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‘The bedroom ceiling, with luck,’ Ollie said. ‘And the wiring damage in here.’ He shrugged. ‘So tell me your findings – what caused all the taps to start ru
‘Well, I haven’t got to the bottom of it yet, but you know from the survey what a poor condition the plumbing is in. Every single washer in every tap is ancient rubber and has perished. From all the droppings I can see in the loft spaces and wall cavities, you’ve an infestation of vermin – particularly mice. Those little buggers have eaten through the only modern pipework you have – the plastic ones put in by the developers before they went under. There are air-locks all over the system, causing a lot of hammering and juddering of pipes – and that leads to the degradation of washers, too, causing them to fail.’
Maguire paused to sip his coffee then went on. ‘Your plumbing here is a complete mishmash of mainly lead, with some copper and really ancient barrel pipe. Copper piping can, when it gets too old, just pop apart; lead starts to get fine, pinhole perforations, and begins spraying water as if it’s sweating. Barrel pipe’s made from low carbon steel and the oxygen in the water makes it rust from the inside. The pipe corrodes to a point where water won’t move through it any more, like a clogged artery. Then, of course, you get a build-up of pressure from the backed-up water in the system. Something starts making the pipes vibrate, you get the effect of expansion and contraction from the pipes not having seen any hot water through them in years. All that blocked water, with pressure building up, is going to have to go somewhere.’
He looked balefully at Ollie and shrugged. ‘The action of the expansion and contraction tends to have one of two effects – either it causes a catastrophic failure of piping joints, or it loosens the blockages in the pipes and you get a surge of water. Get that surge and the taps, with their disintegrated washers, can’t hold it back. The problem is compounded by the whole antiquated water system in this house being interlinked. You’ve got a galvanized service tank in the loft space between the attics, directly above your bedroom. When tanks like that age, they start getting blisters, and there’s a danger if pressure builds up too much that the sides can just blow – collapse.’
‘That’s what happened, you think, Mike?’ Ollie sipped his coffee; it tasted good. The aroma gave a momentary respite from the smell of damp that had been pervading the house during the past few hours.
‘I can’t tell you for certain, Ollie.’ The plumber pursed his lips and shook his head from side to side. ‘But if you add everything up – the ancient pipework, no lagging anywhere against the ravages of past winters, the vermin infestation, the complete absence of any plumbing maintenance, a service tank fifty years past its sell-by date – you’ve got all the ingredients for a perfect storm.’ He shook his head. ‘I think it’s criminal anyone allowed such a beautiful house to get into this condition. I’ll tell you one thing, you’re lucky all the washers are corroded – if the taps had held, then several of the piping joints might have failed and you’d have had flooding in rooms all over the house.’
Ollie listened carefully, drank some more coffee, then thought for some moments. ‘OK, what you’re saying does make sense, but if all the tap washers were useless, how come I was able to turn the taps off and stop the water? The taps were all opened – surely they couldn’t have opened by themselves?’
‘Well, they could, Ollie, if there was enough vibration in the pipes. Like the nuts on the wheel of a car can work loose if there’s enough vibration for long enough.’
Ollie’s phone pinged with an incoming text. He saw it was from Cholmondley but didn’t read it. He looked back at the plumber. ‘Nearly every tap in the house – and the outside one as well?’
‘As I said, Ollie, I can’t tell you categorically that this is what happened. There is, of course, another possibility.’
‘Which is?’
‘Someone causing mischief. Some intruder, vandal?’
‘Mike, I can’t see anyone breaking into a house at three in the morning and then ru
‘I’m just speculating – couldn’t have been your daughter and some of her friends having a bit of a laugh?’
‘A bit of a laugh?’
He raised his hands. ‘Kids today. Mine are constant mischief.’
‘We’re lucky with Jade, she’s pretty sensible – she—’ He stopped and frowned, as a thought occurred to him.
When Jade was younger she had sleepwalked regularly. Could it have been her who had done this? Could she have gone around the entire house, in her sleep, turning on taps? Why? And yet, he did remember one incident, some years back when she was about seven, when she’d gone out into the garden shed, lifted several items out and put them on the lawn. In the morning she’d had absolutely no recollection of doing it. And another occasion, around that same time, when she had gone into the kitchen and emptied everything out of the fridge and freezer and stacked it all neatly on the floor, again with no recollection in the morning.
‘My daughter had a sleepwalking problem when she was younger. I wonder – I – I’m just – could she have done this?’ Ollie said. ‘Just—’ He fell silent for some moments, then turned his palms upwards in despair. ‘I’m just speculating.’
‘That’s all I’m doing, too,’ Michael Maguire said. ‘I’m just speculating.’
24
Wednesday, 16 September
Ollie went back up to his office. The plumber’s explanation for the ru
He’d not yet told Caro about the ru
He noted them down, trying hard to think with his tired brain if he’d missed any out. The sink in the disused kitchen in the cellar, he suddenly remembered, and noted that down also. The more he thought about it, the less convincing the plumber’s explanation seemed. Not every tap on the main system, every single one. No way.
Jade?
The possibility that it was Jade doing it in her sleep did make uncomfortable sense.
He thought back again to some of those previous episodes, then he sat at his desk, logged on and googled sleepwalking. As he had imagined, there were hundreds and hundreds of sites. He went back and entered some key words to narrow the search parameters. Then he sca
Little or no memory of the event – that had been true. She always had no memory.
Difficulty arousing the sleepwalker during an episode – also true of Jade.
Screaming when sleepwalking occurs in conjunction with sleep terrors.
Jade had screamed last night. He’d run into her room, turned off the taps on the overflowing bathtub and pulled the plug out. She had terror in her eyes, and now, thinking about that more clearly, he could remember that look of frozen fear on her face from years back. It was the same way she used to look straight after waking from a sleepwalking episode when she was seven.