Time to Die

8

There are some two thousand miles of canals in Britain, about two hundred miles or so of which — such as the Grand Union Canal, the Hertford Union Canal and the River Lea Navigation — loop and meander, or strike purposefully, through London. One of the oldest of the capital’s waterways is the Regent’s Canal, which runs through the heart of London like a secret artery from Islington to Little Venice, built about two centuries ago. The uses of the canals have changed from transport to leisure but they’ve survived more or less intact.

It was a man called Ron James who found the body. There was an inset day for teacher training at his grandson’s school, and his daughter and her husband were both at work. He had taken the seven-year-old to fish on the Regent’s Canal down near Maida Vale. The towpath gets quite busy and Ron and the boy had arrived early to stake out a place. There were some nice roach and perch in the water down there, maybe a carp if they were really lucky. His grandson enjoyed fishing and Ron was pleased to have this bond with him. He particularly liked showing him how to tie the knots and bait the hooks. The boy was good at knots and was always fascinated by the maggots writhing in their small, polythene tub.

Most of the people on the canal bank at that hour of the day were runners and joggers, with the occasional dog walker, paying no attention to the canal’s waters. There were few fishermen around.

‘Can I put the maggot on, Granddad?’ asked the boy.

‘’Course you can, son. I’ll just get this on for you.’ Ron slid the fine nylon line through the eye of the float and let Jared, his grandson, carefully bait the small hook with one of the maggots. He cast the line into the water for the boy and then he noticed the small bundle floating down by some rushes that grew near the lock gates and had escaped the last canal clean-up in the previous year.

‘Jared,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, Granddad?’

‘Do you see that man sitting back there, the one with the really long rod?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you go and ask him if he’s had any luck so far today? See if the fish are biting.’

‘Sure, Granddad.’ The small, self-confident boy walked happily back the way they’d come.

Ron had never seen a dead body before outside of a hospital, but he realized immediately what he was looking at. It was far too realistic to be a toy. He had hoped it might be a large doll but he knew, almost instinctively, it wasn’t the case. This year there had been a lot of algal bloom on the canal, but here by the lock it was comparatively clear. The child’s hair floated gently around the back of his head in the dark, still waters. He wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been scanning the surface of the water for possible obstructions to his line.

He waited for Jared to move a little distance down the towpath to ask the fisherman how he was doing so the child wouldn’t overhear his conversation, then he took his phone out. Ten minutes later the first couple of police arrived.

Baby Ali had been found.

The lock gate, a few metres away from where the body was snagged on the reeds, had been recently repainted black. White numerals denoting its number on the canal were stencilled on to the top lintel of one of the two powerfully thick mitre gates that controlled the flow of water in the lock. Ron noticed — the numbers didn’t signify anything to him — that it was Gate 18.