Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

Pigeons living in the high iron rafters dropped down through the hall, their wings fluttering like the ruffled pages of old books.

‘Doesn’t this section get filled as the system switches back?’ asked Bimsley.

‘No, it’s very clever-the bars around the edges of the floor act as a gigantic drain, so it stays dry. No wonder they picked this spot to build the Channel Tunnel terminal-half the underground work is already done for them. Ah, Mr Tate, or should I say Mr Kingdom-you are Gilbert Kingdom’s son, aren’t you? Perhaps you can explain why it was so important to lead us here.’

The others turned to find their quarry seated on a pile of sacks, eating a tuna sandwich from a Tupperware tub. He appeared to be expecting them.

‘I wanted to show you this,’ he said simply, raising his hand and indicating the basin.

Bryant realized now that what he had thought was a deserted underground hall was in fact populated. Wrapped in blankets and brown cardboard, the residents blended invisibly with the shadowed walls, but the noise of the re-channelled water had stirred them, and people were sitting up, standing, stretching, stamping the circulation back into their limbs.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Bimsley. ‘Where did they come from?’

‘Good question,’ Bryant replied. ‘More to the point, I think, is where they go from here.’

‘The basin is used by anyone seeking refuge-people who have no homes, no identities, no lives,’ said Kingdom. ‘During the War, deserters hid in the St Pancras Basin. I first came here with my father thirty years ago. It was safe and dry. This time, when the rains arrived, the walls began dripping dirty water. Bad chemicals washing in from above. The basin’s run-off drains are blocked with rubble from the terminal construction overhead. They’ve become stagnant. People are getting sick. Pneumonia, stomach bugs and worse.’

‘Why not take the risk and head above ground?’ asked Bryant.

‘The police-the other police, the ones in uniforms-are waiting for us above. Everyone said you were a good man, and would help. I wanted to ask you when we met at the hostel, but then the man in the next room-’

‘-set fire to the place,’ said Bryant, ‘and you knew we would blame you. Are you surprised? There was inflammable spirit everywhere.’

‘He started throwing it all around the floor. A crazy man who thought he was being persecuted, thought the police were out to get him. He looked out of the window and saw your constable coming in. What could I do? I seized the chance to get away. No one else could help these people.’

He watched them for a moment, thinking. ‘I remember the last time the tunnel flooded and opened a clear path straight through to the basin. I knew you were investigating the street that passed right above the river channel. The basin exit was being watched, so there was no other way for you to get here. I needed you to follow me.’

‘Look, I’m frozen and wet, I’ve been poisoned with half the toilet waste of north London, I’ve probably swallowed parts of a rancid cat, and I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with the case,’ complained Bimsley. ‘Am I completely stupid?’

‘No, Colin, not completely.’ Bryant looked at the crippled son of the Water House’s creator. ‘I think you’ll find it’s about the difference between a house and a home,’ he said finally.

Longbright insisted on driving her complaining superiors to UCH for a set of inoculations, releasing them on the condition that they went straight home to bed. They didn’t, of course; none of them did. The offices above Mornington Crescent were quiet now. Only one room was illuminated. It had just turned midnight, heading toward the Monday morning of the unit’s fresh start, and the heating had gone off. Kallie was with them, wrapped in a moth-eaten fun-fur that had belonged to Longbright’s mother.

‘If you’re going to light that thing, open a window,’ warned May.

‘I can’t, the rain has swollen the wood.’ Bryant sucked at his pipe, releasing a plume of aromatic smoke. He produced his flask and poured a measure of crimson syrup into a glass. ‘Would anyone like a cherry brandy?’

‘No wonder your teeth fell out.’ May served beers to the group. ‘I take it Heather Allen’s guilt didn’t surprise you.’

‘Well, of course not. Even when it’s the person you least suspect, you still sort of suspect them because they’re the least suspicious. Female killers are rare, but when one comes along she can be more calculating and dangerous than any man. Heather Allen has been a very angry woman for a long time. I suppose she had a lot to be angry about. I take it you understand everything now.’

‘No,’ admitted May. ‘I’m with Bimsley on that one.’

‘Then I shall endeavour to explain, now that Kallie here has provided some of the missing pieces. I’ll rather enjoy making my case report this time, because the answer came from tracing the confluence of three sources, rather like following tributaries back to a river. The gaps can be filled in with a little guesswork, but I’ll wager you won’t find the truth far different.’ He smiled, displaying his incongruous dentures.

‘To untangle this, we have to go back more than thirty years, to Gilbert Kingdom, an unappreciated artist who manages to sell just two paintings in a lifetime. The nation has survived a terrible depression, only to be plunged into another World War; now that a painfully rationed peace has been won, people find they have no taste for art, especially the kind of peculiar mythologies Kingdom likes to paint. You see, Kingdom believes that the salvation of the world lies in Christians renouncing their faith in order to become Pagans. He’s a man born out of his time. Luckily he and his son are photographed for the book in Peregrine Summerfield’s possession, otherwise we would never have identified him. So, the artist’s wife has run off, leaving him with a young boy to support. When the terrace is repaired after the bombing raids, a property developer moves in to renovate several of the houses, and Kingdom-perhaps because they’ve been friends during the War-persuades the developer to let him paint murals. He plans four, directly based upon the physiology and mythology of the area, which still has strong connections with its past.’

‘You think he saw the map?’ asked Longbright, emptying her beer into a pint mug.

‘He certainly knows of it, or discovers the area’s history in local books. He realizes that the sites fit with his personal obsessions. A House of Conflagration-a monastery that defied the Catholic Church in its thinking and was burned down for its heresies. A House of Foul Earth-a burial site for plague victims. A House of Poisoned Air-on a hill too close to a tanning mill, where people become sick. A House Cursed by Water-which sounds like a property that floods every few years, don’t you think? Gilbert Kingdom looks at the street, and chooses four houses on the approximate sites of their original histories, because each house fortuitously represents one of the four elements.’

‘So it gives him a grand artistic theme,’ said May. ‘A personal endeavour.’

‘Precisely. They are to be his crowning achievement, and, more importantly, will raise the value of the properties at a relatively small expense to the developer. It seems to be a wonderful plan; art and commerce combined. He will provide for his son, he will create permanent monuments to his beliefs, and he will reap rewards deserving of a great artist. But like so many wonderful plans, there’s a flaw.’

‘The neighbourhood fails to go up in value,’ Longbright pointed out.

‘Unfortunately its connections with its past are strong-too strong. It remains a place of lawlessness and trouble. Nobody wants to live there, let alone pay extra for having built-in artworks of an un-Christian nature. The government is busy trying to rebuild the country-no one has time for art! The developer is bankrupted, and the artist, who has been living rent-free in one of the properties and has taken four long years to finish the work, is thrown out into the street with his son, where he dies a pathetic, ignominious death at the hands of local ruffians. Life imitates art, and drowning proves a fitting end.’