Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(80)

‘We buy time,’ I said. ‘For Nightingale to wake up, for me to get back to the Folly library, for Henry Pyke to die of old age … or whatever it is undead people do when they go.’

Dr Walid went grumbling off and came back a bit later with two disposable syrettes in sterile packaging with a biohazard label and a sticker that said ‘Keep out of the hands of children’.

‘Etorphine hydrochloride in solution,’ he said. ‘Enough to sedate a human female in the sixty-five kilogram weight range.’

‘Is it fast?’ I asked.

‘It’s what they use to trank rhinos,’ he said, and handed me a second package with another two syrettes. ‘This is the reversing agent, narcan. If you stick yourself with the etorphine, then you use this straight away before you call an ambulance, and try to make sure the paramedics get this card.’

He handed me a card that was still warm from the lamination machine. In Dr Walid’s neat, capitalised handwriting it said: ‘Warning. I have been stupid enough to stick myself with etorphine hydrochloride’, and listed the procedures the paramedics were to follow. Most of them concerned resuscitation and heroic measures to maintain heartbeat and respiration.

I patted my jacket nervously as I rode the lift down to the reception area, and repeated under my breath that the tranquillisers were in the left-hand pocket and the reversing agent on the right.

Beverley was waiting for me in the No Waiting zone dressed in khaki cargo pants and a cropped black t-shirt with WINE BACK HERE stencilled across her breasts.

‘Ta-da!’ she said, and showed me her car. It was a canary-yellow BMW Mini convertible, the Cooper S model with the supercharger at the back and the run-flat tires. It was about as a conspicuous a car as you can drive in central London and still fit into a standard parking space. I was happy to let her drive – I’ve still got some standards.

It was hot for late May, an excellent day for driving a convertible even with the rush-hour traffic fumes. Beverley was as averagely terrible a driver as you’d expect in someone who’d passed their test in the last two years. The good thing about London traffic is that your general motorist doesn’t get a chance to pick up enough speed to make fatal mistakes. Predictably we ground to a halt at the bottom end of Gower Street, and I faced the age-old dilemma of the London traveller – get out and walk or wait and hope.

I called Lesley again, but her phone went straight to voice mail. I called Belgravia nick and got them to patch me through to Stephanopoulos’s Airwave. In case anyone was monitoring the channel, she duly warned me to go home and await instructions before letting me know that she’d last seen Seawoll and Lesley heading for the Opera House. I told her that I was dutifully heading home, in a way that wouldn’t convince Stephanopoulos or our hypothetical listeners, but which would at least look good on any transcript produced in court.

The traffic unclogged once we were past New Oxford Street, and I told Beverley to head down Endell Street.

‘When we get there you’ve got to stay away from Lesley,’ I said.

‘You don’t think I can take Lesley?’

‘I think she might suck out all your magic,’ I said.

‘Really?’ asked Beverley.

I was guessing, but a genii locorum like Beverley had to be drawing on magic from somewhere, and to a revenant like Henry Pyke that must make them attractive victims. Or maybe they had some natural immunity to that sort of thing and I was worrying for nothing, but I didn’t think that was the way to bet.

‘Really,’ I said.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I thought we were friends.’

I was going to say something comforting, but that was strangled off when Beverley shot out of the one-way system by the Oasis Sports Centre and turned into Endell Street without, as far as I could see, any reference to or indeed awareness of other road users.

‘Lesley is your friend,’ I said. ‘Henry Pyke is not.’

The thank-God-it’s-Friday crowds had spilled out of the pubs and cafés onto the pavements, and for a few hours London had the proper street culture that the people who own villas in Tuscany keep calling for. The narrowing road and the prospect of hitting a pedestrian caused even Beverley to take her foot momentarily off the accelerator.

‘Watch the people,’ I said.

‘Ha,’ said Beverley. ‘People shouldn’t drink and walk at the same time.’

We swerved round the mini-roundabout on Long-acre, slowed in deference to another crowd of drinkers outside the Kemble’s Head on the corner and accelerated down Bow Street. I couldn’t see any police cars, fire engines or other signs of an emergency outside the Opera House, so I figured we might have got there in time. Beverley pulled into a disabled parking space opposite the Opera House.

‘Keep the motor running,’ I said as I got out. I wasn’t really anticipating a fast getaway but I figured it would keep her in the car and out of trouble. ‘If the police try to move you on, give them my name and say I’m inside on official business.’

‘Because of course that’ll work,’ said Beverley, but she stayed in the Mini which was the main thing. I trotted across the road to the main entrance and pushed through one of the glass and mahogany doors. The interior atrium was cool and dark after the sunlight; manikins were mounted in glass cases by the doors, decked out in costumes from previous performances. As I went through the second, interior set of doors into the lobby I was met by a sudden rush of people coming the other way. I looked quickly about to see what could be driving them but, although they were moving briskly and with a sense of urgency, there wasn’t any panic. Then I twigged: it was the interval, and these were the smokers heading outside for a cigarette.