Lies Sleeping

21 A l’ombre des jeunes rivières en crue

The next day Isis and Oxley were coming down to London for an evening performance of La Bohème at the Royal Opera House. We’d decided ages ago that we’d meet up for drinks beforehand and for some reason we ended up in the Punch and Judy Tavern in Covent Garden Market.

‘It’s amazing how little damage the fire did,’ said Oxley.

The balcony ran along the middle of the west end of the market building and faced the east portico of St Paul’s Church where, incidentally, I had met my first ghost. It’s also famously the last resting place of many celebrated luvvies, and is thus known as the Actors’ Church. Which serves to distinguish it from its larger, more famous, namesake.

‘That’s because Beverley here put it out,’ said Isis.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The water damage was worse than the fire damage.’ Beverley kicked me under the table. ‘Also, this is a solid brick building. So the structure remained intact.’

Half the shops had changed, though.

Apple had taken the opportunity to put in their iBar and the new money had scrubbed away some of the character.

Isis frowned.

‘You don’t mind coming here, do you?’

I assured her I didn’t and explained that this was where I’d done my probation, arrested my first drunk and solved my first investigation. Kissed Beverley for the first time, too – well, that was up the road at Seven Dials, but still.

There were other memories – the ruin of Lesley’s face and the realisation that I was too late. Nearly getting myself hanged on stage and Seawoll clothes-lining me in the Floral Hall Bar. And Beverley floating above me with the firelight refracting through the water before she swept it away with the wave of a hand.

And that was just the first half of the year.

Because I was, amazingly enough, off shift I managed to have my first guilt-free pint for ages. Although my phone was still on and Nightingale had told me to stay upright if at all possible.

‘I don’t like it, Peter,’ he’d said after the morning briefing. ‘It’s all too complicated. Chorley has proved masterful at deceiving us in the past and I fear a great deal of what we’re finding is part of an elaborate ruse. What Varvara would call a maskirovka.’

He wanted us to stay open-minded and alert.

And I really wanted that pint.

‘Fleet was well pissed off,’ said Beverley.

‘As well she might be,’ said Oxley.

There was an East Asian woman doing street magic in front of the portico. From the balcony I could see the way the crowd formed up around her. She was good, catching individuals’ eyes, flirting with the teenagers and getting the younger kids excited by flicking her cards palm to palm like a juggler. When she did something clever you could see the surprise and excitement ripple out through the people around her.

The crowd goes one way and the thief goes the other way. They’re excited, he’s careful. They’re relaxed, he’s tense. And even if I hadn’t known him by name I would have spotted him for the career pickpocket he was.

‘Freddy,’ I shouted down from the balcony.

He looked up. I waved. It took a moment for him to recognise me, then he looked frantically around to see if a couple of response officers were closing in on him. When he didn’t spot any, he gave me a surly look.

I made a throat cutting motion and pointed south towards the Strand.

Freddy hesitated but the implication was clear – if he made me come down there and arrest him it was going to go very hard indeed. Finally he shrugged and slouched off – northwards, I noticed, the opposite of where I’d pointed.

I turned back to find the others staring at me.

‘Pickpocket,’ I said.

Beverley shook her head and Oxley laughed.

‘Well spotted,’ said Isis. ‘You’re not going to leave us and give chase, are you?’

I said that fortunately in these degenerate modern times such things were not necessary. Then I got my phone out and texted Inspector Neblett, my former shift commander, and let him know that our old mate Frederick William Cotton was obviously out of prison again. Probably now planning to work Oxford Street.

I refocused as the waitress brought the second round of drinks. I had another gloriously guilt-free pint. Oxley had something called a Brewdog Vagabond Pale Ale, which came in a bottle and which he claimed never to have tasted before.

‘I’m trying new things,’ he said.

Including a new suit in khaki chambray that had either been tailored deliberately baggy or had once belonged to someone else. Isis was similarly smartly turned out in a burgundy floor-length dress and matching jacket with cream buttons. I did mention that the opera had got a lot more informal since they last attended, which didn’t seem to bother Isis at all.

‘Well, I dress to please myself,’ said Isis, and clinked glasses with Beverley.

‘And I dress to please my love,’ said Oxley.

They all looked at me.

‘I dress to project an aura of confident authority,’ I said.

‘Not to please your goddess?’ said Oxley.

‘We much prefer the pair of you as nature intended,’ said Isis.

‘In which case,’ said Oxley, putting down his drink, ‘your wish is my command.’

He started stripping off his jacket and was only stopped when Isis grabbed his hand.

‘Don’t you dare,’ she said.

‘Are they not as fickle as the wind?’ said Oxley. ‘And as changeable as the sea.’

‘I’m not going anywhere near that, mate,’ I said, and Isis asked Beverley what she planned to do with her degree.

‘I’ve still got another year,’ said Beverley.

Down in the Piazza the street magician had given way to a small white man in a shabby suit and a top hat. I felt a moment of unease until he pulled out a yellow balloon and started comically failing to make an animal out of it. He did his patter in a broad West Country accent that had nothing to do with the skeleton army or the cruel streets of nineteenth-century London.

‘I was thinking of going into flood management,’ said Beverley.

‘Isn’t that cheating?’ asked Isis.

‘I like to think of it more as offering a unique insight.’

‘The insight being that they pay you money and you don’t flood their back gardens?’ said Isis.

Beverley denied the extortion aspect, although she admitted that she might end up having to extract some promises from her sisters if she did work in the lower Thames.

‘Which reminds me,’ said Isis. ‘When are Nicky and Brent coming up to visit?’

‘Are you sure you want them back?’ I asked. ‘After what happened last time?’

Oxley waved away any problems.

‘After all,’ he said. ‘Who hasn’t capsized a boat when they were young?’

‘And I was asked to ask if Abigail might come up before school starts again,’ said Isis. ‘We’d love to have her for a week or two.’

I thought of all that chatting late at night and the sound of the tent zipping up.

‘Asked by who?’ I asked.

‘See how he bristles?’ said Oxley. ‘Ever vigilant of his sister’s honour.’

‘Not my sister,’ I said, which the others seemed to find hilarious.

I said I’d check with her parents, but I already knew they’d say yes. They were horribly trusting, and worse, held me responsible. My dad said that this would be a good preview of life with my own children, but what he thought he might know about it I don’t know.

Oxley asked if we were eating and Beverley did the honours – summoning up a startled looking white guy in a blue pinstripe shirt, who I sincerely hoped was bar staff and not some random member of the public. We’ve talked about the ethics of this, but she does like to show off in front of her country cousins.

Anyway, whoever the guy was, fish and chips and steak and ale pie arrived pretty damn quick. Oxley turned out to be a surprisingly dainty eater and at one point Beverley nudged me and told me to stop embarrassing her in public. But, I mean, if you can’t eat battered cod with your fingers, how should you eat it?

‘Patience,’ said Isis. ‘It only took me a couple of hundred years to stop my darling from farting at the table.’

I pointed out that Beverley had her own bad habits, such as leaving her wetsuits lying around the living room.

‘While still wet,’ I said. ‘Not to mention that time you climbed into bed in the middle of the night still wearing it.’

‘I was going out again in a minute,’ said Beverley. ‘I didn’t want all the hassle of putting it back on.’ Not even after she’d kissed me awake.

Isis and Oxley, who both made a point of swimming unabashedly naked, gave me an interested look, which I ignored. My dad says that a gentleman never tells and my mum says nor tel me business to other person despite being quite happy to tell my business to a non-trivial proportion of London’s Sierra Leonean population. I decided it was time to change the subject, so I asked Isis if she’d had a chance to ask Father Thames about King Arthur.

‘Ha,’ said Isis. ‘Yes, I did. Although I think I should have listened to my husband.’

‘I warned you it would be a pretty riddle,’ said Oxley.

‘I couldn’t speak to its beauty, but it was in Latin.’ Isis asked me if I was sure I wanted to hear it. ‘Often times the answer is not worth the question.’

‘Nice,’ said Beverley. ‘I’ll remember that one.’

‘I’ll take the risk,’ I said.

‘Dicito praeconi lucis,’ said Isis.

‘lucis’ I recognised but ‘praeconi’ I didn’t know.

‘Something of the morning?’ I asked.

‘Herald,’ said Oxley. ‘Herald of the morning – that’s you, by the way.’

‘I thought I was a starling,’ I said.

‘And the herald of the morning,’ said Isis.

‘I thought the herald of the dawn was the rooster.’

‘Do you want to hear the rest or not?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Dicito praeconi lucis,’ she said. ‘Si pontem ad urbem servandam dissolvet, praemium suum exilium erit.’

‘Should I dissolvo the bridge?’

Even as I said it, I remembered the feel of the ghost spear in my hand, the feel of the impact as I drove it through the chest of Punch and pinned him to the decking of the first London Bridge.

A ghost spear, a dream Punch, a memory of London’s past.

Praemium suum exilium erit.

His reward will be exile.

‘Peter?’ said Beverley – they were all staring at me.

‘I don’t fancy exile,’ I said.

‘That’s your actual prophecy, that is,’ said Oxley. ‘You’d better watch out.’

Because when you find the hand of destiny on your shoulder, the proper London response is to deny you’re the one she’s looking for.

‘What, me, guv?’ I said.