Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘Builders’ supplies, right?’ May shouted above a cacophony of hammering.

‘Yeah, and manufacturers.’

‘What do you make here?’

Bondini One thrust his hand inside his boiler suit and pulled out a finely marbled fountain pen. ‘Traditional craftsmanship, mate. Look at the cap. See the metal ring around the base? We make those.’

‘Wrought-iron teapot stands,’ bellowed Bondini Two.

‘Stained-glass frames. Window boxes. Bathroom pipes. Garden furniture. Lots of stuff. Come inside.’

The machine shop was lethally active. Young apprentices-three or four, it was hard to tell exactly how many because they moved with such agility-hurled themselves in and out of doors, bursting up from traps in the sawdust-hazed cellar and down from hatches in the ceiling, laden with trays of searing metal, razor-sharp shards of steel, huge willowing sheets of glass, splintery pine beams, glinting drills and blades. May edged between the electric saws and tin-stamping equipment, trying to avoid being snagged. A young man, little more than a child, limped past him with blood seeping from a badly bandaged hand.

‘We got a lot of rush orders on,’ Bondini Two explained. ‘Big department stores, very low profit margins but we make it up on bulk. Oi, Darren, mind what you’re doing with that.’ This last admonition was directed at a youth with bleached and knotted dreadlocks who was bending over a lathe. ‘He’s always getting his hair caught in it. I’ve told him ‘undred times.’ The wood on the lathe had split and fragments were flying off at alarming tangents. Nobody was wearing goggles, or any kind of safety equipment.

‘Why were you paying Elliot Copeland extra to finish quickly?’ May shouted above the din.

‘You seen the state of it out there, all dug up? We got the concrete posts coming Thursday and new die-cutting machinery being delivered two days after that. Where else am I gonna put it all? I told him I’d pay time and a half.’

‘You’re expanding the premises,’ May answered. ‘Have you got permission from the council?’

‘Don’t come the old acid, Granddad, I’ve got all the documents. Bleeding council is a scam, we already own the property, innit? We’re just converting part of the waste ground into off-street parking and extending the machine shed, but we gotta pay the council for the change of use. Bleeding Camden Mafia, the United Bank of Backhand. Don’t make me laugh. I’d get a better deal in Palermo. They’re all crooks, innit?’

‘Did you have any trouble from Mr Copeland? Did he talk to you much?’

‘Nah, bloody good worker. His wife had left him-drank a bit, but blokes like that all hit the bottle, don’t they? My brother thinks he was pissed.’

Bondini One spoke up. Behind him, someone threw a sheet of glass into a bin with a smash. ‘Stands to reason, you’d have to be pissed to bury yourself under your own rubble, wouldn’t you?’

May decided not to bother explaining the logistics that would have prevented Copeland from falling under his own truck load. ‘Did he have any friends? Anyone who came around to talk to him?’

‘Nah, he was a real loner. Cut up bad about his missus. Never saw him with anyone.’ Both brothers shook their heads.

‘Well, thanks for your time,’ said May. ‘I’ll call again if I need your help.’ He stopped in the doorway. ‘Have you met anyone else in the street?’

The brothers conferred as jets of steam blasted around them. ‘The Caribbean bloke in the sharp suits,’ Bondini One decided. ‘He’s been coming around a fair bit.’

‘What for?’

‘He’s been buying wood, doing some shelves. And he had some glass cut.’

‘Can you remember when he last came around?’

‘Day before yesterday, wannit?’ More fraternal conferring took place. ‘Yeah, Tuesday.’

‘Anyone else apart from that?’ May breathed the scent of freshly sawn timber. It reminded him of the garden shed where his father had worked before the War.

The brothers exchanged glances, each waiting for the other to speak first. ‘There’s a bloke called Aaron-Jewish boy,’ said Bondini Two finally. ‘He lives down the street.’

Jake Avery’s partner, May recalled. ‘Is he buying wood as well?’

‘Nah.’

‘Then what?’ There was something here that May wasn’t picking up on. He looked back at the machine shop and suddenly realized. ‘He’s got a friend here?’

‘Yeah, he comes round to see Marshall sometimes. Oi, Marshall.’ Bondini Two clearly did not approve.

May studied the muscular young man who looked up at the mention of his name. So, he thought, the water gets a little murkier. His mobile rang.

‘John, I think you should come back as soon as possible,’ said Bryant. ‘Your friend Mr Greenwood’s on the move again.’

‘I hate getting into this vehicle with you,’ admitted May, eyeing the rusted yellow Mini Cooper with alarm. ‘I don’t know why you had to get rid of your old Rover.’

‘It was starting to steer itself,’ said Bryant mysteriously. ‘The man in the garage said he’d never had a car fail every single item on its MOT before. He was quite excited. I had to go back to Victor here.’ The Mini had been purchased at the height of flower power, and still bore a painted chain of vermilion daisies around its roof. Its noxious colour-scheme was enough to make it stand out from the other vehicles in the police car park at Mornington Crescent. Bryant unwedged the driver’s door with the pronged end of a cheese-knife, which he kept about him for the purpose.

‘That’s an offensive weapon, you know.’

‘What am I going to do with it?’ asked Bryant. ‘Threaten someone with a slice of dolcelatte?’ He held open the car door. ‘Come on, it’s quite safe.’

‘No thanks. You nearly killed us the other day, going around Vauxhall roundabout.’

‘They’d changed the one-way system without telling anyone.’

‘I seem to recall that you were on the pavement.’

‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell where the pavement begins these days.’

‘It’s usually the bit with the shoppers on. No, Arthur. Today we’re taking my car.’ May bipped his graphite-sleek BMW.

‘Wonderful, now we’ll look like Camden drug-dealers. I didn’t think you ever used your car.’

‘Well, I am today. And you’re not smoking that inside my vehicle.’ He pulled the unlit pipe from Bryant’s mouth and reinserted it into his jacket. ‘Where are we going this time?’

‘Beverly Brook.’ Bryant made a theatrical fuss about getting himself settled in the passenger seat.

‘Wasn’t she a forties singer?’

‘It’s another underground river. Runs from Cheam and Richmond to Barnes, goes through Raynes Park and around the edge of Wimbledon Common.’

‘That’s miles away.’

‘Spoken like a true townie.’

The detectives hardly ever left London. May’s under-furnished modern flat in St John’s Wood had the melancholy air of an airport at midnight. Only his computer room showed signs of habitation. In this respect, he lived like a teenager.

After the tumult of the city, Raynes Park seemed not so much depopulated as derelict. The neighbourhood appeared to have been stunned into silence, as if someone had thrown a bucket of dirty water over it. There were only becalmed avenues of redbrick houses, graffiti-covered shops and mangy green verges.

They hadn’t intended to drive out this far, but Bryant had misread the road signs. ‘Someone’s been busy with their lawn-mower,’ he observed. ‘Look at these gardens. There aren’t any neat box hedges like this near me. All we have are scabby old plane trees with plastic bags in their upper branches and front yards full of McDonald’s containers.’