John and Arthur, inseparable, locked together by proximity to death, improbable friends for life.
2
CRIMINAL PAST
‘You mean to tell me that amateurs are being invited to solve murders?’ asked Arthur Bryant with some surprise. ‘Have a pear drop.’
‘Is that all you’ve got?’ May rattled the paper bag disappointedly. ‘They kill my mouth. A study published by the Scarman Centre had apparently found that trained investigators are no better than non-professionals at telling whether a suspected criminal is lying.’ The centre was a leading crime-research institute based at Leicester University. Politicians took its findings very seriously.
‘Surely the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers won’t endorse the scheme?’ Bryant squinted into the bag. ‘I thought there was some Winter Mixture left.’
‘I don’t know where you get those sweets. I’m sure they don’t make them any more. HO’s already endorsed the plan. They reckon any respected person with common sense and an analytical mind can be recruited. Civilians are going to be given unlimited access to evidence and records. I thought you’d be pleased. You suggested the same thing years ago.’
‘Well, the general public have a distinct advantage over us.’ Plastic carrier bags floated around the traffic lights at the end of the Strand like predatory jellyfish. The hum of traffic around them was like the drone of bombers. The air was acrid with exhausts. Bryant leaned on his walking stick to catch his breath. The stick was a sore point; May had bought it for his partner’s birthday the previous year, but Bryant had been horrified by the suggestion that he was facing mobility difficulties. It had remained in his conservatory for several months, where it had supported a diseased nasturtium, but now the elderly detective found himself discreetly using it. ‘Civilians aren’t limited by knowledge of the law. I’ve been employing members of the public ever since the unit opened in nineteen thirty-nine.’
‘Looks like HO has finally come around to your way of thinking,’ May remarked. ‘They’ve got a new police liaison officer there, Sam Biddle.’
‘No relation?’
‘His grandson, I believe.’
‘How odd. I was thinking about old Sidney Biddle only the other day. So sensible, solid and efficient. I wonder why we all hated him? Do you remember, I once tricked him into shaving his head by telling him that German bomber pilots could spot ginger people in the blackout. I was terrible in those days.’
‘The grandson is forwarding candidates to us. We could do with more recruits like DuCaine. It’ll be a fresh start for the unit. I rang you last night to discuss the matter, but your mobile was switched off.’
‘I think it broke when I dropped it. Now it keeps picking up old radio programmes. Is that possible? Anyway, there’s no point in having it turned on when I’m playing at the Freemason’s Arms.’ They stepped through the scuffed gloom of the buildings hemming Waterloo Bridge. ‘I once took a call while I was going through the Gates of Hell, hit one of the pit-stickers and nearly broke his leg. The cheeses weigh about twelve pounds.’
‘Am I supposed to have any idea what you’re talking about?’ May asked.
‘Skittles,’ the detective explained. ‘I’m on the team. We play in the basement of a pub in Hampstead. The discus is called a cheese.’
‘Playing children’s games with a bunch of horrible old drunks isn’t my idea of fun.’ He tended to forget that he was only three years younger than his partner.
‘There aren’t many players left,’ Bryant complained.
‘I’m not surprised,’ replied May. ‘Can’t you do something more productive with your evenings? I thought you were going to tackle your memoirs.’
‘Oh, I’ve made a healthy start on the book.’ Bryant paused at the centre of the bridge to regain his wind. The pale stone balustrades were dusted with orange shadows in the dying sunlight. Even here the air was musty with vans. There was a time when the stale damp of the river permeated one’s clothes. Now the smell only persisted at the shoreline and beneath the bridges. ‘They say there are fish in the river again. I heard another human torso was washed up by Blackfriars Bridge, but there was nothing about salmon. I’m looking up old contacts. It’s rather fun, you should try it. Go round and see that granddaughter of yours, get her out of the house.’
‘April had a breakdown. She can’t bear crowds, can’t relax. The city gets her down.’
‘You have to make the best of things, fight back, that’s what Londoners are supposed to be good at. You really should go and see her, encourage her to develop some outside interests.’ Bryant looked for his pipe but only managed to find the stem. ‘I wonder what I’ve done with the rest of this,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve just finished writing up our first case. Did I tell you I went back to the Palace to look over the files? They were still where I’d left them in the archive room, under tons of old photographs. The place is exactly as I remember it.’