Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(9)

My fourteen-year-old self was more rational. I didn’t know anyone in these cities on the departure boards, and I doubted they would be any more welcoming than London. I probably didn’t even have enough money to get me further than Potters Bar, and even if I did stow away for free, what was I going to eat? Realistically I had three meals’ worth of cash on me, and then it would be back home to Mum and Dad. Anything I did short of getting back on the bus and going home was merely postponing the inevitable moment of my return.

I had that same realisation in Covent Garden at three o’clock in the morning. That same collapse of potential futures down to a singularity, a future that I couldn’t escape. I wasn’t going to drive a fancy motor and say ‘you’re nicked’. I was going to work in the Case Progression Unit and make a ‘valuable contribution’.

I stood up and started walking back to the nick.

In the distance I thought I could hear someone laughing at me.





Ghost-hunting Dog


The next morning Lesley asked me how the ghost-hunting had gone. We were loitering in front of Neblett’s office, the place from whence the fatal blow would fall. We weren’t required to be there, but neither of us wanted to prolong the agony.

‘There’s worse things than the Case Progression Unit,’ I said.

We both thought about that for a moment.

‘Traffic,’ said Lesley. ‘That’s worse than the CPU.’

‘You get to drive nice motors though,’ I said. ‘BMW Five, Mercedes M Class.’

‘You know, Peter, you really are quite a shallow person,’ said Lesley.

I was going to protest, but Neblett emerged from his office. He didn’t seem surprised to see us. He handed a letter to Lesley, who seemed curiously reluctant to open it.

‘They’re waiting for you at Belgravia,’ said Neblett. ‘Off you go.’ Belgravia is where the Westminster Murder Team is based. Lesley gave me a nervous little wave, turned and skipped off down the corridor.

‘There goes a proper thief taker,’ said Neblett. He looked at me and frowned.

‘Whereas you,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what you are.’

‘Proactively making a valuable contribution, sir,’ I said.

‘Cheeky bugger is what you are,’ said Neblett. He handed me not an envelope, but a slip of paper. ‘You’re going to be working with a Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale.’ The slip had the name and address of a Japanese restaurant on New Row.

‘Who am I working for?’ I asked.

‘Economic and Specialist Crime as far as I know,’ said Neblett. ‘They want you in plain clothes, so you’d better get a move on.’

Economic and Specialist Crime was an admin basket for a load of specialist units, everything from arts and antiques to immigration and computer crime. The important thing was that the Case Progression Unit wasn’t one of them. I left in a hurry before he could change his mind, but I want to make it clear that at no point did I break into a skip.


New Row was a narrow, pedestrianised street between Covent Garden and St Martin’s Lane, with a Tesco’s at one end and the theatres of St Martin’s Lane at the other. Tokyo A Go Go was a bent place halfway down, sandwiched between a private gallery and a shop that sold sporting gear for girls. The interior was long and barely wide enough for two rows of tables, sparsely decorated in minimalist Japanese fashion, with polished wooden floors, tables and chairs of lacquered wood, lots of right angles and rice paper.

I spotted Nightingale at a back table eating out of a black lacquered bent box. He stood when he saw me and shook my hand. Once I’d settled myself opposite, he asked if I was hungry. I said no thank you. I was nervous, and I make it a rule never to put cold rice into an agitated stomach. He ordered tea, and asked if I minded if he continued eating.

I said not at all, and he returned to spearing food out of his bent with quick jabs of his chopsticks.

‘Did he come back?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Who?’

‘Your ghost,’ said Nightingale. ‘Nicholas Wallpenny: lurker, bug hunter and sneak thief. Late of the parish of St Giles. Can you hazard a guess as to where he’s buried?’

‘In the cemetery of the Actors’ Church?’

‘Very good,’ Nightingale said, and grabbed a duck wrap with a quick stab of his chopsticks. ‘So, did he come back?’

‘No he didn’t,’ I said.

‘Ghosts are capricious,’ he said. ‘They really don’t make reliable witnesses.’

‘Are you telling me ghosts are real?’

Nightingale carefully wiped his lips with a napkin.

‘You’ve spoken to one,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’m awaiting confirmation from a senior officer,’ I said.

He put the napkin down and picked up his teacup. ‘Ghosts are real,’ he took a sip.

I stared at him. I didn’t believe in ghosts, or fairies or gods, and for the last couple of days I’d been like a man watching a magic show – I’d expected a magician to step out from behind the curtain and ask me to pick a card, any card. I wasn’t ready to believe in ghosts, but that’s the thing about empirical experience – it’s the real thing.

And if ghosts were real?