Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(45)
‘Train harder,’ he said. ‘Learn faster.’
As I went upstairs, I met Molly gliding down. She paused and gave me an inquiring look.
‘How should I know?’ I said. ‘You know him better than I do.’
You don’t tell your governor that you need a broadband connection, cable for preference, because you want to watch football. You tell him that you need the internet so you can access HOLMES directly instead of having constantly to rely on Lesley May. The football coverage, movies on demand and multiplayer console games are all merely serendipitous extras.
‘Would this involve physically running a cable into the Folly?’ asked Nightingale when I tackled him during practice in the lab.
‘That’s why they call it cable,’ I said.
‘Left hand,’ said Nightingale, and I dutifully produced a werelight with my left hand.
‘Sustain it,’ said Nightingale. ‘We can’t have anything physically entering the building.’
I’d got to the point where I could talk while sustaining a werelight, although it was a strain to make it look as casual as I did. ‘Why not?’
‘There’s a series of protections woven around the building,’ said Nightingale. ‘They were last set up after the new phone lines were put in in 1941. If we introduce a new physical connection with the outside, it would create a weak spot.’
I stopped trying to be casual and concentrated on maintaining the werelight. It was a relief when Nightingale told me to stop.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I think you’re almost ready to move on to the next form.’
I dropped the werelight and caught my breath. Nightingale wandered over to the adjoining bench, where I’d dismantled my old mobile phone and set up the microscope I’d found in a mahogany case in one of the storage cupboards.
He touched the brass and black-lacquer tube. ‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked.
‘An original Charles Perry number 5 microscope,’ I said. ‘I looked it up on the internet. Made in 1932.’ Nightingale nodded, and bent down to examine the insides of my phone.
‘You think magic did this?’ he asked.
‘I know it was the magic,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know how or why.’
Nightingale shifted uncomfortably. ‘Peter,’ he said. ‘You’re not the first apprentice with an inquiring mind, but I don’t want this getting in the way of your duties.’
‘Yes sir,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep it to my free time.’
‘You’re about to suggest the coach house,’ said Nightingale.
‘Sir?’
‘For this cable connection,’ said Nightingale. ‘The heavy defences tended to disturb the horses, so they skirt the coach house. I’m sure this cable connection of yours will be very useful.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘For all manner of entertainments,’ continued Nightingale.
‘Sir.’
‘Now,’ said Nightingale. ‘The next form – Impello.’
I couldn’t tell whether the coach house had originally been built with a first floor, to house footmen or whatever, which had then been knocked through in the 1920s, or whether the floor had been added by sticking a new ceiling on the garage when they bricked up the main gate. At some point someone had bolted a rather beautiful wrought-iron spiral staircase to the courtyard wall. When I’d first ventured up, I was surprised to find that a good third of the sloping roof on the south-facing side had been glazed. The glass was dirty on the outside and some of the panes were cracked, but it let in enough daylight to reveal a jumble of shapes shrouded by dust sheets. Unlike those in the rest of the Folly, these sheets were furry with dust – I didn’t think Molly had ever cleaned in there.
If the chaise longue, Chinese screen, mismatched side tables and collection of ceramic fruit bowls that I found under the sheets weren’t enough of a clue, I also found an easel and a box full of squirrel-hair paint brushes gone rigid with disuse. Somebody had used the rooms as a studio, judging from the empty beer bottles neatly lined up against the south wall. Probably apprentices like me – that, or a wizard with a serious alcohol problem.
Stacked in the corner and carefully wrapped in brown paper and string were a series of canvases, painted in oils. These included a number of still lives, a rather amateurish portrait of a young woman whose discomfort was palpable, despite the sloppy execution. The next was much more professional – an Edwardian gentleman reclining in the same wickerwork chair I’d found under a dust sheet earlier. The man was holding a silver-topped cane and for a moment I thought he might be Nightingale, but the man was older and his eyes were an intense blue. Nightingale senior, perhaps? The next, probably by the same painter, was a nude with a subject that so shocked me I took it to the skylight to get a better look. I hadn’t made a mistake. There was Molly, reclining pale and naked on the chaise longue, staring out of the canvas with heavy-lidded eyes, one hand dipping into a bowl of cherries placed on a table by her side. At least, I hope they were cherries. The painting was in the impressionist style so the brush strokes were bold, making it hard to tell: they were definitely small and red, the same colour as Molly’s lips.
I carefully rewrapped the paintings and put them back where I’d found them. I did a cursory check of the room for damp, dry rot and whatever it is that makes wooden beams crumbly and dangerous. I found that there was still a shuttered loading door at the courtyard end of the room and mounted above it, a hoisting beam. Presumably to serve a hayloft for the coach horses.