Bryant flopped back his hair and gave her a helpless look.
‘He’s all yours, Mr May.’ Forthright pulled off her police sweater, and nearly took their eyes out. ‘I have to get changed. That’s the all-clear. Arthur, why don’t you go and keep an eye on your other new recruit?’
Bryant brightened a little. ‘Making his life a living hell might cheer me up. He’s taking a long time with that tea. You don’t suppose he’s been flattened? This is for you, by the way.’ He produced a badly wrapped package from his coat and passed it to her. The red ribbon slipped from the brown paper the moment Forthright touched it.
‘Oh, Arthur.’ She looked down at the dog-eared copy of Bleak House. He had brought it with him from the office, the only item he felt was worth protecting. It was Bryant’s favourite book, the ancient edition his father had bought for him in Paternoster Row, the one he always kept above his desk. She knew how much it meant to him. Curling the ribbon round her fingers, she slipped the roll into a pocket without thinking. ‘I am going to miss you, you know.’ She reached over and tugged the top of his ear.
Atherton had a camera with a flashbulb, and suddenly took a picture. Everyone looked surprised.
‘Go on now, bugger off,’ said Bryant, reaching for his pipe as the others started to file out. ‘Mr May and I have a lot to discuss. Someone has to explain what’s expected of him.’
Forthright went to her WVS meeting. Biddle sullenly reappeared with mugs of tea just as they were leaving the cell. Back in the unit, the young detectives settled themselves in chairs opposite one another. Bryant opened a window and tamped down his pipe.
‘Shall we risk it?’ he asked May. ‘The sun’s come out. I bet they’re copping it out in Essex.’ He cleared a small patch of his desk. ‘Everything gets so dusty.’ He held up a brochure. ‘Now this,’ he pointed to the title page, ‘is your bible. Davenport wrote it, so of course it’s gibberish, but I can give you the gen. The unit was originally planned years ago as part of something called the Central London Specialist Crimes Squad, but they received unhealthy publicity after they failed to solve the Paddington trunk murder of nineteen thirty-five. The squad never really flourished, and was finally disbanded three years later.
‘The following year our superintendent persuaded West End Central and the City of London police that their more troublesome cases should be siphoned off to a renegade group. Davenport’s no diplomat, and he upset them right from the outset. Whenever we’re criticized I send a letter to the HO reminding them that we handle only the files no one else knows how to tackle. I’ve been granted powers to develop my own specialist team, the brief being to deal with fringe problems, but in reality this means becoming a clearing house for everyone else’s rubbish. The unit was defined by the Home Secretary as London’s last resort for sensitive cases, but it’s becoming a home for dubious and abnormal crimes. It’s also acting as a resource for officers seeking to close long-term unsolved murders. London’s regular forces have their hands full with looting, not to mention the assaults and robberies they’re getting in the blackout, although of course we’re not allowed to talk about those.’
Bryant sucked hard at his pipe, made a face and relit it. ‘We’ve been given autonomy, but the problem lies in the types of witnesses and materials I attempt to have included in our cases. The lawyers kick up a fuss about admission of evidence. They’re not open to new ideas.’ He decided to spare his new partner the details of how the testimony of a spiritualist proved the last straw for a Holborn judge, who refused to hear any more from the unit’s witnesses until Bryant could assure him that they were all technically alive and in human form.
The PCU worked on unaided, unappreciated and unloved in rooms above Montague Carlucci, the bespoke tailor’s next to Bow Street station, holding the front line against all that was malevolent and profane, until war broke out and their casebooks suddenly filled, at which point Davenport saw a chance to please the Home Office. The unit had started to draw crazy people like moths to a flame. It was the war, everyone said; the war was to blame for everything that could not be explained.
For the time being at least, it suited the purposes of those in power to use the unit as a clearing house for unclassifiable misdemeanours. London faced an accelerated crime rate. It was to be expected in a place where everyone thought that each day was to be their last. Nobody wanted the city to get a reputation as a centre for spies, crime syndicates or murderers. It was important now, more than ever, to show the world that Britain could cope. Privately, though, Bryant wondered how long the line would hold.