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the Thames, sliding along the smooth stone banks. Waxing and waning beneath lion-head gargoyles, it rol s beneath the bridges past the Tower of London and on toward Canary Wharf and Rotherhithe.
    Ali parks the car in a smal lane alongside Cannon Street Station. There are seventeen stone steps leading down to a narrow gravel beach slowly being exposed by the tide.
    On closer inspection the beach is not gravel but broken pottery, bricks, rubble and shards of glass worn smooth by the water.
    “This is where they found you,” Joe says, sliding his hand across the horizon until it rests on a yel ow navigation buoy, streaked with rust.
    “Marilyn Monroe.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “It's nothing.”
    Above our heads the trains accelerate and brake as they leave and enter the station across a railway bridge.
    “They say you lost about four pints of blood. The cold water slowed down your metabolism, which probably saved your life. You also had the presence of mind to use your belt as a tourniquet.”
    “What about the boat?”
    “That wasn't found until later that morning, drifting east of Tower Bridge. Any of this coming back?”
    I shake my head.
    “There was a tide running that night. The water level was about six feet higher than it is now. And the tide was running at about five knots an hour. Given your blood loss and body temperature that puts the shooting about three miles upstream . . .”
    Give or take about a thousand different variables, I think to myself, but I see where he's coming from. He is trying to work backward.
    “You had blood on your trousers, along with a mixture of clay, sediment and traces of benzene and ammonia.”
    “Was the boat engine running?”
    “It had run out of fuel.”
    “Did anyone report shots being fired on the river?”
    “No.”
    I stare across the shit-brown water, slick with leaves and debris. This was once the busiest thoroughfare in the city, a source of wealth, cliques, clubs, boundary disputes, ancient jealousies, salvage battles and folklore. Nowadays, three people can get shot within a few miles of Tower Bridge and nobody sees a thing.
    A blue-and-white police launch pul s into view. The sergeant is wearing orange overal s and a basebal cap, along with a life vest that makes his chest look barrel shaped. He offers his hand as I negotiate the gangway. Ali has donned a sun hat as though we're off for a spot of fishing.
    A tourist boat cruises past, sending us rocking in its wake. Camcorders and digital cameras record the moment as though we're part of London's rich tapestry. The sergeant pushes back on the throttle and we turn against the current and head upstream beneath Southwark Bridge.
    The river runs faster on the inside of each bend, rushing along smooth stone wal s, pul ing at boats on their moorings, creating pressure waves against the pylons.
    A young girl with long black hair rows under the bridge in a single scul . Her back is curved and her forearms slick with perspiration. I fol ow her wake and then raise my eyes to the buildings and the sky above them. High white clouds are like chalk marks against the blue.
    The Mil ennium Wheel looks like something that should be floating in space instead of scooping up tourists. Nearby a class of schoolchildren sit on benches, the girls dressed in tartan skirts and blue stockings. Joggers ghost past them along Albert Embankment.
    I can't remember if it was a clear night. You don't often see stars in London because of light and air pol ution. At most they appear as half a dozen faint dots overhead or sometimes you can see Mars in the southeast. On a cloudy night some stretches of the river, particularly opposite the parks, are almost in total darkness. The gates are locked at sunset.
    A century ago people made a living out of pul ing bodies from the Thames. They knew every little race and eddy where a floater might bob up. The mooring chains and ropes, the stationary boats and barges that split the current into