Whispers Under Ground

had noticed the same thing. Was it possible that he’d been a practitioner? Nightingale had told me there was a whole American tradition of wizardry, more than just one in fact, but he thought they’d gone dormant after World War Two as well. He could have been wrong – it’s not like his track record in that area was particularly impressive.
    Sonya, from a small village in Brindisi, said that she remembered the statue well. James had bought it from a man not far from where we were now. I asked if she meant the market but she said no, from a private auction at a house in Powis Square. I asked if she was sure of the address.
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He asked me for directions.’
    Powis Square was a typical late Victorian garden square with townhouses built around a rectangular park that had been rendered as shapeless as a duvet by the snow. Dusk was coming early under slate grey clouds as I parked the car, at an angle to the kerb, on the west side and counted numbers until I reached 25.
    The facade was covered in scaffolding, the serious kind with tarpaulins stretched between the poles to keep the dust in – a sign that the money was gutting another terraced house. It used to be that you knocked through the ground-floor rooms but now the fashion amongst the rich was to rip out the whole interior. Surprisingly, given the weather, there were lights on behind the tarpaulins and I could hear people talking in Polish, or Romanian or something else Eastern European. Maybe they were used to the snow.
    I stepped inside the scaffolding and made my way up the steps to the front door. It was open to show a narrow hallway that was in the process of being dismantled. A man in a hardhat, a suit and carrying a clipboard turned to stare at me when I entered. He wore a black turtleneck jumper under his suit jacket and the kind of massive multifunction watch that appeals to people who regularly jump from aircraft into the sea while wearing scuba gear. Or at least really wished they did.
    Probably the architect, I thought.
    ‘Can I help you?’ he asked in tones that indicated that he thought it was unlikely.
    ‘I’m Peter Grant with the Metropolitan Police,’ I said.
    ‘Really?’ he said and I swear his face lit up. ‘How can I help you?’
    I told him that I was looking into report of ‘disturbances’ at the address and had he noticed anything?
    The man, who really was the architect, asked when the ‘disturbances’ occurred and, when I told him the previous week, gave me a relieved smile.
    ‘It wasn’t us, Officer,’ said the man. ‘None of us were here last week.’
    Given the scaffolding and how much of the interior was missing they must be working bloody fast – I said so, which got a laugh.
    ‘If only,’ said the man. ‘We’ve been at this since March. We had to suspend work last week. We were waiting for some marble, white Carrara in fact, and it just completely failed to arrive and until it did arrive, what was I to do?’
    He’d sent his contingent of Poles, Romanians and Croats home for the week.
    ‘I still paid them,’ he said. ‘I’m not entirely heartless.’
    ‘Was there any sign of a break-in?’ I asked.
    Not that he’d noticed, but I was welcome to ask his workers, which I did despite the language barrier. Only one guy reported anything, and that was a vague sense that things might have been moved around while they were gone. I asked them if they’d enjoyed their week off, but they all said they’d gone and found casual work.
    Before I left I asked if I could have a quick look round and the architect told me to help myself. The first two storeys of the house had been knocked out. I could see the remnants of the plaster moulding and a dirty line of exposed brickwork like a high tide mark. As I stepped into the middle I got a flash of piano music, a bit of tortured pub upright, roll out the barrel, knees up Mother Brown, it does you good to get out of an evening. And with the piano the smell of gunpowder and patchouli oil and the flick flick flick of an old-fashioned film projector.
    It was vestigium , almost a lacuna – a pocket of residual magical effect. Or, as Lesley put it, that feeling where someone walks over your grave. Something magical had happened in the house, but unfortunately all I could tell was either it was recent or very strong and a long time ago.
    When I came out I did a quick canvass of the houses either side. Most of the residents hadn’t noticed anything