Lies Sleeping Read online

  The revenant animates the zombified remains of both the sacrifice victims and the Roman legionaries buried conveniently nearby. There is a major boss battle at the end of which Aedan plunges a sword, sanctified by Mellitus or something like that, into the heart of the spirit after he takes over the body of Henric, thus making himself inexplicably vulnerable. He is aided by a glowing light thingy that is either the power of God (Mellitus’ explanation), the spirit of Cyrus (Aedan’s explanation) or Cyrus having been transformed into an angelic manifestation of God’s will – Hilda’s explanation.

  Mellitus declares that he will build a cathedral over the cursed amphitheatre to ensure the evil spirit can never return and baptises King Sæberht on that very spot. There’s a brief flash forward to the present day where it’s made clear that this is, in fact, St Paul’s Cathedral. The credits roll, we dance, we kiss, we schmooze, we carry on, we go home happy.

  Except that John Chapman, Gabriel Tate and Richard Williams didn’t – did they?

  Martin Chorley was a Dark Ages enthusiast. It was possible that this script so offended him that he offed two of the writers out of sheer critical outrage. This seemed unlikely – even for a dangerously unstable psychopath like him.

  More likely there was something contained in the script that he really didn’t want anyone to know about. I wrote up an email for the inside inquiry team and attached the script, with the caveat that I’d refine the correlation keywords once I had the report by Postmartin.

  That report arrived during practice the next morning and I read it in the Tech Cave so I could put any notes on the system direct.

  ‘There is sign of some scholarship,’ wrote Postmartin. ‘Aedan is a perfectly feasible name for a 6th Century Irishman and likewise naming his companion Cyrus shows an understanding of the Hellenic character of Egypt, particularly Alexandria, at that time – the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests of the region having not yet begun. Henric, Oswyn and Hilda are all identifiably Anglo-Saxon names and, indeed, all can be found in Bede’s A History of the English Church and People. But also, I note, by typing ‘Anglo-saxon name’ into Google. Still other details in the script indicate that at least one of the authors paid more attention to historical veracity than is usual in the film industry. King Sæberht of Essex is also in Bede and is considered to be a real historical figure, as is Mellitus, who is indeed credited with the founding of St Paul’s.

  ‘The Mithraeum on the Walbrook really existed, although its excitingly labyrinthine interior is a complete invention. There isn’t and has never been any evidence to suggest that a Roman amphitheatre occupied the site of St Paul’s and given that a verified amphitheatre has been located under the Guildhall Museum some 600 yards to the north-east I think it unlikely there were two such even in Londinium at its most glorious.

  ‘Why the Anglo-Saxons didn’t occupy the interior of Roman London, with its defensive walls and plentiful supply of building materials, is one of the great historical mysteries. The idea of a terrible cursed revenant preventing them is as good a theory as any other. Incidentally a sword of distinctive Saxon manufacture was reportedly recovered by the famous 18th C. antiquarian Winston William Galt from a cellar in Paternoster Row so that would explain where the blessed sword went, wouldn’t it?

  ‘On an interesting side note, the Anglo-Saxons used the same metal-folding technique as the medieval Japanese and would often create beautiful weapons that would be ‘sacrificed’ by throwing them into sacred streams and lakes. Some think that the legend of the Lady of the Lake could derive from this custom since any aspiring British warrior might see such deposits as a handy source of high quality weaponry.’

  I thanked Postmartin by email and asked if he knew the present whereabouts of the Paternoster Sword. What with the Lady of the Lake bollocks, it sounded like the sort of thing Martin Chorley might be interested in. Then I added Excalibur, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Temple of Mithras to the list of HOLMES keywords. This got me an irritable note from Sergeant Wainscrow, who pointed out that overuse of key words can be counterproductive. I said we could discuss this at the briefing on Monday morning, but of course by that time my choices had been vindicated – well, sort of.

  12

  The Old Man’s Regatta

  That year the Old Man of the River was holding his summer court at Mill End, where the Thames skirts the eastern edge of the Chilterns before dropping south to Henley and Reading. Nightingale decided that, since he had to stay in London, I’d have to represent the Folly. So I threw two mystery hampers from Molly, Beverley’s overnight party bag, and Abigail into the back of the Hyundai and set off on an unseasonably grey Saturday morning.

  Bev was going to travel up the Thames and meet us there.

  ‘Got to stop off and say hello to a few people on the way,’ she said.

  The day was humid and overcast and the Hyundai’s aircon was labouring. I tried to get clever and go up the M40 and then south at High Wycombe, but that just meant me and Abigail were sweaty and irritable on a motorway instead of an A-road.

  As we started the drop into the Thames Valley proper, we could see darker clouds piling up beyond the Thames to the south. Now, I don’t have Bev’s intimate acquaintance with the hydrological cycle, but I thought I knew a summer thunderstorm when it’s lowering at me.

  ‘Cumulonimbus,’ said Abigail, who of course knew the technical name. ‘“Cumulus” means a mass and “nimbus” means cloud.’

  I didn’t deign to answer and instead concentrated on my driving.

  We whooshed through Marlow, which appeared to be composed of strange mutant detached bungalows with hipped roofs in the Dutch style, and sprawling post-war villas in the no-style-whatsoever style. Then along the course of the Thames on the A4155, which rose and fell amongst woods, villages and boutique hotels ideal for the stressed executive.

  Hambleden Marina was a private marina and boat yard that sat downstream of the weir at Hambleden Lock. Beverley says you can’t live on the river without coming to an accommodation with the powers that be – in this case, Father Thames.

  ‘Not that they necessarily know that’s what they’re doing,’ she said.

  Apparently, most people thought the little rituals they performed – the occasional bottle of beer left out in a riverside garden, the champagne broken on the bow of a boat, the odd bit of bank work or rewilding done on an adjacent property – that these were harmless little superstitions. Others entered directly into a pact because the blessing of the Old Man of the River could raise wild flowers out of season and cause HSE inspectors and bank managers to let things slide until the business picks up.

  Occasionally, late at night, I wonder whether this is true of Mama Thames and whether, perhaps, her blessing can make an old man kick his heroin habit and take up his trumpet again.

  It is at times like that I remember the wisdom of my mother who once told me – ‘As yu mek yu bed, na so yu go lehdum par nam’. But she means it in a good way.

  I figured the owner of Hambleden Marina must know what bed they’re climbing into. Because when the Summer Court of Father Thames moves in, it’s a little hard to ignore.

  The Showmen had put in a token appearance, setting up a steam-powered merry-go-round with an authentic period automatic organ that some joker had programmed to play a medley of James Brown’s and Tina Turner’s greatest hits, and a couple of mini roundabouts and roller coasters to keep the kids happy. Behind them, on the field closest to the main road, were their caravans, motorhomes and horses. The marina proper was choked with boats, triple and quadruple parked in some places so that they stuck out into the channel like temporary piers. At the far end of the longest of these piers was a large boat that looked like someone had jammed an Edwardian tea pavilion onto a flat-bottomed barge and painted everything white and nautical blue. I didn’t need telling that this was the heart of the Summer Court.

  A red-faced white man w
ith mutton chop whiskers, a flat cap, a string vest, braces and cor blimey trousers directed us over to the parking area at the back of the caravans. By the time I’d slotted myself into a minuscule spot between a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Ford Fiesta that I’m pretty sure had once been two separate cars.

  But at least by the time we’d squeezed out the car with the luggage, Beverley had turned up to help us carry it. One of the impromptu boat piers actually extended all the way out to a nameless islet that sat midstream and planks had been laid down to form a crude pontoon bridge. The little island was where the kids would pitch their tents and apparently me and Bev were going to guard the bridge, because halfway across she stopped to show off her home from home.

  This turned out to be the Pride of Putney, a nine-metre traditional gentleman’s day boat built in the 1920s, with mahogany and brass fittings. Designed to motor rich people up and down the Thames, it had been refitted so that the bench seats in the aft passenger cabin could be rearranged to make a double bed. There was no internet or other electronics, which goes some way to explaining why Bev had been so vexed with me about her erstwhile sabbatical on the upper Thames.

  ‘Though I got used to it,’ she told me later. ‘Plus I quickly figured out which pubs and houses had free Wi-Fi.’

  I threw my luggage into the boat and, while Bev and Abigail went to pick a site for the tent, I set off to find Oxley and pay my respects. This is important amongst the Genii Locorum, who like a bit of respect and are not above flooding your back garden to get it. Oxley, despite being Father Thames’s right-hand river deity, usually keeps a modest establishment, a tiny house in Chertsey and an old-fashioned caravan when on the road, but this time he had the second biggest boat.

  It was a flat-bottomed, flat-roofed, clapboard sided, green painted shotgun-shack on a raft called the Queen of the Nile. Moored centrally so that Oxley could sit on the roof under an awning and be, if not the master of all he surveyed, then at least responsible for keeping the whole mad enterprise from flying apart. Given that we had that much in common, I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised that he gave me a hug when I joined him on the roof. He was a short wiry man with long arms that I suspect could have easily lifted me above his head.

  ‘Good timing,’ he said as I sat down next to him in a deckchair with Property of Merton College stamped across the faded stripes of its canvas back. Raindrops started to splat on the awning above us as the leading edge of the storm crossed the river and hit the marina. There were shrieks as adults ran for shelter and children ran in circles – a dog started barking.

  From our perch it was easy to spot Beverley and Abigail scurrying along the pontoon bridge to the Pride of Putney. Beverley stopped while Abigail climbed inside, looked over at Oxley’s boat, spotted me, waved and then ducked inside, too.

  ‘Is that Peter?’ called Oxley’s wife Isis from below.

  ‘It is, my love,’ called Oxley.

  ‘Ask him if he wants tea.’

  I said I did and then waited as Oxley was summoned down the stern ladder to help fetch it. Isis climbed up with the biscuits, which she placed on a folding table. She had an oval face, pale white skin and extraordinarily dark brown eyes. According to her and Oxley she had once been the notorious Mrs Freeman, aka Anna Maria de Burgh Coppinger, mistress and co-conspirator of the fraudulent Henry Ireland. As far as me and Postmartin could tell from the existing records, this was true. Which meant that she was supposed to have died in 1802. Which meant that it was possible that in some way she’d caught practical immortality from her husband. Something that Lady Ty didn’t think was possible.

  The Doctors Vaughan and Walid wanted a tissue sample.

  Something I didn’t think was practical.

  There were only two deckchairs – Isis took her husband’s and motioned me back down into mine. When Oxley made it up the ladder with the tea tray he saw how things lay and sensibly sat cross-legged at his wife’s feet.

  Isis gave ritual reassurance that drinking her tea and scoffing her Lidl custard creams would not bind me into perpetual servitude, and I duly ate and drank and was merry.

  It began to bucket down, shrieks of annoyance and joy floating up from the marina around us.

  I watched Oxley sitting in his faded blue Oasis T-shirt and frayed khaki chinos. The idea that he was born back in the ninth century seemed a little bit distant. But my biology teacher at school had been adamant that if you plucked an original Homo sapiens sapiens out of the Rift Valley and put him in a suit he could have walked in and taken a substitute RE class no problem.

  I have a clear memory of me saying that would be a waste, since think about what he could tell us about being a caveman. But, you know, I’m not sure whether I actually did ask that or just wished I had.

  Certainly I don’t remember getting an answer.

  Anyone who’s taken statements from multiple witnesses to the same event will know how malleable memory is. And yet Oxley had been around for quite a lot of the period of my Key Stage 3 History Curriculum, and there were other Rivers who were even older.

  ‘You’re about twelve hundred years old, right?’ I said.

  Oxley stared at me a moment before nodding slowly.

  ‘I should say something of that order,’ he said. ‘Now you come to mention it. But if it’s wisdom you’re after, you’re asking the wrong man.’

  ‘I was thinking more of your memory,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Oxley. ‘Memory, now – there’s a tricky thing. What particular memory were you thinking of?’

  ‘King Arthur,’ I said.

  ‘Before my time,’ said Oxley.

  ‘But was he a legend or a real king?’

  ‘Kings were legends in those days. Or so they seemed to such poor creatures as myself. I’m not sure I could say who was king in my youth and I was quite a learned man.’

  ‘Not even his name?’

  ‘Do you remember who was prime minister when you were so high?’

  He nodded at a small child, gender indeterminate, in blue shorts who was dancing about in the rain.

  ‘Margaret Thatcher,’ I said, and then had to think again. ‘John Major.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Oxley. ‘But do you truly remember that, or is that something you learnt later from a book or off the radio?’

  ‘I remember John Major from when I was in primary school,’ I said. ‘But I get your point.’

  ‘Well, that is how the past is for us,’ said Oxley. ‘All the historical things, the kings and other mighty bastards, the battles and coronations sort of fade. Mind you, the strangest things stick. I remember vividly being sick after being woken for matins and standing before the abbot and wishing he would shout with less force. I remember the first time I saw Isis at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and all I need do is close my eyes to see her again.’

  ‘Or open them and see me in front of you,’ said Isis.

  ‘My point being that I could not for the life of me tell you the name of the king at either juncture without consulting a book,’ said Oxley.

  ‘It was Farmer George,’ said Isis. ‘Not long after somebody tried to shoot him in his box.’

  ‘Painful,’ I said.

  ‘It undoubtedly would have been,’ she said, and winked.

  ‘You’re not helping me here, my love,’ Oxley told Isis, who laughed. ‘As I was saying, my point . . .’ He stopped to make sure Isis wasn’t about to interrupt. ‘My point being that I can’t be sure whether what I know of the grand events of the past are my true memories or the same histories that you know.’

  ‘He looks so disappointed,’ said Isis.

  ‘You’re not the first gentleman wizard who came asking,’ said Oxley. ‘I remember one who was desperate to answer some question or other about Cromwell. Charlie Somebody, taught at Pembroke College, right keen on original sources. Couldn’t help him either.’
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  I wondered if perhaps there was an upper limit to the capacity of the brain to retain memory. Perhaps their surplus memories manifested externally; perhaps that was the function of those strange god-ghosts like Sir William of Tyburn. It would also suggest that the Genii Locorum retained the same organic brain that the rest of us made do with.

  I wondered if we could persuade one of them to donate their brain to science.

  ‘There’s such a thing as social history these days,’ I said, and Oxley snorted.

  ‘Ah well, but that’s a difficult matter, isn’t it now?’ he said. ‘I could tell them all about the daily life of a terrible monk, but then I’d have to reveal myself, wouldn’t I? That might cause a bit of an uproar, might it not? Think of the questions!’

  ‘Somebody should remember this stuff,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, the Old Man remembers everything,’ said Oxley. ‘You might say that’s what makes him the Old Man.’

  ‘So our hypothetical historian might ask him?’ I asked.

  ‘Hypothetical?’ said Isis, and sipped her tea.

  ‘Do you have a burning need to know about the past?’ asked Oxley.

  I said it was hypothetically possible, but Oxley shook his head slowly.

  ‘You don’t want to be asking questions of the Old Man. He asks a price, and the price is always more than what you want to pay.’

  ‘Or I could ask him for you,’ said Isis, and sipped her tea.

  Oxley gave her a frown.

  ‘Isis, my love,’ he said. ‘Let’s not meddle too far in the affairs of wizards.’

  ‘This isn’t a wizard,’ said Isis. ‘This is Peter and besides, my love, it will do no harm to ask. The Old Man will either answer or he will not.’

  ‘Or as like as not pitch you a riddle,’ said Oxley. ‘One that we will untangle to our cost.’

  ‘Peter’s good at riddles,’ Isis told her husband, then favoured me with a bright smile. ‘That, after all, is the nature of his profession.’