‘It doesn’t make sense that Minos is dead,’ said Bryant, staring down at the floor in confusion.
‘I’m sorry it doesn’t fit your theories. I suppose you can arrange to have his grave reopened if you like—you wouldn’t be able to make yourself any more foolish. My brother’s death is well documented.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Why should I? If you had any connection with your police friends in Europe instead of keeping to yourselves on your funny little island, you would know how many times the press has told the story.’
‘I thought you said you sued them all.’
‘All the ones I knew about, but there were plenty of others. “The cursed family, the child protected by ancient gods.” Journalists scaled the walls of the house to take my picture, they tried to bribe me, harassed me so much that I moved here, where I thought things would be different. The English, so private, so aloof, so secretive. They would leave the memory of my family alone. But no, along come you two, the music-hall comedians. Yes, I am sure that Minos killed my wife, but I am not glad that he suffocated in the filthy waters of a drainage ditch. He was blood of my blood. And I will not allow his memory to be defiled by young men who think too much about the wrong things.’
‘I didn’t mean to imply—’
‘I know exactly what you meant. In your own clumsy way you suggest we are nothing but ignorant pagans. Our private beliefs have been raked over in your News of the World. You think I would slaughter my own cast and wreck my production, you arrogant little boy?’ The veins were pulsing in his temples, and he began to shout. ‘You pious English Christians, always so right, what do you know of the world that you have not read from your precious books? Do you know how many times I have heard these idiocies since my wife died? Her death was a godsend to your journalists, another tragedy in a rich family, and you believe it just because you read some news clippings? Get out of this house now, before I have you thrown out. Get out!’
‘Well, that went well,’ said May, stepping out into the pouring rain.
‘I thought I’d discovered something new. I was sure Renalda was setting himself free from his past.’
‘No, Arthur, you believed what you wanted to believe, no matter how demented the notion was. You squeezed the facts to fit your theory.’
Bryant was indignant. ‘I did not!’
‘Of course you did. That thing about the high note warning Miles Stone’s mother. The flautist was late that day, remember? There was no high note from a flute, just somebody scraping a violin in the orchestra. And another thing. Edna bloody Wagstaff and her chatty cat. She couldn’t have heard Dan Leno in the Palace, because he never came to the Palace. He died in 1904 without once performing there. She’s just a crazy, lonely old woman. Andreas Renalda’s story appealed to your romantic notions of classical literature and myths, that’s all. Maybe Biddle was right when he asked to leave. You don’t share information and you don’t listen to reason. I’m not sure I’m cut out for the unit any more than he is.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You, Arthur. I’ll never get used to working like this. Just sitting in your room is enough, all those volumes on clairvoyants, astrologers, white witches, spiritualism, covens. While everyone else is reading the Daily Mail, you’re studying the Apocryphal Books of the Dead. All the stories they laugh about over at Bow Street while you look for a vampire that preys on foreigners in Leicester Square. Running down alleyways in the dead of night, trying to catch some kind of shapeshifting wraith that sucks the blood out of Norwegians. How do you talk people into believing stuff like that? Why did DS Forthright spend her New Year’s Eve in a King’s Cross goods yard waiting for a priest to mark out crucifix patterns in holy water? And did you ever catch him? According to her, you’re the only one who saw him dash into that cul-de-sac. He must have run up the wall, you told her, they can do that in moments of stress. You have us all mesmerized under the spell of your insanity.
‘Well, no more. I’ve just not got that turn of mind. It’s the effect you have on people, you mean well but you get everyone caught up in these ridiculous fantasies. Why can’t you just face the truth and admit you’ve not got the right experience for the job? You should be curating in a museum or something, lecturing on ghosts and goblins, digging out Egyptian tombs. It was good enough for Howard Carter, he didn’t decide to be a policeman, did he?’
‘May I remind you,’ said Bryant, trying to muster some dignity, ‘that this is called the Peculiar Crimes Unit?’