Whispers Under Ground

by Ben Aaronovitch

  I thought of the big eyes set in a pale face. Too pale perhaps?

  ‘What if he wasn’t entirely human?’ I said.

  Kumar gave me a disgusted look. ‘I thought I was used to investigating weird shit,’ he said. ‘I really had no idea, did I?’

  ‘No idea about what?’ asked Reynolds from the doorway. ‘Shower’s all yours by the way.’

  We showered and then stripped, which is how you do it when you’re covered in sewage. I had a row of spectacular bruises across my chest that I knew were going to come up good and purple in the next twenty-four hours. Kumar showed me how to wring out coveralls and then we put all our, still damp, kit back on – including the Metvest. Especially the Metvest.

  Me and Kumar agreed that I’d talk to the sisters while he checked in with his boss, my boss, my other boss, Seawoll, and, finally, Lesley. This is why nobody likes joint operations.

  Smelling only moderately bad, we went into the storeroom to discover that Reynolds had gone exploring. We found her back in the club talking to Olympia and Chelsea. As we walked over she handed back to Olympia a chunky black mobile phone, the kind favoured by people who might have to spend a certain amount of time underwater. Reynolds had obviously taken advantage of our shower to make contact with the surface world. I wondered who she’d called. Somebody at the embassy or perhaps the senator? Was it possible she’d lied about not having any backup?

  I checked my watch and found it was six thirty in the morning. No wonder I was feeling so knackered. The club looked like it was winding down, drifts of teenagers were piled up around the chairs and sofas at the end of the tunnel and those who were still dancing had that frantic quality you get when you are absolutely determined to wring the last bit of excitement from the night. I also noticed that the DJ had stopped talking over the tracks, and any DJ tired of the sound of his own voice is tired indeed.

  I caught Olympia’s eye and beckoned the sisters over. They didn’t even try to look reluctant. Our FBI agent had piqued their interest and they wanted to know what the gossip was.

  ‘Your rivers …’ I said.

  Chelsea gave me a dangerous look. ‘What about our rivers?’ she asked.

  ‘They run … mostly underground,’ I said. ‘Right?’

  ‘We can’t all go frolicking through the suburbs,’ said Chelsea. ‘Some of us have to work for a living.’

  ‘Though Ty’s got plans,’ said Olympia.

  ‘Ty’s always got plans,’ said Chelsea.

  ‘You’d know if there were people living in the sewers?’ I asked.

  ‘Not away from our courses,’ said Olympia. ‘It’s not like we spend that much time in the dirty bits.’

  Chelsea nodded. ‘Would you?’

  Olympia waved her hands vaguely about. ‘Sometimes I get a kind of itchy feeling, you know like when there’s a thought in your head and you’re not sure it’s one of yours,’ she said.

  ‘I think it’s more like when your leg twitches,’ said Chelsea.

  ‘Your leg twitches?’ asked Olympia. ‘Since when?’

  ‘I’m not saying it twitches all the time,’ said Chelsea. ‘I’m saying that sense of involuntary movement.’

  ‘Have you seen a guy called James Gallagher down here?’ I asked. ‘American, white, early twenties, art student.’

  Olympia nodded at Reynolds. ‘Is that what she’s here for?’

  ‘Is he important?’ asked Chelsea.

  ‘Murder victim,’ I said.

  ‘Not the guy they found at Baker Street?’ asked Olympia.

  I told them it was the very same, which was when I glanced over and saw Zachary Palmer tending bar.

  ‘How long has he been working for you?’ I asked the sisters.

  ‘Who?’ asked Olympia and looked over at Zach. ‘Oh Goblin Boy?

  ‘Is he a goblin?’ I asked. ‘He said he was half fairy.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Chelsea. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘I can’t keep them straight,’ said Olympia.

  ‘It’s all the same to us,’ said Chelsea.

  ‘But he does work for you?’ I asked. ‘Full time?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Chelsea. ‘He’s the neighbourhood odd job guy.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Olympia. ‘If the job is odd he’s the goblin for you.’

  I looked over to find that Zach was staring back at me. I was tempted to go ask him some questions but I really felt I’d been underground long enough.

  ‘I can’t be bothered to deal with you two now,’ I said. ‘But don’t think I won’t check with your mum.’

  ‘Oh we’re quaking in our boots,’ said Olympia.

  ‘Relax, magic boy,’ said Chelsea. ‘We keep it all strictly contained.’

  I gave them my sternest look, which bothered them not at all, and went off to join Kumar and Reynolds.

  Apparently we had two options, a long climb up a set of spiral stairs or we could go through the now open Holland Park tube station where at least we could take the lift up – as if that was a contest. We were just heading for the passageway to the station when Zach intercepted me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  I told Kumar and Reynolds that I’d catch up.

  ‘We heard the ambience was brilliant,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, no, look, listen,’ said Zach. ‘I thought you might be looking for other tunnels.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a change of clothes.’

  ‘The old GPO tunnel goes right past this place,’ he said.

  I heard the whistle the second time. Given the thump, thump, thump of the bass beat and the fact that Zach was trying to shout over the music, it’s amazing I heard it at all. On the third whistle there was no mistaking the non-studio-processed nature of the sound and I looked across the dance floor to see Kumar waving for my attention. When he had it he pointed at his eyes and then at the far end of the club. I turned back to Zach, who had a strangely frantic look on his face.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said.

  ‘What about the tunnels?’

  ‘Later,’ I said.

  I pushed my way through the crowd as quickly as I could and as soon as I was close Kumar yelled, ‘He’s here.’

  No need to ask who. ‘Where?’ I asked.

  ‘Going out through the station exit,’ said Kumar.

  Out amongst the innocent bystanders, I thought.

  ‘Could you see if he still had the Sten gun?’ I asked.

  Kumar hadn’t seen it.

  We headed out through the exit into Holland Park station – at a walking pace, thank god. Reynolds had been shadowing him and we found her crouched at the bottom of a flight of stairs trying to get an angle on anyone at the top without being seen.

  ‘He just went up,’ she whispered to us.

  I asked if she was sure it was him.

  ‘Pale face, big eyes, that weird round-shouldered posture,’ she said. ‘Definitely him.’

  I was impressed. I hadn’t even noticed his posture. The sisters had said that after the stairs there was a short corridor and then a fire door out into the station proper. We reckoned he’d hear our boots if we ran up behind him. So we walked up, having a casual conversation in the hope we’d sound like weary clubbers. In the course of the first two flights I learnt that Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds was from Enid, Oklahoma and had gone to university at Stillwater and thence to Quantico.

  Sergeant Kumar turned out to be from Hounslow and had studied Engineering at Sussex University but had fallen into policing. ‘I’d have been a terrible engineer,’ he said. ‘No patience.’

  I had a jazz anecdote about my father all ready to go when we very clearly heard the sound of a door slamming shut up ahead – at which point we legged it.

  It was an ordinary fire door, heavily spring-loaded, presumably so Olympia and Chelsea’s friends could leave without letting the commuter traffic leak back in. We went through it slowly and quietly and found ourselves in an alcove tucked away near the
stations lifts. Our suspect wasn’t amongst the passengers waiting to go up in the lift and, according to them, they’d been waiting at least a couple of minutes, which was too long for him to have gone up earlier.

  ‘Stairs or platforms?’ asked Kumar.

  ‘He likes to stay underground,’ I said. ‘Platforms first.’

  We caught a break when I spotted him through the grilled windows where the corridor cut across the top of the eastbound platform. We ran as quietly as we could down the next flight of stairs and piled up like cartoon characters at the entrance to the platform. I was just nerving myself to have a look around the corner when Kumar pointed at the convex mirror at head height opposite. This was a holdover from the days before CCTV when station staff and BTP had to scope out stations with the mark one eyeball.

  I spotted him, small and oddly shaped in the mirror, at the far end of the platform.

  ‘If he’s still armed,’ said Kumar. ‘We’ll never get close.’

  I felt a puff of air on my face and the rails began to sing. It was too late – a train was coming.

  21

  Oxford Circus

  Sergeant Kumar was very clear about one thing – you don’t do shit when the train is in motion.

  ‘Someone pulls the emergency stop between stations you can lose a passenger to a heart attack there and then,’ he said. ‘And you do not want to be evacuating members of the public down a live track – trust me on this.’

  You certainly didn’t want to be leaping out on a possibly armed suspect in something shaped exactly like a firing range – especially if you’re going to be the target at the far end.

  And the carriages were packed, which took me by surprise, and not with your normal commuters either. Lots of parents with kids, clusters of chattering teenagers, older people in good coats clutching cloth bags or towing shopping trolleys. Last full shopping day before Christmas, I realised, Kumar was right – we really didn’t want to be kicking off anything we couldn’t contain.

  It’s a sad fact, but policing would be so much easier if you didn’t have to worry about members of the public getting under your feet.

  Kumar had Agent Reynolds, the only one of us who didn’t look like they were remaking Ghostbusters, go ahead and peer through the double set of grimy windows and into the next carriage. When she signalled all clear we opened the connecting doors and stepped through.

  There’s no connecting tunnel on a tube train, you open the door and step across the gap to the next carriage. For a moment I was caught in a rush of air and darkness. I swear I heard it then, the whisper, behind the clatter of the wheels and the smell of dust and ozone. Not that I recognised it for what it was – not that I’m sure I know what it was even now.

  The Central Line runs what is imaginatively called 1992 Tube Stock consisting of eight carriages. Our suspect was near the front and we were near the back so it took us twelve minutes and five stops to work our way forward. As the train pulled into Oxford Circus we had our suspect, unknown to him, bottled up in the front carriage. So that, of course, is where he chose to get off.

  Reynolds spotted him first, signalled back to us and – as he walked past the open doorway where we were standing – we jumped him.

  It was as sweet a take-down as anyone could wish for. I got his left arm, Kumar got his right, I slipped my knee behind his, hooked and down he went. We flipped him over on his face and got his arms behind his back.

  He wriggled, as sinuously as a fish. It was difficult to keep him pinned. All the while he was completely silent except for a weird hissing sound like a really pissed off cat.

  I heard someone in the crowd ask what the fuck was going on.

  ‘Police,’ said Kumar. ‘Give us some room.’

  ‘Which one of you has cuffs?’ asked Reynolds.

  I looked at Kumar and he looked at me.

  ‘Shit,’ said Kumar.

  ‘We don’t have any,’ I said.

  Wriggling boy subsided under our hands. Beneath the thin fabric of his hoodie he seemed much skinnier than I expected him to be, but the muscles in his arms were like steel cables.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t bring handcuffs,’ said Reynolds.

  ‘You didn’t,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not my jurisdiction,’ said Reynolds.

  ‘It’s not my jurisdiction,’ I said.

  We both looked at Kumar. ‘Evidence,’ he said. ‘You said we were looking for evidence, not suspects.’

  Our suspect had started shaking and making snorting noises.

  ‘And you can stop laughing,’ I told him. ‘This is really unprofessional.’

  Kumar asked if we could hold him down on our own and I said I thought we could, so he loped off down the platform in search of a Help Point where he could contact the station manager.

  ‘I don’t think you want to be here when help arrives,’ I said to Reynolds. ‘Not while you’re tooled up.’

  She nodded. It was just as well she hadn’t pulled it out in front of a CCTV camera. I glanced down the platform to where Kumar was talking into the Help Point and I must have loosened my grip or something – because that’s when the bastard tried to throw me off. In my defence, I don’t think the normal human arm is supposed to bend that way, certainly not twist up in some weird angle and smash its elbow in my chin.

  My head cracked back and I lost my hold on his right arm.

  I heard a woman scream and Reynolds yell, ‘Freeze!’

  A glance told me that, despite everything, she’d stepped back and drawn her pistol.

  Training, I learnt later, specifies that you never let your weapon get close enough to the perp to get snatched. I was also informed that the biggest fear an American law Enforcement Officer lives with is the prospect of dying with their weapon still in its holster.

  The guy underneath me didn’t seem impressed. He reared up and then slapped the ground with the palm of his free hand. I got a flash of fresh loam and ozone and the cement floor of the platform cratered under his hand with a loud bang. I actually saw the start of the concussion wave in the dust around the crater and then it knocked me, Reynolds and half a dozen members of the public sprawling. We were lucky the train was still in the station or somebody would have gone onto the tracks.

  Not me, though, because I still had a grip on the fucker’s arm. Because that’s how I’m trained. I pulled on it hard to try and keep him off balance and drag myself up to my feet. But he dug his fingers into the ground and twisted.

  A crack the width of a finger shot across the platform and up the nearest wall. Ceramic tiles splintered with a noise like teeth breaking and then the floor lurched and dipped as if a giant had put his foot on one side and pressed down. The cement cracked open and I felt my stomach jump as the ground I was lying on dropped a good metre. And me with it. I saw a dark void under the platform and had just enough time to think – fuck me he’s an Earthbender – before falling into the black.

  For a long moment I thought I was still unconscious but the long stripe of pain on my thigh changed my mind. Once I noticed that pain, all its friends queued up to say hello, including a particularly worrying throbbing patch on the back of my head. I tried to reach up to touch it with my hand, only to find that I literally didn’t have enough elbow room to bend my arm. And that, as they say, is when the claustrophobia really starts.

  I didn’t call for help because I was fairly certain that once I started screaming I probably wouldn’t stop for quite a long time.

  The ground had opened up and I’d fallen into it. Which meant there might not be too much rubble above me. I thought it might even be possible to dig myself out, or at the very least make myself some more breathing room.

  So I yelled for help and, just as I suspected, it turned into a scream.

  Dust fell into my mouth – cutting me off. I spat it out and weirdly that calmed me down.

  I listened for a while in the hope that all that noise had attracted some attention. Consciously keeping my breathing sl
ow, I tried to think of everything I knew about being buried alive that might be relevant.

  Thrashing around is not helpful, hyperventilation is not your friend, and it’s possible to become disorientated in the darkness. There were documented cases of survivors digging themselves deeper into the ground when they thought they were going up. There’s a happy thought.

  However, I did have a major advantage over run-of-the-mill victims – I could do magic.

  I made myself a little werelight, floated it over my stomach and had a look around. With a visual reference re-established, my inner ear informed me that I was lying, feet down, at something like a forty-five-degree angle – so at least I was pointing in the right direction.

  Five centimetres in front of my face was a concrete wall, the imprint of the wooden forms it had set in clearly visible on its surface. The clearance narrowed towards my feet reaching a bottleneck over my knees. I gently moved my feet around – I had more room there.

  Hard up against my left was a wall of what looked like compressed earth and to my right was a space blocked by a portcullis made of rebar that, had it been half a metre closer, would have neatly bisected me. Then, presumably, I could have been pickled, put into a glass case and displayed at the Tate Modern. Brit Art’s loss was my gain, but it did mean I couldn’t wriggle that way. As far as I could tell, I was currently lying inside a sort of concrete tent with no visible way out.

  I extinguished the werelight – they burn underwater but I didn’t know yet whether they burned oxygen or not, and I decided it was better safe than sorry. In the renewed darkness I considered my options. I could try and use impello to dig myself out, but that would always run the risk of collapsing the rubble on top of me. I had to assume that a rescue attempt would be made. Even if Reynolds had been a casualty, Kumar had been further down the platform – he knew I was here. In fact, there had to be CCTV footage of the whole thing from the feed into the station control room. I bet it was spectacular and even now was probably finding its way to the news company with the biggest chequebook.

  Any rescue attempt would involve people clumping around in big boots, yelling at each other and operating heavy equipment. Chances were that I would hear them long before they could hear me. My most sensible course of action would be to lie still and wait for rescue.