Lies Sleeping

by Ben Aaronovitch

  ‘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.’

  The River Tyburn, which we must never call a repurposed storm drain if we mean to carry on walking around on two legs, splits into two branches downstream of Buckingham Palace. The northern branch flows to either side of the Palace of Westminster, marking the ancient outline of Thorney Island. The southern branch outflo
ws just upstream of Vauxhall Bridge. Upstream the Tyburn can be pretty narrow and, let’s face it, encrusted, so I wanted somewhere downstream where it’s wider. The problem is if you start poking about underground near the Houses of Parliament armed guys from CTC turn up to ask you questions. This is because Counter Terrorism Command has an institutional memory that goes all the way back to Guy Fawkes.

  Fortunately on the southern branch, once known as the Tachbrook, there’s easy access through the manholes on Tachbrook Road. Right next to the Tachbrook Estate. Because Lady Ty may be underground, but she makes her presence felt.

  So I drove down to Tachbrook with a ton of gear in the back, including my heavy-duty waders, filter mask, goggles, four litres of bleach, a plaque that I’d had made up against just this sort of need, a variety of cordless DIY tools, a bottle of 1964 Romanee Conti Grand Cru burgundy and the one present that I knew would really get her attention.

  I met my Thames Water contact, Allison Conte, on the corner of Tachbrook and Churton Street, because you don’t go in the sewers without asking Thames Water first, and even then they weren’t happy about me going down alone.

  ‘We’re not happy about you going down alone,’ said Allison, a small, wiry white woman in her thirties who claimed she had her job on account of her small size. ‘Things can get tight further up,’ she’d said. ‘They needed someone who can fit into the two foot pipes.’

  At least she couldn’t fault my gear, which I’d updated, at my own expense, since my last visit to the sewers. This included an eye-watering yellow PV oversuit, a wetsuit, boots, gloves, eye protectors and a gas detector – because these days canaries are not allowed.

  ‘I’m not going to do anything stupid,’ I said as she used a metal lever to pry open the rectangular manhole cover.

  I was going down a side access because, unlike the lifting shafts that run down the centre of the street, they lead to a vestibule with its own built-in ladder.

  ‘That’s not what I heard,’ muttered Allison.

  I pretended not to have heard that as I helped her set up the public safety barrier around the open manhole. Once I was down she passed me the jet wash gun and fed the hose down behind me as I moved into the drain proper.

  At this point in her course the Tyburn is actually a bricked up canal. Like many of her sisters she was swallowed up by the city, first serving as an open sewer and then buried out of sight. About four metres across and three metres high, she’s relatively clean but there’s no getting away from the smell of old shit mixed in with the disturbingly meaty scent of old fat. Which was worse in that this far downstream it’s pervasive rather than overpowering – sneaking up on you in waves when you least expect it.

  Once I’d found a suitable spot I went back to the manhole and had Allison pass down the rest of my gear.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me down there with you?’ she asked.

  ‘If I’m not back up in two hours, come and look for me,’ I said.

  Allison made a sour face, but nodded.

  First I used the water jet to scour the brickwork, good solid nineteenth-century London brick I noticed, with superior mortaring. Then I got out the bleach and my mum’s cordless scrubber and went over it again. Then I got a brush and scrubbed like mad for an hour. In the end I had a section of tunnel that was, possibly, marginally cleaner than the rest.

  Still, I thought, it’s the thought that counts – literally.

  Then, being careful to get the measurements right, I used a masonry drill to install brackets so that I could mount the plaque. I’d had it made up specially on a ‘break glass in case of spiritual emergency’ basis the year before and it read:

  Ìya wa, òrìsà wa,

  Ìya wa, tí ó ní olá

  Ìya wa, tí ó ní ewà

  Ìya wa títí láilái.

  Which basically translated as Our mother deity of bounty and beauty. Because if you’re going to propitiate your actual original orisa, it’s go hard or go home.

  To avoid additional DIY, the plaque came with its own shelf upon which I placed a couple of vanilla scented candles I’d nicked out of Beverley’s bathroom – one at each end. As my most valuable offering I hung one of my two genuine World War Two army surplus battle staffs between the candles. These had been a gift from Hugh Oswald, one of the few surviving veterans of the final battle at Ettersberg.

  I took a moment to check my handiwork.

  Then I pulled the cork on the 1964 burgundy and, after taking a sip to make sure it wasn’t corked or something, poured a generous measure into what passed for water flowing down the central trough.

  ‘O great Goddess of the River Tyburn, spirit of the Hanging Tree – I call on thee.’

  I splashed some more in – not too much; I didn’t know how long I was going to have to keep this up.

  ‘O Lady of the Parliaments – I call on thee.’

  Splash.

  ‘O Warden of the Palace – I call on thee.’

  Double splash.

  ‘O Queen of Mayfair – I call on thee.’

  ‘If you pour any more of that on the floor,’ said a voice behind me. ‘I will not be responsible for the consequences.’

  I turned to find the Goddess of the River Tyburn standing behind me with her hands on her hips. She was wearing a black neoprene wetsuit with TYR on the chest. Her hair was carefully wrapped in a matching bathing cap, but her feet were bare.

  ‘And “thee” is the singular informal,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t use words when you don’t know what they mean.’

  She held out a hand.

  ‘Give it here,’ she said, and I handed over the bottle.

  She sniffed it and sighed, and with that sigh the stink of the sewer was blown away by a fresh breeze from the chalky hills of Hampstead.

  ‘The 64 Romanee.’ She gave me a reproachful look. ‘This is so totally wasted on you.’

  ‘That’s why it’s a gift,’ I said.

  Lady Ty took a sip from the bottle and swirled it around her mouth a bit before swallowing.

  ‘You have no appreciation of its value,’ she said, and paused to take a good solid swig. ‘So it doesn’t count as a gift.’ She waved the bottle in the general direction of the plaque. ‘And that borders on the ironic. If not openly mocking.’

  ‘Not intentionally,’ I said.

  She gave me a sceptical look and took another couple of swigs.

  ‘I appreciate the cleaning, though,’ she said. ‘The effort involved, your valuable time expended in, let’s be honest, a futile gesture. Next heavy rain and this will be hip deep in shit once more.’

  Another swig.

  I said nothing because I knew she wasn’t finished.

  ‘It’s not the intrinsic value of the gift that makes the sacrifice. It’s what it’s worth to you personally.’

  ‘Well, I was going to bring Toby,’ I said. ‘But Molly would have objected.’

  Lady Ty gave a dismissive wave with her left hand while draining the last of the bottle. When she was sure it was empty she waved it at the staff where it hung below the plaque.

  ‘Now that is a different matter,’ she said. ‘Pass it over.’

  She smiled when I hesitated – a wide lazy grin.

  ‘I want it from your own hand,’ she said and dropped the bottle, which bounced rather than smashed. ‘Come on, chop-chop, the goddess is in.’

  I lifted the staff from the shelf and, turning, went down on one knee. I held out the staff to Lady Ty as if it was a sword. She looked down at me and her smile became crooked and she shook her head.

  ‘You’ve always got to push it, haven’t you?’ she said, and put her hand on the staff.

  Her eyes closed and her mouth turned down.

  ‘Who do you think I am – Athena?’ she said, but her hand curled around the staff and she lifted it from my hands
. ‘Still, this is a proper gift for all that you don’t appreciate its true value, either.’

  As I got to my feet she shifted her grip to the end of the staff and held it upright so that the iron-shod tip rested on her shoulder.

  ‘So what is all this in aid of?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to talk to Sir William,’ I said.

  ‘Really? What for?’

  ‘Intelligence gathering?’

  Lady Ty snorted.

  ‘Sir William?’ she said. ‘He’s not what you’d call plugged into the mainstream.’

  ‘Historical witness,’ I said.

  ‘What makes you think I can help you with that? Our relationship’s not what you’d call close.’

  ‘Close enough that he put half a metre of imaginary sword through that sniper,’ I said. ‘You might not be on talking terms, but I reckon you’re still family.’

  ‘Where is it you think you go when you talk to him?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I stay right where I am. I think I’m tapping into the memory of the city.’

  ‘You think too much for a policeman,’ she said. ‘Do you know that?’

  ‘I get that a lot.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do.’

  ‘Can you grant my boon or not?’

  ‘Why not,’ she said, and – as fast as an old-time preacher fleecing his flock – she leapt forward, slapped the palm of her right hand against my forehead and pushed.

  Have you ever had that sensation, just as you’re going to sleep, that a bomb has gone off inside your head? It’s a real medical phenomena called, I kid you not, exploding head syndrome. It’s what’s known as a parasomnia, which is Greek for ‘we don’t know either’. Anyway, that’s what it felt like as I pitched backwards into the black – like a big painless bomb going off in my head.

  Generally speaking Exploding Head Syndrome is harmless, but should you experience the further symptoms of finding yourself talking to the avatar of a river goddess, please contact Dr Walid, who collects that sort of data as a hobby.

  ‘Bruv!’ cried William Tyburn as he dragged me to my feet and hugged me.