Bryant & May - The Burning Man by Christopher Fowler Read Free Book Online Page A

the country.’
    ‘But if the march hadn’t been announced in the first place, these thugs wouldn’t have come down to join them. How are we supposed to tell them apart?’
    ‘We told you to issue the legitimate campaigners with passes. And you can blame the media for the uproar, not the marchers. There’s been a lot of scaremongering coverage. It was intended to be a peaceful demonstration. The press were out on the streets looking for trouble long before the march had even begun.’
    Link pulled out the updated fact sheet he’d been handed and read from it. ‘Twelve burned-out vehicles, six office buildings set on fire, a “peace camp” which consists of some Glastonbury tents and a lot of cardboard, the Bank of England barricaded, Cannon Street and Mansion House stations still closed down. The Square Mile’s becoming unsafe. One hundred and three civilian injuries so far, twenty-one officers injured and one fatality.’
    ‘A fatality?’ repeated Onatade, shocked.
    ‘A homeless guy sleeping rough in a doorway, burned to death by one of your peaceful protestors.’ He paused to let the news sink in. ‘And I hope you haven’t got any shares invested right now, because the FTSE’s taken a right old hammering this morning.’
    ‘Do you have someone in custody for the death of the homeless guy?’ asked Onatade, who was more interested in the personal cost of the protest than in falling stocks.
    ‘We’ve turned up some blurry CCTV footage of a bloke in trainers, grey tracksuit bottoms, a
V for Vendetta
face mask and a grey hooded sweatshirt. You’re welcome to try to identify him – or her,’ said Link sarcastically. ‘We’re pushing to remove the legality of your urban guerrillas to wear masks, effective immediately.’
    ‘You can’t do that; it’s a human-rights issue,’ warned Onatade.
    ‘No, Ayo, it’s a criminal issue.’ Link had intimidating body language, and used it effectively. ‘We can prove our killer wore one, and that means we can stop anyone else from wearing them until we’ve got someone in custody. I will not allow these events to escalate because people are hiding behind masks. This meeting is over.’
    He rose and stalked out of the room, knowing that Onatade would be on her phone challenging the issue’s legitimacy within seconds. It had been the tech man over at the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Dan Banbury, who had found the image collected by one of the cameras in Crutched Friars. Even if the shot couldn’t be used to identify the bomb-thrower, it had already served its purpose, and would now prevent the anarchists from hiding behind masks.
    Unfortunately, the image had a less welcome side effect; it persuaded his bosses to pass the case over to the PCU. While the riots continued, they explained, City of London police would be too engaged to handle it.
     
    Raymond Land studied the headline of the brochure he had been handed outside King’s Cross Station at lunchtime. It said: ‘D O Y OU H AVE W HAT I T T AKES TO B E A L EADER ? D ISCOVER H OW TO B E M ORE E FFECTIVE AND D YNAMIC IN THE W ORKPLACE !’
    With a heavy heart he tore the pamphlet into pieces and looked around for a bin. He hated visiting the room that Bryant and May shared because he never knew what was likely to happen once he was inside it. Land turned a blind eye to the thriving marijuana plant underneath Bryant’s desk, having been provided with many contradictory excuses for its existence, but there was always the problem of where to sit, and what he might find himself sitting in.
    Then there were Bryant’s fanciful lectures on policing to contend with. Once he started there was no escape, and Land found himself agreeing to the most appalling proposals. He was weak; he knew it and they knew it. His indecisiveness arose from fear, and the only time his fear vanished was when he was really, really angry – as he was now, standing before his detectives.
    ‘I don’t believe it,’ he complained vociferously.