Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

According to the readout on her receiver, he stayed on the line for no longer than four minutes. Barely time to boil an egg; certainly not long enough to discuss a divorce. She had been half-expecting him to raise the subject for almost a year. When she added up the days they had spent together, the total came to little more than three months in twelve, but it was still a bitter shock. He recited the guilty man’s litany: It’s me, not you. . You’ve done nothing wrong. . I need to rethink my life. . I’m holding you back. . I can’t expect you to wait for me. But it rang so false that she knew there was someone else involved, that there would be a younger version of herself, probably living in Paris, where so many trips had taken him lately. He wouldn’t rethink his life, merely repeat it with someone more naive. She resented the fact that he had reached the decision without her involvement. Let someone else deal with his intermittent sex drive now, she thought. Let someone else feel the weight of his damp flesh on top of her. I hope it’s worth it.

From an early age, Heather had worked hard to have the life presented in style magazines; but it hadn’t turned out like that. She had hated the kind of women who hung out at sports events with an agenda for searching out the right class of man, yet she had done exactly the same, attending fixtures in the season’s calendar, frequenting the fashionable Kensington restaurants and bars until meeting George. Her desire to establish such a specific lifestyle had separated her from Kallie, whose honesty and simplicity were quite uncalculating.

He had promised her the London house; he would sign it over tomorrow, but there would be nothing else. She was sure he would move his base of operations to Paris and live with his younger-Heather clone, this year’s more desirable model. Heather would join the ranks of embittered divorcees who prowled the cafés of the King’s Road, sipping their lattes and stalking certain designer stores because the staff were cute, dining with women in similar situations, discussing shoes and spas and drinking a little too much wine over lunch. And the worst part about being cast into this tastefully appointed limbo was that she only had herself to blame. She had made a single, humiliating mistake that would taunt her for the rest of her life.

‘Come through to the studio. It’s better that you’re here while my husband’s still out. You look absurdly well.’

Monica Greenwood led the way through the cramped apartment occupying the top half of the house in Belsize Park. Every spare inch of space had been filled with books and canvases. When shelves had overflowed, paperbacks had been stacked in precarious piles along the already narrow hallway, beside jam jars of turpentine and linseed oil. Monica looked much as he’d remembered. Although her hair was now more studiedly blond, it was still carelessly tied back, kept from her face while she worked on her paintings. Her figure was fuller, subject to the natural effects of a miraculous maturity. She looked sumptuous in jeans and an acrylic-stained sweatshirt, comfortable in this stage of her life. Too much time had passed for John May to remember if he had truly been in love with her, but he had certainly been bewitched at some point during the national miners’ strike.

She carried mugs of coffee into a narrow conservatory coated in peeling whitewash. ‘I’m glad to see you still paint,’ said May. ‘I’ve been looking out for exhibitions featuring your work.’

‘You won’t have found any,’ she warned, pulling the cloth from a large canvas. ‘I’m off the radar of popularity these days. I switched from figurative stuff to rather fierce abstracts; I think you often do as you mature and become interested in states of mind rather than accurate depictions of people and buildings.’

May examined the painting, an arrangement of curling cerulean lines that drifted to a dark horizon. ‘I like that. Is it sold?’

She blew an errant lock of hair from her eye. ‘Please don’t humour me, John. There have been no takers so far. I’ll let you have it if you can sort out this problem with Gareth. I’m glad you’re still in the force.’

‘That’s just it, I’m not really. The unit has been separated from the Met, but we still handle cases in the public domain.’

‘Whatever happened to that funny little man who was rude to everyone?’ she asked. ‘The one with the foul-smelling pipe?’

‘Arthur’s very well, touch wood,’ said May apologetically. ‘I’m still partnered with him.’

‘You two have lasted longer than most marriages. Doesn’t he drive you mad?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t tell any more. Do you still call yourself Mona?’

‘God no, nobody’s called me that in years. Gareth hates contractions. I had to become respectable in every way when I married an academic. All those formal dinners with elderly men. Tell them you paint and they look at you with condescension, another bored housewife looking for hobbies to fill the evenings while her husband is working on something important. I lost my husband to them after he made his mistake about that bloody statue, the Nereid. He needed to regain their respect, and they made a pact with him; they would allow him back into their exalted circle if he devoted all his time to their various causes. So Gareth behaved himself, joined the right committees and worked late every night, and we were grudgingly re-admitted.’

‘If things got back to normal, why do you think he’s in trouble again now?’

‘We’re short of money, of course. I’m not allowed to work, so we survive on his pitiful salary. But I think it’s more than that. This “client” has appealed to his vanity by insisting that no one but Gareth can work for him. He’s the best in the field, there’s nobody else who could handle the job, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to make some real money, etcetera. You should see him when he comes off the phone, as excited as a schoolboy.’

‘What made you think he was planning something illegal?’

‘He won’t talk about what he’s been asked to do, and I know what he’s like. He thinks that if I find out, I’ll have a go at him for being so stupid.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Do you still smoke?’

‘No, I gave up years ago-doctor’s orders.’

‘Any idea what he’s up to?’

‘I can tell you a little,’ May admitted. ‘He’s exploring the remains of London’s lost rivers. We’ve tracked him at the sites of three so far-the Fleet, the Effra and the Walbrook. He seems particularly interested in the point where their tunnels widen and open to the Thames.’

‘Why? I know it’s his area of expertise, but surely that sort of exploration is all above board.’

‘We checked out the most obvious reasons. I thought the various councils involved might have failed to grant access, but no requests to explore closed sections of the rivers have been received at all. Thames Water occasionally issues permits for non-professionals to enter the system with a team, but they’ve told us they know nothing about this. Besides, the recent rainfall has made conditions so hazardous that only experienced workers are entering for essential repairs. The rivers run through and under various parcels of private property, so we’ve made discreet inquiries with landlords and developers. But we’ve turned up nothing there, either. Which means that your husband is acting without permission, on behalf of a private client. He’s been photographed at all of these sites.’

‘You’re talking about breaking and entering, trespass at the very least. It’ll get back to the museum, these things always do. He’ll be thrown out again. Can’t you do something to stop him?’