Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

‘Dangerous,’ he said.

‘Has to be done,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he’s going to stop until he’s stopped.’

Slowly, one word at a time, Nightingale told me exactly how it would work — I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. It was a terrible plan, and it still left the question of how to get back into the Folly.

‘Tyburn’s mother,’ said Nightingale.

‘You want her to overrule her daughter?’ I asked. ‘What makes you think she’ll do that?’

‘Pride,’ said Nightingale.

‘You want me to beg?’

‘Not her pride,’ said Nightingale. ‘Yours.’

It’s not easy manoeuvring an articulated lorry up the Wapping Wall, so I hired a middle-aged man called Brian to do it. Brian was balding, pot-bellied and foulmouthed. The only thing missing from the stereotype was a Yorkie Bar and a rolled-up copy of the Sun . Still, I hadn’t hired him for his erudition, and he did get us all the way to Mama Thames’s house without any extraneous insurance claims.

We parked up half outside Mama Thames’s block and half outside the Prospect of Whitby. The staff must have thought it was an unexpected delivery because they came tumbling out — I had to tell them it was for a private party, and weirdly they didn’t seem that surprised. I asked Brian to wait, and picking up my crate of samples from the cab, I staggered over to the communal entrance. I put it down and rang the doorbell. This time I was met at the door by the same white lady I’d seen before among Mama Thames’s cronies. She was dressed in a different, but equally nice, twinset and pearls, and carried a small black child on her hip.

‘Why Constable Grant,’ she said. ‘How lovely to see you again.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘You must be Lea.’

‘Very good,’ said Lea. ‘I do like a young man who has his wits about him.’ The River Lea rises in the Chilterns north-west of London, and skirts the top of the city before making a sharp right-hand turn down the Lea Valley to the Thames. It’s the least urbanised of London’s rivers and the largest, so of course it survived the great stink. Lea must have been one of Oxley’s generation of genii locorum , if not older.

I pulled a face at the child, who looked to be a girl of nursery age, and she pulled a face back. ‘Who’s this?’ I asked.

‘This is Brent,’ said Lea. ‘She’s the youngest.’

‘Hello Brent,’ I said. She was lighter-skinned than her sisters, with brown eyes that might have been called hazel by a good-natured liar, but the belligerent set of her face was unmistakable. She was wearing a miniature red England away strip, predictably the number 11 shirt.

‘You smell funny,’ said Brent.

‘That’s because he’s a wizard,’ Lea told her.

Brent squirmed out of Lea’s grip and grabbed my hand. ‘Come with me,’ she said and tried to drag me through the door. She was surprisingly strong, and I had to brace a little to stay still. ‘I have to bring my crate,’ I told her.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that,’ said Lea.

I let Brent pull me down the long cool corridor to Mama Thames’s flat. Behind me I heard Lea calling for Uncle Bailiff, and if he would be a dear, could he take the crate to Mama’s flat.

According to Dr Polidari, genii locorum ‘ behave as if the imperatives of ceremony are to them as necessary as meat and drink is to man ’, and furthermore claimed that they ‘ anticipate such events with miraculous facility so that they are always appropriately attired, and if surprised or somehow prevented, show signs of great distress ’. Given that he was writing in the late eighteenth century, I like to cut him some slack.

They were waiting for me in the throne room, and this time I could see it was a throne room, the potted mangrove sheltering the sacred World of Leather executive armchair. There sat Mama Thames, resplendent in her Austrian lace and a headdress of blue and white Portuguese beads. Behind her were arrayed her attendants in batik lappas and headscarves and on her left and right hands, forming an aisle down which I had to walk, stood her daughters. I recognised Tyburn and Fleet on my left standing with a pair of teenage girls wearing thin braids and cashmere jumpers. Beverley was on my right, looking underdressed in Lycra shorts and a purple sweatshirt. When she was sure I was looking she rolled her eyes. Beside her stood an amazingly tall and slender woman with a fox face, electric-blue and blonde extensions and elongated nails painted in green, gold and black. That, I guessed, was Effra, another underground river, who was clearly moonlighting as the goddess of Brixton market. I noticed that it was north London rivers on the left and south London rivers on the right.

Brent let go of my hand, essayed a curtsey in the direction of Mama Thames and then spoiled the effect by skipping over and hurling herself into her mother’s lap. There was a brief pause in the ceremony as the little girl squirmed her way into a comfortable position.

Mama Thames turned her full gaze on me, and the undertow of her regard drew me closer to her throne. I had to fight a strong urge to throw myself on my knees and bang my forehead on the carpet.

‘Constable Peter,’ said Mama Thames. ‘How nice to see you.’

‘It’s nice to be here. As a token of my respect I’ve brought you a gift,’ I said, hoping that it was going to arrive before I ran out of pleasantries. I heard clinking behind me, and Uncle Bailiff arrived with my crate. He was a heavyset white man with a number two skinhead and a faded tattoo of SS lightning bolts on his neck. He set the crate down before Mama Thames, gave her a respectful nod and, with a pitying look at me, left without a word.

One of the cronies stepped forward to pluck a bottle from the crate and show it to Mama Thames. ‘Star Beer,’ she said. The core product of the Nigerian Breweries PLC, available in the UK from any good stockist, and in bulk if your mum knows someone who knows someone who owes someone a favour.

‘How much has he got out there?’ asked Fleet.

‘A lorryload,’ said Lea.

‘How big a lorry?’ asked Mama Thames without taking her eyes off me.

‘Big lorry,’ said Brent.

‘Is it all Star?’ asked Mama Thames.

‘I put in some Gulder,’ I said. ‘Some Red Stripe for variety, a couple of cases of Bacardi, some Appleton, Cointreau and a few bottles of Bailey’s.’ I’d liquidated my savings doing it, but as my mum says, nothing worth having is free.

‘That’s a handsome gift,’ said Mama Thames.

‘You can’t be serious?’ said Tyburn.

‘Don’t worry, Ty,’ I said. ‘I threw in a couple of bottles of Perrier for you.’

Someone sniggered — probably Beverley.

‘And what can I do for you?’ asked Mama Thames.

‘It’s a small matter,’ I said. ‘One of your daughters feels that she has a right to interfere in the business of the Folly. All I ask is that she steps back and lets the proper authorities get on with their jobs.’

‘Proper authorities,’ spat Tyburn.

Mama Thames turned her eyes on Tyburn, who stepped before the throne. ‘You think you have a right to meddle in this?’ she asked.

‘Mum,’ said Tyburn. ‘The Folly is a relic, a Victorian afterthought from the same people who gave us Black Rod and the Lord Mayor’s show. Heritage is all very well and good for the tourist industry, but it’s no way to run a modern city.’

‘That is not your decision to make,’ I said.

‘And you think it’s yours?’

‘I know it’s mine,’ I said. ‘My duty, my obligation — my decision.’