‘What about Graham Beale?’ I asked. ‘The managing director.’
‘He used to visit,’ said Zach. ‘But it was his brother who spent time down there. Mad for digging he was – sad really, him dying like that. Stephen says they never saw Graham Beale again.’
‘How many of them are there?’ asked Lesley.
‘Don’t know,’ said Zach.
‘Ten, twenty, two hundred?’
‘More than twenty,’ said Zach. ‘Several families at least.’
‘Families,’ said Lesley. ‘Jesus.’
‘They’ve been minding their own business for hundreds of years,’ said Zach. ‘I bet your Master didn’t even know they were there. And what now? You going to go down there mob-handed? When you find out their kids haven’t gone to school you going to call in social services, do them for truancy, living under ground without a licence?’
He glared at me.
‘You don’t know what you’re going to do – do you?’
He was right, I didn’t know what I was going to do, but then that’s what god created senior officers for.
Not that they knew what to do either.
‘Did you know about these people?’ Seawoll asked Nightingale.
We’d convened in front of the murder inquiry whiteboard, which was covered in timelines, notes and pictures of people who had had just become totally irrelevant.
‘No,’ said Nightingale.
‘I may be speaking out of turn here, but that seems like a bit of an oversight to me,’ said Seawoll. ‘You see, Thomas, so far this year I’ve made a personal friend in Mr Punch and helped burn down Covent Garden while Miriam here had to deal with women with carnivorous minges and real cat people and now I’ve got to face the possibility that there might be a whole fucking village of mole people armed with fucking Sten guns living under Notting Hill. Given that I have been repeatedly instructed to defer to your expertise in all areas involving
‘It is certainly unfortunate—’ began Nightingale.
‘It’s more than fucking unfortunate,’ said Seawoll his voice gone very quiet. ‘It’s unprofessional.’
I only saw the flinch because I knew Nightingale well enough to recognise the tiny movement of his head for what it was.
‘You’re right of course,’ he said. ‘And I apologise for the oversight.’
Stephanopoulos gave me a what-the-fuck look but I was just as amazed as she was. Even Seawoll looked suspicious.
‘Before I took over the Folly,’ said Nightingale, ‘I rarely saw “action” in London. I spent most of my time overseas. When we lost the bulk of our—’ He faltered for a moment. ‘Those of my colleagues that dealt with such matters were no longer available. It’s entirely possible that I could find some reference to these people in the literature, but like you I have been somewhat distracted of late.’
Seawoll narrowed his eyes. ‘We want to get down there as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Before the buggers can dig themselves in.’ He considered what he’d just said. ‘Dig themselves in further.’
‘I suggest we hold off until after Christmas,’ said Nightingale.
‘If only because of the overtime,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘You know CO19 and TSG will be busy covering the likely-target list until after the New Year. They’ll make us pay if we want them, and I don’t think we should go down there without some bodies.’
‘Can we at least interview Graham Beale this afternoon?’ said Seawoll. ‘If it’s not too much fucking trouble.’
‘And Ryan Carroll, the artist,’ I said. ‘We need to know whether he was in contact with the Quiet People.’
‘The Quiet fucking People,’ said Seawoll and shook his head. ‘Let’s pick the other known human beings up first thing Boxing Day – they should be nice and fat from Christmas dinner. Then, once everyone’s got over their hangovers, we can venture underground.’
‘I’ll talk to Thames Water,’ said Nightingale.
‘Would you?’ said Seawoll. ‘That would be grand.’
Stephanopoulos sighed and gave me a meaningful look.
‘Coffee?’ I said.
‘If you would, Peter,’ said Stephanopoulos.
The canteen at AB isn’t that bad, despite the strained attempt at festive cheer with tinsel draped around the till and intertwined with the display boxes of chocolate, muesli bars and mini-packets of biscuits. I wasn’t making the same mistake twice – I had tea instead of coffee.
As the Congolese woman behind the till rang up the order I noticed that the tinsel had been strung close enough to the hot food area to allow the occasional strand to dip itself into the perpetual pot of beef stroganoff It’s this kind of attention to food hygiene that explains why the Metropolitan Police loses so many work days to sickness – that and over-exposure to dogs, the elements and members of the public.
Don’t they know there’s an
Then I carefully put my tray down, turned and hared out of the canteen and back up to the outside inquiry office taking the steps three at a time.
Apparently I never did pay for the drinks.
‘We’ve got to go down the tunnels now,’ I said. ‘Before Kevin fucking Nolan manages to kill the lot of them.’
25
Ladbroke Grove
Watching Seawoll in motion was always an education in of itself. Despite the 1970s shouty guv’nor, pickaxe handle, drink you under the table, fuck me, fuck you, old-fashioned copper facade he was, bureaucratically speaking, very light on his feet.
We were going to go in with CO19, the armed wing of the Metropolitan Police, as backup. I know that Nightingale would have preferred to use Caffrey and his merry band of ex-paratroopers, but this was still a Murder Team investigation and Seawoll had old-fashioned views about extra-legal, paramilitary death-squads. Besides, he’d managed to prise a detachment loose by implying that there might be a smidgen of terrorism involved. The drawback to this being that DS Kittredge had to be notified, him being CTC’s officer on the spot.
We all assembled on the west side of Westbourne Park Road which Zach said was the closest sewer access. It was dark and the last dirty remnants of the snow crunched under the weight of our size eleven boots as we decanted from the vehicles.
‘Shit,’ said Stephanopoulos as she skidded on a patch of ice. Seawoll caught her elbow and steadied her. ‘Good thing I didn’t wear the high heels,’ she said.
‘Are you coming down with us, sir?’ I asked Seawoll.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Seawoll. ‘I’m far too fucking senior to go down there. It’s strictly constables, sergeants and lunatics. We’ll keep the kettle on for you.’
Nightingale was standing under a lamppost in a long oyster-white Burberry coat that made him look like something from an old film. All he was missing was a cigarette, a hat and a doomed love affair with a suburban housewife. Lesley stayed in the Sprinter van where she could keep an eye on Zach and avail herself of the coffee thermos and the emergency packets of Hula Hoops. I didn’t have the same luxury on account of this all being my idea in the first place.
We were joined by Kittredge, who turned out to be a tall thin man in a navy blue three-piece suit with a sour expression – although that might just have been a reaction to being out on Christmas Eve. He actually had a sprig of mistletoe in his buttonhole and I had sudden wistful thoughts of Dr Walid six hundred kilometres north in what I
