house in Battersea is running out, and there’s enough room in the new place. Perhaps it’s a bit bigger than I thought. It makes sense for her to move where she can keep an eye on me. I’ve been very nice to her, I bought her a new iron.’
The converted workshop behind Chalk Farm Tube station had proven too much for him to keep clean, and although Bryant would have been the last person to admit that he hated the idea of living alone, he did, and Alma was one of the few women left in the world who would put up with him.
‘I meant to tell you, Raymond Land is talking of expanding the unit after our success in Balaklava Street. He wants us to take on cases for the whole of the south of England, with another unit set up in Manchester to handle the north. He’s really upbeat about the idea.’
‘Typical. The one case we’re forbidden from pursuing provides a partially fruitful outcome, and suddenly he wants to franchise the policing equivalent of Starbucks.’
‘Just think of it, Arthur. With a decent infrastructure in place we could finally retire.’ The second he spoke, May realized it was the wrong thing to say.
‘Does he really think we were successful?’ Bryant gave a disdainful grunt. ‘What about Ruth Singh, and the others who died on Balaklava Street? With all the resources at our disposal, we still couldn’t save them. How is that possible?’
‘We saved Kallie Owen’s life,’ said May. ‘And we restored two masterpieces to grateful nations.’
‘I suppose those beautiful tiles in St Pancras Basin will be drilled out to carry computer cables. On cold nights I wonder about our homeless men. I checked with Betty; nobody has yet called the Birmingham coven. Do you think we did the right thing?’
May thrust his hands into his pockets and admired the view. ‘I know you, Arthur. You like the idea of them taking their chances, being masters of their fate, rather than being stranded at the mercy of bloody-minded immigration officers.’
Heather Allen was awaiting trial for murder, but although the detectives had uncovered motive and opportunity, their evidence hinged on the word of an unreliable witness, who was himself still under suspicion of arson. Perhaps the immigrants could have vouched for Tate, but they had disappeared. It was as Bryant had predicted: everyone of real importance had promptly vanished into the urban labyrinth.
‘Did you hear that Kallie’s boyfriend finally came back? Picked up a nice tan, apparently. She chucked him out on the street—for the time being, at least.’
‘He wanted his independence.’ May smiled. ‘Our first duty is to protect those at risk. Homeless people arrive every day in the capital, and instead of making them welcome, we shut our doors in their faces. Where will they go, now that the St Pancras Basin is being dug out?’ He settled on the bench and studied the bitter blue sky. Unlike his partner, May had always been attracted to light and space.
‘I like my cases with fewer loose ends,’ Bryant complained. ‘I want to know what Ubeda’s up to right now, whether he’s hatching some new way of filching relics in Egypt. And I want a full signed confession from Heather Allen, preferably acknowledging that I was totally correct in my assumptions. There are no open-and-shut jobs any more. Too many extenuating circumstances to take into consideration. It’s a crowded and complicated world.’
‘I know what you mean, Arthur. Did I ever tell you why I first became interested in crime?’
‘If you did, I’ve forgotten.’
‘I was a sickly child and spent a lot of time in bed, so my parents used to give me Agatha Christie books to read. I became addicted to unusual crimes. At the end of each book, someone would always stand up and announce, “It’s very simple, Major Carruthers rewound the vicar’s clock and replaced Lady Home-Counties’ mackintosh in the belfry before hiding the boathook under a tin of caramelized peaches in the fête’s jam tent.” Christie thought she was writing about ordinary people, but the lives of her characters were filled with these arcane rituals, and they had servants, for God’s sake. To me, a poor kid growing up in south London, they all seemed impossibly exotic, and the world was a simple place full of solvable crimes.’
Bryant nodded in recognition of the memory. ‘I grew up reading about Fu Manchu, Raffles and the Black Sapper. They were even worse, all Limehouse opium dens, fifth columnists, stolen diamond