'Giles is explaining the physical dynamics of accidental death,' Banbury explained, not at all clearly. 'My territory, really, but Giles got there first.'

'So this is your doing.'

'Mr Bryant gave me the idea. It's all right, I've got a job number for it.'

'Why am I not surprised?' Land asked the wall as he passed on. At least Bimsley seemed to be doing something useful, scanning reams of figures on his computer, but Meera Mangeshkar was lying on the floor. She scrambled to her feet as Land entered. 'Sorry, sir, spot of yoga-put my back out last night.'

'On your own time or in the course of duty?'

'Duty, sir. Apprehending a suspicious character.'

'You booked him?'

'No, sir. Vanished into thin air. Literally. Quite impossible, I know, almost as if he flew away, but there you are.'

They're all mad, thought Land. thought Land. This is Bryant's doing. He's tainted them with his lunacy. John's marginally more rational. I'll appeal to his common sense. This is Bryant's doing. He's tainted them with his lunacy. John's marginally more rational. I'll appeal to his common sense. He headed for the detectives' room. He headed for the detectives' room.

'We're running on the spot. Or in my case, walking very slowly.' Bryant threw his files down on the desk. 'Land wants me to fill in a unit activity report before lunchtime. If you have any bright ideas about how to take up so much blank space, I'd welcome them. God, it's hard to work with that racket going on outside. What's going on?'

May sauntered to the window and looked down into the street. 'There are a pair of drink-addled skinheads throwing beer cans at each other outside the Tube station,' he remarked off-handedly. 'There's a young woman with a baby, screaming at her boyfriend and slapping him around the head. A couple of men from the council are digging up the pavement with drills. The Water Board's gouging a hole in the middle of the road. Oh, and two van-drivers are having a shouting match at the lights. To which racket were you referring?'

'Why are the urban English so vocal nowadays?' Bryant wondered. 'Go to Paris, Madrid, Berlin, even Rome, you don't get this kind of behaviour. It's Hogarth's picture of Gin Lane all over again.'

'Arthur, you used to sound your age. Now you're sounding several centuries old.'

'What's wrong with that? One of the great pleasures that used to come with senior citizenship was the right to be perfectly vile to everyone. You could say whatever you liked, and people excused you out of respect for your advanced years. But now that everyone is in touch with their emotions and says exactly what they feel, even that pleasure has been taken away. Is there nothing the young haven't usurped?'

May had to listen to this sort of thing at least once a week. He still believed in the redemptive power of the nation's youth, despite his partner's diatribes against them. The contrary thing about Bryant was that, in his own way, he set great store by the capital's younger population. Some of the unit's most useful collaborators were under twenty.

The phone rang. Longbright was warning them of Land's impending visit. 'Raymond has heard that we're still using unit resources to check out your academic adversary,' cautioned Bryant. 'He wants to close up all investigations in which we have a personal interest so he can stick us with the embassy thing.'

'Is that the business I heard him mentioning to Janice?' asked May. 'Some fellow the new Dutch consul was seen chasing across Russell Square at two in the morning? It should be fairly obvious what that was about, even to the Home Office. Says he was after a thief. I suppose that's a tad more believable than the Welsh secretary reckoning Jamaican boys on Clapham Common were asking him out to dinner at midnight. Janice, would you come in here?'

The detective sergeant stuck her head around the door. 'I'm not dressing up again-the frock is going back and I've returned the jewellery. You can do your own undercover work from now on.'

'Are you sure you've told me everything?'

'Sorry, I forgot to mention that it was too tight under the arms.'

'Your sarcasm is unappreciated. What did you say to Raymond?'

'Nothing. He was asking about my time-sheets. I know he's suspicious about our continued surveillance of Ubeda. What are you going to do?'

May had been able to keep the case on their official records because the protection of Greenwood, as a government-think-tank adviser, could conceivably come under the jurisdiction of the unit. However, as the academic didn't appear to be in any danger, and wasn't bringing his colleagues into disrepute by pursuing what appeared to be some kind of esoteric hobby in his spare time, May had no justification for continuing to maintain surveillance.

'Look,' said Bryant, 'I've got Longbright's notes from her conversation with Ubeda, so why don't I follow it up in my spare time?'

May knew all about his partner's offers of help; they came with riders, like insurance contracts. 'What do you want in return?' he asked.

'Keep talking to the residents of Balaklava Street for me, would you? I don't trust them.'

'Which one in particular don't you trust?'

'Any of them. Somebody knows something they're not telling. Ask yourself some questions. Tate, the tramp, why was he watching the girl? I must admit I always found the image on the side of that treacle tin damned odd. After all, the stuff's made from sugar, not honey, so why are the bees there? No one's managed to interview the couple who live right next door to her, Omar and Fatima-I don't seem to have last names for them, and it's not good enough. The medical students, what do they know? That rather smug family, the Wiltons, they must have seen something. And I want photographs of everybody, preferably caught off guard. Even murderers smile when they know they're having their picture taken, and that's no good.'

'I'll do what I can-'

'Land's creeping around the building checking on everyone; it's not very conducive to crime detection. He can't play golf because it's raining, and the last thing he wants to do is go home to a houseful of moaning women, three ghastly daughters and his dreadful wife, so he mooches about making life miserable for everyone else. He's got the charm of a rectal probe, and no social skills to speak of, so nobody wants to go for a drink with him. Let's face it, dogs have more to look forward to in later life-at least they can go to the park and roll in shit.'

'Ah, Raymond, we were just talking about you,' said May hastily.

Land stood in the doorway, fuming. Bryant had decorated the area around his desk exactly as it had been before the fire. Statuettes of Gog and Magog, voodoo dolls, his beloved Tibetan skull, books with reeking singed covers rescued from the conflagration, some odoriferous plants that lay tangled in an earthenware pot-tannis root, probably, marijuana, certainly-an ancient Dansette record player scratching and popping its way through Mendelssohn's 'Elijah', papers and newspaper clippings everywhere, a half-eaten egg-and-beetroot sandwich dripping on to a stack of uncased computer disks.

'I thought we'd agreed to keep the new offices clean and spartan, moving toward a paper-free environment,' said Land weakly. There the senior detectives stood, side by side, working as a team against him, undermining his confidence with knowing looks. 'I thought that having been given all this nearly-new equipment, you'd give a thought to changing your methodology. Instead I find the place more like the set of Blue Peter Blue Peter than the offices of a specialist crime unit. Well, it's got to stop. HO is sending us a number of inactive cases it would like cleared up as soon as possible, so I want the decks completely clear by the end of the week.' than the offices of a specialist crime unit. Well, it's got to stop. HO is sending us a number of inactive cases it would like cleared up as soon as possible, so I want the decks completely clear by the end of the week.'

'Oh, come on, Raymondo,' smiled Bryant, knocking out his pipe on the side of the waste bin and blowing noisily through it. 'You know we'll sort the outstanding workload in our own time.'

Land's face reddened. 'I think your time's run out. I want you to pack up this business in Kentish Town, for a start. You're probably going to get a verdict of accidental death, you know. You've come up with no useful evidence whatsoever. The case wasn't even assigned to you.'

'Look here, Raymond, if there's going to be a fundamental sea-change in the way we work-the way we've always worked, I might add-' here he nodded conspiratorially at May-'I think you should give us some official guidelines and a bit more warning.'

'You've had about thirty years' warning, Arthur, don't come the old acid. I mean it-closed files and clean desks. Your new regime starts first thing on Monday.' He slammed the door hard as he exited, hoping to leave behind a positive impression.

'We finally get an office door and he tries to knock it off its hinges,' sighed Bryant, packing his pipe with a handful of dried leaves. 'From now on, we're going to have to hide our tracks more carefully.'

'Arthur, you have to explain why you're so convinced there's something going on in Balaklava Street.'

'That's not so easy.' Bryant dropped into his chair and recklessly lit the pipe. 'It's the kind of neighbourhood that looks utterly mundane, but there are undercurrents and subcultures in London that hardly anyone is aware of-people who live entirely outside the law. Who knows who you might meet? Mental patients from St Luke's walk the streets with demons dwelling behind their eyes. I suppose the whole thing interferes with my notions of home. Threaten that and you damage something very fundamental to your well-being. Kallie Owen had no real personal difficulties before she moved in, it's not in her character to attract trouble. She's inherited someone else's bad karma, buying a house from a murdered woman. We're seeing reactions to some buried situation known only to one or two people. This runs much deeper than we can imagine.'

'I hate it when you talk in riddles,' May complained.

'I only do it because I don't fully understand the meanings myself, but it's there in front of me, I know that. Just as I know there will be another attempt on a life. Whoever committed these crimes is more confident now, because we've failed to get close enough to be a threat. You've seen this kind of behaviour before, John, don't pretend you haven't.'

'Like it or not,' May warned, 'we need to repay Raymond's faith in us. We have to start afresh, Arthur, and if we can't do it, then it's time to go. I don't need to spell out what will happen if either of us are forced into retirement.'

Bryant wasn't used to being lectured. He regarded May sceptically through the cloud of illicit smoke that had transformed the office into a Limehouse opium den. 'I suppose you're right. Raymond has been a thorn in my side longer than I can remember, but he's always fought for us. Perhaps we do need to change our approach. If we'd had more staff, I'd have searched the entire area door to door. As for your pal Greenwood, we should have pulled him in and put the fear of God up him, and that would have been the end of that.'

'Then let's have one last try. You find out what Greenwood's up to. I'll talk to the residents of Balaklava Street. And we must keep looking for Tate. Somebody has to know something.' He caught a look of pain crossing Bryant's face. 'What is it?'

'My greatest fear is that we've found something rare-a killer hidden in plain sight.'

'It's the kind of case you would once have dreamed of, Arthur.'

'Not any more,' he told May. 'Death stands too close to me.' Bryant felt a chill in his bones that no amount of warmth could dispel. The time was coming when he would no longer understand the way of the world, and then he would cease to have a purpose. Murders were tests, and solving them was the only way of staying alive. Explaining the murders in Balaklava Street would provide more than a stay of execution; it would extend their life spans, and give them a reason to continue. Although he was tired, Bryant set to work once more.

26

NAVIGATION

There was no other library like it in London.

In place of the usual plaques reading 'Romantic Fiction', 'Self-Help' and 'DIY' were signs for Eleusinian and Orphic Studies, Rosicrucianism and Egyptian Morphology. While the books gathered under its roof were far too esoteric for general public consumption, the collection was too incomplete for scholastic study.

Most of its contents were a bequest from Jebediah Huxley, the great-grandfather of Dorothy Huxley, the library's present and doubtless final custodian. Under the conditions of the bequest, the collection could only be dispersed and the building sold with the approval of the last surviving family member. Dorothy had no living dependants, and was in her eighties. Greenwich Council was itching to get its hands on the small redbrick Edwardian block, tucked in permanent dank shadow beneath the concrete corner of a flyover in the south-eastern corner of the borough. Here, swirling litter and glaring skateboarders warded off all but the hardiest visitors. Rainwater sluiced from the flyover on to the roof of the building, dripping through brickwork, rotting floorboards and spreading mildew into the damp-fattened books with wet fingers of decay.

Dorothy ran the library with her assistant, Frank, who was antisocial and unreliable, but who could afford to work for love of the printed word without being paid, because he had been left some money by an aunt. This was how unfashionable literature had been reduced to surviving: in crumbling repositories, guarded by the very last generation of book-lovers.

'The five rivers of the Underworld,' Bryant read aloud, 'separated the land of the undead from the realm of mortals. Their presence made sure no one could enter or leave unharmed. There should be a picture here.' He fingered the severed edge of paper.

'We've had a problem with thieves cutting out the hand-coloured plates,' Dorothy explained. 'They frame and sell them in antiquarian bookshops. We have no way of making the building secure.'

'I'll try and get you an alarm.' Bryant turned the damaged pages. 'We're talking about Roman mythology, obviously. My contact appears to be interested in Egyptian gods, and yet he mentioned the five rivers.'

'Nothing is clear-cut in pagan mythologies, Arthur. You know that. Rivers are central to ancient-Egyptian worship because of the importance of the Nile, which continues to bring life and prosperity to the barren central plains of the country.'

'Yes, but no one would blur together two entirely separate mythologies, surely.'

'Certainly no one from either of those civilizations ever did,' Dorothy agreed. 'But then, of course, you had the Victorians.'

'Why, what did they do?'

'Having plundered, borrowed and stolen whatever pleased them, they drew on the parts of ancient mythologies that found most correspondence to their own beliefs. They rewrote entire histories, bowdlerizing, adapting, censoring. They weren't the first, but they were the most confident. It wasn't unusual to find statues of Ra and Thoth beside Diana and Venus in the well-to-do Victorian household. You were less likely to find Christian figurines, for that was the presiding active religion. All other beliefs and creation myths were treated largely as naive fairy tales, and their icons had use as decoration. Collectors weren't averse to pairing up different creation gods.'

Bryant came to the page he was seeking. 'So we have five nether-rivers: Cocytus, the river of lamentation; Acheron, the river of woe; Phlegethon, the river of conflagration; Lethe, the river of forgetfulness; Styx, the river of hatred and fatality and unbreakable oaths.'

'That's right. The Styx was an offshoot of Tethys and Oceanus, and flowed nine times around Hades. Like the Lethe, its water could not be stored in any flask or jar that tried to contain it. The Styx corroded all materials, even flesh. Only horses' hooves could survive in its waters.'

'Didn't Thetis dip her son Achilles into the Styx to make him invulnerable? Obviously didn't burn his flesh, then.'

'Mythology is filled with paradox,' Dorothy explained. 'Which river are you particularly interested in?'

'I'm not exactly sure. I suppose the Styx is the most important one.'

'It's certainly the most written about. But the Lethe is essential because of the belief in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. Those passing across had to drink from the Lethe to forget their former lives.'

'Cocytus and Acheron sound one and the same.'

'Actually they're not, although both are associated with wailing and misery. Acheron is the river over which Charon ferried the dead to Hades, not the Styx. Corpses not properly buried were doomed to walk the banks of the Cocytus for eternity.'

'I sense myself being drawn into the backwaters, Dorothy. John has warned me about it many times. I have to stick to the central problem of my investigation.'

'Which is?'

'I wonder, is there any modern correspondence of the rivers to something in this city?'

'Victorians were fond of finding explanations for everything. I believe they resurrected the idea that the five rivers of the Underworld matched the five main forgotten rivers of London.'

'They weren't the first to propose the concept, then.'

'Of course not. The Romans made the same suggestion during their occupation of London.'

'Do you have any books on the subject other than this one?'

'Sadly, no,' Dorothy admitted, 'but I know some people who may be able to help you. A group dedicated to rediscovering the lost rivers of the Underworld. I can give you a contact number, but I warn you, they're rather peculiar.'

'Sounds right up my street,' said Bryant with a sly grin.

27

THE MOVEMENT OF WATER

'Darned shame about the weather,' said Oliver Wilton earnestly. 'You've missed seeing the Camden Canal Junior Canoe Club in action.'

John May waited beneath a willow tree while Oliver and his wife buttoned up their yellow plastic cagoules. A pair of tramps were arguing over a can of Special Brew on the bench behind them. Another was eating Spam out of a tin with his fingers. The canal water was studded with chunks of polystyrene, the linings from boxes of stolen stereo units. Even the birds in the trees looked as if they had cancer.

'Your neighbour, Jake Avery, said I'd find you here or at the Christian Fellowship Hall.'

'We like to do our bit at the weekends,' Oliver told him, padlocking the club shelter. 'The local kids haven't really learned how to interact socially with one another, and we find that activities like canoeing, away from the council-estate environment, encourage teamwork.' He looked as if he believed what he was saying.

'Does Brewer enjoy canoeing?' asked May, smiling at the morose child sitting on his ankles at the water's edge.

'God, we wouldn't let him him do it, the water's filthy,' Tamsin replied. 'You can get Weil's disease from rat urine.' She grabbed the child's hand protectively. May could see that one day very soon, Brewer would not allow his hand to be taken up so quickly. 'He's saying, "I want to go home, Daddy, I'm tired," aren't you, pet? We usually go to the house in Norfolk at the weekends, but Oliver likes to put something back into the community.' The effort to smile nearly killed her. 'I wanted Brewer to grow up in the countryside, but Oliver insisted we stay in town until it's time to go to big school.' She lowered her voice. 'A nurse was raped on this towpath last month. A do it, the water's filthy,' Tamsin replied. 'You can get Weil's disease from rat urine.' She grabbed the child's hand protectively. May could see that one day very soon, Brewer would not allow his hand to be taken up so quickly. 'He's saying, "I want to go home, Daddy, I'm tired," aren't you, pet? We usually go to the house in Norfolk at the weekends, but Oliver likes to put something back into the community.' The effort to smile nearly killed her. 'I wanted Brewer to grow up in the countryside, but Oliver insisted we stay in town until it's time to go to big school.' She lowered her voice. 'A nurse was raped on this towpath last month. A nurse nurse. Shoved off her bicycle into the bushes. The police won't come down here.' It was difficult to miss the desperation in her eyes. She hated Oliver for imprisoning her in the city. 'I'm from Buckinghamshire originally, and I can tell you, Mr May, this is not not like home, not what like home, not what I I call home.' call home.'

She turned and began leading the boy away, so that May was forced to follow. Oliver doggedly fell in behind them, in what May took to be a permanent state of disgrace with his wife. Ahead, several pigeons blocked the path, dining from a spattered pool of sick.

'My work keeps me here,' Oliver explained.

'What do you do?' asked May.

'I thought you knew.' He seemed surprised. 'I'm a senior executive at the Thames Water Board. You have no idea how much water London wastes through leaks each week. My job is to help locate them and replace the damaged pipes. Why did you come and find us?'

'I wanted to ask you about-' He had been about to say 'Elliot Copeland', but something made him change-'Mrs Singh. I know the matter is concluded, as far as the authorities are concerned, but I wondered if you had any personal thoughts.'