house in a clatter that sounded like gravel pouring down a chute. It was as though sluice gates had opened to flood the city, turning London into an inundated world of Atlantean phantoms.
Kallie returned to the bathroom and noticed that the stain on the wall had spread during the few minutes she had been out of the room. Now it extended fully halfway up the wall in a suppurating mushroom cloud, and was wet to the touch.
She was about to resume work with renewed vigour when the lights went out.
‘I really thought I had him,’ said Bimsley. ‘I might have done if I hadn’t gone arse over tit on the kerb. It’s these shoes. I’ve done my coccyx in, and the back of my jacket’s soaked.’ The detective constable wiped his eyes and pulled his baseball cap closer to his head. ‘I can’t believe this weather,’ he complained. ‘Global warming. We’re getting pissed on night and day just so mums can drop their kids off in SUVs. You all right?’
‘I’ve been drier,’ Meera agreed, squinting up at her colleague.
‘It’s going to be dark soon. Sunday evening, we should be home. I want some soup. Tate’s not going to turn up here again. Whatever he’s up to, he knows we’re on to him. Something’s tipped him off.’
‘How could it?’
‘Suppose he went back to the hostel for his books and found them gone. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who took them. He’s scarpered.’
Meera checked her wrist. ‘We’re not off duty for another hour.’
‘My watch has steamed over. Besides, the Old Man reckons nobody goes home until we’ve got him.’ People often thought of Bryant as the Old Man, even though he was only three years older than his partner.
‘We could do another door-to-door.’
‘That’d go down well, wouldn’t it? Any more interviews and it’ll constitute harassment,’ warned Bimsley. ‘Civvies either complain that they can never see police on the streets, or moan about being picked on.’
‘Don’t start, Colin, you’re starting to sound like the Peckham South boys. Let’s just get through the shift.’
Bimsley stamped and splashed. ‘He’s not going to show tonight.’
‘Why not?’
‘The rain. It’s not going down the drains any more, which means his precious underground tunnels must be flooded, which means Tate can’t use them to get around.’ Bimsley narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the caul of mist. ‘Something’s really wrong here. I can feel it. There’s a disturbance in the force.’ He mimed wielding a light sabre. ‘I mean, what’s he going to gain by faking his own death? He already had a way of disappearing. Why didn’t he use it when he still had the chance?’
‘In south London you get three deaths in the same street, nobody tries to link them together. He’s just a tramp, he’s not a murderer.’
‘He killed one of his own, Meera. I’ve seen people like him before. There’s a solid wall between his type and us, people with homes. Why would he let one of his own kind die? There’s something missing that the Old Man hasn’t put his finger on, and he’s into extra time. I should worry, I’m off home as soon as I get the signal. Dry out, order a curry, open a beer, bung on the telly, thank you and good night.’
‘I thought we were a team, Colin. You wouldn’t leave poor old Bryant and May out here on their own, would you?’ asked Meera.
‘What’s it worth?’
‘I might join you for the curry.’
In the distance, thunder scraped and tumbled with the obliterating force of the rising storm.
‘Can’t you put the de-mister on?’ asked May. ‘I can’t see a thing.’
‘I could, but it’ll burn out the contacts on my brake lights. If you turn the radio on, the interior light comes on.’
‘There’s something very strange about the wiring of your car.’ May fidgeted in his seat. ‘I’m sure these are stuffed with horsehair. You should get yourself a nice little runaround.’
‘It wouldn’t be much good in a high-speed pursuit, would it?’ snapped Bryant.
Dear God, let’s never have another of those, thought May, remembering the last time. ‘This is a Mini Cooper.’
‘Not under the bonnet, it’s not.’
‘It’s nearly dark. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘No,’ said Bryant, digging in his paper bag for a cola cube. ‘It happens every night.’
‘I mean there are no street lights on. No interior lights in any of the houses, either. Look, over there, you can see them in Inkerman Road. Maybe the water’s got into a sub-station. I’d better call it