Whispers Under Ground

couple more times. Nothing.
    ‘Could be broken,’ said Guleed. ‘Should we try the neighbours?’
    ‘I don’t want to have to deal with the neighbours yet,’ said Carey.
    I checked the gate. It was topped with blunt spikes, widely spaced, but there was a white bollard situated conveniently close enough to give me a stepping point. The metal was painfully cold under my hands but it took me less than five seconds to get my foot on the top bar, swing myself over and jump down. My shoes skidded on the cobbles but I managed to recover without falling over.
    ‘What do you think?’ asked Carey. ‘Nine point five.’
    ‘Nine point two,’ said Guleed. ‘He lost points for the dismount.’
    There was an exit button on the wall just beyond arm’s reach of the gate. I pushed it and buzzed the others in.
    Given that all three of us were Londoners, we paused a moment to carry out the ritual of the ‘valuation of the property’. I guessed that, given the area, it was at least a million and change.
    ‘Million and a half easy,’ said Carey.
    ‘More,’ said Guleed. ‘If it’s freehold.’
    There was a ye olde carriage lamp mounted next to the front door just to show that money can’t buy you taste. I rang the doorbell and we heard it going off upstairs. I left my finger on it – that’s the beauty of being the police – you don’t have to be considerate at five o’clock in the morning.
    We heard flat-footed steps coming down a staircase and a voice yelling – ‘I’m coming, hold your fucking horses …’ And then the door opened.
    He was tall, white, early twenties, unshaven, with a mop of brown hair and naked except for a pair of underpants. He was thin though not unhealthy. His ribs stuck out but he almost had a six-pack and his shoulders, arms and legs were muscled. He had a big mouth in a thin face that opened wide when he saw us.
    ‘Oi,’ he said. ‘Who the fuck are you supposed to be?’
    We all showed him our warrant cards. He stared at them for a long second.
    ‘How about a five-minute head start to hide my stash?’ he said finally.
    We surged forward as one.
    The ground floor had obviously been converted from a garage and then notionally split in two – faux rusticated kitchen area at the back, open-plan ‘reception’ at the front, with an open-sided staircase running up the left wall. Open-plan houses are all very well, but without a traditional hallway to act as a choke point it’s laughably easy for a trio of eager police to roll right over you and take control.
    I got between him and the stairs, Guleed slipped past me and up the stairs to check there was nobody else in the house and Carey stood in front of the man deliberately placing himself just inside the guy’s personal space.
    ‘We’re family liaison officers,’ he said. ‘So in the normal course of events we’re not that bothered about your recreational drug use, but this attitude depends entirely on whether you give us your wholehearted cooperation.’
    ‘And provide coffee,’ I said.
    ‘You do have coffee?’ asked Carey.
    ‘We’ve got coffee,’ said the man.
    ‘Is it good coffee?’ shouted Guleed from somewhere upstairs.
    ‘It’s proper coffee. You make it in a cafetière and everything. It’s bare wicked stuff.’
    ‘What’s your name?’ asked Carey.
    ‘Zach,’ said the man. ‘Zachary Palmer.’
    ‘Is this your house?’
    ‘I live here but it belongs to my mate, my friend James Gallagher – he’s American. Actually it belongs to some company, but he gets the use of it and I live here with him.’
    ‘Are you in a relationship with Mr Gallagher?’ asked Carey. ‘Civil partnership, long-term committed … no?’
    ‘We’re just friends,’ said Zach.
    ‘In that case, Mr Palmer, I suggest we repair to the kitchen for coffee.’
    I got out of the way as Zachary, looking a bit wild-eyed, was herded into the kitchen area by Carey. He’d be looking to get names and addresses of James Gallagher’s friends, and if possible, family as well as establishing Zach’s whereabouts at the time of the murder. You want to do that sort of thing fast before everyone has a chance to co-ordinate their stories. Guleed would be upstairs hunting out any useful diaries, phone books, laptops and anything else that would allow her to expand James Gallagher’s acquaintance tree and fill in the gaps in the timeline of his last movements.
    I glanced around the living room. I guessed the house must have come ready