The Water Room

13. EVERYONE IN THE STREET

‘We’ve got a match on Greenwood’s client.’ May came through the hole where the door should have been with an air of triumph.

Bryant was taking tea with two of the workmen who had set up a primus stove in the hall to make their own refreshments. ‘Ah, so what’s the score with your cuckold?’ he asked. The carpenters looked at May with fresh interest. They clearly enjoyed chatting with Bryant, and had settled in so comfortably that May suspected they were hoping to drag out the work until Christmas.

‘I do wish you wouldn’t call him that,’ snapped May, uncomfortable at having to discuss his private affairs in front of strangers. Such openness never bothered Bryant, who always behaved as if there was no one else in the room.

‘I’m sorry, the situation intrigues me, that’s all. You know how unlucky I’ve been in my own romantic affairs.’

‘Oh, come on, it hasn’t been all bad. There was that girl in 1968.’

‘Exactly. The only person in London who didn’t have sex in 1968 was my Uncle Walter, and that was because he was in an iron lung. The trouble is, I’ve spent too much time on my own. I suspect I’ve started to behave abnormally.’

‘Not at all. You’ve always been horrible to people.’

‘That’s very hurtful,’ Bryant complained, attempting an empathetic response. ‘Do you have any idea how alone you can feel when you think differently from everyone else? You can be as alone as-that cat.’ He pointed to Crippen, who was sitting with his back to them, staring intently at a spot on the skirting board. ‘Look at it. There’s nothing happening in its head at all except for a vague idea about fish and radiators. It’s probably been neutered and has lost the will to live. No wonder we relate. Don’t talk to me about romance. Let’s see what your gizmos have managed to come up with.’

May waited until the listless workmen had taken their leave, then called in Dan Banbury to explain the process to his partner.

‘OK, the Bluetooth images are fairly low-res, given the poor light,’ Banbury pointed out, tapping his computer screen. ‘But the unique thing about the phone is that it takes micro-sequential shots from three separate angles. Of course the electronic images are constructed of code translated into pixels, so they can be translated back using a different program that fills in perception gaps. From here it’s a simple matter to wire-frame a 3-D image, plugging the missing pixels with similar textures and colours taken from surrounding surfaces to give a fully fleshed shape. This means that the chances of finding a file match are multiplied a hundred times over, because we can run database checks from almost any angle.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ warned Bryant, ‘but go on, it’s terribly interesting.’

‘I ran the shots against everyone entered in the system with a visual reference-that includes Index Offenders, people who have been put into the mental-health system, as well as standard AMIP files, SPECRIM reports and central Met database convictions. The problem with the system-’

‘I knew there had to be one,’ Bryant grumbled.

‘-is that we’re only dealing with priors, naturally,’ Banbury continued. ‘The software hasn’t been invented yet that can finger someone before they’ve committed a crime. I’m not Cassandra.’ He gave a shrill laugh. Bryant looked at him as if he was mad. Banbury coughed awkwardly, then punched up a file on his screen. ‘But we did come up with a match. Here’s your man. Jackson Ubeda, aged fifty-one, three priors for fraud and intent to deceive, couple of B and Es, one grievous bodily harm, likes thumping people and rather fond of bankruptcy, usually disappears owing a small fortune to investors. No reason why your academic-’

‘Gareth Greenwood.’

‘-Greenwood, would know any of this, although a couple of the financial papers have run steer-clears on him in the past.’

‘So what does this fellow want with an expert on underground rivers?’ Bryant wondered, shifting closer to the computer.

‘That’s our job to find out.’ May steered Bryant’s hovering hand away from the keyboard.

‘It’s OK, Mr May,’ Banbury smiled. ‘The equipment is drool-proof.’

‘How dare you,’ said Bryant, affronted.

‘He means even you can’t damage it,’ May explained. ‘Longbright is keeping the Met off our backs by helping them with the Camden bin-bag killer, which means that Bimsley and I are free to go back to the Clerkenwell site this evening for a nose around. We’re waiting for a premises code, but the fire officers can argue that the blocked alley is a health hazard if we have to sort it out quickly.’

‘Not like you to steam in without a Section 8,’ Bryant sniffed. ‘I suppose you think I’d be holding you back. That’s fine, take Bimsley, because I have something to do tonight anyway. And it’s business.’

‘What are you up to?’ May asked suspiciously.

‘I’ve been invited out,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m going to a cocktail party.’

The gathering was uncomfortable. The hosts were nervous, the guests suspicious and argumentative. From Bryant’s point of view this made it interesting, as the bad atmosphere encouraged people to make mistakes. They had gathered in the knocked-through ground-floor rooms of number 43 Balaklava Street, home of Tamsin, Oliver and Brewer Wilton, ostensibly to celebrate their son’s birthday and to welcome Kallie to the street-but as no details of Ruth Singh’s death had been made public, everyone was anxious to know what the police thought.

‘And this is Mr Bryant,’ said Mr Singh. ‘Tonight I am saying farewell to my old friend.’ If Benjamin was upset with the outcome of the investigation into his sister’s death, he managed not to show it as he introduced the police officer to the assembly.

‘So you’re the detective-how exciting,’ said Lauren Kane, a thickly painted blonde who appeared to have designed her own clothes by removing strategic buttons. ‘This is my partner, Mark.’

A bulbous thirty-five-year-old in a straining blue-striped shirt reached over and shook Bryant’s hand vigorously. Arthur hated physical contact of this nature, and found himself surreptitiously wiping his fingers on his jacket. ‘Mark Garrett,’ said the estate agent. ‘I’m at number 7, the one on the end. The houses get larger as they go up the street because the shape of the plots is dictated by the line of the alley behind them. Dunno why. It’s the way the property was parcelled back in the 1850s.’

‘Take no notice of him-that’s shop talk, he’s in real estate,’ Lauren explained. ‘Mark’s idea of fun is to spend the weekend poring over an ordnance survey map, looking for bits of land to buy. He knows everything there is to know about this area.’ She didn’t make it sound like a good thing.

‘When are you deserting us, Benjamin?’ asked Garrett. There was no politeness in his voice, and since the sale of number 5, no love lost between them.

‘Tomorrow, and I am not sorry to go,’ replied Mr Singh. ‘There is nothing left for me in this city.’

‘Please spare us your this-country’s-gone-to-the-dogs speech again,’ said Garrett, looking to his girlfriend for approval and failing to find it. ‘We know what you think of the people around here.’

‘It’s not safe any more, Mr Garrett. You know that. You sell properties in the area but you never tell anyone how dangerous it is.’ His voice overrode the agent’s protestation. ‘Six brutal killings in as many weeks in the borough of Camden-this is why they are calling the High Street “Murder Mile”.’

‘Only the tabloids call it that, Ben, and the murders are mostly teenagers invading each other’s territories.’

‘So that makes it all right, I suppose? The police are too busy with these gang wars, they have no time to deal with muggings and burglaries. Yet there are flats being built on every piece of waste ground. You and your friends in the council, encouraging so many people to live on top of each other. Things will keep getting worse. Why not build a park or plant some trees?’

‘What’s the use of parks?’ Garrett demanded to know. ‘Look, I’m not personally responsible for the neighbourhood. I’m making a living, and if I didn’t try to increase my turnover I wouldn’t be very good at my job, would I?’

‘My sister stayed in her house for fear of going outside,’ said Mr Singh. ‘Somebody was sending her-’

‘Look, nobody ever saw these so-called racist notes she received.’

‘That’s because I burned them, as any decent person would have done.’

‘I’m sorry she died, but it’s nothing to do with any of us, all right?’

The evidence had been destroyed, and so it was an argument no one would win. Bryant dropped back from the group and found himself beside strangers. He had never possessed a facility for small talk, but having been unable to settle Ruth Singh’s death comfortably in his mind, regarded this evening’s gathering as a chance to meet the few people who may have known more about her than they were telling. He was studying the guests, his sharp crow eyes searching for detail, when a balding cherub dressed in black tapped him on the shoulder.

‘You think there was something odd about Mrs Singh’s death, is that it?’ he asked, holding out a ringed hand, so that Bryant was forced to shake it. ‘I mean, why else would a detective be here?’

‘We do occasionally come off duty, Mr-’

‘Avery. Call me Jake. This is my partner, Aaron.’

Does he mean business partner or partner, Bryant asked himself, taking a slight fastidiousness of manner into account and deciding on the latter.

‘Forgive me, I suppose it’s like teachers,’ Jake apologized. ‘You know how surprised you are to see a teacher in the supermarket when you’re a kid, and you have to reconsider them as a human being. Aaron teaches-he’s at the primary school in the next street.’

‘That’s handy for you,’ said Bryant to Aaron. ‘Tell me, how do you find children these days?’

‘People always ask me that,’ Aaron replied, ‘as if they should suddenly have undergone transformations, but I don’t suppose they’re much different at the age I teach. They still play games and form alliances and elect leaders, and hero-worship and bully and get picked on. My classes are pretty young, so I don’t have the kind of trouble teachers face with older age-groups. You wouldn’t catch me teaching over-tens. The little ones watch too much TV, of course. They remember every character they see on their favourite shows, but won’t recall the names of people they meet in the street.’

‘Perhaps they don’t know the difference.’

‘Oh, they know the difference, all right,’ said Aaron. ‘It simply isn’t in their interests to bother remembering. Children are merciless that way, almost entirely lacking in sentiment. I’m sure it’s one part that hasn’t changed at all. As soon as they hit ten some kind of switch turns on. They suddenly learn attitude and duplicity. It’s a survival mechanism, of course, probably an essential weapon when you’re forced to walk around the neighbourhood with no money in your pockets.’

Bryant found Aaron’s honesty encouraging. ‘Do you teach any of the children in this street?’ he asked, wondering if it was worth interviewing them. He had no fondness for modern children; their motives were sinister and obscure. They became blanker and more alien with each passing generation, probably because they saw him as impossibly decrepit.

‘We’re a working-class Catholic primary, Mr Bryant. The houses around here were constructed to provide homes for the Irish labourers who built the railways, and many of them are still lived in by their descendants. The area is split into original working-class inhabitants and new arrivals from the middle classes.’

‘And how do you tell them apart?’ asked Bryant.

‘The middle-class couples never have a granny living in the next street. They’d hate to be thought of as economic migrants, but that’s what they are, nesting in the upcoming neighbourhoods, quietly waiting to turn a profit, moaning about the lack of organic shops in the high street.’

‘Do you teach the Wiltons’ son?’

‘No, Brewer goes to a private school in Belsize Park. That family over there-’ he pointed out a West Indian couple with two Sunday-dressed children ‘-send their kids to a Church of England school with a three-year waiting list. Among the working-class Catholic families, religion still plays a part in choice of education.’

‘You surprise me,’ Bryant admitted. He made a mental note, ticking the family off against Longbright’s interview register: Randall and Kayla Ayson, children Cassidy and Madison. Randall looked fidgety and keen to leave. His children appeared hypnotized with boredom.

Paul had recognized the estate agent as soon as he entered the room, and suddenly understood how Garrett had got in on the deal for number 5 so early-he lived in the same street. No wonder he’d been annoyed by his failure to secure the house. He knew so much about the value of the property, it was almost like insider trading. ‘That fat bastard is the one who tried to warn us off the place,’ he whispered to Kallie. ‘Where do estate agents buy their shirts? There must be a special store that caters for them.’

Mr Singh was refusing to drop his argument with Garrett. ‘I heard that you are trying to purchase the waste ground in front of the builders’ merchant. Don’t tell me you’re planning to squeeze another house on to the site.’

‘I’ve never announced any intention to buy the land.’ Garrett crushed a beer can and set it down, an act of vulgarity that did not pass unnoticed by the hosts. ‘Nobody even knows who owns it.’

‘You know the old man who lives there,’ Mr Singh accused.

‘Which old man is this?’ asked Bryant. Tonight he was wearing a hearing aid, not because he needed to, but because it amplified all sounds equally, so that he was able to catch several conversations at once.

‘There’s a tramp-he uses the waste ground to sleep on sometimes,’ said a large Egyptian man who was listening in. ‘Omar Karneshi. My wife Fatima and I live at number 4.’ Bryant received another damp handshake. ‘If you buy the land, he’ll have nowhere to live.’

‘Bloody hell, why is everyone having a go at me?’ Garrett complained to his discomfited girlfriend. ‘How come I’m the bloody villain? Look, pal, no one can put in a bid for the land because the builders are planning to expand, so get off my back and give them a hard time instead.’ Lauren quickly placed a fresh beer in his hand.

Tamsin mouthed ‘Mingle and replenish!’ across the room at her husband, pointing to various low-levelled glasses. She knew they should have hired someone to do the canapés, but had been worried that it would seem pretentious in a property of this size. They would save caterers for the house in Norfolk, a Christmas party perhaps, where waitresses could glide in unnoticed from the kitchen. Tamsin would never admit it aloud, but she hated spending her weekdays surrounded by Greeks and Africans and Irish Catholics, and groups of black teenagers who shouted and laughed in incomprehensible argot. Oliver had adopted the role of betrayed socialist, refusing to buy a place in Islington because Tony Blair had lived there. Kentish Town, he felt, was ‘more real’, although he was forever telling people how he could reach Norfolk in two hours on a Friday night.

‘Everyone seems to be having a go at Mr Garrett,’ Bryant observed, hoping to stir things up further.

‘I think he has a chip on his shoulder about being uneducated,’ said Tamsin waspishly, something she would never have done if she hadn’t drunk quite so many glasses of nerve-steadying Lambrusco before the party started.

Bryant was not famous for his socializing skills, but recognized when a woman was dying to talk. He tried to imagine what May would say in order to encourage her. ‘I suppose you’ve got the dirt on everyone here,’ he said clumsily.

‘It’s a very cosmopolitan area,’ Tamsin replied, giving no indication of having heard him. ‘We’ve Elliot the builder at number 3-he’s divorced, drinks rather too heavily, you can always find him in the George around the corner-and there’s Barbara and Charlie, they used to live at number 37, which is now Ethiopians. He drives a van and has been inside-for bigamy, if you please. She’s a nurse at the Royal Free. They moved out to Edgware, but we couldn’t not invite them because she looked after Brewer when he had pneumonia-’

‘You really do know everyone,’ Bryant goaded.

Tamsin ticked the houses off on her hand. ‘Oh yes, there’s the squat at number 45-that’s full of medical students. They’re very polite and keep to themselves, and they can juggle, which is nice, although we do have to talk to them about their music sometimes, not so much the volume as the lyrics, and everyone else is an English professional or foreign, which is always so much harder to gauge, I find. There are mixed blessings at number 4, Omar and Fatima; she’s terribly sweet, he’s-well, taciturn is too kind a word. The Ethiopians at 37 seem pleasant enough but never talk to anyone; the women wear headscarves and produce unusual cooking smells in the summer. The Aysons are at number 39, but they don’t talk to their neighbours, Jake and Aaron, because they’re devout Christians and don’t approve of the boys’ lifestyle. Kallie and Paul are our new arrivals, then there’s Heather Allen, over there in the Chanel suit, but we don’t see much of George, her husband, because he’s often away on business. Apparently she cries a lot when he’s abroad-Lauren can hear her through the grate in the party wall-they’re very much in love, but heaven knows what he gets up to in Ottawa or wherever it is. She used to be in PR but got fired for taking a backhander, thinks nobody knows.’

‘Was anyone friendly with Ruth Singh?’ asked Bryant.

‘Nobody saw anything of her because she never went out. I suppose we’re all a little to blame.’ Mrs Wilton adjusted her frills and looked suddenly tired. ‘I do want everyone to mix,’ she confided, ‘but Jake and Elliot have been huddled in the corner discussing something for the last twenty minutes, which is odd because they normally can’t stand each other. Jake won’t speak to Mark Garrett because the estate agent apparently made some derogatory remarks about gay people to his girlfriend, who promptly told Aaron, because they go to the same gym. Omar sold us our kitchen, but the drawers stick and Oliver can’t bring himself to complain because they’re friends. My husband doesn’t like to make a fuss. Mark Garrett bought Omar’s family store, and promised he’d be careful who he sold it to, but he allowed a betting shop to take over the lease. We already have four bookmakers and two saunas in the high street and there’s still no patisserie, so I had to invest in a bread-maker. It’s all so difficult. I need a drink.’

Brewer wandered in clutching a Gameboy, the headphones still in his ears. Oliver attempted to remove the device as guests made soothing sounds around them.

‘Fat, ginger and private school,’ said Garrett behind his back, ‘poor little bugger.’

‘You must be Kallie and Paul,’ Tamsin smiled. ‘That’s Brewer, and he says he’s very pleased to meet you.’

Let the kid speak for himself, thought Paul. He’s ten today.

‘I hope you’re settling into our little street. Oliver tells me you have your work cut out, getting the house back in order.’

‘He’s right,’ Kallie agreed. ‘We just don’t have the finances to do it for a while.’

Tamsin tried not to flinch at the mention of impecuniosity. ‘Ah well, these things take time,’ she offered vaguely in retreat. ‘Do try the brioches, they’re Oliver’s favourite. We had to go miles to get them.’

‘How quickly they all appear when there’s drink on the table,’ said Benjamin Singh. ‘Incredible, isn’t it, Arthur? There was no one around when my sister needed help. Ruth rarely saw her next-door neighbours, that’s why she didn’t talk to them. The Allen woman was overbearing, the Egyptian lady was all but invisible. People in this country complain about how wrong it is for a caste system still to exist in India, but they should look at their own behaviour.’

Bryant regarded the assembly, squashed into the lounge pretending to enjoy themselves, with a misanthropic eye. How little they have in common, he thought, except the desire for upward mobility, an eagerness to turn their little corner of the city into some kind of urban village. They’re waiting for delicatessens and designer opticians, praying for the local tyre factory to be turned into lofts. Then they’ll know the corner has been turned, and won’t be ashamed of their postal address any more. Fifty years ago the streets were filled with smog and working men wasted away from chest diseases. People dismiss their good fortune and instead become more restless than ever. .

The rivers of conversation ebbing back and forth across the room were filled with dark undercurrents, the swirl of old rivalries, the scent of bad feelings. Benjamin was right; none of the conversation seemed to involve Ruth Singh. It was as if she had never existed.

Perhaps you’ve made too much of the matter, Bryant told himself. This is the last time you’re going to see Ben. He’s leaving it all behind. It’s time you did as well.