The Water Room

42. SECRET HISTORIES

‘Ah, you’re back. Chyndonax Druida,’ said Bryant excitedly. ‘It was carved on the door of William Stukeley’s house in Kentish Town.’ He waited for a response, but there came none. ‘Look, I know it’s demanding, but please make an effort to follow this. It’s really important.’

‘All right, then explain.’

‘It’s a reference to an urn inscribed in France that was believed to hold the ashes of the Arch Druid of that name, one of the grand masters of Stonehenge.’

‘How do you know these things?’ asked May in some exasperation.

‘I looked it up in this.’ Bryant raised a moulting paperback entitled The Mammoth Book of Druid Lore. ‘The Victorians believed that the urn itself had a greater purpose. Lord Carnarvon tried to buy it from the French, but of course they wouldn’t sell. There was an immense fascination with Egyptian artefacts at the time. As you know, Carnarvon financed Howard Carter, the discoverer of the tomb of the Boy Prince Tutankhamun, and subsequently died, some believed as part of the “curse”. His supporters thought that the vase was modelled over a much earlier container that had been smuggled out of Egypt.’

‘Don’t tell me, let me guess,’ groaned May. ‘They thought it was the original vessel containing all the counted sorrows of mankind.’

‘Exactly, well done. So you see, it does exist, and now we have proof that the urn is linked to Kentish Town. Ask me what happened to it.’

‘I’ll bite, although I’m sure I’ll regret it. What happened?’

‘It was stolen from the Louvre two years after the unsuccessful purchase bid,’ said Bryant with an air of satisfaction. ‘The French government suspected one of Carnarvon’s pals of taking revenge for his death, but they had no proof. So it could conceivably have wound up in this vicinity, hence Ubeda’s need to enlist a local expert like Greenwood in his search.’

‘None of which helps us in the slightest when it comes to solving matters of murder.’ May felt old and tired. Bryant was starting to draw the lifeblood from him again, he could feel it.

‘You may say that, but I have a feeling that if we find the urn, we find our murderer.’

‘Why?’ May all but shouted. ‘Why must the two be connected? They were entirely separate investigations! We have no reason-no reason at all-to assume anything of the kind. Do you realize there’s not a single element of this investigation that’s built on empirical data? Do you have any idea how annoying you are?’

Bryant’s watery blue eyes widened with boyish surprise. ‘I don’t mean to be.’

‘I know you don’t, Arthur. I’m not sleeping well, that’s all. I should go home. Let’s face it, we’ve missed the deadline. We’ve failed.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘No offence, but your driving would really put me over the edge. I’ll get a bus.’

‘You might want to stay for a while,’ said Janice Longbright, entering the room without knocking. ‘There’s a lady here to see you, Arthur. A Mrs Quinten. She says she has the information you requested.’

‘Then show her in.’ Bryant made a half-hearted attempt to smooth down his unruly ring of white hair. ‘How am I?’

He turned to May for approval, like a schoolboy submitting to a neatness check. May shrugged. It was a long time since his partner had considered his appearance before the arrival of a woman. He smiled to himself. ‘You’ll pass.’

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing. Here’s your lady now.’

Jackie Quinten looked about her with obvious pleasure. ‘This is nothing like I imagined. Not like a police station at all,’ she beamed. ‘How lovely. It looks like somebody lives here.’

‘We do,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m thinking of opening up the fireplace.’

‘I miss real fires, don’t you? Worth the effort, I feel.’ She planted her ample rump in the chair beside Bryant’s. Nobody ever dared to do that; it was May’s chair. ‘There’s a lady in our street whose husband is a cartographic restorer attached to the British Library. I went round to borrow their belt sander, and while I was waiting for her to repack her collapsible attic ladder I thought about what you said, about the history of houses and the sort of people who lived in them, and I asked her if she’d ever heard local stories about strange events occurring in or around the flood years, specifically involving death or injury. She remembered a story about an eccentric old man who lived, she thought, in Balaklava Street. At that time the street was pretty rough-the police went around in pairs. The families of the men who had built the railways had prospered and outgrown their terraces, and as they moved out, poorer families moved in. Those families sublet their rooms, and the overcrowding and unemployment brought trouble-you know how it is.’

May reseated himself, beaming. It looked like Bryant had finally met a soulmate.

‘Anyway, some local kids got it into their heads that the old man was hiding a fortune somewhere, and beat him up trying to find its whereabouts. Unfortunately they kicked him unconscious and left him in the street while they searched his house, just at a time when the heavy rains were causing the roads to flood. The old man had fallen into a dip in the road where the cobbles had sunk, and as the water rose over the blocked drains, he drowned. The neighbourhood constables knew the identities of the boys-everyone did-but communities kept close then, and no one was ever brought to trial. Many of the houses in Camden, Somers Town and St Pancras have such odd histories attached to them. Most of the stories are forgotten now, of course.’

She opened her bicycle pannier and carefully unrolled a plastic-coated sheet of rough vellum, laying it before Bryant. ‘Janet’s husband has a detailed map of the area, made just before the War. He’ll kill me if he discovers she’s lent it out again, so I won’t be able to leave it with you, but we thought there was something on it you might like to see.’

As there was no more room behind the desk, May was forced to study the map upside-down, which vaguely displeased him.

‘As you’ll notice, it’s rather fanciful. I imagine it was designed as a wall-hanging, a gift to a neighbour, rather than an accurate ordnance of the area. This, in particular, is intriguing.’ She traced the ink-line of the streets with her forefinger, arriving at Balaklava Street. ‘Supposedly, the houses on the north side of the street had been constructed on the site of a much earlier dwelling, an old monastery that had collapsed when the Fleet had broken its banks; and even before the monastery, a similar fate had befallen an earlier house. This building belonged to a sect of Druids, and became known locally as the House Curs’d By All Water. Look, it’s marked here.’

Bryant examined the map. The scrolled calligraphy spread so widely across the street that there was no way of knowing which house now occupied the site.

‘Another property was known as The House of Conflagration, nobody remembers why. That’s marked too.’

Bryant fully expected to see the appellation scrawled across the site of the hostel, and was disappointed to find it written halfway along Balaklava Street. This time, the site could be more accurately discerned. He withdrew a magnifier from his top drawer and examined the markings. ‘Four from the left, three from the right. The buildings haven’t changed, have they?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Then I know this house.’

‘Which is it?’ asked May.

‘Number 43. The House of Conflagration belongs to Tamsin and Oliver Wilton. I think we should get Bimsley around there right now.’

‘Why?’

‘The fire at the hostel failed to take Tate’s life. We don’t have the arson tests back yet, but let’s suppose for a moment that Tate is behind the whole thing. He knew he was being watched, could have switched clothes and set the hostel alight, escaping in the confusion. But this wouldn’t have been part of his original plan.’

‘Then what’s his plan?’

‘The street is flooding again. When this has happened in the past, strange crimes have occurred. What if he’s taken it into his head to repeat the past? Suppose the House Curs’d By All Water is where Ruth Singh died. This House of Conflagration would have nothing to do with the hostel, but it could well place the Wiltons in danger. Tate may well have burned down one building. Suppose he’s about to do it again?’

‘I don’t understand why he would do such a thing. But you’re right, we can’t afford to take any chances.’ May called in Longbright and briefed her. ‘Make a reduced copy of this, would you?’ He handed her the map. ‘Then I want you to take Mangeshkar and Bimsley with you back to Balaklava Street.’

Bimsley arrived before the others. The rain was heavier than ever now. Water flooded across the cobbles in a swathe, frothing over the congested drains. The front walls of the houses were sodden from their roofs to their bedroom windows, soaking the shoulders of the terrace. Bimsley jumped the steps and hammered on the Wiltons’ door knocker, but no one stirred inside. He tipped back his baseball cap and looked up at the dim windows. ‘There’s no response,’ he told Longbright. ‘Can you try their mobiles?’

Bimsley closed his phone and stepped back. He looked about the street. Further down, someone was standing in the bushes on the waste ground, watching him. It was hard to see in the rain, but it looked like Tate. As they saw each other, the onlooker turned and limped off.

‘You’re not getting away this time,’ said Bimsley, breaking into a run.