‘You won’t be able to go to the council on this one, Mr Farrow.’ Garrett’s smile faded as he took back the envelope. ‘Balaklava Street has nothing worth listing, the place is filthy and the floors are rotten. You’ll need new electrics, new plumbing, a new roof, damp courses. It’ll cost you a fortune to do up. It’s only good for pulling down and starting again, and you’ll never get the planning permission without throwing a lot of cash at Camden. You just missed the gravy train.’
‘Then why are you looking so miserable about it?’ Paul rose to leave. He needed some fresh air, but for now the streets of north London would have to do. ‘Thanks for the drink.’
‘River water,’ said Oswald Finch testily. ‘Which word don’t you understand?’
‘She was sitting in a chair, not fished out of the Thames,’ replied Bryant. ‘How can it be river water?’
‘Do you know what the most popular murder weapon is in Britain? A screwdriver. Have you ever brought me a screwdriver victim? No, I get human sacrifices, torsos in bin-bags and curare poisonings. Just once you could bring me an open-and-shut job. A nice simple confession on the statement—He came toward me so I hit him. Common assault not good enough for you?’
Bryant looked around at the depressing green walls of the Bayham Street Mortuary. The fierce overhead strip-lighting buzzed like the faint memory of a head injury. The police building had been converted from a Victorian school, and had so far defied all attempts at modernization. Rumbling steel extractor ducts had been set into the ceiling to alleviate the emetic smell of chemicals, but it still looked like a place where Death would choose to sit and read a paper. Finch’s countenance, peering over a plastic sheet at him like a doleful hatchet, added an extra layer of gloom to the proceedings.
‘Which river did it come from?’ asked Bryant. ‘When will the sample be back?’
‘It’s already back. Your lad Kershaw brought it over a few minutes ago. I rather like him. He seems to know what he’s doing, which makes a pleasant change in your place.’
‘That’s odd, you never like anyone. Have you noticed how fruit gums don’t have any taste since they stopped putting artificial flavours in them?’ Bryant proffered the tube. ‘I shouldn’t eat them, they stick to my plate. I don’t see the old lady anywhere.’
‘I’ve put Mrs Singh away. She’s to be spared the indignity of any further exposure in this room. Look at the lights they’ve put in, it’s like McDonald’s.’
‘Smells like it as well. Have you been cooking meat?’
‘I caught my assistant eating a doner kebab in here last night. I warned him that his dietary habits could legally invalidate us. This is supposed to be a sterile zone, although I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve found your cough drops in a body bag. My toxicology database makes no provision for boiled sweets. Ah, here’s your Mr Kershaw now.’
Bryant was amazed. Oswald Finch was clearly taken with the new recruit. Perhaps he knew about Kershaw’s powerful political connections, although at his advanced age he couldn’t be hoping for promotion. Kershaw was wide-eyed, bespectacled, blond and unironed, with a cowlick of gravity-defying hair, as tall and thin as a sparkler, a later edition of Finch. He tapped at a plastic-coated analysis data-sheet and grinned, reminding Bryant of himself in his early twenties. ‘Well, it’s not actually a poison,’ he told them, ‘but there’s enough muck in it to have given her a nasty stomach ache, if it had managed to travel that far. Traces of mercury and lead, various harmful nitrates and plenty of interesting bacteria, the kind of cryptosporidia that lurks about in dead water, only prevented from proliferation by low temperatures. I think we’ve got ourselves some Monster Soup.’ He slipped the page to Finch, who read the bar graphs.
‘What do you mean?’ Finch asked over the top of his glasses.
Bryant smiled knowingly. ‘I think Mr Kershaw is referring to the title of a famous satirical print published in 1828, dedicated to the London water companies. It shows a horrified woman dropping her tea as she examines a drop of London water and finds it full of disgusting creatures. People drank from the Thames, which was incredibly polluted by faeces and rotting animal carcasses.’
‘Just so,’ Kershaw agreed, nodding vigorously.
‘You’re saying this is Thames water?’ asked Finch.
‘Exactly.’ Bryant found himself concurring with the new boy.
‘The kind of bacteria you find in dead water?’