The Water Room

34. THE CONDUIT

Bryant unloaded the books at the end of Tate’s bed. ‘I’m afraid they’re rather esoteric,’ he apologized, ‘but you may find them interesting.’

The itinerant turned over the first volume and studied the title suspiciously. A gruesome face on the cover of Dental Evidence in Body Identification. Volume One: Bridgework stared back at him. ‘Thank you,’ he said uncertainly.

There was an unbearably terminal aspect to Tate’s little room. When he had mentioned the stripped-back bareness of the workers’ houses in Balaklava Street, homes that had been built for the poor, he could have been describing this, his own eventual residence. His knotted hands turned the pages with surprising delicacy. On the sill above his bed stood a row of syrup tins containing stunted geraniums. An overpowering smell of stewed beef wafted in from the corridor.

‘I wondered if we might talk a little more,’ Bryant suggested.

‘You want to know something, don’t you? There’s been another one.’

‘You heard.’

‘Everyone talks in here. But I saw.’

‘What do you mean, you saw?’

‘What you told me off for doing.’

‘You mean watching?’ Bryant sat forward. ‘You were watching the house?’

‘In one of my positions. Traffic warden uses it. Runs out from his hidey-hole to arrest the cars.’

Bryant knew that rough sleepers developed territorial habits every bit as strong as those with homes. ‘Where is that?’

‘On the waste ground.’

‘What did you see, Mr Tate?’

‘Saw the bedroom light go out in number 41.’

‘Did you notice who went in?’

‘No. You can only see upstairs from there.’

‘What about Elliot Copeland? Did you see him on the night of the accident?’

‘Yes. The earth swallowed him up.’ Tate turned the pages, feigning disinterest in the conversation.

‘This is very important,’ urged Bryant. ‘Did you see anything at all that could identify the culprit?’ The moment he spoke, the delicate skein of communication between them was damaged. Tate’s eyes clouded as he closed the book. Bryant knew he had to try another approach.

‘I thought you might like that volume.’ He reached over and tapped the cover of a battered paperback entitled The Vanished Rivers of London. ‘Fascinating stuff about this area. It even has a picture of your temporary home in the alley. Of course, it wasn’t just an alley back then, when the book was written. It was called Streamside Path.’

Tate’s eyes flickered.

‘Page 201, if you’re interested.’ Bryant flicked through and allowed the book to fall open at the marked spot. He waited while Tate studied the picture.

‘I wonder how many other tunnels there are beneath the terraces around here,’ he mused. ‘Three or four, at least.’

‘Seven,’ murmured Tate without thinking. ‘All forgotten.’

‘Not by you. I presume their waters run into the Regent’s Canal.’

‘Some. Not all.’

‘Why not?’

No answer.

‘I just want to know what happened. I can see it’s painful to talk about these things. But there are other ways. Can’t you give me some guidance, put me on the right track? The river Fleet, I know it’s connected, but I don’t understand its significance.’

‘The river is where it all started. It has the power to change lives.’

‘You could show me.’

‘You’d tell.’

‘I couldn’t promise not to if I found evidence pertaining to the investigation,’ Bryant pointed out.

‘Then we won’t go.’

‘I can give you anonymity. No one will know it was you who took me. Your identity would remain a secret.’

Tate thought for a moment. ‘Can you get more books?’

‘Easily.’

‘Do you swear?’

‘On my honour as a gentleman.’

‘Haven’t heard anyone say that for a long time.’ Tate eased himself from the bed and pulled a hammer from underneath the mattress. ‘We’ll need this.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It was a long hot summer. No rain from June the sixth until three weeks ago. Dried out all the river beds.’

‘You mean they became passable? I thought the grilles stopped large objects, including people, from moving along the conduits.’

‘Most grilles are rusty. Some are gone. Some are locked.’ He pushed his hand into a syrup tin and pulled out a filthy set of long-stemmed keys.

‘You can move under the streets?’

‘I could. Now it’s raining again. The channels have filled back up, but there are still ways.’ He left the room with surprising speed, even though old injuries had twisted his body on damaged hinges. The pair of them headed out down the stairs and into the wet street like fugitives.

When they reached the wire fence of the alley at the end of Balaklava Street, Tate slipped through the gap and beckoned to Bryant. He stopped above the grating that Brewer Wilton had lowered himself into. ‘Give me a hand.’

Tate groped about in the bushes for his iron T-rod, and together they eased the steel lid off the drain. The water level had risen since Bryant had examined it, and a dull roar of water could be heard in the distance. ‘What’s that noise?’ he asked.

‘Gospel Oak sluice emptying into the Regent basin.’

‘But Gospel Oak is about half a mile away.’

‘Sound carries down there.’ Tate dropped to his knees in the mud and lowered the top half of his body into the hole. After a minute of searching, he emitted a grunt of satisfaction, withdrew the hammer and gave something in the hole a great whack. There followed a grinding metallic noise, and the rushing water seemed to ease off.

‘What have you done?’ asked Bryant.

‘Obvious. Can’t get down there if it’s full. I’m diverting the flow.’

‘You can do that?’

‘Smooth as a knife. Go down.’

Bryant looked dubiously into the shaft. The cement floor was visible a few inches beneath the water now, but the rungs to it looked slippery.

‘Want to show you something.’

‘I’m a bit dicey on my pins.’ Reluctantly, the elderly detective eased himself over the side of the drain, and began to climb down. They stood together on the draining concrete platform, heads ducked to avoid the low brick ceiling. The stench of rotting garbage and faeces settled into Bryant’s nostrils and clothes, but beneath it was another smell, something he had not expected: the damp bite of green Thames water. The temperature was lower than at ground level. His breath plumed before him as he clicked on May’s Valiant.

‘Look.’ Tate pointed through the olivine gloom at a pair of large oval holes on either side of the channel. The junction appeared deeper; water churned in a putrid eddy of cross-currents. ‘The Prince of Wales Causeway. Six gates to close off before you reach the basin. Can’t leave the gates shut more than a few minutes because of the pressure. Takes a logical mind to remember the sequence and survive.’

‘The Water Board must know how to do it.’

‘So do I.’

‘You want us to go down there?’

‘Not today, not with the forecast. Takes more than an hour, maybe two. Need waterproofs and a mask. Another day, if you want to know the reason.’

‘What reason?’ asked Bryant. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Reason for all this upset. The water is where it began.’

To Bryant, it seemed the most inhospitable place imaginable. He wondered how the tramp could have slept on the platform without being besieged by nightmares.

‘Come on, the rain’s getting harder. Tunnel fills up fast. Drains off the Heath, through clay and brick, thousands of gallons in seconds. Get swept away and no one will ever find you again.’

Tate started to climb back up. He pulled himself out of the drain with ease, extending his shattered hand to Bryant. The pair were bonded by a secret now.

Back in the alley, he produced a muddy piece of card from his jacket and held it up. ‘You need this.’

On it was printed a faded diagram designed like a Tube map, overlaid with the kind of Helvetica lettering popularized during the War. Instead of underground branch lines, it showed the paths of tributaries, each one variegated and named. Tate was holding the plan to a network of conduits. He tapped a calibrated thick line with his blackened forefinger. ‘The Fleet. Each dot is a lock. Each line is a sealed gate.’

Bryant dug out his reading glasses and took a squint. ‘According to this, you can’t get as far as the Regent’s Canal.’

‘No, but you can branch off, all the way up to the York Road Basin. It was fine during the summer, you could walk along it, armed with the right keys. Now you have to divert each of the cross-courses as you go. As you said, the Water Board knows. They got the equipment. But I got all the keys.’

‘You’ve done it?’

‘A few of us.’

Bryant squinted through the drizzle that softened Tate’s weathered face. ‘Who are you?’ he asked quietly. Tate’s lips thinned, but a moment later the smile had vanished.

‘I’m nobody,’ he whispered sadly.