Part 5 (1/2)

The pair followed a rough ziggurat back along Bryant's route, pa.s.sing half a dozen public houses on the way, but none of them seemed entirely right. It was as if parts of them had been incorporated into a single phantom composite.

'I'm not going mad,' said Bryant anxiously. 'I saw her go into the saloon bar and get served by the barman.'

'Wait, you sure it was the saloon? Arthur, pubs haven't been divided into public and saloon bars for years.'

'Oh, you know what I mean. It was old-world, not messed about with. No beeping fruit machines.'

'Can't you give me more descriptive detail than that?'

'Yesa”no, I mean, perhaps I was a little drunk.' He rubbed his forehead, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. 'I don't remember as clearly as I thought. I'll have to sit and think.'

'Did it smell different, this alternative s.p.a.ce-time continuum you ventured into?' 'Why should it smell different?'

'You know, Victorian smells. Horse dung, tobacco, sewage, hops.'

'I don't know, I can't remember. I don't suppose Victorian London smelled any worse than the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street does during the present day.'

May didn't mention it, but he was reminded that hallucinations could often be accompanied by sharp changes in one's sense of smell. Savoury odours of leather and burning were common. Are you still taking your medication?'

'You mean have drink and drugs addled my brain, causing it to slip into the febrile desuetude of Alzheimer's? No, they have not and it has not, thank you so much.'

'Then let's go back to the unit and see what else we can un-cover.'

At the PCU, John May's granddaughter came in and set several pages before them. 'There are eight public houses named after Queen Victoria in London,' she explained, 'plus The Victoria Park in Hackney, the Victoria & Albert in Marylebone and the Victoria Stakes in Muswell Hill. The nearest Victoria to Bloomsbury is just over the road, off Mornington Crescent. Actually, I think I've been there with you.'

'There you are, you see? You've muddled the memory of another pub with the one you pa.s.sed,' said May soothingly.

'I did not muddle them!' Bryant all but shouted. 'Good G.o.d, do you think I can't tell the difference between Mornington Crescent and Bloomsbury? She went into the pub on that corner, and then left and died or was killed on the street outside.'

'We could settle this if you knew the exact time you pa.s.sed each other,' said May. 'We know she was alive when you saw her, so if Kershaw can pinpoint the time of death we'll be able to see if there's a discrepancy.'

'I want an artist,' said Bryant stubbornly. 'I need someone who can draw what I saw.'

'I can draw,' April volunteered. It had been one of the many talents she had perfected during the flare-up of her agoraphobia, during which time she had rarely left her shuttered apartment in Stoke Newington.

'There are sketch pads and some pens in the evidence room,' said May. 'You'll have to get Renfield to unlock it for you. What else have we got on Carol Wynley's movements last night?'

'I was about to give you this,' said April. 'I've put together a timeline from statements volunteered by her partner and work colleagues. Wynley worked at the Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury, but was meeting up with friends from a former workplace, a charity organisation working with Medecins Sans Frontieres. They had drinks in a pub called The Queen's Lardera”'

Bryant perked up.'I know that watering hole. It was named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George the Third. He was being treated for insanity at a doctor's house in Queen Square. The queen leased the cellar beneath the pub to keep the king's special foods there.'

'Wynley left The Queen's Larder sometime after tena” no-one's been able to pinpoint the exact timea”and made her way up to Euston Road, but then she doubled back into Bloomsbury, which suggests a deviation from simply returning home.'

'I told you so,' insisted Bryant. 'She had another destination in mind.'

'Then perhaps you made a mistake about the name of the pub,' May suggested.

'We'll soon see.' Bryant climbed the small stool behind his desk and reached up among his books, pulling down a green linen volume with untrimmed pages. 'Here we are, The Secret History of London's Public Houses,'

'Wait, when was that printed?'

Bryant checked the publisher's page. '1954. Not one of my more recent acquisitions.' He flicked to the index. 'Here you are. Going mad, am I? Look at this.' He turned the book around and held it up with the pages open.

The others found themselves looking at a photograph of a public house built on the corner of Whidbourne Street, Bloomsbury, but they did not seem pleased.

'What's the matter?' asked Bryant. 'I was right after all, wasn't I? We just overlooked it. Let's go back anda”'

Arthur, this can't be the place,' said May. 'This picture was taken two years before the pub was demolished, in 1925. It's been gone for over three quarters of a century.'

12.

ECDYSIAST.

W.

hat do you think you're doing?' asked DC Colin Bimsley.'That belongs to Mr Bryant.' 'It's a marijuana plant,' said Renfield, dragging the great ceramic pot along the corridor toward the top of the stairs. 'It's for his rheumatism.'

'And it's illegal, or did n.o.body bother to point that out to him?' asked Renfield.

'Give him a break, Jack, he gets pains in his legs.'

'Then he should be retired and relaxing at home. He could be working as a consultant.'

'It's not your job to decide what he does.'

'It is if he can't do his job without the aid of psychoactive narcotics.'

'Wait, what else have you got there?' Bimsley pointed to the battered cardboard box Renfield had also dragged out of the office.

'Old books. They're everywhere, even blocking the fire exits. I'm stacking them by the rubbish. They can go to charity shops.'

'You can't do that; he's taken a lifetime to collect them.' 'Land has asked him to take them home dozens of times, but they're still here, so out they go.' 'But he needs them for research.'

'Really?' Renfield bent down and retrieved a stack of slender volumes.'Let's see what he's been researching, shall we? Yoruba Proverbs. The Anatomy of Melancholia. Embalming Under Lenin. Cormorant-s.e.xing for Beginners. The Apocalypsis Revelata Volume Two. A Complete History of the Trouser-Press. Financial Accounts for the Swedish Mining Board, Years 1745-53. I suppose the next time they bring a gunshot victim in from Pentonville, he'll be able to use these in his investigation.'

'You'd be surprised,' said Bimsley, 'how an intimate knowledge of the workings of the trouser press might aid in the capture of a determined rapist.'