49. MR BRYANT EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU
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.’
‘The boy is taken into care-’ added May.
‘Exactly. He’s in and out of foster homes, but he never forgets what happened to his father. He holds down a job at the Tate Gallery for a while, just to be near one of Gilbert’s two paintings, then loses his position after causing a fuss when the paintings are sold. He has no money, and therefore no voice in the world. He is seen by all, but becomes invisible.’
‘What a sad life.’ Kallie pulled the coat tighter around herself, settling into her seat as Bryant rose and stalked the room, relishing his chance to marshal the facts.
‘Now we move on. Time passes. The area changes. The yuppies arrive. Among them is Heather Allen, the original material girl. She thinks she’s going to get everything she wants from life, but life lets her down. First her husband’s business collapses, then he leaves her for someone younger. Terrified by the thought of her failure, and concerned with outward appearances, she covers up the fact that she is now broke and alone. She does this by denying her divorce, and pretending against hope that everything is fine. I think you’ll find that the man who came to her house-the one Kallie saw from her window-wasn’t her husband at all. He’s probably an old family friend from whom she’s trying to borrow money, or her finance manager coming for a not-so-friendly chat. Heather Allen has a good brain, but even she can’t put her life right. She’s eaten up with bitterness over the way things have turned out, but she’ll make the best of it.’
‘She told me all she had left was the house, which she really hated,’ said Kallie.
‘Because it reminds her of her failed marriage.’ Bryant stabbed a forefinger in Kallie’s direction. ‘So she decides to sell it for as much as she can get. To do this, she first needs to decorate-but there’s hardly any money. So she uses the local bodger, Elliot Copeland, who comes in and starts stripping the basement. And that’s when he finds the wall.’ He paused before the misted window, looking down into the night street.
‘This is the moment when Heather makes the mistake that will destroy her life. She knows how to look the part-she’s a woman of surfaces. She knows a little about a lot of things, but not much about art, even though she’s worked in a gallery and has helped to curate an exhibition of Stanley Spencer’s work. Wrinkling her petite nose, she tells him to tear off the disgusting plaster and repaint, and poor drunk Elliot is happy to oblige his client. Bad timing, as it turns out, because just as the mural is destroyed, Heather finds the book belonging to Kingdom’s son. How does she find it? Well, of course, it’s been left out for her by the street’s guardian, Kingdom’s powerless, protective, penniless boy-Tate-who wants recognition for his father and is going about it all the wrong way. Flicking through the book that has been posted through her letterbox, she sees four illustrations, mythic, epic subjects supposedly painted by an artist of great merit, now sadly presumed lost. And, of course, she recognizes her own house, number 6 Balaklava Street, the Air House, which she has just finished renovating, thereby nullifying its value. Tate doesn’t allow her to keep the book, of course-he breaks in and takes it back, because it’s all he has left. What can Heather do? The only money she has is tied up in the property. It’s not a home to her, just bricks and mortar. She’s destroyed her only escape route, and has only herself to blame. But with a little smart thinking she can work out which are the other three houses. Could it be that their basements are still intact, and-please God-that their new occupants have no knowledge of the fortune hidden within their walls? Tate expects her to save his father’s work. Instead, he accidentally creates a monster.’
‘There’s a bit of guesswork going on here,’ said Longbright, draining her beer.
‘I think you’ll find I’m right when you confront her with this, Janice.’ Bryant hated interruptions. ‘Where was I? So, Heather borrows a map from a member of the local historical society. She asks around, even makes an effort to talk to the neighbours. And what does she find out? That the Fire House, number 43, belonging to newcomers Tamsin and Oliver Wilton, was gutted in the sixties. That the Earth House, number 41, now in the hands of another newcomer, Jake Avery, was similarly renovated a few years later. Which just leaves number 5, the Water House.
‘But this, she discovers, is the key to all four houses. It is the reason why Kingdom chose elements and elementals as the channel for his beliefs, because it is built right on top of the river Fleet. It is the original site of the House Curs’d By All Water, and he can exorcise it or, more likely, celebrate the fact in his art. According to the
