Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(71)
‘What do you want, Captain?’ asked De Veil. His voice was thin and distant, and around him I could sense rather than see the faint outlines of furniture: a desk, a chair, a bookcase. Legend had it that De Veil had a special private closet where he conducted ‘judicial examinations’ of female witnesses and suspects.
‘I’m looking for a warrant,’ said Nightingale.
‘On the usual terms?’ asked De Veil.
‘Of course,’ said Nightingale. He drew a roll of heavy paper from his jacket pocket and proffered it to De Veil. The ghost reached out a transparent hand and plucked it from Nightingale’s fingers. For all that he did it casually, I was certain that the effort of moving a physical object must be costing De Veil something. The laws of thermodynamics were very clear on the subject – all debts must be paid in full.
‘And which miscreant are we looking to apprehend?’ asked De Veil, and placed the paper on the transparent desk.
‘Henry Pyke, Your Honour,’ said Nightingale. ‘Who goes by the name of Punch, and also by the name of Pulcinella.’
De Veil’s eyes glittered and his lips twitched. ‘Are we arresting puppets now, Captain?’
‘Let us say that we are arresting the puppet master, Your Worship,’ said Nightingale.
‘And the charge?’
‘Murder of his wife and child,’ said Nightingale.
De Veil tilted his head. ‘Was she a shrew?’ he asked.
‘I beg your pardon, Your Worship?’ said Nightingale.
‘Come now, Captain,’ said De Veil. ‘No man strikes his wife without provocation – was she a shrew?’
Nightingale hesitated.
‘A most terrible shrew,’ I said. ‘Begging Your Worship’s pardon. But the babe was an innocent.’
‘A man can be driven to terrible acts by the tongue of a woman,’ said De Veil. ‘As I can testify for myself.’ He winked at me and I thought, nice, there’s an image that will never fade. ‘However, the babe was innocent and for this he must be arrested and brought before his peers.’ A quill appeared in De Veil’s ghostly hand, and with a flourish he scratched out a warrant. ‘I trust you’ve remembered the prerequisite,’ said De Veil.
‘My constable will take care of the formalities,’ said Nightingale.
Which was news to me. I looked to Nightingale who made the Lux gesture with his right hand. I nodded to show that I understood.
De Veil made a show of blowing the ink dry before rolling the warrant into a tube and handing it back to Nightingale.
‘Thank you, Your Worship,’ he said, and then to me: ‘In your own time, Constable.’
I created a werelight and floated it over to De Veil, who cupped it gently in his right hand. Although I was still maintaining the spell the light dimmed as, I presumed, De Veil sucked up the magic. I kept it going for a minute before Nightingale made a cutting motion with his hand and I ended the spell. De Veil sighed as the light faded and nodded his thanks to me. ‘So little,’ he said wistfully, and vanished.
Nightingale handed me the roll of paper. ‘You are now duly warranted,’ he said. I unrolled the warrant and found, as I had suspected, that the paper was still blank. ‘Let’s go and arrest Henry Pyke,’ said Nightingale.
Once we were well clear of the storeroom I slapped the battery back into the Airwave handset and called up Lesley. ‘Don’t worry about us,’ she said. ‘We’re quite happy to be waiting around for you to get your finger out.’ Behind her I could hear voices, glasses and Dusty Small’s latest single. I didn’t have any sympathy; she was in the pub. I suggested that it might be time for her and the rest of the back-up team to go on standby.
Police work is all about systems and procedures and planning – even when you’re hunting a supernatural entity. When me, Nightingale, Seawoll, Stephanopoulos and Lesley worked out the details of the operation it took less than fifteen minutes because what we were doing was a standard identify, contain, track and arrest. It was my job to identify Henry Pyke’s latest victim. Once I’d done that, Nightingale would do his magic trick and track Henry’s spirit back to his grave. Seawoll’s people would provide containment in case things went pear-shaped, while Dr Walid stood by with a mobile trauma team to help any poor bastard who had the bad luck to have their face fall off. Meanwhile, DS Stephanopoulos was ready with a van full of builders on time and a half and, I found out later, a mini-JCB to dig up the grave wherever they might find it. She had another van full of uniformed bodies to handle crowd control in case Henry Pyke turned out to be buried under something inconveniently populated such as a pub or a cinema. Seawoll was technically in charge of the whole thing, which I’m sure put him in a wonderful mood.
Everything was supposed to be in place by the time Nightingale and I emerged from the Royal Opera House’s stage door and stepped back on to Bow Street. Given that Henry Pyke was beaten to death by Charles Macklin less than ten metres up the road, we both figured that this would be the ideal spot to start our little fishing expedition. Reluctantly I opened my carryall and donned my uniform jacket and my bloody stupid helmet. For the record, we all hate the bloody helmet, which is useless in a fight and makes you look like a blue biro with the top still on. The only reason we’re still wearing it is because the alternative designs all seem to be worse. Still, if I was going to act the part of a constable, I supposed I’d better look like one.