What did the child of a river and a mortal inherit, and from whom? Fleet was married to a Fae but Beverley said all her children were adopted. Oxley had Isis who had obviously caught longevity from somewhere and Effra had Oberon who Nightingale called an Old Soldier – note the capital letters.

And if I had kids with Beverley, not that kids were on the table, what would they be like – apart from staggeringly good looking of course? Would they be riverlets, streams, storm drains or just ordinary?

Which reminded me to phone Beverley.

‘Hi babes,’ she said. In the background I could hear water slapping against a vertical surface, the hull of a boat or more likely a piling of some sort. I asked her where she was.

‘Up at Eel Pie Island,’ she said. ‘Sorting out a dispute – these people are cheeky, you know. They think buying a house on an island is just another investment opportunity.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I asked. That end of Richmond/Twickenham had become hipster central since the big money had started pushing all the TV producers and literary editors out of Hampstead and Primrose Hill.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Live on an island in the middle of a river, especially this river, you’ve got to put out some signs and favours if you want to prosper. You still at my house?’

‘I’m on a shout,’ I said – obviously Beverley hadn’t heard about her niece yet.

‘Pity,’ she said. ‘I was hoping you’d be keeping the bed warm for me.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Listen, the job I’m on, I can’t say anything right now, but you need to contact your mum.’

‘Is this like a job job?’ asked Beverley, ‘or a magic job job?’

‘I don’t know and I’m not supposed to tell you anyway,’ I said.

‘You might be able to tell her yourself later,’ said Beverley. ‘She said she might be turning up for your dad’s gig.’

Which I’d forgotten about.

‘Just call your mum,’ I said. ‘It’s important.’

Beverley promised she would just as soon as she’d sorted out some recalcitrant islanders.

And our kids would be . . . ? I thought after we’d hung up. Good at swimming?

I wasn’t going to learn anything more in this room – it was time to hit the factory floor.

What with the jazz thing, the underground thing, the business with the haunted car, the Russians and let’s not forget the mould – however hard we try to – Belgravia MIT had bowed to the inevitable and given me my own desk in the Outside Inquiry Office. I say my own desk, but actually I shared it with Guleed and a white DC called David Carey. Neither of them were that happy with the arrangement, not least because it was a two person desk.