The case had resonance with a number of other, more extraordinary killings that had occurred in London over recent years. A Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov, had been poisoned on Waterloo Bridge with the sharpened tip of an umbrella. Roberto Calvi, the Vatican banker, had been found hanged in a convincingly staged suicide underneath Blackfriars Bridge. And the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was fatally dosed with radioactive thallium in a busy sushi bar. In all three cases there had been no guns, no knives, just the careful and quiet determination to remove a life.
It was difficult to shake off a sense of impending failure.
May was inclined to disagree with his partner, who felt that the attacks were based on opportunity and location as much as on the women themselves, but the fact remained that they had uncovered no common denominators other than the link between their mobile phones. None of the calls had been under surveillance, so there was no way of tracing what had been said.
And there was another problem: Jasmina Sherwin’s mobile had been found on her body, so the killer wasn’t using a consistent MO. If it can be proved that they all knew each other, he thought, it might be possible to discover the identities of other women in danger. He handed in his quiz form and sipped at his pint, watching the quizmaster at work. That’s who I need to talk to, he decided. He’ll remember everyone who’s ever come here to play. The kind of men who compile quizzes always do . . .
The Grand Order of London Immortals were, in their own words, primarily interested in London’s most infamous characters: political brigands, celebrity criminals, unapprehended murderers, and anyone else who had been stencilled into the city’s collective memory by doing something notorious and getting away with it.
Dr Harold Masters knew that the order shared some members with his own Insomnia Squad, and had recommended it to Bryant as a group who might unwittingly shine a light on the path to uncovering a murderer. This month they were meeting in the Yorkshire Grey, Langham Place, a small green-painted Victorian establishment with hanging baskets, exterior tables and memorabilia from the nearby BBC on their walls. Workers from the garment district frequented the bar, but tonight the Immortals – a grandiose term for what was essentially a band of disgruntled scholars – were loudly holding forth in the rear of the saloon.
Bryant recognized a number of old friends who had helped him in the past, including Stanhope Beaufort, a bombastic architectural expert who volunteered advice on London’s ancient monuments, and Raymond Kirkpatrick, a verbose English language professor who had been banned from lecturing at Oxford because of his habit of playing deafening heavy-metal music while he researched. The Immortals attracted their own groupies, not as glamorous perhaps as those who lurked backstage at rock concerts, but every bit as tenacious. Among these was Jackie Quinten, the maternal widow who had tried to tempt Bryant back to her kitchen with the offer of a steaming kidney casserole when they had met in the course of the PCU’s investigation into the so-called ‘Water Room’. He had turned her down, not because he disliked her cuisine but because she seemed to view him as potential husband material, which could only lead to tears.
He had spotted her sitting in a corner reading, and was careful to skirt the edge of the room in order to avoid her. Unfortunately, as he was creeping past with his head drawn down into the folds of his scarf, he caught his foot in her handbag strap and lurched forward, precipitating half a pint of Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout straight into her lap.
There was a detonation of yelping chaos followed by a commotion of mopping and sponging, during which time Bryant stood helplessly by, caught between the conflicting desires to apologize profusely and to sprint for the exit.
‘Really, Arthur,’ Jackie Quinten cried in exasperation as she wrung out her skirt, which was woollen and perfectly designed for absorption, ‘there must be better ways of announcing yourself.’
‘I’m most dreadfully sorry, Jackie, I didn’t see you sitting there. You’re rather invisible in that corner.’
‘Thanks, you always know how to make a woman feel special.’ When she saw the look of mortification on his face, she relented. ‘Come and sit down for a minute, at least.’
Bryant squeezed in beside her, breathing in the yeasty scent of fermented hops.
‘I suppose you’re here on business.’
‘After a fashion. I’m trying to stop a most unusual murderer.’
‘You always are, Arthur. That’s what you do, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but this one is particularly slippery. He corners middle-aged women in public houses and puts them to sleep.’