Free Bryant & May's Mystery Tour by Christopher Fowler Page B

time he’ll be arrested. At 11:26am.’
    â€˜Are you saying we’re looking for somebody on board this bus?’
    The tour guide was attempting to deliver a potted history of the Haymarket, and was not happy about being distracted by these chatting elderly men. ‘There are seats further back,’ he pointed out.
    â€˜We’re quite happy here,’ insisted Bryant. He withdrew his pipe from his top pocket and absently struck a match to it. A hefty woman in an LA Dodgers baseball cap, an oversized sweatshirt and huge baggy shorts reacted with horror behind him. ‘Oh-my-Gahd, that’s disgusting,’ she complained. ‘Hey, it’s illegal to smoke that thing.’
    â€˜Yet it’s apparently not illegal to dress like a gigantic toddler, Madam, which I find most curious.’
    â€˜Listen buddy, if you’d take my advice –’
    â€˜I’m not your buddy, and if I took your advice I’d be enormous.’ Bryant turned back to his partner. ‘So take a look around and tell me who you suspect. Give me the benefit of your observational skills.’
    The ancient bus was now chuntering toward the rainswept plain of Trafalgar Square. ‘On your left, Nelson’s Column, finished in 1843, with four bronze panels at the base depicting his naval victories,’ said Martin the guide.
    â€˜His left arm was struck by lightning in the 1880s and he only just got it X-rayed a couple of years ago,’ said Bryant. ‘That’s the NHS for you.’
    â€˜So you know exactly where the murderer will get on this bus, how long he’ll stay on and where he’ll get off?’ asked May.
    â€˜Indeed I do.’ Bryant could be supremely annoying when he was the only one holding privileged information.
    At 11:02am, the bus stopped near the corner of Craig’s Court. ‘Pall Mall derives its name from a 17 th -century mallet and ball game played here by, er, members of royalty,’ Martin the tour guide stated with a hint of uncertainty.
    â€˜Everyone knows that,’ said Bryant, fidgeting in his seat. ‘Tell them something new. Alleys of shops are called malls because they’re shaped like the game’s playing sites. Did you know that Pall Mall is only worth £140 on the Monopoly board?’
    â€˜I don’t think he cares too much for your interruptions, accurate though they may be,’ whispered May. ‘You’re unsettling him.’
    â€˜Some people deserve to be unsettled,’ Bryant replied. ‘When a man is tired of London he should clear off. Oh dear, he’s wearing a clip-on tie.’ Coming from a man as sartorially challenged as Bryant, this was a bit rich.
    When the bus stopped halfway along Whitehall, May surveyed the new arrivals. One of them was a murderer, but which one? There were now eleven passengers on the lower deck; two Americans, two Italians, two Chinese, one Japanese boy in a mad hat and two couples of indeterminate origins. He decided that the murderer had yet to put in an appearance.
    â€˜Was this woman McKay in her own apartment?’ he asked.
    â€˜Correct.’
    May thought of the call-girl living on the ground floor. ‘Did she look after the other girls? Was her killer a client?’
    â€˜No, she had nothing to do with them.’ Bryant sat back, trying not to listen to the tour guide’s incorrect description of the Cabinet War Rooms.
    â€˜But the killer left behind a clue to his identity.’
    â€˜No, it was something he took away with him that gave me the lead.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t see how you could possibly know what he took.’
    The bus continued along Whitehall, picking up three more passengers, and lumbered toward Parliament Square through thickening traffic. May eyed the newcomers with suspicion. A German couple – he overheard their conversation – were taking pictures behind a fiftyish man with unmistakably Russian features and