Whispers Under Ground

by Ben Aaronovitch

‘Well spotted,’ said Beale, unaware that ‘Where did the money come from?’ is one of the three standard police questions, along with ‘Where was you on the night in question?’ and ‘Why don’t you just make it easy on yourself?’

  ‘Where does an impoverished Irishman dig up the readies, especially back then?’ he said. ‘But I can assure you the source of his start-up capital was entirely legal.’

  The answer was that navvies were actually very well paid by the standards of the Victorian labouring classes. They had to be, given the need to attract men from all over to do such back-breaking work in such dangerous conditions. In the majority of cases this largesse was pissed against the wall or swindled out of their hands by everyone from corrupt gang-masters, greedy subcontractors or just the army of camp followers that trailed the men around the country.

  But if a man was clever and clear-sighted he could form with his mates what was called a butty gang, effectively cutting out the gang master and his cut of the earnings. And if that butty gang had a reputation for being good at, say, tunnelling, then they might strike a good deal with the subcontractor who, more than anything else in the world, wanted to get his section done on time with as little fuss as possible. And, most importantly of all, if that man could persuade his mates to avoid the demon drink and bank their wages in a real bank then that man might finish twenty years with a tidy sum.

  Such a man was Eugene Beale, also known as Ten-Ton Digger, who left Ireland out of the inexplicable desire to avoid starving to death and ended up building Vauxhall Station.

  ‘They were famous as tunnellers,’ said Beale. ‘They built sewers for Bazalgette and the Metropolitan Line for Pearson – all the while keeping their money safe.’ They had lodgings just off Pottery Lane and everyone assumed that’s where they picked up the recipe for Unbreakable Pottery.

  ‘A secret recipe?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘At the time yes,’ said Beale. ‘It’s actually a form of double-fired stoneware very similar to Coade Stone which I believe is still made to this day. Wonderful stuff, very tough and, most importantly for London in those days, resistant to damage from coal smoke.’

  ‘Do you still know how to manufacture it?’ I asked. Stephanopoulos gave me a sharp look which I had to ignore.

  ‘Personally?’ asked Beale. ‘Not me. I’m strictly business administration but I understand that these days with electric kilns and whatnot it wouldn’t be that hard. Keeping the temperature constant with those old coke-burning kilns was the real trick.’

  ‘So where did they have their factory?’ I asked.

  Beale hesitated and I realised that we’d tipped over from ‘friendly chat’ to ‘helping police with their inquiries’. I felt Stephanopoulos straighten a fraction in her chair.

  ‘On Pottery Lane of course,’ said Beale. ‘Care for a refill?’

  Stephanopoulos smiled and held out her glass. It’s always better if the person you’re interviewing doesn’t know that you know that they know that they have to be more careful.

  ‘What, all the way up to the 1960s?’ I asked.

  Beale hesitated again as if thinking carefully about the dates.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The work went up North to Staffordshire to one of the potteries there.’

  ‘Can you remember the name?’

  ‘Why on Earth do you want to know?’ asked Beale.

  ‘The Arts and Antiques squad want to know,’ I said. ‘Something to do with stolen figurines on the internet.’

  Stephanopoulos gave an involuntary snort but at least managed to suppress a laugh.

  ‘Oh,’ said Beale. ‘I see. I’m sure I can dig the information out for them – do they need it right away?’

  I paused just to see his reaction but he was much smoother than his favourite-uncle-in-a-chunky-jumper persona suggested, and just looked blandly helpful.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘After the New Year will be fine.’

  Beale took a fortifying gulp of Baileys and explained that unbreakable pottery was all very well but Eugene Beale and the surviving members of his butty gang drew upon their phenomenal tunnelling experience to become engineering subcontractors in their own right. As the work became mechanised and the expendable masses were replaced by massive machines, each new generation of Beales was educated to meet the challenges of the new age.

  ‘I thought you were business and administration?’ I asked.

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘It was my younger brother who was the engineering brains of our generation. Despite our name we do a great deal of civil engineering work, in fact that’s what saved us when the crash came. If it hadn’t been for our Crossrail contracts we would have gone under.’

  ‘Would it be possible to talk to your brother?’ I asked.

  Beale looked away. ‘I’m afraid he was killed in a works accident,’ he said.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said.

  ‘However technological it gets,’ said Beale, ‘tunnelling is still dangerous work.’

  ‘About the warehouse,’ said Stephanopoulos quickly, presumably to stop me from going off on another tangent. ‘That’s a prime piece of real estate you have there even in the current market. Why haven’t you developed it?’

  ‘As I was saying,’ said Beale. ‘We are a family firm and like many companies that grow organically, our management structures are not always entirely rational. We leased the warehouse to Nolan and Sons in the early sixties and while the terms of that lease are still running we can’t repossess it.’

  ‘That’s a very strange contract,’ said Stephanopoulos.

  ‘That’s probably because it was written on a beer mat and sealed with a handshake,’ said Beale. ‘That’s the way my father liked to do business.’

  We stayed a bit longer to get contact details, so that a minion from the Murder Team could have a fun Christmas unpicking the corporate structure of Beale Property Services, just in case it became relevant later. I doubted it would be a priority – perhaps the minion would only have to give up New Year’s Eve.

  We walked back to Stephanopoulos’ BMW, picking our way through slippery patches of decomposing snow.

  ‘I’m as fond of industrial archaeology as the next woman, Peter,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘But what the hell was that all about?’

  ‘The murder weapon,’ I said.

  ‘At last,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Something I can relate to.’

  ‘James Gallagher was stabbed with a shard of a large flat dish,’ I said. ‘Whose chemical composition matches that of the fruit bowl which we have now traced back to a warehouse full of similar stuff.’

  ‘Identified as the property of the Unbreakable Empire Pottery Company,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘With you so far – wait. Is this where it’s going to get odd?’

  ‘That depends on how much you want to know, boss.’ I opened the passenger door for her to get in.

  ‘What are my options?’ she asked as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Meaningless euphemisms at one end and your full-on Unseen University at the other,’ I said. ‘The Unseen University is a bit like Hogwarts—’

  Stephanopoulos cut me off. ‘I have read some Terry Pratchett,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Not really. But her indoors buys them in hardback and reads out bits to me over breakfast,’ she said.

  ‘So what do you read for fun?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m partial to the odd misery memoir,’ she said. ‘I find it comforting to know other people had worse childhoods than me.’

  I kept my mouth shut – there’s some things you don’t ask senior officers.

  ‘I’ll settle for meaningful euphemisms,’ she said at last.

  I backed out of the car park before explaining.

  ‘All of the pottery found so far has had the same signature which indicates that it is special,’ I said. ‘But this signature fades with time—’ I was going to say that it was like the half-life of radioactive decay, but I’ve found to my cost that that just usually leads t
o me explaining what radioactive half-life is. ‘Like a painting that’s been left in the sun,’ I said. ‘The stuff in the warehouse is old, some of it’s very old, but the murder weapon felt brand-new.’

  ‘What about the boxes of plates that Kevin Nolan arrived with?’

  ‘Pretty faded,’ I said. ‘I suspect that it’s been stored somewhere else prior to Kevin’s delivery.’

  ‘Stored where?’ asked Stephanopoulos. ‘And by who?’

  ‘Someone’s going to have to go underground to find out,’ I said.

  Three guesses as to who that was going to be.

  17

  Bayswater

  Rule of underground exploration number one is, according to Sergeant Kumar, minimise the number of people actually underground at any one time. That way if things go wrong there are fewer bodies for the rescuers to dig out. That meant that the party would consist of me, because of my specialist expertise, and Kumar because he was experienced exploring underground. I asked him where all this experience came from.

  ‘I do potholing in my free time,’ he said. ‘Yorkshire and Dartmoor mostly, but this year I spent a month in Meghalaya.’ Which was a state in north-eastern India and essentially virgin territory for cavers – very exciting and dangerous.

  Since London Underground had only just got back to normal service after the snow, there was no way they were going to shut down the Circle Line while we explored. So we were going to wait until the official shut-down at one in the morning. Kumar suggested that I get some rest and reconvene later to get tooled up.

  So, leaving Lesley to keep an eye on the house that wasn’t there, I went home to the Folly for a meal and a sleep. I got up at eight, had a hot bath and took Toby for a walk in Russell Square. It was cold and crisp and the sky was so clear that if it hadn’t been for London’s chronic light pollution I’m sure I would have seen stars. I’d agreed to meet Kumar back in Bayswater around ten, so as soon Toby had finished marking his territory I headed back in to get my gear. As I crossed the atrium Molly emerged suddenly from the shadows. I jumped. I always jump, and that seems to give Molly endless amusement.

  ‘Will you stop doing that?’ I said.

  Molly gave me a bland look and held out a holdall bag. I recognised it as Lesley’s. I took it and promised faithfully to make sure she got it. I managed to resist the urge to go rummaging around inside it, my willpower being bolstered by the fact that you never knew when Molly might be watching you from the shadows.

  To my surprise, Nightingale was waiting in the garage by the Jag.

  ‘I’ll drive you over,’ he said. He was in his heavy dark blue suit with a matching Aran jumper and his serious plain brown lace-ups. His Crombie greatcoat was hung up in the back of the car.

  ‘Are you supervising tonight?’ I asked once we were seated.

  Nightingale started the Jag and let the engine warm for a bit. ‘I thought I’d spell Lesley,’ he said. ‘Dr Walid doesn’t want her getting overtired.’

  I often forget how good a driver Nightingale is, especially in the Jag. He insinuates himself through the traffic like a tiger padding through a jungle, or at least how I imagine a tiger pads through a jungle. For all I know the damn things swagger through the forest like Rottweilers at a poodle show.

  While he drove I filled him in on the complex details of tonight’s operation.

  ‘Me and Kumar are going to drop down through the hatch, meet up with his patrolman and see if we can track where the veggies went,’ I said.

  ‘Kumar and I,’ said Nightingale. ‘Not “me and Kumar”.’ Nightingale periodically attempted to improve my grammar and was curiously deaf to what I consider a pretty convincing and sophisticated argument that the rules of English grammar are largely an artificial construct with little or no bearing on the language as it is spoke.

  ‘Kumar and I,’ I said to keep him happy, ‘will descend while Lesley and a couple of bods from the Murder Team will hang about on the tracks just in case.’

  ‘Just in case of what?’ asked Nightingale. ‘What are you expecting to find?’

  ‘I don’t know, tramps, trolls, sentient badgers – you tell me.’

  ‘Not trolls,’ said Nightingale. ‘They prefer riverbanks, particularly spots overshadowed by stone or brick.’

  ‘Hence the stories about bridges,’ I said.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Nightingale. ‘As far as I’m aware, nothing unusual lives in the tunnels, or the sewers for that matter. Although there are always rumours, colonies of vagrants, tribes of navvies that have become trapped underground and turned cannibal.’

  ‘That was a film,’ I said.

  ‘Death Line,’ said Nightingale, surprising me. ‘Starring Donald Pleasence. Don’t look so shocked Peter. Just because I’ve never owned a television doesn’t mean I never went to the cinema.’

  Actually I’d always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the Commissioner called him on the bat-phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.

  ‘The cinema of David Lean – yes,’ I said. ‘Low-budget British horror films – no.’

  ‘It was filmed just around corner from the Folly,’ he said. ‘I was curious.’

  ‘Any rumours that weren’t made into a film?’ I asked.

  ‘An old school-chum of mine called Walter once tried to convince me that any system, such as an underground railway or indeed the telephone network, could develop genius loci in the same fashion as the rivers and other sacred sites.’ Nightingale paused to negotiate a tricky knot of traffic as we got off the Harrow Road.

  ‘Was he right?’ I asked.

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ said Nightingale. ‘Once he got going I never really understood more than one word in ten, but he really was terribly bright so I’m at least willing to entertain the possibility. Certainly if a Scotsman introduced himself to me as the god of telephones I’d be inclined to take him at his word.’

  ‘Why a Scotsman?’

  ‘Because of Alexander Graham Bell,’ said Nightingale, who was obviously in a whimsical mood that night.

  We did the strange square Bayswater one-way system and turned up Queensway, which had opted for Christmas lights this year. Many of the shops were open late and the pavements were crowded with shoppers. The weather had obviously concentrated the pre-Christmas rush into a mad panic.

  ‘Have you found time to buy your presents yet?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Already sorted,’ I said. ‘Got my mum’s’ – an envelope full of cash because my mum is definitely not of the thought that counts school of Christmas giving. ‘And I found a mint 1955 original Easy Geary LP for my dad.’

  ‘On Hathor?’ asked Nightingale. I was impressed; this was some seriously obscure West Coast jazz we were talking about. I complimented him on his jazz erudition. Buying for Lesley had been a pain and in the end I’d settled for a chunky Aran jumper as worn by Danish TV detectives on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nightingale didn’t ask me what I’d got him, and I didn’t ask what he’d got me.

  The night was still and cold as we pulled up outside the fake houses which conveniently served as staging area and changing room. Kumar had brought me a wetsuit and a bright orange overall with yellow reflector patches to go over it. The neoprene was thinner and the fit looser than I was expecting and I wasn’t going to be making any kind of a fashion statement.

  ‘I don’t expect us to get that wet unless we end up in the drains,’ said Kumar. ‘You want it loose for movement – and you definitely don’t want to overheat.’ He handed me a set of boots that looked like the unfortunate love child of a pair of Doc Martens and a pair of Wellington boots but were surprisingly comfy. We were changing in what everyone had started calling the trapdoor room, with the hatch closed to prevent me falling down it while I hopped about trying to get my boots on.

  ‘Do we wear our vests?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you expect to find down there?’ asked Kumar.<
br />
  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ I said.

  The Metvest was especially developed for the Met to be both stab and bullet resistant – emphasis on the word ‘resistant’ you notice, not ‘proof’. I’d worn one for two years while in uniform but the last year had got me out of the habit. Still, a Metvest was a comfort in a tight spot, so on they went.

  Our helmets were the same high-visibility orange as our overalls and supported state-of-the-art LED headlamps. We divvied up the remainder of the essentials, Kumar got the rope and rescue tools while I took the first aid kit, the emergency food and the water.

  ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘This is worse than riot training.’

  Lesley, who’d been waiting in the next room while we changed, walked in.

  ‘Nightingale wants to know when you’re going,’ she said.

  ‘We’re just waiting for the patrolman,’ said Kumar and opened the hatch and stuck his head down to have a look.

  ‘Are we going to have the place to ourselves?’ I asked.

  Kumar climbed to his feet.

  ‘It’s actually going to be quite crowded down there,’ he said. ‘TfL has every work gang that would take overtime down there tonight. Tomorrow is the last full shopping day before Christmas and it’ll be the first full service day this week – it’s going to be brutal.’

  ‘Your engineers,’ I said. ‘Are they roughnecks?’

  ‘The roughest of the rough,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘We know where to run for help, then.’

  The flaring beam from a torch flashed suddenly up through the open hatch, followed by a piercing shepherd’s whistle.

  ‘That’ll be the patrolman,’ said Kumar and then called down into the dark – ‘David. Up here.’

  As Kumar exchanged shouts with the patrolman, Lesley fetched Nightingale. The idea was that he’d keep an eye out on the world above ground and be ready to rush to the rescue or, more likely, pick us up if we surfaced far away.

  ‘We might as well lower the stairs then,’ I said.

  ‘If they are stairs,’ said Lesley.

  I lay down on the floor-boards and put my head through the hatch, looking for the brass handle to operate the folding staircase. From below a light shone in my face.