‘That’s not what I heard.’ Dr Gillespie coughed again and blew his nose. ‘I think I’m coming down with something. What was this about you thinking someone had been murdered by a Mr Punch puppet recently?’
‘Where did you hear about that?’
‘Your partner Mr May is one of my patients too. He’s in very good nick, you know. Takes care of himself. He’s got the body of a much younger man.’
‘Well, he should give it back.’
‘He’s wearing much better than you.’
‘Thank you very much. I’m so pleased to hear that. We solved the Mr Punch case, by the way. Beat people a quarter of our age.’
‘Well done. Good appetite? Bowels?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Are they open?’
‘Not right at this minute, no, but they will be if you keep me here much longer.’
‘I’m almost through. How’s your eyesight?’
‘It’s like I’m living in a thick fog.’
‘You should try cleaning your glasses occasionally.’ Dr Gillespie’s cough turned into a minute-long hack. ‘God, I’m dying for a cigarette.’
‘If you need one that badly, I’ll wait.’
‘Can’t,’ Dr Gillespie wheezed, ‘no balcony.’
Bryant absently patted him on the back, waiting for him to catch his breath. ‘You don’t sound too good. Ciggies just bung up your lungs. I bet your chest feels sore right now.’
‘You’re right, it does.’ The doctor hacked again.
‘Like a steel strap slowly tightening around your ribs. Hands and feet tingling as well, no doubt. You’re probably heading for a stroke.’
‘I’ve tried to give up.’
‘Lack of willpower, I expect.’
‘I know, it drives me mad.’
‘Perhaps you should think about retiring.’
The doctor bristled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m perfectly capable of doing my job.’
‘There, now you know how I feel.’ Bryant was triumphant. ‘Let’s call it quits.’
‘Fair enough. Put your – whatever that is – back on.’
‘It’s my under-vest. Then I have my vest, my shirt and my jumper.’
‘Aren’t you hot in that lot? It’s summer.’
‘Ah, I thought the rain was getting warmer. I need these layers. They keep my blood moving around.’
‘I saw a case that was right up your street the other day,’ said Dr Gillespie as Bryant dressed. ‘Young woman, Amy O’Connor, twenty-eight, pretty little thing, dropped dead in a church on Saturday.’
‘Where was this?’
‘St Bride’s, just off Fleet Street. It was in the Evening Standard.’
‘Why do you think that’s a case for us, then?’
‘You run the Peculiar Crimes Unit, don’t you?’ said Dr Gillespie. ‘Well, her death was bloody peculiar.’
After the doctor had outlined what he knew about the case, Arthur Bryant left the GP’s scruffy third-floor office situated behind the Coca-Cola sign in Piccadilly Circus and set off towards the Peculiar Crimes Unit in King’s Cross, to check out the case of a lonely death in a City of London church.
Bryant ambled. In Paris he would have been a boulevardier, a flâneur, but in London, a city that no longer had time for anything but making money, he was just slow and in the way. Accountants, bankers, market analysts and PR girls hustled around him, cemented to their phones. The engineers and artists, bootmakers, signwriters and watch-menders had long fled the centre. Who worked with their hands in the City any more? The ability to make something from nothing had once been regarded with the greatest respect, but now the Square Mile dealt in units, its captains of industry preferring to place their trust in flickering strings of electronic figures.
Bryant would not be hurried though. He was as much a part of London as a hobbled Tower raven, a Piccadilly barber, a gunman in the Blind Beggar, and he would not be moved from his determined path. He was, everyone agreed, an annoying, impossible and indispensible fellow who had long ago decided that it was better to be disliked than forgotten.
And over the coming week, he would find himself annoying some very dangerous people.
4
STRING
‘WHY DID I have to hear about this from my doctor, of all people?’ asked Bryant petulantly.
‘It’s not our jurisdiction,’ replied John May, unfolding his long legs beneath the desk where he sat opposite his partner. ‘The case went straight to the City of London Police. They’re a law unto themselves. You can’t just cherry-pick cases that take your fancy, they’ll come around here with cricket bats.’