purpose, he came upon the underground river map that Tate had pressed into his hand. The paper had wrinkled in the damp, so he used one of Tate’s art books to lay it flat and press out the creases. As he did so, a tingling premonition caressed the back of his neck; it was a feeling he had experienced many times before.
The map, the art book. Pulling his briefcase across from the back seat, he searched for the A4 photocopy Longbright had made from Jackie Quinten’s original. He needed more light. He switched on the radio to illuminate the interior, and manoeuvred the drawing over Tate’s map. It was surfacing now, the idea; a coalescence of everything he had heard and seen in recent weeks. Using the House of Conflagration as a co-ordinate, he slowly rotated the map, then checked the details with the magnifying glass he kept for reading the A-Z. The artwork was fanciful and out of scale, but the outline of the street roughly corresponded to the card, allowing him to pinpoint the properties on either side in conjunction with the Fleet tributary.
Now he noticed what he had not seen before on the drawing: two other co-ordinates, not words but pictograms placed over sites, one a lumpen creature emerging from the soil, the other a sinister cherub with its bare rump turned toward the viewer, expelling wind. What he had dismissed as decorative patterning beneath the illustrations was tiny calligraphy.
‘Blasted eyesight,’ said Bryant aloud, holding the picture closer. ‘House of Foul Earth, House of Poison’d Air.’ He looked at the other two dwellings, the House of Conflagration and the House Curs’d By All Water, and knew that he not only had his four elements, but had located four sites in the street. He was still trying to pinpoint the positions with certainty when the interior light shorted out. The dashboard was streaming with water. Folding the map and the drawing together in his overcoat pocket, he clambered out into the thunderstorm.
Randall Ayson stood before Kallie with rain dripping from his fists. ‘I want you to tell me exactly what you told my wife.’ It smelled as if he had been drinking rum.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Kallie backed out of his reach.
‘Don’t lie to me, woman. You told her I was having an affair. You’ve screwed up my marriage.’
‘I did no such thing. You’ve got your wires crossed, Mr Ayson. And I didn’t invite you in.’ She wanted to push him back toward the door, but thought he might strike out at her.
He took a step closer. Behind him, rain fell from the porch in a silver sheet. ‘She told me that you rang her up to make trouble, and all you’ve done is hurt everyone involved. I’m sorry you’ve got domestic problems of your own, but my marriage is my own damned business.’
‘I have not spoken to your wife, not on the telephone or in person, do you understand?’ She spoke calmly and clearly, anxious to move him back to the door. ‘I promise you, I have no knowledge or interest in your personal affairs.’
He took another step forward into the darkness of the hall. ‘It’s one thing when a woman’s unhappy, but it’s pretty damned pathetic when she wants other people to be unhappy with her.’
‘I want you to get out of here right now,’ she shouted, shifting between him and the opened front door.
‘Not before you go over there and tell her you were lying. I’m not leaving without your promise.’
‘And I keep telling you, I haven’t spoken to her!’ She pushed at his chest, but he raised his hands to bat her away.
‘Do you need any help?’ asked Janice Longbright from the doorway.
‘John, wait a moment.’
Arthur Bryant hopped around the flooding gutter and grabbed his partner’s arm to stop himself from falling over. ‘It’s all making sense now. There are four houses. Or rather, there were. It’s what I always said about London homes, we rent them and buy them without knowing who lived there before, or who’ll live there after us. We’re merely curators. It’s not about who they are, Elliot, Jake, Ruth, it’s about where they chose to live. Four houses, four residents, four elements, three deaths, so I thought there would have to be a fourth-my tidy mind at work, you see, always having to align the facts neatly. But the death in the hostel wasn’t part of it. I was doing what you always accuse me of doing, making up behavioural patterns to fit the facts. He’d always known about the houses, there’s no question of that, because he’d watched his father working on them when he was a nipper.’
‘You’re talking about Tate?’
‘Of course, he was photographed with his father. Tate’s determination to save the houses tipped over into obsession, then madness. He started to tell me when I interviewed him at the hostel, but I didn’t get the full story.’
‘I still haven’t got it now,’ May admitted, perplexed.
‘It’s fine,’ said Kallie, raising her hands defensively as Randall stepped back into the rain. ‘Mr Ayson was just going.’
‘We’re calling on everyone to make sure they’re OK,’ Longbright explained. ‘What with the power being out.’
‘I’ve seen him again,’ Kallie told her. ‘Tate-he was in the garden and he had a knife. Just a few minutes ago. Then he disappeared. I was trying to call you but the lights went-’
‘Leave it with us.’ Longbright leaned back into the street and waved for Mangeshkar and Bimsley. ‘They’ll check your garden. They can’t get any wetter than they already are.’ She held the door open for Randall. ‘I think your wife is looking for you, Mr Ayson. You’d better get back there.’
‘Thanks,’ said Kallie as she admitted the officers. ‘He was really angry.’
‘Don’t worry, I can take care of him.’ Longbright smiled reassuringly. The detective constables trooped downstairs and removed the chair from the back door, stepping into the storm-battered garden.
‘You’ve noticed she gives us all the crap jobs,’ Meera complained, climbing the steps to the lawn and shining her torch into the bushes. ‘He’s like a bloody ghost, this bloke. I don’t see why we can’t just-wait a minute. . I don’t believe this.’ She beckoned to Bimsley with a grin. ‘He’s only got a kitchen stool in here.’ She shone the torch over the black lacquered seat wedged into the muddy ground beneath the bush. ‘Must have reckoned he was in for a long wait. Doesn’t make sense.’
‘Waiting for her to come home?’
‘Normally he’d see a light on. Not today, though. Why didn’t he come for her when she saw him? What kind of murderer travels around with a kitchen stool?’ Meera knew better than to move it, but the angled position puzzled her. ‘He wasn’t even facing the house. He was watching the place next door.’
Her torch picked up fresh splinters of wood from the verdigris-covered fence. A hacksaw line marked a panel cut from the staves. She gave it a kick and it fell in. ‘Looks like he grew tired of shinning over walls and decided to cut himself an escape route,’ she called back. ‘Come on.’
‘I don’t like you being here alone,’ said Longbright, covering the mobile to talk to Kallie. ‘Why don’t you go to a neighbour until the lights come back on? Or I’m sure I can get one to come here.’
‘I don’t want to be any trouble, really,’ Kallie protested. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Hang on a sec-Mr Bryant, where are you? I can hardly hear you-’ She turned back to Kallie. ‘Don’t be daft, it’ll only take a minute to get someone, and I’d feel a lot happier.’ She stepped away from the door, talking into the phone. ‘Slow down, I can’t understand what you’re saying. . No, they’re still looking for him. . What-?’ She stepped back out into the rain, trying to improve the phasing signal.
Looking down the inundated street, she saw the detectives in the distance, half-obscured as they moved away through the downpour. ‘It’s no good, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Hang on-’
She set off along the street, leaving Kallie alone once more.
46. IMMERSION
‘The sergeant was quite insistent,’ Heather explained. ‘I said you were welcome to come over and stay with me, but she wanted me to come here and look after you. What do you think is going on outside? She wouldn’t tell me.’
Kallie cupped her hands at the back window and tried to see into the garden, but it was dark now, and the officers seemed to have disappeared. ‘I got scared. Tate was in the garden and it looked like he had a knife. They’re searching for him now. Do you think we’re safe?’
‘I don’t know.’ Heather had been on her way out, and was irritated by the sergeant’s request to babysit her neighbour. It was bad enough having to dress and do her hair by candlelight, without this. Everyone was so
