The Invisible Code (36 page)

‘I remember that part – it was tangential to a case we were handling. But there’s no real link between the drowning and Kasavian. He managed to prove that he was nowhere near Jukes’s boat on the day.’

‘Kasavian and his pals now run the sister company to Theseus,’ said Bryant. ‘One of the things they’ve been
looking into is the protection of scientists developing genetic mutations of avian flu.’

‘Arthur, there is still no direct connection. And you’ – May pointed at Maggie – ‘should not get involved in this kind of conspiracy theorizing. It only makes matters worse.’

‘What if I told you that I’m holding the thread between the past and the present?’ said Maggie.

‘I don’t care if you’re holding the fireman’s ball, if you’re hiding any kind of information that could help us, then you’re required by law—’

‘I know where it can be found,’ Maggie stated very loudly.

‘I don’t see how that’s possible. There’s nothing you could know about this case.’

‘The girl who died in St Bride’s’ Church. Her name was Amy O’Connor, I believe.’

‘That’s right.’

‘She was Peter Jukes’s girlfriend,’ said Maggie. ‘She always believed he had been murdered. And she went to her death in London still looking for proof.’

41

THE BLOOD LINK

‘
HOW COULD YOU
possibly have got hold of this information?’ May demanded to know. ‘We’ve been over everything time and time again and there was nothing …’

‘You interviewed the churchwardens, then?’ asked Maggie.

‘Of course we did, all three of them.’

‘But there are four. Jake Wallace was working in the basement that day. He and I have been friends for years. He used to attend my Mind and Spirit evenings when he was a penniless student, although to be honest I think he only came for the vol-au-vents. I mentioned I’d seen you, and he told me he’d seen Miss O’Connor on a number of occasions. She confided in him. People often do in churches, as you’d know if you weren’t both such heathens.’

May looked flummoxed. ‘I don’t understand how we could have missed him.’

‘I imagine nobody thought to tell you he’d switched to a different shift. Sometimes he took over the shop between one and two p.m., while the others were at lunch. Miss O’Connor said her boyfriend had told her to come to St
Bride’s if anything happened to him. Soon after he died, she visited the church, but couldn’t find out why he had sent her there. A couple of months ago she returned and started visiting more regularly. I imagine by then she assumed his request was more of a spiritual nature. Jake said it seemed as if Miss O’Connor found peace there, just knowing her partner had been in the same place. He got the feeling she wanted to talk to somebody but didn’t know whom to trust. And she was running out of money. I think she was working in a bar and had had her hours reduced.’

‘She told the warden all this?’

‘There’s something open and friendly about Jake that people in distress respond to. That’s why he’s a churchwarden.’

‘Why would Peter Jukes have sent her to St Bride’s?’ May asked.

‘It’s the journalists’ church,’ said Bryant. ‘Perhaps he wanted her to discover something and spread the word. Had Jukes ever met your friend Wallace?’

‘I don’t know,’ Maggie admitted.

‘Dan checked every square inch of that place,’ said May.

‘What about the basement? St Bride’s was badly damaged in the Blitz, but the bombs uncovered a sealed vault.’

‘Nobody mentioned a vault.’

‘No, it was closed up by the authorities in 1854, after a cholera outbreak. Dan only covered the ground floor. He was looking at a possible murder site, not studying archaeology. Is the basement open to the public?’

‘I don’t think so, no,’ said Maggie.

‘Then why is a warden posted down there?’

‘Jake’s helping an American radiography unit. There’s a visiting professor analysing the bones and coffin plates.’

‘An American scientist,’ said May. ‘Theseus had US connections. Perhaps Pegasus does, too. As much as I’m
loath to allow you to go wandering off into church crypts, Arthur, I think you’d better get down there, if you’re up to it.’

‘Of course I’m up to it,’ said Bryant, affronted. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Someone has to keep an eye on Stuart Almon. I wasn’t comfortable about leaving him with the Prince of Darkness.’

Samuel Simmons was a director of the Cincinnati Bio-anthropology Research Unit, currently in charge of the Diagnostic Imaging Program being undertaken at St Bride’s. Right now he was keen to analyse an abscessed jawbone belonging to a young girl who probably died of the pain alone. Instead, a rumpled old man in a sagging tweed hat was peering at him intently from behind a stack of coffin lids.

‘Can I help you?’ asked the bearlike Simmons, extending a paw.

‘Arthur Bryant. Yes, you can.’ He handed the professor his PCU card. ‘I need that back, it’s my only one.’

Simmons examined it and was clearly none the wiser. He returned it. ‘You’re a policeman?’

‘As amazing as it may seem, yes. I understand you’ve been working down here for over two years?’

‘On and off. It’s a slow process.’

‘Why, what exactly are you doing?’

‘We’re comparing the grave-marker plates found here with official death records to see if they accord. Then we X-ray the remains to see if the causes of death were accurate.’

‘And are they?’

‘Not very often. Between this and the charnel house crypt next door there must be the remains of around seven thousand bodies.’

Bryant leaned into one of the lead coffins as if choosing
something from the freezer. ‘Come up with any surprises? Found anything you shouldn’t have?’

‘Like what?’

‘I mean before you started excavating. We’re looking for – well, I don’t exactly know what we’re looking for. Something a visitor could have left in the basement.’

‘No members of the general public are allowed down here,’ said Simmons. ‘Many of these coffins once housed cholera victims. There’s no risk of infection, but the bylaws require us to keep potential contaminants away from the public.’

‘How about visitors from within the scientific community?’

‘Yeah, we get a few of those. None lately.’

‘Have you found anything at all that shouldn’t be here? I’m thinking someone came by, used their company pass to gain entrance and left something to be collected.’

‘You have no idea what this item might have been?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

Simmons pulled off his gloves. ‘Come with me. There’s a box of stuff in the back. Everything on the site has to be annotated, and the items that remain unidentifiable get put in a junk box.’ He pulled at a mud-stained cardboard carton and opened its flaps. ‘It’s mostly just debris, plus sweaters and books left behind by employees. But please, knock yourself out. There’s a table lamp over there.’

Bryant picked his way through lost Tube passes, gloves, a pair of football boots, unallocated chunks of coping stone, loose change, paperbacks and folders of unfinished notes.

He was about to give up when he saw it, a small steel memory stick sealed in a clear plastic bag. There was no label. There didn’t need to be. The bag had been tied with a strand of red wool.

He held it beneath the lamplight. ‘Do you know where this came from?’ he asked Simmons.

‘No idea,’ Simmons replied. ‘People sometimes dropped in to see their partners. We had quite a number of interns helping us at the start.’

‘Do you have a record of their names?’

‘No need,’ said Simmons. ‘I remember them all. Try me.’

‘Amy O’Connor.’

‘The woman who died last week? Nope.’

Bryant passed over the dossier on Peter Jukes and showed him a photograph. ‘Does this chap look familiar?’

Simmons shook his head. ‘I’m just one of the guys here. I guess he could have visited while I was back in the States. The company name rings a vague bell.’

‘His name was Peter Jukes.’

‘The guy who drowned? I wasn’t here at the time, but I heard he came up from the MOD in Wiltshire to see what we were doing. Must have been soon after we started. Somebody read about his death and remembered the name.’

‘Do you have any idea what he wanted?’

‘Apparently we had a team project in common.’

‘What was that?’

‘Blood. Yeah, I know, weird, huh? In the early days of our research we thought we might find a blood link through the bodies interred here. It seemed we might locate a hereditary disease passed through bloodlines because there were so many fathers and sons, mothers and daughters buried together. It didn’t take long for the Ministry of Defence to start sniffing around. A whole bunch of guys turned up and started asking questions. Some time later, Jukes followed them.’

‘What do you think they were all looking for?’

‘C’mon, Mr Bryant, you’re the detective, I think you know the answer to that one.’

‘They were interested in any biochemical discoveries you might make, particularly with regard to military applications.’

‘Can’t think of any other reason why they would be interested, can you?’ Simmons gave a lopsided grin.

Bryant was amazed. O’Connor had come back, knowing that her lover had directed her to the church, but had not thought to check in the basement.

‘This was intended for the woman who died,’ said Bryant, indicating the wool-tied bag. ‘Why didn’t she come downstairs to collect it?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Simmons. ‘If you didn’t know about the crypt you sure wouldn’t come looking for it. You enter the church and look around, and the ground floor is all you can see. The vault door’s kept shut.’

Given his fractious relationship with technology, Bryant didn’t trust himself to run the contents of the flash drive on Simmons’s computer equipment. Pocketing the bag, he thanked the professor and took his leave, heading back out into the rain.

42

THE ROOFTOP

‘
SHE’S NOT GOING
anywhere tonight,’ said Colin, looking up at the windows.

‘How do you work that out?’ Meera asked.

‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? There was a Lovefilm DVD in her mailbox and she’s just gone in with a bottle of plonk. Bet you there’s a pizza delivery within the next half-hour.’

The pair were still camped outside Edona Lescowitz’s apartment. ‘How do you know it’ll be a pizza?’

‘She’s a skinny European bird. They can really pack away the nosh without ever putting on weight. They eat green salads in restaurants and shovel down pasta at home, usually followed by a tub of ice-cream.’

‘I’ve always been amazed by your sensitive understanding of women, Colin.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I mean you don’t have any. We’re an alien race to you, aren’t we? A complete and total mystery. You’re probably aware that we share the same number of limbs, if not appendages, and that’s about it. So you and your mates down the pub can make up whatever you like about us
and congratulate each other on being able to understand us. Incredible.’

‘You’d be surprised, Meera. I understand more than you think. Especially about you.’

Meera folded her arms and leaned back against the dustbins. She waited while a drum-and-bass-deafened teen in a pimped-up van thudded past. ‘Go on, then,’ she challenged. ‘Give me the benefit of your amazing male insight.’