Whispers Under Ground

by Ben Aaronovitch

  London was the world’s first megalopolis. You can make a case for Beijing, Constantinople or Rome, but for sheer fuck-off insanely rapid expansion, London was to set the pattern, followed by every big city that came after. In the nineteenth century much of the city went west as the rich and the middle classes tried to escape the poor and the poor tried to escape the rats. Landowners, many of them aristocrats, abandoned their mystical connection to the soil in droves and carved up their farmland into new housing estates. Whole neighbourhoods sprang up in Middlesex overnight and all those villas, terraces and cottages needed one thing – bricks. Millions of bricks. Fortunately, a rich field of good yellow clay was found in a hard-to-drain hollow west of Portobello Road.

  The brick makers arrived and soon the freshly named Pottery Lane was lined with brick kilns and the ironically ramshackle houses of the potters. Since nothing sets you up for a hard day making bricks better than a bacon sandwich, the pig keepers moved in – their animals rooting amongst the mud and refuse behind the kilns. But a city is not built on bricks and bacon sarnies alone. The other agent of London’s growth, the railways, thrust their iron fingers into the surrounding countryside. To build them, an army of navvies was needed and they went where the rents were lowest, the booze was handmade and the police hardly ever happened. The area became known as the Potteries and Piggeries. It was where Eugene Beale and his butty gang of excavators lived in the years before they were rich. And Eugene Beale had a nickname, a nom de building site, as it were. It was Ten-Ton Digger – and I didn’t think it was a coincidence.

  The centrepiece of the area had been an artificial lake full of pigshit known locally as the Ocean. Because even the Victorians had some standards, when London finally swallowed up the area the Ocean was turned into a park rather than more housing. And I suspected that underneath it, where the good clay is, lay the village of the Quiet People.

  They led us down a series of tunnels, all arched, all lined with smooth stoneware tiles. It could have been a particularly drab tube station, except for the lack of lights and CCTV cameras.

  The skinny white boys in Adidas hoodies who guided us were familiar if not particularly reassuring. Occasionally, I got a glimpse of pale hands with long fingers as they gestured in which direction they wanted us to go. The two of them flinched away from our torches, despite the fact that they were wearing wraparound shades.

  There was a noticeable breeze in one corridor, in another I swear I could hear the rattle of laundromat dryers – there was even the whiff of fabric softener.

  One thing was for certain. If they were the cannibalistic descendants of a lost tribe of navvies they were at least better turned out than the ones in the film.

  ‘They seem to be getting much more relaxed,’ said Lesley as one of the hoodies waved us to stop outside a doorway.

  ‘That’s because we’re in their ends now, said Zach.

  ‘Ends?’ asked Reynolds.

  ‘Manor,’ I said.

  ‘Patch,’ said Lesley.

  ‘Yard?’ I tried when Reynolds still looked blank.

  ‘Hood,’ said Zach.

  ‘Gotcha,’ said Reynolds.

  A hoodie leaned close to Zach and whispered in his ear.

  ‘He says we have to turn our torches off,’ said Zach. ‘Hurts their eyes.’

  We hesitated, all thinking the same thing. I felt Lesley and Agent Reynolds shifting their stance, making some space, freeing up their arms and in Reynolds’ case making sure her Glock was accessible. We couldn’t help it. We’re police – situational paranoia is a professional requirement. They make you sit an exam and everything.

  ‘Or we can just all go back,’ said Zach. ‘I’m easy.’

  I took a breath, let it out and turned my helmet light off, Lesley and Zach followed suit and finally Reynolds, muttering something under her breath, did the same.

  I was all right for the first couple of seconds and then suddenly it was like I was back under the platform at Oxford Circus. I heard myself beginning to pant, but even as I tried to control my breathing I started to shake. A firm hand grasped my arm and then finger-walked down to take my hand and squeeze – I was sure it was Lesley. I was so startled that I forgot to panic.

  The big doors in front of us opened to reveal a room lit with a dim green light and Lesley let go of my hand.

  The room was large with a high domed ceiling from which hung a chandelier in which chemical glowsticks had been used instead of candles. It was wall-to-wall Quiet People, packed in like commuters on a tube train. They came in all shapes and sizes – no children I noticed – but tended to the slender with long pale faces and big eyes. I saw at least two blondes but their hair was predominantly light brown. They were definitely a distinct ethnic group and I realised, belatedly, that I’d done a classic bit of racist misidentification when I’d assumed the guy I’d chased onto the train was the same one who shot at me. For a mixed-race Londoner who’s supposed to be a trained observer that was kind of embarrassing – I blame the bloody hoodies they were wearing.

  Zach warned us that the Quiet People would want to touch us.

  ‘Touch us where?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘Just think of them being like blind people,’ said Zach. ‘They’re very tactile.’

  ‘Great,’ said Lesley.

  ‘And you have to touch them back,’ said Zach. ‘Doesn’t have to be a lot just, you know, bit of brush, cop a bit of feel – just to be polite.’

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to share?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Don’t raise your voice. It’s considered a bit of a faux-pas.’ He turned and walked into the room.

  I followed him in and the touching started immediately. It wasn’t rough but there was nothing furtive about it. I felt fingers run down my shoulders, a hand briefly caught my thigh and the brush of fingertips on my lip made me sneeze.

  ‘Oh my god,’ I heard Lesley behind me. ‘It’s like being fifteen again.’

  To be polite I let the backs of my hands brush against people as I went past – that seemed to satisfy. They smelt exactly like everyone else, some of sweat, some of food, a whiff of beer and a hint of pigshit. At the centre of the room was a narrow Victorian oak table. It was made of real wood, too. After all the ceramic I could practically smell it.

  Waiting politely for us on the other side of the table was a tall thin man in a black bespoke suit cut with seventies lapels and a kipper tie. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, but his mouth lifted at the corners in wry humour. The power that came off him slapped me in the chest like the best bass speaker ever invented. I’d felt nothing like it since the time I’d come face to face with the Old Man of the River – Father Thames himself. But this was pride and sweat and pickaxes and the smell of steam. The ringing of hammers and the heat of the kiln.

  Oh shit, I thought, if this isn’t the Low King of the Dwarves then I’m the President of the Cricklewood branch of the Women’s Institute. It all fits – apart from the fact that he’s not a dwarf, nor does he appear to be a king, and they make dinner plates, not swords or rings of power. Still, definitely another bloody genius loci or something almost as powerful. Nightingale was going to throw a fit. Albeit in a restrained stiff-upper-lip fashion.

  ‘My name,’ whispered the man, ‘is Matthew Ten-Tons and this is my daughter Elizabeth.’

  Beside him stood a young woman in wraparound shades, light brown hair in a French plait that fell over one shoulder, narrow chin, small mouth, big eyes and a little snub nose that was barely enough to hold her glasses up. Despite the green light I saw that her skin was extraordinarily pale, almost translucent. I also noticed that when she turned to us, Zach looked away.

  The goblin boy yearns for a princess, I thought. That’s not going to end well.

  Matthew Ten-Tons indicated a monstrous leather upholstered and brass-bound bench that ran the length of our side of the table and gestured for us to sit. Elizabeth beckoned Lesley and Reynolds over so th
at they seated themselves opposite her. As soon as we were all seated the people behind us crowded our backs. Hands came to rest on my shoulders, back and arms, smoothing my clothes, picking imaginary lint from my high-visibility vest and giving me a rather pleasant neck massage. Classic grooming behaviour, Dr Walid told me later, something our fellow primates indulge in it to maintain troop cohesion. Dr Walid said human beings use language for the same purpose – which is why you find yourself talking total bollocks to people you meet at a bus stop and then wonder what the fuck did you do that for?

  As I sat down, Ten-Tons seized my hand and pulled me half across the table. He examined my fingers and nails before turning it over and running a calloused palm over mine. He gave a derisive snort, at my palm’s smoothness I assumed, and released me. At the other end of the table Elizabeth did the same with Reynolds and Lesley. Zach’s hands went unfelt – I suspected he’d already been found wanting in the rough skin department.

  Ten-Tons leaned across the table until we were close enough for me to feel his breath on my cheek. ‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked.

  ‘No thanks,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t think we have time.’

  That wasn’t the real reason of course, but you don’t insult your host at the first meeting. Captain Picard would have been well pleased with me.

  I glanced over to where Elizabeth, Reynolds and Lesley sat with their heads almost touching – I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Suddenly they all turned to look at Zach – who flinched.

  Ten-Tons caught my eye. ‘What’s so urgent that it can’t wait for tea?’

  ‘Not waiting for tea,’ whispered a voice right behind my head and then it was repeated by a different voice further away and then many voices murmuring into the distance like an echo. Not waiting for tea. Urgent.

  ‘I believe Kevin Nolan may be trying to kill you,’ I whispered and behind me I heard it repeat across the room. Kevin Nolan … kill you.

  Ten-Tons’ lips twisted as he tried not to laugh. ‘I think you are very much mistaken,’ he whispered. ‘Kevin has never graced us with his presence. He has a terrible fear of the quiet places.’

  Mistaken, presence, fear, whispered the chorus.

  ‘I don’t think he’s planning to do it on purpose,’ I said.

  Purpose, planning, thinking, whispered the chorus, and I would have paid good money for them to stop.

  ‘As his older brother told it to me,’ whispered Ten-Tons. ‘Kevin wouldn’t harm a fly.’

  Beside me Zach snorted – probably thinking of the beating he’d got in Shepherd’s Bush.

  ‘I believe he’s supplied you with food contaminated with E.coli,’ I whispered.

  There was no repetition from the crowd and when I saw the blank looks on both the Ten-Tons’ faces I realised it was because they hadn’t understood what I’d just said.

  ‘The last delivery was tainted,’ I whispered and the crowd took up tainted around me and Matthew Ten-Tons looked shocked.

  ‘Are you certain of this?’ he asked.

  I had blow-ups of the pictures Lesley had taken of the pallets Kevin had loaded onto his van. Written on the side was Coates and Son, a wholesaler who had been told, that very morning, to stop trading by the Food Standards Agency but had instead decided to flog off some of their stock – cheap. Which was why Kevin had bought it, stuffed it in the back of his transit van and delivered it to the Quiet People – right in front of me and Lesley.

  ‘On my oath as an apprentice,’ I said, louder than I meant to. ‘And more importantly, has anyone eaten any of the food that came down the day before yesterday?’

  Ten-Tons sat back, his chest heaved, his mouth gaped open and he began making a staccato series of hissing sounds. Then his face turned pink and, still hissing, he leaned forward and slapped his palm on the tabletop.

  I flinched, torn between backing away or rushing forward to do the Heimlich manoeuvre, and I was just about to stand up when I realised that he was laughing.

  ‘We don’t eat that,’ he whispered once he’d got breathing under control. ‘We buy our groceries from the Jew.’

  ‘Which particular Jew?’ I asked.

  Ten-Tons reached out and touched his daughter’s arm to get her attention.

  ‘What’s the name of the Jew again?’ he asked her.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes at me. Or at least I think she did. It’s hard to tell what with the wraparound shades and all. She whispered; ‘Tesco, he’s talking about Tesco.’

  ‘You shop at Tesco?’ asked Zach, far too loudly.

  ‘They deliver,’ hissed Elizabeth.

  ‘You used to make me go out for stuff,’ whispered Zach.

  Ten-Tons wasn’t liking that – he frowned at his daughter, but she ignored him.

  ‘You were always offering to go,’ she whispered. ‘Like a friendly rat.’

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Ten-Tons and grabbed Zach’s wrist. ‘You were speaking – behind my back?’

  ‘Oi!’ I said in my speaking voice and it rippled through the crowd around me like the downdraft from a helicopter. ‘Focus. This is serious – if you don’t eat them, what is it you do with all those bloody vegetables?’

  I smelt them way before I met them. There’s something distinctive about pig slurry. Nothing else smells like it or lingers in your nostrils so long.

  Like I said, they used to call the area the Potteries and Piggeries, I thought about this and wondered whether Ten-Tons’ ancestors had made the conscious decision to move their pigs underground. Or had their sties slowly sunk beneath the ground like a Thunderbird arriving back at Tracy Island? The latter, I decided when Ten-Tons led me by the hand through a series of domed chambers, dimly lit by carriage lamps, each with its wallow, its trough and its fat albino pigs. The troughs were full of the kind of random greenery we’d watched Kevin Nolan delivering two days ago. Unsurprisingly, I was expected to put my hands on the bloody things. Ten-Tons practically shoved me at a vast sow, who was wallowing chin-deep in mud. Despite my mum being from a small village in the middle of a forest I’m not a country person. I don’t like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers. But sometimes being police means holding your breath and fondling a pig.

  The animal flesh under my hand was rough, warm and disturbingly like human skin. I gave an experimental scratch and the sow made an encouraging grunting noise.

  ‘Good pigs,’ I whispered to Ten-Tons. ‘Very porky.’ I swear I don’t know where this stuff comes from sometimes.

  Did E. coli travel through the food chain, I wondered – I was going to have to find out. I had to find a way of getting a health inspector down here who a) wouldn’t freak out; b) wouldn’t run screaming to the media or, worse, Thames Water.

  It stank here. But in an enclosed underground chamber I reckoned the smell should have killed us. In the gloom I could make out the pale shapes of men, stripped to the waist, shovelling manure into wheelbarrows – which explained where the smell was going. I remembered chatting up a good-looking Greenpeace activist during a protest in Trafalgar Square and she’d told me, in more detail than I would have liked, that pig slurry was essentially useless as manure. More like toxic waste from a factory, she’d said. And the Quiet People couldn’t have been dumping it in the Thames because Mama Thames would have come round and had a ‘conversation’ about same.

  ‘What do you do with the pig shit?’ I asked.

  Ten-Tons squeezed my forearm in what I was beginning to recognise as his way of expressing approval and drew me down a corridor lined with shiny white tiles. ‘Cleans up nice and easily,’ whispered Ten-Tons when I stopped to feel the slick surface.

  We were following one of the guys with a barrow as he wheeled it up the corridor to a vaulted chamber lined with the same white tile. There he lifted a hatch in the floor and tipped the slurry down in one practised movement. With a rattle, he seized a bucket of water placed nearby and sluiced down the wheelbarrow and the edges of the hatch. Then he refilled the bucket
from a tap mounted in the wall and wheeled his barrow back down the corridor, presumably for more shit shovelling. As he went I saw another barrow wrangler heading towards us with another load of slurry.

  When he led me into the next room I thought I knew what I was going to see next.

  I was wrong.

  I looked up the figures later; your average pig produces over ten times what a human does per kilo body weight and given that these were big pigs, we were talking a shitload of pig shit. Now, not only is that enough to drown in, but it’s also the vilest-smelling animal by-product known to man – which doesn’t endear you to your neighbours. But you can take that slurry and run it through what’s called a horizontal plug flow reactor. Pig shit goes in one end, some seriously good fertilizer comes out the other and you get methane out the top. It also gets rid of the smell, and some farms do it for that reason alone. The thing is, in a cold climate like what we’ve got you have to use most of the methane to maintain a useful operating temperature, which is why this technology has never taken off in Northern Europe. It’s the sort of sustainable low-tech engineering favoured by progressive development NGOs, Greenpeace and middle-aged men in leather-patched tweed jackets.

  I was expecting something simple.

  What I got was a ten-metre wall of brass pipework festooned with dials and gauges and stop valves. Two older men in moleskin trousers, white shirts and sleeveless leather jerkins were shading their pale faces while they worked two banks of brake levers, the kind I associate with old-fashioned railway signal boxes. A whistle blew, one of an ascending bank mounted near the centre of the contraption, and one of the engineers stepped smartly over to a row of gauges. There he brushed his fingers around the face of the dial – there was no glass – before calmly pulling two levers in quick succession and turning a valve wheel a quarter turn to the left. The whistle stopped.

  My industrial chemistry had been leaking out of my head for over seven years, but enough of the basics remained for me to spot a cracking plant – even one that had dropped out of a Jules Verne novel. The Quiet People were refining their pig-generated hydrocarbons on an industrial scale.