The Water Room

18. THE HOUSE IN BRICK LANE

Arthur Bryant wedged his crowbar under the lid of the mildewed pine storage crate and prised it off, scattering rusty nails all over the floor of the office at Mornington Crescent. The box had been kept under a railway arch in a lock-up at King’s Cross, but construction companies were tearing down the arches, and he had been forced to find a new home for his collection. It had been May’s idea to bring his partner’s memorabilia into the unit, because he felt sorry that Bryant had lost so much in the blaze, even though it had been his own fault.

Bryant knew that he was being provided with a displacement activity, something to quell his overactive imagination until Raymond Land sanctioned a new case. Inside the musty container were relics of his greatest successes. He carefully eased out Rothschild, his mange-riddled Abyssinian cat, and set it on the shelf above his desk. He had replaced its missing eyes with a pair of coloured marbles, but there was no substitute for the back leg that had fallen off some years ago. The stuffed feline had once been the familiar of Edna Wagstaff, the renowned Deptford medium, who had now sadly passed to the Other Side herself, to join Squadron Leader Smethwick and Evening Echo, her informants from beyond. Most of Bryant’s books had been destroyed in the fire, but reaching into the box he was pleased to discover battered copies of Malleus Maleficarum, The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (first edition), Mayhew’s London Characters and Crooks, J. R. Hanslet’s All of Them Witches, Deitleff’s Psychic Experience in the Weimar Republic, Fifty Thrifty Cheese Recipes and Brackleson’s Stoat-Breeding for Intermediates. Further down were items that stirred long-dormant memories: a programme from the Palace Theatre for Orphee aux Enfers, the scene of their first case; the claw of a Bengal tiger found pacing about a west London bedroom; a monarch butterfly that had acted as a vital clue in stemming a Soho drug epidemic; a runic alphabet used to solve a bizarre suicide in the city. He had begun to write up each case as a chapter in the unit’s memoirs, and knowing that they could not be published in his lifetime, made them as scurrilous and slander-packed as possible, a cathartic exercise that temporarily expunged the bitterness he felt at being held back by idiots.

As happy as a child in a dressing-up box, he fished out each item and carefully wiped it, looking at his shelves with pride. Satisfied that he had made the room homelier, he took down his copy of The Luddite’s Guide to the Internet and decided to tackle May’s new Macintosh laptop.

Half an hour later, May arrived and noticed that the building had become ominously quiet. He went to check on his partner.

‘Ah, there you are. What do you know about Hot Dutch Interspecies Love?’ Bryant looked up from the computer. ‘Specifically, how to get rid of it?’

‘What have you done?’ asked May, dreading the answer. ‘You know you’re never supposed to touch my things.’ He cleared a patch in the chaotic landscape of Bryant’s spreading paperwork to set down his Starbucks cup. The last time Bryant had accessed police files via the Internet, he had somehow hacked into the Moscow State Weather Bureau and put it on red alert for an incoming high-pressure weather system. The Politburo had been mobilized and seven flights re-routed before the error was spotted and rectified.

‘I was trying to find the address of the Amsterdam Spiritualist Society. I had to give these people my credit details for some reason, and then the screen filled up with the most disgusting pictures of ladies in barnyards. When I tried to cancel my American Express card, I somehow went through to the Parker Meridien Hotel in New York, specifically their internal telephone system. I followed the recorded instructions about entering a code, then everything went dead and a man started threatening me with a lawsuit. He says I’ve crashed their switchboard, and now all these horrible animal pictures are popping up again. I hope I haven’t broken the Internet.’

‘Don’t ever give anyone your credit-card details.’ John turned the keyboard around and began closing his files. ‘You just have to accept that there are some things you shouldn’t attempt. Let me do it for you.’

‘I think I caused electrical interference somehow. I didn’t want to bother you.’ Some aspects of Bryant’s ageing process had begun to mutate into characteristics more commonly associated with troublesome babies.

‘It bothers me a lot more when your experiments in the digital domain start to produce global effects. I don’t want you messing around with my laptop. It’s bad enough that I can’t receive email at home any more.’ Bryant had somehow managed to get his partner blacklisted by every server in the country. May had explained the principles of the Internet dozens of times, but always ended up being sidetracked into the kind of arcane discussions Bryant enjoyed having, like how the Macintosh apple symbol represented Alan Turing’s method of suicide, or how Karl Marx had once run up Tottenham Court Road (where May purchased his computer equipment) drunkenly smashing streetlamps.

‘What are you still doing here, anyway?’ May asked. The division’s promised casework had been delayed pending the arrival of new equipment that had so far failed to materialize. Wyman, the mistily evasive Home Office liaison officer, was full of excuses. At a time when terrorist splinter groups had been caught attempting to blast London targets with American-made Stinger missiles, tentatively experimental divisions like the Peculiar Crimes Unit were the first to feel the financial pinch.

Bryant thrust his hands into his pockets and swung around on his swivel chair. ‘My legs are killing me tonight, so to take my mind off them I thought I’d go through the Permanently Open files, see if there’d been any recent sightings of the Leicester Square Vampire.’

‘And have there been?’

‘Nothing for months. He’s never disappeared for such a long period before.’ The elderly detective had a duty to continue checking. Even though the trail had long gone cold, he owed it to May to track down the man who had indirectly destroyed his family. Pulling the lid from his partner’s coffee, he poured in a shot of brandy from his hip flask. ‘This stuff is undrinkable unless you do something to it.’

‘It’s mine, actually,’ said May.

‘I’ve been thinking about this business with your academic. How did you get on with the wife?’ Bryant poured a second shot of brandy in, ignoring him.

‘Er, OK,’ stalled May. ‘She called me this morning. Apparently, Gareth’s at home studying the Water Board’s survey maps.’

‘Why don’t we go and visit Jackson Ubeda’s office?’

‘And say what, exactly? That we know he’s employed someone to break into buildings built over the estuaries of forgotten rivers?’

‘I don’t mean to visit him when he’s there. I have his business address.’ Bryant could see his partner wavering. ‘He’s based in Spitalfields. I called his number. According to the telephone message, the office is closed until tomorrow. We can take my old skeleton keys.’

‘Arthur, they don’t work with modern deadbolts. Besides, he might have an alarm system. Although Banbury reckons he has something to get around the basic models.’

Bryant knew he would get his partner to agree. Neither of them enjoyed having time on their hands.

‘Where is everyone, by the way?’ May looked about.

‘I sent them home so that the painters could finish up. They’re laying the floor in the lavatory overnight. I suppose you heard that they caught the Camden bin-bag killer? Positive ID, evidence matches, witnesses, the lot. That means it’s make-or-break time for us; Raymond will either find us fresh work or have us closed down. He’s ordered Meera and Colin to seal the remaining files under Longbright’s supervision tonight. They’ll be working through until it’s done, so Janice has gone to KFC for a bargain bucket. They’re dining al desko.’

‘What you mean is, we don’t have much time left to discover what Ubeda is up to,’ said May, throwing Bryant his hat. ‘Then let’s go before anyone sees us.’

Bryant stood back in the street and looked up at the redbrick terrace. ‘It’s a shed,’ he announced.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the sign. J.U. Imports Ltd, fifth floor. That must be the tin hut on the roof. How very Dickensian. Perhaps he keeps chickens in it.’

They were standing in the middle of Brick Lane, umbrellas raised against the spattering of broken gutters. Beside them, two Indian boys were attempting to manoeuvre a rack of red leather jackets into their crowded