‘Looks as if you have a bit of a backlog to deal with yourself.’ Bryant gestured at the unsteady stack of cardboard folders propped up on his partner’s desk. It was characteristic of May to take on more work than he could handle.
While Bryant had remained at Bow Street to oversee specific ongoing operations, May had been staffing and organizing the new unit. This was a chance for him to set up a division running on entirely new lines. Their high arrest rate had been acknowledged by their superiors in the Met, but their unorthodox techniques were impossible to incorporate into the Greater London network. A revamped independent unit designed to showcase new methodology was the logical answer; much to his surprise, May had been able to persuade the legendarily slothful Home Office and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary that this was so. Now they had to prove their claim.
Bryant was filling the last of his desk drawers with files when the overhead lights began to flicker.
‘Does that sort of thing affect the electric typewriter?’ he asked, staring at the keyboard as if expecting it to bite him.
‘It shouldn’t,’ replied May. ‘The London Electricity Board has been warning everyone about outages all month. The National Grid is about to start rationing power. If Edward Heath is forced to put the nation on a three-day working week, we’ll be sitting in the dark writing with pencils. It’s a dilemma; either Heath gives in to union demands, or he blacks out Britain.’
Sergeant Longbright entered and handed a single sheet of paper to May.
‘Well, here’s a turn-up.’ May tipped his chair forward. ‘Guess who we have listed as the largest clients at Jacob and Marks, and personal friends of Max Jacob?’
‘Who?’
‘Whitstable, Peter, and Whitstable, William, brothers currently residing together in Hampstead. Max Jacob is their family lawyer.’ He thumbed his intercom button and called Longbright back. ‘The lads on their way to question Peter Whitstable, tell them they’re to observe the house and follow the occupant if necessary, nothing more.’ He turned to Bryant. ‘Looks like our two investigations just became one.’
‘Both events occurred around the same time on Monday evening, within a quarter of a mile of each other. At least it rules out William Whitstable as a murder suspect, unless he could be in two places at once.’
‘You mean it rules out one of them. William can’t go back to his house. If he tries to meet with his brother, we should be there.’
The call came through at four twenty-five p.m.
‘Peter Whitstable returned to the house a few minutes ago, and just left again on foot,’ reported Longbright. ‘Our car’s following. Do you want to speak to them?’
‘No,’ said May. ‘Tell them we’re on our way.’
Bryant grabbed his car keys from the table. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said cheerfully. May well remembered their last nightmarish journey together. His colleague was more interested in the drivers around him than the smooth navigation of his own vehicle. Staying in lane, waiting for lights, signaling moves, and remembering to brake were all actions that fell below Bryant’s attention level.
‘Thanks for the offer, Arthur,’ he said, ‘but I think I’d rather drive.’
‘Really, it’s no problem. I find it rather therapeutic.’
‘Just give me the keys.’
‘The traffic system needs a complete rethink,’ mused Bryant as the unit’s only allocated vehicle, a powder-blue Vauxhall with a thoroughly thrashed engine, accelerated through Belsize Park. ‘Look at these road signs. Ministerial graffiti.’
‘It’s no use lecturing on the problem, Arthur. That’s why your driving examiner failed you thirty-seven times.’
‘What makes you such a great driver?’
‘I don’t hit things.’ May circumnavigated the stalled traffic on Haverstock Hill by turning into a back street.
‘Did you know that in 1943 the London County Council architects produced a marvelous road map for London that was so visionary it would have ended all modern traffic snarl-ups as we know them?’ said Bryant. This was the sort of bright snippet of information he was apt to produce while taking his driving test.
‘What happened to it?’ asked May, turning into a side road.
‘One of their tunnels was routed under St James’s Park. It’s royal ground. The councillors were scandalized and threw the plans out. Progress toward a better world halted by the threat of displaced ducks, that’s postwar England for you. There they are, just ahead.’
The unmarked police vehicle was two cars in front of them, at the traffic-blocked junction of Health Street. A portly middle-aged man was threading his way against the crowds exiting from the corner Tube station.