Full Dark House(128)

‘It was you who locked me in the archive room,’ exclaimed Bryant. ‘Why, because you wanted to keep me away from the site of Valerie Marchmont’s murder?’

‘No, I was just really annoyed with you.’

‘Oh.’

‘I thought I was leaving such an obvious pattern, using symbols of the Muses. You were supposed to go and arrest Mr Renalda. The show couldn’t continue without him. But you made it so much more complicated. He slipped out of your hands, the show went on, and I was still stuck here, with Todd upstairs, threatening to expose us, becoming more disturbed with every passing hour.’ She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘Now you’ll have to take me out of here, won’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Bryant admitted, ‘but you’ll be swapping one claustrophobic building for another, I’m afraid.’ He looked at his watch. Half past eight. Biddle was supposed to have brought May here by now.

‘Where is Todd?’ he asked. ‘What’s planned for tonight?’

‘He’s under the stage right now,’ said Wynter. ‘You may already be too late.’

‘Bryant! You’re back! So Biddle wasn’t pulling a fast one!’ May rushed forward across the foyer, followed by Sidney. He clapped his partner on the shoulder, then looked at Elspeth Wynter and saw that she had been crying. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Come with me,’ said Bryant. ‘There’s not a moment to lose. Sidney, whatever you do, don’t let Miss Wynter out of your sight.’

May fell into step as they headed off along the corridor. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Do you have a torch?’

‘Yes, I always carry my Valiant.’

‘Good,’ said Bryant, pulling his scarf tighter. ‘Where we’re going, we’ll need it.’





58

LIVING LEGEND

‘What’s going on?’ asked Janice Longbright, trying to catch her breath. An absurdly long McDonald’s truck had nearly run them down on the Strand. ‘Where are we heading?’

‘There’s not a moment to lose,’ May warned. Longbright strode beside him as they raced off along the pavement. May was forced to push his way through a slow-moving crowd of backpacked tourists, and for a moment the detective sergeant was worried that she would lose him.

‘What have you got there?’ She pointed at the bulky plastic Sony bag slung over May’s shoulder.

‘Something I thought we might need. Keep up with me, the sun’s nearly set,’ May called back. Lorries and vans chugged sluggishly onto the bridge, their exhaust fumes obscuring the kerbs with grey waste. Longbright caught up with her former boss as he waited for the pedestrian signal to change.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes, turning to face the stale breeze from the river. ‘Tell me what happened. Did you have any luck with the dentist?’

‘He’s in Sydney, Australia. I woke him in the middle of the night. Arthur had an appointment with him just before he left. He’d cracked the top plate of his false teeth and wanted them replaced. The dentist didn’t have time to cast new moulds before he left, and typically Arthur had lost the old mould he was supposed to keep safely stored away for just such an event, so he had to make do with a pair that didn’t fit. They were far too big.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Longbright. ‘Why does it matter how big his teeth were?’

‘According to my next-door neighbour, the intruder who she thought was trying to break into my apartment had beady eyes and abnormally large teeth. Do you know anyone with beadier eyes than Arthur? Alma Sorrowbridge said that someone had been in Arthur’s room, but the front-door lock hadn’t been forced. There are few things more personal than your dental records. Who else would take them?’

‘Wait a minute. You’re telling me Arthur’s alive?’ shouted Longbright.

‘Oh, he’s alive all right, but I think he’s suffering from amnesia. Over sixty years ago, Elspeth Wynter’s deranged son climbed out of the well at the Palace via its drainage tunnel. Bryant recently tracked him down to the Wetherby clinic. He disturbed a forgotten history, even added a footnote to his memoir before changing his mind and hiding it. Todd followed him back to the unit with the intention of attacking him.

‘I think Todd took some kind of explosive device along, but it went off at the wrong time, and Todd was killed. He was only five years younger than Bryant. We found the remains of Todd’s body, and Bryant’s old teeth. Bryant had been placed at the site, and we weren’t looking for anyone else. I think he survived, but he’s confused, or concussed or something. He went home, but didn’t stay. He came to me, but couldn’t get in. I’ve been stalked by Arthur, not Todd. And if there’s anywhere in the world that he does still remember, it’s here, on Waterloo Bridge at sunset, where he’s walked every night for most of his life.’ He pointed across the dual carriageway. A blood-red sun shimmered through exhaust fumes behind the Houses of Parliament. ‘You take one side, I’ll take the other.’