'It's funny you should ask. I'd been thinking of what your partner said at our party, about her drowning in her own house. It struck a distant chord, I just couldn't put my finger on it at the time.'

'Oh? In what way?'

'It sounds silly, but-darling, I think Brewer's tired, could you take him home? I'd like to take Mr May to my office and show him something.'

The innocuous steel building on Canal Walk did not look like the headquarters of a water board. Apart from a guard reading the Sun Sun in the reception area, the place was empty. 'Oh no, it's not here,' laughed Oliver. 'This is a temporary on-site venue, somewhere we can plug in our laptops and hold meetings. It's a fascinating business. I can give you a potted history, although I don't see how it will help.' in the reception area, the place was empty. 'Oh no, it's not here,' laughed Oliver. 'This is a temporary on-site venue, somewhere we can plug in our laptops and hold meetings. It's a fascinating business. I can give you a potted history, although I don't see how it will help.'

'I don't mind,' said May casually. 'I've a little time to kill.'

Oliver led the way to a bare office of maroon carpet tiles and plan chests. 'Well, it goes back to a chap called Hugh Myddleton who created the New River, which we think was the world's first Build-Own-Operate project, a channel carrying water from springs in Hertfordshire to Islington. It became operational at the start of the seventeenth century; it's still partly in use today.' He pushed over a chair. 'Make yourself comfortable.'

May seated himself. 'So a London water board has been around since then?'

'We were needed from the outset. The huge influx of people from rural areas increased pressure on the water supply, but we had the steam engine and cast-iron piping to improve things. Of course, there was a terrible rise in waste. Indoor plumbing was nonexistent. Chap called Harington invented the first indoor toilet in the 1590s, but it wasn't widely adopted because there was no supply of running water to flush it. Cesspits were an advance, but they weren't emptied very often. Now, I know it's here somewhere.' He pulled out a drawer and began leafing through the plans. 'The Thames was the main source of drinking water for London, and remained pretty clean until around 1800, even supporting a decent fishing industry. You could catch lobsters and salmon in its reaches. Unfortunately, it didn't last because not enough cesspits had been built. Residents started illegally connecting their overflows to surface drains and underground rivers flowing into the Thames. The rising tide of sewage destroyed all life in the water and it began to smell, especially in hot weather. I'm sure you'll have heard of the Great Stink of June 1858, when the stench became so lethal that no one could work inside Parliament. The cholera epidemic killed two thousand Londoners a week until Dr John Snow discovered it was spread in water, and closed the infected pump in Golden Square. The John Snow pub in Broadwick Street is dedicated to him.'

'Didn't Bazalgette come up with a plan to build sewers?'

'Yes; a pity so many people had to die before Disraeli could be convinced to implement the system. It's an incredible piece of engineering, a series of cascades that race around the city washing everything away. After that came chlorination during the First World War, then double filtration and new steel water mains.'

'What about these days? I mean, where does all the waste go?'

'North London's waste goes to Abbey Mills Pumping Station in Stratford, and an outfall sewer takes it to the treatment plant at Beckton. South London's goes to Deptford, and from there to works at Plumstead.'

'And what happened to the underground rivers?'

'Some were turned into sewage outlets, but most were difficult to drain after centuries of abuse. If you block up a river, the water still collects and has to run off somewhere. Houses are getting wetter again. The water table is rising due to climate changes, and the old rivers are on the move once more. But using them became redundant in 1994, when we opened the capital's underground ring-road, which allows water to circle the streets of London. It's one of the secret wonders of the world.'

'Is it big enough to climb inside?'

'Well, it has a diameter of two and a half metres, but it's pretty full. The Thames is now the cleanest metropolitan river on the planet, and supports 120 species of fish. We're servicing forty-six countries across the world. It's a damned big business. I could tell you about our sludge-incineration programme, but I fear I'd bore you.'

You're right there, thought May. 'Forgive me for asking, Mr Wilton, but what has this to do with Mrs Singh?' thought May. 'Forgive me for asking, Mr Wilton, but what has this to do with Mrs Singh?'

'I'm sorry, I tend to get carried away. Tamsin doesn't like me bringing drains to the table, so when I find a fellow enthusiast . . . Ah, I think this is it.' He pulled open another map drawer and tugged at a vast yellow sheet covered in dense, poorly printed lettering. 'This was made in the fifties. It's the last remotely accurate assessment of London's missing tributaries and outlets, produced by the LCC, but parts of it are missing, or the courses have shifted. They need to be tracked because there are so many electrical cables and tunnels under the streets. London doesn't operate on overhead systems. How do you track something that keeps moving? The truth is, we can only measure soil humidity and hope for the best. Look at what happened in Blackheath a couple of years ago-the roads simply caved in without any warning.' He traced his forefinger along the route of the Fleet. 'When rivers change course, strange things happen. If you don't know there's a river underneath, you might be inclined to start believing in ghosts.'

'I'm not at all sure I'm with you.'

'Well, you get sudden localized floods that appear as if from nowhere, and drain away just as quickly. There was a famous case back in the 1920s-some heavy wooden coffins were found moved from their pedestals in a sealed crypt in south London. There had been an unusually high tide that season. The water had seeped in through a tiny crack, lifted the coffins and drained back out. Water can travel fast, in very odd ways. It can be drawn up through a stone wall in dry weather, causing a damp spot ten feet from the ground. And they're saying Mrs Singh was found drowned. When I looked at this, I began to wonder.'

He smoothed out a section of the map centred on the streets where they stood. 'You see this large corner site? It's a gastropub called J.A.'s. Changed its name in the late nineties. Used to be the Jolly Anglers, built on Anglers' Lane. The lane's not marked on this map as a river, but we know from local history that it was a popular bathing spot. The council filled it in some time around 1890. So we draw that in.' He took a blue pen and ran a broken dotted line through the lane. 'The only other Fleet tributary is marked here, two roads further over. But of course it must have connected to Anglers' Lane; the river had to be fed from somewhere. Which only leaves Balaklava Street-or rather, the ginnel running behind the back gardens on the west side of the terrace, where Mrs Singh lived. It then crosses over the road, because it has to get down to its next known point of existence, at Prince of Wales Road. Which means that it flows right underneath Mrs Singh's house.'

'But you said it had dried up.'

'I said that parts of it had, and parts had been bricked up, so that the river has to find ways to re-route itself. You have to remember that the Fleet was once over sixty feet wide here in Camden Town, and flowed to a great basin which is now Ludgate Circus.'

'You're suggesting we had some kind of flash flood, that the water poured into her basement and drained back out, not even leaving a damp spot by the time Bryant and her brother arrived the next morning? It doesn't seem very likely. Where would the water drain to?'

'Here, to the Regent's Canal at Camden. We know the canal is topped up by underground pipes coming from the north. We've never drained enough of the canal to map what's down there, and half of the Victorian plans went missing in the sixties-they made very popular framed prints for a while. We've had an unusually dry summer, followed by a freakishly wet autumn. I'm wondering if the extreme weather conditions unblocked some of the pipework. It might explain how Mr Copeland died as well. Suppose water suddenly filled that ditch, undermining his truck, then drained away just as suddenly?'

'My partner made a detailed examination of Mrs Singh's house. He said that apart from one or two odd patches of damp, it was bone-dry. Yet ten hours earlier, it was so full of water that a woman drowned in it? I'm sorry, Mr Wilton, it's an interesting theory, but a little far-fetched.'

'I knew I wouldn't be able to convince you,' Oliver sighed, folding away the map. 'But you'd be surprised. I know about these things. The movement of water far exceeds anything you can imagine.'

28

SPOILS OF THE FLEET

'I'm Mr Bryant. Do you remember me?'

The elderly detective was standing on the Wiltons' front step with rainwater pouring from the brim of his battered brown trilby. May's encounter with Oliver Wilton the day before had given him an idea.

Brewer nodded. 'You came to our party.' The boy spoke at the floor. He had the look of a child who had rarely been allowed outside alone.

'I decided to dig up a little local history, part of an investigation, and thought you might like to come along, if you weren't doing anything. I'd be glad of the company.'

It was hard to tell whether Brewer was flattered or horrified by the idea. He was probably intrigued at the prospect of accompanying a police inspector, but the pleasure was offset by the embarrassment of being seen with an elderly man. Either way, it had to be more fun than watching other kids have battles in canoes.

'You see, Brewer, I'm starting to think there's something very peculiar going on around here, and I could really use a little help. I need someone who knows the area, someone who's been keeping their eyes and ears open. I thought that person might be you.'

'Dad's at work. Mum's out. I'm not allowed to go anywhere. And she says don't talk to strangers,' said Brewer uncomfortably.

'Oh, you're not a stranger,' said Bryant airily. 'I know a little about you. I saw you at the party, watching everyone. I bet I could tell you something about yourself.'

'You couldn't.'

'A challenge, eh? I'll make a deal with you. If I can, you have to give me a hand and put in a full day's police work with me. I'll clear it with your mum.' Bryant narrowed his eyes and studied the boy. 'I know something you probably haven't told anyone. You really hate your name. You wish you'd been called something else.'

The boy's continued silence betrayed him.

'In fact, it isn't even your first name.' From the corner of his eye, Bryant could see the nylon football bag hanging in the hall. The initials printed on it were D.B.W. Nobody was called Derek any more, and middle-class parents were unlikely to have opted for Darren or Dale. Damien had passed the peak of its popularity. 'Your first name is David,' Bryant told him, 'which is good enough for David Beckham, but apparently not for your dad. He wants to move you to a private school, where they play rugby.' This was a combination of intuition and common sense. Tamsin was Oliver's second wife, a fair bit younger and more of a trophy than his first. Oliver was clearly trying to pull the boy up a few social rungs to please her. He held down a decent job, was making money, and had mentioned the poor quality of the local schools at the party. On the morning of Ruth Singh's death, Bryant had seen the boy leaving his house with football boots slung over his shoulder.

'You've talked to him.'

'Not since your party, and never about you. Grab yourself a coat, David, while I call your mother. I won't come in-I don't want to fill your house with water.'

Brewer hesitated for a moment. Hanging out with a disreputable-looking policeman could prove dangerous, and would probably get him into trouble with his father. The offer was worth accepting for that reason alone. He scampered off down the hall.

It was unorthodox, Bryant knew, but he needed some deeper attachment to the residents of Balaklava Street that went beyond question-and-answer, and looking after the boy was a good way of making friends.

As they splashed off along Balaklava Street a few minutes later, David felt comfortable enough to fall into step beside Bryant. 'Where are we going?' he asked.

'First we're looking up an old colleague of mine who's moved in just a few roads away. She knows all about the area.'

'Is she a teacher?'

'Sort of,' Bryant smiled. 'She's a witch.'

'What do you think of the new place?' asked Maggie Armitage with some pride. The doorway of the small nineteenth-century brick building on Prince of Wales Road was illuminated by a garish red neon sign that read: CHAPEL OF HOPE. 'I got it from the council when the old tenants moved out. Not enough hope in the vicinity, apparently. We've been shifted from our eyrie above the World's End pub in Camden Town.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Bryant. 'Don't tell me the landlords disapproved of your pagan gatherings.'

'They turned a blind eye to our midnight madrigals, but drew the line at our attempts to summon Beelzebub. Now they're planning to build a mall on the site. Have you noticed that every London building eventually becomes a shoe shop? Camden is already the bad-footwear capital of the world. Old gods are no match for new money. But it's nice to be in a real chapel. I had a bash at deconsecrating the area of worship this morning, but I've run out of salt. Spiritual decommissioning isn't a straightforward process. The guidebooks all differ. Some people say you're supposed to return the sanctified altar sheath to a church. Others simply recommend a lick of paint. Wendy, our organist, says you can sing hymns backwards over it, but frankly she has enough trouble playing forwards. I think we've lessened the aura of sanctimonious monotheism, but we can't get rid of the damp. And the local drunks have a habit of weeing in the porch. Is that why Christian temples reek of rot, I wonder? Who's your friend?'

'This is David, honorary junior police officer for today. He lives nearby.'

'Come in.' Maggie took his hand. 'Are you a believer?'

'In what?' asked the boy.

'The darker arts, the lost spirituality of a doomed and wandering humankind.'

David stared at her as if she was mad.

'Do you at least try to keep an open mind?'

'Don't know.'

'That's the best we can expect these days, I suppose. Come through.' She led the way between the oaken pews of the dingy main hall to a small paper-strewn office at the rear. Silver chains, icons and baubles hung from her bosom like miniature wind-chimes. Maggie's eyes closed to crescents when she smiled, which she did often and broadly, revealing strong white teeth. Bedecked in bracelets, with tortoiseshell slides and two pairs of spectacles in her fiery red hair, the diminutive witch was as merry as a Christmas tree.

'What's that extraordinary odour?' asked Bryant, sniffing the air.

'My new herbal incense. Can you smell lavender?'

'No, it's more like burning ants.'

'Oh, that. that. Yes, something's living in the rafters. I've put down poison, but I think it's eating through the wood. If only Crippen hadn't disappeared during the move.' Yes, something's living in the rafters. I've put down poison, but I think it's eating through the wood. If only Crippen hadn't disappeared during the move.'

'How strange. I just found a cat called Crippen. At least, that's what I named it.'

'Small, black and white, male? Piece missing from the left ear? A bit squiffy-eyed?'

'Exactly so.' Bryant was delighted.

'Benign fate! You've found my familiar. That means his aura is intact.'

'Perhaps, but his toilet training leaves much to be desired. I'll bring him round later.'

Maggie handed out some brochures. 'We're on a membership drive. If you know anyone who's interested in the occult and can handle a hod, we need some strong hands to help us restore the place.' A huge bearded man suddenly lurched into the doorway. 'I was just making tea for an old friend of yours.'

'Arthur, dear fellow! How delightfully efficacious!' Raymond Kirkpatrick, English-language professor, gripped Bryant's hand and pumped it hard. Tall and stooped, he appeared at first to be covered in a light shower of grey dust, and on closer inspection, was. 'I'm helping Margaret clear out her reliquary. I thought we might find something of epistolary antiquarian value, but so far all I've found is several dozen copies of Razzle, Razzle, presumably tucked away by the choirboys.' presumably tucked away by the choirboys.'

'Professor Kirkpatrick is one of England's leading experts in semantics and cryptography,' Bryant explained to the dumbfounded boy. 'He likes words.' He decided not to describe the bizarre circumstances that had led Kirkpatrick to be dishonourably discharged from the Met. The professor had once dated a six-foot Zimbabwean girl, who had, to his shame and horror, turned out to be fifteen, false documents having been provided by her parents in an effort to marry her off. The Home Office had branded him a paedophile and arranged his expulsion, and, although the subsequent investigation had exonerated him of everything but poor judgement, Kirkpatrick had become an unemployable outcast. Every time the PCU used him, Bryant logged Kirkpatrick's invoice under an assumed name. He hated seeing a good mind go to waste.

'Mr Bryant usually brings me his palaeographic conundrums for reinterpretation,' Kirkpatrick explained, 'although, alas, I fear his recent reluctance to employ my services suggests that the age of the erudite criminal has passed along with the locked-room mystery, clean public toilets and a quality postal service.'

'I think we have some of the information you're after,' said Maggie, pouring ginger tea for everyone as Bryant snatched a recruitment brochure away from David. 'John told me about the man who died in Balaklava Street, and it doesn't come as a surprise.'

'Oh, really? Why?'

'Because it appears to be a hot spot of psychic activity. There have always been strange stories surrounding the area.'

'What kind of stories?'

'It's long been considered unhealthy to live there because of bad humours rising from the ground. In the fifties, it suffered from sudden mists and smogs that sprang up from the drains and vanished just as quickly. It's in a bit of a dip, you see. A vale. Some are still marked in London, like Maida Vale. Others have been forgotten, like the one in Kentish Town. It's a very old area. Camden was a late arrival in the neighbourhood, 1791 to be exact, and yet they managed to come up with plenty of local legends, ghosts, witches and murderers. You can imagine how many more myths Kentish Town built up in the preceding centuries.'

'The name is derived from Ken-Ditch, Ken-Ditch,' Kirkpatrick pointed out, 'meaning the bed of a waterway.'

'The town, combined under its original alias with St Pancras, has been here for well over a thousand years,' Maggie pointed out. 'An entire millennium of harmful atmosphere. Don't forget that it grew up around a rushing river. The water turned mill-blades and provided the lifeblood for its residents. A great many ancient documents refer to the "calm clacking of the mills". Now all we hear is the wail of police sirens. And the river has long been sealed underground.'

'This lad's father works for the water board. He knows a fair bit about it,' said Bryant. 'Part of the Fleet, yes?'

'From the Saxon fleete fleete or or fleot, fleot, a flood, or the Anglo-Saxon a flood, or the Anglo-Saxon fleotan, fleotan, to float,' Kirkpatrick intoned. to float,' Kirkpatrick intoned.

'It runs down to the Regent's Canal, but nobody's sure exactly where it flows,' added Maggie. 'There's a run-off around here called Fog's Well, for obvious reasons. Long gone now.'

'Did you have any luck with my information?' asked Bryant.

'Your brief was a bit vague.' She checked her notes. 'Around 1840, the land was sold off in neat little plots that followed the rivers and meadow boundaries. Forty years later the plans had changed, with more roads and houses being squeezed on to the original layout. According to my contact at Camden Council, in the 1960s the local authority drew up a new design for the area, a concrete wasteland of tower blocks. Thankfully, it never came to fruition.' She peered over her reading glasses. 'Honestly, we spend so much time attempting to improve ourselves, taking self-help courses, going to the gym, trying to develop more meaningful relationships with one another, and yet we dismiss the other associations we need to support our fragile well-being.'

'What do you mean?'

'Everyone interacts with their location, Arthur. Where we live helps set the level of our happiness and comfort. The English have strongly developed psychological relationships with the landscape. They travelled so little that accents changed from one street to the next. There's a famous Punch Punch cartoon showing two locals throwing a brick at a stranger; that's the nineteenth-century English for you-antipathy to outsiders. These days, our relationships with views, buildings, places, objects and strangers are virtually ignored. As a child, you probably had a place that made you happy-nothing special, a small corner of sun-lit grass where you kicked a ball or read a comic. As an adult, you search for an equivalent to that spot. Can you ever truly find it again?' cartoon showing two locals throwing a brick at a stranger; that's the nineteenth-century English for you-antipathy to outsiders. These days, our relationships with views, buildings, places, objects and strangers are virtually ignored. As a child, you probably had a place that made you happy-nothing special, a small corner of sun-lit grass where you kicked a ball or read a comic. As an adult, you search for an equivalent to that spot. Can you ever truly find it again?'

'I like to take my kite on Parliament Hill,' said David. 'You can feel the wind going round you.'

'There you are.' Maggie ruffled the boy's hair. 'When bureaucrats radically transform an area they remove its markers, damaging scale and ignoring the natural historical landscape. Such an area will quickly become a "no-go" zone, unsafe and disliked by everyone, because we no longer have ways of forming attachments to such a place. When the rivers were covered, we lost something of ourselves. Dreams of lakes and rivers are dreams of calm. No wonder lost rivers hold such mystique. We need to believe that they are still beneath us somewhere, the distant conduits of a forgotten inner peace.'

'She's been getting like this a lot lately,' Kirkpatrick warned. 'Ever since she started her hormone-replacement pills. The rivers are still there, you silly woman, they just built storm drains over the original tunnels. The idea was that the lids could be removed in times of flooding, and water drawn off to prevent it from invading the basements of local houses. I imagine they're all asphalted over now.'

'No,' said David. 'I know where there's one. You can still get the lid off.'

'Would you like to show me?' asked Bryant.

'It's a secret.'

'May I remind you that you're working for the police now?' warned Bryant. The boy's mobile rang. 'It's my mother,' he warned.

'Give her to me.' Bryant waggled his fingers and took the call. 'He's absolutely fine, Mrs Wilton, thoroughly enjoying himself. No, of course not.' He placed his hand over the phone. 'You're not wet, are you?' Then back to the phone; 'No, dry as a bone, I'll have him home in just a few minutes.' He cut her off before she could continue. 'Now, David, let's go and have a look at your storm drain.'