and Magog, voodoo dolls, his beloved Tibetan skull, books with reeking singed covers rescued from the conflagration, some odoriferous plants that lay tangled in an earthenware pot—tannis root, probably, marijuana, certainly—an ancient Dansette record player scratching and popping its way through Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’, papers and newspaper clippings everywhere, a half-eaten egg-and-beetroot sandwich dripping on to a stack of uncased computer disks.
‘I thought we’d agreed to keep the new offices clean and spartan, moving toward a paper-free environment,’ said Land weakly. There the senior detectives stood, side by side, working as a team against him, undermining his confidence with knowing looks. ‘I thought that having been given all this nearly-new equipment, you’d give a thought to changing your methodology. Instead I find the place more like the set of Blue Peter than the offices of a specialist crime unit. Well, it’s got to stop. HO is sending us a number of inactive cases it would like cleared up as soon as possible, so I want the decks completely clear by the end of the week.’
‘Oh, come on, Raymondo,’ smiled Bryant, knocking out his pipe on the side of the waste bin and blowing noisily through it. ‘You know we’ll sort the outstanding workload in our own time.’
Land’s face reddened. ‘I think your time’s run out. I want you to pack up this business in Kentish Town, for a start. You’re probably going to get a verdict of accidental death, you know. You’ve come up with no useful evidence whatsoever. The case wasn’t even assigned to you.’
‘Look here, Raymond, if there’s going to be a fundamental sea-change in the way we work—the way we’ve always worked, I might add—’ here he nodded conspiratorially at May—‘I think you should give us some official guidelines and a bit more warning.’
‘You’ve had about thirty years’ warning, Arthur, don’t come the old acid. I mean it—closed files and clean desks. Your new regime starts first thing on Monday.’ He slammed the door hard as he exited, hoping to leave behind a positive impression.
‘We finally get an office door and he tries to knock it off its hinges,’ sighed Bryant, packing his pipe with a handful of dried leaves. ‘From now on, we’re going to have to hide our tracks more carefully.’
‘Arthur, you have to explain why you’re so convinced there’s something going on in Balaklava Street.’
‘That’s not so easy.’ Bryant dropped into his chair and recklessly lit the pipe. ‘It’s the kind of neighbourhood that looks utterly mundane, but there are undercurrents and subcultures in London that hardly anyone is aware of—people who live entirely outside the law. Who knows who you might meet? Mental patients from St Luke’s walk the streets with demons dwelling behind their eyes. I suppose the whole thing interferes with my notions of home. Threaten that and you damage something very fundamental to your well-being. Kallie Owen had no real personal difficulties before she moved in, it’s not in her character to attract trouble. She’s inherited someone else’s bad karma, buying a house from a murdered woman. We’re seeing reactions to some buried situation known only to one or two people. This runs much deeper than we can imagine.’
‘I hate it when you talk in riddles,’ May complained.
‘I only do it because I don’t fully understand the meanings myself, but it’s there in front of me, I know that. Just as I know there will be another attempt on a life. Whoever committed these crimes is more confident now, because we’ve failed to get close enough to be a threat. You’ve seen this kind of behaviour before, John, don’t pretend you haven’t.’
‘Like it or not,’ May warned, ‘we need to repay Raymond’s faith in us. We have to start afresh, Arthur, and if we can’t do it, then it’s time to go. I don’t need to spell out what will happen if either of us are forced into retirement.’
Bryant wasn’t used to being lectured. He regarded May sceptically through the cloud of illicit smoke that had transformed the office into a Limehouse opium den. ‘I suppose you’re right. Raymond has been a thorn in my side longer than I can remember, but he’s always fought for us. Perhaps we do need to change our approach. If we’d had more staff, I’d have searched the entire area door to door. As for your pal Greenwood, we should have pulled him in and put the fear of God up him, and that would have been the end of that.’
‘Then let’s have one last