Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(39)

I agreed that being part of something real was indeed wonderful, but it would be groovy if she could tell me what she’d seen. I actually used the word ‘groovy’ and she didn’t even flinch, which was worrying on so many levels.

According to her, a cycle courier had been brought in by ambulance following a road traffic accident, and while he was being treated he’d kicked the attending doctor in the eye. The doctor had been stunned rather than seriously injured and the cycle courier had run out of A&E before Security could nab him.

‘Why bring it to us?’ I asked.

‘It was the laughing,’ said the nurse. ‘I was going back to the treatment bay when I heard this screeching laugh, like a mynah bird. Then I heard Eric – Dr Framline, that’s the doctor who was injured – I heard him swearing, and then the cycle courier comes charging out of the bay and there’s something wrong with his face.’

‘Wrong, how?’ I asked.

‘Just wrong,’ she said, displaying precisely the characteristic that makes eyewitnesses such a useful part of any police investigation. ‘He went past so fast I didn’t see much but it just looked … wrong.’

She showed me the treatment bay where it happened, a white and beige cubicle with an examination bed and a curtain for privacy. The vestigium – note that I’m using the singular here – slapped me in the face as soon as I walked in. Violence, laughter, dried sweat and leather. It was the same as poor William Skirmish when he was lying in the mortuary, only minus the annoying yappy dog.

Two months previously I would have walked into that treatment bay, shivered, thought, ‘That’s weird’ and walked right back out again.

Beverley stuck her head in and demanded to know whether I’d found anything.

‘I need to borrow your phone,’ I said.

‘What happened to yours?’ she asked.

‘I blew it up in a magic accident,’ I said. ‘Don’t ask.’

Beverley pouted and handed over a surprisingly chunky Ericsson. ‘You have to top it up,’ she said. The casing had latex seals and the buttons were large and protected by a layer of clear plastic. ‘It’s designed to go underwater,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask.’

‘Can you get your acolyte to find out Dr Framline’s address for me?’

Beverley shrugged. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘And remember, you talk, you pay!’

While Beverley was distracted with her task I took her phone outside to Beaumont Place, a quiet pedestrianised road that ran between the old and the new bits of the hospital, and called Nightingale. I described the incident and the vestigium and he agreed that it was worth stepping up the search for the courier.

‘I want to keep an eye on the doctor,’ I said.

‘Interesting,’ said Nightingale. ‘Why?’

‘I’m thinking of the sequence of events around Skirmish’s murder,’ I said. ‘Toby bites Coopertown on the nose, that’s when it starts. But Coopertown doesn’t go postal until later when he runs into Skirmish in Covent Garden.’

‘You think it was set off by a chance meeting?’

‘That’s just it,’ I said. ‘Lesley says that the Murder Team haven’t found a reason for Skirmish even to be in Covent Garden that night. He gets a bus down to the West End, meets Coopertown and gets his head knocked off. No meetings, no friends – nothing.’

‘You think both parties were affected?’ asked Nightingale. ‘You think an outside agency made them meet?’

‘Is such a thing possible?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ said Nightingale. ‘If your dog was affected along with his master and Coopertown, then it would explain why he was so sensitive to the vestigia.’

I noticed Toby was my dog now. ‘So it’s possible?’

‘Yes,’ said Nightingale, but I could tell he was sceptical.

‘What if the cycle courier is playing Toby’s role and the doctor is taking Coopertown’s?’ I asked. ‘At the very least it wouldn’t hurt to keep an obbo on the doctor until the courier is caught.’

‘Can you handle that?’ asked Nightingale.

‘No problem,’ I said.

‘Good,’ said Nightingale, and offered to coordinate the search for the cycle courier. I hung up as Beverley Brook sauntered over from the hospital, the swing of her hips dragging at my eyes. She grinned when she caught me looking and handed me a slip of paper – Dr Framline’s address.

‘What next, guv?’ she asked.

‘Where can I drop you?’ I asked.

‘No, no, no,’ Beverley said quickly. ‘Mum says I was to facilitate.’

‘You’ve facilitated,’ I said. ‘You can go home now.’

‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said. ‘Mum’s got the whole entourage round, Ty and Effra and Fleet, not to mention all the old ladies. You don’t know what it’s like.’

Actually I knew exactly what it was like, but I wasn’t going to tell Beverley that.

‘Come on, I’ll be good,’ she said, giving me the big eyes. ‘I’ll let you borrow my phone.’

I gave in before she escalated to the trembling lip. ‘But you have to do what I say.’