The Water Room

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Yes, but that was before everything started to go wrong.’

  ‘And before George left you,’ Kallie prompted. ‘Why haven’t you considered moving?’

  ‘Oh, I probably will once the divorce is finalized. I have a wonderful lawyer—very cute, Jewish, married at the moment but I’m working on it.’

  ‘Heather, you are terrible.’

  ‘Which reminds me, George is coming round this afternoon.’ Heather glanced at her watch. ‘I need to get back home to practise my living-in-poverty routine.’

  Although Kallie had never met George, she had formed a mental image of him, so she was surprised to discover how much older than Heather he was when his black Mercedes drew up in front of their house a couple of hours later. An elegant suit could not disguise the fact that he was out of condition, sporting the kind of sclerotic complexion she associated with hill-walkers and coronary thrombosis. She tried to dismiss the image of him creeping around a Paris apartment in his dressing-gown, and concentrated on clearing the last of the paint tins from her cupboards instead.

  As she worked, she thought of Heather’s parting remark—‘still at large’—and tried to avoid looking toward the basement bathroom.

  The Sunday-morning downpour did little to dissuade the tourists from packing out the markets in Camden Town, but the area around Mornington Crescent Tube station remained becalmed. Rain pattered on to the hornbeams and hawthorns in Oakley Square, and the rose bushes were bowing their heads in contemplation of finer weather. With just twenty-four hours to go before Raymond Land’s deadline, the staff at the PCU were to be found at their desks, despondently clearing paperwork.

  ‘I don’t think Mr Bryant likes me,’ said Giles Kershaw. ‘I’ve tried to be as helpful as possible.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about it,’ May consoled the young forensic officer. ‘He’s like that with everyone: hateful until you get to know him, then merely difficult. He’ll get used to you. We never had an independent forensic expert before. Oswald Finch always handled everything, animate and inanimate. Arthur used to say he was in charge of General Debris and Criminal Fallout. He didn’t mean to bypass you. What have you got there?’

  Kershaw carefully unzipped the clear plastic bag on his bench. ‘Dan Banbury’s sorting out some anomalies in the crime-scene log, so he passed me Tate’s belongings. Nothing in the room survived, but from the look of it there wasn’t much beyond a few syrup tins. I nipped over to the hostel for a quick rummage, and found the lockers on the ground floor intact. I called to get permission to open them, but some health-and-safety jobsworth refused to give me the go-ahead without Dan present, so I got one of the firemen to accidentally drop his crowbar on it.’

  ‘Oh, I think Arthur is soon going to like you,’ smiled May. ‘His sense of civic responsibility is tempered with a similar impatience.’

  ‘Then I think he might be pleased with this.’ Kershaw pulled out a set of small cloth-bound books. ‘Tate’s sole possessions, according to the clerk. Very particular about them, his “special” books, he had an arrangement to leave them permanently in his locker—said he was worried that the water would get at them. He liked to check that they were safe every time he stayed over.’

  ‘Have you looked at them yet?’

  ‘I’ve only done an external examination. I should tell Dan—after all, he’s the crime-scene manager.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we don’t stand on formalities around here. May I?’

  The first three blue cloth-bound volumes matched, and made up a somewhat random history of English painting. The edition had been published in 1978. ‘The printing is cheap,’ May told Kershaw. ‘Poor-quality paper, and half of the colour plates are out of register.’

  At the back of each volume he found a photograph of the author, presumably in his late thirties, prematurely haggard in the way of so many young men who were children during wartime. The fourth book was a volume on the life and works of Stanley Spencer, published in 1987. ‘I need to show these to Arthur,’ he explained. ‘One of his regular contacts is an art teacher. I’ll bring them back.’

  ‘Think this stuff might be useful?’

  ‘It just makes me wonder; we assumed Tate got his nickname from the syrup tins. What if he didn’t? What if it was something to do with the Tate Gallery?’

  ‘So what?’ Kershaw packed away the rest of the material. ‘Forgive me, I’m still getting to grips with how you chaps work. You all seem to avoid the obvious routes. I mean, most killers are known to their victims. Shouldn’t you be out there interviewing friends and relatives, asking for witnesses?’

  ‘The interviews and witness appeals have been covered by Mangeshkar and Bimsley,’ May explained. ‘I think we’re far beyond pedestrian procedures now. You and Banbury have turned up nothing useful at any of the sites.’

  ‘Yes, sorry about that. I was sure we’d get something from Jake Avery. I mean, a man murdered in his own bedroom. According to Dan, it’s the room that generates more static than any other in a house because it’s occupied for half of every twenty-four-hour period, lots of different fibre-attracting surfaces and fabrics. But that’s part of the problem: there’s a surfeit of material from different sources. The wardrobe’s in the bedroom, so every item of clothing in the building has passed through it. I’m not saying that somewhere in amongst all that fibre residue there isn’t an alien skin flake, but we haven’t found it yet. Edmund Locard, the French forensic scientist, said that every contact leaves a trace. That may be, but reading them is the problem. We’ve got partial bootprints on the downstairs floor that don’t match any footwear found in the house, and that’s about it. We did a vacuum sweep from the carpet at the edge of the bed, but there was nothing of any size there. I’m trying to get a fibre selection from the bedroom on to a light microscope—no chance of getting body particles from Avery’s face near an SEM, as the only one in the area is in for repairs and there’s a horrendous waiting list. I’ve done the doors and window-ledges, and drawn a blank. What bothers me most, I think, is that Balaklava Street has become a blighted spot, what with murders, fires, missing bodies and drownings all within the space of a month, while you and Mr Bryant drift off down the investigation’s most obscure side-alleys at the slightest provocation.’

  ‘Is that how it looks to you?’ May asked.

  ‘It’s just that—well, people outside the unit keep asking me questions. They make fun of me. They don’t see what we’re hoping to achieve.’

  ‘You’ll get used to that,’ May promised. ‘Outsiders never understand how we work. They’re too busy following guidelines and checking results tables. Balaklava Street is far from being an especially blighted spot. There are now over a dozen Murder Miles in London.’

  ‘How does one qualify for status as a Murder Mile?’

  ‘You need six murders in the same road over a six-month period. Hackney, Kentish Town, Peckham and Brixton have qualified many times over. Arthur remembers Hackney as a town of wide empty streets and neat family houses bordered by marshlands. Now people throw rubbish from the balconies of tower blocks into crack alleys, and overdosed corpses lie in their apartments undiscovered until the council comes to redecorate. But . . .’ May tapped his pen on the streetmap before him. ‘The events in Balaklava Street have a rarer quality: they’re premeditated. We think that whatever happened there began as an accident, then became a plan, and is now in a state of improvisation. When plans become extemporized, people make mistakes. But we can’t afford to wait for an error when lives are at risk.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Arthur and I have been investigating this from separate angles. I think the only way we’ll find the answer now is to combine our strengths.’

  ‘You’ll have to be quick. Land’s bringing in something new tomorrow, and reckons he’s taking every other file out of the building. That means he’ll turn your findings over to the Met, and you’ll never get the case back.’

  ‘Believe me, I’m aware
of that.’ May threw the last of the witness statements into a box and sealed it. ‘It’s not all that’s at stake. Arthur’s going through one of his periodic lapses of self-confidence. He says if he can’t sort this out in time, he doesn’t deserve to remain at the unit. This will be his final case.’

  40

  * * *

  BUILDING ON BONES

  ‘Come in, come in, mind the violins.’

  A short fiftyish woman with a pageboy haircut and heavy breasts squeezed into a dusty black sweater beckoned Arthur Bryant into the narrow hall, every foot of which was lined with musical instruments. ‘My son repairs them. Since his workshop was sold and turned into apartments he’s had to carry on the business here. I’ll put the kettle on. It’s less crowded in the kitchen. That’s my territory.’

  Bryant removed his trilby and looked for somewhere to hang it. He caught a glimpse of a frenetically wallpapered lounge filled with violas, cellos, catgut, rolls of plyboard and blocks of yellow resin.

  Mrs Quinten pulled out a chair and cleared a space at the bleached oak table. This may have been her territory, but she had chosen to clutter it as much as every other part of the house. Over a dozen Victorian milk jugs filled with dried flowers added dust to the already asthma-inducing air. ‘We have goat’s milk. I hope that’s all right.’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ said Bryant, already warming to his host. ‘My God, you keep an untidy house. You’re nearly as bad as me. I bet you know where everything is.’

  ‘Of course—please, call me Jackie—what’s the point of having a home where you don’t use every inch of space? You’re simply depriving others of room to live. I grow so many vegetables in my little garden that I’m able to take bagfuls down to the Holmes Road hostel during the summer. I understand they had a fire.’

  ‘Yes, and I suppose that’s what I’m here about, in a way. I’m sorry—’ He pulled a crumpled sheet of music from beneath his buttocks and searched for somewhere to put it.

  ‘That’s all right, we use the backs for shopping lists. Penniless artists often used to paint on the back of sheet music, did you know? There’s no reason why you should, of course. That’s the problem with running the local historical society—one is always telling people things they have absolutely no interest in hearing. The modern world has severed itself from its history, Mr Bryant. Only the wealthy can afford the luxury of remembering the past, and we are far from wealthy. What can I tell you about? I’m afraid we only cover the immediate area. Somers Town, St Pancras, Camden and King’s Cross have their own historical societies, but we’re all struggling. We’re short of members, and no one has enough free time to do the research.’

  Bryant scratched the side of his nose and thought. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a long shot. There have been some strange occurrences in the surrounding streets. I’m required to examine every feasible possibility, and find myself trying to understand.’ He accepted a mug of orange tea and drank a trusting measure. ‘Searching for someone with motive and opportunity hardly seems to apply in this instance. Instead, I’ve been wondering if the solution lies in the actual ground itself.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ Mrs Quinten admitted, seating herself opposite.

  ‘The area is a victim of its past. People have made their homes here for centuries, have lived and bred and fought and died here, around the river beds, in damp and squalor, in marshlands and on hills of bones. You can concrete over the land, but you can’t change its character without moving everyone out and replacing them all.’

  ‘But that’s precisely what is happening, Mr Bryant. In the last two decades, these streets have been filled with virtually every nationality on earth. The city’s character is rapidly changing, thanks to the advent of mass transit and economic migration.’

  ‘But migrants bring comparatively little of their hereditary culture with them,’ argued Bryant. ‘Recent experiments have shown the growing power of nurture over nature. The first law of behavioural genetics states that all human traits are inheritable, but a large proportion of those traits are unaccounted for by genes or families. Children spend less time with their parents, so they’re changed more by their peers. The city quickly imposes its own will. If you raised one identical twin in Istanbul and the other in London, you might doubt they were ever related by the time they were twenty.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bryant, you really are losing me.’

  ‘A murderer, Mrs Quinten!’ Bryant blurted. ‘I can’t make myself any plainer.’ Coming from Bryant, it sounded like an apology. ‘Three residents and one transient have died, while another is in hiding. An old Indian lady, a builder, a television producer, a homeless alcoholic. They have absolutely nothing in common with one another except their location. It leads me to assume that they were attacked not for who they were, but simply because they were here at all. I asked myself what was so special about this place, beyond the fact that it seems to suffer from a surfeit of water, then wondered if that was it. Water rising from below, falling from the sky, soaking into the walls of houses. But if that is the connection, what on earth does it mean? Which leads me to ask if you have anything in your historical records that reveals a precedent for such violent behaviour in the area. Has it happened before, perhaps the last time the streets flooded?’

  ‘Ah, I’m with you now,’ said Mrs Quinten finally. ‘Feel free to delve into the biscuit barrel while I go and look.’

  She returned with an immense folder of newspaper cuttings, which she dropped on to the kitchen table in a cloud of fine dust.

  ‘Are you allergic? I hope not. This one has been on top of the wardrobe for years.’ She folded back the front cover, wiping it with her sleeve. ‘I think you’ll find that the same three roads around here have flooded every thirty years or so.’

  ‘When was the last time?’ Bryant unfolded his glasses and pinned back the clippings.

  ‘1975. Before that, 1942. Covering over the Fleet didn’t stop it from flooding. The council can’t do anything about it. They thought that drains added at the time of the new London ring-main would help, but there’s a gentleman in Balaklava Street who works for the Water Board, and he reckons it’s due to happen again.’

  ‘Oliver Wilton,’ said Bryant. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Yes, he belongs to our society. Gave a talk last year about the problem. He’s an expert on the subject. Very passionate about it. He has maps showing the exact patterns of flooding.’ She turned a page and pointed to an article taken from the Camden New Journal. ‘Here you are. Bayham Street, Archibald Road, Balaklava Street. Bayham Street was one of the poorest roads in the whole of London. Charles Dickens lodged there when he came up from Chatham. It was so wet that the weeds came up through the paving stones and split them clean in half.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Around 1822. At one end of the street was the Red Cap tea garden, named after the local witch. A lot of people thought the place was haunted by her and her familiars. Old photographs show how grim and unlit the side streets were, and naturally there were many fights and murders in such a poverty-stricken area. Bayham Street is better than it was, but there are still muggings, car thefts, drug-dealing, and the odd murder, as I’m sure you know. Archibald Road went during the War, firebombed out of existence—all that’s there now is a car showroom and an estate agent’s office. There were sightings of ghosts there before the War, but it was a time when everyone seemed to see phantoms, almost as if they were having premonitions of the terrible times ahead. And there had been sensational cases widely reported, like the haunting of Borley Rectory, so strange sightings in local neighbourhoods made good press copy. Look.’ She tapped a nicotine-coloured photograph showing a brick flying through the air. ‘The Rectory hoax would fool no one today. Attention-seekers staged these ridiculous stunts, hysterical parlour maids saw ladies in white, old gentlemen swore they saw Cavaliers walk through walls. People can be so silly in times of social panic; how quickly they all start to agree with one another. Perhaps
we should look at more recent events. This might interest you.’ She carefully emptied an envelope of cuttings and unfolded them. ‘A railway worker murdered his wife and children in Inkerman Street, no reason ever given—he died in a mental institution.’

  ‘Arrested in October 1975,’ said Bryant. ‘The time of the last flood. What about the previous occasion?’

  ‘I don’t think we have anything on that date, but there’s something from much earlier.’ She pulled a large volume bound in crimson leather, one of six, from the kitchen bookcase. ‘Walford’s Old and New London, probably the best set of reference books ever published on London. Here we are: “Ghastly murder at the Castle Tavern in 1815”. The route had long been popular with highwaymen travelling out of town through Hampstead. Dick Turpin had regularly held up the coaches using it. It would seem that this particular horseman threatened the tavern’s entire clientele, then began shooting them dead when they refused to hand over their money and jewellery. The interesting part comes afterwards, for he appears to have drowned during his escape. He attempted to cross the Fleet, but the river rose suddenly and cut him off in mid stream. The horse stumbled, throwing him into the fast-moving water. His body was never recovered.’

  ‘Mrs Quinten, I can’t start believing that the ghost of a drowned highwayman is bumping off twenty-first-century residents, however much I’d like to—my partner would kill me.’

  ‘Then I don’t see how I can help you.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’ He attempted a smile. ‘It was a long shot, but I feel happier for having covered it.’ He was closing the volume when his eye drifted to the page that followed. ‘Life and Times of Dr William Stukeley, the Celebrated Antiquary.’ He read down the column a little, reaching the Latin inscription that had been set above the antiquary’s front door.

  Me dulcis saturet quies,

  Obscuro positus loco,

  Leni perfruar otio,

  Chyndonax Druida.

  ‘Chyndonax—I’ve seen that word before in relation to Druid ceremonies.’ Bryant wondered if he still had the unit’s spare mobile, and was amazed to find it intact in his jacket pocket, even though there were sherbet lemons stuck to it.