White corridor (28 page)

48

LAST EMBRACE

As John May and Maggie Armitage reached the mouth of the tunnel, they threw away caution and began calling for their friend. Their voices returned unanswered from the curving walls.

‘He has to be inside,’ said May, ‘his tracks lead to the entrance. Stay out here and look after the boy. I’ll go in.’

As he stepped into the blanket of the dark, he heard it, the distant ring of the approaching train. ‘Arthur, are you hurt?’ he called. ‘Listen to me carefully. Madeline Gilby is a very dangerous woman. The man she insists is hunting her is Johann Bellocq, and he’s actually trying to stop her. There are no pictures of murder victims, no forged passports. Arthur, answer me!’

He could feel the weight of the train on the tracks, the steady displacement of air in the far end of the long tunnel, the faint crackle of electricity. A dim light appeared on the wall of the first bend. As it slowly increased in brightness and moved down, he saw what appeared to be a bundle of rags lying across the tracks. As he watched, it flinched like an animal caught in the coils of a snake, and he realised that he was looking at his partner, trapped with Madeline Gilby’s limbs twisted around him. Bryant’s boots kicked out in a burst of gravel, and he twisted his head to look plaintively around for help.

May dropped to his side and pulled at an arm, but Madeline’s clutch tightened, rolling Bryant further onto the centre of the track. ‘You’ll kill us all,’ May told her. ‘We can get you help, Madeline. It doesn’t have to end this way.’

Ahead, the lights of the train grew brighter as it coasted the bend of the tunnel in a roar of sparking steel.

He tried to prise open her hands, but the muscles in her fingers and arms had locked with steely rigidity. Bryant kicked and wriggled, but was rapidly losing strength. Gilby was on top of him now, knotted around his body in a death grip that nothing could loosen. Braced against the track, May pulled at them in vain.

‘Let me,’ said Maggie, hopping across the tracks and grabbing Bryant’s attacker from the other side. Madeline Gilby let out a sudden piercing yell and threw out her limbs as wildly as if she had been electrocuted. Released and able to breathe once more, Bryant let out a gasp.

May pulled hard, dragging his partner across the rail and up against the wall. He reached out a hand to Madeline, shouting for her, but she crawled further away, turning to face the explosion of light and noise.

May caught sight of Madeline’s pale face one last time; her widening eyes were staring into the long white shaft of light that emanated from the front of the engine in the corridor of the tunnel. She looked quite calm, as if she was glad to be finally faced with the prospect of meeting her Maker.

A moment later, the duo watched as the flashing yellow panels raced past them, and the carriages started to slow with the braking of the train. When it had finally passed, there was no trace left behind of Madeline Gilby.

Maggie Armitage had flattened herself against the opposite wall of the tunnel. Her arms were splayed and her hair had been shocked into a vermilion sunburst around her head, like Struwwelpeter.

‘What did you do to make her let go?’ called May as he pulled Bryant to his feet. ‘Stick her with an evil enchantment?’

‘No, a hatpin,’ replied the white witch breathlessly. ‘Every bit as effective. At least she didn’t have to go towards the light. It came to her.’

‘The final white corridor,’ said May, taking her hand. ‘Come on, you two. Let’s get out of the dark.’

49

ROYALTY

They stood neatly in line, the seven of them, Meera Mangeshkar and Colin Bimsley, Dan Banbury and Giles Kershaw, Raymond Land, April May and Janice Longbright.

Meera had decided to work on an expression that could not be construed as a scowl, and had loosened her tied-back hair so that it glossily framed her face. Longbright had shown her how to administer lipstick, although teaching her to stop flinching as it was applied had proven tricky.

Colin had polished his shoes and was proudly wearing his father’s old police tie. The legendarily clumsy PC was under strict instructions to keep his hands by his sides and not attempt anything more complicated than taking one pace forward or back.

Dan was dressed in the too-tight grey Ben Sherman suit he always wore to work, but his wife had forced him to don his only white shirt that took cuff links.

Giles was wearing his Eton tie, a lurid red carnation he had filched from April’s garage flowers and a baggy blazer that made him look like a Henley Regatta captain.

Raymond Land had ditched his cardigan and opted to stretch a yellow striped shirt across his paunch, slicking back his receding locks with his son’s hair gel so that he resembled a provincial advertising manager, or possibly a pimp.

Having escaped from the storeroom in which he had been shut, Crippen threaded his way through Land’s legs and thought about taking a pee, but wisely decided against it.

April wore a simple black dress and matching shoes, with pearl earrings and a single strand of black pearls that had been bequeathed to her by her grandmother.

Janice Longbright was sporting a pair of high-heeled court shoes that had once belonged to Alma Cogan, the fifties chanteuse, and a seashell hair slide in the style of Dorothy Lamour. She was still wearing the red woollen two-piece suit she had borrowed to infiltrate the Circe Club earlier that day.

They had all done what they could to look smart, and the net result was appropriately peculiar. But on this afternoon, at this moment, they all felt part of an alternative family, the invisible connections of friendship joining them to one another more surely and steadfastly than any blood tie. For once, they were individuals united as one.

The offices of the Peculiar Crimes Unit had never looked clean, but at least all of the unfinished cabling, Bryant’s dubious personal belongings and Crippen’s litter tray had been shoved into storage cupboards. April had indulged her passion for neatness, placing fresh-cut flowers on every desk and arranging every file, every chair, every pen and piece of paper in pristine symmetry. The unit wasn’t quite fit for a queen, but it would do for a princess.

April coughed nervously. Colin checked his breath and dug for a mint. Giles stole a surreptitious glance at his watch. Dan adjusted his boxers through his trousers. Janice pushed an errant coil of hair back in place and peeked at the opening door. Crippen rolled over onto his side and fell into a light doze. It was so unnaturally quiet that they heard the central heating thermostat turn itself off.

Rosemary Armstrong entered in a display of stiff hair and thick ankles, dressed in a peculiarly
Tatler
-ish arrangement of floral silk scarves that made her look like an ambulatory sideboard centrepiece from one of the less beloved National Trust homes. In an attempt to put everyone at ease, she sported an official smile that made even the cat wake up and move away.

Longbright leaned back into line with the others, disappointed to see that it was the Princess’s assistant and not her bosses. The last she had heard, Arthur Bryant and John May had been collected by train, then a Royal Navy helicopter, to get them en route to Mornington Crescent for five o’clock, but it was now twelve minutes past and they were cutting it very fine indeed.

‘The Princess has just arrived,’ said Rosemary, cautiously sniffing the air. ‘Everything shipshape here, yes?’

Longbright peered out through the sleet-stained crescent window and saw the black Bentley parked in the cordoned-off street outside. As she watched, Leslie Faraday and Oskar Kasavian alighted onto the strangely clean pavement in tight black suits and narrow ties, looking like agents of Beelzebub.

Raymond Land spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘It’s gone five, Janice. Where the hell are they?’

‘I don’t know, sir. I spoke to the pilot and he swore he could get them here in time.’

Land had arranged for the Princess to be shown some of the unit’s case histories before meeting its most senior detectives. He would lead her to his smartened office in the company of Rosemary and several other palace heavies, to a display they had prepared for the BBC some months earlier. She would not enjoy it, he had been warned, but she would at least give the semblance of being interested. There were pictures; it would be easy to follow. The unit had very little in the way of expensive new equipment that could be demonstrated. Its history was by nature anecdotal, ephemeral and at times downright vague, but it was woven into the very fabric of London’s colourful history, and was probably more interesting than opening a swimming pool or being shown around a pumping station.

Kasavian leaned into the room with his arm outstretched and ushered in an immaculately coiffured blond woman whose wealth had mitigated the imprints of age. She raised the faint ghost of a smile as she was introduced to each member of staff, as if dimly recalling a happy moment from her childhood. Armstrong stood with her hands clasped over her skirt like a footballer on the ten-yard line waiting for someone to take a penalty. She showed the level of boredom rich people showed when being told about the lives of the poor. Occasionally she glanced in the direction of whoever was speaking and nodded, but her mind was dwelling on old slights, recent snubs and pastel place settings.

Faraday was ignored and virtually dismissed from the room as Kasavian took charge of the Princess’s passage, rather like a tugboat drawing an elegant old steamship into a tricky harbour. Longbright could see that he was also glancing furtively around the room while he distracted the Princess’s attention, looking for something embarrassing with which to collapse this house of cards. He needed to reduce the royal personage to a state of mortification, or even mild shock, so that he could race back to Whitehall and place his observations on file before the mortar of his outrage had a chance to set. He had decided that the best way to do this was to lead the Princess to the office that Bryant and May shared and loudly announce them, opening the door with a flourish, only to reveal a pair of empty leather armchairs.

He already knew what he would say, that it appeared the unit’s most long-serving officers of the law had not seen fit to be here on the most auspicious occasion in its history, and had, he’d been told, chosen to attend a spiritualists’ convention instead of further inspiring the Princess’s keen interest in modern policing procedure. How disappointing, he would tut to Land, shaking his head sadly, how terribly rude, more than a mere breach of protocol, a defiantly thumbed nose from a precious coterie of leftie liberals to the reigning monarchy and its hardworking national law enforcement network. Such an act could not be allowed to pass without repercussions.

With the unit’s lineup fully introduced and murmured to in tiny hushed phrases that required no answer other than
Yes, ma’am,
the Princess and her flotilla drifted on towards Bryant and May’s office.

‘And this, Your Royal Highness, is the nerve centre of the unit,’ said Oskar Kasavian, twisting the door handle before her. ‘Mr Arthur Bryant and Mr John May are the longest-serving detectives in the London Metropolitan Police force, and the Peculiar Crimes Unit owes its existence entirely to their efforts. Through their presence here today, I’m sure they are anxious to express their feelings about the unit’s royal patronage.’ Barely able to suppress a smirk of victory, he opened the door to the empty room.

Except that it wasn’t empty.

The two detectives were exactly where they usually were, in place behind their respective leather-topped desks. Admittedly, their suits were a little crumpled, their ties slightly askew, and they both looked as though they had been caught doing something mischievous, but they were as presentably arranged as they were ever likely to be for a meeting with royalty.

They had entered via the emergency exit from the tube station. Kasavian was lost for words. His mouth opened, then closed again. He stared back at Faraday as thunderclouds extinguished the light in his amber eyes.

John May rose from his chair with a creak and stood respectfully at attention. Arthur Bryant followed suit, coming around from behind his desk, grinning with his big white false teeth as he stuck out both hands and clasped hers, shaking her arm vigorously. The Princess looked faintly alarmed, and glanced back for help.

‘Most fabulously pleasurable to meet you, your highly royal ladyshipness,’ he enthused. ‘If you would care to step into our humble abode, perhaps we might be permitted to reveal to you some of the extraordinary secrets of our mysterious profession. Don’t be scared, we’re not mad or anything.’ And with that he kicked the door shut, stranding Rosemary Armstrong, Faraday, Kasavian, Land and everyone else out in the corridor.

They looked at one another in confusion, then watched the closed door, waiting for it to open again. When nothing happened, they coughed politely in their fists and waited in silence like party guests queueing for the toilet.

After four minutes had passed, Rosemary Armstrong ostentatiously checked her watch. ‘The Princess has an incredibly tight schedule,’ she told Kasavian, managing to make the statement sound vaguely gynaecological.

He studied her with compressed lips, then tentatively tried the door, only to find that it would not budge.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rosemary.

‘They’ve locked it,’ said Land, always happy to state the obvious.

‘Why would they do that?’ asked Kasavian. ‘Do they have something to say to her in private?’

Nobody answered. As the minutes stretched by, the group shuffled closer to the door, and whether they realised it or not, listened intently. They heard the sound of ice tinkling into glass, then a shriek of laughter, then something that resembled a spring being stretched and released, then an old recording from
Iolanthe
played on a Victrola phonograph, then more muted laughter and finally a blast on something like a naval foghorn.

When the door was finally unlocked and swung open, the Princess emerged with her immaculate blond hair askew, glassy eyes and a strange smile on her face. She was also humming to herself. As she passed Kasavian, ignoring them all, the Home Office security supervisor distinctly caught a whiff of tobacco and gin.

When the others had followed her out, Kasavian stormed into the smoky room and slapped a skeletal white hand on Bryant’s desk. ‘What the hell was going on in here?’ he angrily hissed under his breath. But Bryant merely smiled and shrugged.

Princess Beatrice did not speak another word to anyone until long after she had left the unit, and when Bryant and May finally emerged from their room they refused to divulge to anyone what had taken place. However, while she was clearing up, Sergeant Longbright found some candid photographs of the British royal family taken at a party in Cowes in 1935, an empty bottle of Gordon’s Gin and something that looked distinctly like the remains of a joint under Bryant’s desk. There also appeared to have been a small fire in the bin.

When Oskar Kasavian rang Rosemary Armstrong two days later and enquired by periphrastic means about the Princess’s visit to the unit, he was harshly warned never to mention it again. Furthermore, when he ventured to suggest that the Princess might have an opinion concerning the possible future of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, he was told in no uncertain terms that if anyone’s future was at all in doubt, it was most likely to be his own.