Free Off the Rails by Christopher Fowler Page B

might have been built on the edge of Dartmoor, for the number of guests it received.
    ‘I wonder what the staff do for lunch?’ Bryant asked, looking around. ‘I suppose they must bring sandwiches and sit among the gravestones.’
    ‘You realise that every time we’ve been here in the last month, Mr Fox was probably watching us?’ May pointed to the rowan tree where the murderer had waited for them. Mr Fox had been employed as a caretaker by the church. He had befriended both the vicar and Professor Marshall, the previous coroner of St Pancras, in order to steal secret knowledge from them.
    ‘I know, and it gives me the creeps. You can never be quite sure what’s lurking below the waterline around here.’ Bryant rang the bell and stepped back. ‘Look out, here comes old Miseryguts.’ He waited while Rosa Lysandrou, the coroner’s daunting assistant, came to the door.
    ‘Mr Bryant. Mr May. He’s expecting you.’ Rosa stepped back and held the door wide, her face as grim as a gargoyle. Dressed in her customary uniform of black knitwear, she never expressed any emotion beyond vague disapproval. Bryant wondered what Sergeant Renfield had seen in her. He couldn’t imagine them dating. Rosa looked like a Greek widow with an upset stomach.
    ‘How very lovely to see you again, Rosa,’ he effused. ‘You’re looking particularly fetching in that—smock-thing.’
    Rosa’s lips grew thinner as she allowed them to pass. ‘She has hairy moles,’ Bryant whispered a trifle too loudly.
    ‘Dear fellows! So remiss of me not to have swung by.’ Coattails flapping, Giles zoomed at them with his hands outstretched. Although he had achieved his ambition to become the new St Pancras coroner, he missed his old friends at the PCU more than he dared to admit. ‘Come in! We hardly ever seem to get visitors who are still breathing: there’s just me and Rosa here.’
    The energetic, foppish young forensic scientist had brought life and urgency into the stale air of the Victorian mortuary. The building’s gloomy chapel and green-tiled walls encouragedreflection and repentance, but Kershaw’s lanky presence lifted the spirits.
    ‘I heard about Liberty DuCaine, poor fellow, I thought it best to stay away from the funeral. There was something grand about that man; what an utterly rubbish way to die. Have you got any leads?’
    ‘We’re running lab tests on his flat and re-interviewing witnesses, but no, we’ve nothing new apart from a cryptic little warning note,’ May admitted.
    ‘Your Eller grew up in these streets, didn’t he? I’m keeping an eye out for him and will bring him down with a well-timed rugby tackle if spotted, rest assured.’
    ‘You’re very cheerful,’ remarked Bryant with vague disapproval. ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘What’s right, more like.’ Grinning broadly, Kershaw dug his fist into his lab coat and pulled out a letter, passing it over. ‘Have a read of that, chummy.’
    May snatched the envelope away from his partner. He couldn’t bear having to wait for the protracted disentangling of spectacles that preceded any study of writing less than two feet high. A Home Office letterhead, two handwritten paragraphs and a familiar signature. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he muttered, genuinely awed.
    ‘What? Show me,’ barked Bryant, who hated not knowing things first.
    ‘Giles, you are a genius. He’s pulled it off, Arthur. He’s done something neither you nor I could achieve.’
    ‘Let me guess. He’s worked out why people who don’t drive always slam car doors.’
    ‘No, he’s got the Unit re-instated.’ May waved the paper excitedly.
    ‘How did he do that? Give me that.’ Bryant swiped at the page.
    ‘You’re not the only ones with friends in high places,’ Kershaw told them, obviously pleased with himself. ‘But I did owe you a favour. It cost me a couple of expensive lunches at Le Gavroche.’
    Although he had been told often enough, Bryant had forgotten that Kershaw had once