Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(53)
I wiped my mouth on the cold plastic sleeve of the bunny suit and leaned against the wall. Opposite me was a poster for the No?l Coward Theatre where they were showing a farce called Down With Kickers!.
Two victims with their faces half off meant that the ‘possession’ had affected two individuals at the same time. There was one more tent left. I asked myself, how much worse could that be?
Stupid question.
The third body was seated with its legs crossed but like a child, not a yogi for all that his hands were resting on his knees palm upwards. His robes were drenched in blood and ribbons of red ropey stuff covered his shoulders and upper arms. His head was completely gone, leaving a ragged stump of a neck. There was a flash of white buried amid the torn muscle – I assumed it was his spine.
Seawoll had been waiting for us in the tent. He grunted when Lesley led us in. ‘Somebody’s just taking the piss now.’
‘It’s escalating,’ I said.
Nightingale gave me a sharp look but said nothing.
‘But what’s escalating?’ asked Lesley. ‘And why can’t you stop it?’
‘Because, Constable,’ said Nightingale coldly. ‘We don’t know what it is.’
There were plenty of witnesses and suspects, and people who were helping the police with their inquiries. We paired off to conduct the interviews as fast as possible. I worked with Seawoll while Nightingale paired with Lesley. That way there’d be someone in the room who could spot a vestigium when it slapped him in the face. Sergeant Stephanopoulos handled the collecting of physical evidence and collating the CCTV coverage.
It was a bit of a privilege to watch Seawoll work. He wasn’t nearly so intimidating with the suspects as he was with other policemen. His interrogation technique was gentle – never chummy, always formal but he never raised his voice. I took notes.
The sequence of events, as we reconstructed them, was depressingly familiar but on a larger scale than we’d seen before. It had been a mild spring Sunday afternoon, and St Martin’s Court had been moderately crowded. The Close itself is a pedestrianised alleyway that has access to three separate stage doors, the back entrance to Brown’s and the famous J. Sheekey’s Oyster Bar. It’s where the theatre staff go for a coffee and a crafty fag between performances. J. Sheekey’s is a thespian landmark, which isn’t surprising if you sell food late at night within walking distance of the most famous theatres in the West End. Sheekey’s also employs uniformed doormen in top hats and black frock coats, and that’s where the trouble started that afternoon.
At two forty-five, about the same time as I was sitting down for tea with Oxley and Isis, six members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness entered the Close from the Charing Cross Road end. This was a common route for the bhaktas, the aspirant devotees to the god, as they traversed from Leicester Square to Covent Garden. They were being led by Michael Smith, his identity later confirmed through fingerprint evidence, a reformed crack addict, alcoholic, car thief and suspected rapist, who had lived an unblemished life since joining the movement nine months previously. ISKCON, as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness likes to be known, is aware that there is a fine line between drawing attention to yourself and provoking active hostility from passers-by. The intention is that through dancing and chanting in public, potential converts may be attracted to the movement, and not to provoke an angry confrontation. Thus, ‘dwell time’ in a particular locality had to be judged carefully to avoid trouble. Michael Smith had proved particularly good at judging what the devotees could get away with, and that was why he was leading the saffron crocodile that afternoon.
Which was why, according to Willard Jones, former Llandudno lifeguard and lucky survivor, everyone had been surprised when they came to a halt outside J. Sheekey’s, and Michael Smith said he wanted to hear some noise. Still, making a noise and attracting attention was what they were on the street for, so they started making a noise.
‘A harmonious noise,’ said Willard Jones. ‘In this age of materialism and hypocrisy, no other form of spiritual realisation is as effective as the chanting of the maha-mantra. It is like the genuine cry of the child for his mother …’ He went on like this for some time.
What was not harmonious was the cowbell, which Willard Jones knew was a genuine cowbell because his father and brothers were genuine failing Welsh hill farmers. ‘If you’ve ever heard a cowbell,’ said Jones, ‘you’d realise that they are not designed to be harmonious.’
At approximately two fifty, Michael Smith produced a huge cowbell from somewhere about his person and started ringing it with great sweeping movements of his arm. On duty as uniformed doorman that day was Gurcan Temiz of Tottenham via Ankara. As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance threshold for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there’s no point complaining that it’s a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is ‘taking the piss’. Ringing a huge cowbell outside the restaurant and disturbing the patrons certainly constituted taking the piss, so Gurcan stepped up to remonstrate with Michael Smith, who clubbed him repeatedly with the bell around the head and shoulders. According to Dr Walid, the fourth blow was the one that killed him. Once Gurcan Temiz was on the ground two more devotees, Henry MacIlvoy of Wellington, New Zealand and William Cattrington of Hemel Hempstead rushed over and proceeded to kick the victim. This didn’t cause the damage it might have, because both devotees were wearing soft plastic sandals.