Whispers Under Ground

‘Not there,’ said Zach. ‘The market before that – he got himself to the Powis Square market off his own back. He was a bright boy.’ He stuck his finger in his mug and went hunting for the dregs of his hot chocolate.

‘And the bowl?’ I asked.

‘Spotted it himself,’ said Zach.

I risked Lesley’s ire by going off on another tangent and bringing out the fruit bowl in question brought especially from the Folly. Even through the clear plastic of the forensics bag I could feel vestigia as I pushed it across the table to Zach.

‘Is this the bowl?’ I asked.

Zach barely glanced at it. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘The actual bowl,’ I said. ‘Not just one that looks like it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Zach.

‘How can you tell?’

‘Just can,’ said Zach.

‘Does this work for all pottery, or does your gift for identification extend only to stoneware?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘If I got a plate in from the canteen and showed it to you,’ I said. ‘Would you be able to pick it out of a plate line-up a week later?’

A plate line-up, I thought. God knows what Seawoll is making of this.

‘You’re off your head,’ said Zach. ‘It’s made by the Quiet People, not in some factory in China.’ He spoke slowly to make sure I understood. ‘So each one is different like someone’s face is different – that’s how I can tell them apart.’

I wondered if Zach, half fairy, half goblin, half whatever he was, perceived vestigia differently from the way me, Lesley and Nightingale did. If he did, then it would make sense for him to also respond to it differently, perhaps less powerfully. I made another note for later because I knew Lesley would homing back in on the policing.

‘Moving on,’ she said, right on cue. ‘So you took James Gallagher through the sewers to meet these “quiet people”?’

Zach smiled at her. ‘You can take your mask off, you know – we don’t mind. Do we, Peter?’

I expected Lesley to either ignore Zach or slap him down, but instead she turned to me and gave me an inquiring look.

‘You don’t have to ask my permission,’ I said, half hoping she’d leave it on.

She looked at Zach, who gave her a crooked smile.

‘I’ll take it off,’ said Lesley slowly. ‘If you stop messing us about.’

‘Okay,’ he said without hesitation.

Lesley unclipped her mask and slipped it off. Her face was as horrible as ever and glistening with sweat. I froze for a moment and then thought to hand Lesley some tissues. As she wiped her face I realised that Zach was staring at me – eyes narrowed.

‘The mask is off,’ I said. ‘Your turn.’

‘James Gallagher and the seven dwarves,’ said Lesley.

‘Did I say they were short?’ asked Zach.

We both just stared at him until he got on with it. James, Zach told us, had been persistent in the way that only Americans and double-glazing salesmen seem to be capable of. No matter what Zach said or did, including storming out of the house and all the way down to the off-licence, James wouldn’t let up.

‘So we got some gear together and down the rabbit hole we went,’ said Zach.

A rabbit hole with a horrible smell. I got Zach to pinpoint the exact manhole they’d gone down on a printout of Google Maps. Shockingly, it was located fifty metres up the road from James Gallagher’s house. I wondered if it was the same one that Agent Reynolds had found.

There was a certain amount of farting about as we showed him the boots and he agreed that, yeah, they were James’s boots or at least they looked like the boots James bought for going down the sewers, I mean they could be somebody else’s, couldn’t they? It was not like he was paying a lot of attention to James’s boots – that would be bare strange, wouldn’t it?

‘Unless you’re into boots,’ said Zach. ‘Takes all types.’

I resisted the urge to bang my forehead on the table.

Finally, after Lesley made it clear with many subtle verbal clues that she was resisting the urge to bang Zach’s forehead on the table, we moved on to the point where he introduced James Gallagher to the quiet people.

‘Not that they’re really called the Quiet People,’ said Zach.

‘We got the whole ambiguity thing,’ I said quickly.

Not only was Zach not sure what they called themselves, he wasn’t sure where they lived. ‘I know how to get there underground,’ he said as we pulled out the map again. ‘But I ain’t got the faintest as to where that is, you know, above ground.’ Somewhere in Notting Hill was the best he could do.

I had a suspicion I knew exactly where, but I kept it to myself.

They didn’t live in the sewers, Zach wanted to make that clear, they lived in their own tunnels which were dry and comfortable. He couldn’t tell you what the tunnels looked like however. ‘On account of them liking the dark.’

For James it was love at first feel. ‘He kept on going on about the walls,’ said Zach.

‘What about them?’ I asked.

‘He liked the way they felt,’ said Zach. ‘And the Quiet People liked him – kindred spirits and all that. That was the first time they’d let me past the hallway – and that’s me being friends with Stephen.’

‘So his name really is Stephen,’ said Lesley.

‘Believe it,’ said Zach. ‘I wasn’t making that up. Stephen, George, Henry: they’ve all got names like that. It’s a wonder they don’t wear flat caps and braces.’

Not that they got out much, Stephen being a bit of an exception, because, according to Zach, outgoing people don’t live underground.

‘So what was James looking for?’ asked Lesley.

‘I don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘Something artistic, or it might have been one of the girls. You know what they say. Once you’ve done fae, it don’t go away.’

He knew something – I could tell by the way he kept trying to distract us.

‘So he just went in and left you outside?’ asked Lesley.

‘In the hallway,’ said Zach.

‘You must have some idea of what he was doing,’ she said.

‘I only got as far as the parlour despite everything I’d done for them.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I didn’t get the backstage pass.’

‘But they let James in,’ said Lesley. ‘Did that make you angry?’

‘Yeah,’ said Zach. ‘I got to say it did.’

Because it was all hugs and feasts and exclamations of joy for James, and never mind the number of times Zach had personally saved Stephen’s arse or fixed some above-ground problem, because Zach wasn’t a descendant of the Beales or Gallaghers. No fatted calf for Zach – not that they actually ran to a fatted calf. ‘But still,’ said Zach. ‘A bit of appreciation would have been nice.’ Which concluded a textbook illustration of why you should say as little as possible when being interviewed by the police – up until he gave us a motive, his resentment, me and Lesley had pretty much written him off as a suspect.

Now me and Lesley exchanged looks – I could tell she didn’t really think Zach did it, either. It wasn’t until I looked away that I realised that I’d read her expression off her bare face without reacting to what her face had become.

‘Does Graham Beale get the fatted calf?’ I asked. ‘What about Ryan Carroll?’

‘Who’s Ryan Carroll?’ asked Zach

‘Famous artist,’ I said. ‘James was a fan.’

‘Don’t know him – sorry,’ he said. ‘Can’t know everyone. But if he was the right Carroll they’d have let him in too.’