The Invisible Code (24 page)

Slipping off her shoes and placing them on the rack,
Sabira covered her head with her scarf and slipped inside. The thick red carpets and great gold chandelier above her reminded her of the mosque in Tirana; unlike the churches she had visited in England, most mosques were fundamentally the same, the better to concentrate one’s attention upon prayer and reflection, but this one had immense windows filled with peaceful greenery.

She made her way up to the women’s balcony, thinking,
This is how she died, ending her fears within the sight of her God. If I am to be taken, do it now and cleanse me of my fears
.

But she did not die. After an hour of reflection, Sabira rose and left the mosque. Now that she was thinking clearly once more, she considered calling the PCU to check that they had received the card – but what if her calls were being monitored?

While she had been in the mosque an idea had formed in her head; she had no proof of any kind to offer, and yet there might still be some gesture she could make that Mr Bryant would pick up. It had to be something her tormentors would never understand. Assuming the detectives were smart enough to appreciate her motives, she would give them as much as she dared, then head for Victoria Station to lose herself somewhere in its rural branch lines.

She set off in the direction of London’s law courts.

At Holborn Tube station she alighted and tried to see if anyone was following her, but the platform was crowded with Sunday tourists now, and she had no idea whom she might be looking for.

Slipping behind the station, she headed into the green square of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Here, in the dappled shadows of the great plane trees, she felt protected. It seemed that fate had drawn them all in this direction. It had brought Amy O’Connor to St Bride’s Church just up the road, and Jeff Waters to Coram’s Fields, within five
minutes’ walk of here. Now she too had returned, to leave a trail that only someone with a very particular turn of mind might think of following.

Across the road was number 13, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, one of the strangest buildings in London. Without looking back she climbed the steps and pushed open the front door.

There was nobody at the reception desk. The great room to her right appeared to be empty as well. Ahead was the narrow hallway that led to the stairs and the secret gallery. But now that she placed her foot on the first stone step, she started to feel a familiar dizziness.

She could not allow the imps to return. Swallowing hard, she rubbed at her arms and climbed the gloomy stairway, but she could see them suddenly swarming in from every corner of the dark, divorcing themselves from the dusty shadows, the heavy velour curtains, the bookcases and skulls, the busts and statues.

You don’t exist
, she shouted silently. But the house was designed for ghosts, and she realized she had fallen into a trap. There was no worse place to be in the whole of London for having tricks played on the mind.

Fighting blindly on, she made her way to the first floor, but the imps were batting at her face and arms, scratching at her legs, and now the voices began, urging them on.

I know what I must do
, she told herself,
and all the demons of hell can’t stop me
.

25

DEATH’S PUZZLE

LONGBRIGHT BROKE THE
cordon of yellow plastic tape and rolled it up. ‘Let’s not draw attention to this,’ she told Renfield. ‘Keep the door shut. If anyone wants to come in, they can knock.’

She stepped into the hallway of number 13.

‘There’s supposed to be somebody on the door all the time,’ said Renfield. ‘She’s a voluntary helper. Things were a bit slow because the listings magazines had the place down as closed. Usually it’s open from Tuesday to Saturday, but they just added Sunday mornings. She went off to get a cup of tea. Said she wasn’t gone longer than a couple of minutes. She’s very upset. The EMT couldn’t hang around; they had an emergency call to Holborn tube station so I let all but one of them go. He’s upstairs.’

‘Wait until Kasavian finds out what’s happened,’ said Longbright. ‘Have you managed to get hold of Arthur?’

‘His phone’s off, or maybe his train’s in a tunnel. He didn’t drive to Bletchley, did he?’

‘God, I hope not. John’s on his way over with Dan. He’s trying to find a place to park. Security’s tight around here.’

London’s legal centre consisted of two Inns and two Temples, each complex with its own great hall, chapel, libraries and barristers’ chambers, built around a garden covering several acres, like an Oxford college. They operated as their own local authorities, a miniature city within a city.

May was not far behind them. ‘Arthur’s going to blame himself for this,’ he said, looking around as he entered the hall. ‘What the hell was she doing in here? Are there any other visitors?’

‘A few of them on the lower ground floor,’ said Longbright. ‘Chinese architectural students.’

‘Nobody on the first floor or above?’

‘No, just downstairs.’

‘You’d better go and take statements. Does everyone have to sign in when they arrive?’

‘It’s not compulsory.’ Longbright pointed to an old-fashioned leather-bound visitors’ book lying open on the hall desk.

‘I’m thinking the killer probably wouldn’t have signed in,’ said Renfield sarcastically.

‘No, but I want to see if the victim did.’

May checked down the brief list of the morning’s names and found Sabira Kasavian’s signature clearly written. It was the sort of thing Bryant would have checked at once. ‘Five past eleven,’ he noted. ‘She left the clinic at nine. Why did she take two hours to get here? Where else did she go? No sign of the City of London Police, then?’

‘I think as soon as they got the victim’s ID they stepped back. Home Office turf.’

‘I presume someone’s spoken to her husband?’

Renfield looked blank. ‘We figured you would do it. Not sure anyone else is up to the job.’

‘Great, thanks for that. I can’t wait to tell our client that his wife is dead.’ He checked his watch. ‘Where’s Dan? I need to get some idea of the situation before I talk to him.’

Banbury was coming up the stairs with an aluminium box and a large clear plastic object that looked like a giant breadboard.

‘What’s that?’ May asked.

‘It’s an anti-contamination stepping plate,’ said Banbury. ‘It means you can walk within the crime scene without messing it up. I thought Mr Bryant might be here. You know what he’s like.’

‘Go on, then, lead the way. We need to get started as quickly as possible. What else did you bring?’

‘I didn’t know what we were dealing with so it’s a bit of a grab bag for now.’ He slapped the side of the box containing a swab dryer, biohazard precautions, chain-of-custody labels, a haemostat, a trace-evidence collector and presumptive blood IDs. ‘I meant to bring a laser measurer – the wife bought me one for my birthday, but my nipper flattened the battery trying to confuse the cat with it.’

Everyone followed Banbury. ‘Is it possible to get some more light in here?’ he asked.

‘There is, but not in the normal way,’ said May. ‘What do you know about this place?’

‘I’ve walked down this street loads of times but I’ve never noticed it. Some kind of museum?’

‘Sir John Soane was an architect. This is his house and his shrine. There are classical, medieval and renaissance antiquities here, a lot of paintings and drawings, death masks, statuary, artefacts, glassware … you name it. You won’t be able to take anything away without a lot of paperwork.’

‘What did you mean about the light?’ Banbury asked.

May pointed up. ‘You know how dark terraced Regency houses can be. When Soane used to teach students here he wanted them to be able to see their work properly, so he arranged a system for reflecting light down through the atrium from the skylight via a series of tiltable mirrors
hidden throughout the floors. I think there’s one in the pedestal of a statue.’

The house was an extraordinary clutter of alabaster, marble, gilt, ironwork, stained glass and wood. Every wall, every pillar, every arch, every ledge and surface was covered with arcane pieces. The corridors and open-sided rooms all appeared to be interconnected, turning the house into an indoor maze. Once it had been entered, first-time visitors were rarely able to find their way out easily.

‘I’m glad Arthur isn’t here,’ said May. ‘We’d never have been able to pay for the breakages.’

They were met on the landing by Catherine Porter, one of the current custodians. London’s more personal museums were guarded by an army of middle-aged ladies who knew how to get chewing gum off plasterwork and orange juice out of tapestries.

Porter clearly took what had happened as a mark of personal failure. ‘I feel dreadful about the poor young woman,’ she said. ‘I never leave the front door but it was so quiet this morning. Usually there’s a queue outside before we open, but people haven’t got used to the Sunday hours yet. She came in and must have gone straight upstairs to the picture gallery.’

‘You don’t have cameras?’

‘No. We’re old-fashioned; we have attendants. Visitors were always allowed to open the gallery by themselves, but we were worried about wear and tear so Terry, our chap on the first floor, operates the display himself every fifteen minutes. But he called in sick this morning.’

She led the way through the claustrophobic maze of artworks and unearthed treasures until they reached a tall, perfectly square windowless room of unnatural height, lined with wooden panels. On each of the walls, paintings were displayed beneath each other in pairs.

The body of Sabira Kasavian lay crumpled in one corner
of the room, her legs folded beneath her, right arm tucked beneath her torso, the left raised above her head.

‘Has anybody touched her apart from the EMT?’ asked Banbury, kneeling.

‘You mean the ambulance man?’ said Porter. ‘No, he checked her for signs of life and immediately called you. I just touched her sweatshirt. I thought she’d fainted and fallen, but I could see she wasn’t breathing. I thought it best not to try and move her.’

‘You did the right thing. You’re sure there was nobody else on this floor or above it?’

‘Positive.’

‘Are there any other exits up here?’

‘No,’ said Porter. ‘There’s only one way in and out, through the front hall. The back door leads into a small courtyard, but you can’t get out from there.’

‘So she died alone. Poor kid. She came to London looking for a better life, and all she got was ridicule – and this. What an end.’ Banbury turned to the young Indian medic who waited at the edge of the room. ‘Does that look like cyanosis to you? Her skin colouring’s wrong.’

‘We checked for blockages,’ said the boy. ‘There aren’t any outward signs of trauma. The wound on the wrist—’

‘We know about that. Anything else?’

‘You’ll have to get a toxicology report.’

‘And this is the exact position you found her?’

‘We put her back after checking her status. She was like that, the left hand extended.’

‘Seems wrong to me,’ said May. ‘She was right-handed. And why would she have taken the dressing off?’ He looked back at the livid red slash on her wrist, then knelt down. ‘Shoes.’

Banbury looked at the black leather trainers. ‘What about them?’

May pointed to the left. ‘Looks like she tried to kick one off.’

‘It might have come loose when she fell.’

‘No, Dan.’ May slipped his hand into a baggie and wiggled the toe of the shoe. ‘Look how tight they are. She pulled it off.’

‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

‘Neither do I, but let’s take them anyway. Bag them up for me, would you?’

Banbury finished documenting the body position and allowed the technician to step in and shift the body into a slender white bag with carry-handles. Together they carried it down to the hall passage to await the return of the ambulance.

May checked Banbury’s pictures. ‘It couldn’t be clearer if she’d written in blood,’ he said. ‘She fell but still had the presence of mind to point at something. That wasn’t a natural position.’ He thought about the line of her extended hand and found himself looking at a sixteenth-century engraving of Covent Garden and a drab painting of Bristol’s Avon Gorge Bridge. ‘But that’s not a lot of help.’