Bryant & May - London's Glory: (Short Stories) (Bryant & May Collection) by Christopher Fowler

May.
    ‘Yes, you might want to check last night’s – No!’ Banbury snatched the plastic bag back from Bryant, who had begun to open it. ‘Can you not take it out until I’ve finished with it?’
    ‘Just send us the call list, then.’ May was always keen to keep the peace. His partner was like a baby, reaching out to grab the things he wanted without thinking. Except that he was always thinking. ‘Come on, Arthur,’ he said, ‘we’ve enough to be getting on with.’
    ‘Where did she live?’ Bryant asked as he was being led away. Below him the skyline of London formed an elaborate ice sculpture that shone pink and silver in the gelid afternoon air.
    ‘Canonbury, I believe,’ Banbury said.
    ‘What was she doing over here so early on a Tuesday morning? Get those lads on it.’ He indicated the members of the Hampstead constabulary who were standing around in the car park. ‘She might have stayed somewhere nearby; maybe she has family here. Have them check taxis running from Canonbury to Chalk Farm early this morning.’
    ‘Why Chalk Farm?’ asked May.
    ‘To get here from there you either have to drop off your fare by the footbridge near Chalk Farm station or go all the way around,’ Bryant explained. ‘This place is a peninsula that’s a pain in the arse to reach because of the railway lines. That’s why the rich love it. They don’t have to rub shoulders with us plebs. Get someone to walk all the way around the perimeter, check for any kind of break in the snow. There must be
something
.’
     
    After a brief stop at the PCU, the pair headed across to the gaudy offices of North One Developments Ltd, the property company Marsha Kastopolis had owned with her husband. Bypassing the confused staffers at their computer terminals, they found Phantasos Kastopolis in the building’s basement, sweating on an exercycle. The beetroot-faced property tycoon was leaking from the top of his dyed combover to the bulging waistband of his electric-blue nylon tracksuit. He grabbed a towel and mopped at his chain-festooned chest, annoyed at having his journey towards a coronary thrombosis interrupted.
    ‘If this is about burst pipes, there’s nothing I can do,’ he said. ‘It’s bloody freezing, innit, and them students haven’t paid their rent this month so they got no bloody complaining to do.’
    ‘It’s about your wife,’ said May, and he proceeded to explain the circumstances of Mrs Kastopolis’s death while Bryant wandered around examining the Californian gym equipment with ill-disguised distaste.
    ‘What was she doing out at that time?’ Kastopolis asked after he had demonstrably absorbed the news, a process that involved a fair amount of ranting but not much grief. ‘She never goes for a bloody walk.’
    ‘We were hoping you could tell us. Does she know anyone in Primrose Hill?’
    ‘I don’t know where her bloody friends live.’
    ‘Do you know if she had any enemies?’
    ‘She had enemies because I have enemies!’ Kastopolis exploded, throwing his towel on the floor. ‘They all got it in for us, ’cause they don’t like Cypriots owning their streets.’
    ‘I thought your wife was English.’
    ‘Yeah but she was married to me. I came here with nothing but the clothes I stood up in and bought the shops one by one. My father was a farmer, his fingers in the dirt, and look at me now. Thirty years of bloody hard work.’ He raised his spatulate fingers before them in an attempt to prove the point. ‘Of course I have enemies. They’re jealous of me. They try to ruin me. But I tell you what, my friend, I do a lot of good in this community.’
    ‘You infringe a lot of building regulations, too,’ said Bryant, unimpressed. He pulled a plastic folder from his overcoat. ‘Fire hazards, illegally blocked-off hallways, substandard materials, contractor lawsuits, environmental-health injunctions, it’s all here.’
    ‘Listen, if I waited for council approval before starting to build, I’d never