Whispers Under Ground

matter what, I would be turning up for Christmas at Aunty Jo’s.

Eating the best part of a kilogram of rice would slow down a hippopotamus, so after Mum and Dad had gone I lay down and dozed off.

I opened my eyes to find Zachary Palmer with his hand in one of my Tupperware boxes.

‘Hey,’ I said.

He stopped scoffing up the deep-fried plantain and grinned at me.

‘Your mum’s a bare wicked cook,’ he said.

‘That’s mine, you thieving git,’ I said and snatched the box off him. Unperturbed, he moved on to the fruit. His sweatshirt was clean and still showed the sharp creases that only Molly can inflict on casual wear.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘I wanted to make sure you were all right, didn’t I?’

‘I’m touched,’ I said.

‘Not for me, you understand, but he was a bit worried,’ said Zach.

‘Who’s he?’ I asked.

Zach froze with a satsuma segment halfway to his lips. ‘Did I say he?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You did.’

‘Can I at least take the plantain?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said and tightened my grip on the Tupperware.

‘Well then. Laters,’ he said and bolted.

You know there’s always things in life that you have to do despite the fact that you know for certain that the outcome is going to be messy, painful, humiliating or all three. Going to the dentist, asking someone out for the first time, breaking up a stag do outside the Bar Rumba on a Saturday night and, now, chasing a suspect through a hospital while wearing an open-backed hospital gown.

I went straight for the stairs because either Zach would hit the lifts, in which case I could beat him down; or he’d go for the stairs, in which case I’d be right behind him. When I pushed my way through the heavy fire doors there was no sign of him on the staircase, so I went down three steps at a time pausing only to scream loudly when I stubbed my toe halfway to the bottom.

Lesley says that the key to a successful chase is to know where the suspect is running to. Even if you don’t know their ultimate destination you should be able to make an educated guess about where the next choke point is. In Zach’s case, this was the hospital lobby, which is the only public way in or out. So that’s where I went first. Unfortunately, it’s got two exits at opposite ends to each other and what with the icy road conditions, the onset of winter flu and some pretty aggressive full contact shopping, it was full of the walking wounded and their hangers- on.

If Zach had been sensible enough to walk slowly and calmly out he would have got away. But, luckily for me, he was still running when he went out the north exit and all I had to do was follow the yelps of outrage as he pushed through the crowd. They yelled even louder when I steamed past in pursuit, what with me being a half- naked IC3, albeit in winter plumage. They came to all the wrong conclusions and scattered out of my way.

I ran down the wide flight of steps in front of the hospital, staggered once as my bare heel skidded on a bit of rotting ice, recovered and looked right and left. Unless you’re heading for the hospital, that particular stretch of pavement isn’t good for anything except inhaling exhaust fumes – which meant Zach was easy to spot, on my left, still running.

I went after him with my feet reminding me at every step why I spend all that money on trainers. The exertion kept me warm, but a cold breeze around my bum reminded me that I was short in the trouser department – that and the wolf whistle I got as I rounded the corner into Tottenham Court Road.

Zach had obviously thought he’d put his troubles behind him, because he’d slowed down to a fast saunter. I was nearly upon him when he glanced back, saw me and went off like a jackrabbit. He was fast, and one thing was for certain – I wasn’t about to catch him in bare feet. He’d have got away if Lesley hadn’t at that moment come out of Sainsbury’s with her shopping, seen me, seen Zach, and made the kind of lightning decision that got her voted graduate most likely to make chief superintendent by thirty at Hendon.

She didn’t try for anything flashy like a clothesline. She merely stuck out her foot and down he went on his face. Still holding two bags of shopping and my laptop, she skipped over and planted her foot on his back – holding him down until I could arrive. Between us we’d managed to attract a bit of a crowd.

‘Police,’ I said. ‘Move along. Nothing to see here.’

‘You sure about that?’ asked a voice from the crowd.

‘I’m going to let you up now, Zach,’ said Lesley. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

‘I won’t, I won’t,’ he said. ‘Just don’t you do anything hasty.’

‘Hasty?’ I said. ‘You just made me run naked down Tottenham Court Road. You’d rather I gave it some thought?’

A couple of uniforms turned up who neither me nor Lesley knew personally and it could have gone pear- shaped. I know I would have arrested me had I been them, except I dropped Detective Inspector Stephanopoulos’s name into the conversation and suddenly they couldn’t be more helpful. However, once you’ve invoked the name of Stephanopoulos you have to live according to her principles, unless you crave trouble, so we had to get someone from the Murder Team down to arrest Zach. While he was bundled off to an interview room at AB, I sloped back to the hospital to find my clothes and discharge myself. You’d be amazed how long that can take.

24 Sloane Square

I was disappointed to find that there was nothing waiting for me on my desk back at the outside inquiry team office.

‘We assigned them elsewhere when you went into hospital,’ said Stephanopoulos.

Six whole days on the Murder Team and I’d only managed to fulfil about two and a half actions. Not only was it not going to look good on any performance review, but I also doubted that being engaged in a supernatural sewer battle with an underground Earthbender was going to serve as much of an explanation.

Because we wanted to avoid the lengthy booking-in process, we hadn’t charged Zach. But we made it clear that arrest and Christmas in the cells was the true alternative to ‘helping police with their inquiries’.

The interview rooms at AB are featureless cubes with Windsor blue walls and scuffed wooden trim. There was a scarred wooden table, chairs, the standard double tape recorder and a CCTV camera enclosed in an opaque Perspex bubble that hung from the ceiling. In the hour or so since he’d been placed in it, Zach had managed to create a pile of chocolate bar wrappers and shredded polystyrene cup.

‘Hello gorgeous,’ he said as me and Lesley entered.

‘I didn’t know you cared,’ I said.

‘Got anything to eat?’ he asked. ‘I’m bare hungry.’

I swept the rubbish into the bin and slapped down a suspiciously floppy package wrapped in the greaseproof paper in front of him. Zach opened it cautiously, took a sniff and then gave me a broad smile.

‘From Molly?’ he asked.

‘What is it?’ asked Lesley.

‘Brawn sarnie,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ said Lesley, who as a proper Essex girl knew her lights from her livers. She’d once spent a happy half an hour explaining what strange and secret bits of the animal’s body regularly turned up in Molly’s ‘traditional’ cooking. If you don’t know already I’m not going to tell you what brawn is. Let’s just say that the common name for it is head cheese and leave it at that.

If she hadn’t been wearing a mask, I’m pretty certain that even Lesley would have looked shocked at the enthusiastic way Zach tucked in.

There’s several schools of thought about using tricks and treats in an interview. Seawoll says that in the old days, when just about everyone smoked, if you withheld the fags for long enough your suspect would tell you just about anything in return for a puff. Which was fine, if all you wanted was a result. But if you were looking for