time. We haven’t got the staff to go through all of ADAPT’s employment records. We’re not being thorough; it feels like we’re missing something blindingly obvious. There must be a simple answer to all this, something that’s right in front of me. Come on, Arthur, use that brain of yours.
He realised he was doing what he always did. John May endlessly accused him of failing to make a stand on the side of rationality. He’s right, thought Bryant. I’m always drawn to the other side, the spiritual, the instinctive. If we’re to survive this, I need to do something practical and useful. I think I need to see a witch.
It was dark and still raining. Janice Longbright and Liberty DuCaine sat on the brick wall that crossed the canal, although Liberty’s legs were so long that they touched the pavement. Longbright dipped into a white paper bag, sharing DuCaine’s chips. Blowing on one, she licked tomato ketchup from her fingertips.
‘I’m glad John asked you to come and give us a hand,’ she said. ‘We need all the help we can get.’
‘He heard I was taking a sabbatical,’ DuCaine replied. ‘I needed a break. I was getting burned out.’ PC DuCaine was currently on leave from Camden constabulary, but always enjoyed working with the PCU.
‘I love eating hot chips in the rain,’ said Longbright. ‘It reminds me of being a teenager.’
‘I bet you were a terror.’
‘I was horrible, running around the streets, charging after the night bus with my mates when the pubs shut. Mum was on nights at the PCU a lot of the time, so I was always on the loose in London. I used to resent her for not spending more time with me. We never went anywhere outside London; none of us had any money. I wish I’d travelled a bit.’
‘Yeah, me, too,’ said DuCaine. ‘I’m third-generation Caribbean, from Tobago, but I’ve never been back. My gran always wants me to go.’ The constable had been angling for full-time work at the unit for several months before its closure, and had volunteered to help with the investigation. Tonight, this meant patrolling King’s Cross on the lookout for the stag-man.
Longbright watched DuCaine as he neatly rolled up the empty chip bag and folded it into his pocket. He was the kind of man who never went through a door first, and always carried a handkerchief. The huge, muscular young officer often gravitated toward her. At first she thought he might be attracted to her, despite the difference in their ages, but he had never made a move.
‘Liberty, seeing as we’ll be spending the rest of the investigation together, can I ask you something?’
‘Ask away.’
‘Don’t be offended. It’s just that—well, you dress nicely, you’re over-attentive to women…’
‘Yes…’
‘… And every time I see you my Gaydar goes off.’
DuCaine’s laugh was so deep it might have been mistaken for a passing subway train. ‘Yeah, I get that a lot. You’re thinking of my brother, Fraternity. I guess it’s a genetic thing.’
‘I hope you didn’t mind me saying.’
‘My mother’s a control freak, my dad was an old hippie, my brother’s gay, my sister Equality is a wild child. We’re Caribbean but not at all old school. Anyway, it’s about time someone was over-attentive to you. I know how hard you work.’
‘That’s because I don’t have a social life.’
‘Maybe it’s the other way around.’
A comfortable silence descended between them. ‘Ready for another turn?’ asked Longbright. They had circumnavigated the perimeter fence bordering ADAPT’s second-stage site three times in the past two hours.
‘Go on, then, last one,’ said DuCaine.
The rain was descending in misty swathes across the ripped-up fields behind the railway line. Dozens of seagulls stood motionless in the rain beside the natural ponds that had formed in the soil dips. The perimeter fence was illuminated by tall neon lamps that created corridors of silver needles. It was still difficult to believe that such a desolate spot had sprung up in the heart of the city.
Longbright pulled her cap down harder, but the rain was running down her neck. ‘We could do this faster if we took one side each and met back in the middle,’ she said. ‘There’s no-one around.’
DuCaine agreed. They set off in opposite directions. The mud sucked at Longbright’s boots as she trudged around the steel fence. In the distance, the clock tower of St Pancras rose in spectral splendour. Soon that Gothic monument would be joined by modern equivalents as a new town rose from the shifting wet