Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch [87]
‘Another triumph for intelligence-led policing,’ I said.
‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘It was your friend Constable May who was on the scene first.’
‘Lesley? I bet she wasn’t happy about that,’ I said.
‘In her words: “Why does this shit always fucking happen to me?”’ said Nightingale.
‘So who was our sequestration victim when he was alive?’ I asked.
‘Who says he’s dead?’ said Nightingale.
He led me down the corridor, where they had a room kitted out as a mobile intensive care unit which is, when you think about it, a disturbing thing to find in a mortuary. Lesley was slumped in a chair in the corner of the room. She raised her hand in a hello when we entered. The bed was surrounded on both sides by machines huffing, going beep or just silently blinking. In the bed was Terrence Pottsley, aged twenty-seven, of Sedgefield, County Durham, a stock control manager for Tesco’s, next of kin most definitely not informed as yet. A thicket of stainless steel was growing out of his face – a medical scaffold they call it. Dr Walid hoped that would allow successful reconstructive surgery once the issue of Pottsley’s sequestration was resolved.
‘And I complained when I had my braces in,’ said Lesley.
‘Is he awake?’ I asked.
‘Apparently he’s being kept in what they call a “medical coma”,’ said Nightingale. ‘Did Oxley know who we’re dealing with?’
‘Isis did,’ I said. ‘She remembers Henry Pyke as a failed actor who may have been murdered by Charles Macklin – a much more successful actor.’
‘That would explain the resentment,’ said Nightingale.
‘Was he arrested?’ asked Lesley.
‘Records are sketchy,’ I said. ‘Pyke might have been arrested …’
‘Not Pyke,’ said Lesley. ‘Macklin. To get away with one murder is like an accident, but to get away with two seems a little bit fucking improbable. Not to mention unfair.’
‘Macklin lived on to a ripe old age,’ said Nightingale. ‘He was a fixture of Covent Garden life. I knew about the first murder, but I’d never heard of Henry Pyke.’
‘Can we have our discussion somewhere else?’ said Lesley. ‘This guy’s making me nervous.’
Since we were, mostly, coppers, that meant a pub or the canteen – the canteen was closer. I waited for Dr Walid to join us before outlining my strategy.
‘I have an idea,’ I said.
‘This better not be a cunning plan,’ said Lesley.
Nightingale looked blank, but at least it got a chuckle from Dr Walid.
‘It is, in fact,’ I said, ‘a cunning plan.’
Nightingale had been carrying around a hard copy of the Piccini script. I laid it out and drew attention to the scene that followed Punch’s disposal of the blind beggar. In it the constable arrives to arrest Punch for murdering his wife and baby.
‘I make myself the constable in the next scene.’
‘You’re volunteering to have your head beaten in?’ asked Dr Walid.
‘If you read the script you’ll see that the constable actually survives the encounter,’ I said. ‘As does the officer who arrives immediately after.’
‘I take it that would be me,’ said Nightingale.
‘Just so long as it’s not me,’ said Lesley.
‘I’m not sure I can see this working,’ said Nightingale. ‘Henry Pyke has no reason to engineer an encounter with us, however well we fit his little play.’
Dr Walid put his finger on the script and said, ‘Punch asks, “And who sent for you?” to which the constable replies, “I’m sent for you.” Punch doesn’t get a choice; this is his destiny catching up with him. “I don’t want the constable,” he says.’
‘I think you’ve got Punch all wrong,’ said Lesley. ‘You’re assuming he’s like a kind of supernatural serial killer who’s locked into acting out a Punch and Judy show. But what if he’s something else?’
‘Like what?’ I asked.
‘Like the manifestation of a social trend, crime and disorder, a sort of super-chav. The spirit of riot and rebellion in the London mob.’
We all looked at her in amazement.
‘You forget I did A levels too, you know,’ said