Maggie and the professor hitched him under the arms and dragged him up. David grinned at them, suddenly voluble. ‘Is this how you normally solve crimes? I thought it was all about asking people for alibis, like on telly, not going down tunnels. I thought you just shouted at suspects in little rooms, but this is great. Can I come out with you again tomorrow?’
‘One word about this to your mum and I will put you in a little room and shout at you,’ warned Bryant. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up back at the chapel while I tell Mrs Wilton you’re on your way home.’
‘I wanted to read you something,’ said Maggie, once they were seated in the oak pews of the Chapel of Hope, waiting for David to scrub himself clean. She pulled open a heavy leather-bound book. ‘Listen to this: “The word ‘Flete’ also refers to a special limited place, coined thus by the Templars, who owned land on the Flete at Castle Baynard.” The Baynard Castle pub is still there on the spot. The area around it is a sacred place. In 1676, during the widening of the Fleet Ditch, they dug up fifteen feet of rubbish deposited by the residents of Roman London. Silver, copper and brass coins, two brass Lares, one Ceres, one Bacchus, daggers, seals, medals, crosses, busts of gods and a great number of hunting knives, all the same size and shape. It’s always been a sacred site, don’t you see? For over a thousand years, it was where worshippers went to make offerings to pagan gods.’
‘You’re talking about some form of sacrifice,’ said Bryant, lowering his voice as the boy came back.
‘That’s right. I’m wondering if they might have practised human sacrifice here.’
‘But what bearing could that possibly have on modern-day events?’
Maggie’s smile suggested she knew more than she would ever tell. ‘Old religions never completely die out, Arthur. They find new ways to stay alive. And sometimes their participants have unwitting parts to play.’
29
* * *
MURDERERS
‘What on earth were you thinking of?’ said John May. ‘He’s only ten years old, for Heaven’s sake.’
‘Oh, come on, John, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Look at the things we used to get up to as kids. It did the boy good to get away from his Playstation for a while. He hardly speaks to his parents.’
‘You told his mother you’d be ten minutes, not hours. She’s been screaming at us all morning. It’s not so much that you took a child with you and allowed him access to a dangerous place—although God knows what would have happened if there had been a flash flood, those drains can fill up in seconds and he could have been swept away—but that you took Kirkpatrick with you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Bryant, genuinely puzzled.
‘He’s registered as a sex offender, Arthur! You took him for a stroll with a child on police duty—are you out of your mind?’
Bryant was genuinely shocked; the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. ‘Kirkpatrick had the misfortune to be duped into near-marriage with an under-age girl. The case was thrown out of court. I can’t help it if they kept his details on file. I happened to bump into him, and he tagged along with us. Maggie was there too.’
‘Oh good, so you had a witch with you as well.’ May rubbed his hands across his eyes. He had always known that looking after his partner was a full-time job.
‘I made sure I had his mother’s permission,’ said Bryant plaintively. ‘I got the boy home safely.’
‘All right, but suppose Raymond had found out? We’d all have been for the bloody high jump.’
‘I take your point. I’ll be more careful next time.’
‘There won’t be a next time, Arthur. What will it take to make you act in a responsible manner?’
‘Reincarnation?’ Bryant noticed the workmen sitting in the corner brewing tea. ‘What are they still doing here?’
‘Something to do with the computer cables under the floor,’ May explained. ‘They cut through them with a rotary saw, and now they can’t put the boards back down until a technician has repaired the damage.’
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The few detectives he knew outside the PCU thought he was mad, still working with this crazy old man. Sometimes Bryant’s behaviour was positively Victorian. Thank God the investigation hadn’t required someone to climb a chimney—he would have sent the boy up first. They could only pray that David Brewer Wilton didn’t tell his parents