The Water Room

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Fine, but I doubt Mr Ayson decided to murder Mr Avery simply because he wasn’t planning on having children. Anyone else in the street?’

  ‘Well, Garrett, I suppose. He gave Jake some duff property advice.’

  ‘Quite normal. Keep going.’

  ‘Jake had a row with Heather from across the road once.’

  ‘Do you know what it was about?’

  ‘I think it was Stanley Spencer.’

  ‘The artist? Why would they have argued over Stanley Spencer?’

  ‘Jake was researching Spencer’s life because his company was planning a documentary. She did PR for a Cork Street gallery before her husband dumped her, had some strong views about art.’

  May was beginning to wonder whether his human approach to detective intelligence was less effective than Bryant’s lateral habits. He sighed and replaced his pen in his pocket. ‘Let’s assume for a moment that the assailant was unknown to Mr Avery. You’re sure nothing was taken from the house?’

  ‘Positive. You’ve seen how we live. Jake was into minimalism, couldn’t bear ornamentation, not even so much as a magazine lying about. We kept no money at home.’

  ‘You don’t think it was unusual for the back door to be unlocked?’

  ‘No. There are gardens on either side of us, and walls at the ends.’

  ‘And you can think of no reason—’

  ‘—why he was murdered? No, of course not, otherwise I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?’

  They released the distraught Aaron in order to let him inform his partner’s relatives.

  ‘I still keep asking myself if it’s just an unfortunate series of coincidences,’ May admitted. ‘All kinds of tragedies occur in the average street. Couldn’t this be an extreme example? An old lady dies, a workman suffers an accident, an intruder kills a householder . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing coincidental about it,’ replied Bryant, pouring food for the cat. ‘The unusual configurations of London streets mean that there was always a lot of waste ground, and the Blitz bombs created more dead land than ever.’

  ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘You always think these things are about love and hate, John, but they’re really about frustration and poverty and anger, and that has a lot to do with the land. The developers push up property prices, the land is built upon, density increases dramatically, people are thrust into each other’s paths, privacy is eroded, tension flares.’

  May had heard this particular tune of Bryant’s often enough to raise his hand in objection. ‘London has a lower population now than it had in the 1950s,’ he pointed out.

  ‘But it’s become concentrated in city hotspots. Where there are too many people, lives are forced to overlap.’

  ‘This is a pretty affluent street, Arthur. Everyone has a garden, their own space. You’re searching for connections where there are none.’

  ‘I’d take your point, old fruit, but for two things. First, Jake was asleep when he was attacked. The bottom half of the bed wasn’t even disturbed, which suggests to me that he was taken by surprise. He didn’t even have time to react by trying to fend off his attacker and kick himself into an upright position. Second, the attacker knew he was in bed, because he came upstairs already armed with the roll of film. Ergo, someone entered the house with the intention of killing its owner. Jake knew something about the deaths of Elliot Copeland and Ruth Singh, and was silenced before he could tell anyone.’

  ‘You don’t know that. His colleagues reckon he didn’t leave the studio all day. When do you imagine he was the recipient of this blinding epiphany?’

  ‘I don’t much care for your tone.’ Bryant rooted through his drawer, and began assembling a favourite pipe. ‘We know he arranged to meet Kallie Owen last night, then failed to show up. I think he’d been about to tell her something, but was sidetracked by the killer.’ He sucked horribly at the pipe stem, checking airflow.

  ‘Why confide in her? Why not tell us?’

  ‘Perhaps his discovery was of particular relevance to her, or this missing partner of hers who was currently last heard from in—’ he consulted his notes, ‘Santorini?’

  ‘Let’s assume for the moment that you’re correct, and that this is some kind of domino effect, in which case Elliot Copeland dies to prevent the identity of Ruth Singh’s killer from emerging, and Jake Avery dies to keep Elliot’s murderer hidden. There’s no driving force to the hypothesis—no motive. None of these people had the usual family ties.’

  ‘You forget that following my theory, we only need a motive for the first death, and that could be something terribly mundane. We know that Ruth Singh had been the victim of racism from the tape Kallie gave us, if thirty seconds of guttural filth on a bad line can be taken as racism. We know that, despite Mark Garrett’s claim to the contrary, she was visited by him the night before she died. Let’s assume she made an enemy, someone who found a way to take her life—’

  ‘—by flooding her bathroom and quickly draining it.’

  ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, John.’

  ‘What’s wrong with a simple conk on the head? She was an old lady, all anyone would have had to do was push her downstairs. Why go to the trouble of drowning her on dry land?’

  ‘I think we have to set aside the “why” and concentrate on “how” for a while.’

  ‘How is it you always manage to sidestep the logical questions any normal person would ask?’

  ‘I never gave you any reason to assume I was logical. Have you ever known me to plan anything more than two hours in advance, or stay awake all the way through a committee meeting?’ Bryant reached back to his bookshelf and began pulling down some dusty, tattered volumes.

  ‘I suppose not,’ May sighed. ‘If you were logical, you’d have stayed with Alma as your landlady in the old apartment. She washed your socks for forty years. Any sane person would have bid you good riddance, but she’s terribly cut up about you dumping her. And I don’t think you’ll find the answer in any of those filthy old books.’

  ‘Well, of course, that’s exactly what you would say,’ Bryant bridled, loading them into his briefcase. ‘Anyway, what about your granddaughter? I thought you were bringing April in to help us. I thought you were going to have it out with her once and for all. Put your own house in order, I say.’

  Stalemate, thought May. ‘So what are the books for?’ he asked, giving in gracefully.

  ‘Ah, well. Seeing as we divided assignments, I thought I’d try adopting your methods for a change. Any word from Greenwood?’

  ‘Monica called to tell me that Jackson Ubeda and her husband are going off somewhere together tomorrow night, and that he’s not expected back until the next morning. I think it was her way of telling me that she’d be alone in the house.’

  ‘Thank God I don’t have your trouble with women. What a moral dilemma. Which duty will you choose, I wonder? To satisfy the unfulfilled wife or to rescue the good name of your rival? The unit can’t help you now, you know, not with Raymond having to report our every movement to Marsden and the rest of HMCO liaison.’

  ‘Then I’ll inform you of my decision,’ said May.

  ‘And I’ll do the same if my hunch with these books pays off.’

  The axe is about to fall on this place and they’re behaving like children, guarding their essays from each other, thought Longbright, watching them from the door. They’re out of step, out of date, and it looks like they’re finally running out of time.

  34

  * * *

  THE CONDUIT

  Bryant unloaded the books at the end of Tate’s bed. ‘I’m afraid they’re rather esoteric,’ he apologized, ‘but you may find them interesting.’

  The itinerant turned over the first volume and studied the title suspiciously. A gruesome face on the cover of Dental Evidence in Body Identification. Volume One: Bridgework stared back at him. ‘Thank you,’ he said uncertainly.

  There was an unbearably terminal aspect to Tate’s littl
e room. When he had mentioned the stripped-back bareness of the workers’ houses in Balaklava Street, homes that had been built for the poor, he could have been describing this, his own eventual residence. His knotted hands turned the pages with surprising delicacy. On the sill above his bed stood a row of syrup tins containing stunted geraniums. An overpowering smell of stewed beef wafted in from the corridor.

  ‘I wondered if we might talk a little more,’ Bryant suggested.

  ‘You want to know something, don’t you? There’s been another one.’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘Everyone talks in here. But I saw.’

  ‘What do you mean, you saw?’

  ‘What you told me off for doing.’

  ‘You mean watching?’ Bryant sat forward. ‘You were watching the house?’

  ‘In one of my positions. Traffic warden uses it. Runs out from his hidey-hole to arrest the cars.’

  Bryant knew that rough sleepers developed territorial habits every bit as strong as those with homes. ‘Where is that?’

  ‘On the waste ground.’

  ‘What did you see, Mr Tate?’

  ‘Saw the bedroom light go out in number 41.’

  ‘Did you notice who went in?’

  ‘No. You can only see upstairs from there.’

  ‘What about Elliot Copeland? Did you see him on the night of the accident?’

  ‘Yes. The earth swallowed him up.’ Tate turned the pages, feigning disinterest in the conversation.

  ‘This is very important,’ urged Bryant. ‘Did you see anything at all that could identify the culprit?’ The moment he spoke, the delicate skein of communication between them was damaged. Tate’s eyes clouded as he closed the book. Bryant knew he had to try another approach.

  ‘I thought you might like that volume.’ He reached over and tapped the cover of a battered paperback entitled The Vanished Rivers of London. ‘Fascinating stuff about this area. It even has a picture of your temporary home in the alley. Of course, it wasn’t just an alley back then, when the book was written. It was called Streamside Path.’

  Tate’s eyes flickered.

  ‘Page 201, if you’re interested.’ Bryant flicked through and allowed the book to fall open at the marked spot. He waited while Tate studied the picture.

  ‘I wonder how many other tunnels there are beneath the terraces around here,’ he mused. ‘Three or four, at least.’

  ‘Seven,’ murmured Tate without thinking. ‘All forgotten.’

  ‘Not by you. I presume their waters run into the Regent’s Canal.’

  ‘Some. Not all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  No answer.

  ‘I just want to know what happened. I can see it’s painful to talk about these things. But there are other ways. Can’t you give me some guidance, put me on the right track? The river Fleet, I know it’s connected, but I don’t understand its significance.’

  ‘The river is where it all started. It has the power to change lives.’

  ‘You could show me.’

  ‘You’d tell.’

  ‘I couldn’t promise not to if I found evidence pertaining to the investigation,’ Bryant pointed out.

  ‘Then we won’t go.’

  ‘I can give you anonymity. No one will know it was you who took me. Your identity would remain a secret.’

  Tate thought for a moment. ‘Can you get more books?’

  ‘Easily.’

  ‘Do you swear?’

  ‘On my honour as a gentleman.’

  ‘Haven’t heard anyone say that for a long time.’ Tate eased himself from the bed and pulled a hammer from underneath the mattress. ‘We’ll need this.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It was a long hot summer. No rain from June the sixth until three weeks ago. Dried out all the river beds.’

  ‘You mean they became passable? I thought the grilles stopped large objects, including people, from moving along the conduits.’

  ‘Most grilles are rusty. Some are gone. Some are locked.’ He pushed his hand into a syrup tin and pulled out a filthy set of long-stemmed keys.

  ‘You can move under the streets?’

  ‘I could. Now it’s raining again. The channels have filled back up, but there are still ways.’ He left the room with surprising speed, even though old injuries had twisted his body on damaged hinges. The pair of them headed out down the stairs and into the wet street like fugitives.

  When they reached the wire fence of the alley at the end of Balaklava Street, Tate slipped through the gap and beckoned to Bryant. He stopped above the grating that Brewer Wilton had lowered himself into. ‘Give me a hand.’

  Tate groped about in the bushes for his iron T-rod, and together they eased the steel lid off the drain. The water level had risen since Bryant had examined it, and a dull roar of water could be heard in the distance. ‘What’s that noise?’ he asked.

  ‘Gospel Oak sluice emptying into the Regent basin.’

  ‘But Gospel Oak is about half a mile away.’

  ‘Sound carries down there.’ Tate dropped to his knees in the mud and lowered the top half of his body into the hole. After a minute of searching, he emitted a grunt of satisfaction, withdrew the hammer and gave something in the hole a great whack. There followed a grinding metallic noise, and the rushing water seemed to ease off.

  ‘What have you done?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘Obvious. Can’t get down there if it’s full. I’m diverting the flow.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Smooth as a knife. Go down.’

  Bryant looked dubiously into the shaft. The cement floor was visible a few inches beneath the water now, but the rungs to it looked slippery.

  ‘Want to show you something.’

  ‘I’m a bit dicey on my pins.’ Reluctantly, the elderly detective eased himself over the side of the drain, and began to climb down. They stood together on the draining concrete platform, heads ducked to avoid the low brick ceiling. The stench of rotting garbage and faeces settled into Bryant’s nostrils and clothes, but beneath it was another smell, something he had not expected: the damp bite of green Thames water. The temperature was lower than at ground level. His breath plumed before him as he clicked on May’s Valiant.

  ‘Look.’ Tate pointed through the olivine gloom at a pair of large oval holes on either side of the channel. The junction appeared deeper; water churned in a putrid eddy of cross-currents. ‘The Prince of Wales Causeway. Six gates to close off before you reach the basin. Can’t leave the gates shut more than a few minutes because of the pressure. Takes a logical mind to remember the sequence and survive.’

  ‘The Water Board must know how to do it.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘You want us to go down there?’

  ‘Not today, not with the forecast. Takes more than an hour, maybe two. Need waterproofs and a mask. Another day, if you want to know the reason.’

  ‘What reason?’ asked Bryant. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Reason for all this upset. The water is where it began.’

  To Bryant, it seemed the most inhospitable place imaginable. He wondered how the tramp could have slept on the platform without being besieged by nightmares.

  ‘Come on, the rain’s getting harder. Tunnel fills up fast. Drains off the Heath, through clay and brick, thousands of gallons in seconds. Get swept away and no one will ever find you again.’

  Tate started to climb back up. He pulled himself out of the drain with ease, extending his shattered hand to Bryant. The pair were bonded by a secret now.

  Back in the alley, he produced a muddy piece of card from his jacket and held it up. ‘You need this.’

  On it was printed a faded diagram designed like a Tube map, overlaid with the kind of Helvetica lettering popularized during the War. Instead of underground branch lines, it showed the paths of tributaries, each one variegated and named. Tate was holding the plan to a network of conduits. He tapped a calibrated thick line wi
th his blackened forefinger. ‘The Fleet. Each dot is a lock. Each line is a sealed gate.’

  Bryant dug out his reading glasses and took a squint. ‘According to this, you can’t get as far as the Regent’s Canal.’

  ‘No, but you can branch off, all the way up to the York Road Basin. It was fine during the summer, you could walk along it, armed with the right keys. Now you have to divert each of the cross-courses as you go. As you said, the Water Board knows. They got the equipment. But I got all the keys.’

  ‘You’ve done it?’

  ‘A few of us.’

  Bryant squinted through the drizzle that softened Tate’s weathered face. ‘Who are you?’ he asked quietly. Tate’s lips thinned, but a moment later the smile had vanished.

  ‘I’m nobody,’ he whispered sadly.

  35

  * * *

  HUMAN NATURE

  ‘I think our killer is using the underground tunnels,’ Bryant explained, obliviously poking pedestrians with the tines of his umbrella as they dodged the puddles in Kentish Town High Street. ‘He enters the alley from the back gardens and goes down into the water conduit. It passes right under the road and connects to the backs of all the houses on the east side.’

  ‘Why would anyone go to so much trouble?’ May was having difficulty keeping up with his partner this afternoon. A sense of angry urgency invaded Bryant whenever he was faced with the fallout from a preventable death. He and John had spent most of Friday with the shocked residents of Balaklava Street. Now they had left Aaron alone with his guilt in a searched, emptied and fingerprinted house, minus the person who had brought the rooms to life, and the world was expected to turn as usual. In the months following a death, the survivors saw small cruelties wherever they looked. It disturbed Bryant to recognize that the unit should have taken matters more seriously from the outset, and shamed him that they had achieved so little. It was the only time in the investigation when he had displayed any other emotion than a ghoulish enthusiasm. His revenge was to ignore his age and infirmities, to work harder than ever. It was when he needed to be watched most carefully.

  ‘So that no one sees anything unusual in the street, obviously. Look how enclosed and overlooked it is. If you’re well known in the area, witnesses are likely to remember you. It’s someone Tate and probably all the others know by sight. That’s why Tate didn’t seem frightened when I talked to him. It’s the unknown that scares people, the faceless stranger who attacks for no logical reason, because he’s on drugs, or drunk, or just disturbed.’ He thrust a crumpled paper bag at May. ‘Have a pear drop.’