‘You can’t possibly – who have you been speaking to?’
Bryant rolled his eyes knowingly and grinned, exposing an amount of white ceramic not seen since the reduction of the East Midlands Electrification Programme had resulted in a surfeit of semi-conductors on the London black market.
‘I know everything about you, Raymondo, even things you don’t know yourself.’ Bryant gave a lewd wink as Land stared at him in ill-disguised horror.
Suddenly, the eerie sound of a theremin started up, the oooo-weee-oooo call sign of a hundred old monochrome science-fiction films. ‘That’s my mobile,’ said Bryant, ‘I must take this call. If anyone wants me, I shall be in my boudoir.’
‘You haven’t got a boudoir,’ Land called after him helplessly, ‘you’ve got an office!’
‘All right, what’s with the Sherlock Holmes stuff?’ asked May, closing the door behind him. ‘You’re really getting up Raymond’s nose.’
‘Oh, it was a dreadfully cheesy trick, I know,’ said Bryant airily, ‘but I couldn’t resist getting him back for refusing to let me try for the case. He’s so adorable when his mouth is hanging open, like a spaniel trying to understand house-training instructions.’
‘How did you know all that stuff about him? Or did you just make it up?’
‘It’s easy. His wife just called me by mistake and I rerouted it. He left a card from a rodent exterminator on his desk. We had rats at the old headquarters in Mornington Crescent and they never bothered him, but ever since Janice mentioned she’s heard noises in the walls in this building late at night, he’s been on edge.’
‘The mid-life crisis?’
‘He found out about his wife’s affair, yes?’
‘Only because you told him.’1
‘Now she’s talking about divorce and he’s suddenly realized he’ll be back on the dating scene, hence his recent purchase of several appallingly unsuitable shirts. Oh, and that horrible aftershave he’s starting pouring over himself. You must have noticed that he’s smelling like a perfumed drain. And before you ask, he’s started to believe in the supernatural because I can see that he’s borrowed some books from my top shelf, notably Psychogeographical London, Great British Hauntings and my 1923 copy of Mortar and Mortality: Who Died in Your House? He’s been upset ever since he discovered that Aleister Crowley ran a spiritualism club in our attic. Nearly every London house has been lived in by somebody else, and Crowley was all over this town like a cheap suit. It’s hardly anything to get upset about.’
‘You could try being nice to him for a change,’ said May. ‘He’s been very supportive lately. I feel sorry for him, stuck in a job he hates, having to look after us lot. He can’t understand how you think.’
‘I should hope not,’ said Bryant indignantly. ‘I would be most offended if he could. But perhaps you’re right. I’ll make it up to him.’
‘No.’ May hastily held up his hand. ‘Don’t do anything unusual. Just do what he says for a while.’
‘You mean don’t push for the Amy O’Connor case.’
‘Exactly.’
‘All right,’ said Bryant, ‘but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”’ He sauntered to the door. ‘I’m going to the terrace for a pipe of St Barnabas Old Navy Rough Cut Shag. But I’m telling you, there’s more to Amy O’Connor’s death than meets the eye.’
‘Because of what you saw in a Roman excavation?’ asked May.
‘That, and because of the string that was tied around her wrist.’
1 Bryant used his newly rediscovered ventriloquism skills to inform Land of Leanne’s affair with her flamenco instructor. See Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood.
5
THE ENEMY
‘YOU’RE NOT GOING to be happy about this,’ warned John May. ‘Home Office Security has backed up the City of London. They won’t let you have the O’Connor case.’
‘Why not? What’s it to them?’ Bryant asked, as he and May made their way across Bloomsbury’s sunlit garden squares towards the Marchmont Street Bookshop.
‘Your pal Fenchurch has already tipped someone off about his likely verdict, although he seems to be holding back the full official report. Once that’s been filed, the case is technically closed unless you get Home Office dispensation, and they won’t grant it.’
‘That’s odd. I was with him this morning and he said he’d delay the process by forty-eight hours. Why would he have told someone?’