had been unlocked and pushed back. Ubeda waited outside, shining a torch into the tunnel. He was holding a chunky metal transmitter clear of the water, with a winking red light on the top, and Bryant realized what he was about to do. He had seen—and caused—enough explosions to know what the result might be. He started to warn Meera that any detonation in such a confined space, however small, would channel out the blast in a fiery column, firing any loose debris like ammunition from the muzzle of a rifle. But it was too late.
Greenwood was starting to call back in protest. He had changed his mind, and was wading out. He took a step toward his benefactor, and for a moment it looked as if Ubeda would not let him back through the bars. But the matter was settled seconds later, when a dull boom echoed from beneath the arch. Meera and Bryant both saw the flash of light, but their confusion delayed their reactions.
The young officer was on her way toward the tunnel when fragments of brick jetted out, funnelled by the pressurized air. Greenwood had gone down with a splash. Ubeda had already pulled himself out of the canal, to fall back against the bushes. Bryant felt a stinging pain in his left ear and realized that something had cut it. As the dust cloud was battered flat by renewed rain, Meera threw herself forward and brought Ubeda down with a kick behind his knees that folded him like a collapsing deckchair, cracking his head against the brickwork. As Bryant arrived beside the half-drowned academic, he realized that Greenwood had sustained a nasty injury. A chunk of brick had torn open the left side of his jaw, and he was losing blood. Meera was stronger than she looked. Forking her arms beneath his, she hoisted the academic out on to the path.
‘I’m calling it in.’ Bryant dimly heard his own voice through the tintinnabulation of his eardrums. Emergency personnel would have to negotiate the steep banks and railings separating the towpath from the road above. ‘We’re not near an access path,’ he shouted to her. ‘We’ll have to risk moving him, and take him up to the top.’
Meera was kneeling beside Greenwood, attempting to staunch the flow from his neck. ‘I don’t want you to help me, Mr Bryant, I’m strong enough to do it alone. Just stay here with Ubeda until I can get back. I kicked him pretty hard. I think he’s concussed.’ She gripped Greenwood’s body and dragged him off as a spray of blood soaked her shirt and jacket. Bryant was left beside Ubeda.
‘I’m an old man, but I have the strength of the law behind me, so I wouldn’t advise making a run for it,’ Bryant told him shakily, trying to regain his breath and calm his hammering heart. He checked for the gun Ubeda was known to possess, and was relieved to find nothing. ‘I know what you’re looking for. I want to know where you got the explosive material.’
‘You can get anything in this city.’ The entrepreneur’s eyes never left Bryant’s face. ‘Anything at all.’ He had the audacity to smile as he climbed shakily to his feet. Bryant suddenly saw the situation as it would have presented itself to an outsider: a rather frail, elderly man with the canal at his back, faced with a determined and possibly lunatic predator. He began to grow uncomfortable. True, the law was on his side and the water was shallow, but these days such odds were too long for Bryant’s liking.
‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he warned.
‘If you know what I’m looking for, surely you want to see it as well.’ Ubeda began climbing over the shattered bricks toward the blasted entrance to the tunnel. Bryant stumbled behind him, his left ear singing, as Ubeda dropped back into the oily water and began wading under the arch.
‘Come out of there, it’s unsafe,’ Bryant called ineffectually, but now he could see nothing, only hear the splash of water and the soft chinking of loose bricks. Once he heard a single shout of anger and frustration, and knew in that instant that Ubeda’s goal had not been achieved.
When the collector returned, his arrogance had been swamped by the recognition of defeat. He climbed out of the canal and dropped on to the grassy embankment, closing his eyes.
‘Did you really expect to find the vessel after all these centuries?’ asked Bryant.
‘You don’t understand,’ Ubeda