Bryant & May - The Burning Man (9 page)

‘We understand you had a row with this man?’ asked Colin, showing him the photograph.

Jamel nodded. ‘Yeah, it kind of came out of nowhere. I thought he was going to hit me.’

‘What was it about?’

‘Phone apps.’

‘Apps?’

‘I was sitting in the lounge just messing with my phone and I felt someone looking over my shoulder. He asked me what apps I was using, and I told him, and he just went off, shouting and acting all kind of crazy. Linda came along and threatened to throw him out.’

‘At first I thought he’d taken something,’ added Linda. ‘But he didn’t have the look, you know? After I warned him he calmed down very quickly, but it gave me a bit of a turn, seeing him blow up like that.’

‘Has something happened to him?’ Jamel asked.

‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ said Colin.

‘What happened?’

‘I can’t discuss the details. We need to establish his prior movements.’

Jamel looked aghast. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

‘Don’t worry, nobody’s saying it was. Did you have any other contact with him?’

‘We spoke a couple of times in the lounge, just casual stuff. He seemed fine then.’

‘Did he talk about his plans? Or mention anyone else? Anything you remember that would be useful?’

‘No, I don’t think so. As I said … Wait, something about his girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. A girl, anyway. He was waiting for her one evening.’

‘A girl. Anything else?’

‘I don’t think she was British.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know, something about “when she first came here”, something like that.’

‘Do you remember if anyone turned up to see him?’ Meera asked Linda.

‘Non-guests can only come into the lobby,’ the manager explained. ‘They’ve usually arranged to meet their friends down here, so there’s no reason why they would give us their names, or say who they’ve come to meet.’

After a few more questions Bimsley and Mangeshkar knew they’d gone as far as they could go, and took their leave. ‘At least now we know he had a girlfriend,’ said Colin as they headed back into the street. ‘I’ve no idea how we track her down.’

‘Suppose he met her here and they went somewhere nearby?’ Meera began. ‘Where are the nearest cheap eats?’

They tried pizza bars, Thai takeaways, pasta cafés, a McDonald’s and a Subway. After that they started on the pubs, hitting the Lady Ottoline, the Yorkshire Grey, the Blue Lion, the Calthorpe Arms, the Lamb and the Duke of York, but none of the bar staff recalled seeing Weeks. By the time they had doubled back to the Ship and the Enterprise, last orders were well and truly over and it was starting to rain again.

‘We’re not going to get anything more tonight,’ said Meera. ‘Do you need a lift?’

Bimsley hopped on and off the pavement, then stood on one leg for no particular reason. ‘Nah, I’m hungry. I think I’ll go and get a burger.’

‘Why don’t you find yourself a girlfriend?’ Meera asked.

‘’Cause I’m still waiting for you,’ he replied, as if the answer was obvious.

She touched his arm lightly. ‘Please, Colin, don’t. Not any more.’

‘Why not?’

She hesitated a moment before telling him, and in the gap he felt a chill. ‘My parents,’ she said. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. They’ve got someone lined up for me.’

Colin couldn’t believe what he had just heard. ‘I thought they were still trying to get your sister married off?’

‘They’ve sort of given up on that.’

‘So who is this bloke?’

‘A boy I used to know, Ryan Malhotra. He trained as a doctor and is going into private practice soon. He wasn’t seeing anyone serious while he was in med school, because he wanted to concentrate on his career. But now—’

‘What? Now you’re going to let your parents choose you a husband?’

‘Colin – I actually like him. I’ve known him all my life.’

She felt lousy telling him. Bimsley had the look of a man facing a burglar armed with a broken bottle. ‘So he suddenly decides he wants to get married and it suits your folks, and you’re just going to do what you’re told?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Then what is it like? Tough, independent, “I-can-do-it-myself” Meera, who never needs anyone else’s help, is going to start having babies to please her mum and dad.’

‘That’s unfair, Colin. You don’t understand the pressure I’m under, and Ryan’s a nice guy – he’s really nice. You’d like him.’

The fight had gone out of her, Colin thought. Normally she would have instantly punched back.

‘No, I wouldn’t like him. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’ he asked. ‘You know how I feel about you, how I’ve always felt.’

‘This isn’t about you. We’ve never been out together. I never said I would. I never, ever led you on, Colin.’

‘Yeah, I know. It’s not fair of me to put you on the spot. Fine. Well, I hope you’ll be very happy with your ambitious doctor. I’m going to do the late-night pubs around here. And I’m off-duty so I’ll be drinking.’ The rain was falling harder. Turning up his collar, Colin thrust his hands into his jacket pockets and stalked off along the street.

Meera watched him go, then went to collect her Kawasaki.

By midnight on Monday the few remaining small fires had been snuffed out by auxiliary units, assisted by the pounding rain, and most of the protestors had disbanded for the night, heading for any shelter they could find. There was talk that the weather had succeeded in clearing the streets where the police had failed. Perhaps that would be the end of it.

But on Tuesday morning, new reports about anarchy in the city quickly infected everyone’s mood. The detectives were frustrated by the paucity of leads, Dan Banbury was infuriated by the lack of evidence and Raymond Land was upset about having to cancel his holiday again.

An uneasy truce now held in the roads surrounding the Bank of England and the Findersbury Private Bank. Under advice from Superintendent Darren Link, the police had blocked off further routes with heavy steel barriers. Trains started delivering protestors from all over the country, and even though the authorities had begun checking European arrivals in London, conducting searches whenever flights landed and ferries docked, nothing had been done to stop their arrival from other ports of entry.

Link, who displayed an eschatological attitude about the riots that would have alarmed his bosses had they known, was working with the anti-terrorist squad to identify known activists and lift them off the streets before they had a chance to act. Ideally he would have liked to get each of them in a dark corner for a twenty-minute debrief with a blunt instrument, but senior eyes were watching him.

The weather forecast for Tuesday was at least partially fine, and with Dexter Cornell continuing to goad his adversaries by promising in TV interviews that he would not be intimidated into leaving the bank before he was good and ready, it now seemed likely that further violence would erupt in the next twenty-four hours.

In fact, a bizarre act of violence occurred soon after, but not in a way anyone had imagined, and not in the City’s Square Mile.

His muscles were sore and stiffening fast.

He had been working without light for the last two hours, dragging everything he needed up the steep staircase to the roof. The rising dust in the attic triggered his asthma, and he needed to sit quietly on the tiles for a while until he could catch his breath again.

He found he could see more clearly with the skylight propped open. It was never truly dark in the city. The heavy cloud layering the London sky was afflicted with a sickly jaundice that reflected light back. Below, the pitched-glass rooftops of Brixton Market snaked between the buildings, and he could see the traders arriving for the day. He smoked a cigarette, carefully pocketing the stub afterwards.

It was important to make sure that he could effect a fast escape. He knew that it would be tempting to stay and see what happened, but if he took too long they would quickly find a way to cut off his escape route. The old shops that lined the market were terraced, and he had paced out two separate exits across their gutters to fire escapes, back to pavement level. From there he could slip away through the crowds of morning shoppers, beneath the old brick arches on Electric Avenue. The pavements would work in his favour; they were among the most cluttered and impenetrable in London. Now all he had to do was wait for the target to arrive.

He thought about yesterday’s death. He’d been sorry to kill the boy but it seemed to him that in any great plan an innocent had to suffer. Sleeping rough was never without attendant risks, but to be burned alive … He forced himself to put the thought aside, remembering why Freddie Weeks had had to die. It was better to focus his hatred now and concentrate on humiliating his second victim in the most excruciating manner possible.

Heading back inside the attic, he checked on the camera and the electronic door buzzer, making sure he could take the small equipment with him when he left. Everything else was fingerprint-free and could be dumped. So long as he could travel light and move fast, there was no hope of anyone catching him.

Bryant got the call while he was still at home. After much carphology with the duvet, he tipped his phone out of his pillowcase.

‘Morning, Mr Bryant,’ said Colin Bimsley. ‘I found her.’

‘Found who?’ asked Bryant. ‘Try forming complete sentences.’

‘Sorry. The girlfriend.’

‘What girlfriend?’

‘Weeks had one. She’s doing bar work at the Enterprise pub on Red Lion Street, just down in Holborn. She dated Freddie Weeks for a while but it didn’t work out between them. I took a statement and gave her my hotline, but I thought you’d want to talk to her. She’ll be there at eight thirty this morning. I hope you didn’t mind me calling so early.’

‘I’ve been lying here thinking since five,’ said Bryant. ‘At my age you get more night than day. Where are you? What’s that funny noise in the background?’

‘I’m at the Shad Thames Boxing Club. When I’m angry, it’s best that I hit things before I come to work.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ replied Bryant, ringing off and heading for the bathroom to see if he could find out what Alma had done with his clean shirt.

The sign above the window showed a bemused polar bear looking up at a four-masted schooner. At 8.37 a.m. Bryant knocked on the door of the Enterprise pub and was admitted into what appeared to be a Victorian hall of emerald ceramic tiles, dark wooden floors and milky pendant globe lamps. The interior had undergone the kind of reverse pimping that had lately taken off in central London, in the realization that traditional pubs were in danger of vanishing altogether. Lagers had been replaced by seasonal beers, plastic signs had been superseded by blackboards and only the presence of roulades and alfalfa sprouts on the snack menus revealed that these were fanciful reimaginings of 1930s boozers, their design ethic influenced by old films and the desire to charge £17.50 for a cube of crusted pork belly.

If the girl had been a craft beer she would have been described as full-bodied and pale with a refined finish. She had ice-blue eyes, a tangle of glossy blonde hair and the kind of happily confident attitude that got her noticed even by London’s jaded populace. The faintest trace of an accent suggested that she was Polish.

‘I’m Joanna Papis. You must be Mr Bryant.’ She shook his hand warmly and ushered him in, guiding him around the pub’s vacuum-cleaning equipment. If she was surprised by his age, she hid it well. ‘There’s a room behind the bar where we can talk without being in the cleaner’s way.’

‘I understand one of our DCs took a statement from you,’ said Bryant, settling himself in the cluttered manager’s office. ‘But I thought you could tell me a bit more about your friendship with Mr Weeks. We’re hoping something in his past will lead us to his killer.’

‘I heard Freddie was sofa-surfing for a while, then using hostels,’ she said, finding somewhere to perch. ‘I feel a bit responsible, you know? I keep wondering whether if I’d stayed with him maybe he’d have got back on an even keel, but it was just too difficult for me.’

‘When you say “an even keel”, do you mean financially?’

‘Yes, but also … his behaviour. It wasn’t always easy to be around him. We met here in the pub.’ She pointed out into the saloon bar. ‘Right in that corner. He’d been working in the neighbourhood, in the local market. Before that he’d been employed by an IT company, but it went bust and they had to let him go.’

‘From IT to selling spuds – that’s a bit of a drop,’ said Bryant.

‘He couldn’t find anything else. He was planning to leave the market because he wasn’t happy there, and was looking for another position.’ She brushed a blonde strand behind one ear. ‘I suppose I only really started seeing him because he was so insistent, and I felt a bit sorry for him. It’s not easy having a social life when you work until midnight. I have a day job and I’m working here four nights a week. Freddie used to wait at the bar for me to finish, and usually ended up drinking too much. It wasn’t an easy relationship, but he was sweet and I knew he was really trying. But he couldn’t find the work he wanted, and his attitude didn’t help.’