Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London 3) (12 page)

Because of the crowd I had to get quite close to the sculptures before I could see them properly. They were made out of shop mannequins with what looked like bits of steam-powered technology riveted into their bodies. They’d been posed as if twisting in agony and their facial features ground down until they presented smooth faces to the world. It reminded me uncomfortably of Lesley’s mask or the head of the Faceless Man. Brass plaques were attached to the mannequins’ chests, each etched with a single word:
Industry
on one,
Progress
on another.

Steampunk for posh people, I thought. Although the posh people didn’t seem particularly interested. I looked around for another glass of fizzy wine and realised someone was watching me. He was a young Chinese guy with a mop of unruly black hair, a beard that looked like a goatee that had got seriously out of hand, black square-framed glasses and a good-quality cream-coloured suit cut baggy and deliberately rumpled. Once he saw he had my attention he slouched over and introduced himself.

‘My name is Robert Su.’ He spoke English with a Canadian accent. ‘I’d like, if I may, to introduce you to my employer.’ He gestured to an elderly Chinese woman in what was either a very expensive dove-grey Alex and Grace suit or the kind of counterfeit that is so well done that the difference becomes entirely metaphysical.

‘Peter Grant,’ I said and shook his hand.

He led me over to the woman who despite her white hair and a stooped posture had a smooth unwrinkled face and startlingly green eyes.

‘May I introduce my employer Madame Teng,’ said Robert.

I gave a clumsy half bow and, because that didn’t make me look stupid enough, I clicked my heels for good measure. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ I said.

She nodded, gave me an amused smile and said something in Chinese to Robert, who looked taken aback but translated anyway.

‘My employer asks what your profession might be,’ he said.

‘I’m a police officer,’ I said and Robert translated.

Madame Teng gave me a sceptical look and spoke again.

‘My employer is curious to know who your master is,’ said Robert. ‘Your true master.’

With the emphasis he put on the word master I was certain he was talking about magical rather than administrative.

‘I have many masters,’ I said, which caused Madame Teng, when it had been translated, to snort with annoyance. I felt it then, that catching on the edge of my perception, as when Nightingale demonstrates an exemplar forma to me, but different. And there was a brief smell of burning paper. I took an instinctive step backwards and Madame Teng smiled with satisfaction.

Lovely, I thought, just what I needed at the end of a long day. Still, Nightingale would want to know who these people were and as police you always want to come out of any conversation knowing more about them than they do about you.

And, being police, you’re totally used to being considered rude and impolite.

‘So are you two from China?’ I asked.

Madame Teng stiffened at the word China and launched into half a minute of rapid Chinese that Robert listened to with an expression of amused martyrdom.

‘We’re from Taiwan,’ he said when his employer had finished. She gave him a sharp look and he sighed. ‘My employer,’ he said, ‘has a great deal to say about the subject. Most of it esoteric and none of it relevant to you or me. If you’d be pleased to just nod occasionally as if I’m recounting the whole tedious argument about sovereignty to you I’d be most grateful.’

I did as he asked, although I had to restrain myself from stroking my chin and saying ‘I see’.

‘What brings you to London?’ I asked.

‘We go all over the place,’ said Robert Su. ‘New York, Paris, Amsterdam. My employer likes to see what’s going on in the world – you could say that is her
raison d’être
.’

‘Which makes you what? Journalists? Spies?’ I asked.

Madame Teng recognised at least one of those professions and snapped something at Robert, who gave me an apologetic shrug.

‘Madam Teng asks you once again – who is your master?’

‘The Nightingale is his master,’ said a voice behind me.

I turned to find a stocky black woman in a strapless red dress cut low enough to show off broad muscled shoulders and cut high enough to reveal legs that could do an Olympic-time hundred metres without taking off the high heels. Her hair was shaved down to a fuzz and she had a wide mouth, flat nose and her mother’s eyes. I was caught in a wash of clattering machines, hot oil and wet dog. The cold didn’t seem to be bothering her at all.

Madame Teng bowed, properly, as well she might given she was in the presence of a goddess – that of the River Fleet no less. Robert Su bowed lower than his employer because he had to, but I could see that he didn’t understand why.

‘Hello Fleet,’ I said. ‘How’s tricks?’

Fleet ignored me and gave Madame Teng a polite nod.

‘Madame Teng,’ she said. ‘How nice to see you in London again. Will you be staying long?’

‘Madame Teng says thank you,’ translated Robert. ‘And that while, of course, London in December is a true delight she will be leaving in the morning for New York. If Heathrow is open, of course.’

‘I’m sure if you encounter any difficulties while leaving I and my sisters stand ready to render you every assistance,’ said Fleet.

Madame Teng said something sharp to Robert Su, who offered me his business card. I gave him one of mine in return. He looked at the Metropolitan Police crest in amazement.

‘The police,’ he said. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ I said.

There was another round of carefully calculated nods and bows and the two withdrew. I looked at the business card. It had Robert Su’s name, mobile, email and fax on it – his job description was
Assistant to Madame Teng
. The reverse showed a simplified silhouette of a Chinese dragon, black against the white card.

‘Who were they?’ I asked.

‘Who do you think?’ asked Fleet.

She held out her hand and snapped her fingers and I swear a complete stranger broke off his conversation, pushed through the crowd until he found a waitress and then pushed back to place a glass of white wine in Fleet’s outstretched fingers. Then he returned to his companions and, despite their quizzical looks, took up his conversation where he’d left off.

Fleet sipped her wine and gave me a pained smile.

‘Don’t tell Mum I did that,’ she said. ‘We’re supposed to be blending in.’

I realised suddenly the wet dog smell wasn’t coming from Fleet. I looked down and saw that a dog had crept up unnoticed to sit at her heel. It was a patchy border collie that stared up at me with bright eyes, one amber and one blue. That would have explained the wet dog smell if only the dog hadn’t been perfectly dry.

It gave me ‘the eye’ – the fearsome gaze that sheepdogs use to keep their charges in line. But I gave it ‘the look’ – the stare that policemen use to keep members of the public in a state of randomised guilt. The dog showed me its incisors and I might have escalated as far as kissing my teeth had Fleet not told it to lie down – which it did.

Only then did it occur to me that, technically, dogs weren’t allowed in the gallery.

‘He’s a working dog,’ said Fleet before I could ask.

‘Really? What’s his job?’

‘He’s captain of my dogs,’ said Fleet.

‘How many dogs have you got?’

‘More than I can handle on my own.’ She sipped her white wine. ‘That’s why I need a captain to keep them in order.’

‘What’s his name?’ I asked.

Fleet smiled. ‘Ziggy,’ she said.

Of course it is, I thought.

‘Are you going to call Madame Teng?’ she asked.

Not without checking with Nightingale first, I thought.

‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll see how I feel.’

‘What
are
you doing here?’ asked Fleet.

‘I’ve developed a sudden keen interest in contemporary art,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m supposed to be reviewing the show tomorrow night on Radio Four,’ she said. ‘If you miss it live you can always catch it on the website. And you haven’t answered my question.’

‘I thought I had,’ I said.

‘Are you on a job?’

‘I couldn’t possibly say,’ I said. ‘I’m just here to expand my horizons.’

‘Well,’ said Fleet. ‘Check out the pieces at the far end – that should keep you suitably expanded.’

There were only two pieces at the far end of the space, hard up against the bare brick of the exterior wall and the crowd was noticeably thinner. They struck me as soon as I approached, struck me the way the sight of a beautiful woman does, or Lesley’s ruined face, or a sunset or a nasty traffic accident. I could see it was having the same effect on the others that came to view it – none of us got closer than a metre and most retreated slowly away from piece.

I got a sudden rushing, screaming sensation of terror as if I’d been tied onto the front of a tube train and sent hurtling down the Northern Line. No wonder people were stepping back. It was about as powerful a
vestigium
as I’d ever encountered. Something seriously magical had gone into the making the piece.

I took a deep breath and a slug of wine and stepped up for a closer look. The mannequin was the same make as those in the other gallery but posed, in this case, arms outflung, palms turned upwards as if in prayer or supplication. It wore on its torso what anyone with a passing interest in Chinese history or Dungeons and Dragons would recognise as being like the scale armour worn by the terracotta army – a tunic constructed by fastening together rectangular plates the size of playing cards. Only in this case each plate had a face sculpted onto it. Each of the faces, while simplified to a shape with a mouth, slits or dots for eyes and the barest hint of a nose, was clearly individual and carved into a distinct expression of sadness and despair.

I felt that despair, and a strange sense of awe.

A slender man in his early thirties with a long face, short brown hair and round glasses joined me in front of the sculpture. I recognised him from the flyer in James Gallagher’s locker – it was Ryan Carroll, the artist. He wore a heavy coat and fingerless gloves. Obviously not a man to put style before comfort. I approved.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked. He had a soft Irish accent that if you’d put a gun to my head I’d have identified as middle-class Dublin but not with any real confidence.

‘It’s terrible,’ I said.

‘Yes it is,’ he said. ‘And I like to think horrific as well.’

‘That too,’ I said which seemed to please him.

I introduced myself and we shook hands. He had stained fingers and a strong grip.

‘Police?’ he asked. ‘Are you here on business?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. ‘The murder of a young art student called James Gallagher.’ Carroll didn’t react.

‘Do I know him?’ he asked.

‘He was an admirer of yours,’ I said. ‘Was he ever in contact?’

‘What was his name again?’ asked Ryan.

‘James Gallagher,’ I said. Again not a flicker. I pulled up a headshot on my phone and showed him that.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

This is where, as police, you have to make a decision – do you ask for an alibi or not? Fifty years of detective dramas mean that even the densest member of the public knows what it means when you ask them where they were at a certain time or date. Nobody believes ‘just routine’, even when it’s true. With television broadcast levels of
vestigia
radiating from his art work I figured Ryan Carroll had to be involved in
something
but I had no evidence that he’d ever come in contact with James Gallagher. I decided that I would write him up tonight and let Seawoll or Stephanopoulos decide whether they wanted him interviewed. If he was statemented by someone else from the Murder Team then I could pursue the magic angle while he was distracted by that.

I love it when a plan comes together, especially when it means someone else will do the heavy lifting. I waved my glass at the mannequin in his coat of despair.

‘Did you make them yourself?’ I asked.

‘With my own little hands,’ he said.

‘You’re going to make a million,’ I said.

‘That’s the plan,’ he said smugly.

A blonde woman in a blue dress waved at Ryan to get his attention. When she had it, she pointed at her watch.

‘You’ll have to excuse me, Constable,’ said Ryan. ‘Duty calls.’ He walked over to the blonde woman who took his arm and pulled him gently back towards the waiting crowd. As they went she fussed at Ryan’s collar and jacket. Manager, I wondered, or better half, or possibly both.

Most of the patrons gathered around them and I heard the woman launch into what was unmistakably a warm-up speech. I guessed that Ryan Carroll was about to take his bow. I looked at his work again. The question was – did he imbue it with its vestigia or did that come from a found object? And if it did, was Ryan aware of its significance?

My phone rang – it was Zach.

‘You’ve got to help me,’ he said.

‘Really? Why’s that?’

‘His old man threw me out of the house,’ he said. ‘I ain’t got nowhere to go.’

‘Try Turning Point. They’ve got a big shelter up west,’ I said. ‘You can stay there tonight.’

‘You owe me,’ said Zach.

‘No I don’t,’ I said. One of the lessons of policing is that everyone has a sad story, including the guy you’ve just arrested for shoving a chip pan in his wife’s face. Obvious chancers like Zach were often way more convincing than those that had real grievances – comes with practice, I suppose.

‘I think they’re after me,’ he added.

‘Who’s they?’ I asked.

There was a round of applause from the crowd.

‘If you pick me up I’ll tell you,’ he said.

Shit, I thought. If I ignored him and he turned up dead I’d be facing some questions from Seawoll and a ton of paperwork.

‘Where are you?’ I asked, reluctantly.

‘Shepherd’s Bush – near the market.’

‘Get on the tube and meet me at Southwark.’

‘I can’t do the tube,’ he said. ‘It’s not safe. You’re going to have to meet me here.’

I asked him which end of the market and headed for the exit. As I traversed the empty hallway I saw Ziggy the dog sitting alertly on his haunches by the door to the gift shop. He looked at me, tilted his head to one side and then tracked me all the way out.