Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(46)

As I leaned out to check it was still solid, I saw Molly’s pale face in one of the upper windows. I didn’t know what I found stranger, that somebody had persuaded her to get her kit off, or that she hadn’t changed in appearance in the last seventy years. She withdrew without apparently seeing me. I turned and looked around the room.

This, I thought, will do nicely.

At one time or other most of my mum’s relatives had cleaned offices for a living. For a certain generation of African immigrants cleaning offices became part of the culture like male circumcision and supporting Arsenal. My mum had done a stint herself and had often taken me with her to save on babysitting. When an African mum takes her son to work she expects her son to work so I quickly learnt how to handle a broom and a window cloth. So the next day after practice, I returned to the coach house with a packet of Marigold gloves and my Uncle Tito’s Numatic vacuum cleaner. Let me tell you, 1,000 watts of suckage makes a big difference when cleaning a room. The only thing I had to worry about was causing a rift in the space-time fabric of the universe. I found the window cleaners online, and a pair of bickering Romanians scrubbed up the skylight while I rigged up a pulley to the hoisting beam, just in time for the TV to be delivered along with the fridge.

I had to wait a week for the cable to be hooked up, so I caught up on my practice and started narrowing down the location of Father Thames. ‘Finding him will be a good exercise for you,’ Nightingale had said. ‘Give you a good grounding in the folklore of the Thames Valley.’ I asked for a clue, and he told me to remember that Father Thames had traditionally been a peripatetic spirit which, according to Google, meant walking or travelling about, itinerant, so not really a lot of help. I had to admit that it was expanding my knowledge of the folklore of the Thames Valley, most of which was contradictory but would no doubt be helpful at the next pub quiz I took part in.

To inaugurate my re-entry into the twenty-first century I ordered some pizza and invited Lesley round to see my etchings. I had a long soak in the claw-footed porcelain tub that dominated the communal bathroom on my floor and swore, not for the first time, that I was definitely going to install a shower. I’m not a peacock but on occasion I like to dress to impress, although like most coppers I don’t wear much in the way of bling, the rule being never wear something round your neck that you don’t want to be strangled with. I laid in some Becks because I knew Lesley preferred bottled beer, and settled in to watch sports TV while I waited for her to turn up.

Among the many other modern innovations that I’d introduced to the coach house was an entryphone installed on the garage’s side door, so that when Lesley arrived all I had to do was buzz her in.

I opened the door and met her at the top of the spiral staircase – she’d brought company.

‘I brought Beverley,’ said Lesley.

‘Of course you did,’ I said.

I offered them beer. ‘I want you to make it clear that nothing I eat or drink here puts me under obligation,’ said Beverley. ‘And no mucking me about this time.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Eat, drink, no obligations, Scout’s honour.’

‘On your power,’ said Beverley.

‘I swear on my power,’ I said.

Beverley grabbed a beer, hopped onto the sofa, found the remote and started channel-surfing. ‘Can I on-demand a movie?’ she asked. There followed a three-way argument over what we were going to watch, which I lost at the start and Lesley won in the end by the simple expedient of grabbing the remote and switching to one of the free movie channels.

Beverley was just complaining that none of the pizzas had pepperoni when the door opened a fraction and a pale face peered in. It was Molly. She stared at us, and we stared back.

‘Would you like to come in?’ I asked.

Molly slipped silently inside and drifted over to the sofa, where she sat next to Beverley. I realised that I’d never been this close to her before; her skin was very pale and perfect in the same way that Beverley’s was. She refused a beer but tentatively accepted a piece of pizza. When she ate she turned her face away and held her hand so that it obscured her mouth.

‘When are you going to sort out Father Thames?’ asked Beverley. ‘Mum’s getting impatient and the Richmond posse is getting restless.’

‘Richmond posse,’ said Lesley, and snorted.

‘We’ve got to find him first,’ I said.

‘How hard can it be?’ said Beverley. ‘He’s got to be close to the river. Hire a boat, go upstream and stop when you get there.’

‘How would we know when we got there?’

‘I’d know.’

‘Then why don’t you come with us, then?’

‘No way,’ said Beverley. ‘You’re not getting me up past Teddington Lock. I’m strictly tidal, I am.’

Suddenly Molly’s head whipped round to face the door, and a moment later somebody knocked. Beverley looked at me but I shrugged – I wasn’t expecting anyone. I hit mute on the remote and got up to answer. It was Inspector Nightingale dressed in the blue polo shirt and blazer which I recognised as being the closest thing he ever got to casual dress. I stared at him stupidly for a moment, and then invited him in.

‘I just wanted to see what you’d done with the place,’ he said.

Molly shot to her feet as soon as Nightingale came into the room, Lesley got up because he was a senior officer and Beverley stood either from some vestigial politeness or in anticipation of a quick getaway. I introduced Beverley, who he’d met only briefly when she was ten.