Primogeniture (The Firstborn)

4: The visitation

“May God the Father bless you, who first sowed the seed of eternal life in your hearts...” 

 Regents Canal — vibrant, leafy and green during the summer months with it’s picturesque array of colourful long boats moored along the tow path or chugging sedately upstream crowded with trippers dining on the water or travelling up to the zoo or Little Venice — can be a very different scene in winter. The moored boats have now vanished with only the diehards remaining; brave enough to stay all winter burning their coal or wood stoves to stave off the elements. The trippers have long since departed and the towpaths deserted apart from the occasional determined jogger, dog walker or cyclist. During bad weather and on weekdays a walk along the canal path can be a bleak experience and for lone walkers particularly, something of a threatening one.

It was on just such a wet and windy day, three days before Christmas, that the lone figure of Felix descended the steps from St Mark’s church and walked purposefully along the towpath towards Camden. At this time of the morning the canal was deserted. The green algae—said to be poisonous and having yet to be killed off by a cold snap—added to the bedraggled and deserted scene that Felix encountered as he proceeded briskly along the walkway. The blustering wind was more nagging than cold, carrying with it the tarry peaty wood smoke aroma of the few remaining long boats as well as the dust and detritus of Camden’s street life. Food wrappings, crisp packets and filthy tissues mingled with decaying vegetation, remnants of an Autumn late in coming, but still with a few remaining leaves dry brown and desiccated pulled and tugged by the wind but clinging, as if in desperation to the barren branches, the last vestiges of life and memory of summer, long since passed, awaiting that final fatal gust that would send them spiralling and spinning down to the cold darkness of the waters below, eternally flowing but patiently waiting to turn material substance to new life.

Felix felt nervous and slightly threatened, as he realised he’d be an easy target for any mugger intent of stealing his phone or wallet, but then comforted by the thought that his wallet contained so little and his phone being an out of date model by several years, was hardly likely to be hot property when sold in the local boozers and clubs where such things are said to change hands for serious money. Nevertheless, this would not necessarily prevent him from sustaining injury or worse. Felix’s tried to cast from his mind news stories of headless bodies being dragged from the canal and to focus on the instructions he’d been given.

Just before he approached the bridge at Camden lock, he noticed two black doors that seemed to be those described by Philip. He checked his Rolex, a gift from Cecelia in happier times. 10.15. Just a little early, there was a youth with Mohican hair and a profusion of tattoos and body piercing hanging around near the doors. Felix decided to walk on over the bridge and wait a while. A mobile rang and suddenly the youth was off into the recesses of Camden market. Felix checked his watch again, exactly 10.20. He walked back over the bridge and approached the double doors. Black peeling paint, daubed here and there by unidentifiable substances of multicoloured hue, which at some point must have been thrown, vomited or slashed over the doors which looked as though they hadn’t been opened for years. Was this Philip’s idea of a practical joke... a very sick joke? Felix wouldn’t put it passed him. He was feeling like heading back home; he had a bad feeling about all of this.

He took one last look at the door and then noticed very small and fairly well hidden by those voraciously growing shrubs that seem to root into any neglected brickwork, a small box high up on the door. Felix removing some of the extraneous vegetation revealed the small keypad, which was protected by a clear plastic cover, still flexible enough to give access to the keys. He rummaged in his pocket for the scrap of paper he’d used to note down the code Philip had given him. At first he couldn’t find it, but realizing that it had dropped through a tear in the lining of his pocket, reached deep into his anorak to extract it.