The Water Room

30. LETHAL WATERS

Bryant had not walked the length of Hatton Garden in many years. He was pleasantly surprised to find the area still sheltered from the rain by broad-leafed lime trees, resistant hybrids that could withstand destruction by aphids and exhaust fumes. It felt like a street upon which you could loiter and have an interesting conversation. Sheltered by shop canopies, the jewellers, gold and diamond merchants stood proprietorially in their doorways, calling to each other across the street. The windows were filled with loops of gold, spotlit treasure chests of gleaming bullion.

Checking the note in his hand, Bryant searched for street numbers, hoping that Maggie had given him the right address. A scuffed brass plaque on a recessed door read: The London River Society.

‘Seven to the north, seven to the south,’ said a small, attractive Chinese girl, stepping ahead of him to fit her key into the lock and push back the front door. He hadn’t heard her approach.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Rivers. Isn’t that what you want to know? It’s what people always want to know, how many major lost rivers there are in London. Don’t ask me why, but that’s their first question. The easy answer is fourteen-the truth’s more complicated. Isn’t it always? I’m Rachel Ling. Mrs Huxley told me to expect you, Mr Bryant. Would you like to come in?’ She flicked the lights on as she walked through. ‘Sorry it’s so cold, the central heating hasn’t come on yet.’

Bryant hadn’t expected to find himself inside a Chinese restaurant. He was surrounded by red silk lanterns, curling dragons stamped from gold plastic, tall-backed ebony chairs set at circular tables.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ warned Rachel. ‘Everyone says the same thing. But we have to find a way to pay the bills. It would be better to have a Jewish restaurant in this area, but my mother’s better with noodles than matzoh balls, so it’s Jewish-Chinese. We do a very good kosher pressed duck. Please, take a seat.’ She sat at one of the large circular tables, interlocking her hands to reveal red lacquered nails that complimented the décor. ‘Any friend of Dorothy Huxley is a friend of the society. What do you want to know?’

‘I’m intrigued,’ Bryant admitted. ‘What do you do here?’

‘We provide study aids and run an educational website about geography, religion and mythology. We’re all former teachers who opted out of the traditional education system. We recommend Dorothy’s library as a valuable reference resource. Allow me to show you.’ She rose and crossed over to a pair of tall lacquered doors, which she rolled back, revealing a large windowless room filled with computers.

‘Very impressive.’

‘Hardly,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s all obsolete equipment. City firms donate their outmoded computers because they have no resale value. Still, they’re fine for our purposes.’ She ran her fingers across a keyboard and illuminated the homepage of the society’s website, printed over an aerial photograph of the Thames.

‘Dorothy said you’re researching a theory that five of London’s lost rivers correspond to the five mythical Roman rivers,’ said Bryant.

‘Did she?’ Rachel smiled. ‘Well, we try not to theorize on our postings. We do, after all, receive grant support from the Ministry of Education, even though it’s a minuscule amount, and to meet the funding conditions we’re required to be impartial. But there would be no interest without a certain amount of speculation.’

‘I like your bracelet.’ Bryant pointed to the Osiris panel hanging from Rachel’s wrist.

‘Thank you. It’s a copy of a Victorian design often worn by mud larks. The regeneration symbol is meant to prove lucky when you’re searching the river shores.’

‘Is it, indeed? That’s useful to know.’ So Ubeda is superstitious. What else does he believe? Bryant wondered.

‘How can I help you?’

‘Do you get people looking for particular tributaries?’

‘Not really. Very few stretches are accessible, and actually it’s illegal to do so now under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, because the tunnels pass beneath sensitive property, so you’d be trespassing. Also, there’s the risk of disease.’

‘I’m particularly interested in the Fleet.’

‘Everyone is,’ smiled Rachel. ‘It’s the granddaddy of underground rivers. Once it was crystal clear, but eventually it came to be associated with death, regularly filling with the corpses of animals and babies, not to mention the odd drunk. It’s a poet’s river; Pope used it as a location for The Dunciad.’ A light shone in her eyes as she recited the lines from memory: ‘ “To where Fleet-Ditch with disemboguing streams/ Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames”. And Swift wrote: “Filths of all hues and odours seem to tell/ What street they sail’d from by their sight and smell”. Not the most attractive image of London Town, is it?’

‘Interesting enough to write about,’ said Bryant. Or be murdered above, he thought.

‘It was certainly that. One pub backing on to the Fleet, the Red Lion, was the hide-out of Dick Turpin. Another, the Rose Tavern, was frequented by Falstaff. The river was in a ravine crossed with bridges, none more beautiful or extravagantly Venetian than Wren’s Fleet Bridge, situated at its mouth.’

‘Can you think of any mythical connections?’ asked Bryant.

Rachel gave the idea her attention, moving from screen to screen. ‘I suppose of all London’s lost rivers, the Fleet is most associated with evil. Prostitutes and cut-throats populated its length. Anyone who fell into the filth usually suffocated. In 1862 so much gas collected that the hot weather actually caused the river to blow up. It blasted a hole in the road and knocked down a couple of houses. So I suppose if we were matching them up with the Roman rivers of the Underworld, the Fleet should really correspond to Phlegethon, the river of fire-but perhaps it would be better associated with the Styx. Acheron, the river of woe, would fit the Tyburn, which led to a place of death, the gallows of Tyburn Tree. Victorian passengers could float under Buckingham Palace on the Tyburn. They sang “God Save the Queen” as they passed beneath.’

Bryant wondered if he had perhaps made a mistake assuming that Jackson Ubeda was pursuing the rivers’ mythical connections. One last thought struck him. ‘Were any of the lost rivers particularly associated with the Romans?’

‘That would have to be the Walbrook. It was the first river to become lost. It ran through the old centre of London, from Old Street and Moorfields to Cannon Street. We know that the Romans used it to sail to a Temple of Mithras, and regarded it as a sacred river. The trouble is, no one really knows where the Walbrook was, because the entire area was wet and marshy, and the riverbanks were poorly defined.’

‘What kind of people hit your website?’ asked Bryant, not daring to touch any of the keyboards.

‘Students, mostly-but anyone with an interest in London history. A few nutters hoping to find treasure trove.’

Bryant’s ears pricked up. ‘What would they be looking for?’

‘Oh, the usual-Roman coins, chains, pottery. To be fair, quite a bit is still uncovered by amateurs from time to time, mostly builders working on the sites of new office blocks. There was a big discovery just a few months ago.’

‘Do you have any details?’

Rachel typed in a reference and hit Return. A viciously bright news-site unfurled on the screen before her. ‘Here you go. Roman chain recovered from a building site near Monument with a large number of its links intact-a very unusual find.’

‘Why so?’

‘Not many contractors can dig far down in the city because it’s a maze of tunnels, pipes and cables. Many new buildings are constructed on steel stilts to avoid the problem of digging out deep foundations. This site was lucky in that they found artefacts rather than ancient architecture.’

‘Why is that lucky?’

‘If you find building remains, you’ve got trouble on your hands, because construction keeps to a schedule, and usually you’re granted a matter of days to log your discovery before it gets filled in again.’

‘That’s barbaric.’

‘But where do you stop? In this city, the more you dig, the more you find.’ She let Bryant read the article. ‘The Victorians were keen on loading the lost rivers with mythological Roman connections. Some earl formed a society to navigate a path through the remains of the Fleet, looking for the Vessel of All Counted Sorrows.’

‘What was that?’

‘It was an Egyptian vessel supposedly constructed to contain all the woes, pains and miseries of the human race. The idea exists in virtually every religion and pagan creed, but takes on particular relevance in Roman mythology because most rivers of the Underworld burned through anything that was placed in them, and this vessel was therefore the only object that could survive such lethal waters. A sort of Pandora’s box that protected London as long as it remained underneath the city.’

‘Do you think it could have been an actual object? Perhaps a piece of pottery, something like that?’

‘Exactly so, Mr Bryant. I imagine it would have been a sealed clay dish of some kind, symbolically filled, and carved accordingly.’

‘What would they have done with it?’

‘What they always did.’ Rachel smiled. ‘Human sacrifice-probably a child, an innocent; casting of gifts on the waters, including the main offering, followed by a long boring ceremony, everyone goes home afterwards and gets drunk.’

‘Interesting. Tell me, have you come across a man called Jackson Ubeda?’ Bryant dug out the photograph May had given him.

‘How funny-that’s the guy who came to see us. Said he was related to the earl who founded the society. We let him work out some hypothetical routes on the computer simulation. I think he’s still registered with us.’ She tapped at the keyboard and ran a match through the site’s database. ‘Yes, he’s a subscriber.’

‘Are there any groups or individuals who make it their business to go down into the rivers?’

‘Only the Thames Water sewer gangs, but they’re checking for leaks and blockages, not historical artefacts. The rivers and the sewers are now interconnected, so it’s unsafe to venture in without supervision because of flash floods. Plus there’s a series of locked safety grilles that prevent access from one part to another, and many channels are dead ends.’

‘Suppose I wanted to get inside one of these tunnels and investigate for myself. What would I do?’

‘Find yourself an expert, pay him a lot of money and hope the law doesn’t catch you,’ said Rachel.

Funny, thought Bryant. That’s exactly how Gareth Greenwood was employed.