‘It is certain that she proved to be an experienced woman,’ he said and, much to my embarrassment, winked at me.
‘You wouldn’t think he was once a man of the cloth,’ said Isis.
‘I was a terrible monk,’ he said. ‘But that was a different life.’ He rapped the table. ‘Now that we’ve fed, watered and bored you senseless, why don’t we talk some business? What is it that the Big Lady wants?’
‘You understand that I’m strictly the go-between in this,’ I said. We actually did a course on conflict resolution at Hendon, and the trick is always to stress your neutrality while allowing both parties to think you’re secretly on their side. There were role-playing exercises and everything – it was one of the few things I was better at than Lesley. ‘Mama Thames feels that you may be looking to move downstream of Teddington Lock.’
‘It’s all one river,’ said Oxley. ‘And he’s the Old Man of the River.’
‘She claims he abandoned the tideway in 1858,’ I said. More precisely during the Great Stink – note the capitals – when the Thames became so thick with sewage that London was overwhelmed with a stench so terrible that Parliament considered relocating to Oxford.
‘Nobody stayed in London that summer who could move away,’ said Oxley. ‘It wasn’t fit for man or beast.’
‘She says he never came back,’ I said. ‘Is that true?’
‘That is true,’ said Oxley. ‘And in truth, the Old Man has never loved the city, not since it killed his sons.’
‘Which sons were these?’
‘Oh, you know who they are,’ said Oxley. ‘There was Ty and Fleet and Effra. All drowned in a flood of muck and filth and finally put out of their misery by that clever bastard Bazalgette. Him that made the sewers. I met him, you know, very grand man with the finest set of chops this side of William Gladstone. Knocked him on his arse for the murdering bastard that he was.’
‘You think he killed the rivers?’
‘No,’ said Oxley. ‘But he was their undertaker. I’ve got to hand it to the daughters of the Big Lady, for they certainly must be hardier than my brothers.’
‘If he doesn’t want the city, why is he pushing downstream?’ I asked.
‘Some of us still have a hankering for the bright lights,’ said Oxley, and smiled at his wife.
‘I dare say it would be nice to attend the theatre again,’ she said.
Oxley refilled my cup. A crackly voice on a tannoy somewhere behind me yelled, ‘Let’s get this party started.’ James Brown was still feeling nice, sugar and spice now.
‘And you want to fight Mama Thames’s daughters for the privilege?’
‘You think they’re too fearsome for us?’ asked Oxley.
‘I don’t think you want it badly enough,’ I said. ‘Besides, I’m sure arrangements could be made.’
‘An excursion by coach, perhaps?’ asked Oxley. ‘Will we need passports?’
Despite what you think you know, most people don’t want to fight, especially when evenly matched. A mob will tear an individual to pieces, and a man with a gun and a noble cause is happy to kill ever so many women and children. But risking a fair fight – not so easy. That’s why you see those pissed young men doing the dance of the ‘don’t hold me back’ while desperately hoping someone likes them enough to hold them back. Everyone is always so pleased to see the police arrive because we have to save them whether we like them or not.
Oxley wasn’t a pissed young man, but I could see he was just as keen to find someone to hold him back. Or maybe his father?
‘Your father,’ I said. ‘What does he really want?’
‘What any father wants,’ said Oxley. ‘The respect of his children.’
I nearly said that not all fathers were worthy of respect, but I managed to keep my gob shut, and anyway, not everyone had a dad a like mine.
‘It would be nice if everyone could chill for a bit,’ I said. ‘Keep everything relaxed while the Inspector and I sorted something out.’
Oxley looked at me over his teacup. ‘It is spring,’ he said. ‘Plenty of distractions upstream of Richmond.’
‘Lambing season,’ I said. ‘And what not.’
‘You’re not what I expected,’ said Oxley.
‘What were you expecting?’
‘I was expecting Nightingale to choose someone more like himself,’ said Oxley. ‘Upper-class?’