Whispers Under Ground

itself. How long had I been buried? I tried to ask, but it just made me cough. I stuck to drinking the beautiful water instead. I sluiced it around my mouth and pulled my head back – the fireman withdrew the straw. I realised that he was lying on the platform floor peering down at me through a hole. Behind him was a portable floodlight on a tripod and behind that, visible in the reflected light, was more rubble. This was confusing me. I was fairly certain I’d only fallen a couple of metres.
    It took them at least another hour to dig me out.
    It’s difficult to describe the serenity of rescue, like a second birth. Only this time you’re secure in the knowledge that you know what you’re going to do with your life – even if it’s just what you were doing before.
    They put me on a stretcher, plugged me into a drip, a heart monitor and gave me a cool breath of oxygen. It’s was all good right up to the moment Lady Ty leaned over and frowned down at me.
    ‘Tyburn,’ I said.
    She smiled thinly. ‘Who were you expecting?’ she asked. ‘International Rescue?’
    I didn’t say Toby the Dog because I don’t have a death wish.
    ‘Did you hear me calling?’ I said, checking to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. ‘I was calling with magic.’
    ‘I smelt you, boy,’ she said. ‘You were stinking up the sewers and, while I had half a mind to leave you, I couldn’t take the risk that you’d smell worse dead.’
    She leant down until her lips were by my ear. Her breath was spiced with nutmeg and saffron. ‘One day,’ she murmured, ‘I will ask you for a favour and do you know what your response will be?’
    ‘Yes ma’am, no ma’am – three bags full, ma’am.’
    ‘You only become my enemy if you get in my way, Peter,’ she said. ‘If you get in my way you should make sure my enemy is what you want to be.’
    She straightened up and before I could think of something clever to say she was gone.

22
    Warren Street
    I ’ve never been one of those people who tell everyone they’re fine and try to climb out of their hospital bed. Feeling as shit as I did is your body’s way of telling you to lie the fuck down and take in fluids – preferably intravenously – so that’s what I did.
    I was a little surprised that they took me to UCH, which was not the closest casualty unit, until Dr Walid appeared in my treatment cubicle and proceeded to loom over the shoulder of the junior doctor who was treating me for various cuts, bruises, scrapes and possible exposure. To give him his credit, the junior doctor who – from his accent – had inherited his breezy confidence and a private education from his parents, tried for professional insouciance. But there’s just something uniquely intimidating about a wiry six-foot Scot. Once he’d arranged to have a nurse come and put the actual bandages on, he gave me a professional smile and legged it out of there as fast he could go.
    By day Dr Walid is a world-renowned gastroenterologist, but by night he dons his sinister white coat and becomes England’s foremost expert on crypto-pathology. Anything weird that turns up, living or dead, gets examined by Dr Walid – including me and Lesley.
    ‘Good evening, Peter,’ he said as he advanced on me. ‘I was hoping you’d make it all the way to Christmas intact.’
    He became the fifth person to shine a light in my eyes to check for pupil reactions. Or perhaps he was looking for something different.
    ‘Does this mean you’re going to stick me back in the MRI?’ I asked.
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Dr Walid with great relish. ‘Between you and Lesley I’m finally beginning to develop some decent data on what happens to your brain when you become a practitioner.’
    ‘Anything I should know about?’
    ‘Early days yet,’ he said. ‘But I’d like to get you booked in as soon as possible. I’m supposed to be on the train to Glasgow tonight.’
    ‘Are you going home for Christmas?’
    Dr Walid perched on the edge of bed and scribbled a few notes on a clipboard. ‘I always go back to Oban for the holidays.’
    ‘So the rest of your family aren’t Muslims then?’
    Dr Walid chuckled. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Loyal sons and daughters of the Kirk each and every one of them. Very dour, serious people except at this time of the year. They celebrate Christmas and I celebrate them. Besides, they’re always pleased to see me since I bring the bird to the feast.’
    ‘You take the turkey?’
    ‘Of course,’ said