Bryant & May off the Rails: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery

“Outstanding . . . a golden age mystery . . . [Christopher] Fowler has few peers when it comes to constructing ingenious plots.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“One of the most delightful series around.”— Library Journal “Sharp wit, elegant style, and wild imagination.”— The Boston Globe “Dazzling.”— The Denver Post “Sparkling.”— The Plain Dealer Christopher Fowler wasxa0the acclaimed author of the award-winning Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries: Full Dark House, The Water Room, Seventy-Seven Clocks, Ten Second Staircase, White Corridor, The Victoria Vanishes, Bryant & May on the Loose, Bryant & May off the Rails, The Memory of Blood, The Invisible Code, Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, Bryant & May and the Burning Man, Bryant & May: Strange Tide, Bryant & May: Wild Chamber, Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors, Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour, Bryant & May: Oranges & Lemons, Bryant & May: London Bridge Is Falling Down, and Bryant & May: Peculiar London. In 2015 Fowler won the coveted Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library Award in recognition for his body of work.xa0Christopher Fowler died in 2023. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter Onexa0A Private Feud CONFIDENTIAL FROM: THE DESK OF LESLIE FARADAY HOME OFFICE SENIOR POLICE LIAISON xa0 xa0 TO: RAYMOND LAND ACTING TEMPORARY HEAD PECULIAR CRIMES UNITxa0xa0xa0xa0 Dear Raymond,xa0xa0 With regard to your apprehension of the hired assassin operating in the King's Cross area, this so-called 'King's Cross Executioner' chap, thank you for acting so quickly on the matter, although it's a pity he subsequently managed to give you the slip.I had a bit of trouble opening your report because, frankly, computers have never been my strong point, but the new girl in our office seems to understand these things and printed out a copy for me.xa0xa0 Following the judicial review we decided to scrap the idea of holding a press conference, but we're speaking to our key contacts today, so we'll have some idea of the headlines likely to run in tomorrow's papers. Always talk to the press, I say, even whenyou've got nothing to tell them. We're hoping that a bit of publicity might flush him out. I'm trying to discourage sensational references to his nickname, without much luck, I'm sorry to say, but when a little boy finds a human head while fishing for eelsin a canal, you can expect the press to react strongly.xa0xa0 I have passed your conclusions on to my superior and other concerned department heads, and will return with their reactions in due course. I also have to acknowledge the receipt of an additional report on this case from one of your senior detectives, ArthurBryant, although I must admit I was only able to read portions of this document as Bryant's handwriting was extremely small and barely legible, and pages 23 through 31 had some kind of curry sauce spilled over them. Furthermore his account is opinionated andanecdotal in the extreme, and on several occasions, positively offensive. Could you have a word with him about this?xa0xa0 Naturally we are all sorry to hear about what happened. It is always with great sadness that one hears of a police officer's demise in the course of his duty, especially in this case, when the officer in question was so highly regarded, and had such abright future ahead of him.xa0xa0 Although the tribunal was reasonably satisfied that no member of the Peculiar Crimes Unit could be held responsible for the unforeseen events occurring on your premises, we do not feel that full autonomy can be returned to the Unit until a series of regulatorysafeguards have been put in place to ensure that the impossibility of such an incident--xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0 'Oh, for God's sake get on with it!' Arthur Bryant complained at the page, balling it up and disdainfully throwing it over his shoulder as he skipped to the final sheet. He had filched the report from Raymond Land's mailbox and was vetting it before theacting chief arrived for work. 'Let's see--"inadequate safeguards" yadda yadda yadda "irregular procedures" yadda yadda "unnecessary risk factors," all predictable stuff. Ah, here's the bit I was expecting--"because the perpetrator of these crimes was allowedto escape and is still at large, he remains a potential menace to society. Therefore we cannot consider fully reinstating the PCU until he is apprehended." In other words, catch him but don't expect us to help you with additional resources. Bloody typical.Oh, listen, you'll like this bit. "Due to the financial reorganisation of the Home Office's outsourced operations units, you have until the end of the week (Saturday at six p.m.) to conclude this and any other unfinished investigations in order to qualify forannual funding." So he wants us to achieve the impossible in less than one week or he and his ghastly boss Oskar Kasavian will cut us off without a penny. "Your Obedient Servant, Leslie Faraday." Who signs their letters like that anymore? Anyway, he's not ourObedient Servant, but I suppose he couldn't sign it Sad Porky Timeserver or Snivelling Little Rodent.'xa0xa0 With increasing age, the grace notes of temperance, balance, harmony and gentility are supposed to appear in the human heart. This was not entirely true, however, in Arthur Bryant's case. He remained acidulous, stubborn, insensitive and opinionated. Inaddition, he was getting ruder by the day, as the byzantine workings of the British Home Office sucked away his enthusiasm for collaring killers.xa0xa0 Bryant started to crumple up the rest of the memo, then remembered he wasn't supposed to have seen it, and flattened it out imperfectly. He fished the other pages out of the bin, but now they were smeared with the remains of last night's fish and chips.xa0xa0 'I don't know why you get so het up, Arthur. What did you honestly expect?' John May carefully pinched his smart pin-striped trousers at the knee and bent to give him a hand picking up the pages. 'A man kills three times, is arrested by us, breaks outof a locked cell, stabs a police officer in the neck and vanishes. We were hardly going to be rewarded for our efforts.'xa0xa0 'What about the innocent people we protected? The deaths we prevented?' Bryant demanded, appalled.xa0xa0 'I think they're happier counting the millions of pounds we saved them.' May rose, twisted his chair and flopped down, stretching himself into a six-foot line. 'Just think of all the companies that would have pulled out if we hadn't been able to securethe area.'xa0xa0 'What a case for my memoirs,' Bryant muttered. 'Three mutilated bodies found on the mean streets of King's Cross. Murders committed solely for financial gain by a slippery, adaptable thief who's grown up in the area around the terminus, a small-time crookpropelled to the status of murderer when a robbery went wrong. You know what's happened, don't you? For the first time in his life this Mr Fox has been made to feel important. The escalation of his criminal status, from burglar to hired killer, has increasedhis determination to stay free.'xa0xa0 There was a darkness at the heart of this chameleon-like killer that the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit had underestimated. For a while it had felt as if gang war was breaking out in the area, but by getting to the root of the crimes, the detectiveshad managed to soothe public fears and reassure investors that the newly developing region was still open for business. In the process, however, they had lost an officer, and had been unable to stop their quarry from escaping back into the faceless crowds.xa0xa0 Bryant pottered over to the sooty, rain-streaked window and tapped it. 'He's still out there somewhere,' he warned, 'and now he'll do one of two things. Having had his fingers badly burned, he'll either vanish completely, never to be seen again, or he'llreturneth like a dog to vomit, just to taunt me further. Proverbs chapter twenty-six, verse eleven.' xa0 'I don't understand,' said May. 'Why are you taking this so personally?'xa0xa0 'Because I'm the one he's after. DuCaine just got in the way.' Bryant had never exhibited much empathy with his co-workers, but this struck May as callous even by his standards.xa0xa0 'Liberty DuCaine's parents have just lost a son, Arthur, so perhaps you could keep such thoughts to yourself. Don't turn this into a private feud. It concerns all of us.' May rose and left the room in annoyance.xa0xa0 Bryant was sorry that the lad had died--of course he was upset--but nothing could bring DuCaine back now, and the only way they could truly restore order was by catching the man responsible for his murder. With a sigh he popped open his tobacco tin andstuffed a pipe with 'Old Arabia' Navy Rough-Cut Aromatic Shag. His gut told him that Mr Fox would quickly resurface, not because the killer had any romantic longing to be stopped, but because his rage would make him careless. His sense of respect had been compromised,and he was determined to make the police pay for cornering him.xa0xa0 I'll get you, sonny, Bryant thought, because I owe it not just to DuCaine, but to every innocent man, woman and child out there who could become another of your statistics. You'll turn up again, soon enough. You've tasted blood now. The need to let otherssee how big you've grown will drive you back out into the light. When that happens, I'll have you.xa0xa0 Unfortunately, Bryant tried to avoid reminding himself, it would need to happen this week. Chapter Twoxa0xa0xa0 Choreography DC Colin Bimsley and DC Meera Mangeshkar were watching the train station. They had no idea what their suspect might look like, or any reason to assume he would appear suddenly before them on the concourse. But Mr Fox knew his terrain well and rarely leftit, so there was a chance that even now he might be wandering through the Monday morning commuters. And as the St Pancras International surveillance team was more concerned with watching for terrorist suspects after a weekend of worrying intelligence, it fellto the two detective constables to keep an eye out for their man. At least it was warm and dry under the great glass canopy.xa0xa0 Each circuit of the huge double-tiered terminus took half an hour. Bimsley and Mangeshkar wore jeans and matching black nylon jackets with badges, the closest anyone at the PCU could come to an official uniform, but Bimsley was a foot taller than his partner,and they made an incongruous pair.xa0xa0 'Down there.' Meera pointed, leaning over the balustrade. 'That's the third time he's crossed between the bookshop and the florist.'xa0xa0 'You can't arrest someone for browsing,' Bimsley replied. 'Do you want to go and look?'xa0xa0 'It's worth checking out.' Meera led the way to the stairs. Colin checked his watch: 8:55 a.m. The Eurostar was offloading passengers from Brussels and Paris, the national rail services brought hordes of commuters from the Midlands and the north, the tubeswere disgorging suburbanites and reconnecting them to overland services. Charity workers were stopping passers-by; others were handing out free newspapers, packets of tissues and bottles of water; a sales team was attempting to sell credit services; the shopson the ground-floor concourse were all open for business--and there was a French cheese fair; tricolour stalls had been set out down the centre of the covered walkway. Travellers seemed adept at negotiating these obstacles while furling their wet umbrellasand manhandling their cases through the crowds. Was a murderer moving among them?xa0xa0 'There he goes again,' said Meera.xa0xa0 'You're right, he just bought a newspaper and a doughnut, let's nick him. Uh-oh, look out, he's stopped by the florist. I'll make a note of that; considering the purchase of carnations. Definitely dodgy.'xa0xa0 'Suppose it's Mr Fox and you just let him walk away?'xa0xa0 'You want to call it? I mean, if we're going to start stop-and-search procedures down here, we'd better have some clearly defined criteria.'xa0xa0 'You can come up with something later--let's take him.' Meera paced up through the crowd, then stopped by the French market, puzzled, looking back. 'Colin?'xa0xa0 'What's the matter?'xa0xa0 'Something weird.' She pointed to the far side of the concourse. There half a dozen teenagers had suddenly stopped and spaced themselves six feet apart from each other. Bimsley shrugged and pointed to the other wall, where the same thing was happening.'What's going on?' Meera asked.xa0xa0 All around them, people were freezing in their tracks and slowly turning.xa0xa0 'They're all wearing phone earpieces,' Meera pointed out.xa0xa0 Now almost everyone in the centre of the station was standing still and facing front. Beneath the station clock, two young men in grey hooded sweatshirts set an old-fashioned ghetto blaster on a cafe table and hit Play. xa0 As the first notes of 'Rehab' by Amy Winehouse blasted out, the two young men raised their right arms and spun in tight circles. Everyone on the concourse copied them. The choreography had been rehearsed online until it was perfect. The station had suddenlybecome a dance floor.xa0xa0 'It's a flash mob,' Meera called wearily. The Internet phenomenon had popularised the craze for virally organised mass dancing in public places, but she had assumed it had fallen out of fashion a couple of years ago.xa0xa0 'I took part in a flash-freeze in Victoria Station once,' Bimsley told her, watching happily. 'Four hundred of us pretending to be statues. It's just a bit of harmless fun.' xa0 'Well, our man's using it to cover his escape.'xa0xa0 'Meera, he's not our man, he's just a guy buying a newspaper and catching a train.' xa0 But the diminutive DC did not hear. She was already running across the concourse, weaving a path between the performers. The song could be heard bleeding from hundreds of earpieces as the entire station danced. The tune hit its chorus--they tried to makeme go to rehab, but I said no, no, no--and the choreography grew more complex. Colin could no longer see who Meera was chasing. Even the transport police were standing back and watching the dancers with smiles on their faces.xa0xa0 As the song reached its conclusion there was a concerted burst of leaping and twirling. Then, just as if the music had never played, everyone went back to the business of the day, catching trains and heading to the office. Meera was glaring at Colin throughthe crowds, furious to find that her target had disappeared. But just as Meera started walking toward Colin, someone grabbed at his shoulder.xa0xa0 Colin turned to find himself facing a portly, florid-faced businessman who was slapping the pockets of his jacket and shouting incoherently. 'Hey, calm down, tell me the problem,' Bimsley advised.xa0xa0 'You are police, yes?' screeched the man. 'I have been robbed. Just now. I was crossing station and this stupid dancing begins, and I stop to watch because I cannot cross, you know, and my bag is taken right from my hand.'xa0xa0 'Do we look like the police?' Colin asked Meera via his headset.xa0xa0 Her derisive snort crackled back. 'What else could you be?'xa0xa0 'Did you see who took it?' Bimsley asked the businessman. 'What was the bag like?'xa0xa0 'Of course I did not see! You think I talk to you if I see? I would stop him! Is bag, black leather bag, is all. I am Turkish Cypriot, on my way to Paris. The receipts are in my bag.'xa0xa0 'What receipts?'xa0xa0 'My restaurants! Six restaurants! All the money is in cash.'xa0xa0 'How much?'xa0xa0 'You think I have time to count it? This is not my job. Maybe sixty thousand, maybe seventy thousand pounds.' xa0 'Wait a minute,' said Bimsley, 'you're telling me you were carrying over sixty thousand on you--in cash?'xa0xa0 'Of course is cash. I always do this on same Monday every month.'xa0xa0 'Always the same day?' Bimsley was incredulous. How could anyone be so stupid?xa0xa0 'Yes, and is perfectly safe because no-one knows I carry this money, how could they?'xa0xa0 'Well, what about somebody from one of your restaurants?'xa0xa0 'You tell me I should not trust my own countrymen? My own flesh and blood? Is always safe and I have no trouble, is routine, is what I always do. But today the music start up and everybody dance and someone snatch the bag from me. Look.' The irate businessmanheld up his left wrist. Dangling from it was a length of plastic cable, snipped neatly through. Read more