Opening the door a crack, she looked out and took a deep breath, which was unfortunate as there was a truck going past. The air shook with engine soot.
“It’s no use, I can’t go through with this,” April told him, fanning away the fumes with a cough, but she could not resist watching the world through the door’s narrow gap. On the far side of the road, sodden shoppers mooched past with Safeway bags, unaware of the miraculous ease with which they negotiated the lurking horrors of the high street.
“April, if you don’t make it this time, you won’t get the job. Raymond isn’t prepared to hold it open any longer.”
“All right, you’ve made your point.”
She pushed the door wider, taking in the expanding view of the Holloway Road, one of North London’s grimmest thoroughfares. Opposite, a local newspaper placard read: Maniac ‘Heard God’s Voice’ Before Stabbing Spree. The sheer number of things alarmed her: bright orange posters and white council vans, push-chairs and bicycles, storefronts, dogs and children, too many erratic, irrational people. They halted, turned, changed direction – what was wrong with them? Their sheer lack of organisation made her feel sick.
All John May saw was an ordinary London street.
An African shop, fortressed by a row of red plastic laundry baskets, its windows banked with fibre-optic lamps, mobile phone covers, signs promising Internet access and cheap fares to faraway townships. A dim, carpeted amusement arcade filled with pulsing bulbs, where a single elderly woman sat mechanically feeding coins into a machine as big as a telephone booth. A betting office with emerald windows depicting idealised race scenes, litter and losers framed in its dark doorway. A McDonald’s truck as vast as an ocean liner, with suppurating burgers the size of paddling pools printed along its sides.
Everywhere April looked, fierce colours jumped into her eyeline: cyans, scarlets, heliotropes, garish shapes trapped in the glare of the warm morning sun. Even the grey pavements were unnaturally bright. Rimes of dirt crusted the battered rooftops like dulled diamonds. The buildings looked old and exhausted with overuse.
“Well, here goes.” She took a deep breath and slipped her hand into his. Then she stepped out into the street.
Agoraphobia had been April’s latest response to the loss of her mother. Nearly six months earlier, following glimmers of improvement and a positive doctor’s report, she had been recommended as a candidate for a new law enforcement training initiative. The Chief Association of Police Officers was inviting non-professionals to work alongside detectives, in an exercise designed to bridge the widening gulf between police and public. It had seemed an ideal way for May to protect his granddaughter while allowing her to rediscover some independence, but she had suffered a relapse, retreating further into the shadows of her bleakly pristine flat. May sometimes felt that he was cursed; although his estranged son lived half a world away, his family suffered from similar phobias.
He released her hand and watched as she walked unsteadily to the centre of the pavement. “That’s it,” he encouraged, “keep going, don’t stop to think, you’re doing fine.”
Neither of them saw the running schoolboy.
He slammed into April, spinning her down onto the pavement, and skidded around the corner before either of them had time to react. As the detective loped forward and helped April to her feet, she looked around in confusion. “My bag, he’s taken it. My credit cards – everything.”
May reached the corner knowing that it was too late for him to catch up. The boy had dashed across the traffic-dense road, into a crowd of market traders gathered beneath a bridge. He was home free. May called in the theft almost without thinking, relaying the description of the stolen bag, keeping watch on April as her face crumpled and she doubled over.
“Please, April, you mustn’t let something like this beat you,” he pleaded, holding the phone to his chest and reaching for her with his free hand. “It could happen to anyone. Are you all right?”
Clutching a tissue to her face, she slowly rose, barely able to catch her breath.
“Just tell me what was in the bag. I’m sure we can replace – ” He was amazed to see that she was caught in the throes of helpless laughter.
“The first time I step out of the flat in months and I get bloody mugged. The little bastard.” She leaned on him, still laughing, fighting to catch her breath. “For heaven’s sake, let’s get to the PCU before something else happens.”
“Are you sure?”
“After this?” She wiped laughter from her eyes. “Where did you park? You’ve probably been clamped by now.”
“You mean you still want to come?” May was taken aback.
“You’re joking. Think I’m going to let kids like that get away with murder? Just tell me what I have to do.”
This was the April he remembered and loved. It was as though the pain of the last few months had been folded away like an awning, revealing her old self beneath. He had no idea how long her newfound strength would remain, but was determined to make the most of it. April was far too valuable to lose. Her mother had died when she was just nine years old, and the loss had affected her in ways which still adopted new manifestations. May’s family life had been tangled and messy, marred by small tragedies, filled with arguments and estrangements, in contrast to his partner’s bare, ascetic existence. He wanted April’s life to be simpler, and had the notion that keeping her around Arthur Bryant might be the answer. Bryant had a way of making everything seem plausible, possible, and even probable. He cut through impossibilities and protestations. He would be able to help her, if anyone could.
♦
“Is it usual to have a cat flap in a police station door?” asked April, studying the unassuming red-painted entrance that led to the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
“We’re not a police station,” May replied. “Crippen has to use the outside world as a bathroom sometimes, which makes him a very Camden cat. We hide his litter tray because he’s not supposed to be living here. Raymond has an allergy.”
April knew that Raymond Land was still waiting to be transferred elsewhere, anywhere that would get him away from Arthur Bryant. It wasn’t that they had nothing in common, so much as they shared things they didn’t like, mainly each other. Last month, Bryant had accidentally insulted Land’s wife at a Police Federation charity dinner when he had mistaken her for a toilet attendant. It seemed that no week passed without some fresh affront to Land’s dignity. Worst of all, it occurred to May that his partner was secretly enjoying the feud.
“It’s not much, but we like to think of it as home,” said May, pushing the street door wide. “Top of the stairs and turn right. Sorry, we’ve been meaning to get the hall bulb replaced. Arthur was demonstrating Tim Henman volleys with a coal shovel and blew the electrics.”
The headquarters of the Peculiar Crimes Unit occupied the single floor above Mornington Crescent tube station. The detectives looked out into the grey London streets from half-moon windows set in glazed crimson tiles. The unit had become almost a local landmark; it was even being pointed out by a guide on his ‘Bizarre and Dangerous London’ tour, although the guide was unsure which category the unit fitted best.
April reached the landing and looked about, touching a pile of postwar Film Fun magazines with the toe of her shoe. A sinister ventriloquist’s dummy hung on the wall, just above an original poster for Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore and a framed account of a ‘Most Dreadful And Barbarous MURDER Committed By Ruffians!’ dated April 14, 1826. “It’s less – professional – than I thought it would be. I only ever came to the office at Bow Street.”