The Memory of Blood(60)

‘How will I do that?’

‘By encouraging Arthur Bryant to run with his instincts. He’s as mad as a bat and will follow any lead you give him provided it makes no sense whatsoever. Come up with something that will appeal to his inner crackpot. Here’s a little starter for you. Robert Kramer is an opposition party donor. He pays them out of an offshore fund he set up with his accountant, called Cruikshank Holdings. We’ve been looking to use that against him when the time was right. According to my sources, the PCU already thinks he’s the most likely suspect in the case because of his bad relations with his wife. Bryant has harboured suspicions about Kramer from the outset. Now you just need a way to confirm them.’

‘You want to secure a conviction against a man who might be innocent?’ asked Faraday, appalled.

‘I didn’t say that. But it would suit everyone if he was arrested, whether it turns out that he’s innocent or guilty.’

‘I’m not sure I understand—’

‘If he’s innocent, the Unit will be blamed for wrongful arrest, and I can act against them. If he’s guilty, we remove a source of party revenue, taint the system by association and find another way to blame the PCU for not acting sooner.’

‘Why is it so important to you?’ asked Faraday, undergoing a nanosecond of lucid thought. ‘Why are you so intent on closing them down?’

Kasavian looked as though he’d been struck in the face with a codfish. Could this insignificant little time-server actually have the temerity to be growing testicles? ‘Because,’ he said, very slowly, as if explaining to a simple child, ‘there is no room in the government’s structure for a stalactite.’

‘A stalactite?’ Faraday repeated in confusion.

‘A calcified accretion from years gone past. You can’t control these people. They stray off-message and destabilise the system.’

‘Then why don’t we simply slash their budget?’

‘What budget? Their salaries are minimal, their operational costs are negligible, they’re being studied by the IPCC as an economic test case and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary himself upholds them as a shining example of independent policing. With so much background attention on them, anything we do will be thoroughly examined, which is why you have to proceed with caution. There must be no trail back to us. Your safest bet is to employ an intermediary—and I think I have the very person you need.’

Kasavian wrote an email address on a slip of paper and handed it to Faraday. ‘Destroy that after you’ve entered it, and erase your file path after each electronic communication.’

‘I don’t know how—um, Miss Queally might know how to, er—’

‘I expect a result from you before the weekend is out.’

‘We can’t get to Arthur Bryant this way,’ Faraday objected, reading the slip. ‘I don’t think he’s easily swayed by the opposite sex.’

‘Who said anything about Bryant? I want you to use this woman to go after John May. He’s the only person Bryant listens to. She’ll plant her information, May will feed it back, Kramer will be arrested, and when the lady in question is summoned back for a deposition, she’ll have mysteriously disappeared.’

And with that he was gone, slipping from the room without, it seemed to the civil servant, either turning his back or opening the door, like a wraith passing through a castle wall.





Arthur Bryant dug out an old penny and inserted it in Madame Blavatsky. ‘I say, come and see this, Raymondo.’

Land reluctantly dragged himself over to the glass case containing the tattered medium. ‘This is all a load of old rubbish,’ he complained, but watched over Bryant’s shoulder.

There was a clonk, and Madame Blavatsky’s eyes glowed to life. Her gears creaked and groaned as she reached out a grubby, rubbery hand, dropping her prediction into the slot beneath her. Bryant pulled out the card and read it.

LIFE AND DEATH ARE INDIVISIBLE



‘Not very exact, is it?’ said Land. ‘I don’t think she’s going to be helping us much in the investigation.’

‘She’s right, though. Two dead bodies and two living puppets.’ Bryant rolled his eyes at Land suggestively.

‘Why am I even listening to you? I should have prevented you from taking control of this Unit years ago. It’s your fault we’ve ended up in a building once rented by Alistair Crowley. Now you want me to believe inanimate objects can come to life and murder people.’

‘Well, you’re not getting results using traditional investigative methods, are you?’ Bryant took out his gobstopper to see if it had changed colour, then reinserted it in his mouth. ‘Did you find out where all the guests at Kramer’s party were around Gregory Baine’s estimated time of death?’