Whispers Under Ground

in tow. She wanted to know whether it was true I worked for the Folly or not and, when I said yes, she wanted to know whether magic was real or not.
    I told her that while there was a lot of really strange shit around, magic, doing spells and the like, didn’t really exist. I’d taken to giving this explanation to random inquiries ever since Abigail, junior ghost hunter extraordinaire, had taken my flippant confirmation and run with it.
    ‘Pity,’ she said. ‘I always thought that reality was overrated.’ And shortly after that she drifted off with Carey bobbing behind like a sadly neglected balloon.
    She’ll miss him if she lets go and he drifts off, I thought.
    I looked over to where Seawoll was making Lesley laugh. She was holding a straight glass full of multicoloured alcohol from which protruded two lemon slices, a paper parasol and a bendy straw. Since she was occupied, I decided to avail myself of the opportunity to get an update on the case. There are three basic ways to get yourself up to speed on an ongoing case. One is to log into HOLMES and work your way down the action list, reading statements, evaluating forensic reports and following the investigation tree to see where each branch leads. The primary advantage of this technique is, if you have a terminal at home, you can do it while eating pizza and drinking beer. The second involves gathering your team around a table somewhere and getting each of them to outline their progress so far. Often a white board is involved or – if you’re really unlucky – PowerPoint. The principal advantage of the meeting is that, if you happen to be the Senior Investigating Officer, you can look your subordinates in the eye and tell if they’re talking bollocks or not. The disadvantage is that, beyond about half an hour, everyone around the table below the rank Chief Superintendent will begin to slip into a coma.
    The third way is to catch up with the investigation team when they’re in the pub. And the big advantage of the pub ambush, beyond the easy availability of alcohol and salted peanuts, is that nobody wants to talk about the case and in their haste to get rid of you they will boil down their role in the investigation to a sentence. Thus: ‘We did a joint evaluation of video evidence encompassing all possible access points in conjunction with BTP and CLP and despite widening the parameters of our assessment to include registered and non-registered cameras in the high-probability zones we have as yet to achieve a positive identification of James Gallagher prior to his appearance at Baker Street,’ becomes ‘We’ve checked every CCTV camera in the system and it’s as if the fucker beamed down from the Starship Enterprise .’
    Accurate, concise – unhelpful. His fellow students thought he was boring, his lecturers thought he was talented but boring and those locals he interacted with thought he was pleasant, respectful and boring. The only interesting things about James Gallagher were periodic gaps in his timeline starting in late September where his movements couldn’t be accounted for.
    ‘But that could be him going clubbing,’ commented the DC who told me. ‘You always get gaps, and mine’s a pint if you’re getting them in.’
    I got them in all night but what I got out was pretty much nothing except to find there was an upper limit to the amount of orange juice I can drink. I was just wondering whether I could risk another pint when Seawoll beckoned me over and I suddenly became very glad I was sober.
    Lesley was as pissed as I’ve ever seen her.
    ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I have to powder what’s left of my nose.’
    Seawoll winced as he watched her stagger off in the direction of the loos then he turned his attention to me.
    ‘She was the best of your generation,’ he said. ‘And you broke her.’
    Between growing up with my mum, for whom tact is the blue stuff you use to put posters up, and my dad, who prided himself on being your plain-speaking cockney geezer, particularly when his ‘medicine’ was late, I’m pretty immune to the hard stare. Still it wasn’t easy to meet Seawoll’s gaze – and I’ve stared down Molly.
    ‘But that is as it may be,’ he said, ‘We’re fucking nowhere with this case and it’s got that nasty smell that I’ve come to associate with you and that well dressed piece of shit you work for.’
    I bit my lip and waited. He was pushing, I wondered why.
    ‘What do you want?’ I