Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ll take a lie-detector test.’

‘That’s old technology. Subjects can defeat it by simply biting their tongues. It was never very reliable to begin with. These days we use an electroencephalograph that monitors brain-waves.’

‘You have one of those?’

‘No, of course not. It’s far too expensive. Besides, my partner prefers us to use the old psychological methods-non-verbal communication skills, studying your gestures and so on.’

Aaron dropped his hand from his mouth. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Quite an age difference between you and Mr Avery. About twenty years?’

‘Eighteen. It never made a difference.’

‘Happy, then? No rifts, no arguments?’

‘I wouldn’t say that; nobody would.’

‘Tell me about Marshall,’ May said casually. ‘Did you meet him at the Bondini brothers’ workshop, or somewhere else?’

Aaron grew pale, and finally sat on his hands to keep them still. ‘I’d seen him around,’ he said in a small voice. ‘I took a table into the workshop to get its leg fixed, and he was there.’ He started to panic. ‘You’re going to talk to him, aren’t you? His parents don’t know, they think he’s going out with a Greek girl-his father would kill him.’

‘When did you first meet?’

‘It was just a few months ago, but we didn’t-I mean, we’ve only gone out together a couple of times. Jake didn’t know anything about it. I would never have hurt him, he was wonderful to me, and now-’

‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t buy this “nice chap who made one small mistake” routine. You saw Marshall Keftapolis on over twenty separate occasions behind your partner’s back. Let’s take it from there.’

‘It wasn’t as often as-’

‘I’ve already talked to him this morning, Aaron. You met five months ago, and according to Marshall, you’ve told him on numerous occasions that you were going to leave Jake, but he didn’t believe you’d ever get around to doing so because you were dependent on him for money. So let’s be a little less disingenuous about your innocence.’

The boy sat forward, and lowered his head in his hands. ‘You’re making it sound more heartless than it was.’

‘The statement of simple facts has a habit of appearing heartless. I don’t doubt you feel bad, you blame yourself because you lied to him about where you were going, and you were out with someone else when he met a nasty end. Yes, I’d be feeling pretty guilty too. It’s why you left the lights off-you didn’t want to wake him up and face his questions. For the record, I don’t believe you did it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know, perhaps because you took your clothes off in the dark before going into the room, and went to the trouble of neatly folding them. You’d have to be abnormally cold-blooded to do that before killing someone to whom you were emotionally attached. I suppose you could have folded the clothes afterwards, but to what end? Your past indiscretions are only interesting if they shed a light on Mr Avery’s murder. The best you can do now is think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt him. Had he argued with someone, made any enemies?’

‘There were tensions at work; I don’t really know the details. And he’d fallen out with Randall Ayson. They had a shouting match about theology in the middle of the street. Ayson’s God-Squad, man is born to procreate, the Lord made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, that sort of learned-by-rote rubbish. Ayson’s condescending because he’s got children, but it’s common knowledge that he was having an affair behind his wife’s back.’

‘What do you mean, common knowledge?’

‘It was the hot topic at the Wiltons’ party. Lauren, the girl who’s going out with Mark Garrett. Apparently she and Randall were an item. Your partner was there. He must have picked up on it.’

‘Fine, but I doubt Mr Ayson decided to murder Mr Avery simply because he wasn’t planning on having children. Anyone else in the street?’

‘Well, Garrett, I suppose. He gave Jake some duff property advice.’

‘Quite normal. Keep going.’

‘Jake had a row with Heather from across the road once.’

‘Do you know what it was about?’

‘I think it was Stanley Spencer.’

‘The artist? Why would they have argued over Stanley Spencer?’

‘Jake was researching Spencer’s life because his company was planning a documentary. She did PR for a Cork Street gallery before her husband dumped her, had some strong views about art.’

May was beginning to wonder whether his human approach to detective intelligence was less effective than Bryant’s lateral habits. He sighed and replaced his pen in his pocket. ‘Let’s assume for a moment that the assailant was unknown to Mr Avery. You’re sure nothing was taken from the house?’

‘Positive. You’ve seen how we live. Jake was into minimalism, couldn’t bear ornamentation, not even so much as a magazine lying about. We kept no money at home.’

‘You don’t think it was unusual for the back door to be unlocked?’

‘No. There are gardens on either side of us, and walls at the ends.’

‘And you can think of no reason-’

‘-why he was murdered? No, of course not, otherwise I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?’

They released the distraught Aaron in order to let him inform his partner’s relatives.

‘I still keep asking myself if it’s just an unfortunate series of coincidences,’ May admitted. ‘All kinds of tragedies occur in the average street. Couldn’t this be an extreme example? An old lady dies, a workman suffers an accident, an intruder kills a householder. .’

‘There’s nothing coincidental about it,’ replied Bryant, pouring food for the cat. ‘The unusual configurations of London streets mean that there was always a lot of waste ground, and the Blitz bombs created more dead land than ever.’

‘What has that got to do with anything?’

‘You always think these things are about love and hate, John, but they’re really about frustration and poverty and anger, and that has a lot to do with the land. The developers push up property prices, the land is built upon, density increases dramatically, people are thrust into each other’s paths, privacy is eroded, tension flares.’

May had heard this particular tune of Bryant’s often enough to raise his hand in objection. ‘London has a lower population now than it had in the 1950s,’ he pointed out.

‘But it’s become concentrated in city hotspots. Where there are too many people, lives are forced to overlap.’

‘This is a pretty affluent street, Arthur. Everyone has a garden, their own space. You’re searching for connections where there are none.’

‘I’d take your point, old fruit, but for two things. First, Jake was asleep when he was attacked. The bottom half of the bed wasn’t even disturbed, which suggests to me that he was taken by surprise. He didn’t even have time to react by trying to fend off his attacker and kick himself into an upright position. Second, the attacker knew he was in bed, because he came upstairs already armed with the roll of film. Ergo, someone entered the house with the intention of killing its owner. Jake knew something about the deaths of Elliot Copeland and Ruth Singh, and was silenced before he could tell anyone.’

‘You don’t know that. His colleagues reckon he didn’t leave the studio all day. When do you imagine he was the recipient of this blinding epiphany?’

‘I don’t much care for your tone.’ Bryant rooted through his drawer, and began assembling a favourite pipe. ‘We know he arranged to meet Kallie Owen last night, then failed to show up. I think he’d been about to tell her something, but was sidetracked by the killer.’ He sucked horribly at the pipe stem, checking airflow.