sounding several centuries old.’
‘What’s wrong with that? One of the great pleasures that used to come with senior citizenship was the right to be perfectly vile to everyone. You could say whatever you liked, and people excused you out of respect for your advanced years. But now that everyone is in touch with their emotions and says exactly what they feel, even that pleasure has been taken away. Is there nothing the young haven’t usurped?’
May had to listen to this sort of thing at least once a week. He still believed in the redemptive power of the nation’s youth, despite his partner’s diatribes against them. The contrary thing about Bryant was that, in his own way, he set great store by the capital’s younger population. Some of the unit’s most useful collaborators were under twenty.
The phone rang. Longbright was warning them of Land’s impending visit. ‘Raymond has heard that we’re still using unit resources to check out your academic adversary,’ cautioned Bryant. ‘He wants to close up all investigations in which we have a personal interest so he can stick us with the embassy thing.’
‘Is that the business I heard him mentioning to Janice?’ asked May. ‘Some fellow the new Dutch consul was seen chasing across Russell Square at two in the morning? It should be fairly obvious what that was about, even to the Home Office. Says he was after a thief. I suppose that’s a tad more believable than the Welsh secretary reckoning Jamaican boys on Clapham Common were asking him out to dinner at midnight. Janice, would you come in here?’
The detective sergeant stuck her head around the door. ‘I’m not dressing up again—the frock is going back and I’ve returned the jewellery. You can do your own undercover work from now on.’
‘Are you sure you’ve told me everything?’
‘Sorry, I forgot to mention that it was too tight under the arms.’
‘Your sarcasm is unappreciated. What did you say to Raymond?’
‘Nothing. He was asking about my time-sheets. I know he’s suspicious about our continued surveillance of Ubeda. What are you going to do?’
May had been able to keep the case on their official records because the protection of Greenwood, as a government-think-tank adviser, could conceivably come under the jurisdiction of the unit. However, as the academic didn’t appear to be in any danger, and wasn’t bringing his colleagues into disrepute by pursuing what appeared to be some kind of esoteric hobby in his spare time, May had no justification for continuing to maintain surveillance.
‘Look,’ said Bryant, ‘I’ve got Longbright’s notes from her conversation with Ubeda, so why don’t I follow it up in my spare time?’
May knew all about his partner’s offers of help; they came with riders, like insurance contracts. ‘What do you want in return?’ he asked.
‘Keep talking to the residents of Balaklava Street for me, would you? I don’t trust them.’
‘Which one in particular don’t you trust?’
‘Any of them. Somebody knows something they’re not telling. Ask yourself some questions. Tate, the tramp, why was he watching the girl? I must admit I always found the image on the side of that treacle tin damned odd. After all, the stuff’s made from sugar, not honey, so why are the bees there? No one’s managed to interview the couple who live right next door to her, Omar and Fatima—I don’t seem to have last names for them, and it’s not good enough. The medical students, what do they know? That rather smug family, the Wiltons, they must have seen something. And I want photographs of everybody, preferably caught off guard. Even murderers smile when they know they’re having their picture taken, and that’s no good.’
‘I’ll do what I can—’
‘Land’s creeping around the building checking on everyone; it’s not very conducive to crime detection. He can’t play golf because it’s raining, and the last thing he wants to do is go home to a houseful of moaning women, three ghastly daughters and his dreadful wife, so he mooches about making life miserable for everyone else. He’s got the charm of a rectal probe, and no social skills to speak of, so nobody wants to go for a drink with him. Let’s face it, dogs have more to look forward to in later life—at least they can go to the park and roll in shit.’
‘Ah, Raymond, we were just talking about you,’ said May hastily.
Land stood in the doorway, fuming. Bryant had decorated the area around his desk exactly as it had been before the fire. Statuettes of Gog