Bryant & May - The Burning Man (46 page)

‘Probably not true,’ said Banbury. ‘There’s a very sophisticated face-recognition programme—’

‘Shut up, Dan,’ said Bryant. ‘Monica is what they call a super-recognizer. They only have to see someone once. The second time they spot the same face, they know exactly where they saw it before. Monica remembers faces with such accuracy that her hit rate beats DNA evidence. She discovered her ability quite by accident, and now she’s allowed to visit VIIDO.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Bimsley.

‘God, I can’t remember what it stands for,’ Bryant said. ‘John?’

‘The Visual Images Identification and Detections Office at Charing Cross,’ said May obligingly.

‘Monica’s one of two hundred super-recognizers currently helping the MPS to identify faces in crowds,’ Bryant explained. ‘And she found an unmasked face for me. Actually, she found dozens of them. Some were troublemakers who were just wading from one police confrontation to another; others were mere bystanders who enjoyed gawking at the riots from a safe distance.’ He wet his lips with a sip from his glass. Before the meeting, he had instructed Meera to break out a bottle of Chinese gin that Land had been given by his local takeaway last Christmas.

‘So I had Monica’s faces, the ones that were common to many of the photographs, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Then I watched the TV footage again. The major channels were showing the same loops of film over and over again. I had a rough description of who we were looking for. He was tall, strong, broad-shouldered, early thirties – but then I remembered where that description came from: the shots from Jonathan De Vere’s car park, when somebody broke into his Mercedes. We’d only assumed it was the arsonist. But if it was, what was he after? I couldn’t make sense of it. Then, tonight, poor old Raymondo here told me that Darren Link said something odd to him: “We’ve been monitoring you from the beginning.” That’s when I realized.’ He eyed each of them in turn. ‘We’d been frustrating Link at every point in the investigation, so he was conducting his own covert reconnaissance. One of his lads went a bit too far looking for evidence, and broke into De Vere’s vehicle. Dan has now managed to pull some shots of him leaving the car park. It’s definitely one of Link’s plods.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Longbright. ‘What did he get from the car?’

‘Nothing. You also lost some statements from your desk, didn’t you? Link was clumsily trying to gather intelligence. But all he did was put the wrong image in my head. Which is why I didn’t spot who we should have been looking for until it was too late. John?’ He indicated that May should take the floor.

‘We wondered if Weeks, Hall, De Vere, Leach, Papis and Cornell had all met at one point in their lives,’ said May. ‘We thought if they had all visited the same bars or clubs we might find a pattern. But there was nothing. How could there be no connection at all?’

‘You ain’t half dragging this out,’ Meera complained. ‘Do you know what the time is?’

Bimsley raised Land’s bottle of Shanghai Blossom-Taste Happy Dry Gin. ‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked.

She glared at him. ‘No. Do you want a smack in the mouth?’

May called for quiet. ‘For me, there was one question we hadn’t asked ourselves: Why couldn’t we find this guy? All these terrible deaths and still no sign of him? No prints, no forensic track, nothing. During the briefing Raymondo said something important.’

‘I did?’ said Land, looking surprised.

‘He said, “It’s as if he doesn’t exist.” And of course that was the answer. He didn’t exist.’

‘This is driving me mad,’ said Meera, rising. ‘Either you tell us—’ Everyone forced her back into her seat.

‘The TV footage,’ said Bryant, taking the reins once more. ‘Monica didn’t just spot a face, she spotted a physical movement. A man moving through the crowds, short but strong, with a pronounced limp. She spotted Freddie Weeks.’

Colin Bimsley spat an ice cube into his glass.

‘One of the few things we knew about our arsonist was that he was comfortable working with metals,’ said Bryant. ‘It never crossed our minds to ask what Freddie’s father, Gerry Weeks, did for a living. He runs die-cutters in a machine shop. He had the boy apprenticed to him for a while, but Freddie hated it. The man we found on the steps of the Findersbury Bank was so badly burned that he was identified by the serial-numbered titanium implant in his foot. Freddie made a duplicate of his own implant. He had a plan, but to carry it out he first had to erase his own identity. He befriended a homeless man of roughly the same size and age, gave him some money and his watch, and asked him to perform a favour: check himself in as Freddie Weeks at the Clerkenwell Green hostel, then sleep on the steps of the Findersbury Bank.

‘And that’s where he made a mistake. Because although the CCTV camera at Crutched Friars recorded an image of a man sleeping rough, it also picked up Weeks when he went to the entrance the first time, before throwing the Molotov cocktail. And he had to go there to leave the implant rod at the site. Of course, there were risks involved. He had no way of making certain that the body would be sufficiently burned, and there were other variables. But he kept an eye on them, and did a damned good job of covering his tracks. Of course, he had the rioters to help him do that. We still don’t know the name of the homeless man who died in his place. Unfortunately, when Weeks “killed” himself he didn’t mean it to look like murder, and accidentally became his own suspect, which convinced us to start looking for him.’

‘So where is he now?’ asked Renfield.

‘For that you have to understand Weeks’s mindset,’ Bryant answered. ‘His revenge was personal, and the sense of empowerment it gave him made him realize that he could take revenge for
everyone
out there. He was physically strong, driven and smart. We knew his mother had discovered religion, but never thought to ask her about it. She’d become a Catholic, just like her son. Freddie Weeks suddenly saw how everything might fit a pattern. The Catholic–Protestant conflicts of the past fed directly into his warped world view of turmoil, protest and conflagration. Having kidnapped Cornell and set up the camera to film him, he headed for the coast. And he had one last message for the police: “Follow me and you’ll get burned.” He nearly killed one of our best officers tonight.’

‘If Weeks wanted to fire up the rioters, why did he leave Cornell alive?’ Colin asked.

‘Because he decided that letting him live would make everyone even angrier.’ Bryant stifled a yawn. ‘They’ve been cheated of their revenge.’

‘We’ll find him now,’ said May with certainty. ‘Weeks got Cornell to give him his credit card PIN numbers, but Cornell managed to flag them. Never mess with a captain of industry.’

‘We haven’t caught him yet,’ said Meera, unimpressed.

Six days later, Freddie Weeks was arrested in southern Spain, having used his old passport to enter the country. He had managed to draw out a little of Cornell’s cash, but by this time Karin Scott had identified Michael Flannery, the man Weeks had befriended, thanks to a series of coincidences so fortuitous that they could have constituted an entirely separate, credulity-stretching chapter in Mr Bryant’s memoirs. Weeks was finally confronted by a very nervous policeman in a tapas bar in Plaça Reial, Barcelona.

Weeks was returned to London and brought to PCU headquarters for questioning. He was tanned, short and indifferent of feature, with prematurely thinning brown hair. He twisted as he walked, but to make up for the weakness in his foot, his arms were thick and powerful. For the rest of the day he remained slumped half-asleep in the interview room, bored by the formality of the proceedings. He accepted state representation and resented any delay, clearly blunted by the thought of all that lay ahead. When he finally spoke he showed no emotion and expressed little interest in explaining himself. Next to him a plastic pail plinked, steadily filling with rainwater, marking away the hours.

‘I knew that without an identity, I could do whatever I wanted,’ he said at one point, sprawled in his chair before the detectives.

‘And what did you want?’ asked May.

‘To burn everyone who wrecked my life.’

‘According to your parents you were a bright, politically committed pupil at school,’ said Bryant.

Weeks gave a derisive grunt. ‘Working hard and being clever isn’t enough any more, is it? I had ideas. I came up with a money-maker that could give something back to the community. It was called CharityMob. I pitched it to Glen Hall and he took it to Jon De Vere, who liked it so much he stole the concept. I didn’t give up. I tried to go it alone, and borrowed from Frank Leach’s loan company. But then Leach doubled the interest and I couldn’t pay it back. It should have been simple. Do some good; get a reward. Instead I got shafted, like everybody else.’

‘What about Joanna Papis?’

Another grunt. ‘The moment I needed her most, she dumped me. I lost my future, my flat, my girl, everything. I was broke, I owed money and someone got rich from my idea. Every time I turned on the TV, I saw them: all the other poor bastards who’d been cheated, just like me.’

‘You make it sound as if they were all working together.’

‘That’s what it felt like.’

‘So you waited until the time was right, when Dexter Cornell sparked a riot,’ said May.

‘I don’t feel bad about it,’ Weeks said. ‘Why should I? None of them showed me any kindness. They deserved what they got.’

‘But you didn’t kill Cornell.’

Weeks shrugged. ‘He hadn’t done anything bad to me.’

‘Neither had Michael Flannery.’

‘Don’t you know the first rule of revenge? An innocent has to suffer. Besides, Flannery was a loser. At least he proved himself useful to the cause. I did what was right. I took action. I did what everyone should do.’

He said no more after that. The charges were duly filed. For Bryant, there was little satisfaction to be gained from hearing Weeks’s confession. His crimes had roots that would remain for years to come. There would be other men like Weeks, and perhaps they would not be stopped. As much as Bryant loved his city, he was ashamed of the way in which it shamelessly encouraged the greed of others, crushing those who found life a struggle. Once, he too had been one of those young men.

John May was as good as his word. He collected Blaize Carter in his silver BMW, which impressed her, and took her to the Szechuan restaurant in the Shard, where they could study the whole of London spread out below them. She had selected an elegant dark outfit for the evening and looked beautiful but slightly awkward, as if she’d been invited to a fancy-dress party.

‘So what happens now?’ she asked. ‘Do you just sit back and wait for another case?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Everyone else is claiming the responsibility for catching Weeks. There’ll be a post-mortem, and we’ll be blamed for failing to stop him earlier. And now that our bosses know about Arthur’s health condition, they’ll want him out of the unit as quickly as possible.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Someone has to look after him.’ May traced his toothpick across the tablecloth. ‘He always goes a bit vague after we close an investigation, but this time he’s changed almost overnight. It’s as if it used up his last ounce of strength. But I have to be there for him. I can’t imagine going on alone. I don’t know what I’d do without him.’

‘You need your own life as well,’ Blaize reminded him.

‘That’s what anyone I’ve ever got close to has said. I had a French girlfriend for a while, completely crazy but fun to be with. She hated Arthur, complained about him all the time. She said, “The trouble is, there are three of us in this relationship.” Then she left, and he was still there.’

‘What if you had to decide?’

‘That’s a really mean question.’

‘But it’s one that must be in some people’s heads.’

‘I’ve gone too far down this road to change my priorities now, Blaize.’

‘That’s what I figured,’ she said, finishing her glass and catching the eye of the waiter. ‘It’s been a lovely evening but I have to go. I have an early start in the morning.’

Afterwards, he wondered about the conversation, and whether he had missed a chance that might never come back.

John May thought about a lot of things that night. Now that the drifting cinders of rebellion had burned themselves out, it felt as if deep and lasting change was in the air. The events of the past had a habit of closing off their chapters and filing themselves away with times, dates and brief descriptions, as though they knew they would one day be required by historians.

And what would historians write of the Peculiar Crimes Unit? That it was another eccentric English institution populated by the sort of strange characters who’d worked at Bletchley Park? Would they recall the incendiary history of the unit and its founders, how they’d deciphered the hidden cryptography of London’s most elusive mysteries, and how it had involved blowing themselves up in the process?
It really was a hell of a blast
, thought May as he lay in bed, remembering how his partner had managed to detonate staff headquarters and accidentally initiate a new phase in the life of the unit.
Only Arthur could manage to advance all their careers by killing himself at the outset.