White Corridor Part 17

'Why would you do that, I mean if she had made her own choices-'

'Because there are diets, exercise regimes and supplements we prefer our clients to take, and obviously we can't risk their health.'

Or the lawsuits, thought Longbright. 'So what was wrong with her?' thought Longbright. 'So what was wrong with her?'

Juan-Luis could see she would not rest until he had provided satisfactory information, and he badly needed to hit this week's client quota. He set aside his PDA and lowered his voice. 'Apart from the recreational drugs she chose to use, she had been taking Haldol since she was a child. It's a drug formerly used to control behavioral problems in children.'

'You mean her parents had it prescribed for her?'

'I imagine so, but it should have been stopped, because it has long been known to pose health risks, like low blood pressure and even cardiac arrest, and there's potential cross-reaction with other chemicals that makes it unsafe at any dosage. Unfortunately, Haldol can also be addictive.'

'Do you prescribe drugs for your patients, antiageing potions, anything like that?'

'You're a police officer, aren't you.' He offered the statement as a matter of fact. 'Listen, it's not my company, I have no vested interests here, but I can tell you the rules are strictly adhered to. We provide our clients with medical supervision in the form of advice and, in certain cases, dietary aids. We never suggest they can stave off illness and live forever just by changing their diet and exercising more, like some clubs promise, but we show them how they can live healthier, more active lives for longer.'

'But in your brochure you recommend homeopathic remedies.'

'We make no claims that they'll perform miracles, but I admit, sometimes women want to believe more than we can promise.' He shrugged. 'It's up to them.'

As she left the clinic, Longbright tried to make sense of what she had learned. It was possible that Lilith had not died as a direct result of her drug use, in which case someone else might have felt responsible for her death.

She returned to the unit and sought out Giles Kershaw. An idea had begun to form in her head, but it was one that could lead them all into trouble, for it meant lodging an accusation against a fellow officer.

40

PERFORMING THE IMPOSSIBLE 'I feel like I might be heading down the wrong route with this,' Longbright told the pathologist. 'We have have definitely discounted the most likely causes, haven't we?' definitely discounted the most likely causes, haven't we?'

'I told you that,' said Kershaw, falling in beside her as they headed through the unit. 'The primary blow to his chest is the one that initiated the seizure. The neck bruise is secondary.'

'Then I need to run something by you.'

'Try me.'

'Suppose someone other than Mills came to the mortuary to check on Lilith Starr, and ended up arguing with Oswald Finch about her cause of death? By that time, Finch's notes had already been removed, although Mills still insists it wasn't him. What if Finch set down the true cause of her death, and it laid the blame at someone else's door-G.o.d knows, Oswald was never afraid to accuse others. That would place Mills in the clear, but who would it point to?'

'Not a member of the PCU staff,' Kershaw remarked, 'because none of them knew the victim. What about her parents?'

'Highly unlikely, don't you think? Our pugnacious Sergeant Renfield was the one who brought her in. Finch might have threatened to report him for some minor transgression. He had the power to do so. A lot of senior officers in the Met held him in the highest regard. Plus, Renfield and Finch had always hated each other.'

'Renfield prides himself on playing by the book. He would have been mortified to be reported by a man he considered his enemy.'

Longbright felt she was finally on the right track. 'I think Renfield returned to the mortuary for some reason, and found Finch writing up a report that accused him of failure to carry out correct procedure.'

'The sergeant certainly has the right temperament,' Kershaw admitted.

'Hadn't he once been placed on a month's paid leave for attacking another officer? Finch would probably have goaded him. You know how he liked to wind people up. Suppose he realised that the girl could have been saved if Renfield had acted differently? What was he doing accompanying a body to the morgue anyway? If Lilith Starr wasn't just another Camden overdose after all, Renfield should have noticed something and called in medics at once. Imagine Finch spotting that. He challenges the sergeant, the limit of Renfield's patience is reached, and he gives Finch a little happy-slap...'

'But the pathologist is old and infirm, and the effect on him is more drastic than intended.' Kershaw seized on the idea, taking it further. 'He collapses on the floor. Renfield panics, looks about the room, sees the loose ceiling-fan cover and decides to make it look like an accident. He leaves the room, closing the door behind him.'

'You realize what will happen if we try to take him in as a suspect,' warned Longbright. 'All these years we've spent attempting to heal the rift between the PCU and the Metropolitan Police. We'll have to fight them head-on.'

'The Princess Royal's visit is scheduled to commence in precisely five hours, but I see little sign of preparation for her appearance,' said Rosemary Armstrong, the royal appointments secretary. Upon her arrival she had glanced about the unit with a vaguely horrified air before flicking a handkerchief over the chair April had offered her. A search had commenced to locate a teacup, but April had only been able to produce a clean mug bearing the s.h.i.+eld of St Crispin's Boys' School that Bryant had swiped in the course of their last investigation.

'We are a working unit,' said April, 'and today is especially busy. We're short-staffed, and-'

'Yes, yes.' Armstrong impatiently waved the thought aside. 'I'm sure we all have lots of work to do, yes? But by this evening the Princess will be quite fatigued, and in no mood for a poor show. Last night she had to sit through a performance of The Marriage of Figaro The Marriage of Figaro that could, with the utmost charity, have best been described as pedestrian, and today she is required to unveil a plaque dedicated to the Dagenham Girl Pipers before attending your presentation. Few people can imagine the stamina required to handle her responsibilities.' She rose and peered from the corner window overlooking the road. 'What on earth is that down there?' that could, with the utmost charity, have best been described as pedestrian, and today she is required to unveil a plaque dedicated to the Dagenham Girl Pipers before attending your presentation. Few people can imagine the stamina required to handle her responsibilities.' She rose and peered from the corner window overlooking the road. 'What on earth is that down there?'

'It's Camden High Street.'

'What a pity. Does it always look like that?'

'I'm afraid so, yes.'

'With all those people milling about? That won't do. I thought we'd decided on barriers.'

'The mayor was against the idea, I'm afraid.'

'That ghastly little Trot? Well, I suppose these things can't be helped. I a.s.sume you can a.s.sure me that the building will have been thoroughly cleaned and tidied, with the fresh-cut flowers I requested in place throughout the offices by five o'clock, yes? That everyone will be in their places, and that the royal protocol brochures will have been read and digested? We cannot risk breaches of etiquette simply because some members of staff have failed to observe a few painfully simple rules.'

'We'll certainly do our best to ensure that the Princess has a pleasant and informative visit,' said April.

'Hm.' Rosemary Armstrong looked as if she did not believe it for a minute, but the girl was sweet enough and seemed eager to please. 'I shall be with the Princess for the rest of the day, and as she does not approve of mobile telephones, mine will be switched off, so if there are any problems, you'll simply have to sort them out yourself. Oh, and one other thing-' She waggled her fingers at the air. 'There's a most peculiar smell in here. It seems to be emanating from that cat. The Princess has allergies, and is very sensitive to a lack of freshness. Make it disappear, would you?'

'What a dreadful woman,' said Raymond Land after the royal secretary had wafted from the building in a haze of old English gardenia. 'What are we going to do when they return expecting a full complement of staff? April, it's your job to look after the unit, can't you think of something?'

'What about a bomb scare?' she suggested. 'We could get the area cordoned off, have the visit cancelled. It would be n.o.body's fault.'

Land was too worried to hear her. 'If she doesn't come here and a.s.sess our operation in a positive light, we risk losing all of our remaining funding. It's absolutely imperative that she approves and reports back to Kasavian. How did we ever get into this mess? It's Bryant's fault, trotting off to a ridiculous spiritualists' convention and taking our best man with him. We're for the high jump, there's no way out of it this time. Obviously we can't get them back here by five, but we have to release the rest of the staff from house arrest, and that means finding an explanation for Oswald's death.' He checked his watch. 'We've got a five-hour window. Surely it's not asking the impossible?'

It seemed to be a rite of pa.s.sage at the PCU that the performance of the impossible was required from every member of staff at least once during their tenure. April had already risked her life for the unit, as her mother had before her. Only weeks ago she had almost been thrown to her death from the top of a building during the unmasking of the Highwayman. Now, she realised, with her grandfather out of action and everyone else trying to solve Oswald Finch's murder, their survival might be in her hands alone.

41

DIABLE 'We've had a call back, Arthur,' said John May, checking his messages. 'You were right about the London lawyer, Edward Winthrop. He was sent to Ma.r.s.eilles to attempt the extradition of a young man named Pascal Favier, but Favier managed to attack him in the empty courtyard of the jailhouse, knocking the lawyer unconscious and stealing his ident.i.ty. Winthrop died of a fractured skull. Favier was never caught.'

Bryant's eyes lit up. 'Then the police must have been tracking him ever since. Why haven't they been able to catch him?'

'Who knows how efficient these people are?' May replied. 'I don't suppose the local police were notified properly. All kinds of communication breakdowns occur between the regions. It sounds like he's been travelling through the southern provinces of France, adopting the ident.i.ties of those he has a.s.saulted and left for dead. Hang on, another positive ID coming in.' He played back the rest of the returned calls, listening intently. 'There's a Johann Bellocq registered as the owner of a villa in Eze-sur-Mer, which ties in with Madeline's story. We can get the local gendarmes to go around there now.'

'It still doesn't help us with the real ident.i.ty of this maniac who's out there in the snow, unless they can find a link which proves that Pascal Favier and Johann Bellocq are one and the same. I feel so hand-tied, stuck in here.' Bryant threw himself back in the pa.s.senger seat, frustrated.

May checked through his notes. 'Madeline Gilby said Johann confessed his past to her. He said that his beloved grandfather had died, leaving him alone with his mother, and that he murdered her. He spent just five years in a church which operated as the local mental hospital, run by nuns-apparently there were mitigating circ.u.mstances surrounding the mother's death-but the reprieve did him no good, as he became a member of something called Le Societe Du Diable, some kind of neo-n.a.z.i organisation run from Jean-Marie Le Pen country. After leaving there, who knows where he went? Presumably this was the period in which he committed the crimes that landed him in the Ma.r.s.eilles jailhouse. After his escape he went off-radar again, living somewhere in the Alpes-Maritimes area, until killing this Bellocq chap.'

'So, somewhere in that history there must be records revealing his movements, and we can provide the ident.i.ties he adopted. What's the point of having satellite tracking systems if they can't keep tabs on people like him? I mean, it's little use knowing where he's been. We need to know what's making him strike now. If we understand what drives him, perhaps we can stop him. Luckily, we have an expert right here who may be able to help us.'

May saw how his partner's mind was working. 'Don't tell me. Your white witch; she'll know all about satanic groups.'

'Exactly. I have to go and talk with her.'

'No, let me do it,' said May. 'You can't take any more cold. Stay here in the warm with Madeline and the boy. Just tell me what you want to ask her.'

'He's followed Mrs Gilby here for two reasons: He wants what she took from him, and he's developed an obsession with her. She says he believes that only she can redeem him. He can give the authorities the slip every time he changes ident.i.ty, but if they get a fix on him he's sunk. She has the pa.s.sport of the last man he killed, and he needs it back. He might try to contact other branches of this Societe Du Diable, and use their members in some way. Ask Maggie if they also operate from somewhere in the UK. Find out if they've heard from him, and warn them that he's dangerous. These groups are notoriously private. Contrary to what the newspapers would have us believe, they rarely try to recruit innocent members of the public. But they must be made to inform us if he gets in touch. It would be helpful to know exactly what it is they believe in, and if he's operating in accordance with their doctrines.'

After May had plunged off into the diamond drifts once more, Bryant called the Plymouth Emergency Services and tracked down their Severe Weather supervisor, who informed him that they had abandoned the use of helicopters and were still working hard to clear the railway tracks. The first train was setting off in a few minutes, and would reach them in just over an hour.

Bryant was both pleased and dismayed by the news. He looked forward to being able to feel his extremities again, but knew that a train might bring those who would take the case away from him. He sat back and thought about Johann Bellocq's missing pa.s.sport, and the young woman who had hidden it. Bellocq needed his past ident.i.ties in order to stay free, but he also saw a chance of salvation in Madeline. Why, though? What was he planning to do once he had found her again?

She feared him because she needed to protect her son, but there was some other reason why he had tracked her all the way to another country. Bryant understood from the few textbooks he had read on the subject that most serial murderers operated within a tight radius of their homes. Something wasn't making sense.

The detective's ears, nose, feet and brain were frozen. His neural impulses had slowed until they were as faint as fogbound harbour lights. Breathing on the windscreen, he drew lines in the condensation, as if trying to trace the connections in his mind. It was too easy not to think.

The two investigations, one far away, one close at hand, both immediate and pressing, overlapped each other in his head like architectural drawings on tracing paper. The icy air felt like the long-expected touch of death, destroying his cells and removing his senses. He considered the story of Johann's childhood, recounted by the woman he hunted. Johann continued to brutalise because he had been able to kill his mother without remorse. He had even waited until his grandfather's death to act.

He had been raised in a land of devout Catholics, but had finally chosen a far stranger path to G.o.d. Had his mother been so strict that she had drawn out a monster from within her child? In his experience, even those who renounced the confines of a constricting religion never truly forgot the primal fears they developed as children. How did Bellocq reconcile those terrors with his embrace of the darkness?

How could he find the permission to kill within himself?

Why would he track a young woman and her son all the way to another country, just to protect his last ident.i.ty, when he could surely commit the same crime and gain a new persona, find a new redeemer? Was there any point in attempting to even understand what went on in his mind?

Yes, because if you understand it, thought Bryant, thought Bryant, you understand the man. And then you own the key to catching him. you understand the man. And then you own the key to catching him. An alarm bell rang in his head, faint and persistent. The driver of the van with whom he had hitched a ride still had his own pa.s.sport tucked inside his jacket. Why had Johann not taken it and simply started again? Why did he need the one she had stolen from him? An alarm bell rang in his head, faint and persistent. The driver of the van with whom he had hitched a ride still had his own pa.s.sport tucked inside his jacket. Why had Johann not taken it and simply started again? Why did he need the one she had stolen from him?

Because that's not why he followed her here, Bryant decided. The pa.s.sport has nothing to do with it. Only Madeline Gilby thinks it does. In that case, he just wants the photographs back, even though by the sound of it they won't directly incriminate him. They're pieces of circ.u.mstantial evidence that might place him at the scenes of the crimes, but they also have personal significance to him; that's why he took them, and why he needs to retain them. The pa.s.sport has nothing to do with it. Only Madeline Gilby thinks it does. In that case, he just wants the photographs back, even though by the sound of it they won't directly incriminate him. They're pieces of circ.u.mstantial evidence that might place him at the scenes of the crimes, but they also have personal significance to him; that's why he took them, and why he needs to retain them.

Bryant turned to the rear of the van and saw that mother and son were curled in the shadowed storage compartment, asleep beneath the moulting goatskin rug he had set aside for the Eden scene.

When his mobile rang, he tried to stifle the sound, so as not to wake them.

'Arthur, this is weird,' said May. 'I'm with Maggie right now, and she says that Le Societe Du Diable isn't a meeting group at all. It's a cybersite.'

'You mean it only exists on the interweb thingie?'

'That's right. It's just a forum used by teenaged Goths and lapsed Catholics to moan about their lives and discuss death-metal music; it's not a proper satanic site at all. She's most disparaging about such organisations.'

'I don't understand. Why would he have bothered to lie to Mrs Gilby? Besides, he's not a lapsed Catholic. According to her, he's such a believer that he thinks G.o.d watches him whenever there's a clear sky. I don't like the sound of this, John; something is not right about the man's life. I'm starting to think we've been mightily had.'

'I'm coming back,' said his partner. 'My battery's nearly dead, so I'll get off the line. Don't do anything reckless.'

'I need to go and find the envelope Mrs Gilby took from her attacker. We have to expose him. Is there any way of getting its contents transmitted?'

'I can upload digital shots and send them back to the unit in seconds, but what if you have an accident out there? Wait in the vehicle and I'll collect it.'

'She put it under the front pa.s.senger-side wheel arch of her rented blue Toyota,' Bryant explained. 'It's about ten cars in front of us, around the curve.'

'I'll go after it now.'

May bade farewell to Maggie and her group, and set off along the road until he reached the bend, where it banked steeply. The snow had started to fall heavily once more, and was rapidly obscuring the way ahead. If Johann thinks G.o.d is watching him, he could strike whenever the clouds hide him from view, If Johann thinks G.o.d is watching him, he could strike whenever the clouds hide him from view, thought May. thought May. That's now That's now.

A new sense of urgency drove him on, but the route had scabbed over with gem-hard ice, and the going was difficult. When he heard the rumble, he thought that a train must have finally managed to break through, but upon looking up at the side of the hill he saw what appeared to be rocks disappearing in the great plateau of white smoke.

A plain of snow the size of a football pitch was slowly gaining momentum. It gathered speed as it slid down towards the road, bursting between the trees and spraying over the bushes. When it hit the valley of cars, it raised and shoved them gently, silently, to the far bank, burying several completely. May fought to keep his footing, but the avalanche was fracturing the ground in a pattern that reminded him of the part.i.tion of ice floes, shaking and finally tipping him over onto his back.

As he clambered back to his feet, May saw that the other half of the traffic corridor had been cut off and that he was completely separated from Bryant, without any way of reaching him.

42

CULPABILITY Giles Kershaw agreed to join Longbright for the interview. She had been planning to take Banbury in with her, as he was the burliest officer they had apart from Bimsley, but no-one knew where the detective constable was. The pair of them peered through the window before they went in.

Sergeant Renfield was squirming about on an orange plastic chair as if he had been tethered there. He was so furious that he had changed colour. His ears were white, his cheeks were a deep crimson, his nose almost blue. If his face had been rounder he would have looked like an archery target. He had once told Longbright that the Met was run like a doctors' surgery and the unit behaved like a bunch of alternative therapists, and his detention today confirmed this belief. He had always fancied his chances with the detective sergeant, but now he was displaying the bitterness of a man who knew that he had been irrevocably rejected.

'What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing, bringing me in here?' He spat the words at her as she entered.

'I wanted to keep this more informal, but the heater's broken in my room,' she told him. 'And it's less public in here.'

'You've lost the b.l.o.o.d.y plot, Longbright. I knew you lot were hopeless without your bosses around, but this is a b.l.o.o.d.y joke.'

'No joke,' said Janice. 'You went back to the mortuary to see Oswald, didn't you?' She knew she was chancing her arm with this supposition, but needed to provoke a reaction. If he decided to call her bluff and demand evidence, she was lost.

'I didn't have much of a choice, did I? Finch phoned me and accused me of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up. He told me he'd put it in the report if I didn't come over and sort it out at once.'

'So you went back to Bayham Street and had it out with him.'

'Finch hadn't been out in the field for years; he had no idea what it's like on the streets: the chavs, the drunks, the endless aggression. The Camden junkies are worse than their dealers, because they're either whining excuses or angling for a fix, by which time they're little more than animals. I'd seen that girlie on the street before, or if it wasn't her it was someone d.a.m.ned well like her.' Renfield was eager to explain his side of the story. 'Anyone who tells you that rehabilitation works is a liar. They'll swear to G.o.d they're clean, and you can lift the gear out of their pockets while they're talking to you. No matter what they say, you know you'll see them again, shooting up in a toilet or a shop doorway. That's what we did when we picked up the girl; we dealt with the situation.'

'Then why did Finch call you back in?' asked Longbright.

'Listen, I'd been on duty all night, and she looked like another dead junkie.' Renfield's body language proclaimed him guilty without the need to speak.

'You bypa.s.sed the hospital and sent her straight to the morgue, didn't you?' said Longbright. 'That's why you went yourself. You didn't call the paramedics.'

'I saved everyone a docket. You think you have the monopoly on unorthodox procedure? If it improves the situation for all parties concerned, do it without thinking twice If it improves the situation for all parties concerned, do it without thinking twice. Bryant himself told me that. Finch was a doctor, he could have signed her off easy enough, but instead he had to make life difficult for everyone. My boys were coming to the end of a long s.h.i.+ft; they were knackered.'

'What did Finch tell you about Lilith Starr?' asked Longbright.

'He said the girl was in ana-ana-' Renfield stuttered.