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
‘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
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.
