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For Jim Sturgeon
(1944–2007)
The real Arthur Bryant

‘In the depths of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.’

—Albert Camus

‘The old know everything, including all the secrets of the young.’

—Gary Indiana

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It’s good to know that while Gotham sleeps, someone watches over us. I refer, of course, to my Bantam editor Kate Miciak, who is in the office studying these pages, preparing Bryant & May for their journey long before the country wakes for coffee and muffins. To her I owe a huge debt of thanks. Likewise to Howard Morhaim, surely too charming and wise to really be an agent. A special tip of the hat goes to the many local press and website reviewers who bring books to the attention of their readers. None of us can do it without you.

NOTICE

THE PECULIAR CRIMES UNIT WILL BE SHUT FOR ONE WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 19TH FEBRUARY

THIS AFFECTS THE FOLLOWING UNIT PERSONNEL BASED AT MORNINGTON CRESCENT

Raymond Land, Acting Unit Chief

Arthur Bryant, Senior Detective

John May, Senior Detective

Janice Longbright, Detective Sergeant

Dan Banbury, Crime Scene Manager/ Information Technology

Giles Kershaw, Forensic Scientist / Social Sciences Liaison

Meera Mangeshkar, Detective Constable

Colin Bimsley, Detective Constable

Oswald Finch, Unit Pathologist

April May, Office Manager

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUERIES CONCERNING YOUR DUTIES DURING THIS PERIOD, PLEASE CONTACT RAYMOND LAND IMMEDIATELY

WILL SOMEONE ALSO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO FEED CRIPPEN AND EMPTY HIS LITTER TRAY

1

SECOND HEART

‘Concentrate on the moth.’

The creature fluttered against the inside of the upended water glass as the women leaned in to watch. It was trying to reach the light from the amber street lamp that shone through the gap in the curtains. Each time its wings batted against its prison, the Shaded Broad-bar Scotopteryx chenopodiata shed more of the powder that kept it in flight, leaving arrow-imprints on the glass.

‘Concentrate hard on the moth, Madeline.’

In the early evening drizzle, the Edwardian terraced house at 24 Cranmere Road was like a thousand others in the surrounding South London streets, its quiddity to be a part of the city’s chaotic whole. There were shiny grey slates, dead chimney pots and shabby bay windows. The rain sketched silver signatures across the rooftops, leaving inky pools on empty pavements. At this time of the year it was an indoor world.

Behind dense green curtains, five women sat in what had once been the front parlour, narrowing their thoughts in the overheated air. The house was owned by Kate Summerton, a prematurely grey housewife who had reached the age at which so many suburban women faded from the view of men. As if to aid this new invisibility, she tied back her hair and wore TV-screen glasses with catalogue slacks and a shapeless faun cardigan.