Whispers Under Ground

‘Did you hit anyone?’ I asked.

‘Can’t tell,’ she said.

‘Do you know how much trouble you’re going to be in if you’ve shot someone?’ I asked.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said.

‘We can’t stay here,’ said Kumar. ‘Forward or back?’

‘If the special agent here hit someone we can’t leave them there to bleed out,’ I said. ‘So, forward.’ There was a conspicuous lack of agreement from Kumar and Reynolds. ‘But only as far as the intersection.’

‘Am I allowed to return fire?’ asked Reynolds.

‘Only if you give a warning first,’ I said.

‘What’s she going to say?’ asked Kumar. ‘Halt, totally unauthorized armed foreign national, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air?’

‘Just shout “Freeze FBI”,’ I said. ‘With a bit of luck it will confuse them.’

Nobody moved.

‘I’ll go first,’ I said.

I’m not totally mad. For one thing, the only reason I could think that our mysterious hoodie would hang about was if he’d been shot. And for the other thing, I took a deep breath and mentally ran through aer congolare – just to be on the safe side.

It was a still very cautious advance – with me in front, I might add.

The small sewer we were clambering along met a much bigger sewer at a diagonal. Judging from the yellow-brown brickwork and its relatively fresh fragrance I guessed it was a later addition and probably a floodwater relief sewer which was, judging by the water rushing through it, admirably doing what it was supposed to do.

‘Clear,’ said Reynolds and did a second three-sixty just to be on the safe side.

Upstream, the relief sewer was dead straight, vanishing off into infinity. Downstream it turned sharply down into a step-weir that dropped over three metres.

‘I think he went that way,’ said Reynolds pointing down to where the water boiled white at the bottom of the weir.

‘Either you missed him,’ I said. ‘Or he was wounded and swept away.’

‘There’s an access ladder here,’ said Kumar hopefully. It was mounted in a recess just short of the weir.

‘We’re not going to find him tonight,’ I said. ‘We might as well go home.’ I looked at Reynolds. ‘And you’re coming with us for a chat about why you were down here.’

‘I’m going back to my hotel,’ said Reynolds.

‘It’s us or Kittredge,’ I said.

‘It’s all the same to me,’ she said.

‘Children,’ said Kumar. ‘We are leaving.’ He put his foot on his ladder for emphasis.

‘Can you promise me hot towels?’ asked Reynolds.

‘As many as you can eat,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ she said and then she looked past my shoulder. I saw her react and the thought form on her face long before she got her mouth open to yell – behind you!

I lurched around as fast as the water would let me, my mind grasping for the formae, and got the shield up just in time.

The Sten gun is one of those iconic bits of British design, like the Mini or the Tube Map, that has come to represent an era. It’s a submachine gun of very distinctive configuration with its side-mounted magazine and tubular stock. Designed at the start of World War Two to be cheap and cheerful, providing your definition of cheerful was lots of pistol-calibre bullets going in the general direction of the enemy. As Nightingale explained to me, when we found a couple of rusted examples in the armoury, from the individual infantryman’s point of view there really is no such thing as too much personal firepower.

The guy had popped up from nowhere in the small pipe, kneeling to fire in just the same fashion as Reynolds had. My gaze was so fixated on the gun that all I registered was the same pale face, big eyes and a look of terrified determination.

The Sten had a 32-round magazine and early models fired only on full auto. But the action was crude, which meant they weren’t particularly accurate – which is probably what saved my life.

The flash blinded me, the noise deafened me and then a sledgehammer smashed into my chest, once, twice and a third time. I staggered backwards trying to keep my mind focused only on the spell while another part of my mind was yelling that I was dead.

Then the lights went out and I went over backwards and down the weir.

I tumbled, cracking elbow, hip and thigh against the weir’s steps, and then I was dragged face down along the rough bricks of the sewer floor. I pushed myself up and broke the surface gasping for breath. I tried to stand against the current but I’d just made it to my feet when something human-sized smacked into me and sent us both underwater.

An arm grabbed me under the armpit and hauled me up in the classic lifesaving position – I heard an annoyed grunt in my ear.

‘Reynolds?’ I gasped.

‘Quiet,’ she hissed.

She was right. Mr Sten Gun could still be standing at the top of the weir, or he might even have come down it – it’s not like I would have heard him. Reynolds was letting us both float back with the current – the better to put distance between us and the gunman.

‘I don’t think he’s following us,’ said Kumar right beside my ear.

‘Jesus Christ.’ I managed to keep it to an outraged hiss.

‘I’m not the one coming back from the dead,’ he said.

‘Can we please not blaspheme,’ said Reynolds.

I remembered the blows to my chest.

‘The vest caught it,’ I said.

Kumar grunted in surprise – the Metvest is supposed to be stab and bullet resistant but I don’t think any officer I know ever believed it.

‘I reckon we’re clear enough for you to use your flashlight, Sergeant,’ said Reynolds.

‘Love to,’ said Kumar. ‘But it’s dead.’

‘Yours is dead as well?’ asked Reynolds. ‘What are the odds of that? What about yours, Peter?’

I didn’t need to check. I asked Kumar if he had any glowsticks.

‘Just the one,’ he said and cracked it, careful to mask the yellow light with his body.

‘You can let go of me,’ I told Reynolds. ‘I can stand on my own two feet.’

Reynolds let me up, my feet skidded on the floor and I had to lean at a forty-five-degree angle just to avoid being swept away. The water was up to my waist. According to Kumar the water was probably a combination of snowmelt and unusually heavy rain in the North London catchment area.

‘How long have we got?’ I asked.

‘Cave systems can fill up very quickly and this is a system that been purposely designed to fill up as fast as possible,’ said Kumar.

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay down here,’ I said.

‘You think?’ said Reynolds.

We decided that, mad gunman notwithstanding, we probably couldn’t push our way upstream even if we wanted to.

‘There’ll be street access further down,’ said Kumar. ‘We should let the current wash us along until we reach one.’

I looked at Reynolds, who shrugged.

‘Let’s do it,’ she said.

So Reynolds got behind me and grabbed my shoulders, Kumar got behind her and grabbed hers and on the count of three we all lifted our feet and let the current sweep us down the sewer pipe.

The water was above the halfway point and running faster than a mountain stream. In case you’re wondering, I’ve kayaked down a mountain stream – it was a school trip and I spent a lot of time underwater. As the