Bryant 04 - Ten-Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler

Author:Christopher Fowler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Humour
ISBN: 9780857500724
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2005-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

DS Janice Longbright found she could hear everything that was going on in Raymond Land’s office simply by listening at the grate. The Edwardian offices were still fitted with fireplaces, although the chimneys had long ago been bricked up, and Land’s pleading wheedle droned down through the iron bars of the draught trap beneath the chimney breast, revealing his most secret plans to her.

She remembered hearing how her mother had also eavesdropped on her superiors, although in wartime the task had proven a little easier as the wall between their offices had been blown down. Still, it paid to take heed of the prevailing mood in the PCU, especially when the detectives were facing fresh censure.

Now, as she sat reapplying Jungle Fever Glamour Stick to her lips (one of several cosmetic lines favoured by Longbright despite being discontinued in the UK in 1968 but mercifully still on sale in Botswana owing to their exotic brand names), she could hear the Acting Head’s voice rise to a tremulous quaver as he sought to pass the blame for his actions.

There had been plenty of scares before, but she knew this time was serious, not just because the Leicester Square Vampire had never been caught, but because Bryant’s overconfidence had led to the most damaging moment of his career—one which had almost wrecked his friendship with John May.

Kneeling beside the fireplace, she recognised the gravity of the threats which Bryant so lightly dismissed, and knew that the Vampire case was a Pandora’s box of trouble just waiting to be opened. They were all bound to be implicated in the blaming process. After all, it was she who had recently destroyed the original documentation, burning the incriminating paper trail in the very grate where she now sat hunched in horror, listening to Bryant’s enthusiastic offer to bury himself.

Her mind flashed back to the moment she had helped to hide the evidence—was there anything she had missed? With any luck, all remaining files had been reduced to embers in the unit’s fire.

But what if something still survived? What if it had already fallen into Kasavian’s hands? The damage could only be undone if the detectives acknowledged the problem. And they would never do that, because at the very least it involved destroying John May’s tentatively renewed friendship with his granddaughter.

Longbright had warned them about mixing their personal lives with business. This time, she felt sure, the habit would ruin them all. She retreated to the evidence room at the rear of the building and quietly unlocked the door.

The only box that had survived the unit’s fire contained a single damning document about the case dating from 1992. Standing on a chair and rummaging on top of a cupboard, she pulled a manila folder free and slipped the loose page inside her jacket. Raymond Land had never seen the sheet, because it contained a drunken confession from the one person qualified to know the truth of the matter: John May himself. It had not been destroyed

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