Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(86)

That’s what it felt like when Henry Pyke let the audience loose at the Royal Opera House. I must have let go of the curtain and fallen the last couple of metres, but I only know that I was suddenly lying on the stage with a shooting pain in my ankle and a sudden desire to smash someone’s face in. I pulled myself to my feet and found myself face to disfigured face with Lesley.

I flinched. Up close, the ruin of Lesley’s face was even harder to deal with. My eyes kept sliding away from the grotesque caricature. On either side of her stood the principal cast, all male, all tense and, except for the boyish baritone, much tougher-looking than you’d expect among practitioners of high culture.

‘Are you all right?’ she squeaked. ‘You had me worried there.’

‘You tried to hang me,’ I said.

‘Peter,’ said Henry Pyke. ‘I never wanted you dead. Over the last few months I’ve come to think of you as less of an arch-enemy and more as the comic relief, the slightly dim character that comes on with the dog and does a funny turn while the real thespians are getting changed.’

‘I notice Charles Macklin didn’t make an appearance,’ I said.

The Punch nose twitched. ‘No matter,’ said Lesley. ‘The gout-ridden bastard can’t hide for ever.’

‘And in the meantime, we …’ it was a good question. ‘What are we doing?’ I asked.

‘We are playing our role,’ said Lesley. ‘We are Mr Punch, the irrepressible spirit of riot and rebellion. It is our nature to cause trouble, just as it is your nature to try and stop us.’

‘You’re killing people,’ I said.

‘Alas,’ said Lesley. ‘All art requires sacrifice. And take it from one who knows – death is more of a bore than a tragedy.’

Suddenly I was struck by the fact that I wasn’t talking to a complete personality. The way the accent bopped around from era to era, the bizarre switches in motive and behaviour. This wasn’t Henry Pyke, or even Mr Punch, this was like a patchwork, a personality cobbled together from half-remembered fragments. Maybe all ghosts were like this, a pattern of memory trapped in the fabric of the city like files on a hard-drive – slowly getting worn away as each generation of Londoners laid down the pattern of their lives.

‘You’re not listening,’ said Lesley. ‘Here I am, taking time out of my busy schedule to gloat and you’re in a world of your own.’

‘Tell me, Henry,’ I said. ‘What were the names of your parents?

‘Why, they were Mr and Mrs Pyke, of course.’

‘And their first names?’

Lesley laughed. ‘You’re trying to trick me,’ she said. ‘Their names were Father and Mother.’

I was right – Henry Pyke, at least the portion of him inside Lesley’s head – was literally not all there.

‘And tell me all the good things that come into your mind,’ I said, ‘about your mother.’

Lesley cocked her head to one side. ‘Now you’re just taking me for a fool,’ she said. She gestured at the principal cast, who’d been impassively watching our exchange. ‘Do you know what The Times said about this production?’

‘It was gloomy and pointless,’ I said as I got to my feet. If Lesley was going to monologue, I was going to use the opportunity to get up.

‘Close,’ she said. ‘What the opera critic of The Times actually wrote was that “the performance had all the gravitas of a Christmas episode of Coronation Street”.’

‘That’s harsh,’ I said.

I didn’t have any more tranquilliser, but the first-aid kit was still lying in the wings. One blow to the back of the head with the heavy case might be enough to put Lesley down. And then what?

Lesley cocked her head over to the other side – eyes still on me. ‘Oh look, boys,’ she said to the principal cast. ‘It’s the opera critic for The Times.’


I considered telling them I didn’t even read The Times, but I didn’t think they’d listen. I ran for the nearest fire exit on the basis that, by definition, it would be the shortest route out and, by law, always unlocked. Also the emergency exit signs were on a different circuit, and thus the only source of light.

I got three metres ahead of the singers while crossing the aircraft hangar space behind the stage and didn’t slow down as I banged through the first door, which cost a bruised rib but gained me at least a metre. My eyes had already begun to adjust, but even with the next emergency exit sign directly ahead there wasn’t enough light to stop me from tripping over a badly parked trolley. I went down clutching my shin, and an absurd part of my mind noting that an obstruction like that was a violation of health and safety regulations.

A silhouetted figure came charging down the corridor towards me. One of the singers had caught up; it was too dark to see which one. I kicked the trolley into his path and he went down on his face next to me. He was a big man, and smelled of sweat and stage make-up. He tried to get back up but I stepped on his back as I climbed to my feet. His friends banged through the door so I yelled to make sure their attention was focused on me, and then ran for it. The yelps as they tripped over their colleague were deeply satisfying.

Bang through another door and the lights were on, a separate circuit from the house lights, I guessed, and I was back in a blinding labyrinth of narrow corridors that all looked the same. I ran through a room inhabited by nothing but wigs and turned into a corridor whose floor was covered in drifts of ballet shoes. I slipped on one and went skidding into a breezeblock wall. Behind me I could hear the principal cast howling for my blood; the fact that the threats were beautifully articulated was of no comfort at all.