‘You’ll get used to that,’ May promised. ‘Outsiders never understand how we work. They’re too busy following guidelines and checking results tables. Balaklava Street is far from being an especially blighted spot. There are now over a dozen Murder Miles in London.’
‘How does one qualify for status as a Murder Mile?’
‘You need six murders in the same road over a six-month period. Hackney, Kentish Town, Peckham and Brixton have qualified many times over. Arthur remembers Hackney as a town of wide empty streets and neat family houses bordered by marshlands. Now people throw rubbish from the balconies of tower blocks into crack alleys, and overdosed corpses lie in their apartments undiscovered until the council comes to redecorate. But. .’ May tapped his pen on the streetmap before him. ‘The events in Balaklava Street have a rarer quality: they’re premeditated. We think that whatever happened there began as an accident, then became a plan, and is now in a state of improvisation. When plans become extemporized, people make mistakes. But we can’t afford to wait for an error when lives are at risk.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Arthur and I have been investigating this from separate angles. I think the only way we’ll find the answer now is to combine our strengths.’
‘You’ll have to be quick. Land’s bringing in something new tomorrow, and reckons he’s taking every other file out of the building. That means he’ll turn your findings over to the Met, and you’ll never get the case back.’
‘Believe me, I’m aware of that.’ May threw the last of the witness statements into a box and sealed it. ‘It’s not all that’s at stake. Arthur’s going through one of his periodic lapses of self-confidence. He says if he can’t sort this out in time, he doesn’t deserve to remain at the unit. This will be his final case.’
40. BUILDING ON BONES
‘Come in, come in, mind the violins.’
A short fiftyish woman with a pageboy haircut and heavy breasts squeezed into a dusty black sweater beckoned Arthur Bryant into the narrow hall, every foot of which was lined with musical instruments. ‘My son repairs them. Since his workshop was sold and turned into apartments he’s had to carry on the business here. I’ll put the kettle on. It’s less crowded in the kitchen. That’s my territory.’
Bryant removed his trilby and looked for somewhere to hang it. He caught a glimpse of a frenetically wallpapered lounge filled with violas, cellos, catgut, rolls of plyboard and blocks of yellow resin.
Mrs Quinten pulled out a chair and cleared a space at the bleached oak table. This may have been her territory, but she had chosen to clutter it as much as every other part of the house. Over a dozen Victorian milk jugs filled with dried flowers added dust to the already asthma-inducing air. ‘We have goat’s milk. I hope that’s all right.’
‘Absolutely fine,’ said Bryant, already warming to his host. ‘My God, you keep an untidy house. You’re nearly as bad as me. I bet you know where everything is.’
‘Of course-please, call me Jackie-what’s the point of having a home where you don’t use every inch of space? You’re simply depriving others of room to live. I grow so many vegetables in my little garden that I’m able to take bagfuls down to the Holmes Road hostel during the summer. I understand they had a fire.’
‘Yes, and I suppose that’s what I’m here about, in a way. I’m sorry-’ He pulled a crumpled sheet of music from beneath his buttocks and searched for somewhere to put it.
‘That’s all right, we use the backs for shopping lists. Penniless artists often used to paint on the back of sheet music, did you know? There’s no reason why you should, of course. That’s the problem with running the local historical society-one is always telling people things they have absolutely no interest in hearing. The modern world has severed itself from its history, Mr Bryant. Only the wealthy can afford the luxury of remembering the past, and we are far from wealthy. What can I tell you about? I’m afraid we only cover the immediate area. Somers Town, St Pancras, Camden and King’s Cross have their own historical societies, but we’re all struggling. We’re short of members, and no one has enough free time to do the research.’
Bryant scratched the side of his nose and thought. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a long shot. There have been some strange occurrences in the surrounding streets. I’m required to examine every feasible possibility, and find myself trying to understand.’ He accepted a mug of orange tea and drank a trusting measure. ‘Searching for someone with motive and opportunity hardly seems to apply in this instance. Instead, I’ve been wondering if the solution lies in the actual ground itself.’
‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ Mrs Quinten admitted, seating herself opposite.
‘The area is a victim of its past. People have made their homes here for centuries, have lived and bred and fought and died here, around the river beds, in damp and squalor, in marshlands and on hills of bones. You can concrete over the land, but you can’t change its character without moving everyone out and replacing them all.’
‘But that’s precisely what is happening, Mr Bryant. In the last two decades, these streets have been filled with virtually every nationality on earth. The city’s character is rapidly changing, thanks to the advent of mass transit and economic migration.’
‘But migrants bring comparatively little of their hereditary culture with them,’ argued Bryant. ‘Recent experiments have shown the growing power of nurture over nature. The first law of behavioural genetics states that all human traits are inheritable, but a large proportion of those traits are unaccounted for by genes or families. Children spend less time with their parents, so they’re changed more by their peers. The city quickly imposes its own will. If you raised one identical twin in Istanbul and the other in London, you might doubt they were ever related by the time they were twenty.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Bryant, you really are losing me.’
‘A murderer, Mrs Quinten!’ Bryant blurted. ‘I can’t make myself any plainer.’ Coming from Bryant, it sounded like an apology. ‘Three residents and one transient have died, while another is in hiding. An old Indian lady, a builder, a television producer, a homeless alcoholic. They have absolutely nothing in common with one another except their location. It leads me to assume that they were attacked not for who they were, but simply because they were here at all. I asked myself what was so special about this place, beyond the fact that it seems to suffer from a surfeit of water, then wondered if that was it. Water rising from below, falling from the sky, soaking into the walls of houses. But if that is the connection, what on earth does it mean? Which leads me to ask if you have anything in your historical records that reveals a precedent for such violent behaviour in the area. Has it happened before, perhaps the last time the streets flooded?’
‘Ah, I’m with you now,’ said Mrs Quinten finally. ‘Feel free to delve into the biscuit barrel while I go and look.’
She returned with an immense folder of newspaper cuttings, which she dropped on to the kitchen table in a cloud of fine dust.
‘Are you allergic? I hope not. This one has been on top of the wardrobe for years.’ She folded back the front cover, wiping it with her sleeve. ‘I think you’ll find that the same three roads around here have flooded every thirty years or so.’
‘When was the last time?’ Bryant unfolded his glasses and pinned back the clippings.
‘1975. Before that, 1942. Covering over the Fleet didn’t stop it from flooding. The council can’t do anything about it. They thought that drains added at the time of the new London ring-main would help, but there’s a gentleman in Balaklava Street who works for the Water Board, and he reckons it’s due to happen again.’
‘Oliver Wilton,’ said Bryant. ‘You know him?’
‘Yes, he belongs to our society. Gave a talk last year about the problem. He’s an expert on the subject. Very passionate about it. He has maps showing the exact patterns of flooding.’ She turned a page and pointed to an article taken from the
‘When was this?’
‘Around 1822. At one end of the street was the Red Cap tea garden, named after the local witch. A lot of
