Seventy-Seven Clocks (11 page)

‘I have to leave soon,’ said Bella. ‘I’m meeting my Savoyards at seven.’

‘I should come with you,’ said Bryant. ‘You say this society is connected with Gilbert and Sullivan?’ 

‘Indeed,’ said Bella. ‘We’re attending the new production of
Princess Ida
. Tonight is the first night.’ 

How could he have forgotten? Ken Russell’s new version of this work had received praise at its previews. Bryant had promised to buy himself a ticket, but the events of the last week had ended any thoughts of leisure. 

‘I’m sure we’ll be able to find you a spare seat,’ Bella told the pleased detective. 

Fans were arriving beneath the illuminated globe of the English National Opera, London’s largest theatre. The purists still attended the Royal Opera House, but there was a sense of fun about the ENO. It was one of Bryant’s guilty pleasures to attend the productions here, although May would have hated finding himself in such a middleaged audience. His partner welcomed the company of the young, and was always prepared to listen to their opinions. 

Bella Whitstable had changed into an alarmingly loose black-beaded gown that had been brought down from her brothers’ attic and smelled of mothballs. County women rarely adapted from the field to the foyer. Bryant was in no position to criticize his escort, as he sported his usual battered brown overcoat, topped with another of his landlady’s unnecessarily prolonged scarves. 

‘They should be around here somewhere,’ said Bella, searching the crowded vestibule from the steps. ‘You can’t miss them.’ 

‘Oh, why is that?’ asked Bryant, before catching sight of a group that appeared to be in fancy dress. One of them, a short, bespectacled man clad in doublet and hose, came over and pumped Bella’s arm. 

‘Oh, well done,’ he cried, examining her gown. ‘A perfect revival Lady Blanche!’ He indicated his own clothes. ‘I’ve gone for the James Wade 1954 production. The original’s too laden down with fur and chain mail, unless you’re King Hildebrand. I was supposed to be Cyril, but the chap taking Florian fell off a tandem this morning and landed on his keys, so I took his place.’ 

Bryant touched Bella’s arm. ‘You mean they’re all dressed in character?’ he asked. 

‘Certainly,’ said Bella. ‘The Savoyards differ from other Gilbert and Sullivan groups. They live out the parts of each opera. It’s not as foolish as it sounds. Our functions raise money for charity, and pay for the preservation and restoration of related artefacts.’ 

‘I take it your brothers had no connection with the group?’ asked Bryant. 

‘Good heavens, no. In our family, theatre is something for the men to sleep through.’ 

Noting the size of some of the ladies’ headdresses, Bryant tried to imagine how the rest of the audience would feel about this embellishment to the evening’s programme, until it was explained to him that the Savoyards had reserved Boxes G and H on the right side of the theatre, where they would be able to enjoy themselves in relative privacy. 

As they reached the boxes, Bryant examined the faces of the assembled Savoyards, and found himself searching for possible suspects. With fifteen minutes to go before curtain up, champagne was opened, and several members approached Bella to offer awkward condolences. One of the Savoyards was sitting on the far side of the box in a visored steel helmet that hid his face. Bryant excused himself from Bella’s side. It was important to ascertain that there was no danger here, and that began by knowing everyone’s identity. 

‘Hello, there.’ He pulled up a small gilt chair. ‘Mind if I join you?’ The man in the plumed helmet said something Bryant could not understand and pointed helplessly to the side of his head. Bryant loosened a wing nut with his fat fingers and worked the visor free. The face revealed was sweaty and russet-coloured. 

‘Phew, thanks,’ said the knight gratefully. ‘Damned thing keeps jamming. I should have picked someone else.’ He held out a hand. ‘Oliver Pettigrew. I’m not normally dressed like this. I’m an estate agent. You’re the police chap.’ 

‘That’s right,’ said Bryant, unwinding his scarf and placing it on the back of the chair. Below them the hubbub rose as the auditorium filled up. 

‘What do you make of this business, then? Both her brothers gone in a week, and yet she’s here tonight. What a trouper, eh?’ Pettigrew shook his head in wonderment. 

‘How often do you meet?’ asked Bryant. 

‘Once every six weeks for a costume reading, usually in a church hall, every Gilbert and Sullivan revival of course, at charity functions, and at fund-raisers to keep original G and S manuscripts and props in the country. There’s a great interest in the operas throughout the Commonwealth, and in America. We even have an official chapter of the Savoyards in Chicago.’ 

‘I’m a bit of a Gilbert and Sullivan fan,’ admitted Bryant, ‘but I’d never heard of you before Bella told me.’ 

‘It’s fallen out of fashion over here,’ said Bella, picking up the conversation. ‘There’s a reaction against anything popular in this country, don’t you think? People forget that Gilbert’s satirical targets—the judicial system, the House of Lords, the police, and royalty—made him the bad boy of his age.’ 

‘That’s right,’ agreed Knight Pettigrew, fiddling with his wing nut. ‘He ridiculed affectation, snobbery, and nepotism. Gilbert’s rude lyrics kept him from receiving a knighthood until he was nearly dead. The Victorian age died with them, you know. Lewis Carroll, Ruskin, Gladstone, William Morris, D’Oyly Carte, Oscar Wilde, and Queen Victoria herself—all gone with the end of the century.’ 

‘Mr Sullivan’s music is the music of the common people,’ said Bella enthusiastically, not that she knew anything about common people. ‘It’s a direct descendant of the folk songs that once bound our country together.’ She refilled their glasses. ‘That’s why the guild supports it.’ 

‘The guild?’ Bryant’s ears pricked up. ‘You mean money from the Goldsmiths helps to run the Savoyards?’ 

‘Sometimes,’ said Bella. ‘It works both ways. There are many charities involved.’ She twisted her gold wristwatch and checked the time. ‘I think it’s about to start.’ 

Bryant was reasonably familiar with the plot of
Princess Ida
, a heavy-handed satire on women’s rights, but he had never seen it performed. Its tiresome recitative was the reason why it was rarely produced these days. A pity, for it contained what was known as ‘Sullivan’s String of Pearls’ in the second act, a sequence containing some of the composer’s finest work. 

The opera consisted of three acts, with two intermissions of fifteen minutes each. At the first of these, the Savoyards turned to each other with the falling of the curtain and argued excitedly. The production had obviously found favour with them. The setting had been updated to seventies London with reasonable success. The new version allowed for a variety of jokes surrounding the women’s liberation movement, but it was the singing that elicited the group’s enthusiasm. Bryant caught Bella Whitstable heading for the door of the box and called her back. ‘If you want to go to the lavatory,’ he suggested, ‘please take someone with you.’ 

‘I was only going to powder my nose,’ she replied somewhat archly. 

‘Then kindly do it here,’ said Bryant. ‘I don’t want you out of my sight.’ 

Knight Pettigrew had removed his helmet and was refilling his champagne glass. Several more Savoyards had entered from the other box. The bejewelled outfits of the women and the polished silver gilt of the men’s armour glittered in the soft red gloom, although someone dressed as a ragged beggar in a floppy hat seemed to have got a raw deal. Bryant had to admit that it was a dottily pleasant sight. 

Pettigrew tapped him on the arm. ‘You know, people don’t realize how much of Gilbert and Sullivan is buried in the national consciousness,’ he said. ‘Take
Princess Ida
. The lyrics owe a considerable debt to Tennyson, did you know that? The BBC was playing the first act on September the third, just before Neville Chamberlain announced that we were at war with Germany. And you know the last lines that were heard that fateful day before they faded out the music? “
Order comes to fight, ha, ha, order is obeyed
.” ’ 

Bryant glanced at his new friend’s eager face and knew that he possessed hundreds of similar anecdotes. People like Pettigrew were harmless enough, but it was usually dangerous to show too much of an interest. As the estate agent rattled on, Bryant wondered how many of the others had told their colleagues about their odd hobby. 

The house lights flickered and dimmed for a moment, presumably to notify the audience that it was time for them to return to their seats. 

He became aware of a commotion on the other side of the box. Several women were bent over someone in a chair. He rose, crossing to find one of them fanning Bella with a programme. 

‘She feels faint,’ she explained. ‘It’s very warm in here. Do you think we should take her outside?’ 

‘I’ll be fine, really,’ said Bella. ‘I just feel a little strange.’ 

‘She was complaining that her limbs were stiff,’ said her friend. ‘I wondered if—’ She got no further, because Bella suddenly fell forward, her muscles contracting violently. Everyone jumped back in shock as her limbs began to spasm. 

‘She’s having a fit!’ Pettigrew was pushing into the knot of horrified onlookers. 

Bryant grabbed the two largest men he could see. ‘Hold her down,’ he ordered, snatching up the walkietalkie handset attached to his belt. It was the one piece of equipment he had not managed to lose. 

‘Put something soft between her teeth that she can bite on,’ said Pettigrew. ‘Something she can’t swallow.’ 

‘Does anyone have any Valium?’ asked Bryant, kneeling beside her. Several women immediately opened their handbags. 

Bryant called for an ambulance and watched Bella’s back arching in agony as she thrashed on the floor of the box. The men were fighting to hold her arms and legs, but the power of her involuntary flexing was kicking their hands away. Someone was hammering on the door behind them. 

‘Get them to stop banging,’ shouted Bryant as one of the women scurried to the door. He had a good idea what had happened, and knew that sudden light or noise would only increase the intensity of her spasms. Bella’s face, twisted in an agonized muscular rictus, was beginning to turn blue. He administered the Valium as the St John’s ambulance men entered the box. 

Bella’s convulsions began to lessen, but the protuberance of her startled eyes and the frozen grimace of her mouth suggested that her time was running out. As he helped to fasten the stretcher’s restraining straps, Bryant caught a brief glimpse of the audience reseating itself below, oblivious of the real-life drama unfolding above their heads. He could only wait and pray that the medics had arrived in time.

13 / Pandemonium 

‘Hey, you’re late,’ said Nicholas. ‘You should have been here, helping me out. More delegates left this morning.’ 

Jerry stowed her bag and took her place behind the reception desk. Half a dozen security officers were standing in the reception area awaiting the departure of another Common Market dignitary. 

‘With the amount of security we have, you’d think they’d feel safer staying here than anywhere else.’ 

‘Suppose this whole thing turns out to have a political cause? According to the Telegraph, the chap who got his throat cut was some kind of government spy.’ 

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read,’ said Jerry. 

‘I suppose you know better.’ Nicholas swept his hair back disapprovingly and turned his attention to the billing system. Jerry was about to answer a guest’s inquiry when she saw Joseph Herrick descending the main staircase. He smiled shortsightedly in her direction and headed towards the breakfast room. 

‘Be a pal and deal with this gentleman for me, Nicholas.’ Jerry slid off her stool, running her fingers through her hair. It was now or never. ‘I won’t be long.’ 

‘Look here,’ complained Nicholas, ‘you’ve only just arrived. Where do you think you’re going?’ 

‘I fancy a spot of breakfast.’ She knew she could take liberties with him, so long as he continued to study her breasts from the corner of his eye when he thought she wasn’t looking. His recent humiliation at his parents’ house was obviously beginning to wear off. 

Joseph had seated himself against the tall glass wall overlooking the Embankment, and was staring out at the grey expanse of the rain-pocked river. The smile of recognition he gave her suggested he would enjoy her company. 

‘Mind if I join you?’ 

‘Not at all,’ said Joseph, indicating the chair opposite. ‘Do you normally take breakfast with your guests?’ 

‘All the time. It’s part of the service.’ She seated herself and unfolded a napkin in her lap. ‘I’m surprised you’re still here. Most of the delegates are checking out. They’re being moved to a high-security residence.’ 

‘Well, two deaths in the same hotel—it’s not exactly an advertisement for healthy living, is it?’ 

‘It’s hardly our fault. It’s not the usual sort of thing that happens in a hotel. They were, you know—proper murders.’ 

‘I see. You can be killed in a robbery and that wouldn’t be a
proper
murder, is that it?’ 

Jerry waited while one of the waiters brought their breakfast. ‘I mean a murder with a motive,’ she explained. ‘Everything carefully planned out.’ 

Joseph took a bite of buttered toast and chewed it slowly, regarding his companion with an indulgent smile. ‘You mean like Sherlock Holmes. “Red-headed League,” “Sign of the Four,” stuff like that.’ 

‘If you like, yes.’ 

‘Forget it, Jerry, it doesn’t happen. I come from a port city where death is sordid and simple. Guys get drunk and rape women, or they beat on each other when they’re pissed. I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a carefully planned crime.’ 

‘You’re wrong. Girls go for nonexistent job interviews and vanish. They get chopped up and left in railway carriages. Murderers are men, and men are devious.’ 

‘And you think the Savoy has a devious murderer? Maybe he’s even staying here?’ 

‘I don’t know.’ She looked down at her plate, embarrassed. ‘Maybe.’ 

‘What did you tell the police?’ 

‘Just what I saw.’ She needed to change the subject. ‘How’s your show coming along?’ 

‘Good,’ he replied, pouring tea. ‘The theatre is a mess. The refurbishment is running behind schedule. It’s taking longer than anyone expected.’ 

‘Which theatre are you working in?’ 

‘I thought I told you.’ He passed her a cup. ‘I’m right next door, at the Savoy. That’s why I’m staying here. The Japanese are paying for the renovation work, and they’ve appointed me as the set designer for their first production. We’re opening with a new Gilbert and Sullivan staging, very modern and irreverent. Actually, it’s not exactly new. It’s been touring the country for a while, but the production is getting a face-lift for its London debut, and that’s where my designs come in. I can get you tickets for the first night if you like.’ 

‘Perhaps I could see you before then.’ 

‘Sure. I’m here right through to the opening.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’d better get going. I promised to call my girlfriend.’ 

Her stomach dropped. Of course he had a girlfriend. She was probably slender and beautiful. And sadly, still alive. 

‘Where is she?’ she asked, drawing back slightly. 

‘She used to live in the US, but now she’s studying at Oxford. She’s gone to visit relatives in Edinburgh for Christmas. Listen, it doesn’t stop you and me from being friends. I’d still like that.’ 

Her instinctive reaction was to withdraw her offer, but she knew that would be childish. ‘All right,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘Friends, then.’ 

Joseph seemed genuinely pleased. ‘Now we’ve defused that particular time bomb, you can tell me more about your murder theories.’ 

‘If you like . . .’ 

He laid a slim finger against his lips. ‘When you get off this evening,’ he said with a smile. 

John May had woken to the sound of rain pounding against the bedroom skylight, and studied the dark turmoil beyond the glass. He had just taken his raincoat to the dry cleaners. Coffee was called for, but a routine check for messages pushed the thought of breakfast from his mind. 

As he ran from his car to the entrance of Gower Street’s University College Hospital, the shoulders of his jacket became soaked. At five past six on Wednesday morning the hospital foyer was populated only by an elderly floor polisher. A word with the duty nurse sent him along the corridor to the overnight admissions rooms. 

He found Bryant bundled up on a green leather bench, asleep. Arthur had sunk down into his voluminous coat like a tortoise vanishing into its shell for the winter. May’s shoes squeaked on the polished linoleum as he approached, and Bryant’s bald head slowly emerged at the sound. 

‘What happened, Arthur?’ asked May. ‘Why on earth didn’t you let them page me?’ 

‘There was nothing you could have done to help,’ said the detective wearily. ‘There were quite enough people here. You would only have been in the way. She died at three o’clock this morning. Due to the unusual nature of the death, I asked the doctor if she would put down her findings in some kind of preliminary report. Raymond’s going to go crazy when he finds out what happened, and I’ll need all the information I can get.’ 

May sat down beside his old friend. Bryant looked done in. ‘What happened?’ he asked. 

‘She suffered some kind of seizure. Violent convulsions, uncontrollable muscle contractions consistent with poisoning. It was terrible to watch.’ He looked along the deserted corridor, listened to the distant clatter of the awakening hospital. ‘She seemed like a good woman,’ he said sadly. 

The administering doctor was about to go off duty, and stopped by to see them. ‘I wouldn’t want these notes to be used as a basis for any kind of evidential document, Arthur,’ she explained, holding the file against her bosom, ‘but you’d better have them.’ Bryant imagined that the last thing she had wanted to do after a long shift was fill in paperwork as a favour to the police, but the young Irishwoman had helped him a number of times in the past, and always did so without complaint. 

‘It’s very kind of you, Betty. I’ll leave you something in my will.’ 

‘You’d better leave your friend your overcoat,’ said Betty, glancing at May. ‘He’s going to catch his death dressed like that.’ 

As they walked back along the corridors, Bryant thumbed through the neat handwritten pages. ‘At first they thought it was tetanus, but it looks like strychnine poisoning,’ he said. ‘I thought it would have to be. She died of asphyxiation and exhaustion. There’s only so long the body can stave off a total attack on the central nervous system before it gives in. The reaction time of the poison is normally ten to twenty minutes, but it was slowed because she’d eaten earlier, and because I was able to administer Valium to reduce the spasms. There was no point in pumping her stomach because the symptoms had already begun. Instead they intravenously administered succinylcholine to slow down the convulsions and take the strain off her heart. I suppose it didn’t work.’ He closed the folder. 

‘What did she eat?’ asked May. ‘Did you see?’ 

‘She ate from the salad bar everyone else used. And she sat through the whole of the first act without showing any symptoms. She was just a few feet away from me.’ 

‘Did she consume anything during the performance? Chocolates?’ 

‘No. There was champagne, both before and during the intermission.’ 

‘Did you see any of it being opened?’ 

‘There were quite a few bottles, but as far as I know they were all sealed. I kept an eye on the one Bella drank from. She uncorked it herself and we all had a glass. John, we need to get everyone back to that box and re-create this thing while it’s still fresh in their minds. And I want the press kept out. They’ll catch wind of it soon enough.’ 

They ran through the rain to the waiting car. 

Dr Raymond Land, the acting chief, was not a man who enjoyed life, and today he was liking it even less than usual. His narrow shoulders rose and fell as he fidgeted with frustration behind his empty desk. His hand frequently rose to pat the greying hair combed in thin bands across his head. He did not want to be here at all, but if he had to be, he wanted his tenure to be a quiet one. This new unit was too experimental, too chaotic, too unregulated for his taste. Hopefully someone else would arrive to take responsibility for the division. All he had expected to do was keep his head down and stop his wayward detectives from embarrassing everyone, but now they had been landed with this ridiculous case, and he could see shame and public humiliation looming. 

Land did not look up when Arthur Bryant entered the room. ‘I know that you and your partner have evolved your own odd methods of working,’ he began, attempting to keep a quiver from his voice, ‘but this investigation will destroy the unit. Four people, Bryant!’ he exploded. ‘This latest death managed to make the late-morning editions. The press are having a bloody field day. The Sun is running a “Solve It Yourself, Win A Ford Cortina” competition. It’s pandemonium. I don’t think you need me to tell you that we’ve never seen anything like this before.’ He stood by the window with his index fingers pressed into the bridge of his nose. ‘We live in a fractured time. People are becoming uprooted, unemployed. Strikes up and down the country. Heath is the most hopeless PM we’ve had since the war. Men are losing their wives, their families, their jobs, and their homes at an unprecedented rate. Reasons for murder are becoming as absurd as the times.’ 

Bryant was well aware of this. Indeed, he had attended Land’s recent lecture on the subject at Hendon Police College. 

‘Statistically, we’re catching fewer criminals. You know as well as I do that a murder file can only stay open while we receive help from the public. We can’t be expected to search for eternity. And we’re marking more and more homicides unsolved. Now we have three blood relatives in the same family dead in six days, and so far no forensic indications, no decent witnesses, no outside information. These aren’t random acts of violence, for God’s sake. Someone is playing a deliberate, arrogant game with us. What I want to know is, how can so much happen with so little result from this department?’ 

‘Our problem lies in the evidence,’ explained Bryant, ‘or rather the extraordinary surfeit of it. It’s as if there was a team of people involved in each act, altering everything that might be turned to our use. We have plenty of fingerprints but none of them match. Then there’s the problem of motive.’ 

‘What about this German business the Mail’s been talking about, tying the deaths to the Common Market conference?’ 

‘The design of the Whitstables’ sacred flame is admittedly similar to the wartime assassination symbol, but I’m positive it’s just a coincidence. There are no other corroborating factors.’ 

‘You’re positive, are you? How did you manage to protect Bella Whitstable so well that she died while she was in your care?’ 

‘As we have yet to discover how she died, I consider that an unfair remark,’ replied Bryant, stung. ‘And I’d like to point out that in a murder investigation of this sort I would normally have expected as many as sixty men to be drafted on to the case. May and I are working with barely half a dozen staff. It’s essential that we talk to the surviving partner at Jacob and Marks, but because their office is in Norwich neither of us has had time to go there yet.’ 

‘I know,’ said Land angrily, ‘and at the moment there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. It’s this place you’ve built for yourselves. How can you expect organization without structure? It’s all very well wanting to conduct your investigations creatively, but you need to cover the groundwork, just as the Met have to. There’s no hierarchy here—’ 

‘That was intentional.’ 

‘And assuming your information is fully collated, which I doubt, there’s nothing you can do with it because your system doesn’t cross-reference every piece of information received by the police.’ 

‘We have many lines of inquiry that need to be followed,’ said Bryant wearily. ‘What we need is greater manpower.’ 

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Land, picking up a folder and removing its contents. ‘But I don’t need to tell you that there’s a lot of resentment about this unit. Quite a few lads in the Met think you’re being elitist, that the old system isn’t good enough for you any more. They’re waiting for you to hang yourselves. But unless I receive positive proof that someone is physically trying to hinder the investigation, there’s nothing I can do. At least I’ve had a chance to go over your report,’ said Land, brandishing a sheaf of paper. Bryant was pleased that he had found the time to do so; he’d been up most of the weekend assembling it. 

As little as he cared for the superintendent, Bryant knew that Land was a reasonable man, and at the moment represented their only path to increased resources. It was important to have him on their side.