Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘That’s reassuring.’

Following the map to the St Pancras Basin, they turned into a narrower ramped tunnel with slender iron platforms on either side. ‘This is part of the system newly exposed by the flood switches,’ said Bryant. ‘Look at the walls.’ They showed clear signs of long-term immersion. Strangely, the stone floor beneath their feet was less slippery, and the air smelled healthier. ‘Nothing’s had time to stagnate here. It’s probably been kept full just coping with the natural run-off of freshwater from Hampstead Heath and the other high areas above the city. It isn’t wide enough to cope with severe flooding, but it’s fine for everyday use. Wonderful workmanship; not a stone out of place. Beautiful bevelling.’

Bimsley’s radio crackled, making him jump. ‘The rain’s easing up,’ warned Longbright. ‘You’d better start heading for the nearest exit.’

‘We must be nearly there.’ Bryant waded on ahead. ‘The light is less dense.’

He was right. A faint sickly glow changed the colour of the walls before them, but as they approached, they found themselves entering a network of claustrophobic culverts, each one barred at the end.

‘We’ll have to turn around,’ May warned. ‘This one’s a dead end too.’

‘Interesting,’ said Bryant, seemingly unconcerned that they might be swept away at any minute. ‘I’m assuming that Tate is down here looking for something that has been unexposed for some thirty years, and I would have thought that this was the most likely place for him to be. The tunnels fill to their highest level, then empty, washing everything out this way.’

‘There’s no sign of him.’

‘He must have left some kind of trail. Keep looking around.’

‘Bimsley, how long since it stopped raining?’

‘Twelve minutes, sir.’

‘The levels will be falling. We should try to find an exit. Call Longbright and find out where the nearest drain shaft is, would you?’

Bimsley tried his phone, but failed to locate a signal. ‘No response. We’re in pretty deep ground.’

‘So we’re on our own. I wouldn’t fancy our chances of climbing those slopes back up. We’ll have to go on,’ said May.

‘ Very interesting,’ said Bryant approvingly. ‘The Fleet was choked off by the expanding metropolis, but its waters still ran, albeit at a fraction of their former power. And at the highest flood levels, the water would fight to find a way around the obstacles. The system is beautifully simple when you think about it. The engineers knew the floods were cyclical over decades, so they allowed for the Fleet to return by a series of self-controlled gates that can only be opened by a specific volume of water. Under such conditions, the river cuts a path all the way through the local district conduits to form a single united flow heading to Camden Town and Clerkenwell, following the old route just as it used to, before emptying out into the Thames.’

‘Yes, Arthur, and as soon as the level drops and the weight recedes it will switch back, leaving us, all too literally, I fear, dans la merde . So can we push on?’

‘Let me see the map again.’ Bryant held it beneath his torch.

‘I can hear something,’ warned Bimsley, putting his ear as close as he dared to the wall. ‘It doesn’t sound good.’

They shone their torches back to see the first of the great steel plates grinding across on its arc as the Fleet redirected itself back to local channels. The group pushed on and down as the water started to deepen. ‘It’s probably refilling from the highest gate first,’ warned May. ‘I doubt any one gate could handle the full amount of water, so the switch-back will be staggered with locks, but the effect will still be like flushing a cistern. The water has to maintain a momentum in order to reach the river. We really have to find a way out of here.’

‘You can hear it coming,’ called Bimsley, an air of panic creeping into his voice.

‘The sound is probably magnified,’ said Bryant cheerfully. ‘It’s echoing down the entire length of the shaft. According to the map there’s a drainage shaft down here on the left.’

They found themselves in another dead end filled with the detritus of the past thirty years. As they pushed through the rubbish, the bloated corpse of a cat swirled by.

‘Sorry,’ Bryant apologized, squinting at the plan. ‘Now a right turn-it’s hard to read the scale of this thing. It should be right here in front of us.’

‘There’s your shaft,’ said May, reaching a halt. ‘Somehow I don’t think we’re going to make it out of here.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Bryant.

May shone his torch up to the roof, illuminating the chimney to the surface, more than thirty feet above their heads. ‘The ladder is missing. There’s no way of reaching the drain without it. And we can’t go back.’

Bimsley pinched his frozen nose and tried to think. ‘There were three corridors at the last junction. We know that two are dead ends, so let’s go back to the first one.’

‘Admirable idea, Bimsley.’ Bryant struck out through knee-deep scum. ‘The water’s much warmer than I thought it would be. I think it’s coming from a heated source-dishwashers and washing machines, perhaps. There’s a distinctly soapy smell now.’

‘Arthur, I think we should concentrate on the problem at hand.’ May towed his partner back until they reached the junction. They turned into the only remaining tunnel as the rumble of water rose to a roar behind them. They had gone less than a hundred yards when the corridor narrowed sharply and twisted off.

‘Fingers crossed,’ called May, wading ahead. ‘If this doesn’t lead out, we won’t be going home tonight.’

He was almost frightened to raise the torch.

‘Well?’ called Bryant.

Bimsley followed the beam across the now thigh-deep water. The tunnel appeared to open out to a much larger space beyond, but there was no way of reaching it: a matrix of scabbed iron bars blocked the way ahead. May slammed his fist against the metal as he realized the impossibility of moving it.

‘There’s a grille across the outlet,’ he called back.

‘Can you open it?’

‘I suppose there might be a handle, but it’s not on this side.’

‘Then that’s that.’ Bryant arrived beside them. ‘This is my fault. I made you come down here.’

The tunnel began to vibrate with the subway-train rush of water arriving from the upper Fleet tunnel.

May shone his torch back toward the source of the noise. They watched in horror as a great wave of water, its virescent crest touching the roof of the tunnel, swept down toward them.

Bryant was the first to fall backwards because he had been pressed against the grille. Bimsley and May followed him as the bars behind them slammed up into the stone ceiling, flushing flat into the brickwork. As the water hit, the trio found themselves washed across the end of the tunnel and over a great latticework grating as the river flushed itself away into the ground.

‘What a wonderful piece of draughtsmanship,’ enthused Bryant, rolling to his feet, half-drowned. ‘A simple cantilever.’

‘Is everybody all right?’ asked May.

‘I think I swallowed something disgusting,’ coughed Bimsley.

They slowly rose and looked about. Their torches had been lost in the river’s diverted path, but now there was light from another source. They found themselves in an immense arched cathedral of smoothly varnished brown tiles.

‘My God, it looks like a mirror image of the King’s Cross and St Pancras railway arches,’ Bryant exclaimed, pulling a plastic Sainsbury’s bag from his leg and wiping himself down with it. ‘I suppose it would have been built at the same time.’ The vaulted peak of the hall was lost in Stygian gloom. ‘St Pancras Basin.’