trouble of drowning her on dry land?’
‘I think we have to set aside the “why” and concentrate on “how” for a while.’
‘How is it you always manage to sidestep the logical questions any normal person would ask?’
‘I never gave you any reason to assume I was logical. Have you ever known me to plan anything more than two hours in advance, or stay awake all the way through a committee meeting?’ Bryant reached back to his bookshelf and began pulling down some dusty, tattered volumes.
‘I suppose not,’ May sighed. ‘If you were logical, you’d have stayed with Alma as your landlady in the old apartment. She washed your socks for forty years. Any sane person would have bid you good riddance, but she’s terribly cut up about you dumping her. And I don’t think you’ll find the answer in any of those filthy old books.’
‘Well, of course, that’s exactly what you would say,’ Bryant bridled, loading them into his briefcase. ‘Anyway, what about your granddaughter? I thought you were bringing April in to help us. I thought you were going to have it out with her once and for all. Put your own house in order, I say.’
Stalemate, thought May. ‘So what are the books for?’ he asked, giving in gracefully.
‘Ah, well. Seeing as we divided assignments, I thought I’d try adopting your methods for a change. Any word from Greenwood?’
‘Monica called to tell me that Jackson Ubeda and her husband are going off somewhere together tomorrow night, and that he’s not expected back until the next morning. I think it was her way of telling me that she’d be alone in the house.’
‘Thank God I don’t have your trouble with women. What a moral dilemma. Which duty will you choose, I wonder? To satisfy the unfulfilled wife or to rescue the good name of your rival? The unit can’t help you now, you know, not with Raymond having to report our every movement to Marsden and the rest of HMCO liaison.’
‘Then I’ll inform you of my decision,’ said May.
‘And I’ll do the same if my hunch with these books pays off.’
The axe is about to fall on this place and they’re behaving like children, guarding their essays from each other, thought Longbright, watching them from the door. They’re out of step, out of date, and it looks like they’re finally running out of time.
34
* * *
THE CONDUIT
Bryant unloaded the books at the end of Tate’s bed. ‘I’m afraid they’re rather esoteric,’ he apologized, ‘but you may find them interesting.’
The itinerant turned over the first volume and studied the title suspiciously. A gruesome face on the cover of Dental Evidence in Body Identification. Volume One: Bridgework stared back at him. ‘Thank you,’ he said uncertainly.
There was an unbearably terminal aspect to Tate’s little room. When he had mentioned the stripped-back bareness of the workers’ houses in Balaklava Street, homes that had been built for the poor, he could have been describing this, his own eventual residence. His knotted hands turned the pages with surprising delicacy. On the sill above his bed stood a row of syrup tins containing stunted geraniums. An overpowering smell of stewed beef wafted in from the corridor.
‘I wondered if we might talk a little more,’ Bryant suggested.
‘You want to know something, don’t you? There’s been another one.’
‘You heard.’
‘Everyone talks in here. But I saw.’
‘What do you mean, you saw?’
‘What you told me off for doing.’
‘You mean watching?’ Bryant sat forward. ‘You were watching the house?’
‘In one of my positions. Traffic warden uses it. Runs out from his hidey-hole to arrest the cars.’
Bryant knew that rough sleepers developed territorial habits every bit as strong as those with homes. ‘Where is that?’
‘On the waste ground.’
‘What did you see, Mr Tate?’
‘Saw the bedroom light go out in number 41.’
‘Did you notice who went in?’
‘No. You can only see upstairs from there.’
‘What about Elliot Copeland? Did you see him on the night of the accident?’
‘Yes. The earth swallowed him up.’ Tate turned the pages, feigning disinterest in the conversation.
‘This is very important,’ urged Bryant. ‘Did you see anything at all that could identify the culprit?’ The moment he spoke, the delicate skein of communication between them was damaged. Tate’s eyes clouded as he closed the book. Bryant knew he had to try another approach.
‘I thought you might like that volume.’ He reached over and tapped the cover of a battered paperback entitled The Vanished Rivers of London. ‘Fascinating stuff about this area. It even has a picture of your temporary