The Water Room

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘That’s miles away.’

  ‘Spoken like a true townie.’

  The detectives hardly ever left London. May’s under-furnished modern flat in St John’s Wood had the melancholy air of an airport at midnight. Only his computer room showed signs of habitation. In this respect, he lived like a teenager.

  After the tumult of the city, Raynes Park seemed not so much depopulated as derelict. The neighbourhood appeared to have been stunned into silence, as if someone had thrown a bucket of dirty water over it. There were only becalmed avenues of redbrick houses, graffiti-covered shops and mangy green verges.

  They hadn’t intended to drive out this far, but Bryant had misread the road signs. ‘Someone’s been busy with their lawn-mower,’ he observed. ‘Look at these gardens. There aren’t any neat box hedges like this near me. All we have are scabby old plane trees with plastic bags in their upper branches and front yards full of McDonald’s containers.’

  ‘You’ve never owned a garden.’

  ‘My mother had one in Bethnal Green. We used to keep chickens in the Anderson shelter. We had nasturtiums and a tortoise. That was a proper garden, a place where your dad could take his motorbike to bits. This is different.’

  Bryant was right. Even the air felt thinner; for a start, it wasn’t vibrating with fluorocarbons. At Wimbledon they found themselves surrounded by jeeps, 4x4s and truck-sized people-carriers, vehicles taken on school runs by high-income nesting families who never travelled further than Tesco or a Devonshire bolthole. Neighbourhood Watch stickers in front windows, no street life away from the superstore, nothing but the odd dog-walker, invariably an elderly lady in a Liquorice-Allsort hat and matching gloves.

  ‘Longbright says people who spend their whole lives in the suburbs have no social graces because they never talk to strangers,’ Bryant pointed out.

  ‘That’s a bit harsh.’

  ‘I don’t know. The Balaklava Street residents clearly have trouble talking to me.’

  ‘Arthur, everyone has trouble talking to you. You scare them.’

  ‘Rubbish. I’m much more charming these days. I hardly ever get annoyed with the officers Stanley assigns to us, even slack-jawed drooling neanderthals like Bimsley.’

  Detective Chief Superintendent Stanley Marsden acted as a liaison officer between the detectives and the government. He was meant to operate with impartiality, but the Home Office paid his salary. He was known to play billiards with Raymond Land, but he also attended Arsenal matches with Sergeant Carfax, an astonishingly unpleasant Met officer who had been passed over for promotion four times, and who had decided to blame Bryant for his failure to rise through the ranks. There was still some bad feeling about the special status accorded to the PCU, but most situations were calmed by May’s tact and inexhaustible patience. Even his enemies liked him. Bryant, on the other hand, had only to raise a telephone receiver to upset everyone within hearing distance.

  Bryant map-read under sufferance because he said it hurt his eyes, and they had to keep stopping while May checked their coordinates.

  ‘I’ve been rewriting your notes.’ Bryant dug out a small book bound in orange Venetian leather and passed it to his partner. ‘I thought if we have to submit something to Raymond, it should at least be entertaining.’

  May waited until they reached red traffic lights, then examined the pages with impatience. ‘You can’t rewrite these. They’re witness statements, not tone poems.’ He shot Bryant a look of irritation.

  ‘I just added a few impressions.’

  ‘We’ve all seen your impressions, thank you.’

  ‘I was just thinking about Balaklava Street. First the old lady drowns, then a man is buried alive. There’s an assonance, isn’t there?’

  ‘There may be assonance, Arthur, but there’s no motive. Nothing was stolen from either victim. There are unmotivated deaths in every borough, but when two occur in the same street within the same month, I’m tempted to find a causal link. There’s a lot of drug-related street crime in the area, but nothing like this. I’d be willing to swallow accidental deaths if I could understand how they happened. What do we really have? In the case of Elliot Copeland we’ve a witness and a suspect, but neither are much use beyond placing Randall Ayson at the site. I think the Allen woman actually saw Copeland die but didn’t do anything to help, and she’s too ashamed to admit so. It was left to her friend to discover the body a few minutes later, when she turned back into the street.’

  ‘Perhaps you should talk to the neighbours again. I can’t help thinking you’ve missed something.’

  ‘Where are we now, Arthur?’

  ‘Barnes Common. Nearly there.’

  ‘Why did we go all the way out to Raynes Park?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. You’re driving.’

  ‘But you’re map-reading. Give me that.’ May took the A-Z. ‘This was printed in 1958. You don’t have to keep everything for ever, you know.’

  ‘It’s nice to own old things. Better than living in an apartment that looks like a car showroom.’ They barely realized they were bickering, but at least the habit provided a form of natural evolution for their opinions.

  The BMW purred to a stop beside the river. On the page, May’s finger traced the outlet of the brook to the river’s edge. He looked out of the window. A low concrete flood-wall had been installed along the river road. ‘Well, this looks like the spot, but where’s Greenwood?’

  ‘Over there.’ Bryant pointed toward the black Jaguar parked beside a low house with boarded-over windows. ‘That’s Jackson Ubeda’s car.’ The building was a light industrial unit, an unadorned Victorian box of the type that existed in swathes across the city.

  They did not have long to wait. After fifteen minutes, Ubeda appeared in the doorway of the building, followed by Greenwood. Inside the entrance, May could just make out some kind of pumping equipment. Fat flexible pipes lolled across the floor. ‘What on earth are they up to?’ he wondered aloud.

  ‘Perhaps they’re trying to drain the brook,’ suggested Bryant.

  ‘But this is the fourth underground river they’ve visited. They can’t be trying to drain the entire system. What do we do?’

  ‘You go and attach your electronic gizmo, and we wait.’ Bryant pushed himself down in the passenger seat, his hat sliding forward to meet his collar, so that he seemed almost to disappear. ‘I know it’s foolish, but I had this image of Ruth’s basement flooding, drowning her and suddenly emptying out again. Of course, nothing was wet when we got there, but the idea still troubles me. Images of water are the images of dreams. To dream of a lake is suggestive of a mind at peace with itself. To dream of a rough sea, or drowning, indicates psychological disturbance. According to her brother, Ruth had been disturbed by racist messages, all of which he destroyed. Suppose she discovered a bizarre way to take her own life?’

  Bryant often did this, connecting ideas that took him beyond rational thought. For him, past and present, fact and fantasy were melded together in unfathomable ways, but occasionally connections could be found by following overgrown paths. May was used to dealing with his partner’s disordered synaptic responses, but to other detectives it was a little like discovering that witchcraft was still in use.

  May relied on his own form of sorcery, in the form of devices passed on to him by a Met R&D team who allowed him to trial-test their technology before it was approved for official use. Nothing in his arsenal could prevent the academic from succumbing to temptation, but a tiny Bluetooth receiver attached to their quarry’s vehicle would at least pick up some passing conversation. May waited until the pair had re-entered the factory, then made his way over to the car while his partner kept watch. Half an hour later, they began to pick up dialogue.

  ‘I think it’s time for a talk with Mr Ubeda,’ said Bryant shortly.

  ‘You think we should go and see him?’

  ‘No, I think Longbright should. A middle-aged man driving a Jaguar will respond more willingly to an attractive woman. Hel
lo, Janice, is that you?’ Bryant had a habit of shouting when he used a mobile. ‘You don’t mind dolling yourself up and pumping someone for information, do you? Well, tonight if possible, because we know where he’s going to be. Just get a chap drunk and flirt a bit, could you do that?’

  ‘It’s sexism,’ Longbright complained, ‘and probably counts as entrapment.’

  ‘Rubbish, you never mention sexism when a man takes you out for dinner, do you? You go on about empowerment, but when the bill arrives you suddenly discover your femininity.’

  ‘I very much resent that. I’ve never been in favour of equal opportunities.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve always thought women should be in charge.’

  ‘So you’ll do it?’

  There was a deep sigh on the line. ‘Do I get a clothing allowance?’

  ‘All right, but don’t go mad.’

  ‘Where’s he going to be?’

  Bryant checked his notes. ‘A lap-dancing club in Tottenham Court Road.’

  The first postcard had arrived, franked in Amsterdam. Inevitably, it pictured a hump-backed bridge above a toad-green canal. On the back: ‘First stop Holland, heading to Istanbul at the end of the week. I’m doing this for both our sakes. I hope you’ll be there when I come back. You can reach me via my hotmail address. Love, Paul.’ It felt oddly impersonal, not his style at all. Even the handwriting looked different. She checked that the paint was dry on the mantelpiece, and placed the card there, wondering how many would accrue, how far apart the spaces between them would grow, how long it would be before he stopped writing altogether.

  The street was ethereal with rain again. According to the TV weathergirl it was shaping up to be the wettest autumn on record. The Thames barrier had been operated a record number of times in the past week. At least Kallie was working—a press shoot for mobile phones, another for floor cleaner. She noticed that her image was shifting from ‘girl-next-door’ types to more maternal roles, and decided to have her hair cut. It wasn’t hard keeping herself busy between jobs. The house demanded attention. She was teaching herself electrical repair, plumbing and decoration, but knew she would have to call someone in about the split roof tiles. The first and ground floors were now half-painted in cheerful colours that drew light into the rooms, but the basement and rear had yet to be started. Under the stairs she had found a cardboard box filled with items belonging to Ruth Singh, but now that her brother had moved, there was no one to send them to.

  Kallie went down to the kitchen and filled a kettle.

  Heather had become even more distracted and tense since the night of Elliot Copeland’s death. Her failure to act was clearly a source of discomfort; could she have discovered a conscience? Kallie wanted to tell her not to worry, that it shouldn’t stand in the way of their friendship. The sight of the buried man had not disturbed her sleep. She was not given to imagination, and had seen death before: her father, a car accident, a dying friend. Heather was more highly strung, and responded to the darkening atmosphere around her. George’s decision to leave had made matters much worse. Heather was keen to find parallels in the behaviour of both their partners, but Kallie wasn’t ready for the kind of sisterhood session that involved sitting around complaining about male hormones. Perhaps it would be best to allow some space between them for a while.

  She stood at the counter vacantly waiting for the kettle to boil, watching the drizzle through the rear window, and turned away to find some biscuits. When she turned back, the face jumped from the glass and made her scream.

  How long had he been standing in the garden, watching her? She ran to the back door and searched for the key, fumbling it into the lock, running out and almost sliding over on wet ceanothus leaves. He was pushing his way up the garden, into the big bushes at the end, a figure with a hobbling gait that dropped him from side to side like a sailor crossing a deck. Moments later the bushes stilled, the branches falling back in place. But she had recognized him.

  She headed back into the house and began searching for the number John May had given her.

  23

  * * *

  A NIGHT OUT FOR SERGEANT LONGBRIGHT

  ‘I recognized his face,’ Kallie explained. ‘His eyes were so sunken, and yet you could see such pain in them. I felt sorry for him.’ She showed Longbright how the man had climbed out of her garden. ‘He’s the local tramp. He used to sleep over on the waste ground, but I guess when the land was dug up he was forced to move. I don’t know where he is now.’

  Longbright’s shopping trip had been cut short by Kallie’s phone call to the unit. As she sounded upset, the sergeant had agreed to cover for May and stop by Balaklava Street. ‘There are a couple of hostels in the neighbourhood. I can check those. You don’t have a name, or even a nickname?’

  ‘No, but Tamsin Wilton at number 43 would know. She told me to watch out for him. She says he’s harmless, and he was only staring at me through the window, but it made me jump.’

  ‘Well, he was on your private property, where he had no right to be, so I’ll look into it. The problem with most of the hostels is that they only allow users to stay overnight. It pushes homeless people back on to the streets, and puts them in the way of trouble.’

  ‘I certainly don’t want to get anyone into trouble,’ said Kallie quickly. ‘He’s been living rough for a long time. I guess now the workshop is expanding its premises, he’s been displaced. He wasn’t doing any harm.’

  ‘That won’t be how everyone sees it. The average life expectancy of a homeless person is forty-two. Someone dies on the streets of London every five days.’

  ‘Doesn’t anyone treat them?’

  ‘The homeless can’t be registered by GPs. Most people can stand about a month of sleeping rough before long-term problems set in. They often start as sofa surfers, sleeping on friends’ floors prior to becoming homeless.’

  ‘God, I did that just before getting this place,’ said Kallie.

  ‘Then you know how easily it can happen. The statistics are depressing. Forty per cent of all homeless women are victims of sexual or physical abuse. Something as simple as a divorce can be enough to force someone into the open air. So let me see what I can turn up on this bloke. He must be pretty nimble if he could scale that wall.’

  ‘He was crippled in some way—his right side, I think, both the arm and the leg. So I don’t know how he managed to do it.’

  Longbright saw her point; the wall was almost five feet high and covered in dense black bracken. The back gardens fitted together to form an oasis of ponds and bushes, partitioned by brick walls and wavering grey wooden fences. Entrance to one garden could only be gained by crossing several others. The school playground at the end of the street was bordered by a high wall, and there were no rear gates to the overgrown alley behind.

  Longbright replaced her notebook in her jacket. She just had time to catch the Oxford Street stores. She was determined to make Bryant pay for sending her to a lap-dancing club.

  ‘There was one other thing,’ said Kallie. ‘There was talk of Mrs Singh being sent threats, racist stuff. I was clearing out the cupboard under the stairs, and found this.’ She dug in her pocket and produced an old audio cassette. ‘It’s from her answering machine. I played it back. There’s only one message, but it’s pretty nasty. I thought it might be helpful.’

  Tonight, thought Janice Longbright, you will be Grace Kelly. She turned to the side and pulled in her stomach, checking the mirror. OK, Grace Kelly’s heavier sister. Longbright was in her early fifties, and had inherited her mother’s love of old movie stars. Off duty she dressed the part, coming out somewhere between Ava Gardner and Jane Russell, and still looked damned good. She had left it too late to train for the stage, and had found herself joining the police instead, just as Gladys had before her. Inside her was the actress who might have made the big time, if only times had been easier.

  Janice stared at her stomach and sighed.

  She resented bein
g used as some kind of fishing lure on an investigation that was clearly in breach of the unit’s case remit, but was perversely starting to enjoy herself. She had purchased a black dress, a distant carbon of the original design—the unit was paying, after all. The high heels made her too tall and prevented her from walking with anything resembling a normal gait, so she abandoned them for something plainer. May had provided her with a photograph of Jackson Ubeda. There was an undeniable urban elegance; darkly complexioned, his shaven head hid the effects of male pattern baldness. He looked as though he would wear cufflinks.

  She felt uncomfortable entering the club premises alone, because men were here with one purpose: to behave badly around women. In her mother’s day, it had been considered a good thing for a man to place a woman on a pedestal; but this was not what had been intended. The foyer was as garish as a child’s drawing, black-light, zebra-skin and pink neon, exuding ersatz sophistication to men who were unfamiliar with the notion of restraint. I bet the blokes who come here would love to work in tall buildings and drive overpowered cars in town, she thought, smiling to herself.

  Along the industrial-steel runway that protruded into the main room like a late-eighties video set, a pair of unnervingly upbeat latex-thonged girls dropped and flexed before the drinkers. The preference here was for female extremes: big hair, long legs, hard breasts, fat attitude. She had imagined that the audience would be raucous and dangerously playful, overweight schoolboys hiding their sexual discomfort with jibes and dares, but was surprised to find many groups almost ignoring the dancers. Workers huddled in urgent clusters, jacketless, arguing office politics, holding the kind of intense discussions that had been pumped up to nonsense level by chemical stimuli. Private rooms hosted the stag nights, keeping aggressive behaviour out of the main room. She couldn’t entirely blame the clientele; the work-hard, play-hard ethic had invaded everywhere.

  Longbright knew at once that Ubeda would not be found near the stage. She asked a hostess to check the booking, and was sent to a private bar on the first floor. He was seated alone, drinking something with a lot of leaves sticking out of it. She required a pretext for approaching him without drawing suspicion, but after wracking her brain and failing to come up with anything original, settled on a direct approach.