Ten Second Staircase (48 page)

'What about April?' he asked.

Gosling shrugged. 'She can have an accident. Her death won't count because it's not part of the plan.'

'You don't have to kill her. She's done nothing wrong.'

'It's not open to negotiation,' said Jezzard, hauling April to her feet. 'Don't you want to know how we did it? We want to tell you 'cause it's so cool.'

'I think I already have an idea. Luke lied for you at the gallery, while you—all of you—told the truth. You said no-one else had come into the room, and you were right. Saralla White was already there, checking on her installation, and you simply surprised her, throwing her into the tank. With four of you to hold and lift her, it must have been easy.'

'I wouldn't say easy,' said Parfitt. 'We chloroformed her, but she still kicked me and bit Billings. But she gasped as she went under, and sank quickly.'

'I found this great Web site that tells you how to make fast-acting narcotics,' said Billings. 'It's dead simple. Kingsmere lets us have the run of the school in the evenings—he trusts us to use the labs by ourselves.'

'So—how do you make a man immortal?' asked Gosling. 'You give him superhuman abilities. You make him tall, like me, and agile, like Billings here, and strong, like all four of us combined. We take turns being the Highwayman.'

'The different-sized boots, you stored them at the school—that's where you got wood glue on them,' Bryant comprehended. 'A padded jacket, masks, and wigs—all it required was the ingenuity of malicious children.'

Gosling ignored the slight. 'I'm taller than everyone else, so I do the big stuff. Parfitt's a good runner. Billings does the climbing and Jezzard did the camera shots for you, which he paid the estate girls to contact you about. We left you plenty of hints, just to make sure you got the picture.'

'The Thieves' Key,' said Bryant, recalling Banbury's discovery in the gallery. 'Why did you only leave it the first time?'

'We couldn't get back into the metalwork shop to make another one,' Gosling explained, amused. 'We borrowed the logo from the estate symbol, which was in turn based on the area's most famous inhabitant. We wanted to watch you at work, but May showed up instead, so we had to keep leaving you more clues. What else do you know?'

'You came up with the Highwayman as a character because you knew about Kingsmere's father and how the Robin Hood legend had been subverted. Plus, there was the Dick Turpin connection with your school, in the prospectus.'

'He's on the school weather vane, too,' said Jezzard. 'Seems the governors find notoriety more appealing than good scholarship.' He was standing near the edge of the roof with April.

Bryant tried to buy more time. 'You got Kingsmere out of the way, didn't you? You couldn't afford to have him overseeing your class at the gallery on Monday.'

'Stomach bug. That part was easy. Something we whipped up for him in the chem lab. Keep going, Mr Detective.'

Bryant watched April, trying to keep eye contact with her. 'Martell's electrocution and Sarne's incineration, that was a bit overelaborate. The sort of thing schoolkids would come up with.'

'We had to keep your interest piqued. That's why we did two at the same time. And we thought you might enjoy the local history of the area we chose. You're a sucker for all the old London mythology; we saw you talking about it in your BBC Two documentary. We planned the week like any good media campaign. Seven deaths in seven days, in time for the national press to run the entire story today which, in case you hadn't noticed, is Hallowe'en.'

'You're running behind schedule. And you've slipped up; Janet Ramsey isn't dead.'

'We'll make up for that,' Gosling warned. 'I'm interested to know something. We were careful to blame the kids on the estate, but you didn't go after them. Why not?'

'Your little graffiti message, based on the one left at the site of the Ripper murders. It was a bit too clever. And the
K
for Kingsmere, rather overemphatic. He thinks you hero-worship him, but you must really hate his guts.'

'Not at all,' said Gosling. 'We don't hate anyone.'

'You should be pleased,' said Jezzard. 'You inspired us to create a living legend. Your history will be forever linked with ours.'

'I don't want the kind of fame you think you've bought. You've got it without earning it.'

'How can you say that?' asked Gosling. 'Do you know how much time and effort we put into this? Those poor morons we killed spent years creating their own images, only to lose virtually everything they'd gained. We've bypassed that problem. It takes ten seconds for someone to die. That's a fast track to immortality. Nobody screws with you if they're scared of you.'

Bryant thought of the community officer's comment about building a staircase to adulthood. It was inevitable that someone would try to build a faster one. 'Nobody will remember you in a month's time,' he warned hoarsely.

'They will, though, because the Highwayman is never going to go away. If we don't choose to keep him alive, someone else will. HydeBrown, Pond, Whitchurch, Ramsden, Armstrong, Ibbertson, Metcalf, Unsworth—any of our friends could take over from us. They all feel the same way.'

'And how is that?'

Gosling looked blankly at him, as if surprised by the question. 'We feel dead.'

'It was you who gave us the inspiration to do something about it,' said Billings. 'If you hadn't come to the school, we might never have got our act together.'

'I don't understand how you choose who should die,' said Bryant, rubbing his temple. Everything seemed overlit and spatially twisted. Jezzard was moving too close to the edge of the roof. April was silent, too immobile. Time itself seemed to have slowed down. Even the rain was falling more slowly, glistening and drifting between them.

'You don't remember what it's like to be young, otherwise you'd know who has to go. The liars, the fakes, the hypocrites, the spreaders of poison, the ones with the
lifestyles
.' Jezzard peered over the low wall, then forced April up onto it.

'I remember what it's like to have someone claim to represent my generation,' Bryant called in urgency. 'The politicians of the past sent us to war. Young men had a reason to fight back. They had a political purpose. You're just a group of bored children who are upset that their rich parents ignore them.'

'Think what you like, old man.' Jezzard seized April's arms, untied them, and twisted her to face out over the quadrangle.

'You've touched her,' Bryant pointed out. 'No matter what happens, you'll be traced this time.'

They all started to laugh. 'Who the hell cares?' said Gosling, the spokesman. 'You still don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter who we kill, it's how we live. Martyrdom is a requirement of immortality.'

Jezzard smiled slowly in agreement and gave April a hard push from the ledge.

49

IMMORTAL

He had not been expecting her to twist around so quickly and kick out at him. April's boot caught Jezzard squarely in the face, snapping the septum in his nose in a gout of blood, sending him sprawling across the gravel. She fell hard onto the wall but was quickly on top of him, punching and tearing at his face as he screamed for her to stop.

The others moved to separate them, and were still attempting to do so as John May arrived on the roof with a team of armed officers.

April sat in the passenger seat of May's BMW with a blanket wrapped around her wet shoulders. She stared through the smeared windscreen as he started the engine and gently pulled away from the kerb.

'Are you all right?'

She nodded but remained silently watching, lost in thought.

She did not speak to her grandfather until they were nearing the unit at Mornington Crescent. 'You don't have to explain,' she told him finally. 'About my mother, I mean. I've always known what happened to her.'

'Wait—you knew?' May was astounded.

'Your pal Sergeant Renfield told me about Elizabeth when I was

sixteen,' she said casually. 'Remember how I used to hang around Bow Street station waiting for you? He didn't mean to hurt me. The investigation was the talk of the Met. Officers used to go quiet when they walked past me. I never blamed you, John. But I never understood why she did it, until now.'

'What do you mean?'

'I did the same thing. I got myself more involved than I intended. There were warning signs and I ignored them. I'm my mother's daughter.' She smiled weakly. 'Bad behaviour must run in the family.'

'So this hasn't put you off working at the unit.'

'I'll be fine. It's Arthur you should worry about. He doesn't understand why a bunch of teenagers would need to create a figure like the Highwayman. He has to be made to realise why this happened.'

'I'm not sure that's possible to explain,' said May. 'Our lives are changing so quickly. Arthur grew up in a time when every crime had an underlying cause. It was a simpler world. Those boys had everything but still craved something different.' He shook his head in amazement. 'God, when teenagers get together to plan something they're really interested in, they're smarter and more dedicated to their cause than any adult.'

'You sound like you admire them.'

'No, but I think I understand how such a thing could happen. They created a moral code appropriate to the times in which we live.'

'You've still got to find out who they planned to make their seventh victim. Seven in seven days, they said.'

'Surely the question is academic now,' said May.

'Gosling mentioned that others would take their place. It took four boys to be the Highwayman, but how many more are waiting for their shot at immortality? How much of an open secret was it amongst their friends? And how can you ever hope to stop it? They all want to become part of the legend.'

The rain had blackened the buildings of Camden Town. Mornington Crescent tube station, with its smartly polished crimson tiles, stood out like a beacon. The lights were on in the crescent windows of the PCU. Renfield was presumably still waiting for files that would never be printed. April opened the car door. 'Are you going to come up?' she asked.

'In a minute.' May laid his head back against the seat, exhausted. He had asked Bimsley to take his partner home. Bryant had seemed confused and dislocated by his experience on the roof of the estate. He'd been happier last month, wading through sewers in the search for a murderer. The knowledge that he had inspired schoolboys to commit murder had to be weighing heavily on him.

Perhaps it really was time for both of them to retire. He only partly believed the boys' story about seeking fast immortality. It seemed to May that they did it for fun, because the challenge had presented itself, and because they had no moral qualms about following it through.

It seemed that they did it because logic—the kind of practical sense the detectives needed so badly to survive at the unit—was finally dead.

But then May looked up at the windows of the PCU and saw his granddaughter outlined against the desk lamps. So long as there were people who still carried dreams of something better in their heads, he and Arthur had no right to desert them.

Wearily, but a little happier with the thought, he climbed out of the car and headed back into the building.

50

GRAVE TO CRADLE

MEMORANDUM

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

Attachment Supplied: 20059PH

TO:
Leslie Faraday, Senior Home Office Liaison Officer
FROM:
Raymond Land, Acting Head, PCU, London NW1 3BL

DATE: T
uesday, 1 November

Dear Mr Faraday,

Having outlined at your request the recent problems I experienced at the PCU, I now feel it necessary to make an addendum to my report in light of succeeding actions to close down the unit, undertaken by yourself and Mr Oskar Kasavian.

I would be grateful if you would destroy my notes on Mr Arthur Bryant & Mr John May (file 3458SD) as I no longer feel that they provide an accurate reflection of the matter at hand. Subsequent to my report, the long-standing investigation of the so-called Leicester Square Vampire has been brought to a successful conclusion, and all surviving relatives have been notified of the outcome. There can be closure for them of a kind that was never possible when the case came under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police.