Free Strange Tide by Christopher Fowler Page B

intrigued.
    â€˜Name one.’
    â€˜You say “chained”. Explain in more detail, please.’
    â€˜Exactly what I said. Chained by a silver neck-chain with a crescent moon on one end.’
    â€˜Hers?’
    â€˜I imagine so. Dan’s working on the hallmark. Her wrist had been attached to an iron ring in the concrete.’
    â€˜Why not both wrists? Why only one? Is Giles examining her?’
    â€˜He should be by now.’
    â€˜Then let’s go over there.’
    â€˜Now wait a minute.’ May pushed his old partner back into the taxi seat. ‘You just said you’d stay hidden in the office.’
    â€˜Yes, but the coroner’s office is right on the way,’ Bryant reasoned. ‘We virtually have to drive past the place. In fact we could cut out the infernal traffic that way. We just drop off the cab, look in and walk back to the PCU together afterwards. It’s right here. Couldn’t we?’
    â€˜Don’t do the orphaned puppy eyes.’
    â€˜
Couldn’t
we?’
    Against his better judgement May gave in, as he always knew he would.
    The canalside around King’s Cross in the spring did not adopt an inner-city appearance. Colonies of bluebells and forget-me-nots would come into flower around the elder bushes, thrusting through nettle, mint and rose, honeysuckle and cow parsley, while bursts of buddleia, ceanothus and horse chestnut were overhung by frothy plumes of lilac,
No whit less still and lonely fair than the high cloudlets in the sky
, Arthur Bryant often thought. Unfortunately it was November, and all he could see from the road today were two drunk kids kicking McDonald’s boxes into the litter-strewn water and a tramp taking a dump behind a diseased plane tree.
    The St Pancras Coroner’s Office on Camley Street was a building you might expect to find in one of Grimm’s less logical fairy tales, and certainly not in the centre of town. Yet here it still stood, at the edge of a graveyard associated with folklore and myth, beside a church that was purportedly 1,700 years old, a damp-looking red-bricked, crook-chimneyed, moss-covered miracle lost in a gleaming futuropolis of steel and concrete, where the only difference between one tower block and the next was the finish on the window frames.
    The detectives headed through the cemetery’s ornate black and gold gates, pushed past wet overgrown hedgerows and reached the front door, where Rosa Lysandrou answered their knock. Although the Greek coroner’s assistant wore her usual shapeless black smock and Birkenstocks, she was also sporting a pair of pink sparkly bunny ears.
    â€˜Now I know I’m one carrot short of a casserole,’ said Bryant. ‘Rosa, what on earth have you got on your head? Have they increased your HRT?’
    â€˜I’m being photographed for a calendar,’ she sniffed, holding the door wide.
    â€˜You’re not posing nude?’
    â€˜Certainly not.’
    â€˜That’s a relief. A calendar, eh? What are you, the last day of December?’
    â€˜It’s for the Co-operative Women’s Guild. It shows that we have a sense of humour.’
    â€˜Nothing’s that funny. Wouldn’t you be happier holding a scythe? Is Giles in?’
    Rosa pulled her ears off, offended. ‘I don’t suppose you have an appointment.’
    â€˜Good Lord, I don’t need an appointment, I used to employ him.’
    â€˜Well, you don’t any more.’
    â€˜No, but I still outrank him in seniority. If we were in ancient Persia, he would be a wizard but I’d be the Grand Wazir.’ Bryant shucked off his overcoat and swept past her, followed by the helplessly apologetic May. ‘That’s confused her,’ he said. ‘She’ll be telling everyone I’ve gone potty now.’
    Giles Kershaw looked up as the door opened. ‘Mr Bryant! I didn’t think I’d see you—’
    â€˜Rumours of my death