The Victoria Vanishes Part 3

'Don't you remember, you came around to my house with a ginger kitten in your overcoat pocket, said you'd found it on Battersea Bridge and that its name was Bunthorne. You left it with me and never returned to pick it up. Popping in for half an hour, you said.'

'My dear chap, I'm so frightfully sorry, I forgot all abouta"' 'Oh, don't worry.' Masters waved the thought away with long pale fingers. 'He's been a great comfort to me since my wife died.'

'Oh, I didn't knowa"'

'Well, how could you? Honestly, this rain, hold on.' He flapped the great umbrella as he closed it, drenching them both. 'I'm incredibly late. Want to sit in on my talk about Mithras and the Romans? Oh.' He stopped abruptly again. This time he had been brought up short by a mounted sign at the top of the steps that read Today's Lectures Have Been Cancelled. Apparently a burst water pipe in the gents' toilets had caused Camden's Health & Safety Department to close the public speaking room until further notice. 'Well, it looks as though you have me all to yourself,' said Masters. 'What is it you want to know about the blood of Christ?'

They queued for tea beneath the astonishing gla.s.s canopy of the Great Courtyard and seated themselves in a quiet, shad-owed corner. Bryant dug into his overcoat and produced a sheaf of wrinkled paperwork.

Dr Masters was the one man he knew who might be able to answer his questions. The ambitious academic belonged to a group of intellectual misfits who went by the nickname of the Insomnia Squad. They regularly stayed up all night arguing about everything from Arthurian fellowships and Islamic mythology to the semiotics of old Superman comics. Most of them were barely able to hold down regular jobs, and tended to drift away from their target research like wisps of autumn smoke, but Masters was driven by obsessive curiosity and the desire to improve and repair the world, even if it killed every-one in the process. Academics could be so blind sometimes.

'I was recently researching the city's social panics and out-breaks of ma.s.s hysteria,' he told Bryant. 'I'm surprised you didn't come to me when you were searching for the Highwayman. I'd have been able to give you some pointers.' A few months earlier, the Peculiar Crimes Unit had conducted a search for a killer dressed in a tricorn hat and riding boots who had caught the public's imagination.

'Actually, it was while we were conducting that investigation that I came across references to a local street gang known as the Saladins,' Bryant explained, sipping his tea. 'Extraordinary that a bunch of uneducated kids could name themselves after a nine-hundred-year-old legend.' Over the years, Bryant had become an accidental expert on the arcane history of London.

'So you know that after Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187, his Knights Hospitallers survived in the district of Clerkenwell?'

'I've been reading about it, yes. I presume the kids we inter-viewed had accidentally stumbled across some local history.'

'I don't know how you find the time to study this sort of thing when you've got a full-time job in the police. Well, the knights were stripped of their properties and income by Henry the Eighth, during the dissolution of the monasteries. But they stayed in the area. They based themselves near the Gothic arch of St John's Gate, a place of profound religious mystery. At the hospital and priory church of St John of Jerusalem, to be precise, where injured Crusaders were cared for. You still find cafes and bars in Clerkenwell bearing their name.'

Bryant unfurled his paperwork with a flourish. 'I did a little research. Listen to this. On October the third, 1247, the leader of the Knights Templars presented King Henry the Third with a six-inch-long lead-crystal pot marked with the symbol of the knights, a red-and-white cross-hilt, said to contain the blood of Christ, the ultimate relic of the Crucifixion. Its authenticity was confirmed by a separate scroll holding the seals of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, signed by all the prelates of the Holy Land. The vial was held in a box carved with the chevron of the arms of the Prior Robert De Manneby, an ancient pattern taken from the priory window of Saint John, the first baron of England.'

'Yes, yes.' Masters coloured with impatience.

'And all of the other tantalising snippets, like the letters XPISK marked on the container, and the supposed decanting of the vial that resulted in the deaths of five prelates. Who'd have thought that the true heart of the Crusades would lie in Clerkenwell, just up the road? Would you like a biscuit?' Bryant produced a squashed packet of lemon puffs from his coat pocket and set it down between them.

'I didn't know they still made these,' Masters remarked, pulling one from the packet. 'It's all unverifiable stuff, you know. I've heard the story many times before. Some students came to me insisting that the vial was lodged beneath the floorboards of the Jerusalem Tavern, Farringdon, which would be all very well if the pub hadn't been built on the site of an eighteenth-century clockmaker's shop. I told them then that even if it did exist, it would probably contain germs that would be potentially fatal to the city's present-day citizens. I mean good G.o.d, they had the Black Death back then. I'm not disputing the existence of a vial of blood, even if one ignores cur-rent thinking that suggests Jesus was most likely an invention of the Romans. Why are you so interested, anyway?'

'Oh, I hate loose ends.' It wasn't much of an explanation, but it was the best Bryant could muster. 'Sorry, I have a bit of a hangover. We laid our pathologist to rest yesterday. It's funny that so many of the cases we've been involved with lately have involved historical artefacts.'

'Of course there was a time when you couldn't move for religious relics,' said Masters. 'The prior Roger De Vere gave the church of Clerkenwell one of the six pots Christ used to turn water into wine. It supposedly had transformational properties. This is the point where religion crosses into magic.'

'There's something I don't understand about religious relics. I mean, there have been splinters and nails from the true cross knocking about for millennia, all of them fake, and even if the vial of blood had been "verified"a"by what means we'll never knowa"what made it so much more special?'

Masters raised his bushy eyebrows knowingly. 'If you'll for-give the phrase, it's considered to be the holy grail of relics. John, chapter six, verses fifty-three to fifty-four: Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. The blood of Christ covers, cleanses and consecrates. It's nothing less than the gateway to the Kingdom of Heaven, the elixir to the realm of the everlasting. And I suppose you want to know whether this fabled prize might still exist.'

'Well, it would be rather interesting to find out, don't you think?' said Bryant, somewhat understating the case.

'I daresay it would,' Masters admitted, 'although I think I can save you a lot of unnecessary pain by stating categorically right now that the vial vanished long ago.'

'How can you be sure?'

'Please, my dear Arthur, the priories and monasteries were all burned to the ground and their contents destroyed. Their bas.e.m.e.nts were dug up, their tombs desecrated until nothing more than dust was left, and even that was carted off to King's Cross for sale to the Russians. Don't you think we'd have heard about something like this?'

'London's greatest treasures have always been carefully hidden whenever the city has been under threat. We know that Catholicism survived dissolution. Surely an item such as that vial would have been protected by the most powerful holy men in the land.'

'You might as well conduct a search for Atlantis.' Masters sighed. 'When it comes to the lost icons of antiquity, you have a gullible buyers' market and plenty of unscrupulous salesmen willing to feed it. We all want to believe. Look at the experts' willingness to ignore the implausibilities in the forged diaries of Hitler and Jack the Ripper. These days it's easier to manufacture something more recent, like a missing session from a rock band or the diary of a dead celebrity. They won't add much to the comprehension of the human condition, but they'll make someone's fortune on the grey market. Trust me, Arthur, the trail has had eight centuries to grow cold. Ask yourself where such an item could have been kept without disturbance and you'll realise the absurdity of it. There are plenty of easier things to find in London than Christ's blood, and even if it did survive, it wouldn't still be in Clerkenwell.'

'Well, thanks for the advice,' said Bryant, pinching his hat from the table.'I'd better go and find Oswald.'

'Call me sometime, we'll go out for a spot of lunch,' said Masters, who had become more reclusive since the death ofhis wife. 'There are all sorts of things we should talk about.'

Bryant gave a little wave as he stumped out of the Great Courtyard. In the long winter months of his retirement, there would be plenty of time for old men to sit and set the world to rights.

8.

INTRODUCTIONS.

Time-Out Guide to London's Secret Buildings: Number 34 Peculiar Crimes Unit Camden Road, North London Housed behind the arched, scarlet-tiled windows above Mornington Crescent tube station, this specialist murder investigation unit has been instrumental in solving many of the capital's most notorious crimes. Founded during the Second World War to handle cases that could prove embarra.s.sing to the government, it has continued operation right up to the present day. The unit now falls under the jurisdiction of the Home Office, which is attempting to make it more publicly accountable, and so its days are probably numbered. The PCU's unorthodox operating methods were highlighted in a recent BBC doc.u.mentary that criticised the conduct of its eccentric senior detectives for their willingness to use illegal information-gathering procedures in the preparation of their cases.

Sergeant Janice Longbright threw the magazine onto her kitchen table. More unwarranted publicity, she thought. At least this time the journalist had not gone into detail about the kind of informants Mr Bryant sporadically pressed into service at the PCU. No mention of the pollen readers and water diviners, the necromancers and psychics, the conspiracy theorists and eco-warriors, the mentally estranged, socially disenfranchised, delusional, disturbed and merely very odd people he asked to help out on pet cases, which was a blessing. How many times had they been threatened with closure? She realised now that instead of the axe suddenly falling, the PCU was to be slowly strangled to death with red tape.

She tapped the keyboard wedged on the corner of her sunflower-laminate breakfast table and stared gloomily at her computer's empty mailbox. A month ago, she had posted her profile on an Internet dating Web site, but so far there had not been a single taker. She wondered if she had been too honest, her tastes too quirky. Surely there were others whose interests coincided with hers, men who liked criminology, burlesque and film stars of the 1950s? She bent down and scuffed Crippen behind his nicked, floppy ear. The little black-and-white cat purred, coughed, then hacked up a hairball. Great, she thought, everyone's a critic. She only brought the unit's cat home when she was feeling particularly lonely, but this morning even Crippen's presence had not helped.

Going into the hall, she found her doormat similarly bare of letters. She thought someone might have remembered that it was her birthday, but it was half-past ten, and the postman had been and gone. This is the world I've created for myself, she thought, looking about the patchily painted Highgate flat. Three rented rooms above a charity shop overlooking a roundabout. No partner, no family still on speaking terms, hardly any friends, only a manky old cat here that no-one else wants to look after. Her former boyfriend was about to get married to someone else, but for her there was no love interest even remotely on the horizon.

She knew what the trouble was; she had given her best years to the Peculiar Crimes Unit. While other women of her age were presumably still enjoying romantic dinners and illicit weekends, she was usually to be found working late at the offices above Mornington Crescent tube station, correlating the case histories of violent killers. It wasn't very appealing to tell a date you'd have to meet him at the restaurant because you were waiting for fingerprints to come in from a severed hand. She sighed, pushing back a thick coil of bleached hair, and was heading for the kitchen to wash up her single breakfast dish when the doorbell rang.

The courier looked far too young to be allowed near a motorcycle, but he was holding the largest bunch of yellow roses she had ever seen. A silver-edged card read: Happy birthday from your greatest admirers a"Arthur Bryant & John May It was the first time the detectives had ever sent her something on her birthday. Her colleagues remained her oldest and closest friends. She smiled at the thought, but as she unwrapped the roses and placed them in water, a green thorn plucked at the flesh of her thumb, and a single crimson droplet fell onto a silky yellow petal.

Raymond Land had a.s.sembled them all in the unit's main briefing room. His staff stood before him in two untidy rows. n.o.body wanted to sit on the garish orange Ikea sofa because Crippen had been sick on it and the velour was still damp.

Renfield stood beside his new boss like a Christian missionary waiting to deliver a sermon before a tribe of delinquent heathens.

'I thought we could take this opportunity of introducing ourselves to Sergeant Renfield,' said Land jovially. 'Perhaps each of us would like to say something in turn about who we are and what we do, just to break the ice.'

Bimsley turned a snort of derision into a wet cough.

'Starting with you, Colin. Stand up, please.' Land glared at him. Bimsley's pupils shrank in antic.i.p.ation of conjuring any-thing to say. As the silence lengthened, Meera poked him sharply below the ribs.

'Colin Bimsley,' said Colin Bimsley. 'Detective Constable, which means I do the heavy lifting around here. I requested the posting to the PCU because my dad was in the unit and taught me all about the place when I was a nipper. I've still got his old uniform. I also inherited his balance problem, which has now been diagnosed as DSA, that's Diminished Spatial Awareness, which means I occasionally misjudge distances and bash into things. Mr Bryant and Mr May offered me a desk job, but I didn't want to let them down.'

'So instead he falls down steps and off roofs, and runs into lampposts when he's chasing criminals,' said Meera, not with-out a hint of affection.

'I've got three major topics of conversationa"law enforcement, football and science fictiona"but I've read Bleak House and can tell a hawk from a handsaw. And that's me for you.' Bimsley sat down.

'Mangeshkar, you're next.' Land's glare intensified.

'I grew up on the Peckham estate back when it was really a mess,' Meera told Renfield. 'I got into the force and was packed off to dumping grounds like Dagenham, Kilburn and Deptford. They figured I knew the territory, and I was as tough as anyone on the estates. It wasn't working with junkies and nutters that got to me, so much as the endless self-deception. Kids who thought they were going to turn their lives around, parents who insisted their kids could do no wrong, social workers who completely misread situations. If I'd just wanted to work with the poor I'd have joined a charity organisation. I wasn't there to change lives; I was a copper, not an evangelist. Does it make sense to say that I came here looking for a more productive form of police work?' She stared down at her hands, as if expecting to find the answer there. 'I thought I could learn more in criminal investigation. Maybe I am, I don't know.'

'Hm.' Land had been hoping for more of a career precis, but now it felt as though he was taking confession. 'April, I hope you can explain what you do here, because I'm b.u.g.g.e.red if I know.'

April glanced guiltily at her boss. She was aware that her grandfather had pet.i.tioned Land to hire her, and despite showing great promise in her first month at the unit, still felt as though she did not belong among professional criminologists.'Well,' she began softly, 'I'm just here to help out. I'm good at putting things together.'

'What does that mean?' asked Renfield. 'What field of expertise did you train in?'

'I have no formal training, but the Scarman Centre at Leicester University advocated the hiring of non-professionals in specialist criminology units, and Mr May asked me to join the PCU.'

'You mean your grandfather invited you in. Jobs for all the family, eh?'

'Give her a break, Renfield,' said Longbright. 'The girl is b.l.o.o.d.y good. She collates information and a.s.sembles it, together with forensic evidence, witness reports, timelines, data a.n.a.lysis and profiling strategy, and she does it instinctively. Could you do that?'

It was obvious to Renfield that the rest of the unit was prepared to defend May's grandchild. It was now common knowledge that her mother had been killed in the line of duty, and that April suffered intermittent bouts of agoraphobia as a result. She was thin and ethereally pale; a strong wind might blow her away. Was this fragile woman really the kind of person a specialist crime unit should be employing?

'Let's move on to Mr Kershaw,' Land suggested hopefully.

'I suppose I'm the odd man out,' Kershaw began, thoughtfully tucking a shaving of lank blond hair behind his right ear. 'Giles Kershaw, twenty-eight, single, can't imagine why, ha-ha. I went to Eton, which left my parents as impoverished as church mice but granted them a sense of genetic superiority over the st.u.r.dy farming stock in their parish. The police force is no place for the well-educated, let me tell you. I was studying to be a biochemist when I became fascinated with the morphology of death, which pretty much put my s.e.x life on hold. I've been under the tutelage of Mr Bryant and Mr May for long enough to appreciate the uniqueness of this unit, and the utter foolishness of attempts by the Home Office to close us down. Oh, and I'm your new pathologist.'

'Mr Banbury?'

Dan Banbury had pa.s.sed his formative years in an East End bedroom sprawled across a mauve candlewick bedspread, angrily punching a laptop connected to several thousand pounds' worth of computer equipment. From this unprepossessing cable-festooned site he penetrated enough security loopholes to bring himself to the attention of a forensic team specialising in high-tech fraud. However, he escaped prosecution after citing the case of Onel De Guzman, the twenty-four-year-old Filipino student at AMACC who evaded prison despite having released the world's most destructive computer virus. The police were so impressed with his defence that they asked him to check their own security system, and Banbury found himself studying on the right side of the law. It was hard to imagine that anyone so bright could have so few communication skills.

'Dan Banbury, the unit's IT guy and crime scene manager,' he said simply, stepping forward. 'I trained in technology forensics and photography, I've operated in major incident agencies sorting data recordings and I've done a lot of on-site work. People think only planes have black boxes, but anything with a microprocessor will leave a data print, and these days that includes everything from trains to washing machines. But sometimes you just want to go into a murder scene and work out who knocked over a chair.'

'And of course you know...'Land waved his hand vaguely in the direction of Longbright.

'Sergeant Janice Longbright. Mr Renfield knows me, sir. There's really nothing more to say.'

'Come, come, Janice. I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from each other.'

'You're right, sir. From studying Renfield's behaviour I learned how to cause a colleague's death through incompetence.' A cold intake of breath pa.s.sed through the room.

'I think that's a bit ad hominem, Janice, if you don't mind my saying so,' said John May. 'We've already been over this, and I know that Renfield feels very bad about the matter. He admitted acting wrongfully and is trying to put the events of last week behind him.' It seemed that the sergeant's failure to involve the hospital services after he discovered a body on the street would stay to haunt him.

'I'd like to suggest that coming here, to work among Oswald Finch's oldest friends, wasn't the smartest move he could have made.'

'I know how strongly you feel, Janice, but this unit will not survive if it is divided, so it's our dutya"'

'I don't think you need to lecture me on duty, John,' said Longbright angrily.

'She's right,' said Kershaw. 'Everyone knows Renfield's appointment is a trade-off for my promotion, and I'd rather step down than cause divisions within the unit.'

'You're causing a division just by offering,' Mangeshkar pointed out.

'This is exactly the kind of thing I expected to find here,' said Renfield.'I heard you lot couldn't organise a tug-of-war in a rope factory.'

Land could sense control sliding away from him, and raised his hands. 'There'll be plenty of time to get to know each other later,' he told them. 'So, Jacka"'

'n.o.body told me there was a meeting,' said Bryant, wandering in from the corridor billowing a bonfire-trail of acrid smoke from his pipe. 'What's going on? Did I miss a punch-up? Are there any doughnuts left?'

'You can't bring that filthy thing in here!' Land protested. 'I sent you an e-mail about smoking this morning.'

'Well, there's your problem, old sausage, I never read them. Hullo, Renfield, how are you getting on with your new team-mates? You can't expect an easy ride, you know. Not after what happened.'

'Where have you been?' asked May. 'You were supposed to be here an hour ago.'

'British Museum. Christ's blood,' said Bryant, explaining without enlightening. 'I'd like to say their Earl Grey exceeded expectations but I'd be lying.' He turned to address the group. 'Now, look, we all know Renfield here is a humourless pain in the derriere who wouldn't notice an ironic remark if you tied it to a stick and poked him in the eye with it, but I think that's one of his strengths. You might also know that his father was Sergeant Leonard Renfield, an old enemy of mine at the Met, and like his father, Jack has been denied promotion several times, for which he seems to blame my reports. But he has no axe to grind with any of you, and nor should you with him. It's early days, so let's start by drawing a line under the past and at least withholding judgement until a later date when we can all gang up on him properly. Most of the trouble between us is because the sergeant doesn't understand what we do, so now's our chance to show him.'

'You didn't have to say that,' said Renfield sulkily as the meeting broke up around them. 'I'm capable of speaking for myself.'

'I know you are.' Bryant smiled. 'But least said soonest mended on this occasion, I think.'

'Well.' May marvelled as his partner ambled past in a cloud of sweetbrier smoke. 'I see you've added diplomacy to your repertoire of talents, Arthur. You know we need all the allies we can get, and that Renfield has a lot of friends in the Met. You think if we get him on our side, he'll eventually spread the word and give us more power against the Home Office. You sly old dog.'

'Perhaps this is one dog you can teach new tricks,' said Bryant, daintily pirouetting the tip of his walking stick as he danced from the room.

9.

RANDOM ACTS OF SLAUGHTER.

W.

hose bright idea was it to bring Jack Renfield in here anyway?' asked Dan Banbury. Giles Kershaw was packing the last of his belongings into a plastic crate, preparing for his move to the Bayham Street Morgue, where he would be stationed at Oswald Finch's old post. 'Land's, apparently,' he answered. 'Part of the trade-off for allowing me to take over as pathologist. They're playing politics upstairs, trying to set you against me and undermine the working structure of the unit at the same time. The most con-founding thing you can do is make the new man welcome. If you express dissatisfaction, you'll be playing directly into their hands.'

'But what will happen to Janice? There's only room for one sergeant in this outfit, and she's got years of experience over him.'

'She'll have to work it out,' said Kershaw, tamping down the crate lid with impatience. As will you. Renfield's going to be sitting right here, at my old desk. Okay, I'm out of here. See you later, old sprout.' He threw Banbury a salute as he hoisted the final box onto his hip and backed awkwardly out of the door.

Banbury had once thought that he and Kershaw would become a team in the Bryant and May mould, their respective talents complementing each other, but now it was obvious that his former partner could not wait to take up his new position. Kershaw was coolly ambitious and openly contemptuous of those who stayed behind. With a sigh of regret, Banbury woke his monitor to examine the Dead Diary, Kershaw's nickname for the daily files listing those who died in unusual or suspicious circ.u.mstances in the Central London area.

It was Dan's job to pa.s.s on any new cases which he felt required the attention of his seniors. Today, the very first one on the list caught his eye. Bryant always asked for printouts, claiming that the computer screen hurt his eyes, so Banbury made a hard copy, collected the doc.u.ment and headed across the hall. As he did so, he collided with Bryant, who was carrying a full bowl of porridge.

'G.o.d, I'm sorry, sir.' Banbury brushed milk and oat flakes from his paperwork. 'I thought you'd want to see this.'

'Come into my office.' Bryant set down the bowl, took the papers from him and dug out his reading gla.s.ses, waving Banbury to the cankerous crimson leather armchair he kept for visitors. 'Sit down before you do any more damage. What am I looking at? Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question. The Dead Diary for Monday the twenty-sixth, a forty-six-year-old deceased woman named Carol Wynley, found at the corner of Whidbourne Street, Bloomsbury, died some time before mid-night. And this is of interest because...?'

'It's just that John told me you cut across Bloomsbury on the way home, and I wondered if you'da"'

'a"Added random acts of slaughter to my already controversial repertoire of activities?' Bryant completed. 'Sorry to disap-point you, Banbury, but no. Around thirteen thousand out-bursts of violence occur outside pubs and clubs in the UK every week.' He threw the papers back. 'Wait, show me that again.' He s.n.a.t.c.hed the printed photograph and re-examined it. 'Talk to Renfield. He'll know where they've taken her. If she's gone to Bayham Street, Kershaw will be about to get his first case.'