The Water Room

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The levels will fall and switch from the overflow conduit back to this route. Which means these smaller corridors will become inundated once more.’

  ‘How long have we got?’ asked May.

  ‘That depends. The channel will take Tate directly to the St Pancras Basin, but if the rain eases up, the tunnels could switch back in just a few minutes.’

  ‘Then we should go overland.’

  ‘We have no way of tracking him from above, and to do so would be to miss the entire point. I think he wants us to follow him down there. We need the final piece to this.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell Janice and Meera to follow above ground, and keep us apprised of the weather conditions.’

  ‘How will we know where Tate’s gone?’ asked Bimsley, reluctantly lowering himself into the steaming drain.

  Bryant smiled and held up his river map. ‘He left us a guide. Let’s get going.’

  The first two tunnels were dry and easy to negotiate, but by the time they reached the third, it had been joined by another channel from a different tributary, this one bringing in floating islands of animal fat from a riveted lead pipe. The stench of rotted meat and sewage caused Bimsley to throw up his lunch over a blocked drain.

  ‘The construction of these tunnels is remarkable,’ Bryant enthused. ‘Look at this metalwork, you don’t find craftsmanship like that any more. And the decoration—why would anyone bother to put a neoclassical bay-leaf-garland motif around an arch that no one will ever see? That’s Victorian pride for you.’

  ‘Jesus, there’s bloody great big rats down here.’ Bimsley hopped on to one foot and banged his skull on the ceiling, shattering calcified stalactites as a bedraggled squeaking creature with matted fur shot past him.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ said Bryant, turning the map around. ‘John, we need to concentrate all our lights, please.’

  They forked left at a pair of yellow-brick arches coated in slender black tree roots.

  ‘We must be under Prince of Wales Road, heading toward the Regent’s Canal by now. Look, there are plaques.’ May pointed to the conduit’s brass nameplate bolted into the wall, a subterranean echo of the street names on the roads above.

  Bryant’s torch-beam fell on what appeared to be a bundle of rags. ‘Tate’s jacket. He wants us to follow him.’

  ‘For the life of me I don’t understand why,’ said May.

  ‘Oh, he’s been waiting for this since the rains began.’

  ‘Does Mr Bryant know something we don’t?’ asked Bimsley, confused.

  ‘Mr Bryant always knows something we don’t,’ May admitted. ‘We’re going to need inoculations after this.’

  ‘Perhaps, but we’ll have learned something new.’ Bryant shone the torch over the tunnel arch. A wider channel ran crossways, like the junction of an arterial road. Shallow, cleaner water was flowing fast through it. ‘I don’t weigh very much. Think we can get across that?’

  ‘Hang on to me. Bimsley, you’re the heaviest, lad—you lead.’

  The trio clutched each other’s hands and waded out, but Bryant was nearly pulled off his feet. May and the detective constable yanked him to the other side like parents controlling a recalcitrant child.

  ‘Look at this.’ May pointed to the wall beside them. ‘One of your fail-safe conduits.’ He slapped his hand on the riveted steel panel, layered with grease and grooved at its base to shift around a matching steel arc, like the flood gate in an underground station. Behind a grille at the top, water was rushing away into darkness. ‘If the water rises too high, it’ll come over and re-flood this tunnel, creating a run-off.’

  ‘Some of these tunnels look dry,’ Bimsley pointed out.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve reached the part of the system designed for peak flooding yet,’ said Bryant. ‘We’ll know it when we see it.’

  From here the floor sloped downwards, and they found themselves going deeper. ‘According to this, there’s an emergency escape drain above us, but I don’t see it.’ May waved his torch about.

  ‘There,’ said Bimsley, illuminating a narrow round shaft far above them. ‘It looks like the ladder has rusted away and fallen in.’

  ‘That’s reassuring.’

  Following the map to the St Pancras Basin, they turned into a narrower ramped tunnel with slender iron platforms on either side. ‘This is part of the system newly exposed by the flood switches,’ said Bryant. ‘Look at the walls.’ They showed clear signs of long-term immersion. Strangely, the stone floor beneath their feet was less slippery, and the air smelled healthier. ‘Nothing’s had time to stagnate here. It’s probably been kept full just coping with the natural run-off of freshwater from Hampstead Heath and the other high areas above the city. It isn’t wide enough to cope with severe flooding, but it’s fine for everyday use. Wonderful workmanship; not a stone out of place. Beautiful bevelling.’

  Bimsley’s radio crackled, making him jump. ‘The rain’s easing up,’ warned Longbright. ‘You’d better start heading for the nearest exit.’

  ‘We must be nearly there.’ Bryant waded on ahead. ‘The light is less dense.’

  He was right. A faint sickly glow changed the colour of the walls before them, but as they approached, they found themselves entering a network of claustrophobic culverts, each one barred at the end.

  ‘We’ll have to turn around,’ May warned. ‘This one’s a dead end too.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Bryant, seemingly unconcerned that they might be swept away at any minute. ‘I’m assuming that Tate is down here looking for something that has been unexposed for some thirty years, and I would have thought that this was the most likely place for him to be. The tunnels fill to their highest level, then empty, washing everything out this way.’

  ‘There’s no sign of him.’

  ‘He must have left some kind of trail. Keep looking around.’

  ‘Bimsley, how long since it stopped raining?’

  ‘Twelve minutes, sir.’

  ‘The levels will be falling. We should try to find an exit. Call Longbright and find out where the nearest drain shaft is, would you?’

  Bimsley tried his phone, but failed to locate a signal. ‘No response. We’re in pretty deep ground.’

  ‘So we’re on our own. I wouldn’t fancy our chances of climbing those slopes back up. We’ll have to go on,’ said May.

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Bryant approvingly. ‘The Fleet was choked off by the expanding metropolis, but its waters still ran, albeit at a fraction of their former power. And at the highest flood levels, the water would fight to find a way around the obstacles. The system is beautifully simple when you think about it. The engineers knew the floods were cyclical over decades, so they allowed for the Fleet to return by a series of self-controlled gates that can only be opened by a specific volume of water. Under such conditions, the river cuts a path all the way through the local district conduits to form a single united flow heading to Camden Town and Clerkenwell, following the old route just as it used to, before emptying out into the Thames.’

  ‘Yes, Arthur, and as soon as the level drops and the weight recedes it will switch back, leaving us, all too literally, I fear, dans la merde. So can we push on?’

  ‘Let me see the map again.’ Bryant held it beneath his torch.

  ‘I can hear something,’ warned Bimsley, putting his ear as close as he dared to the wall. ‘It doesn’t sound good.’

  They shone their torches back to see the first of the great steel plates grinding across on its arc as the Fleet redirected itself back to local channels. The group pushed on and down as the water started to deepen. ‘It’s probably refilling from the highest gate first,’ warned May. ‘I doubt any one gate could handle the full amount of water, so the switch-back will be staggered with locks, but the effect will still be like flushing a cistern. The water has to maintain a momentum in order to reach the river. We really have to find a way out of here.’

  ‘You can hear it coming,�
� called Bimsley, an air of panic creeping into his voice.

  ‘The sound is probably magnified,’ said Bryant cheerfully. ‘It’s echoing down the entire length of the shaft. According to the map there’s a drainage shaft down here on the left.’

  They found themselves in another dead end filled with the detritus of the past thirty years. As they pushed through the rubbish, the bloated corpse of a cat swirled by.

  ‘Sorry,’ Bryant apologized, squinting at the plan. ‘Now a right turn—it’s hard to read the scale of this thing. It should be right here in front of us.’

  ‘There’s your shaft,’ said May, reaching a halt. ‘Somehow I don’t think we’re going to make it out of here.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Bryant.

  May shone his torch up to the roof, illuminating the chimney to the surface, more than thirty feet above their heads. ‘The ladder is missing. There’s no way of reaching the drain without it. And we can’t go back.’

  Bimsley pinched his frozen nose and tried to think. ‘There were three corridors at the last junction. We know that two are dead ends, so let’s go back to the first one.’

  ‘Admirable idea, Bimsley.’ Bryant struck out through knee-deep scum. ‘The water’s much warmer than I thought it would be. I think it’s coming from a heated source—dishwashers and washing machines, perhaps. There’s a distinctly soapy smell now.’

  ‘Arthur, I think we should concentrate on the problem at hand.’ May towed his partner back until they reached the junction. They turned into the only remaining tunnel as the rumble of water rose to a roar behind them. They had gone less than a hundred yards when the corridor narrowed sharply and twisted off.

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ called May, wading ahead. ‘If this doesn’t lead out, we won’t be going home tonight.’

  He was almost frightened to raise the torch.

  ‘Well?’ called Bryant.

  Bimsley followed the beam across the now thigh-deep water. The tunnel appeared to open out to a much larger space beyond, but there was no way of reaching it: a matrix of scabbed iron bars blocked the way ahead. May slammed his fist against the metal as he realized the impossibility of moving it.

  ‘There’s a grille across the outlet,’ he called back.

  ‘Can you open it?’

  ‘I suppose there might be a handle, but it’s not on this side.’

  ‘Then that’s that.’ Bryant arrived beside them. ‘This is my fault. I made you come down here.’

  The tunnel began to vibrate with the subway-train rush of water arriving from the upper Fleet tunnel.

  May shone his torch back toward the source of the noise. They watched in horror as a great wave of water, its virescent crest touching the roof of the tunnel, swept down toward them.

  48

  * * *

  ST PANCRAS BASIN BLUES

  Bryant was the first to fall backwards because he had been pressed against the grille. Bimsley and May followed him as the bars behind them slammed up into the stone ceiling, flushing flat into the brickwork. As the water hit, the trio found themselves washed across the end of the tunnel and over a great latticework grating as the river flushed itself away into the ground.

  ‘What a wonderful piece of draughtsmanship,’ enthused Bryant, rolling to his feet, half-drowned. ‘A simple cantilever.’

  ‘Is everybody all right?’ asked May.

  ‘I think I swallowed something disgusting,’ coughed Bimsley.

  They slowly rose and looked about. Their torches had been lost in the river’s diverted path, but now there was light from another source. They found themselves in an immense arched cathedral of smoothly varnished brown tiles.

  ‘My God, it looks like a mirror image of the King’s Cross and St Pancras railway arches,’ Bryant exclaimed, pulling a plastic Sainsbury’s bag from his leg and wiping himself down with it. ‘I suppose it would have been built at the same time.’ The vaulted peak of the hall was lost in Stygian gloom. ‘St Pancras Basin.’

  Pigeons living in the high iron rafters dropped down through the hall, their wings fluttering like the ruffled pages of old books.

  ‘Doesn’t this section get filled as the system switches back?’ asked Bimsley.

  ‘No, it’s very clever—the bars around the edges of the floor act as a gigantic drain, so it stays dry. No wonder they picked this spot to build the Channel Tunnel terminal—half the underground work is already done for them. Ah, Mr Tate, or should I say Mr Kingdom—you are Gilbert Kingdom’s son, aren’t you? Perhaps you can explain why it was so important to lead us here.’

  The others turned to find their quarry seated on a pile of sacks, eating a tuna sandwich from a Tupperware tub. He appeared to be expecting them.

  ‘I wanted to show you this,’ he said simply, raising his hand and indicating the basin.

  Bryant realized now that what he had thought was a deserted underground hall was in fact populated. Wrapped in blankets and brown cardboard, the residents blended invisibly with the shadowed walls, but the noise of the re-channelled water had stirred them, and people were sitting up, standing, stretching, stamping the circulation back into their limbs.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Bimsley. ‘Where did they come from?’

  ‘Good question,’ Bryant replied. ‘More to the point, I think, is where they go from here.’

  ‘The basin is used by anyone seeking refuge—people who have no homes, no identities, no lives,’ said Kingdom. ‘During the War, deserters hid in the St Pancras Basin. I first came here with my father thirty years ago. It was safe and dry. This time, when the rains arrived, the walls began dripping dirty water. Bad chemicals washing in from above. The basin’s run-off drains are blocked with rubble from the terminal construction overhead. They’ve become stagnant. People are getting sick. Pneumonia, stomach bugs and worse.’

  ‘Why not take the risk and head above ground?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘The police—the other police, the ones in uniforms—are waiting for us above. Everyone said you were a good man, and would help. I wanted to ask you when we met at the hostel, but then the man in the next room—’

  ‘—set fire to the place,’ said Bryant, ‘and you knew we would blame you. Are you surprised? There was inflammable spirit everywhere.’

  ‘He started throwing it all around the floor. A crazy man who thought he was being persecuted, thought the police were out to get him. He looked out of the window and saw your constable coming in. What could I do? I seized the chance to get away. No one else could help these people.’

  He watched them for a moment, thinking. ‘I remember the last time the tunnel flooded and opened a clear path straight through to the basin. I knew you were investigating the street that passed right above the river channel. The basin exit was being watched, so there was no other way for you to get here. I needed you to follow me.’

  ‘Look, I’m frozen and wet, I’ve been poisoned with half the toilet waste of north London, I’ve probably swallowed parts of a rancid cat, and I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with the case,’ complained Bimsley. ‘Am I completely stupid?’

  ‘No, Colin, not completely.’ Bryant looked at the crippled son of the Water House’s creator. ‘I think you’ll find it’s about the difference between a house and a home,’ he said finally.

  49

  * * *

  MR BRYANT EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU

  Longbright insisted on driving her complaining superiors to UCH for a set of inoculations, releasing them on the condition that they went straight home to bed. They didn’t, of course; none of them did. The offices above Mornington Crescent were quiet now. Only one room was illuminated. It had just turned midnight, heading toward the Monday morning of the unit’s fresh start, and the heating had gone off. Kallie was with them, wrapped in a moth-eaten fun-fur that had belonged to Longbright’s mother.

  ‘If you’re going to light that thing, open a window,’ warned May.

  ‘I can’t, the rain has swollen the wo
od.’ Bryant sucked at his pipe, releasing a plume of aromatic smoke. He produced his flask and poured a measure of crimson syrup into a glass. ‘Would anyone like a cherry brandy?’

  ‘No wonder your teeth fell out.’ May served beers to the group. ‘I take it Heather Allen’s guilt didn’t surprise you.’

  ‘Well, of course not. Even when it’s the person you least suspect, you still sort of suspect them because they’re the least suspicious. Female killers are rare, but when one comes along she can be more calculating and dangerous than any man. Heather Allen has been a very angry woman for a long time. I suppose she had a lot to be angry about. I take it you understand everything now.’

  ‘No,’ admitted May. ‘I’m with Bimsley on that one.’

  ‘Then I shall endeavour to explain, now that Kallie here has provided some of the missing pieces. I’ll rather enjoy making my case report this time, because the answer came from tracing the confluence of three sources, rather like following tributaries back to a river. The gaps can be filled in with a little guesswork, but I’ll wager you won’t find the truth far different.’ He smiled, displaying his incongruous dentures.

  ‘To untangle this, we have to go back more than thirty years, to Gilbert Kingdom, an unappreciated artist who manages to sell just two paintings in a lifetime. The nation has survived a terrible depression, only to be plunged into another World War; now that a painfully rationed peace has been won, people find they have no taste for art, especially the kind of peculiar mythologies Kingdom likes to paint. You see, Kingdom believes that the salvation of the world lies in Christians renouncing their faith in order to become Pagans. He’s a man born out of his time. Luckily he and his son are photographed for the book in Peregrine Summerfield’s possession, otherwise we would never have identified him. So, the artist’s wife has run off, leaving him with a young boy to support. When the terrace is repaired after the bombing raids, a property developer moves in to renovate several of the houses, and Kingdom—perhaps because they’ve been friends during the War—persuades the developer to let him paint murals. He plans four, directly based upon the physiology and mythology of the area, which still has strong connections with its past.’