Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘Mrs Quinten, I can’t start believing that the ghost of a drowned highwayman is bumping off twenty-first-century residents, however much I’d like to-my partner would kill me.’

‘Then I don’t see how I can help you.’

‘Thanks anyway.’ He attempted a smile. ‘It was a long shot, but I feel happier for having covered it.’ He was closing the volume when his eye drifted to the page that followed. ‘Life and Times of Dr William Stukeley, the Celebrated Antiquary.’ He read down the column a little, reaching the Latin inscription that had been set above the antiquary’s front door.

Me dulcis saturet quies,

Obscuro positus loco,

Leni perfruar otio,

Chyndonax Druida.

‘Chyndonax-I’ve seen that word before in relation to Druid ceremonies.’ Bryant wondered if he still had the unit’s spare mobile, and was amazed to find it intact in his jacket pocket, even though there were sherbet lemons stuck to it.

‘Maggie? I hope I’m calling at a convenient time. You’re not summoning up dead jockeys for racing tips again?’

The white witch often conducted séances at around this hour on a Sunday.

‘Oh, you’re watching the wrestling. Listen, you’re good with Druids, aren’t you? Dr William Stukeley, resident of Kentish Town near Emmanuel Hospital for the Reception of the Blind- Chyndonax Druida, he had the words engraved over his porch because they were important to him. . good woman, I knew you’d know.’

He listened for a minute and rang off.

‘Well?’ asked Mrs Quinten, intrigued.

‘I’m afraid it won’t mean much to you. It isn’t what I expected at all. Thank you for your time, and for the tea, although I’m not sure about those heartburn-inducing biscuits. Perhaps we could meet again. It’s pleasing to find a kindred spirit. My card.’

Mrs Quinten looked at it, perplexed. ‘This is a ticket for the rotor at Battersea funfair, priced 1/6d. It expired in 1967.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s an old coat. Try this one.’ He hadn’t made the effort to be charming for quite a while, and was out of practice.

‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Quinten, taking the PCU’s number. ‘I hope we meet again.’

Monica Greenwood and John May stood before the statues of conjoined children with penile noses and tried to look shocked, but the effort was too much. ‘I enjoy sensation-art,’ said Monica, ‘but when the sensation wears off you’re left with very little to admire except technique.’

May knew he should have cancelled their Sunday-afternoon arrangement to visit the gallery together, but had fallen under her spell. Even though he had promised to return to the PCU within an hour, Bryant was unmollified.

Monica shifted around to examine the statue from another angle. ‘I loved the new British artists at first. Even after Rachel Whiteread had concreted negative space for the fifth time, I still felt there was something fresh happening. But then it just became about money, and left little of abiding interest. I suppose that’s the point; every sensation dies. But why must it?’

‘I never had you pegged for a Royal Academy reactionary,’ teased May.

‘I’m not. I’ve no interest in the chocolate-box ceilings of Tiepolo, but I’d rather stare at them for a fortnight than one of Damien Hirst’s spin paintings. Do you want me to leave my husband?’

‘I hardly think it’s a fit subject for discussion while he’s sitting at home with a bandaged head,’ May pointed out.

‘That’s a pretty feeble excuse. His ego took most of the battering. He’ll never change. He’s only worried about his colleagues finding out.’

‘Well, I feel guilty. I should have been there to protect him instead of leaving the job to Arthur.’

‘What difference would it really have made? Now you have a charge on which to hold Ubeda, assuming he ever surfaces again, and Gareth has been frightened away from illegal activities until the next time someone appeals to his vanity.’

Monica blew a lock of hair away from her face. The gallery was overheated and bright, hardly the best place for a romantic meeting. ‘I consider myself a modern woman, but just occasionally I’d like a man to make the decisions, John. I spent my entire marriage making up Gareth’s mind for him. Now someone else can have the job. Doing the right thing for everyone eventually makes other people hate you. I want to be free to make a fool of myself.’ She took his hand in hers and held it tightly. ‘You know I would leave him for you.’

‘Monica, I-’

‘Don’t say something you might regret, John. I know you. You have no guile. You’re honest and enlightened, which makes you very good at your job, and rather desirable. Tell me why you brought me here. If I know you, it’s something to do with your work. Let’s keep the conversation on safer ground.’

They walked back to the centre of the immense turbine hall of Bankside’s former power station, now the home of the Tate Modern, where an elegant resin sculpture curled and unwound through the agoraphobia-inducing space. May pulled open his backpack and removed the art books. ‘There was a fire in a hostel. These volumes belong to the man who may have started it. If it turns out that he did, we thought they might offer some kind of insight into his motive.’

‘It’s not much to go on, is it?’ Monica found a bench near the entrance and seated herself with the books on her lap.

‘Arthur wants to call in his loopy art-historian friend Peregrine Summerfield, but I thought I’d try you first. What do you know about Stanley Spencer?’

‘Not much. He was named after a balloonist. He fought in the First World War and was a War artist in the Second. Lived in Cookham, beside the river, became fascinated by the concept of resurrection. His paintings are odd, naive and eerie. Some are downright disturbing. He had a bit of a split personality, painting in two distinct modes, his realist pictures and his so-called heavenly-vision paintings. His style was very dynamic-you can see from these illustrations-but there’s a great sense of harmony in the compositions, even though the figures disturb. That’s about the extent of my knowledge.’

‘It seems an odd sort of book for a homeless man to lug about.’

‘Perhaps not; it could be rather comforting to carry a visual depiction of the Resurrection with you. I’ve never seen these before.’ She opened the first of the matching cloth-bound volumes. ‘Printed back in a time when ordinary men and women might wish to read about English art. Dreadful cheap reproduction, but rather valuable, I’d imagine.’

‘Oh, why?’

‘You don’t find too many records of these paintings and sculptures. A lot of stuff’s vanished now. It wasn’t valued much at the time.’

May watched as she traced the pictures with her fingers, as if reading messages hidden in the ink. ‘Anything else?’

‘They’re by minor artists, certainly, but what makes this set interesting is that all the art has a common connection.’

‘Really? I couldn’t see one.’

‘No reason why you would, darling. They haven’t been seen for fifty years. I think you’ll find that these pictures were all lost or looted during the Second World War. I’ve certainly never seen them gathered together in volumes like this. Some of them are very peculiar. Naive paintings so often are. An insight into the abandoned soul; amateur artists can develop highly personal visions as a response to their inability to communicate. Pity the second volume is damaged.’

‘Show me.’

Monica allowed the book to fall open at the centre, and he saw that a number of pages had been removed with a knife.