Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London 3) (27 page)

The doors were normal sized, but made of steel with no obvious handles on our side.

‘Left or right?’ asked Reynolds.

I put my ear against the cold metal of the nearest door – the bass rumble was loud enough for me to identify the track.

‘“Stalingrad Tank Trap”,’ I said. ‘By Various Artiz.’

I like a bit of drum and bass to dance to, but Various Artiz were notorious for cranking out one identikit track after another – they were as close to mainstream as you could get on the club circuit without turning up on a Radio Two playlist.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said Kumar to Reynolds. ‘It was all jungle when I was younger.’

‘It sounds like they’re speaking English,’ muttered Reynolds. ‘And yet—’

I knocked on the door and hurt my knuckles.

‘Well, that’ll work,’ said Reynolds. She was jiggling up and down to keep warm.

I took off my helmet and banged on the door with that.

‘We’re going to have to strip you off,’ said Kumar.

‘You’re kidding me,’ said Reynolds.

‘We need to at least wring out your clothes,’ said Kumar.

I banged a couple more times while Reynolds expressed her disquiet about disrobing in a public place. I can, when I have to, burn through something like a bike chain or a padlock. Nightingale, according to his war stories, can punch a hole in ten centimetres of hardened steel. But he hasn’t taught me how to do that yet. I examined the hinges on the door and wondered if they’d prove a suitable weak point.

I decided to do it quickly in the hope that Reynolds was too distracted to notice. I quickly ran through the
formae
a couple of times to line them up –
lux aestus scindere
. My mastery of
aestus
, which intensifies
lux
, was not brilliant but I really wanted out of the Underground.

‘Are you praying?’ asked Reynolds.

I realised I’d been muttering the
formae
under my breath, number six on Nightingale’s list of my bad habits.

‘I think he’s going to do a magic spell,’ said Kumar.

Making a note to have a word with Kumar later, I gritted my teeth as Agent Reynolds asked exactly what he meant by ‘magic spell’.

Oh well, it wasn’t like she wasn’t about to get a demonstration.

I took a breath and, silently, readied the formae.

Then the door opened and a white boy stuck his head out and asked if we were from Thames Water.

Thank god for that, I thought.

The instrument of the Lord was topless. A dayglo orange sweatshirt was wrapped around his waist, half covering baggy electric blue shorts, a whistle hung on a string around his neck and his sandy hair was slicked down to his forehead with sweat. Despite some muscle he still had his puppy fat and I figured he was in mid-teens. Automatically I checked out the bottle in his hand for alcohol but it was just water. A gust of warm damp air rolled out from behind him and with it the thumping back beat of Various Artiz seeking to prove that you really can dance until your brains dribble out your ears.

I considered showing him my warrant card but I didn’t want to risk him closing the door in our faces.

‘We’re here about the plumbing,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ he said and we trooped inside.

It was another double-width tunnel but this one had been converted into a club, complete with a professional-level light gantry over the dance floor and a bar that ran down one wall. We were far enough from the sound system to hold a conversation, which is why our shirtless friend had heard us banging on the door. We squelched our way through a dim area that seemed given over to sofas, chairs and snogging couples towards the dance floor which was heaving with clubbers, mostly white, dancing mostly in time to the music. There was a lot of furry legwarmers, Lycra shorts and halter tops fluorescing in the UV light. But for all the bare belly buttons and spray-on hot pants, I was getting a definite sixth-form disco vibe from the crowd. Probably because none of them seemed old enough to vote.

‘Somebody’s parents are away for the weekend,’ said Reynolds. ‘I feel overdressed.’

The crowd quickly parted as the clubbers realised that we weren’t the cabaret act.

‘Maybe you can find a change of clothes here,’ said Kumar.

‘I don’t think they’ve got anything in my size,’ said Agent Reynolds primly.

Three people covered in sewage will have a dampening effect on even the most ardent clubber and it wasn’t long before a ripple passed through the crowd and two young women stalked through the dancers towards us.

They weren’t identical twins but they were definitely sisters. Tall and slender, dark-skinned, narrow-faced, flat-nosed and with sly black eyes that pinked up at the corners. I could just about tell them apart. Olympia was a tad taller and broader of shoulder with her hair currently in a weave that cascaded expensively around her shoulders. Chelsea had a long neck, a narrower mouth than her sister and was sporting what I judged to be about thirty-six man-hours’ worth of twisted hair extensions. They were wearing identical hot pink knit mini-dresses that I know their mother wouldn’t have approved of – I kept my eyes on their faces.

‘You’d better have a really good reason for this,’ said Olympia, folding her arms.

‘Agent Reynolds, Sergeant Kumar, let me introduce the goddesses of Counter’s Creek and the River Westbourne,’ I said, and bowed for good measure. The girls shot me a poisonous look but I figured they owed me for that time they left me to sink or swim in the Thames.

‘You know we’re Olympia and Chelsea,’ said Chelsea.

‘Although,’ Olympia said to Kumar and Reynolds. ‘We are goddesses and expected to be treated as such.’

‘I could arrest you if you like,’ I said. ‘I mean, is there actually anyone down here who’s old enough to purchase alcohol?’

Olympia pursed her lips. ‘Well, Lindsey’s boyfriend Steve is eighteen,’ she said. ‘Does that help?’ To be honest I was too knackered to banter. I checked whether they’d seen strange white guys in hoodies prowling around the tunnels but the sisters said they hadn’t. So I asked if they had somewhere we could wash up, and a working landline.

Chelsea laughed. ‘Landline,’ she said. ‘We have wifi down here.’

They also had a full-on locker room and shower last fitted out, judging by the brass taps and stainless steel fittings, sometime in the 1960s. I guessed it must be a leftover from Kumar’s secret government agency. The girls even managed to dig out a sweat shirt and tracksuit bottoms for Reynolds, who glared at me and Kumar until we remembered our manners and left. We found ourselves waiting in a storeroom filled with bottled water and catering boxes of fun-sized chocolate bars. We washed our faces with the water and had an argument about Mars Bars versus Milky Way and then more water after the taste test. When I judged that Kumar was all sugared up I asked him the difficult question.

‘Is it a total coincidence that you were assigned to this case?’

‘Meaning what?’ asked Kumar.

‘I magic up some lights and introduce you to a pair of river goddesses—’

‘Teenaged river goddesses,’ said Kumar. ‘And it’s not like either of them has done anything particularly religious.’

‘What about the lights?’ I asked.

‘Was that magic?’ he asked.

I hesitated. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Really magic?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fuck me!’

‘Now you’re reacting?’

‘Well I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the American,’ said Kumar.

‘So you’re not from the BTP version of the Folly?’ I asked.

Kumar laughed and said that British Transport Police had plenty of other demands on its budget.

‘But there is a certain amount of weird shit that goes on down here and people got into the habit of asking me to keep track of it,’ said Kumar.

‘Why was that?’

‘Watched too much
X-Files
growing up,’ he said. ‘Also I’m a bit of an urban explorer.’

‘So, not your first time in the sewers,’ I said. Urban explorers liked to climb into the secret and abandoned nooks and crannies of the city. That a lot of this involved illegal trespass merely added to the attraction.

‘It’s the first time I ever went surfing in one,’ he said. ‘I come from a family of engineers so I like poking my nose in and seeing how things work. I kept volunteering to do the weird stuff and in the end it became semi-official.’

And thus another arrangement was born.

‘If you ever meet Lady Ty,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell her. That sort of things drives her berserk.’

‘Speaking of
X-Files
,’ said Kumar, gesturing back towards the locker room. ‘Do you think Agent Reynolds—?’

I shrugged. ‘What do I know?’ I said. I was thinking of making it my family motto.

‘Maybe we should ask her,’ said Kumar.

‘And destroy the mystique?’ I said.

Kumar wanted to know how magic worked but I told him that I was supposed to keep it secret. ‘I’m already in a ton of shit for opening my mouth,’ I said.

Despite that, he asked whether it was element based – fire, water, air and earth. I said I didn’t think so.

‘So no Earthbenders kicking rocks around,’ he said.

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Or Airbenders, or Waterbenders or He-Man or Captain Planet.’ Or any other character from a kid’s cartoons. ‘At least I hope not. What kind of stuff do you get down in the tunnels?’

‘Lots of ghost reports,’ said Kumar and started digging through the catering boxes. ‘Not as many as we get from overground tracks.’

I thought of Abigail’s deceased tagger.

‘Anything else like the guy with the machine gun?’ I asked.

‘There are always rumours that there’s people living in the Underground,’ he said.

‘Think it’s likely?’ I asked.

Kumar gave a happy grunt and emerged from the box with a multipack of cheese and onion crisps.

‘I wouldn’t have said so,’ he said. ‘The sewers are toxic, it’s not just the risk of infection or disease—’

‘Or drowning,’ I said.

‘Or drowning,’ said Kumar. ‘You get gas build-ups, methane mostly but other stuff as well. Not very conducive to human habitation.’

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.’