But as soon as he said that, Land realised he had made a mistake. Working at the PCU meant surrendering all thoughts of a normal private life. It meant abandoning loved ones, working unsociable hours, falling out with friends, never having time to do the comfortingly habitual things civilians did. His staff barely existed beyond their working lives. Their refrigerators remained empty, their bills piled up, their houseplants died and their voice-mails were never played back. Even their pets gave up on them. Apart from a brief, disastrous stay at Raymond Land’s house, Crippen had spent his entire nine lives in the office.
‘Well, I feel good about today, and I’m not going to let you lot put the mockers on it,’ Land said, rising and turning.
He looked back and found that suddenly everyone seemed to have brightened up a little. Perhaps his positivity had proved inspirational after all. Bimsley was trying to suppress a laugh. Meera was smiling and shaking her head. ‘Right,’ said Land, ‘we’re going to use this week to get organised and learn to behave like a proper police unit.’ He looked down to discover a thick arctic white stripe across the seat of his new black trousers. ‘You can start by getting the workmen to stick a bloody Wet Paint sign on this ledge.’
Bimsley burst out laughing.
A dark thought suddenly crossed Land’s mind. ‘And where are Bryant and May?’ he demanded to know.
‘Look here, can somebody give me a hand with this?’
Bryant appeared in the doorway right on cue. If Land hadn’t known better, he’d have suspected that his most senior detective had been waiting outside to make an entrance. Bryant moved to reveal a crimson-painted wooden case. It was about five feet tall and covered in cobwebs. ‘I found her in the attic.’
‘What is it?’ asked Land. ‘How did you get it down the stairs? Must you bring it in here?’
Bryant leaned against the case with a mischievous smile. He removed his battered trilby, leaving his hair standing in a frightened white tonsure. ‘I hear we’ve got no work on—this is total disaster. What are you doing about the situation, Raymondo?’
‘Don’t you understand, Bryant, it’s good news. Nobody’s doing anything they shouldn’t be doing.’
‘Of course they are, it just means the Met are picking up the cases before they get to us, which will make us redundant.’
Redundant. Land rolled the word around in his head, savouring it. Redundancy pay. An image sprang to mind; he was lying in a beach hammock in the Maldives with Leanne serving him a cocktail in a coconut.
‘So I suggest you get on the phone to your opposite number in Islington and find out how we can be of use,’ Bryant was saying as he halfheartedly attempted to haul the case into the room.
‘Here, Mr Bryant, let me give you a hand.’ Colin Bimsley sprang up to help. Together they manoeuvred the dusty object into the centre of the floor. The box was on squealing casters, and the top half of one side was covered in filthy glass. Bryant pulled a large chequered handkerchief from his top pocket, dipped it into Land’s tea mug and, before the Unit chief could protest, started to wipe the window clean.
John May appeared from behind the case, patting cobwebs from his suit. ‘I couldn’t stop him once he’d seen it, Raymond,’ he said apologetically. ‘He had to bring it down here.’
‘It’s Madame Blavatsky,’ Bryant proclaimed. ‘Not a terribly good likeness, I’ll admit, but it’s clearly meant to be her.’
Land sniffed at the box and recoiled. ‘Who the hell is Madame—Who is she, and what’s she doing in our attic?’
‘Madame Blavatsky was a noble-born Russian spiritualist who founded the Theosophical Society. She was a Buddhist who believed in reincarnation and the spirit world. She died right here in London.’
‘What the bloody hell’s she doing upstairs?’
Bryant ignored him. ‘Her followers thought she was steeped in the wisdom of the ancients, whereas I’m more of the opinion that she was a barking mad fascist, and a racist to boot. And she’s been living in our attic for donkey’s years. Remember I told you the history of this place? About Alistair Crowley’s Occult Revivalists’ Society of Great Britain using the building for their meetings until the 1930s? Well, I was up in the attic looking for my first edition of Nachtkultur & Isolationism, and found her under a blanket. There’s all sorts of weird stuff up there, including a spirit horn and an electromagnetic field detector, the kind geologists used to use. They were popular in spiritualists’ circles. I think there must have been many other occult societies here before Crowley’s, because most of the stuff hasn’t been touched for the best part of a century. We’re at the centre of several ley lines, you know. They cross underneath our basement floor.’