‘What’s the rush?’ she asked as we climbed in.
‘I know the pub,’ I said. ‘It’s on the corner of Neal Street and Shelton Street.’ I pulled out without waiting for Beverley to buckle up. ‘Right across from there is the pedestrian space outside Urban Outfitters.’
‘Urban Outfitters, eh,’ said Beverley. ‘That explains the Dr Denim shirt.’
‘My mum bought me that,’ I said.
‘And you think that’s less embarrassing?’
I gunned the ex-Panda, or at least I came as close to gunning it as you can with a ten-year-old Ford Escort, and went through a set of lights on red. There was a yell behind me. ‘Cycle couriers like to hang out there,’ I said. ‘It’s convenient for the pub and cafés, but also close to most of their clients.’
Rain began to splatter on the windscreen and I had to ease up – the streets were getting wet. How long would it take Dr Framline to reach Covent Garden by public transport? Not less than an hour, but he had a head start and this was London, where the tube was often faster than the car.
‘Call Dr Framline,’ I told Beverley.
She grumbled, dialled, listened and said, ‘Voice mail. He’s probably underground.’
I gave her Lesley’s number. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘you talk, you pay.’
‘That’s the way it works,’ I said.
Beverley held the phone to my ear so I could keep both hands on the controls. When Lesley picked up I could hear the incident room at Belgravia in the background – proper police work.
‘What happened to your phone?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all morning.’
‘I broke it doing magic,’ I said. ‘Which reminds me: I need you to book me out an Airwave.’ Airwave was the all-singing, all-dancing digital radio handset for coppers.
‘Can’t you get one from your nick?’ she asked.
‘You’re joking,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Nightingale’s got the hang of Airwave yet. Or even radios, for that matter. In fact, I think he might be a bit hazy on telephones.’
She agreed to meet us at Neal Street.
The rain was sheeting down as I crawled up the semi-pedestrianised length of Earlham Street and stopped on the corner, where we could get a good view of the pub and the cycle-courier hangout. I left Beverley in the car and popped across to check inside the pub. It was deserted; Dr Framline hadn’t arrived yet.
My hair was soaked through when I got back in the car but I had a towel in my obbo bag, and I used it to squeeze most of the water out. For some reason Beverley found this hilarious.
‘Let me do that,’ she said.
I handed her the towel and she leaned over and started rubbing my head. One of her breasts pushed against my shoulder and I had to resist an urge to put my arm around her waist. She dug her fingers into my scalp.
‘Don’t you ever comb this?’ she asked.
‘I can’t be bothered,’ I said. ‘I just shave it down to stubble every spring.’
She ran her palm over my head and let it rest, lightly, on the back of my neck. I felt her breath close, on my ear.
‘You really got nothing from your dad, did you?’ Beverley sat back in her own seat and tossed the towel into the back. ‘Your mum must have been disappointed. I bet she thought you’d have big curls.’
‘It could have been worse,’ I said. ‘I could have been a girl.’
Beverley unconsciously touched her own hair, which was straightened and side-parted into wings that reached to her shoulders. ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said. ‘Which is why you ain’t going to get me out into that.’ She nodded at the rainswept streets.
‘If you’re so supposed to be a goddess …’
‘Orisa,’ said Beverley. ‘We’re Orisa. Not spirits, not local geniuses – Orisa.’
‘Why can’t you do something about the weather?’ I asked.
‘For a start,’ she said with exaggerated slowness, ‘you don’t mess with the weather, and second, this is north London and this manor belongs to my older sisters.’
I’d found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London. ‘That would be the Fleet and the Tyburn?’ I asked.
‘You can call her Tyburn if you want to spend the rest of the day dangling from a noose,’ said Beverley. ‘If you ever meet her, you better make sure you call her Lady Ty. Not that you ever want to meet her. Not that she ever wants to meet you.’