Whispers Under Ground

27 Tottenham Court Road

We went in mob-handed, Nightingale in front, backed by me and Lesley in our riot gear. Behind us was a stream of backup including some reliable TSG guys, Guleed, Kumar and right at the back Stephanopoulos – so that if something went wrong, we’d have someone responsible to clear up any mess. Nightingale didn’t say, but I suspected that even further back was a nondescript Transit van filled with former members of the Parachute Regiment. I didn’t worry about them, though, because in the event that they had to be involved I was likely to be past caring.

I’d been right about the Faceless Man relocating his base under cover of the Crossrail works. It’s amazing what you can come up with when you’re buried under a ton of concrete, although I don’t recommend it as an aid to memory. Kumar and Nightingale cruelly interrupted Christmas dinner for Graham Beale and several other engineering contractors and compared their plans until they found an anomaly. An excavation at the end of Dean Street that only appeared on one set of plans.

Kumar and Nightingale made that discovery at about just the same time my mum squared off for the traditional Christmas row with her sister. My dad’s usually nodded off by this point and me and all the other nieces, nephews and cousins pile into the kitchen to eat the leftovers and pretend to do the washing up. One thing you never get with my relatives is leftover turkey, but that year there was some serious smoked ham which I had with French mustard. I was thankful that they held off for twelve hours before organising the raid, because I doubt after that much Christmas dinner I would have moved too fast.

Access was via the basement of an International Money Transfer shop on Dean Street. We didn’t wait and use a ram. Instead, Nightingale employed a nifty spell that caused all the hinges and attachment points on a reinforced fire door to simultaneous pop out of the frame so that the door itself toppled slowly backward into the corridor. He signalled me to wait before darting through – there was a long moment and then he told us to follow on.

It was a cylindrical shaft six metres across and twenty metres deep. The door gave in at the top, from where a modern metal staircase with sensible handrails spiralled around the circumference down to the base. It had been hiding in plain sight, marked on the construction blueprints as an emergency access shaft for the far end of the Crossrail passenger platforms. What it looked like to me was an inverted wizard’s tower, but I kept that to myself. There was an open-frame lift, like the ones used on building sites, that nobody wanted to be the first to use – just in case of booby traps.

The shaft was adjacent to the smaller shaft located at the end of Dean Street that Graham Beale’s brother had been found at the bottom of.

‘No floors,’ said Lesley.

‘They haven’t been installed yet,’ I said. ‘You can see the points where the load-bearing beams were going to slot in.’

‘What’s with him?’ asked Guleed.

‘He once arrested an architect,’ said Kumar.

At the bottom, placed in the exact centre of the bare cement floor. was a double-sized inflatable mattress of the type people take camping. It had been neatly made up with blue and white striped sheets and pillow cases, a duvet in a matching cover, clean, crisp – meticulously turned over. Next to it was parked an empty wheelchair and under the covers was Albert Woodville-Gentle, my personal number one suspect for the first Ethically Challenged Magician – the Faceless Man’s mentor. He was lying on his back, eyes closed, hands folded across his chest. Dead for about three days, Stephanopoulos reckoned – a timeline confirmed by Dr Walid, who rushed down from Oban the next day.

‘Natural causes,’ he reported after the tests came in. ‘Exacerbated by severe hyperthaumaturgical necrosis.’ Which was the next step up from hyperthaumaturgical degradation. So magic had put him in that wheelchair. He made a point of having Nightingale, Lesley and me in the lab when he did his brain transects – presumably as an awful warning. Nightingale said that Dr Walid always got excited when he had a new brain to play with.

But all that came days later. While we were still waiting for the forensics people Lesley asked the question that had been bugging me. ‘Why no demon traps? If it had been me, I’d have left a nasty surprise in hope of taking us all out.’

Nightingale looked around. ‘Our ethically challenged magician is far too careful to return here,’ he said. ‘Whatever plans he may have had regarding this place I suspect he changed them shortly after your derring-do on the roof top in Soho.’

‘He didn’t seem that worried,’ I said. Contemptuous, yes. Worried, no.

‘As I said,’ said Nightingale. ‘Careful. I suspect he instructed the nurse to bring Old Albert here and then abandon him – a message to us I suppose.’

‘Do you think we can find the nurse?’ I asked.

‘She’s dead,’ said Lesley. ‘Or worse. He’s not going to leave any loose ends.’

That wasn’t going to stop us looking.

28 Biggin Hill

Biggin Hill Airport is far enough out of London for there to be fields and woods and snow on the ground. Once a famous RAF base, it’s now the favoured landing spot for the private jets of the kind of people that Ryan Carroll believed drove the art market. A close friend of the senator had lent him his private jet so he could fly his son home on the day after Boxing Day. Agent Reynolds was hitching a lift with the senator and I drove down that morning to see her off. I found her in the severely monochrome departure lounge, all white furniture, grey carpet and frosted-glass tabletops. Her suit was neatly pressed and she looked rested and alert. She offered to buy me a drink with the last of her sterling so I had a lager.

‘Where’s the senator?’ I asked as I sat down.

‘He’s in the RAF Chapel,’ she said.

‘His son’s not—?’

‘No,’ said Reynolds and sipped her drink. ‘He’s already safely on board the jet.’

‘How is the senator?’ I asked.

‘Better for having his son’s murderer caught,’ said Reynolds.

‘I won’t use the word closure if you don’t,’ I said.

‘Do you think he was mentally unstable?’ asked Reynolds.

‘James?’ I asked. ‘No—’

‘Ryan Carroll,’ she said. ‘James had that book, perhaps he was worried about Ryan, not about himself.’

‘It’s plausible,’ I said. ‘But I wouldn’t tell his father. I doubt he wants to think his son’s death was avoidable.’

Reynolds sighed. Outside, a jet shot down the runway and climbed steeply into the sky.

‘How much will you tell him?’ I asked.

‘You mean,’ said Reynolds, ‘will I tell him about the … what do you call it?’

‘Magic,’ I said.

‘You just come right out and say “magic”?’ she asked. ‘Like’s it’s no big deal.’

‘Would you prefer a euphemism?’ I asked.

‘When did you discover magic was real?’ asked Reynolds.

‘Last January,’ I said.

‘January?’ she squeaked and then, in a more normal tone, ‘As in twelve months ago?’

‘Pretty much,’ I said.

‘You find out that magic and spirits and ghosts are all real,’ she said. ‘And you’re just fine with that? You just accept it?’

‘It helps that I’ve got a scientific brain,’ I said.

‘How can that possibly help?’

‘I met a ghost face to face,’ I said, with more calmness than I’d felt at the time. ‘It would have been stupid to pretend it didn’t exist.’

Reynolds waved her scotch at me. ‘As easy as that?’ she asked.

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But most people believe in the supernatural, ghosts, evil spirits, an afterlife, a supreme being, stuff like that. Magic is less of a conceptual leap than you might imagine.’

‘Conceptual leap?’ said Reynolds. ‘Your FBI file underestimated your education.’

‘I have an FBI file?’ Nightingale wasn’t going to like that.

‘You do now,’ said Reynolds and laughed. ‘Relax, it’s in the friendly pile and it’s going to be a very slim file given that I’m going to leave out the most interesting thing about you.’

‘My preternatural good looks,’ I said.

‘No the other stuff,’ she said. ‘You’re not drinking your beer.’

‘What about your report?’ I asked, and took a swallow of beer to mask my anxiety.

She gave me a cool look. ‘You know perfectly well that I’m going to have to leave out the Quiet People, the Rivers and the rest of the Harry Potter stuff,’ she said.

‘You don’t think your governors will believe you?’ I asked.

‘That’s why you took me with you, isn’t it? Because you knew the more outlandish it was, the less likely I was to put it in my report.’ Reynolds shook her head. ‘I don’t know whether they believe in magic, but I know for a fact they believe in psychological evaluations. I like my job and I have no intention of giving them an excuse to sidetrack me.’

‘Which reminds me,’ I said, and fished the two trackers I’d retrieved from beneath the Asbo and Kevin Nolan’s van. ‘These are yours I believe.’

‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Agent Reynolds. ‘Unauthorised electronic surveillance of a foreign national in a friendly country. That would be a violation of Bureau policy.’ She grinned. ‘Can you reuse them yourself?’

‘No problem,’ I said, putting them away.

‘Think of them as a Christmas present,’ she said.

A woman in a pilot’s uniform approached Reynolds and informed her that it was time to board. We finished our drinks and I walked her down to the departure gate. I’ve always travelled from big airports so this was my first chance to wave someone off from the tarmac.

The waiting jet was long and slim, painted white and silver, and seemed much larger close up than I’d expected.

‘Good luck,’ I said.

‘Thank you,’ she said and kissed me on the cheek.

I watched to make sure the jet was on its way before heading for the car park.

One less thing to worry about, I thought. Perhaps I was going to get to see the match that afternoon after all.

I don’t know why I bother, I really don’t, because at that exact instant my phone rang and a voice identified herself as a British Transport Police inspector and asked did I know a certain Abigail Kumara and could I be a dear and come down to the BTP Headquarters in Camden and please take her away.

As it happened, I’d already been planning for just this sort of eventuality. But I’d counted on having more time to butter up Nightingale first.

I said I would certainly be round to get her just as soon as I cleared some things with my boss. The Inspector thanked me and wished me a Happy New Year.

29 Mornington Crescent

I found Abigail in an interview room eating Burger King and reading a month-old copy of Jackie. The BTP had discovered her in the tunnel under my old school committing an act of vandalism. By rights she should have been returned home in disgrace with possible charges pending, but she’d dropped my name and the BTP had been seized by the spirit of goodwill or, more likely, a desire to avoid the paperwork involved.

I sat down opposite her and we stared at each other – she broke first.

‘I was finishing off the graffiti,’ she said. ‘You know the one the ghost was writing. In the tunnel where the Hogwarts Express goes. Before he’s, you know, squished—’

‘Why?’

‘I reckoned that if he got his message out he might get closure and move on,’ she said.

I didn’t ask where she thought the ghost would move on to.

‘I thought it would be a nice Christmassy thing to do,’ she said.

‘It’s the day after Boxing Day,’ I said.

‘We had to spend Christmas with Uncle Bob in Waltham Forest,’ she said. ‘I got a new coat – like it?’

It was blue, quilted and several sizes too big.

‘I’ve got you a Christmas present, too,’ I said.

‘Really?’ she said, and then gave me a suspicious look. ‘What kind of present?’

I handed it over and watched while she meticulously unpeeled the Sellotape before removing and neatly folding the paper. I’d given her a Moleskine reporter-style notebook that looks almost exactly the kind of black notebook that everyone thinks the police use, only we don’t. And even if we did, we’d be much too cheap to buy Moleskines – we’d get them from Niceday instead.

‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ she asked.

‘You’re going to make notes in it,’ I said. ‘Anything you notice that you think is unusual or interesting—’

‘Like the ghost?’

‘Like the ghost,’ I said. ‘Except that you’re not to get on the train tracks, or break into private property or stay out all night, or put yourself in danger in any shape or form.’

‘Can I bunk off school?’ she asked.

‘No, you cannot bunk off school.’

‘I’m not sure I’m really understanding the positive aspects of this arrangement,’ said Abigail.

‘Every Saturday you come down to my office in Russell Square and we go over your notes and we develop action plans based on what you’ve observed,’ I said.

‘That sounds exciting,’ said Abigail.

‘Which will include follow-up investigations and joint field trips to verify any information you bring back.’ I gave her a moment to decode what I’d said. ‘Is that a bit more appealing?’

Nightingale had been horrified by the whole idea when I broached it before coming down to make the pitch.

‘What are you proposing?’ he’d asked. ‘A Girl Guides troop?’

I told him that that was an absurd notion, not least because we’d never satisfy the health and safety requirements for running a troop of Girl Guides. Nightingale said that health and safety was not the point.

‘Think of it as a boxing club,’ I said. ‘You know the boys are going to smack each other in the face anyway, so you might as well channel it into something disciplined. Abigail’s going to be out there looking, so we might as well make use of it, and at least this way we can keep an eye on her.’

Nightingale couldn’t argue with the logic, but he put his foot down on one issue. ‘You are not to teach anybody magic,’ he said. ‘In the first instance you’re far too reckless in who you expose to the art, and in the second you just aren’t qualified to teach. Anyone learning from you is bound to pick up your sloppy form and those embellishments you find so amusing. So I want you to swear now, as my apprentice, that you will not pass on the art to another without my express permission.’

I so swore.

‘If it becomes necessary I will teach Abigail the forms and wisdoms myself,’ he said, and then smiled. ‘Perhaps she’ll prove a more diligent student than yourself in any case.’

Now I watched as Abigail shifted in her seat while she gave the proposition some thought.

‘Do I get badges?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Badges,’ she said. ‘You know like in the Guides like Fire Safety and First Aid or Party Planner.’

‘Party Planner – what’s that for?’

‘What do you think it’s for?’

‘Do you want badges?’

Abigail bit her lip. ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘That would be stupid.’

Which was a pity, I thought, badges might be fun, Fireball Proficiency, Werelight, Latin and the ever-popular Fatal Brain Haemorrhage. ‘Do we have a deal or not?’

‘Deal,’ she said, we shook on it and I drove her home.

On the way she asked if she could tell me something even if sounded stupid. I reassured her that she could tell me anything. ‘And I promise not to laugh,’ I said. ‘Unless it’s funny.’

‘When I was down under the school,’ she said. ‘I met a talking fox.’

‘A talking fox?’

‘Yeah.’

I thought about that for a bit.

‘Was it really talking?’ I asked. ‘Like words coming out of its mouth?’

‘It was talking,’ she said. ‘Believe it.’

‘Really? What did it say?’

‘Tell your friends they’re on the wrong side of the river.’