Bryant allowed himself to be led between the racks of crisps and bottled drinks, but stopped by the front counter. ‘Do you know a pub around here called the Victoria Cross?’ he asked.
The old Indian shook his head without even stopping to think. ‘Not around here. There’s the Skinner’s Arms, the Boot and Mabel’s Tavern, but I don’t drink so I wouldn’t know. The pubs are all trouble, boys getting drunk and spray-painting their filth all over the shop.’
Outside, May pointed at Number 6A, the single remaining dwelling that stood at the end of the dog-leg, surveying the street like a sentinel. ‘What about that house?’ he asked. ‘Maybe the owners saw something.’
They approached the front door and rang the single bell, but there was no answer. May peered through the letter box and saw bills and flyers spread across the hall carpet. ‘Looks like they’ve been away for some time.’
‘All the lights were off,’ Bryant recalled.
‘All right, forget the name of the pub,’ May told his partner, ‘you might have got that wrong. Just concentrate on finding a place that looks like the one Mrs Wynley entered.’
The pair followed a rough ziggurat back along Bryant’s route, passing half a dozen public houses on the way, but none of them seemed entirely right. It was as if parts of them had been incorporated into a single phantom composite.
‘I’m not going mad,’ said Bryant anxiously. ‘I saw her go into the saloon bar and get served by the barman.’
‘Wait, you sure it was the saloon? Arthur, pubs haven’t been divided into public and saloon bars for years.’
‘Oh, you know what I mean. It was old-world, not messed about with. No beeping fruit machines.’
‘Can’t you give me more descriptive detail than that?’
‘Yes – no, I mean, perhaps I was a little drunk.’ He rubbed his forehead, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. ‘I don’t remember as clearly as I thought. I’ll have to sit and think.’
‘Did it smell different, this alternative space-time continuum you ventured into?’
‘Why should it smell different?’
‘You know, Victorian smells. Horse dung, tobacco, sewage, hops.’
‘I don’t know, I can’t remember. I don’t suppose Victorian London smelled any worse than the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street does during the present day.’
May didn’t mention it, but he was reminded that hallucinations could often be accompanied by sharp changes in one’s sense of smell. Savoury odours of leather and burning were common. ‘Are you still taking your medication?’
‘You mean have drink and drugs addled my brain, causing it to slip into the febrile desuetude of Alzheimer’s? No, they have not and it has not, thank you so much.’
‘Then let’s go back to the unit and see what else we can uncover.’
At the PCU, John May’s granddaughter came in and set several pages before them. ‘There are eight public houses named after Queen Victoria in London,’ she explained, ‘plus the Victoria Park in Hackney, the Victoria and Albert in Marylebone and the Victoria Stakes in Muswell Hill. The nearest Victoria to Bloomsbury is just over the road, off Mornington Crescent. Actually, I think I’ve been there with you.’
‘There you are, you see? You’ve muddled the memory of another pub with the one you passed,’ said May soothingly.
‘I did not muddle them!’ Bryant all but shouted. ‘Good God, do you think I can’t tell the difference between Mornington Crescent and Bloomsbury? She went into the pub on that corner, and then left and died or was killed on the street outside.’
‘We could settle this if you knew the exact time you passed each other,’ said May. ‘We know she was alive when you saw her, so if Kershaw can pinpoint the time of death we’ll be able to see if there’s a discrepancy.’
‘I want an artist,’ said Bryant stubbornly. ‘I need someone who can draw what I saw.’
‘I can draw,’ April volunteered. It had been one of the many talents she had perfected during the flare-up of her agoraphobia, during which time she had rarely left her shuttered apartment in Stoke Newington.
‘There are sketchpads and some pens in the evidence room,’ said May. ‘You’ll have to get Renfield to unlock it for you. What else have we got on Carol Wynley’s movements last night?’
‘I was about to give you this,’ said April. ‘I’ve put together a timeline from statements volunteered by her partner and work colleagues. Wynley worked at the Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury, but was meeting up with friends from a former workplace, a charity organization working with Médecins Sans Frontières. They had drinks in a pub called the Queen’s Larder—’