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Автор Кристофер Фаулер
Christopher Fowler. The Water Room
(Bryant and May — 2)
To Kath
WAAF conscript, greyhound-stadium cashier, legal secretary, debt collector, charity worker, critic, mother, friend-because everyone has a story
‘Home is a name, a word, it is a strong
one; stronger
than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever
answered to,
in the strongest conjuration’
Charles Dickens
‘A little water clears us of this deed’
Macbeth
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The most bizarre facts in this book are the truest, but listing them all here would perhaps arm you with too much knowledge for the story ahead. They can, however, be readily found and substantiated by anyone interested in such arcane matters.
I would especially like to thank my fearless agent Mandy Little for providing so much support, encouragement and enthusiasm. Huge thanks also to my editor Simon Taylor, truly a gentleman and a man of his word, and to the whole Transworld team for ensuring the safe return of Bryant and May.
Thanks, Richard, for a million things, especially being funny and finding time, to Jim for always coming up with brilliant solutions, to Sally for organizing my life and to everyone brave enough to attend the atmospheric but occasionally insalubrious venues where I read, especially Maggie, Simon, Mike, Sarah, Andrew, Martin, Graham, Michelle, Poppy, Amber.
Mr Bryant’s highly unscientific map of the afflicted area.
1. A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER
Arthur Bryant looked out over London and remembered.
Fierce sunlight swathed Tower Bridge beyond the rockeries of smouldering bomb-sites. A Thames sailing barge was arriving in the Pool of London with a cargo of palm kernels. Its dusty red sails sagged in the afternoon heat as it drifted past Broadway Dock at Limehouse, like a felucca on the Nile. Dairy horses trotted along the deserted Embankment, empty milk cans chiming behind them.
Children swam from the wharves below St Paul’s, while carping mothers fanned away stale air from the river steps. He could smell horse dung and tobacco, meadow grass, the river. The world had once moved forward in single paces.The vision wavered and vanished, displaced by sun-flares from the sealed glass corridors of the new city.
The old man in the unravelling sepia scarf waited for the rest of the party to gather around him. It was a Saturday afternoon at the start of October, and London’s thirteen-week heatwave was about to end with a vengeance. Already, the wind had changed direction, stippling the surface of the river with grey goose-pimples. Above the spire of St Paul’s, patulous white clouds deepened to a shade reminiscent of overwashed socks. The enervating swelter was giving way to a cool breeze, sharp in the shadows. The change had undermined his group’s stamina, reducing their numbers to a handful, although four polite but puzzled Japanese boys had joined thinking they were on the Jack the Ripper tour. Once everyone had settled, the elderly guide began the last section of his talk.
