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By Root 577 0

because in AD 964 he kicked them out and replaced them with some Benedictines. This order of monks believed in a life of contemplation, prayer and really big meals, and because they liked to eat this meant they never saw a stretch of arable land they didn’t want to improve. One of their improvements, sometime in the eleventh century, was to dig a separate channel for the Thames from the Penton Hook to the Chertsey Weir to provide water power for their grinding mills. I say the monk’s ‘dug’, but of course they drafted in some peasants for the hard labour. This artificial tributary of the Thames is marked on the maps as the Abbey River, but was once known as the Oxley Mills Stream.

I hadn’t told Beverley where we were going, but she twigged what we were up to as soon as we swung off the Clockhouse Roundabout and headed down the London Road for glorious Staines.

‘I can’t be coming down here,’ she said. ‘This is off my patch.’

‘Relax,’ I said. ‘This is sanctioned.’

It’s a weird thing that, despite being born and raised in London, there are large stretches of the city that I’ve never seen. Staines was one of those, despite technically not being in London, and to me it looked low-rise and countrified. After we crossed Staines Bridge I found myself on an anonymous stretch of road with tall hedges and fences blinding me on both sides. I slowed down as we approached a roundabout and wished that I’d invested in a GPS system.

‘Go left,’ said Beverley.

‘Why?’

‘You’re looking for one of the Sons of the Old Man?’ she asked.

‘Oxley,’ I said.

‘Then go left,’ she said with absolute certainty.

I took the first exit off the roundabout with that weird sense of dislocation you get when driving under someone else’s direction. I saw a marina on my left – bobbing rows of white and blue cruisers with the occasional long boat to break up the monotony.

‘Is that it?’ I asked.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. ‘That’s the Thames. Keep going straight.’ We crossed a short modern bridge over what Beverley assured me was Oxley’s river and reached a strange little roundabout. It was like driving into the land of the munchkins, an estate made of little streets lined with pink stucco bungalows. We turned right, parallel to the river. I drove slowly in case some little bugger jumped out into the middle of the road and started singing.

‘Here,’ said Beverley, and I parked the car. When I got out she stayed in her seat. ‘I think this is a bad idea.’

‘They’re really very nice people,’ I said.

‘I’m sure they’re very civilised and all that,’ she said. ‘But Ty is not going to like this.’

‘Beverley,’ I said. ‘Your mum told me to sort things out, and this is me sorting things out. This is you facilitating me sorting things out. Only that’s not going to happen unless you get out of the car.’

Beverley sighed, unbuckled and climbed out. She stretched and arched her back, making her breasts strain alarmingly against her jumper. She caught me staring and winked. ‘Just getting the kinks out,’ she said.

Nightingale had said that eating Isis’s Battenberg cake had been a bad idea, so I couldn’t see him approving of me fraternising with the local water nymphs. So I kept my eyes on Beverley’s round bum and tried to think professional thoughts. Besides, there was always Lesley or, more precisely, the remote hope of Lesley at some point in the future.

I rang the doorbell and stepped back politely.

I heard Isis call from inside. ‘Who is it?’

‘Peter Grant,’ I said.

Isis opened the door and beamed at me. ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’ She spotted Beverley behind me, and although she didn’t lose her smile a wariness came into her eyes. ‘And who is this?’ she asked.

‘This is Beverley Brook,’ I said. ‘I thought it was about time proper introductions were made. Beverley, this is Isis.’

Beverley extended a cautious hand, which Isis shook. ‘Pleased to meet you, Beverley. We’re out back – you’d better come through.’ Although she didn’t do anything as undignified as break into a run, Isis did walk at the brisk pace of a wife determined to reach her husband