‘Can he be killed?’
‘Anything that’s alive can be killed. But I think this is more in the way of a sacrifice. You know, for the power.’
‘For the power of what?’
‘He’s not your ordinary ghost, is he?’ said Zach. ‘He’s something else again.’
‘I meant what do they want the power for?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘For something big. Old Faceless wanted to use the juice from Skygarden, but you put the kibosh on that, didn’t you? He was well vexed with you, bruv, but I’ve got to say Lesley was impressed – I think. At least she couldn’t believe you stayed in the block with the bombs.’
I can’t believe I stayed in the tower that day either. Sometimes I dream I’m outside, and however hard I try I can’t make myself run inside to warn the residents. Then the bombs go off and down it comes, one floor on top of the other, and above the roar of it I can hear the screams.
‘It’s not like I had a lot of choice, is it?’ I said. And then, ‘Would sacrificing Punch generate much power?’
‘A raging revenant from the dawn of time? I think there might be a certain amount of wattage in that. Don’t you?’
‘So what does Martin Chorley need Lesley for?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘But I know he does because Lesley thought it was really funny in that, like, totally unfunny way that sometimes things are funny.’
‘To do what, Zach?’ I said. ‘What the fuck does Chorley want to do?’
‘Lesley never said. And, you know what? I never asked. Because it was none of my business.’
‘I want you to tell Lesley that we need to meet,’ I said. ‘On her terms if she likes, but we’ve got to talk.’
Zach turned away from me and stared out his window.
‘She’s not going to risk seeing me again,’ he said. ‘Not after the shit you pulled.’
‘I didn’t tell her to change sides,’ I said.
‘You didn’t exactly help her stay on yours, though,’ he said. ‘Did you?’
17
First Century Mandem
‘Intelligence led’ is one of those dire phrases that police officers feel the need to include in their operational plans. This is either because they feel senior officers might otherwise assume that they are stupidity led, or because it’s an article of faith among the rank and file that everyone above superintendent has had their sense of irony surgically removed. Often the word ‘proactive’ is added at the front to create a kind of litany. O lead us intelligently into the valley of the shadow of limited resources so that we might make our crime targets before the end of the Home Office reporting period – Amen.
What intelligence led really means is trying to figure out what you’re doing before you actually do it. And that means being honest about what you do and what you don’t know.
And one of the things we didn’t know was the true nature of Mr Punch.
You’ve got ghosts. Occasionally you’ve got ghosts which can directly affect the material world. And you’ve got revenant ghosts which feed on other ghosts. Then you’ve got genii locorum, the spirits of places – ranging from the playful spirit that inhabited a bookshop in Covent Garden to the Goddess of the River Thames. The distinction, as far as we can tell, lies in where they draw their power from. Ghosts get theirs from the layers of vestigia laid down in the material fabric of old houses or the stone geology of some rural locales.
The genii locorum draw their power from the locality itself – although we’re still no closer to understanding where that power comes from. Since some of those localities include the entire watershed of the Thames above Teddington Lock you can see why we are careful to be polite around them.
Erasmus Wolfe wrote extensively about genii locorum in his ground-breaking and – at two thousand pages – wrist-breaking Exotica. He theorised that there was an upper limit to the size and power of an individual genius loci and, unlike many of his contemporaries, he provided some facts and figures to back himself up.
None of the really huge rivers of Europe – the Volga, the Danube or the Rhine – appeared to possess a single tutelary deity. Instead there were Rhine Maidens, plural, a French and a German Mosel, and at least ten recorded gods and goddesses of the Don.
And surely, Erasmus wrote, had the long length of the Volga possessed a single guiding spirit with loyalty to the people on its banks, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia would have foundered before it began.
Or the Mississippi when the foreign invaders tooled up there, I thought, or the Congo, or the Limpopo or the Ganges or the Amazon.
That is, if you assume a power so wide in scope would even be remotely human in conception or thought. But, relatively small as they were, I wouldn’t go up against either of the Thameses. And we already knew what happened to the last person who took a shot at Lady Ty.
Then there were the ghosts, or echoes or possibly past avatars, of genii locorum who possessed a strange half-life in the magical memory of the city.
Suddenly I had a cunning plan, but I’ve had too many of those in the past not to run this one past Nightingale first.
I found him in the mundane library working on a lesson plan for Abigail. He had Bassinger’s First Steps in Effective Combinations open in front of him and was taking notes.
I know for a fact that Nightingale thinks my training has been a bit rough-and-ready. And he seems determined that, between him and Varvara, our Abigail was going to get a more thorough grounding in the basics. To do this, both her teachers were going to have to up their own basics – so I had every intention of copying Abigail’s notes.
‘We need the real story on Punch,’ I said.
‘Agreed,’ said Nightingale, putting his pen down. ‘Are you thinking of asking Father Thames?’
‘I think we might end up paying more than we can afford,’ I said. ‘Oxley warned me there’s always a price.’
‘His sons are not going to speak on this without his permission,’ said Nightingale.
Not even Ash, who could generally be induced to do just about anything for a pony and a couple of free drinks.
‘I was thinking of closer to home.’
‘Mama Thames’s daughters are too young, surely?’ said Nightingale.
‘But they have long memories,’ I said.
Nightingale nodded.
‘You’re going to pursue Sir William.’
‘Who claims to have been around before the Romans,’ I said. ‘Which makes him the god on the spot.’
‘He only seems to appear when you’re in extremis,’ said Nightingale.
The first time while I was buried underground, and later when Martin Chorley launched his abortive attack on Lady Ty.
‘I think the trick is to alter your state of consciousness,’ I said.
Nightingale frowned.
‘I hope absinthe isn’t going to play a role in this,’ he said. Apparently some of the younger, more bohemian, wizards of Nightingale’s youth had tried that. ‘And sweat lodges and . . .’ He paused to search his memory. ‘Peyote.’
‘Did any of it work?’
‘I’m not sure they were entirely serious. Although I couldn’t fault them for diligence.’
David Mellenby, Nightingale’s friend and go-to guy for what passed for empiricism at the Folly, hadn’t thought much of these ‘experiments’.
‘And in any case I’m not authorising any operation involving hallucinogens without permission from Dr Walid first.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘What I’m proposing is going to involve some elbow grease, a bit of ritual humiliation, about four litres of bleach, one of Hugh’s staffs, and the best possible bottle of wine you can prise out of Molly.’