Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

‘Molly,’ I said, ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea.’

Her head tilted the other way and she made a gurgling, hissing sound, halfway between laughter and a sob. Sitting up gave me tunnel vision and dizziness, and I fought the urge to lie back down again.

‘You think you’re conflicted now,’ I said. ‘Just think how you’ll feel when Nightingale finds out you had me for dinner.’

Nightingale’s name made her pause, but only for a moment. Then her other hand swept over her head and slapped down right next to my leg. I snatched it away as best as I could and managed to gain a metre in separation.

This only seemed to aggravate her, and I watched as she drew her legs up under her torso. I remembered how fast she’d moved when she first bit me, and wondered if I’d even seen her coming. Still, I wasn’t about to sit still and let her take me without a fight. I started putting a fireball together, but the forma was suddenly slippery and impossible to imagine.

Molly snorted and her head twisted on its side as if her neck had become as flexible as a snake. I could see the tension building in the curve of her back and the hunch of her shoulders. I think she could sense me trying to do magic, and didn’t think she was going to give me a chance to succeed. Her mouth opened too wide and displayed too many pointed teeth, and the squeaky little mammal in my ancestry started my legs scrambling in a mad attempt to propel myself backwards.

A brown shape smelling of damp carpet streaked past me and came to a halt, claws skidding on the tiles, between Molly and me. It was Toby in full primeval circle-of-the-campfire, man’s-best-friend, oh- that’s- why-we-domesticated-the-sodding-things mode, barking at Molly so hard his front paws were bouncing off the floor.

To be honest, Molly probably could have leaned forward and bitten Toby’s snout off, but instead she flinched backwards. Then she leaned forward again and hissed. This time Toby flinched, but he kept his ground in the long tradition of small scrappy dogs that are too stupid to know when to back down. Molly reared back on her haunches, her face a mask of anger and then, as if a switch had been pulled, she slumped down on her knees. Her hair fell back down to cover her face and her shoulders shook — I think she might have been sobbing.

I dragged myself to my feet and staggered towards the back door. I was thinking that it was probably best to put temptation out of harm’s way. Toby came trotting after me with his tail wagging. I bounced off the doorjamb and found myself outside in the sunlight facing the wrought-iron staircase that led up to the coach house. I contemplated the stairs and thought that I should have fitted a lift, or at least got a bigger dog.

I knew something else was wrong when Toby wouldn’t come all the way up the stairs. ‘Stay, boy,’ I said, and he dutifully sat on the landing and let me do the heroics. I considered walking away, but I was just too knackered to care and besides, this was my space with my flat-screen TV and I wanted it back.

I stood to one side of the door and pushed it open with my foot before gingerly peering around the jamb to see who was there. It was Lesley, waiting for me on the chaise longue holding Nightingale’s cane across her knees and staring into space. She glanced over as I slipped in.

‘You killed me,’ she said.

‘Can’t you just go back to wherever it was you came from?’

‘Not without my friend,’ she said. ‘Not without Mr Punch. You’ve murdered me.’

I slumped down in the easy chair. ‘You’ve been dead for two hundred years, Henry,’ I said. ‘I’m fairly certain you can’t murder someone who’s already dead.’ If you could, I thought, the Met would have a form for it.

‘I beg to differ,’ said Lesley. ‘Though it must be said that I have proved a failure on both sides of the veil.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You had me fooled.’

Lesley turned and looked at me. ‘I did, didn’t I,’ she said.

I could see the thin pale lines of stretch marks around the bridge of Lesley’s nose, the fine tracery of broken blood vessels that started around her mouth and climbed like a winter vine to her cheeks. Even the way she spoke was different, the words slurred by broken teeth and Henry Pyke’s need to keep the mouth closed to hide the damage. I had to suppress the anger that seemed to boil up through my chest because this was a hostage situation, and the first rule of the hostage negotiator is never get emotionally involved. Or perhaps it was ‘don’t kill the kidnapper until the hostages are released’ — it was bound to be one or the other.

‘Looking back,’ I said, ‘it seems the more remarkable to me that you never slipped up once.’

‘You never suspected?’ asked Lesley, happily.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You were utterly convincing.’

‘A female role is always a challenge,’ said Lesley. ‘And a modern woman doubly so.’

‘It’s too bad she has to die,’ I said.

‘I want you to know that nobody was more surprised than I to find myself occupying this vessel,’ said Lesley. ‘I blame it on the Italian, Piccini, a passionate race. They have to incorporate lust into all their endeavours — even their religious works.’

I nodded and looked interested. Despite being plugged in, the TV and DVD standby lights were dark. Lesley had been sitting there long enough to drain all my electronics, and if they were gone then surely Lesley’s brain was going to be next. I had to get the last remains of Henry Pyke out of her head.

‘That’s how it is with a play,’ said Lesley. ‘The scenes and acts being so much more ordered than in the humdrum world. Unless one takes care, one can be swept away by the genius of the character. Thus Pulcinella made fools of us both.’

‘But you’d rather Lesley lived?’ I asked.

‘Is this possible?’ she asked.

‘Only if you agree,’ I said.

Lesley leaned forward and took my hand. ‘Oh, but I do, my boy,’ she said. ‘We can’t have it be said that Henry Pyke was so ungracious as to inflict his own sad fate upon an innocent.’

I really did wonder when he said that if he had any inkling of the trail of death and misery he’d left behind. Perhaps that was a function of being a ghost; perhaps to the dead the world of the living was a dream, and not to be taken too seriously.

‘Then let me call my doctor,’ I said.

‘This would be the Scottish Mohamedan?’

‘Dr Walid,’ I said.

‘You believe he can save her?’ asked Lesley.

‘I believe he can,’ I said.

‘Then by all means summon him,’ said Lesley.

I went outside onto the staircase, replaced the battery in my spare mobile and called Dr Walid, who said he would arrive within ten minutes. He gave me some instructions to follow in the meantime. Lesley looked expectant when I returned.

‘Can I have Nightingale’s staff?’ I asked.

Lesley nodded and handed over the silver-topped cane. I placed my hand on the handle as Dr Walid had suggested but there was nothing, just the chill of metal — the staff had been completely drained of magic.

‘We don’t have much time,’ I said. There was a relatively clean dust sheet over the back of the chaise longue — I grabbed it.

‘Truly?’ asked Lesley. ‘Alas, for as the hour grows closer I feel myself reluctant to depart.’

I started ripping the sheet into broad strips. ‘Can I speak to Lesley directly?’ I asked.

‘Of course, dear boy,’ said Lesley.

‘Are you okay?’ There was no outward change that I could see.

‘Ha,’ she said, and I was sure from the tone that this was the real Lesley. ‘That’s a stupid question. It’s happened, hasn’t it, I can feel it …’