‘He confirmed what we suspected,’ he said. That the boys in the boat had been followers of Father Thames, had come downstream to raid the shrine at Eel Pie Island and been caught by followers of Mother Thames. They were doubtless well tanked up, and probably did set their own fire while trying to make their escape. Downstream, the Thames was the sovereign domain of Mother Thames, upstream, it belonged to Father Thames. The dividing line was at Teddington Lock, two kilometres downstream from Eel Pie Island.

‘So you think Father Thames is making a grab for turf?’ I asked. It made these ‘gods’ sound like drug dealers. Traffic was noticeably heavier heading back – London was waking up.

‘It’s hardly surprising that the spirits of a locality would exhibit territoriality,’ said Nightingale. ‘In any case, I think you might have a unique insight into this problem. I want you to go and have a word with Mother Thames.’

‘And what do me and my unique insight say to Mrs Thames?’

‘Find out what the problem is and see if you can find an amicable solution,’ said Nightingale.

‘And if I can’t?’

‘Then I want you to remind her that, whatever some people may think, the Queen’s peace extends to the whole Kingdom.’

Nobody got to drive the Jag except Nightingale, which was understandable. If I had a car like that I wouldn’t let anyone else drive it either. However I did have access to a ten-year-old Ford Escort in electric blue which had ex-Panda car written all over it. Nightingale shopped at the same used-car showroom as Lesley. You can always tell an old cop car because however hard you scrub, it always smells of old cop.

Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Wapping – the old and the new East End were mashed up together by money and intransigence. Mother Thames lived East of the White Tower in a converted warehouse just short of the Shadwell Basin. It was just the other side of the slipway from the Prospect of Whitby, an ancient pub that was a legendary jazz venue back in the day. My dad had sat in there with Johnny Keating but had managed, with his finely tuned ability to sabotage his own career, missed performing with Lita Roza – I think they got Ronnie Hughes to replace him.

To the main road the warehouse showed a blind face of London brick pierced by modern windows, but on the Thames side the old loading wharves had been converted into a car park. I parked up between an orange Citroën Picasso and a fire-brick red Jaguar XF with an Urban Dance FM sticker in the windscreen.

As I stepped out, I had the clearest sense of vestigia so far. A sudden smell of pepper and seawater as quick and shocking as the scream of a gull. Hardly surprising, since the warehouse had once been part of the Port of London, the busiest port in the world.