Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(11)

‘Well?’ asked Nightingale.

‘A dog,’ I said. ‘A little yappy dog.’

Growling, barking, yelling, flashes of cobbles, sticks, laughing – maniacal, high-pitched laughing.

I stood up sharply.

‘Violence and laughter?’ asked Nightingale. I nodded.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

‘The uncanny,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s like a bright light when you close your eyes, it leaves an afterimage. We call it vestigium.’

‘How do I know I didn’t just imagine it?’ I asked.

‘Experience,’ said Nightingale. ‘You learn to distinguish the difference through experience.’

Thankfully we turned our back on the body and left.

‘I barely felt anything,’ I said, while we were changing. ‘Is it always that weak?’

‘That body’s been on ice for two days,’ said Nightingale, ‘and dead bodies don’t retain vestigia very well.’

‘So whatever caused it must have been very strong,’ I said.

‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘Therefore we have to assume that the dog is very important and we have to find out why.’

‘Maybe Mr Skirmish had a dog,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s start there.’

We’d changed and were on our way out of the mortuary when fate caught up with us.

‘I heard rumours there was a nasty smell in the building,’ said a voice behind us. ‘And bugger me if it isn’t true.’

We stopped and turned.

Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Seawoll was a big man, coming in a shade under two metres, barrel-chested, beer-bellied and with a voice that could make the windows shake. He was from Yorkshire, or somewhere like that, and like many Northerners with issues, he’d moved to London as a cheap alternative to psychotherapy. I knew him by reputation, and the reputation was, don’t fuck with him under any circumstances. He bore down the corridor towards us like a bull on steroids, and as he did I had to fight the urge to hide behind Nightingale.

‘This is my fucking investigation, Nightingale,’ said Seawoll. ‘I don’t care who you’re currently fucking – I don’t want any of your X-Files shit getting in the way of proper police work.’

‘I can assure you, Inspector,’ said Nightingale, ‘I have no intention of getting in your way.’

Seawoll turned to look at me. ‘Who the hell is this?’

‘This is PC Peter Grant,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s working with me.’

I could see this shocked Seawoll. He looked at me carefully before turning back to Nightingale. ‘You’re taking on an apprentice?’ he asked.

‘That’s yet to be decided,’ said Nightingale.

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Seawoll. ‘There was an agreement.’

‘There was an arrangement,’ said Nightingale. ‘Circumstances change.’

‘Not that fucking much they don’t,’ said Seawoll, but it seemed to me he’d lost some of his conviction. He looked down at me again. ‘Take my advice, son,’ he said quietly. ‘Get the fuck away from this man while you still have a chance.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Just stay the hell away from my investigation,’ said Seawoll.

‘I go where I’m needed,’ said Nightingale. ‘That’s the agreement.’

‘Circumstances can fucking change,’ said Seawoll. ‘Now if you gentlemen don’t mind, I’m late for my colonic irrigation.’

He went back up the corridor, crashed through the double doors and was gone.

‘What’s the agreement?’ I asked.

‘It’s not important,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s go and see if we can’t find this dog.’


The north end of the London Borough of Camden is dominated by two hills, Hampstead on the west, Highgate on the east, with the Heath, one of the largest parks in London, slung between them like a green saddle. From these heights the land slopes down towards the River Thames and the floodplains that lurk below the built-up centre of London.

Dartmouth Park, where William Skirmish had lived, was on the lower slopes of Highgate Hill and within easy walking distance of the Heath. He’d had the ground-floor flat of a converted Victorian terrace, the corner house of a tree-lined street that had been traffic-calmed to within an inch of its life.

Further downhill was Kentish Town, Leighton Road and the estate where I grew up. Some of my school mates had lived around the corner from Skirmish’s flat, so I knew the area well.

I spotted a face in a first-floor window as we showed our cards to the uniform guarding the door. As in many converted terraces, a once elegant hallway had been walled off with plasterboard, making it cramped and lightless. Two additional front doors had been jammed side by side into the space at the end. The door on the right was half-open but symbolically blocked with police tape. The other presumably belonged to the flat with the twitching curtains upstairs.

Skirmish’s flat was neat, and furnished in the patchwork of styles that ordinary people, the ones not driven by aspirational demons, choose for their homes. Fewer bookcases than I would have expected from a media type; many photographs, but the ones of children were all black and white or the faded colour of old instamatic film.