The Water Room(7)
When he tried to remove his hand, he was forced to raise the body, but the cushion slipped and Ruth rolled sideways. Next time I’ll leave this to a medic, he thought, trying to upright her, but before he had a chance to do so, she spat on him. Or rather, a significant quantity of water emptied from her mouth on to his overcoat.
Bryant wiped himself down, then gently prised her lips apart. Two gold teeth, no dental plate and a healthy tongue, but her throat appeared to be filled with a brownish liquid. As he moved his hand, it ran from the corner of her lower lip. He had assumed that the wetness of the rug had been caused by the incontinence of dying. Her clothes were dry. He checked on either side of the chair, then under it. There was no sign of a dropped glass, or any external water source. Passing to the bathroom cabinet, he found a toothbrush mug and placed it beneath her chin, collecting as much of the liquid as he could. He studied her mouth and nostrils for tell-tale marks left by fine pale foam, usually created by the mixture of water, air and mucus churned in a suffocating victim’s air passages. The wavering light made it hard to see clearly.
‘You’re going mad,’ he muttered to himself. ‘She dresses, she drowns, she sits down and dies, all in the comfort of her own home.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet, dreading the thought of having to warn Benjamin about a post-mortem.
Standing in the centre of the front room, he tried to see into Ruth Singh’s life. No conspicuous wealth, only simple comforts. A maroon Axminster rug, a cabinet of small brass ornaments, two lurid reproductions of Indian landscapes, some chintzy machine-coloured photographs of its imperial past, a bad Constable reproduction, a set of Wedgwood china that had never been used, pottery clowns, Princess Diana gift plates—a magpie collection of items from two cultures. Bryant vaguely recalled Benjamin telling him that his family had never been to India. Ruth Singh was two or three years older; perhaps she kept a trace-memory of her birth country alive through the pictures. It was important to feel settled at home. How had that comfort been disrupted? Not a violent death, he told himself, but an unnatural one, all the same.
Outside, summer died quickly, and the rising wind bore a dark fleet of rainclouds.
3
* * *
BUSINESS AS USUAL
By Monday afternoon it was as if the hiatus of the last month had never occurred. Ten crates unloading, nine boxes opened, eight phones ringing, seven staff complaining, six desks in various states of assembly, five damaged chairs, four cases pending, three workmen hammering, two computers crashing and a cat locked in a filing cabinet with no key. Arthur Bryant was sitting back at his desk, beaming amidst the chaos, looking for all the world as if he had never left.
‘It’s very simple, Janice,’ he explained to the confused and exasperated sergeant. ‘At the base of the unit’s new structure I’ve appointed two detective constables, an enormous, accident-prone innocent with a positively Homeric attitude to groundwork named Colin Bimsley, and I’ve found him a partner, DC Meera Mangeshkar, whose experiences in various south London hell-holes have apparently equipped her with the twin rapid-response mechanisms of cynicism and sarcasm. Blame John, he gave me their CVs. They’ll be occupying the room next door.’
‘Right, got that.’ Longbright was having to make notes with a blue eyeliner pencil because she was unable to locate any pens.
‘Now, above these two are another new pair, a vulpine young officer named Dan Banbury, who’s joining us as a hyphenate crime-scene manager and IT expert, and the nervous twit Giles Kershaw, with whom I’ve already had an argument this morning, who has been forced upon us as a replacement for our ancient coroner, Oswald Finch. He’ll be, I quote, our “forensic pathologist slash Social Sciences Liaison Officer”, whatever that means, although I shall insist on using Oswald for certain specialized duties. I can’t believe John still hasn’t turned up yet. He sat in on the interviews with me, he knows all about this.’
‘He’ll be here, don’t worry.’
‘The unit’s fifth member is of course your good self, supposedly retired but now freelance, whom I have agreed to take back on a renewable three-month contract which will allow you to continue working with your oldest and dearest friends, viz John and myself, the sixth and seventh members of the unit.’
‘Thank you, much appreciated,’ said Longbright with just a hint of sarcasm.
‘Naturally, you will continue to enjoy our inexcusable favouritism, not just because you remind us of Ava Gardner or because you make a proper cabbie’s mug of tea, but because you’re the only one capable of keeping this place in a semblance of order. The eighth and final member of this workforce will continue to be the terminally indecisive Raymond Land, our acid-stomached acting head, who has been forced to return for another season until he can effect a transfer to traffic control or a small-crimes division, preferably on a Caribbean island where the pressures will be fewer and the weather warmer. I make that six men and two women, employed to tackle the cases that no one else in London wants to touch with a stick. Not much of a team, I know, but we can draw on outside forces if necessary.’