Whispers Under Ground

word,’ I said.
    ‘No disrespect, Peter,’ said Zach. ‘But I don’t want a promise from the monkey. I want it from the organ grinder – I want it from the Nightingale.’
    ‘If they’re special ,’ I said, ‘then there’s a chance we can keep it low-key. But if you want me to bring in my governor, then you’re going to have to talk to me first.’
    ‘Who are they?’ asked Lesley.
    They were, as far as Zach understood it, people that had met up with Eugene Beale and Patrick Gallagher when they were working on the railways south of the river.
    ‘Not when they were digging the sewers?’ I asked.
    ‘From before that,’ said Zach. ‘They helped dig the tunnel at Wapping.’
    Which explained why Beale’s butty gang had such a reputation as excavators.
    ‘You say they’re not fae,’ I said. ‘But they are different?’
    ‘Yeah,’ he said.
    ‘Different how?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘Look,’ said Zach. ‘There’s basically two types of different, right? There’s born different. Which is like me and the Thames girls and what you call fae but only because you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And there’s choosing to be different, which is like you and the Nightingale.’ He pointed at me and then frowned. ‘Sorry, there’s three basic types, okay? There’s born, those that choose and those that are made different.’ He pointed at Lesley. ‘Like through an accident or something.’
    Lesley stared at his finger and he dropped it.
    I was just about to ask what he meant by that, when Lesley told Zach to stop getting off the subject.
    ‘Never mind about me,’ she said. ‘Are these people born different? Is that what you’re saying?’
    Zach nodded and I would have written subspecies in my notes if Dr Walid hadn’t once sat me down and given me a stern lecture about using biological classifications when I didn’t know what the terms actually meant. I wrote mutants instead, and then scribbled it out. Dr Walid would just have to be content with born different .
    Lesley asked him to speak out loud for the benefit of the tape.
    ‘Born different,’ said Zach. ‘I don’t know where they came from originally. The Gallagher’s and the Beales hooked up with them back in their excavating days. I don’t know how – maybe they dug them up.’
    ‘But they’re the people that make the pottery, right?’ I asked.
    Zach nodded again and then, after Lesley gave him a look, said, ‘Yes it was them that made the pottery.’
    ‘Do they have a name?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘Who?’ asked Zach.
    ‘These people,’ she said. ‘Are they dwarves, elves, gnomes what?’
    ‘We call them the Quiet People,’ said Zach.
    ‘And you took James Gallagher down to meet them?’ I asked, before Lesley had a chance to ask whether they were quiet or not.
    ‘I heard through the grapevine that he was asking after Empire Pottery and I thought I saw a business opportunity,’ said Zach. ‘So I introduced myself. I told you I was his guide, remember – when you first asked me.’
    ‘Was it you that bought the fruit bowl?’ I asked.
    ‘Actually it was that statue,’ said Zach. ‘Or rather I took him down the goblin market and he bought it there.’
    Lesley gave me the evil eye as I established that the ‘goblin market’ was the moving nazareth but I thought Nightingale would want to know.
    ‘You took him to Powis Square?’ I asked.
    ‘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