Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

Author:Christopher Fowler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Traditional British, Women dancers, Police, Male friendship, London (England), Mystery & Detective, Police - England - London, World War, Women dancers - Crimes against, 1939-1945, Crimes against, Fiction, Mystery fiction, London, Historical fiction, 1939-1945 - England, England, General
ISBN: 9780553803877
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2004-06-01T03:02:20.438023+00:00

33

AS BAD AS EACH OTHER

Always ahead, always alone, thought May. If only I’d been friendlier from the outset . . .

He returned his attention to the retired pathologist.

‘I haven’t finished yet. I’m eighty-four,’ continued Oswald Finch. ‘I’m slowing down. When you get to be this old, it seems like everyone else is on Rollerblades.’

‘I appreciate that, Oswald,’ May insisted, ‘but you must have removed most of the intact material by now.’

‘Oh, we’ve removed it from the building, all right. Not that it’s my job, you understand. I’m just here because, well, I have an interest in finding out what happened.’ He pushed open the door of the evidence room. ‘Nobody’s had a chance to go through it all.’ In front of Longbright and May were around thirty large clear plastic bags filled with chunks of charred wood, blackened files, sticks of furniture, bricks, pieces of broken glass and twisted metal.

‘This is all that’s left of the unit?’

‘Pretty much so.’ Finch lowered himself into a chair and grimaced. ‘Stinks, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t be surprised if there were still bits of Bryant in there.’

May ignored his remark. The pair of them had never really got on. Even so, he was surprised and rather touched to find Finch in the building. ‘Did you find any of our office equipment in one piece?’

‘Not actually in one piece, but there are surviving chunks that were shielded by closed doors. Raymond Land thinks the explosion was caused by old hand-grenades, you know. Something about cordite striation patterns.’

‘Surely grenades couldn’t have done so much damage?’

‘Well, they weren’t all the same size, some were more powerful than others. The Mills grenade was really a small-barrelled missile containing up to three ounces of amatol. Modern blast sites smell different because they use more sophisticated chemical compounds. This was pure stuff. We found powder burns on the walls. The remains of your photocopier should be over there somewhere.’ Finch pointed into a corner, and May and Longbright clambered across the bags in that direction.

‘He was always playing tricks on me, you know,’ called Finch as they went through the bags. ‘Gluing my furniture to the ceiling, putting fleas in my briefcase, weeing into my rain gauges, getting my keys recut so that they only fitted the ladies’ loo, replacing the fish in my tank with piranhas. Remember the tropical plant that made us all sick? A tarantula fell out of it and bit my wife. He had a very strange sense of humour. I suppose I’ll miss him.’

‘Over here.’ May unzipped the top of a sack and peered in. ‘This looks like it.’

‘Let me give you a hand.’ Longbright was as strong as her mother had been. Together they lifted out the buckled grey panels of the photocopier and set them on the floor. The quarter-inch plate-glass square was cracked, but had not shattered. Unfortunately, the plastic lid had melted tightly over the top of it, like Cheddar on a piece of toast.

‘Give me your penknife.’ May took the Swiss blade from Longbright and inserted it into a corner of the lid.

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