Broken Homes

said to Uncle Bailiff. ‘What do you mean “access”?’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, stooping to pull the start cord – the angle grinder growled into life. ‘It’s only a little adjustment.’
    By late afternoon the tide turned. And with it came a river mist that rolled in from the east. The stalls were all in place, but still had their tarpaulins down while their owners stood around chatting and sharing rollups, or at least things I decided to classify as roll-ups for the duration. That’s your famous ‘operational discretion’ at work. The Showmen had arrived while Uncle Bailiff was adjusting the pier. The park wasn’t suitable for a full funfair, so this was a just token presence – a single antique steam-powered carousel and the kind of booth that invites you to lose money three hoops at a time. These too were quiet and shuttered, their owners drinking coffee from cardboard cups, chatting and texting.
    Lesley and me met with Nightingale by the stall we’d set up at the point where Upper Ground Street bisected the park, to serve as a command post and lost children collection spot. We even had a blue and white placard with the Metropolitan Police crest and Working Together for a Safer London printed underneath. Nearby I spotted some familiar faces setting up their instruments in the jazz tent. It was going to be a popular venue, I thought, if the weather didn’t let us down. The drummer looked up and waved me over, he was a short Scottish stereotype called James Lochrane.
    ‘Peter,’ he said and gripped my hand. ‘Your dad’s waiting in the BFI café with your mum.’
    I shook hands with Max Harwood, the bassist, and Daniel Hossack who played guitar, the three of them plus my dad constituting the Lord Grant’s Irregulars. My dad was making his glorious third, or was it fourth, attempt at a career as a jazzman. Daniel introduced me to a thin jittery young white guy in an expensive coat – Jon something I missed – whose day job was in publicity. I wondered if he was the band’s latest attempt to recruit a brass section until James mouthed the word ‘boyfriend’ behind Daniel’s back and all was clear.
    ‘Where’s Abigail?’ I asked.
    ‘Behind you,’ said Abigail.
    Through a series of irritating mistakes, mostly mine, I’d been forced to invent a junior cadet branch of the Folly, consisting only of one Abigail Kamara, in an effort to keep her out of trouble. Nightingale had been way more sanguine about the whole thing than I was expecting, which only served to make me suspicious. Given his attitude, I led Abigail over to our little police stall and made her his problem.
    She was a skinny mixed-race kid who had a fine range of suspicious looks, one of which she was happy to turn on Nightingale.
    ‘Are you going to do some magic?’ she asked.
    ‘That, young lady,’ he said, ‘depends entirely on how you deport yourself in the coming hours.’
    Abigail gave him the look, but only for a moment – just enough to make sure he knew that she wasn’t intimidated.
    ‘Fair enough,’ she said.
    Through the mist the sun was a wavering disc kissing the shadowy arches of Waterloo Bridge. I noticed that a fair number of civilians, mostly tourists and workers from the nearby offices, were wandering amongst the darkened stalls. All part of our contingency planning, and not yet arriving in the quantities I was expecting. Lesley noted that many of them were staying in the area of Gabriel’s Wharf where the cafés and shops were still open.
    As the sun vanished, the mist grew thicker and I started to wonder when the showmen were going to turn on their lights.
    ‘Do you think this is natural?’ Lesley asked Nightingale.
    ‘I doubt that.’ Nightingale checked his watch. ‘Both sunset and high tide are due at around six thirty – I expect our principals to arrive then.’
    So we sent Abigail off to get coffee and settled in to wait.
    We heard them before we saw them. And we felt them before we heard them – as an anticipation, like waking up on your birthday, the smell of bacon sandwiches, breakfast coffee and that initial glorious deep-lunged drag on the first cigarette of the day – the last of these being how I knew this wasn’t truly my feelings, but something external.
    And then a real sound floated out of the dark. Big heavy marine diesels throttled up suddenly as the blunt prows of two large river cruisers emerged from the mist, one on either side of the pier. They touched the