Whispers Under Ground

of,’ said Nightingale. ‘But then they had an unlimited supply of people.’
    ‘Do you think he was connected to the Faceless Man?’ I asked.
    ‘Oh, I think he may have been the original,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s certainly the right age to be the man who decapitated Larry the Lark and established the place in Soho.’
    ‘He looked like he might be a stroke victim to me,’ said Lesley. ‘Maybe he overdid the magic. That would explain why he dropped out of sight.’
    The Faceless Man I’d met, the one who had effortlessly kicked me around the rooftops of Soho, had been young, I was sure of it, in his thirties at most. If Wood-ville-Gentle had gone into medical retirement in the 1970s when his successor was still in short trousers then that would explain the gap. Nightingale agreed.
    ‘But I do wonder what the connection between them is,’ he said.
    ‘The connection could be anything,’ I said. ‘Family, apprentice, someone he ran into at the bus stop.’
    ‘I think we can discard that last one,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘But now we know one end of the connection,’ said Lesley. ‘We can track him through his medical records, through that Russian nurse’s immigration status, the syringes, the money trail from this flat. Now that we have a name to work with – that could take us anywhere.’
    It’s going to take us there bloody cautiously,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s obvious to me that the demon trap was left here to kill you and Peter should you have made a return visit. Follow the paper trail by all means but from now on there will be no more direct encounters with potential Little Crocodiles without me present. Is that understood?’
    Strangely, neither Lesley or I rejected this change in strategy. There’s nothing like a brush with death to instil caution in a person. Nightingale, no doubt perfectly aware that he had made his point, sent us home. But I wasn’t ready for the quiet of the Folly just yet.
    ‘Do you want to go to the pub?’ I asked as we were going down in the lift. ‘We haven’t gone out drinking in ages.’
    ‘There might be a reason for that,’ said Lesley tapping the mouth hole of her mask.
    ‘So use a straw,’ I said.
    How could she say no?
    ‘Where are we going?’ asked Lesley as we sped down the Embankment.
    ‘I thought we’d go to the AB local,’ I said.
    Lesley jerked. ‘You … bastard,’ she said.
    ‘They want to know how you are,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to … meet them sooner or later.’
    ‘You were going to say “face them” weren’t you?’
    ‘Face them,’ I said. ‘Yes, face them. And more importantly neither of us will have to pay for our drinks all night.’

13
    Sloane Square
    Q uite simply, to be police is to drink. Unless you’re DC Guleed of course, in which case to be police is to learn how to be sociable amongst a bunch of drunk colleagues. It starts when you’re an ordinary PC, because after twelve hours of having the general public wind you up, you need something at the end of the day to wind you down. If marijuana was legal the first thing my generation of coppers would do after knocking off would be to light up a spliff of unusual size but, since it isn’t, we go to the pub instead. It was only after I’d sunk my first pint that I realised I was going to be designated driver that night and thus it was I who was playing the role of virtuous abstainer.
    The AB local was your classic Victorian corner pub that was hanging on to its traditional ambience by the skin of its teeth, and the fact that it wasn’t fronting the main road. It wasn’t totally overrun by police but it really wouldn’t have been a good place for a random member of the public to pick a pocket or start a fight. You could tell lower ranks because the suits were from D&C and Burtons while senior officers splashed out on bespoke – it wasn’t just that they could afford it, it was also because they were less likely to get random bodily fluids on it.
    Seawoll was holding court at one end of the bar and putting them away in the sure and safe knowledge that his most competent DI, Stephanopoulos, was running the case. When he spotted Lesley he beckoned her over. When I moved to follow he stopped me with a raised finger. Lesley had always been his favourite. Still, he sent that first and only pint down the bar to me, so the evening at least got off to the right start.
    A dark-haired DC with pale skin whose name I can’t remember sidled over with DC Carey