‘Meera will visit the Apple Tree in Clerkenwell, where Carol Wynley used to socialize after work. Colin has requested to join the speed-dating night at the Museum Tavern, Bloomsbury, where our most recent victim, Jasmina Sherwin, worked as a barmaid.
‘John, you’ll be going to the quiz night at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, which Joanne Kellerman had been known to frequent. Giles Kershaw has offered to spend the evening in the Old Dr Butler’s Head, where she was found murdered.
‘April will attend the Phobia Society upstairs at the Ship and Shovell off the Strand, which Naomi Curtis told her partner she visited because she suffered from claustrophobia, while our Dan Banbury will check out the Seven Stars, Carey Street, where she was killed.
‘Raymond Land can go back to the Albion, Barnsbury, to see if he can find out anything more about Jasmina Sherwin’s death. And I shall be joining a historical society, the Grand Order of London Immortals, which Dr Masters has recommended to me on previous occasions, because they know all there is to know about sociopathic behaviour in urban society. They’ve moved to the back bar of the Yorkshire Grey in Langham Place because their old haunt, the Plough in Museum Street, installed a plasma screen for the World Cup, an act for which they have never been forgiven.’
‘And what good do you think all this is going to do?’ asked May.
‘As I believe I mentioned, I have an idea that the murderer is motivated as much by the locations as the victims. If that’s the case, we need to spend more time in the kind of places he chooses as his haunts. I want everyone to be sensitive to their surroundings, and to make copious notes. Talk to people, be honest about what you’re looking for. We’ll meet back here after closing time and pool any information we consider relevant, or possibly irrelevant.’
‘You think Renfield’s going to go along with something like this?’
‘We have Raymond’s backing, so I don’t see how he can stop us. Besides, we’re covering all the official routes of enquiry. This is extra-curricular. It’s going to be a long night, so no drinking alcohol. I don’t want Renfield trying to disbar evidence because our intelligence sources were one over the eight.’
‘That includes you,’ said May.
‘Bitter isn’t alcohol, it’s beer,’ said Bryant. ‘We will start to find a way of catching this man by the end of tonight, I promise you.’ He checked his watch, more from habit than any useful purpose, as the little hand had fallen off in the blast that destroyed the PCU’s old offices, and he had not got around to having it mended.
‘You don’t suppose you’re still suffering the after-effects from losing your memory last time around, do you?’ asked May. ‘Remember when you blew up the unit and banged your head?’
‘That was ages ago,’ said Bryant. ‘I’ve never suffered any recurrence since then. Besides, Mrs Mandeville says I’ll start remembering all sorts of things any day now, if my internal organs can withstand the vigour of her root-vegetable diet. Right, I must be off. Call me later.’
‘Do you have your mobile on you?’
‘Actually I do. This is one of the first things Mrs Mandeville taught me to remember.’
‘Good. Is it on?’
‘We haven’t got that far yet. I shall put it on now.’ Bryant made an unnecessary pantomime of operating the device before setting off.
From his window, May watched his partner negotiating the shuffling drunks of Camden High Street. It was difficult not to worry about Arthur’s safety these days, but Bryant seemed quite unconcerned. He waved his walking stick at a passing taxi, and glanced up briefly at the unit’s windows as he climbed in.
Two minutes later, May received a text that read:
Stop Fretting Im Fine Have Fully Mastered Predictive Tghx Will Call If I Need Ghzb
If he didn’t keep finding ways of saving lives, he’d be the death of me, thought May.
19
* * *
CONSPIRATORS
Bryant’s idea seemed sound enough, until you considered that nobody knew who this man was or what he looked like. Sergeant Janice Longbright studied the scrap of paper she had been handed and searched the street. The great shuttered block of Smithfield meat market dominated an area now replenished with upscale eateries and thumping nightclubs, but here was a pub like an ancient lithograph, with a grand lead-glass bay window, polished oak doors and sienna paintwork, the sign of the Sutton Arms picked out in gold glass on an umber background.
The interior had been given a peculiar timeless ambience of plaster busts, aspidistra pots and sepia photos that fitted in well enough with Belgian beers and the steak menu. A narrow staircase led to an overlit upper room, but Longbright could not gain access to it because a table covered in books and pamphlets had been placed across the entrance.