Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘I very much resent that. I’ve never been in favour of equal opportunities.’

‘No?’

‘Of course not. I’ve always thought women should be in charge.’

‘So you’ll do it?’

There was a deep sigh on the line. ‘Do I get a clothing allowance?’

‘All right, but don’t go mad.’

‘Where’s he going to be?’

Bryant checked his notes. ‘A lap-dancing club in Tottenham Court Road.’

The first postcard had arrived, franked in Amsterdam. Inevitably, it pictured a hump-backed bridge above a toad-green canal. On the back: ‘First stop Holland, heading to Istanbul at the end of the week. I’m doing this for both our sakes. I hope you’ll be there when I come back. You can reach me via my hotmail address. Love, Paul.’ It felt oddly impersonal, not his style at all. Even the handwriting looked different. She checked that the paint was dry on the mantelpiece, and placed the card there, wondering how many would accrue, how far apart the spaces between them would grow, how long it would be before he stopped writing altogether.

The street was ethereal with rain again. According to the TV weathergirl it was shaping up to be the wettest autumn on record. The Thames barrier had been operated a record number of times in the past week. At least Kallie was working-a press shoot for mobile phones, another for floor cleaner. She noticed that her image was shifting from ‘girl-next-door’ types to more maternal roles, and decided to have her hair cut. It wasn’t hard keeping herself busy between jobs. The house demanded attention. She was teaching herself electrical repair, plumbing and decoration, but knew she would have to call someone in about the split roof tiles. The first and ground floors were now half-painted in cheerful colours that drew light into the rooms, but the basement and rear had yet to be started. Under the stairs she had found a cardboard box filled with items belonging to Ruth Singh, but now that her brother had moved, there was no one to send them to.

Kallie went down to the kitchen and filled a kettle.

Heather had become even more distracted and tense since the night of Elliot Copeland’s death. Her failure to act was clearly a source of discomfort; could she have discovered a conscience? Kallie wanted to tell her not to worry, that it shouldn’t stand in the way of their friendship. The sight of the buried man had not disturbed her sleep. She was not given to imagination, and had seen death before: her father, a car accident, a dying friend. Heather was more highly strung, and responded to the darkening atmosphere around her. George’s decision to leave had made matters much worse. Heather was keen to find parallels in the behaviour of both their partners, but Kallie wasn’t ready for the kind of sisterhood session that involved sitting around complaining about male hormones. Perhaps it would be best to allow some space between them for a while.

She stood at the counter vacantly waiting for the kettle to boil, watching the drizzle through the rear window, and turned away to find some biscuits. When she turned back, the face jumped from the glass and made her scream.

How long had he been standing in the garden, watching her? She ran to the back door and searched for the key, fumbling it into the lock, running out and almost sliding over on wet ceanothus leaves. He was pushing his way up the garden, into the big bushes at the end, a figure with a hobbling gait that dropped him from side to side like a sailor crossing a deck. Moments later the bushes stilled, the branches falling back in place. But she had recognized him.

She headed back into the house and began searching for the number John May had given her.

‘I recognized his face,’ Kallie explained. ‘His eyes were so sunken, and yet you could see such pain in them. I felt sorry for him.’ She showed Longbright how the man had climbed out of her garden. ‘He’s the local tramp. He used to sleep over on the waste ground, but I guess when the land was dug up he was forced to move. I don’t know where he is now.’

Longbright’s shopping trip had been cut short by Kallie’s phone call to the unit. As she sounded upset, the sergeant had agreed to cover for May and stop by Balaklava Street. ‘There are a couple of hostels in the neighbourhood. I can check those. You don’t have a name, or even a nickname?’

‘No, but Tamsin Wilton at number 43 would know. She told me to watch out for him. She says he’s harmless, and he was only staring at me through the window, but it made me jump.’

‘Well, he was on your private property, where he had no right to be, so I’ll look into it. The problem with most of the hostels is that they only allow users to stay overnight. It pushes homeless people back on to the streets, and puts them in the way of trouble.’

‘I certainly don’t want to get anyone into trouble,’ said Kallie quickly. ‘He’s been living rough for a long time. I guess now the workshop is expanding its premises, he’s been displaced. He wasn’t doing any harm.’

‘That won’t be how everyone sees it. The average life expectancy of a homeless person is forty-two. Someone dies on the streets of London every five days.’

‘Doesn’t anyone treat them?’

‘The homeless can’t be registered by GPs. Most people can stand about a month of sleeping rough before long-term problems set in. They often start as sofa surfers, sleeping on friends’ floors prior to becoming homeless.’

‘God, I did that just before getting this place,’ said Kallie.

‘Then you know how easily it can happen. The statistics are depressing. Forty per cent of all homeless women are victims of sexual or physical abuse. Something as simple as a divorce can be enough to force someone into the open air. So let me see what I can turn up on this bloke. He must be pretty nimble if he could scale that wall.’

‘He was crippled in some way-his right side, I think, both the arm and the leg. So I don’t know how he managed to do it.’

Longbright saw her point; the wall was almost five feet high and covered in dense black bracken. The back gardens fitted together to form an oasis of ponds and bushes, partitioned by brick walls and wavering grey wooden fences. Entrance to one garden could only be gained by crossing several others. The school playground at the end of the street was bordered by a high wall, and there were no rear gates to the overgrown alley behind.

Longbright replaced her notebook in her jacket. She just had time to catch the Oxford Street stores. She was determined to make Bryant pay for sending her to a lap-dancing club.

‘There was one other thing,’ said Kallie. ‘There was talk of Mrs Singh being sent threats, racist stuff. I was clearing out the cupboard under the stairs, and found this.’ She dug in her pocket and produced an old audio cassette. ‘It’s from her answering machine. I played it back. There’s only one message, but it’s pretty nasty. I thought it might be helpful.’

Tonight, thought Janice Longbright, you will be Grace Kelly. She turned to the side and pulled in her stomach, checking the mirror. OK, Grace Kelly’s heavier sister. Longbright was in her early fifties, and had inherited her mother’s love of old movie stars. Off duty she dressed the part, coming out somewhere between Ava Gardner and Jane Russell, and still looked damned good. She had left it too late to train for the stage, and had found herself joining the police instead, just as Gladys had before her. Inside her was the actress who might have made the big time, if only times had been easier.

Janice stared at her stomach and sighed.

She resented being used as some kind of fishing lure on an investigation that was clearly in breach of the unit’s case remit, but was perversely starting to enjoy herself. She had purchased a black dress, a distant carbon of the original design-the unit was paying, after all. The high heels made her too tall and prevented her from walking with anything resembling a normal gait, so she abandoned them for something plainer. May had provided her with a photograph of Jackson Ubeda. There was an undeniable urban elegance; darkly complexioned, his shaven head hid the effects of male pattern baldness. He looked as though he would wear cufflinks.