‘Did he have a sword?’
‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Although he didn’t have a card identifying himself as a legendary swordsman. That seems a more modern form of whimsy. I sensed that the sword was important, though, in a mythic or symbolic sense.’
‘In what way?’
‘I was rather hoping that one day Sahra could tell us.’
‘You’re such a romantic,’ I said.
‘Merely an interested observer. And as such I need to ask you a personal question.’
‘Ask away,’ I said, but only because I couldn’t see a convenient window I could dive out of.
‘Have you talked to anyone about your experiences?’ he said.
‘I’m considering it,’ I said.
‘May I suggest you do more than that? After I came back from the war I found it very useful to talk things through.’
There was quite a long silence as I waited for more – in vain, as it happened.
‘I’ll do that then,’ I said.
‘Jolly good,’ said Nightingale.
So I got someone to talk to. A very nice old lady psychiatrist that Postmartin knew, called Valerie Green. Her father had been a famous psychiatrist in Vienna and her mother had been a famous singer. He’d been Jewish and she’d been Sinti – both had fetched up in London in 1938. Valerie had been born after the war and had gone into her father’s profession.
‘Couldn’t sing, darling,’ she said.
Postmartin hinted strongly that one of her parents had been a practitioner of some kind, although Valerie wouldn’t say which one. It did mean that I could tell her everything without being immediately committed, and I suspect that David Carey was another client of hers. But of course she wouldn’t say.
All this meant that I was now expected to reveal my innermost thoughts to at least three people. Although, to be fair, I don’t think Toby was that interested.
Nightingale had been right – it was useful.
As was the magic training, the Latin, the Greek, teaching Abigail, and writing the ever-expanding Folly Expansion document – now incorporating the lessons learnt from Operation Jennifer.
The principal one being that we needed to maintain a complement of at least six new practitioners, and that was only counting the ones that were also police officers.
All of this helped keep my mind off the possibility of being dismissed or, more likely, being quietly given the option to retire with full benefits or else.
‘Would it be so bad if it was or else?’ asked Beverley one afternoon in late August.
‘You mean apart from the public disgrace and the loss of my pension?’
We were in her big tub at her house, having spent the morning strenuously avoiding any possible physical exertion. Beverley’s head was leaning comfortably against my chest and she was occasionally persuading the water to warm itself up.
‘Yeah, apart from that,’ she said.
‘I haven’t finished,’ I said.
‘Finished what?’
‘Any of it. The magic, the policing, the reorganisation—’ I stopped when Beverley shook with suppressed laughter.
‘The reorganisation,’ she wheezed.
‘It’s important,’ I said.
‘The reorganisation,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Would you quit if I asked you to?’
‘Truthfully?’
‘Of course truthfully,’ she said. ‘Always truthfully.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to quit?’
‘Truthfully?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘What’s brought all this on?’
‘Ah yes,’ she said. ‘There’s something you need to know.’
She took my hand and firmly placed it on her belly – it was smooth and warm.
And then, as they say, the penny dropped.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Beverley.
‘But what about your degree?’
‘It doesn’t actually cause your brains to dribble out of your ears,’ she said.
I had a good feel, but her stomach felt the same shape as before – at least I think it did.
‘Stop it,’ said Beverley. ‘That tickles.’
‘Mum will be pleased,’ I said.
‘So will mine.’
‘Tyburn’s going to be well pissed off, though.’
‘Bonus,’ said Beverley, and wriggled round to kiss me.
HISTORICAL AND TECHNICAL NOTES
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a real place up until April 2017, when it left London to be replaced, no doubt, by a boutique hotel, some luxury flats and a coffee shop. All the workers described in this book are 100% made up and any resemblance to any real person living or dead is completely coincidental.
The London Mithraeum has been returned to its original location, thanks to Bloomberg, and is now open to the public. I’ve visited and it’s worth a look, although I prefer to think of it as the Temple of Bacchus – a deity who seems much more in keeping with the spirit of London than grumpy old Mithras. I also find it a comforting to think that somewhere in the City under all that money and modernist concrete is a Temple of Isis – unless it’s under St Paul’s, that is.
The skulls in the Walbrook are now thought to have been washed there by occasional floods from graveyards outside the Roman city boundaries, rather than being the victims of Boudicca’s sack of Londinium. This probably won’t be the last time Peter jumps to a conclusion based on evidence that is later disproved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank my colleagues Andrew and James who have to listen to the plots of these books long before they make any kind of coherent sense. Also a thanks to John my agent and Jon, Gillian, Stevie, Jen, Paul S, Paul H and the rest of the gang at Orion. Steve for the meticulous copyedit. Anne and Liz who run my life and Joel who keeps the books. Last but not least all those professionals who patiently answered really obvious questions about policing – Bob Hunter; biology – Lucy Stewart; sewer maintenance – Vincent Minney; archaeology – Amy Reid and everyone else at MOLA: and not least lots of extra Latin from Penelope and Paul of the Classics Department of Leeds University.
Also by Ben Aaronovitch from Gollancz:
Rivers of London
Moon Over Soho
Whispers Under Ground
Broken Homes
Foxglove Summer
The Hanging Tree
Lies Sleeping
The Furthest Station (novella)