Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London 3)

by Ben Aaronovitch

  ‘You shouldn’t go around calling people a goblin unless you know what the word means,’ said Zach. his voice back to its cheery cockney geezer normal. But I could hear the agitation underneath. Plus he’d started drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  ‘What should we call them, then?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘You,’ said Zach pointing at me and then Lesley. ‘Shouldn’t be calling them anything at all – you should be leaving them alone.’

  ‘One of them shot at me,’ I said. ‘With a Sten gun. And another one buried me under the ground, under the fucking ground, Zach, and left me for dead. So I don’t think leaving them alone is going to be a bleeding option.’

  ‘They were just defending …’ started Zach and then caught himself.

  ‘Defending what?’ I asked.

  ‘Themselves,’ said Zach. ‘You’re the Isaacs man – we know all about you from back through the annals of history. We all know what happens if you’re a square peg in a round hole.’

  So definitely fae, I thought.

  ‘So who were they defending?’ I asked.

  ‘Self-defence,’ said Zach.

  Outright lie.

  ‘What’s his brother’s name?’ I asked.

  Hesitation. ‘Marcus,’ said Zach – another lie.

  ‘Does he eat a lot of greens?’ asked Lesley. ‘Because the Nolan brothers were delivering a ton of vegetables for just two people.’

  ‘They live an active, healthy life,’ said Zach.

  ‘Zach,’ I said. ‘How stupid do you think we are?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘Do you want it on a scale of one to ten?’

  ‘Who are they?’ asked Lesley.

  We saw him open his mouth to say – who’s they? But Lesley slapped her palm on the table. ‘My face itches, Zach,’ she hissed. ‘The sooner you tell us the truth the sooner I can go home and get out of this mask.’

  ‘Who are they?’ I said.

  ‘They’re just people,’ said Zach. ‘You need to leave them alone.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ I said. ‘Has been since your friend shut down the Central Line during the Christmas rush. They’re talking a closed platform for up to six months, they’re talking millions of pounds. Do you really think they’re going to be satisfied if I just stroll up and say “we know who did it but we’ve decided to leave them alone”?’

  Zach slumped forward and pressed his head against the tabletop and groaned – theatrically.

  ‘Give us something we can take upstairs,’ said Lesley. ‘Then we can do a deal.’

  ‘I want assurances,’ said Zach.

  ‘You can have my word,’ I said.

  ‘No disrespect, Peter,’ said Zach. ‘But I don’t want a promise from the monkey. I want it from the organ grinder – I want it from the Nightingale.’

  ‘If they’re special,’ I said, ‘then there’s a chance we can keep it low-key. But if you want me to bring in my governor, then you’re going to have to talk to me first.’

  ‘Who are they?’ asked Lesley.

  They were, as far as Zach understood it, people that had met up with Eugene Beale and Patrick Gallagher when they were working on the railways south of the river.

  ‘Not when they were digging the sewers?’ I asked.

  ‘From before that,’ said Zach. ‘They helped dig the tunnel at Wapping.’

  Which explained why Beale’s butty gang had such a reputation as excavators.

  ‘You say they’re not fae,’ I said. ‘But they are different?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘Different how?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘Look,’ said Zach. ‘There’s basically two types of different, right? There’s born different. Which is like me and the Thames girls and what you call fae but only because you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And there’s choosing to be different, which is like you and the Nightingale.’ He pointed at me and then frowned. ‘Sorry, there’s three basic types, okay? There’s born, those that choose and those that are made different.’ He pointed at Lesley. ‘Like through an accident or something.’

  Lesley stared at his finger and he dropped it.

  I was just about to ask what he meant by that, when Lesley told Zach to stop getting off the subject.

  ‘Never mind about me,’ she said. ‘Are these people born different? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Zach nodded and I would have written subspecies in my notes if Dr Walid hadn’t once sat me down and given me a stern lecture about using biological classifications when I didn’t know what the terms actually meant. I wrote mutants instead, and then scribbled it out. Dr Walid would just have to be content with born different.

  Lesley asked him to speak out loud for the benefit of the tape.

  ‘Born different,’ said Zach. ‘I don’t know where they came from originally. The Gallagher’s and the Beales hooked up with them back in their excavating days. I don’t know how – maybe they dug them up.’

  ‘But they’re the people that make the pottery, right?’ I asked.

  Zach nodded again and then, after Lesley gave him a look, said, ‘Yes it was them that made the pottery.’

  ‘Do they have a name?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘Who?’ asked Zach.

  ‘These people,’ she said. ‘Are they dwarves, elves, gnomes what?’

  ‘We call them the Quiet People,’ said Zach.

  ‘And you took James Gallagher down to meet them?’ I asked, before Lesley had a chance to ask whether they were quiet or not.

  ‘I heard through the grapevine that he was asking after Empire Pottery and I thought I saw a business opportunity,’ said Zach. ‘So I introduced myself. I told you I was his guide, remember – when you first asked me.’

  ‘Was it you that bought the fruit bowl?’ I asked.

  ‘Actually it was that statue,’ said Zach. ‘Or rather I took him down the goblin market and he bought it there.’

  Lesley gave me the evil eye as I established that the ‘goblin market’ was the moving nazareth but I thought Nightingale would want to know.

  ‘You took him to Powis Square?’ I asked.

  ‘Not there,’ said Zach. ‘The market before that – he got himself to the Powis Square market off his own back. He was a bright boy.’ He stuck his finger in his mug and went hunting for the dregs of his hot chocolate.

  ‘And the bowl?’ I asked.

  ‘Spotted it himself,’ said Zach.

  I risked Lesley’s ire by going off on another tangent and bringing out the fruit bowl in question brought especially from the Folly. Even through the clear plastic of the forensics bag I could feel vestigia as I pushed it across the table to Zach.

  ‘Is this the bowl?’ I asked.

  Zach barely glanced at it. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘The actual bowl,’ I said. ‘Not just one that looks like it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Zach.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Just can,’ said Zach.

  ‘Does this work for all pottery, or does your gift for identification extend only to stoneware?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If I got a plate in from the canteen and showed it to you,’ I said. ‘Would you be able to pick it out of a plate line-up a week later?’

  A plate line-up, I thought. God knows what Seawoll is making of this.

  ‘You’re off your head,’ said Zach. ‘It’s made by the Quiet People, not in some factory in China.’ He spoke slowly to make sure I understood. ‘So each one is different like someone’s face is different – that’s how I can tell them apart.’

  I wondered if Zach, half fairy, half goblin, half whatever he was, perceived vestigia differently from the way me, Lesley and Nightingale did. If he did, then it would make sense for him to also respond to it differently, perhaps less powerfully. I made another note for later because I knew Lesley would homing back in on the policing.

  ‘Moving on,’ she said, right on cue. ‘So you took Ja
mes Gallagher through the sewers to meet these “quiet people”?’

  Zach smiled at her. ‘You can take your mask off, you know – we don’t mind. Do we, Peter?’

  I expected Lesley to either ignore Zach or slap him down, but instead she turned to me and gave me an inquiring look.

  ‘You don’t have to ask my permission,’ I said, half hoping she’d leave it on.

  She looked at Zach, who gave her a crooked smile.

  ‘I’ll take it off,’ said Lesley slowly. ‘If you stop messing us about.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said without hesitation.

  Lesley unclipped her mask and slipped it off. Her face was as horrible as ever and glistening with sweat. I froze for a moment and then thought to hand Lesley some tissues. As she wiped her face I realised that Zach was staring at me – eyes narrowed.

  ‘The mask is off,’ I said. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘James Gallagher and the seven dwarves,’ said Lesley.

  ‘Did I say they were short?’ asked Zach.

  We both just stared at him until he got on with it. James, Zach told us, had been persistent in the way that only Americans and double-glazing salesmen seem to be capable of. No matter what Zach said or did, including storming out of the house and all the way down to the off-licence, James wouldn’t let up.

  ‘So we got some gear together and down the rabbit hole we went,’ said Zach.

  A rabbit hole with a horrible smell. I got Zach to pinpoint the exact manhole they’d gone down on a printout of Google Maps. Shockingly, it was located fifty metres up the road from James Gallagher’s house. I wondered if it was the same one that Agent Reynolds had found.

  There was a certain amount of farting about as we showed him the boots and he agreed that, yeah, they were James’s boots or at least they looked like the boots James bought for going down the sewers, I mean they could be somebody else’s, couldn’t they? It was not like he was paying a lot of attention to James’s boots – that would be bare strange, wouldn’t it?

  ‘Unless you’re into boots,’ said Zach. ‘Takes all types.’

  I resisted the urge to bang my forehead on the table.

  Finally, after Lesley made it clear with many subtle verbal clues that she was resisting the urge to bang Zach’s forehead on the table, we moved on to the point where he introduced James Gallagher to the quiet people.

  ‘Not that they’re really called the Quiet People,’ said Zach.

  ‘We got the whole ambiguity thing,’ I said quickly.

  Not only was Zach not sure what they called themselves, he wasn’t sure where they lived. ‘I know how to get there underground,’ he said as we pulled out the map again. ‘But I ain’t got the faintest as to where that is, you know, above ground.’ Somewhere in Notting Hill was the best he could do.

  I had a suspicion I knew exactly where, but I kept it to myself.

  They didn’t live in the sewers, Zach wanted to make that clear, they lived in their own tunnels which were dry and comfortable. He couldn’t tell you what the tunnels looked like however. ‘On account of them liking the dark.’

  For James it was love at first feel. ‘He kept on going on about the walls,’ said Zach.

  ‘What about them?’ I asked.

  ‘He liked the way they felt,’ said Zach. ‘And the Quiet People liked him – kindred spirits and all that. That was the first time they’d let me past the hallway – and that’s me being friends with Stephen.’

  ‘So his name really is Stephen,’ said Lesley.

  ‘Believe it,’ said Zach. ‘I wasn’t making that up. Stephen, George, Henry: they’ve all got names like that. It’s a wonder they don’t wear flat caps and braces.’

  Not that they got out much, Stephen being a bit of an exception, because, according to Zach, outgoing people don’t live underground.

  ‘So what was James looking for?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘Something artistic, or it might have been one of the girls. You know what they say. Once you’ve done fae, it don’t go away.’

  He knew something – I could tell by the way he kept trying to distract us.

  ‘So he just went in and left you outside?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘In the hallway,’ said Zach.

  ‘You must have some idea of what he was doing,’ she said.

  ‘I only got as far as the parlour despite everything I’d done for them.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I didn’t get the backstage pass.’

  ‘But they let James in,’ said Lesley. ‘Did that make you angry?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Zach. ‘I got to say it did.’

  Because it was all hugs and feasts and exclamations of joy for James, and never mind the number of times Zach had personally saved Stephen’s arse or fixed some above-ground problem, because Zach wasn’t a descendant of the Beales or Gallaghers. No fatted calf for Zach – not that they actually ran to a fatted calf. ‘But still,’ said Zach. ‘A bit of appreciation would have been nice.’ Which concluded a textbook illustration of why you should say as little as possible when being interviewed by the police – up until he gave us a motive, his resentment, me and Lesley had pretty much written him off as a suspect.

  Now me and Lesley exchanged looks – I could tell she didn’t really think Zach did it, either. It wasn’t until I looked away that I realised that I’d read her expression off her bare face without reacting to what her face had become.

  ‘Does Graham Beale get the fatted calf?’ I asked. ‘What about Ryan Carroll?’

  ‘Who’s Ryan Carroll?’ asked Zach

  ‘Famous artist,’ I said. ‘James was a fan.’

  ‘Don’t know him – sorry,’ he said. ‘Can’t know everyone. But if he was the right Carroll they’d have let him in too.’

  ‘What about Graham Beale?’ I asked. ‘The managing director.’

  ‘He used to visit,’ said Zach. ‘But it was his brother who spent time down there. Mad for digging he was – sad really, him dying like that. Stephen says they never saw Graham Beale again.’

  ‘How many of them are there?’ asked Lesley.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Zach.

  ‘Ten, twenty, two hundred?’

  ‘More than twenty,’ said Zach. ‘Several families at least.’

  ‘Families,’ said Lesley. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘They’ve been minding their own business for hundreds of years,’ said Zach. ‘I bet your Master didn’t even know they were there. And what now? You going to go down there mob-handed? When you find out their kids haven’t gone to school you going to call in social services, do them for truancy, living under ground without a licence?’

  He glared at me.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re going to do – do you?’

  He was right, I didn’t know what I was going to do, but then that’s what god created senior officers for.

  Not that they knew what to do either.

  ‘Did you know about these people?’ Seawoll asked Nightingale.

  We’d convened in front of the murder inquiry whiteboard, which was covered in timelines, notes and pictures of people who had had just become totally irrelevant.

  ‘No,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I may be speaking out of turn here, but that seems like a bit of an oversight to me,’ said Seawoll. ‘You see, Thomas, so far this year I’ve made a personal friend in Mr Punch and helped burn down Covent Garden while Miriam here had to deal with women with carnivorous minges and real cat people and now I’ve got to face the possibility that there might be a whole fucking village of mole people armed with fucking Sten guns living under Notting Hill. Given that I have been repeatedly instructed to defer to your expertise in all areas involving irregular and special circumstances, I am well within my rights to express a certain level of dissatisfaction with the way you exercise your responsibilities in this area.’

  ‘It is certainly unfortunate—’ began Nightingale.

  ‘It’s more than fucking unfortunate,’ said Seawol
l his voice gone very quiet. ‘It’s unprofessional.’

  I only saw the flinch because I knew Nightingale well enough to recognise the tiny movement of his head for what it was.

  ‘You’re right of course,’ he said. ‘And I apologise for the oversight.’

  Stephanopoulos gave me a what-the-fuck look but I was just as amazed as she was. Even Seawoll looked suspicious.

  ‘Before I took over the Folly,’ said Nightingale, ‘I rarely saw “action” in London. I spent most of my time overseas. When we lost the bulk of our—’ He faltered for a moment. ‘Those of my colleagues that dealt with such matters were no longer available. It’s entirely possible that I could find some reference to these people in the literature, but like you I have been somewhat distracted of late.’

  Seawoll narrowed his eyes. ‘We want to get down there as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Before the buggers can dig themselves in.’ He considered what he’d just said. ‘Dig themselves in further.’

  ‘I suggest we hold off until after Christmas,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘If only because of the overtime,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘You know CO19 and TSG will be busy covering the likely-target list until after the New Year. They’ll make us pay if we want them, and I don’t think we should go down there without some bodies.’

  ‘Can we at least interview Graham Beale this afternoon?’ said Seawoll. ‘If it’s not too much fucking trouble.’

  ‘And Ryan Carroll, the artist,’ I said. ‘We need to know whether he was in contact with the Quiet People.’

  ‘The Quiet fucking People,’ said Seawoll and shook his head. ‘Let’s pick the other known human beings up first thing Boxing Day – they should be nice and fat from Christmas dinner. Then, once everyone’s got over their hangovers, we can venture underground.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Thames Water,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Would you?’ said Seawoll. ‘That would be grand.’

  Stephanopoulos sighed and gave me a meaningful look.

  ‘Coffee?’ I said.

  ‘If you would, Peter,’ said Stephanopoulos.

  The canteen at AB isn’t that bad, despite the strained attempt at festive cheer with tinsel draped around the till and intertwined with the display boxes of chocolate, muesli bars and mini-packets of biscuits. I wasn’t making the same mistake twice – I had tea instead of coffee.