Below it, down the sliding concrete weir, is a large empty concrete pool featuring huge hinged steel gates with counterweights on the top end to act like levers and seal the doors closed.
Angus sits on the edge of the spillway and takes a sandwich from his pocket, unwrapping the plastic film.
He motions with his sandwich. “That over there is the low-level interceptory sewer. It starts at Chiswick and runs east beneath the Thames Embankment to the Abbey Mills pumping station in east London. Everything gets diverted from here to the treatment works.”
“Why the spillway?”
“Storms. You get a decent downpour in London and there's nowhere for the rain to go except into the drains. Thousands of miles of small local lines feed into the main sewers. First you get a gust of wind and then the whoosh!”
“Whoosh!” echoes Moley.
Angus picks a crumb off his chest. “The system can only accommodate a certain level of water. You don't want it backing up or the politicians would be knee-deep in shit in Westminster. I'm talking literally. So when the water reaches a certain level it spills over the weir and gets diverted through those gates.” He points at the huge iron doors, which must each weigh about three tons. “They open like a valve when floodwaters come roaring over the weir.”
“Where does it go?”
“Straight into the Thames at a good ten knots.”
Suddenly another scenario emerges, swirling around me like the smell of almonds. The Thames Water foreman described the water main having “blown apart,” creating a tremendous flood. This would have discouraged anyone from following the ransom and could also have served another purpose—to carry the packages over the weir.
“I need to get through those gates.”
“You can't,” says Moley. “They only open during floods.”
“But you can get me there. You know where it comes out.”
Moley scratches his armpits and rocks his head from side to side. My whole body has started to itch.
24
Weatherman Pete produces a high-pressure hose and hooks it up to a tap. The blast of water knocks me back a step. I turn around and around, getting pummeled by the spray.
The van is parked almost directly above an open manhole in Ranelagh Gardens in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The grand hospital buildings, painted by the rising sun, are just visible through the trees. Nearby, at Chelsea Barracks, I can hear the strains of a military band practicing.
These gardens are normally closed until 10:00 a.m. and I don't know how Weatherman Pete managed to get through the gates. Then I notice magnetic mats on the side of his van advertising the City of Westminster.
“I got dozens of them,” he explains, rather sheepishly. “Come on, I'll show you what you want to see.”
Shedding the overalls and waders, we seal them into plastic sacks and load up the van. Moley has changed into his camouflage uniform and blinks into the sunlight as though frightened it might do him permanent damage. The others are drinking tea from a flask and recounting the night's journey.
Piling into the van, I lean over the seat as Weatherman Pete drives along the narrow tarmac paths and waves at a trio of Chelsea pensioners on their morning walk. Pulling through the front gate, we circle the outer walls of the gardens until we reach the Thames.
Parking in the Embankment Gardens, I cross the road to Riverside Walk, overlooking the river. The Thames, caught between tides, smells like perfume after where I've been.
Pete joins me and glances across the brown slick of water. Clambering onto the wall, he hooks his arm around an iron lamppost and leans out over the muddy bank.
“There it is.”
I follow his outstretched arm and notice a depression in the stone bank. A round metal door seals the entrance of a pipe that disappears underground. Water dribbles from the edge, forming a puddle in the mud.
“That's the Ranelagh Storm Relief Sewer. The door opens when it floods and closes again to stop the tide washing back into the sewer.”
He turns and points past the hospital. “You were directly north of here. You followed the fall of the Westbourne River.”
“Where does it come from?”
“It rises in West Hampstead and gets fed by five streams that join near Kilburn. Then it crosses Maida Vale and Paddington before flowing into Hyde Park where it fills the Serpentine. After that it disappears underground again, down William Street, under Cadogan Lane and Kings Road, past Sloane Square and finally beneath Chelsea Barracks.”
“I can't see any water flowing.”
“Most of it gets used by the sewer. You won't see this gate open unless they get surplus water in the system.”
I don't hear the rest of his explanation. Instead I think of a story my stepfather told me about an old blind horse that fell into a dried-up well. The horse wasn't worth saving, so the farmer started shoveling earth into the well. But the old horse just shook off the dirt and stamped it down. More earth fell, and the old horse went right on stamping it down, slowly rising out of the darkness.
People have been trying to bury me but I keep stamping it down. Now I'm close to climbing out and, I promise you this, anyone holding a shovel will get a kick in the head.
I think I know what happened that night. I built a valuable boat and it floated away, sealed in plastic and buoyed by foam. The diamonds washed through Ranelagh sewer, pushed along by water from a busted main. Someone was waiting for the ransom; someone who knew his or her way around the sewers; someone like Ray Murphy.
Only now am I beginning to realize how angry I've been ever since I woke in the hospital with a gunshot wound, dreaming of Mickey Carlyle. This is far bigger than the sum of its parts. Clever, driven, cunning people have manipulated the emotions of a desperate mother and taken advantage of my own blinkered desire. Where has Mickey been all this time? I know she's alive. I can't explain why or point to the proof; I just know she belongs in the world on a morning like this.
Moley is taking batteries from the gas monitors and checking the harnesses. Angus and Barry have already gone—walking to the Underground station. It is almost seven in the morning.
“Can I drop you somewhere, DI?”
I think for a moment. I'm due in court at midday. I also want to visit Ali in the hospital. At the same time, having come this far, I don't want to stop searching. Facts not memories solve cases. I have to keep going.
“Maida Vale.”
“Sure. Jump in.”
The traffic seems to grow lighter as I get closer to Dolphin Mansions. My shoulders still ache from my journey in the sewers and I can smell the foulness in my nostrils.
Weatherman Pete drops me on the corner opposite the delicatessen and I walk the final seventy yards. Nestled in the lint of my trouser pocket are my last two morphine capsules. Every so often I reach inside and feel their smoothness with my fingertips.
The façade of Dolphin Mansions is in full sunshine. Stopping periodically, I study the gutters, looking for the openings and metal grates. I notice the camber of the road and where downspouts enter the ground.
Some of the mansion blocks have basement flats that are below street level. They have drains to take rainwater away and stop them from flooding.
I wait on the front steps until one of the residents leaves, nodding as they hold the door open for me. Then I glance up the central stairwell, checking I'm not being watched. Skirting the lift well, I discover the door leading to the basement. A low-wattage naked bulb suspended from the ceiling transforms the darkness. The stairs are narrow and steep and the walls are a mottled green where patches of damp have broken through the plaster.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs I try to put myself back in this place, three years ago. I remember searching the basement. Like every other room it was turned upside down. Along one wall, cut into an alcove, is a large disused boiler. It must be fifteen feet around, with meters, valves and pipes of every caliber. The square copper nameplate bears the inscription FERGUS & TATE. The floor is covered with half bags of plaster, cans of paint, offcuts of carpet and a Victorian gas lamp encased in bubble wrap.