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

get anything done.’
    ‘Let’s get back to your wife,’ said May. ‘You think someone was trying to get at you through her?’ He thought:
If that was the plan, they didn’t succeed. He’s not upset or even surprised.
    ‘Why else would anyone bother with her?’ Kastopolis pushed past them and began slicking down his hair before an elaborate gilt mirror. ‘She didn’t know nobody important.’
    ‘But she worked for you.’
    ‘Secretary stuff – posting the mail, making coffee, that sort of thing. I made her come to work just to keep her out of the shops, spending my bloody money. And to stop her eating. She was getting as fat as a pig.’
    ‘When was the last time you saw her?’
    ‘When she left the office yesterday evening. She was going out with her mates to some cocktail bar maybe. I don’t know what she does no more.’
    ‘She didn’t come home?’
    ‘We got a lot of places, and she’s got keys to them all. She stays in different ones when she’s had a few drinks.’
    ‘Alone?’
    ‘Of course alone! She belongs to me! What are you bloody saying?’
    ‘And you, do you stay in these flats without her?’
    ‘That’s got nothing to bloody do with it.’
    ‘It has if you can’t vouch for your whereabouts between last night and today.’
    Kastopolis nearly ruptured a vein. ‘Ask my boys upstairs where I was. They was with me all evening. We left here at eight and went to the Rajasthan Palace until midnight. They was all with me again from six o’clock this morning. We work long hours here. Why you think we make so much money? Are you sure she’s dead?’
    ‘Very sure. She was stabbed.’
    ‘Primrose Hill, eh? No blacks around there – don’t know how she got stabbed. I can’t bloody believe this! I gave her everything. She didn’t have nothing when she met me, came down from Liverpool without a penny to her name. She owed me big time, and this is how I get paid for my kindness.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Stands to reason, innit? She was seeing someone behind my back.’ Kastopolis checked his hair in the mirror and turned to them. ‘Where do I pick up her body?’
     
    ‘What a revolting man,’ said Bryant as they headed back along the Caledonian Road. ‘All that grey chest hair poking out between his chains, it made me feel quite ill. Surely no one would speak about his wife like that if he’d killed her.’
    ‘Obviously it’s a long time since he cared anything for her,’ said May. ‘It sounds to me as if the arrangement of staying in empty apartments was more for his benefit than hers.’
    ‘I think we should talk to someone she counted as a friend,’ Bryant replied, ‘rather than a husband.’
     
    They found Kaylie Neville seated alone in the Lion & Unicorn. The dishevelled forty-year-old was nursing an extremely large gin and tonic. Judging by her swollen red eyes and the number of lemon wedges in her drink, she had already been informed of her friend’s death. The pub was so still and quiet that the detectives stirred the dust motes in the late-afternoon sunlight as they sat down beside her at the copper-topped table.
    ‘Phantasos called me and just started having a go, yelling and carrying on like I’m to blame,’ she said, anxiously searching their faces. ‘You mustn’t believe anything he says about her. Nothing true or kind has ever come out of his mouth. He cheats, he steals, he has affairs. There’s not a decent bone in him. The things he gets up to in those flats, you don’t want to know.’
    ‘Forgive me,’ said Bryant, ‘but if Mr Kastopolis is such a terrible man, why did Marsha marry him?’
    ‘She’d had a rough time of it. She came to London to escape a bloke in Liverpool who said he would kill her.’
    ‘Why did he say that?’
    Kaylie tapped nervously at her glass with bitten purple nails. ‘He was staunch Irish Catholic, and she had an abortion. He threatened to come down and cut her up. She was a lousy judge of men. But a kind heart, a