The Water Room Page 4

  The Peculiar Crimes Unit at Mornington Crescent was open for business once more.

  4

  * * *

  OPENING DOORS

  By Tuesday morning, the irradiation of the long dry summer had already faded to a memory as the temperature tumbled and a translucent caul of rain returned the city to silvered shadows. Cracked earth softened between paving stones. Pale London dust was rinsed from leaves and car roofs. Back gardens lost their parched grey aridity, returning to rich moist greens and browns. The air humidified as wood stretched and mortar relaxed, the city’s houses pleasurably settling into their natural damp state. Rain seeped through split tarmac, down into uneven beds of London clay, through gravel and pebbles and Thanet sand, through an immense depth of chalk, to the flinted core and layers of fossils that crusted the depression formed by the city’s six great hills.

  London’s workforce barely registered this mantic transformation. It certainly didn’t take long for DC Bimsley and DS Longbright to cover the ten houses in Balaklava Street and the properties backing on to Mrs Singh’s house. Longbright came along because her flatpacked desk was still being assembled—too few dowelling pieces had been provided. While her colleagues bickered amiably, she armed herself with May’s newly programmed electronic interview-pad and headed for the street. She still liked footwork because meeting the public kept her connected, and it did her good to get out. The rain was scouring the acidic urban air, making it fresh once more.

  She had worked with the bull-necked Bimsley before, and enjoyed his company. He was an extremely able officer, but also one of the clumsiest, lacking coordination and spatial awareness while retaining the grace of a falling tree. It had seemed an endearing trait the first few times they had met. His baseball cap usually covered a bruise.

  It occurred to Longbright that everyone who ended up working with Bryant and May had some kind of physical or mental flaw that prevented them from functioning normally with fellow officers. Oswald Finch, for example, had been the unit’s pathologist since its foundation. He was a man not given to delegation. He trusted his instincts, was rational and cautious and prone to calm understatement, but everybody hated dealing with him except Bryant, because he looked like a Victorian mourner and reeked of cheap aftershave, which he used to cover up the cloying smell of death.

  ‘That last woman, Colin, was it really necessary to listen to her talking about shopping trips?’ asked Longbright, who had never known the pleasure of spending because she was always broke. Most of the clothes she owned had been bought at thrift shops and dated back to the 1960s, lending her the air of a disreputable Rank starlet. She was smart and tough, and scared men with a kind of carnality that she had never learned to turn off.

  ‘You have to listen to them, Sarge. Mr Bryant taught me that. You get more out of them after they think you’ve stopped taking notes.’

  ‘All right, but I’ll do this one, speed things up a bit.’ She ticked off the ninth house and climbed the steps to the next on the list. May’s notepad translated her handwriting to text and emailed it to his terminal for appraisal.

  ‘I like this street, sort of cosy and old-fashioned,’ said Bimsley, tipping rain from the collar of his jacket. ‘Like my grandma’s old house in Deptford before they pulled it down. Council said it was a slum just ’cause it had an outside lav, but she was happier there. Odd the way the numbers are laid out, though. Thirties and forties on one side, three to seven on the other.’

  ‘One side probably continued the numbers in the street joining it. The other side was built at a later date and had to start over. You see it all the time.’ Longbright rang the doorbell of number 43. ‘How many are we missing?’

  ‘Only three not at home so far, that’s pretty good.’

  ‘They’re starter-plus-ones, that’s why.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your first purchased home is probably a flat, right? These are the houses you buy after selling your first place—something with a garden to remind you of childhood, but the rooms are small, best for a couple with one young child, husband’s on the career ladder so the mum’s usually at home. Next stop after this is something bigger, a bit further out, where your family can grow.’

  ‘You don’t think the wife’s out working as well?’ Bimsley asked.

  ‘Depends. The area’s Irish Catholic, they’re not much given to childminders.’

  ‘I don’t know where you get your facts from, Janice.’

  ‘Knowing the terrain. Call yourself a detective.’

  The door opened, and an orderly blond woman in her late twenties smiled coldly at them. She wiped her hands dry on faded jeans, waiting for an explanation. In the background a loud television cartoon was keeping a child amused.

  Longbright pointed to the plastic-laminated ID card on her jacket. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. We’re checking the street to see if anybody knew the elderly lady who died at number 5, Mrs Ruth Singh.’

  ‘I didn’t know she’d passed away.’

  ‘Perhaps I can take your name, for elimination purposes?’

  ‘Mrs Wilton—Tamsin. My husband is Oliver Wilton. When did she die?’

  ‘Sunday evening. Were you at home?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t hear or see anything.’

  Longbright made a dismissive mental note. This was the type of woman who recognized her neighbours but never spoke to them. An implicit class barrier, faint but quite implacable, would prevent her from getting involved.

  ‘No unusual vehicles in the street, no one hanging around outside the house between the hours of eight and ten?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Perhaps you could ask your husband.’

  ‘I don’t see that he would be able to—’

  Longbright checked her pad. ‘He was doing something to his car last night, wasn’t he?’

  Mrs Wilton looked affronted. ‘Actually, it’s my car. And he was just cleaning off some leaves and emptying the boot.’

  ‘Is he at home today?’

  ‘No, it’s a workday, he’s at his office.’ Mrs Wilton stared at Longbright as though amazed by her stupidity. If the look was intended to intimidate, it didn’t wash. Like so many of the old movie stars she admired, the detective sergeant’s glamorous aura was constructed over the epidermis of a rhinoceros. She handed over the unit’s contact card. ‘You can freephone me at this number, or email us if either of you think of anything.’

  ‘Did Mr Bryant do door-to-doors when he was younger?’ asked Bimsley as they walked away.

  ‘He still does occasionally, although he’s supposed to use his cane for distances. John bought him a beautiful silver-topped stick from James Smith & Sons in New Oxford Street, and he’s finally been forced to use it. He’s very good at doorstep interviews because he has so much local knowledge. Although of course he’s appallingly rude to people, but witnesses put up with it because he’s elderly. He doesn’t mean to be so vile, it just comes out that way. Politeness used to be one of law enforcement’s greatest tools. We just outsmiled the opposition. Now it’s liable to get you shot at. Let’s do the other next-door neighbour.’

  They had called at number 4 and introduced themselves to a shy Egyptian woman, Fatima Karneshi, who lived with her husband Omar, a railway guard currently posted at Archway Tube station. It seemed that Fatima had brought the traditions of her country to England; her reluctance to leave the house during the day prevented her from bumping into her neighbour, and chores kept her from socializing. She had seen Mrs Singh once or twice in the garden, but they had not spoken. Longbright had wondered if her husband was the kind of man who liked his women subservient. She readily acknowledged the importance of domesticity in the hierarchy of Egyptian marriage, but dealing with so many different cultures made her job more demanding.

  The door on the other side, number 6, was opened by a woman in a lime-green face-pack and towel-turban. ‘I’m sorry, this is absolutely the only thing that helps a hangover,’ the woman e
xplained in a muscular, penetrating voice. ‘You’re the police, aren’t you? You’ve been going door to door and you don’t look like Jehovah’s Witnesses. If you come in, are you going to get water everywhere? I’m waiting for a little man to come and revarnish the hall floor, and it does stain. I’m Heather Allen.’ She offered her hand and withdrew it, blowing on her nails as she beckoned them in. ‘Your polish is a wonderful colour, I don’t think I’ve seen that shade before.’

  ‘They stopped making it in the 1950s,’ Longbright admitted, hiding her hands. ‘I have to get it mixed at a theatrical suppliers.’ No one had ever noticed before.

  ‘How unusual. Can I get you anything? Presumably you don’t drink alcohol on duty, and this lad doesn’t look as if he’s old enough.’ Now it was Bimsley’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘I didn’t really know the old lady—it is the old lady you’re asking about? But I did run a few errands for her. She couldn’t get out. Her brother had bought her one of those little motorized cart-things, but she wouldn’t use it. I can’t imagine why, they only do about eight miles an hour.’ The tinge of hysteria in her prattle bothered Longbright, who made another mental note: this one spends too much time alone, and needs to impress upon others that everything is fine.

  ‘When did you last run an errand for her?’

  Heather Allen tucked a glazed lock of auburn hair beneath the towel as she thought. ‘Before the weekend, it must have been Friday, she told me she needed some bread.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mrs Allen looked alarmed.

  ‘How did she tell you? Did you call on her?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. It was a beautiful day, she was standing at the back door and we spoke.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything else? Other than asking you to get her some shopping?’

  ‘No, well—no, I mean. No. I’m sure she didn’t.’

  Longbright sensed something. ‘For example, she didn’t say she was worried about anything? Didn’t seem to have anything pressing on her mind?’

  ‘Well, that sort of depends.’ Mrs Allen appeared to have been manoeuvred to the lounge wall. Longbright stepped back, wary of her tendency to be aggressive.

  ‘On what?’ she asked.

  ‘I mean, there had been the letters. I presume you’ve been told about those.’

  ‘Perhaps you should tell me.’

  ‘It’s really none of my business.’ Mrs Allen’s voice rose as her sense of panic increased.

  ‘Anything you say will be treated with the utmost confidence,’ assured Bimsley.

  ‘It seemed so childish—not to her, obviously—some racist notes had been put through her letterbox. It’s not the sort of thing you expect any more.’

  ‘How do you know about it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I suppose she must have told me, or maybe one of the neighbours, but I can’t remember when. I never saw them.’

  ‘She didn’t know who’d sent them?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so. I mean, she didn’t know anyone.’

  ‘Perhaps you would inform us if any other details come to you.’ Longbright produced another business card, but knew that the unit was unlikely to receive a call. Some people had an instinctive distrust of the police that no amount of goodwill could alter. She enjoyed seeing in people’s homes, though. The décor in this one was far too cool and impersonal, especially for a woman who favoured leopardskin.

  ‘Come on, you,’ she told Bimsley as they headed out into the rain. ‘Let’s get back. Notes and impressions.’

  ‘I don’t do impressions. And I thought you took the notes.’

  ‘Mr Bryant wants to see what you can do.’

  ‘Nobody can read my writing,’ Bimsley protested, narrowly missing a tree.

  ‘James Joyce had the same problem. You’ll manage.’

  Arthur Bryant knew far too much about London.

  It had been his specialist subject since he was a small boy, because it represented a convergence of so many appealingly arcane topics. Over the years he had become a repository of useless information. He remembered what had happened in the Blind Beggar (Ronnie Kray shot Big George Cornell three times in the head) and where balding Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie had been left dead in his Ford Zephyr (St Marychurch Street, Rotherhithe), how a Marks & Spencer tycoon had survived being shot by Carlos the Jackal in Queen’s Grove (the bullet bounced off his teeth), and where you could get a decent treacle tart (the Orangery, Kensington Palace). He knew that Mahatma Gandhi had stayed in Bow, Karl Marx in Dean Street, Ford Madox Brown in Kentish Town, that Oswald Mosley had been attacked in Ridley Road before it became a market, that Notting Hill had once housed a racecourse, that the London Dolphinarium had existed in Oxford Street in the seventies, and that Tubby Isaacs’ seafood stall was still open for business in Aldgate. For some reason, he also recalled that John Steed’s mews flat in The Avengers was actually in Duchess Mews, W1. Not that any of this knowledge did him much good. Quite the reverse, really; the sheer weight of it wore him out.

  But Bryant wasn’t tired, even though it was nearly midnight. He sometimes took a short nap in the afternoon but hardly ever slept before two in the morning, and always rose at six. Sleeplessness had come with age; fear of dying without lasting achievement kept him awake.

  Longbright had printed out the Balaklava Street interviews from her Internet-gizmo and had thoughtfully left a hard copy on his desk, knowing that he would work into the night. In return, he had left a pink rose—her favourite, named after the fifties singer Alma Cogan—on her newly erected desk for the morning.

  He studied the names before him and rubbed at the bags beneath his eyes. Seven residents interviewed out of ten in the street, two more from the gardens beyond the house, a statement from the brother, no strangers or unusual occurrences seen on Sunday night, all a bit of a dead end. The old lady had no friends, and apparently no enemies beyond the writer of the racist notes only Mrs Allen seemed to have heard about. Finch had been over the body and found nothing except the skull contusion, too small to have caused any damage, and a throat full of dirty water, not from a clean London tap but some other murkier source, hopefully to be pinpointed when the sample had returned from analysis. What other source could there be? Something ingested against her will? Rainwater? It made no sense. He lit his pipe, almost feeling guilty that the No Smoking sign had been pointedly re-pinned above his desk, and tried to imagine what had happened.

  Suppose . . .

  Suppose Benjamin Singh had found his sister drowned in her bath? It happened to small children with depressing regularity, and the elderly could often behave like children. The bathroom was downstairs, along with the kitchen and dining room, below the road at the front, but level with the garden at the back. What if Benjamin had come down the stairs calling for her, had panicked upon seeing her body and pulled her out, dressing her and leaving her in her chair? Shock and grief caused strange behaviour. He might be too embarrassed to admit what he had done. But no, there would have been wrinkling in the skin. Suppose she had been upstairs, soaking her swollen feet, and had gone down to empty the foot-spa—she could have slipped, hitting her head on the stairs, and, in an admittedly awkward fall, drowned in the little bath. Her brother wouldn’t have wanted her to be seen like that. He could have taken the bath away and emptied it before tidying it up. Perhaps he hadn’t mentioned it because he knew he would be in trouble for moving the body.

  It was an unlikely explanation, and yet it vaguely made sense. Because, acting on May’s suggestion, Bimsley had found such a foot-spa downstairs, stowed in a cupboard. Finch had already suggested that the case wouldn’t go to jury, who were limited to three verdicts: accidental death, unlawful killing or an open verdict.

  He thought about calling May for advice but decided against it. You rely too heavily on John, he told himself. He’s younger than you, the man still has a life outside of the unit—you don’t. You’re getting too old to do the work, you’re just refusing to give it up. But re
tirement meant sitting at home as the world passed by his window, creeping to the high street and forcing conversations on uninterested teenaged shop-helpers, or—God forbid—listening to litanies of illness from his peers. He had no children, no family to speak of, no savings, nothing left except his job. The women he had loved were dead. Nathalie, the fiancée he had worshipped and lost, long gone. He admired the enthusiasm of the young, their energy and freedom, but the young rarely reciprocated with friendship. They exercised an unconscious ageism that had been placed upon them by the world’s all-conquering emphasis on youth. The elderly embarrassed them, bored them, failed to match the frenetic pace of their own lives. Elders weren’t respected in English-speaking countries, they were merely taking up room.

  Bryant had a feeling that the answer to discovering satisfaction in his late years was connected with doing good, perhaps teaching—but how could you teach instinct? Instinct told him that something terrible had befallen Mrs Singh, but there was no proof, and until he had that there was no case. This evening, a racial-harassment officer from Camden Council had checked in with Mr Singh. She wanted to know if his sister had really been sent anonymous letters, or if she had been subjected to any kind of racial abuse. Benjamin had called Bryant in a state of mortification. If such letters had existed, Ruth would have burned them out of shame. Camden Council should never have been told; didn’t he realize that some matters were private? They had lived their entire lives in England, this was their home, why on earth would anyone even think they were different?

  Bryant’s renowned insensitivity to the anguish of crime victims had created an enduring reputation for rudeness, but he could exercise restraint, even finesse, when required to do so. They had chatted for half an hour, two men of similar ages and opinions, and Bryant had closed by promising to take Benjamin to a lecture on Wiccan literature at the new British Library next week. What remained unspoken between them was any resolution concerning Ruth Singh’s inexplicable demise.