imagined to be the squat granite cottage of his ancestors, sitting in front of a roaring fire and toasting his family with a wee theologically unsound dram of the good stuff.
Kittredge frowned at me and turned to Nightingale. ‘We have a problem,’ he said.
‘The American?’ asked Nightingale.
‘She’s seen too much,’ he said.
‘Then you know she must be taken care of,’ said Seawoll.
‘Funny,’ said Kittredge.
‘Who cares what the Yanks know?’ asked Seawoll. ‘They’re not going to give a fuck about all this voodoo shit. Why should they?’
‘That’s not how it was explained to me,’ said Kittredge. ‘There are some things we’re supposed to keep in the family.’
‘Then I suggest we take our young American friend with us,’ said Nightingale.
‘Are you mad?’ asked Kittredge. ‘God knows what the FBI’s going to make of it all. Hasn’t she seen too much all ready?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Nightingale. ‘I don’t think she’s seen enough. Where is she now?’
Kittredge gestured up the street. ‘Round the corner,’ he said. ‘Sitting in a red Skoda Fabia that she borrowed off the second trade attache’s wife’s nanny.’
‘You’re sure about that, sir?’ I asked Kittredge.
‘I’ve had a whole team watching over her since they dug you out of the ground,’ he said.
‘Touch of the stable door,’ said Nightingale.
‘Don’t you start,’ said Kittredge. ‘This was all routine until you were involved.’
‘I’ve been keeping secrets since before you were born,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ll just have to trust me on this. Besides, the young lady is exceedingly clever. So it’s nothing she won’t be able to work out for herself.’
‘But at least she wouldn’t be an eyewitness,’ said Kittredge.
‘Fortunately,’ said Nightingale. ‘Seeing isn’t always believing.’ He turned to me. ‘Why don’t you go over and extend her an invitation?’ he said.
I turned and strolled up the road humming the happy tune of the subordinate who knows that whatever shit hits the fan it wouldn’t be him who’d be blamed for turning the bloody thing on.
It’d have been nice to sneak up on Reynolds and give her a shock, but a good rule of thumb is to never startle someone who might be equipped with a loaded firearm. Instead I approached from the front and gave her a wave. The annoyed look on her face – she obviously thought she’d ditched her surveillance – was rewarding enough.
‘Got your sewer gear?’ I asked as she climbed out the car.
‘In the trunk,’ she said. ‘Are we going down again?’
‘You don’t have to,’ I said.
‘Give me five minutes to get ready.’
It might have taken Reynolds five minutes but it took the rest of us about an hour, what with the milling around, strapping stuff on and testing the equipment. This time we’d borrowed the appropriate waist-high orange waders from a surly man from Thames Water. The CO19 boys insisted on retaining their dark blue ballistic vests and helmets as well, which gave them the unfortunate appearance of modern ninjas who’d given up on the whole stealth thing below the waist level. I was wearing a brand-new Metvest but with a high-visibility jacket over the top. I planned to avoid getting shot, through the deployment of peaceful diplomacy and, if that failed, by making sure I stayed back behind the guys with guns. Zach said we’d be better off without the guns, but that’s the thing about armed police. When you need them you generally don’t want to be hanging around waiting for them to arrive.
It was a good plan and like all plans since the dawn of time, this would fail to survive contact with real life.
When we were ready, Seawoll gave us a farewell admonition not to fuck things up any worse than they were already. Then he, Stephanopoulos and Kittredge skived off to a nearby pub to set up a ‘command centre’.
The surly man from Thames Water popped the manhole cover and bid us to help ourselves.
Nightingale went down first, then the officers from CO19. I followed them down with Zach behind me while Lesley and Reynolds brought up the rear. I recognised where we were the moment I got off the ladder. It was the same intersection we’d reached before an unknown assailant with a Sten gun had driven us over the duckboard and tumbling down the weir, and on our way to Olympia and Chelsea’s underground rave. Then it had been a raging torrent. This time it was merely damp and surprisingly fragrant, at least by the standards of London sewers.
Kumar was waiting for us.
‘You just couldn’t stay away,’ I said.
‘It’s warmer down here,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised you came down at all.’
So was I, to be honest, I hadn’t wanted to go down the manhole, but once I’d made myself do it I was all right. It helped that I was surrounded by people I trusted. As Conan the Barbarian famously said,
‘Where to now?’ I asked Zach.
He gestured down towards what I now knew was the North Kensington Relief sewer, far too low-ceilinged to walk along upright. The CO19 guys, who were understandably thrilled to be heading down a long straight pipe, wanted to wait until they’d fetched up a set of ballistic shields. But Nightingale waved them back.
‘We’ll do a recce first,’ he said and gestured me and Zach to go with him. The CO19 officers gave us pitying looks as we followed Nightingale into the tunnel. Now, I have allergic reaction to getting out in front of armed officers, but Zach didn’t seem bothered. Either he wasn’t expecting trouble or he had more faith in Nightingale than I did.
We made our way down the tunnel for about twenty metres when Zach told us to stop.
‘We’ve gone past it,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
We backed up two metres while Zach banged his fist at regular intervals on the left side of the tunnel. He stopped suddenly and banged the same spot a few times.
‘This feels like it,’ he said.
I put my hand on the wall where he’d smacked it. There was definitely something like a flash of an open oven and that hint of the pigsty – although given that we were in a sewer that might have been from elsewhere.
Nightingale put his hand next to mine.
‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘How do we get in?’
‘Like so,’ said Zach and, turning, put his back against the wall. Then, bracing one foot on the opposite wall, he pushed backwards, forcing a section of the wall to retreat into a recess. The walls were smooth and coated with the same ceramic finish I recognised from the fruit bowl. There was a dull click and the section behind Zach locked into place.
‘Not bad huh?’ he said and pointed upwards. Above him was an open hatch into darkness. ‘It’s like a fire door so it closes automatically. Someone needs to hold it open while I climb up.’
Nightingale lifted his hand and made a small gesture and the movable bit of wall shifted slightly and clicked. Zach gingerly shifted his shoulders.
‘Or you could do that,’ he said.
Nightingale called along the drain for the rest of the party to come up, leaving two of the CO19 officers to guard the junction and two more to man the tunnel. Then he swarmed up through the hatch and, turning, reached down to help me up behind him.
I had a look around while Zach and Lesley followed us up. We were in a space with the mean dimensions of a living room in a council flat, although the ceiling was low even by those standards. Low enough for me to scrape my helmet if I didn’t watch it.
‘Watch your head, darling,’ Zach told Lesley as she came up.
At first I thought the walls were panelled with dark wood in the Victorian fashion, but I quickly realised that the colour was wrong, too pale. When I rapped the panels with my knuckles there was the unmistakable ring of ceramic. But when I brushed them with my fingertips I felt wood grain, and mingled with that was tobacco smoke, beer and whisky. I looked at Nightingale, who was frowning as he too touched the wall. He caught me looking and
