Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘I can’t be in two places at once. And you’re not coming with me to see Monica.’

‘So you are planning to woo her.’

‘Nobody says “woo” any more, Arthur. You’re so Victorian.’

‘Stop saying that, it’s just that there are certain modern habits of which I disapprove. Wet liberals, stealth taxes, the seduction of married women, telephone sales and hamburger outlets spring to mind.’

They remained in the coffee shop as it grew dark, watching the raindrops meandering down the window panes like a million silver comets.

The passageway was lined with small dun-coloured paintings. May had noticed them on his last visit, but the light had been too low to discern any detail. The wall sconces had no lightbulbs in them. ‘We never replace them,’ explained Monica.

‘But you can’t see the pictures.’

‘Exactly so. There’s a light here somewhere.’ She struck a match to a candle and held it aloft. ‘Now do you see?’

May found himself looking at several studies, roughs and pencil sketches for Pre-Raphaelite paintings. ‘I don’t understand,’ he murmured, watching as the coppery lines wavered in the candlelight. ‘These are beautiful.’

‘My husband thinks they’re worthless. He has an old-school attitude to Pre-Raphaelites that won’t allow him to see beyond the detailed textures to the beauty of intent. So, as a mark of rebuke, to those artists and to me, for having too much materialism, too much sentiment and so little taste, he insists that we leave them hanging here in the basement. The walls are getting damp, and many of the sketches have started to stain. The house isn’t alarmed, of course-we refuse to become prisoners in our own home, apparently-so I compromised by removing all the lightbulbs. That way, if we’re burgled, the thieves will miss the best pieces in the house. And so another small battle is fought and drawn.’

‘Why do you stay with him?’ asked May. ‘He limits your freedom and makes you unhappy.’

‘God knows we certainly like different things. He’s Berlin and Bauhaus and brutalism, I’m Turner and Tate Britain. But nothing’s that simple, is it? The children are in their nightmare years, veering between innocence and arrogance in a way that makes me fear daily for their lives. Gareth’s colleagues virtually dictate how to spend our finances. The paths of our lives seem set in concrete. Do you remember before you had to be grown-up every second of the day, John? How it always felt like morning?’ She lowered the candle, and light faded from the gilt frames. Tiny lines appeared on her face, like the craquelure on a painted heroine. ‘Now it always feels late in the day. Shadows are gathering, and the best pleasures feel far behind me. Gareth is looking for something he can never have and will never find: respect. I can’t help him, so instead I am a hindrance, or an embarrassment. He’ll make a fool of himself-or worse, break the law and be disgraced, his expertise ridiculed, his judgement dismissed. And it will kill him, because he has nothing else left.’

Back in her studio, she turned on the radiator and poured tall whiskies. ‘He’s become indiscreet of late, leaves books and maps lying all over the lounge. But I still have no idea what this ridiculous quest is all about, and nothing I say can change his mind.’

‘I can tell you what we know,’ said May, ‘because I hope tonight will see the end of it. There’s something called The Vessel of All Counted Sorrows-an Egyptian alabaster vase like a death urn, intended to represent the woes of the world. It occupies a key place in pre-Christian mythology, but is as likely to exist in a tangible form as the Holy Grail.’

‘Gareth is the kind of man who’d prefer to believe in such a thing. He’s always been a huge fan of Atlantis. A reasoned intellectual with a fatal idealistic flaw-you see them all the time in our little circle.’

‘Ubeda believes the vessel ended up in this country, brought over by the Romans and thrown into one of the rivers, where it became silted up and concreted over, waiting to be rediscovered. The least of your husband’s problems is his loss of credibility. Ubeda’s past collaborators have shown a tendency to vanish when they’ve outlived their usefulness; at least, we’ve had no luck contacting any of them.’

‘And he’s in this mess because of something that doesn’t exist?’

‘It’s a little more complicated than that. Imagine for a moment that the vessel is real. This isn’t some impenetrable search for the true pieces of the cross. You can carbon-date a piece of wood, but you won’t prove it came from the crucifixion. Ceramics are hard to copy, because you need clay from the same source as the original. Cast metals are easier to fake. Stone statues are almost all authentic.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘Forging them is too labour intensive. Sometimes there’s a point where a truly elaborate forgery passes into authenticity. But the vessel-ceramics can be dated with thermoluminescence, which measures the natural radiation absorbed by the clay since it was fired. The technique is only useable on very large objects, because it’s pretty destructive. But whether the artefact Gareth is trying to find exists or not, it’s desirable for the most appealing reasons.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It occupies a key position in mythical history, its provenance is intriguingly incomplete, and it possesses just the right amount of romantic appeal. Whenever those factors coincide, human nature takes over and makes such an item appear.’

‘You don’t think he’d try to palm Ubeda off with a fake?’

‘I’m not suggesting that, but the stakes are high. In terms of revenue, the artefact market fits comfortably behind drugs and arms. Looted items from Iraq ended up in the hands of European and American sellers within days of the troops moving in. The problem arises in your husband’s eagerness to locate such an item. If by some miracle he achieved his aim tonight, he would be helping to hide a world treasure from sight. Such a valuable item would never surface in public hands.’

‘So Gareth will make a fool of himself, whatever the outcome,’ said Monica, draining her glass, ‘and you can’t stop him.’

‘I’m afraid we’re no longer able to keep track of him after tonight,’ May agreed. ‘But perhaps we won’t have to.’

‘Then let’s make the most of the evening.’ She brushed his arm lightly, but allowed her fingers to linger. May had intended to rebuff her, but was tired of doing the right thing, of always placing duty ahead of his personal feelings. For once, the image of Bryant’s disapproving features did not appear as a rebuke, and he found himself placing his arms around Monica’s shoulders, kissing her lightly, seeking out those guilty pleasures they had both sought so hard to avoid.

It was a matter of loyalty-if not to Greenwood or his wife, then to John. His partner had never begged a favour in all the years they had worked together. The least Bryant could do was see it through tonight.

They set off along the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal at ten p.m., reaching the point where it joined the Regent’s Canal at Little Venice, continuing past the bright enamelled buckets and tarred ropes of the red and blue houseboats. If Bryant had possessed the energy, they would have detoured through Kensal Green Cemetery, just for the pleasure of it, but Greenwood and Ubeda were walking ahead of them, and they could not afford to drop out of range.

May had persuaded Monica to place a tracker in her husband’s coat pocket when he left, so that there would be no mistakes. The device belonged to Banbury, and was the size of a five-pence coin, with a battery life of six hours. They hoped it would transmit a signal long enough to last the PCU through to the end of their involvement in Greenwood’s affairs. The continuation of the murder inquiry at Balaklava Street took precedence over rescuing the reputation of an academic.