The Water Room

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘You think he saw the map?’ asked Longbright, emptying her beer into a pint mug.

  ‘He certainly knows of it, or discovers the area’s history in local books. He realizes that the sites fit with his personal obsessions. A House of Conflagration—a monastery that defied the Catholic Church in its thinking and was burned down for its heresies. A House of Foul Earth—a burial site for plague victims. A House of Poisoned Air—on a hill too close to a tanning mill, where people become sick. A House Cursed by Water—which sounds like a property that floods every few years, don’t you think? Gilbert Kingdom looks at the street, and chooses four houses on the approximate sites of their original histories, because each house fortuitously represents one of the four elements.’

  ‘So it gives him a grand artistic theme,’ said May. ‘A personal endeavour.’

  ‘Precisely. They are to be his crowning achievement, and, more importantly, will raise the value of the properties at a relatively small expense to the developer. It seems to be a wonderful plan; art and commerce combined. He will provide for his son, he will create permanent monuments to his beliefs, and he will reap rewards deserving of a great artist. But like so many wonderful plans, there’s a flaw.’

  ‘The neighbourhood fails to go up in value,’ Longbright pointed out.

  ‘Unfortunately its connections with its past are strong—too strong. It remains a place of lawlessness and trouble. Nobody wants to live there, let alone pay extra for having built-in artworks of an un-Christian nature. The government is busy trying to rebuild the country—no one has time for art! The developer is bankrupted, and the artist, who has been living rent-free in one of the properties and has taken four long years to finish the work, is thrown out into the street with his son, where he dies a pathetic, ignominious death at the hands of local ruffians. Life imitates art, and drowning proves a fitting end.’

  ‘The boy is taken into care—’ added May.

  ‘Exactly. He’s in and out of foster homes, but he never forgets what happened to his father. He holds down a job at the Tate Gallery for a while, just to be near one of Gilbert’s two paintings, then loses his position after causing a fuss when the paintings are sold. He has no money, and therefore no voice in the world. He is seen by all, but becomes invisible.’

  ‘What a sad life.’ Kallie pulled the coat tighter around herself, settling into her seat as Bryant rose and stalked the room, relishing his chance to marshal the facts.

  ‘Now we move on. Time passes. The area changes. The yuppies arrive. Among them is Heather Allen, the original material girl. She thinks she’s going to get everything she wants from life, but life lets her down. First her husband’s business collapses, then he leaves her for someone younger. Terrified by the thought of her failure, and concerned with outward appearances, she covers up the fact that she is now broke and alone. She does this by denying her divorce, and pretending against hope that everything is fine. I think you’ll find that the man who came to her house—the one Kallie saw from her window—wasn’t her husband at all. He’s probably an old family friend from whom she’s trying to borrow money, or her finance manager coming for a not-so-friendly chat. Heather Allen has a good brain, but even she can’t put her life right. She’s eaten up with bitterness over the way things have turned out, but she’ll make the best of it.’

  ‘She told me all she had left was the house, which she really hated,’ said Kallie.

  ‘Because it reminds her of her failed marriage.’ Bryant stabbed a forefinger in Kallie’s direction. ‘So she decides to sell it for as much as she can get. To do this, she first needs to decorate—but there’s hardly any money. So she uses the local bodger, Elliot Copeland, who comes in and starts stripping the basement. And that’s when he finds the wall.’ He paused before the misted window, looking down into the night street.

  ‘This is the moment when Heather makes the mistake that will destroy her life. She knows how to look the part—she’s a woman of surfaces. She knows a little about a lot of things, but not much about art, even though she’s worked in a gallery and has helped to curate an exhibition of Stanley Spencer’s work. Wrinkling her petite nose, she tells him to tear off the disgusting plaster and repaint, and poor drunk Elliot is happy to oblige his client. Bad timing, as it turns out, because just as the mural is destroyed, Heather finds the book belonging to Kingdom’s son. How does she find it? Well, of course, it’s been left out for her by the street’s guardian, Kingdom’s powerless, protective, penniless boy—Tate—who wants recognition for his father and is going about it all the wrong way. Flicking through the book that has been posted through her letterbox, she sees four illustrations, mythic, epic subjects supposedly painted by an artist of great merit, now sadly presumed lost. And, of course, she recognizes her own house, number 6 Balaklava Street, the Air House, which she has just finished renovating, thereby nullifying its value. Tate doesn’t allow her to keep the book, of course—he breaks in and takes it back, because it’s all he has left. What can Heather do? The only money she has is tied up in the property. It’s not a home to her, just bricks and mortar. She’s destroyed her only escape route, and has only herself to blame. But with a little smart thinking she can work out which are the other three houses. Could it be that their basements are still intact, and—please God—that their new occupants have no knowledge of the fortune hidden within their walls? Tate expects her to save his father’s work. Instead, he accidentally creates a monster.’

  ‘There’s a bit of guesswork going on here,’ said Longbright, draining her beer.

  ‘I think you’ll find I’m right when you confront her with this, Janice.’ Bryant hated interruptions. ‘Where was I? So, Heather borrows a map from a member of the local historical society. She asks around, even makes an effort to talk to the neighbours. And what does she find out? That the Fire House, number 43, belonging to newcomers Tamsin and Oliver Wilton, was gutted in the sixties. That the Earth House, number 41, now in the hands of another newcomer, Jake Avery, was similarly renovated a few years later. Which just leaves number 5, the Water House.

  ‘But this, she discovers, is the key to all four houses. It is the reason why Kingdom chose elements and elementals as the channel for his beliefs, because it is built right on top of the river Fleet. It is the original site of the House Curs’d By All Water, and he can exorcise it or, more likely, celebrate the fact in his art. According to the book, this house contains the most elaborate mural of them all, the one upon which Kingdom lavished the most time, the one that caused his patron to finally lose faith. And it belongs to an old lady who has lived there since 1949, so she is the house’s only owner since the mural has been completed.

  ‘Heather is a worrier, an aggressor, but also a natural planner. She suddenly becomes Ruth Singh’s new best friend. She can’t do enough for her—fetches her shopping, cuts her toenails, fixes her hair, but is careful not to let anyone else know. While she’s doing chores, she discreetly checks out the basement. Imagine her excitement when she discovers that the mural is still there, completely intact. Ruth has painted over it several times—but it’s undamaged. It will be the wonder of London, on a par with Leighton House or Debenham Hall. London is filled with extraordinary properties that become national treasures. She’ll have wealth and respect, everything she had expected from her marriage. The old dear can’t have much longer to last—how difficult can it be for Heather to worm her way into the will?’

  ‘Quite difficult, as it turns out,’ said May, ‘because Ruth has a brother.’

  ‘True, he doesn’t bother much with her, but he’s still a blood relative. Heather’s not about to give in easily, though. Soon she’s been invited to meet Benjamin Singh, who confides in her that he wishes to move to Australia, which would mean he’d sell the house when he inherits it. But not to her—he takes an instant dislike to this grabby, hysterical woman asking personal questions about his family’s property, acting like she’s Ruth’s best friend. And the old lady seems as strong as an ox. She m
ay live to be a hundred. So Heather tries a little debilitation.’

  ‘You mean she leaves the racist messages.’ May topped up everyone’s drinks. ‘Dan may be able to prove it’s her voice on the tape.’

  ‘Still, the old lady is unfazed,’ Bryant continued. ‘Then fate takes a highly appropriate hand, in the form of a stuck tap. Heather has told Ruth, “If you’re ever in difficulty, just bang on the wall and I’ll come running.” Ruth goes to take a bath, but can’t turn the tap off. Frightened, she hammers on the wall, and Heather, ever cautious about her appearance, puts on the coat Garrett has left at her place. What was it doing there? The likeliest answer is that he had come round to give her property advice.

  ‘So, Ruth Singh, in her dressing-gown, lets Heather in—where she is seen by Jake Avery—and Heather goes down to the bathroom to give the tap a clout. When she sees the running water, everything suddenly becomes clear. She’s been given a sign. “Why don’t I wait here while you have your bath?” she suggests. “Then I can turn the tap on if you need more hot water.”

  ‘She waits, and talks, and waits, until the old lady is drowsy. Then, with a grimace of disgust, she reaches into the soapy water, picks up Ruth’s ankles and pulls. She’s as light as a feather and barely makes a sound, her heart stopping in an instant, although she gets a small contusion from the tap. But instead of leaving her in the bath and making the whole thing look like an accident, Heather is forced to drain out the water, because the police will realize that Ruth couldn’t have turned the tap off by herself. What if she’s not dead? How can you tell these things? Ruth is naked in the drained bath, her head beneath the taps, so Heather turns on the cold water and forces open her mouth, just to make sure.

  ‘But now something odd happens. The rains have begun, and under the street Tate is testing his conduits, opening valves and sluices. As if summoned by the Water House itself, diverted river water thunders under the bathroom. It is sucked up through fine cracks in the brickwork, blossoming in damp patches. It comes up the overflow of the bath and out of the water pipes in a blast of green scum, to be ingested by Ruth Singh. But at least there’s no doubt now that she’s dead.’

  ‘So Finch was right in his summation,’ said May. ‘Credit where it’s due.’

  Bryant harrumphed and chewed his pipe stem. ‘Heather has seized her opportunity, but won’t be able to buy the property because she has no money. She’ll worry about that later. Meanwhile, she dries and dresses the old lady to throw the police off the scent, not realizing that her throat is still full of water. It’s like taking care of a doll. Then she climbs over the back wall into her own house.

  ‘But she’s seen by someone: Tate, who is emerging from the drain in the alley. Luckily he’s just a crazy old tramp. No one will ever pay attention to him. She’s quick to point that out to Kallie.’

  Bryant stood behind Kallie’s chair in what he fancied was a dramatic posture. Outside, a police siren seesawed into the night.

  ‘Which brings us to your timely arrival, Kallie. You’re her old schoolfriend: innocent, susceptible, liked by everyone, and clearly in awe of Heather. It’s a more roundabout route, but one which should work just as well. Heather will persuade you to buy the house. Afterwards, it will be a simple matter to put you off the place, make you desperate to sell it. Heather will have sold her own property by then, and will be able to offer a reasonable price.

  ‘And this time it all goes according to plan. You and Paul move in, and duly grow disillusioned. There are strange noises, and even stranger occurrences as the river rises and falls. Now Heather starts to get nervous. What if the rain doesn’t stop? The forecast is bad. The area is prone to flooding; what if the basement is soaked and the art is ruined? She must act quickly. The best way to do this is to get rid of Paul, who already has itchy feet and is looking for an excuse to escape his responsibilities. Heather drips poison in his ears, telling him that you deliberately tried to get pregnant in order to keep him, and the tactic pays off. Paul leaves in order to “get his head together”—and not before time, because Jake Avery has been seen talking to him in the local pub. Jake, who saw Heather on the doorstep of number 5 the night before Ruth Singh died. Without Paul you’re alone and more vulnerable than ever. Heather manipulates you shamelessly.

  ‘She also realizes that the consequences of her one big mistake are still with her, because she sees drunk old Elliot Copeland the builder—the only other person apart from Tate who saw the mural in the Air House, talking to Jake at the Wiltons’ party. For all she knows, Jake could have told Paul when they went out drinking together. Men talk too much when they’ve had a few, and even now Elliot might be telling everyone how he’s noticed something strange about the houses in the street.

  ‘Heather has to do something. If she leaves things as they are, the truth about the Water House will surface. She’s a woman prone to subterfuge—she already took Garrett’s old coat to the Wiltons’ party rather than her own—it’s always a good idea to spread blame and confusion around, as she knows when she later phones Kayla Ayson, posing as you, to suggest that her husband is having an affair. Meanwhile, there are two dangers in her mind. Anyone?’

  Kallie raised a hand. ‘She’s frightened I’ll discover the wall for myself.’

  ‘Absolutely. You’re doing up the property, although it’s more of a struggle with Paul gone. Two, suppose Elliot mentions the wall in Heather’s house, the one she made him destroy? She can’t prevent the first, but she can sure as hell fix the latter. She’s done it once before; she can do it again. She waits and watches for an opportunity, and weirdly, just as the stuck tap represented a chance, so does Elliot’s work on the waste ground opposite. She throws you off the scent by claiming to see someone else from the window—or perhaps she has really seen Tate lurking in the bushes—and sends you on a pointless errand to buy booze, before heading over in the obscuring rain to see if there’s anything she can do. And there, perilously close to the half-cut Elliot, is his truck. She looks in the cab, spots the button that empties the flatbed, and allows the bricks to tip forward. Then she runs home, and is careful to be seen at the window by you as you return.’

  ‘That’s why there was a puddle of water on the carpet,’ May realized.

  ‘Heather’s out of danger. Everyone knew Elliot was a drunk. The rain will obliterate the crime scene. All she has to do now is wait for the Water House to fall into her lap.’

  ‘It’s true I was very depressed,’ said Kallie. ‘Maybe I did start to think about moving on, and could have been persuaded to sell to Heather. I should have seen the signs. God, when I think about our conversations together, the number of mistakes she made. She even referred to her cat as “a legacy from George” and I didn’t pick up on it. How did I fail to notice?’

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes when they’re improvising,’ said Bryant.

  ‘Maybe Jake did say something to Paul about making money from the house, but they got drunk together, and the next morning he’d forgotten their conversation.’ Kallie accepted another beer from Longbright. ‘I’ll never take him back now. Sorry, Mr Bryant, please go on.’

  ‘Well—I think it’s safe to assume that, by this time, Heather Allen is no longer thinking rationally. The scheme obsesses her. And that’s when the domino effect really kicks in. Jake Avery comes calling to tell her about something Elliot told him. He’s suspicious of Heather, but can’t decide what to do. He’ll sleep on it before going to the police. She starts to panic now. She’s so close to her goal, but all her efforts will go to waste if Jake talks. I’m guessing this part, but I think we’ll find out it’s true: Heather has seen Aaron and Marshall together. She goes to the workshop and talks to Marshall, and here she finds out something to her advantage. Jake’s always having a go at Aaron about little things, like leaving the back door open. Extemporizing wildly, she uses Tate’s fence-panels to climb into Jake’s back garden, entering his house. Passing through the kitchen, she sees the roll of clingfilm—why, when there’s a
rack full of knives? Maybe she’s squeamish—she’s managed to avoid any real bloodshed, after all. She finds Jake asleep and reeking of booze. Smothering him takes virtually no effort at all on her part.’

  Bryant dropped down into the seat behind his desk. ‘This should be the end of the chain. No one else knows the truth, and no one will ever know. Whether by coincidence or malicious design, she has murdered three people in accordance with three of the four elements. It’s fate’s grand scheme. Even the land is working with her. She feels invincible. Nothing else can possibly go wrong.

  ‘Which is exactly when the other weak spot in her plan is breached. Kallie here discovers the mural. To Heather, it seems as if the river is rising up to protect the house and defeat her. How appropriate, then, that she should bring events full circle and drown Kallie, turning her into one of the mural’s subjects. But of course, Tate is watching both houses—Kallie’s and, more importantly, Heather’s. He’s determined to protect Kallie and save his father’s work. But each time he comes running to help her, we chase him away. Still, he returns. At least now his hard work has finally paid off, and the mural—albeit a little frayed and wet around the edges—will be restored and preserved for posterity.’

  ‘She should have killed Tate,’ said Longbright. ‘That could have protected her.’

  ‘Well, you have reason to feel very pleased with yourself, Arthur,’ declared May.

  ‘I would only feel that if we had been able to save the lives of her victims,’ Bryant admitted. ‘But there is still something left to do tonight.’ He rose and began pulling on Longbright’s spare overcoat, which was far too large for him. ‘Janice, you can take Kallie home, can’t you?’