Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch [58]
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