Whispers Under Ground

butty gang drew upon their phenomenal tunnelling experience to become engineering subcontractors in their own right. As the work became mechanised and the expendable masses were replaced by massive machines, each new generation of Beales was educated to meet the challenges of the new age.
    ‘I thought you were business and administration?’ I asked.
    ‘I am,’ he said. ‘It was my younger brother who was the engineering brains of our generation. Despite our name we do a great deal of civil engineering work, in fact that’s what saved us when the crash came. If it hadn’t been for our Crossrail contracts we would have gone under.’
    ‘Would it be possible to talk to your brother?’ I asked.
    Beale looked away. ‘I’m afraid he was killed in a works accident,’ he said.
    ‘I am sorry,’ I said.
    ‘However technological it gets,’ said Beale, ‘tunnelling is still dangerous work.’
    ‘About the warehouse,’ said Stephanopoulos quickly, presumably to stop me from going off on another tangent. ‘That’s a prime piece of real estate you have there even in the current market. Why haven’t you developed it?’
    ‘As I was saying,’ said Beale. ‘We are a family firm and like many companies that grow organically, our management structures are not always entirely rational. We leased the warehouse to Nolan and Sons in the early sixties and while the terms of that lease are still running we can’t repossess it.’
    ‘That’s a very strange contract,’ said Stephanopoulos.
    ‘That’s probably because it was written on a beer mat and sealed with a handshake,’ said Beale. ‘That’s the way my father liked to do business.’
    We stayed a bit longer to get contact details, so that a minion from the Murder Team could have a fun Christmas unpicking the corporate structure of Beale Property Services, just in case it became relevant later. I doubted it would be a priority – perhaps the minion would only have to give up New Year’s Eve.
    We walked back to Stephanopoulos’ BMW, picking our way through slippery patches of decomposing snow.
    ‘I’m as fond of industrial archaeology as the next woman, Peter,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘But what the hell was that all about?’
    ‘The murder weapon,’ I said.
    ‘At last,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Something I can relate to.’
    ‘James Gallagher was stabbed with a shard of a large flat dish,’ I said. ‘Whose chemical composition matches that of the fruit bowl which we have now traced back to a warehouse full of similar stuff.’
    ‘Identified as the property of the Unbreakable Empire Pottery Company,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘With you so far – wait. Is this where it’s going to get odd?’
    ‘That depends on how much you want to know, boss.’ I opened the passenger door for her to get in.
    ‘What are my options?’ she asked as I climbed into the driver’s seat.
    ‘Meaningless euphemisms at one end and your full-on Unseen University at the other,’ I said. ‘The Unseen University is a bit like Hogwarts—’
    Stephanopoulos cut me off. ‘I have read some Terry Pratchett,’ she said.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Not really. But her indoors buys them in hardback and reads out bits to me over breakfast,’ she said.
    ‘So what do you read for fun?’ I asked.
    ‘I’m partial to the odd misery memoir,’ she said. ‘I find it comforting to know other people had worse childhoods than me.’
    I kept my mouth shut – there’s some things you don’t ask senior officers.
    ‘I’ll settle for meaningful euphemisms,’ she said at last.
    I backed out of the car park before explaining.
    ‘All of the pottery found so far has had the same signature which indicates that it is special ,’ I said. ‘But this signature fades with time—’ I was going to say that it was like the half-life of radioactive decay, but I’ve found to my cost that that just usually leads to me explaining what radioactive half-life is. ‘Like a painting that’s been left in the sun,’ I said. ‘The stuff in the warehouse is old, some of it’s very old, but the murder weapon felt brand-new.’
    ‘What about the boxes of plates that Kevin Nolan arrived with?’
    ‘Pretty faded,’ I said. ‘I suspect that it’s been stored somewhere else prior to Kevin’s delivery.’
    ‘Stored where?’ asked Stephanopoulos. ‘And by who?’
    ‘Someone’s going to have to go underground to find out,’ I said.
    Three guesses as to who that was going to be.

17
    Bayswater
    R