Whispers Under Ground

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’etre.’

‘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