still clear-complected.'

'So if it's not a birthmark, what is it?'

'A disguise,' said April.

31.

THE ANGERSTEIN.

I.

t was said that the Angersteins descended from Peter the Great himself, that John Julius Angerstein was the illegitimate son of either Catherine or Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, but the truth was somewhat less salubrious. John Julius, a Lloyd's underwriter, had grown rich from his West Indian slaves, and parlayed their miseries into an art collection that became the envy of kings, and the foundation of the National Gallery.

The Angersteins made their home in Greenwich, the birth-place of Henry VIII and the home of time itself. Woodlands, their house in Greenwich Park, was built to house his growing collection of Rembrandts and t.i.tians, and a grand Victorian hotel commemorated his name.

But part of the maritime town had been allowed to die. Away from the splendours of the Royal Naval College, the Royal Observatory, the Queen's House and the Cutty Sark, East Greenwich grew dusty and rotted apart, its community shattered by the roaring motorway flyover that split the quiet streets in half. Here, the great Angerstein Hotel, now just another shabby pub, was situated. Like so many other public houses of its era, it had been repaired with thick layers of paint, blue-grey this time, and its windows were rainbowed with the lights of gambling machines and posters for karaoke nights.

John May edged his BMW through the isthmus of the one-way system and parked by the entrance just as Meera Mangeshkar arrived on her Norton, with Bimsley riding pillion. He opened his window and called over to the two young officers.

'We've spoken to the pub's manager. He was a bit shocked when I explained he might be harbouring a murderer in the building, but he's going to co-operate. He says Pellew's hiding place can only be upstairs, as the bas.e.m.e.nt is pa.s.s-code protected.'

Shielding their eyes from the breaking rain, they looked up at the hotel, as arrogant and imposing as a battleship.

'Looks like more than twenty rooms, plus a fire escape and a bas.e.m.e.nt exit,' said Bimsley.

'The second and third floors are accessible by a small side entrance round the corner, but the manager keeps the gate locked. If he's in there, Pellew's only escape route is down through the bar and out the front, or down the rear fire escape.'

'How do you want to do this?'

'You two, cover the floors above. Arthur, you're staying on the ground floor. The bar staff are ready to close the main doors once we're inside. I'll get the fire escape.'

'No-one except the manager sees what we're doing, understood?' said Bryant. 'If Pellew is panicked into running again, he may hurt someone or try to take a hostage. There's no way of getting all the drinkers outside without tipping him off.

Don't forget that he's armed with the kind of weapon we may not even notice him discharging.' He struggled to unlock his recalcitrant seat belt. 'For heaven's sake get me out of this b.l.o.o.d.y thing, John.'

They went in. 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, it's mobbed!' said Meera. 'What's going on?'

'Charity match,' a punter shouted back. 'Charlton Athletic.'

Just as she asked, a mighty cheer went up. The crowd was watching their local team charge across a luminous emerald screen.

'You know what he looks like; shut everyone else out of your vision and concentrate on his face,' said May. 'The birth-mark makes him stand out.'

On the narrow sepia-wallpapered second floor, Bimsley ran forward with the manager, a slender Asian man armed with a fat bunch of master keys for the rooms. 'We've hardly anyone staying here at the moment,' he explained, 'certainly no-one fit-ting your description. There's a service room at the end, a storeroom and another guest bedroom, but we've stopped renting it out because it's got some damp problems.'

'Open it up.'

The room smelled of wet wood, old newspapers, standing water. Black stalact.i.tes crawled down the discoloured plaster cornicing of vines and grapes. A reproduction of a painting, a black boy in a golden turban, leaned against the mantelpiece. It would have been an attractive piece until one considered it against John Julius Angerstein's background. There was no sleeping bag this time, though, no cigarette b.u.t.ts, no ampoule boxes, no sign of habitation at all.

'What else have you got?'

'Laundry room on the floor below. There's another small room beside it where the linens are kept.'

They moved lightly down the fire stairs and checked each room. Bimsley made a supreme effort not to crash into any-thing. There was no sign of human occupancy except a few muddy sneaker prints, an empty pack of gum, and a crumpled piece of notepaper which Bimsley pocketed.

And yet there was something, a disturbance in the stillness of the atmosphere, a faint trail of warmth that was enough to tip off an experienced officer that the room had been recently entered.

'He's around here somewhere.' Bimsley sniffed the stale air as if picking up spoor. 'I'll put money on it.'

In the raucous bar the game had reached halftime, and the punters were heading back to order more beers.

Bryant leaned against a table and studied the crowd. His fingers were closed around the cell phone in his right pocket. After years of dropping them down toilets and reversing over them in his Mini Cooper, he had finally managed to keep one in working order. He watched and waited.

There was a high shriek at the corner of the bar, but the cry dropped and curled into hysterical laughter. A collective roar went up from a pride of males. Someone else shouted to mates across the room. Bryant peered through the scrum, watching the behaviour of the pack, the pa.s.sing of pints over heads, the bellowed orders, the arms rested on shoulders, the hands pressed against backs, the fingers raised to catch the barman's attention.

The barman.

The c.o.c.ky little sod, Bryant thought. He can't actually be working here! But was it Pellew, though? As the man behind the bar turned, no crimson birthmark was revealed. His complexion was quite clear. There was no mistaking his profile, however, or the feral wariness of his eyes, like the dim and dying light within a man suffering from a serious physical illness.

He's watching the crowd too, Bryant thought. Why is he doing that? Surely he's not thinking of taking a victim here, in front of all these people? Yes, he told himself, because he wants to be seen. He wants so badly to be stopped that there's no other course of action left open to him.

Their eyes locked, and in the brief exchange of recognition, Pellew bolted.

The counter flap banged up in a crash of gla.s.ses and suddenly he was shouldering his way forward into the human forest.

Bryant flipped open his phone and hit Redial, knowing that the call sign would trigger his partner's return. He made his way toward Pellew, pushing drinkers aside with his stick.

One of the other barmen was standing in front of the door, blocking it, suddenly aware of fast movement. A stool rose above heads, wavered and was thrown, smashing the largest window in the saloon.

He saw Pellew's back and shoulders rising above the a.s.sembly as he climbed up onto a table, heard the crunch of gla.s.s as he vaulted out into the street. The others were arriving now, and all h.e.l.l was kicking upa"the crowd startled into action, the barman getting shoved aside, the main door slamming backa"and then they were out on the road running after him.

Bryant could not keep up, and leaned against the wall trying to catch his breath as Bimsley shouted for their suspect to stop.

Meera had been on her way down the stairs when Pellew made his move. Now she too was outside, sprinting after him as he hammered around the corner into Westerdale Road, not realising that he had blundered into a cul-de-sac created by the motorway ahead.

As she closed in fast behind him, she thought, Where can he go? Into one of the houses? She was drawing neck and neck with Bimsley when Pellew flung himself at the pebble-dashed concrete slabs of the motorway wall. She knew that if he managed to cross the six lanes to its far side, he would be home free.

'Colin, no,' she called as the DC showed no signs of slowing down. 'You'll get killed!'

She knew he could hear her but would not stop, and watched in horror as he too jumped at the wall, curling his broad hands over the edge, swinging his legs to one side and hauling himself to the top before vanishing over the other side.

Colin found himself facing the Friday night rush-hour traffica"three lanes of headlights and three beyond that of tail-lights, racing into the city dusk. Ahead, one lane in, Pellew had lurched to a stop amid honking horns, teetering on the broken line, waiting to run again. If he managed to vault the wall on the far side, he'd hit the railway embankment, which branched and ran for miles in a mult.i.tude of directions.

Having been diagnosed with DSA, the hereditary disease that caused diminished spatial awareness, Bimsley was the wrong man to be dodging speeding cars. The ground always seemed further away from him than it was, and when he walked down a pa.s.sage he had to concentrate on not blunder-ing into the walls. Now he needed to judge the relative speeds of six lanes of vehicles, and allow enough time to run across the tarmac between them.

Pellew, on the other hand, was a natural. He avoided launching himself into the paths of trucks, knowing that they would try to brake slowly to avoid shifting their loads. Instead he concentrated on the mid-sized family roadsters that sold themselves on safety features, anti-skid devices and superior braking power. He reached the central divide with ease and hopped the steel barrier to do the same on the other side.

As Meera watched with her heart in her mouth, Bimsley windmilled his arms and threw himself across two lanes at once. Vehicles swerved desperately around him.

He had decided that his only way of making it through alive would be to reduce his peripheral vision, so, with his eyes now partially shut, he lumbered toward the central divide and tried not to listen to the sound of squealing brakes.

Pellew was on the move again, pausing, darting, timing his bursts of energy, nimbly bypa.s.sing a Sainsbury's truck as Bimsley reached the middle barrier.

Only one more lane. Pellew drew breath and lurched for-ward once more. This time, he failed to spot the car that the truck had just overtaken. As he glanced back at Bimsley, who was making a dash directly at him, Pellew was. .h.i.t full-on by a new silver Mercedes sedan.

Pellew's body rose and smashed against the windscreen before bouncing away into the path of cars in the slow lane, where he was. .h.i.t a second and third time.

One of the swerving vehicles winged Bimsley, flipping him around and hurling him back onto the central divide.

He landed hard against the corrugated steel barrier, but this time he had the good sense to stay until the other officers arrived.

32.

PIGMENTATION.

T.

hese days, Arthur Bryant seemed to be spending more and more time in hospital, less for himself than to visit others. So many of his friends had reached the age where their ailments required overnight stays rather than a mere course of pills. This evening, he had Bimsley in one ward getting his ribs bandaged and his left tarsals strapped into an ankle brace, Longbright sleeping off the effects of her poisoning in a nearby bed and Anthony Pellew downstairs in the morgue. Their suspect's legs had been shattered by the first impact, but his skull had been crushed by the second, and he had died in seconds. Although the traffic had been moving at a fairly swift pace, none of the drivers had ended up joining them in the wards.

Bryant shambled through the ward looking for Bimsley, pulling back curtains and frightening patients. 'Ah, there you are,' he said. 'The shop was out of grapes so I brought you a hat.' He tossed a baseball cap that read WORLD'S BEST MUM on Bimsley's bed and plonked himself down beside it.'Oh, and something for you to read.' He fished out his dog-eared paperback of An Informal History of the Black Death. 'You'll be up on your feeta"or at least, foota"in a day or two. You were b.l.o.o.d.y lucky.'

'If you call getting hit by the wing mirror of a Ford Mondeo lucky,' Bimsley complained. 'It couldn't have been a Ferrari, could it?'

'If it had been, you might not be here. What's the damage?'

'My hip's pretty bashed up, some torn ligaments, one broken rib, left ankle sprained, some surface cuts.'