Dinner was late and while I waited I noticed that the bubble definitely faded a bit when Foxglove wasn’t there. Half of magic is recognising the reality behind all the mental noise of everyday life. And once you’ve noticed something it’s easier to spot it again.
Allowing for confirmation bias, of course.
When it finally arrived, dinner was shish kebab in a pitta and chips and a can of Dr Pepper. So that was all the food groups covered, then. Foxglove made a point of daintily eating her meat one chunk at a time, but she seemed a bit puzzled about what to do with the salad.
That evening I did extra exercise in the hope of wearing myself out, and then I had a shower even though Foxglove was still in the oubliette. She didn’t seem to mind, but I caught her giving me a speculative look while I was drying myself off.
That night I amused myself by seeing if I could recount the whole of The Emperor’s New Groove from memory, and when I laughed out loud for the third time Foxglove slapped the side of her futon to get my attention and hissed.
‘Why do we even have that lever?’ I asked her, but then shut up because I knew from experience with Molly that that particular style of hissing was a bad sign.
So of course then I couldn’t sleep, because I worried she was going sneak over and murder me in my bed.
Another morning in the armpit of paradise, more breakfast bars and a bottle of Perrier.
‘These,’ I told Foxglove when she handed over the food, ‘are not nearly as good for you as the packaging pretends they are. And would it kill you to give me some caffeine?’
To be honest, I was shocked to find that by Day Five I was beginning to run out of Blitz spirit. It’s hard to maintain the requisite levels of Cockney cheer when sleeping on a futon and going without coffee. However, I was cheered immensely when the washing basket made a reappearance, dropping down from the entrance hole like a beacon of hope.
Before Foxglove could reappear I stripped the bedding off both our futons and dumped it in the basket. While I worked I sang a medley of late teens Grime hits with the occasional impromptu percussion accompaniment and finishing with as much of ‘Too Many Man’ as I could remember. It did kind of peter out a bit when I turned round to find Foxglove standing right behind me.
I jumped. She smiled, but the joke was on her.
She accepted the dirty laundry from me and jumped out without checking it was all there. I’ve found that if you voluntarily take on a chore somebody else doesn’t want to do, they don’t check the results too closely – in case they have to do it again themselves. Once I was sure she was safely gone I pulled the sheet I’d nicked from her bed, folded it into a rectangle and hid it inside my nice fresh duvet cover. I didn’t know how I was going to escape, but I was pretty certain that access to ye olde knotted sheet rope would be a good start.
If they had cameras then I was stuffed. But I was willing to bet they didn’t work in fairyland, either.
That afternoon, as I came to terms with the twin burdens of cold falafel for lunch and Fëanor’s staggering denseness re: Morgoth’s intentions, Foxglove dropped down with a large artist’s sketchpad and an empty Heinz beans tin full of sticks of charcoal. She sat cross-legged on her bed and began to draw.
I sat on my bed with my back against the wall and pretended to read The Silmarillion. She kept giving me sly looks over the top of her pad. We were both playing the game of pretend indifference – I had no intention of trying to win, but I had to wait long enough for it to be convincing.
I gave it ten minutes.
‘Are you any good?’ I asked.
She gave me an inquiring look, as if she wasn’t sure what I was talking about.
‘At drawing,’ I said. ‘Are you any good? I’m famously bad at drawing. Life-changingly bad, in fact.’
Her eyes narrowed – perhaps she thought I was taking the piss.
‘Can I have a look?’
Foxglove tilted her pad against her chest to hide it and suddenly I realised that the loose top she was wearing was a linen artist’s smock – in fact, all she needed was a beret and the cliché would have been complete.
I thought of Molly and her Edwardian maid’s outfit and wondered if the costume was significant. Noted fairy botherer Charles Kingsley argued that many of the true fae take particular care to array themselves in the garb that most closely represents their nature.
Not a maid, and not a warrior queen of the Stone Age but what – an artist?
I tried hard not to smile because I know about artists. Well, musicians really. But same difference.
‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘It can’t be as bad as my work.’
She gave me a suspicious look which I returned with as much sincerity as I could muster.
She came to a decision and leapt to her feet. Flipping her pad shut, she took two steps and flew up the shaft and out of sight.
I sighed and went back to my book, in which Morgoth nicked the eponymous jewels and had away with them back to Angbad. Sorry mate, I thought, not my jurisdiction. Did you have them insured? Whereupon Fëanor gets a crime number and a leaflet about being on guard against theft and the wiles of the personification of evil.
Like I said, I think I was wearing a little bit thin at that point.
Supper was pizza, which arrived in a Pizza Express box along with garlic bread and a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola. Caffeine at last, I thought, and saved half the bottle for breakfast. While I ate Foxglove sketched me from across the room and, to my surprise, showed me her work after I’d cleared up. She was good – having caught me in a few bold charcoal strokes. I must have looked impressed because she gave a little hiss of pleasure and turned pink.
I let her pose me for more work, because in a kidnapping situation you’re supposed to take every opportunity to bond with your captors. The theory being the more they relate to you as a person the harder it is for them to casually off you when the time comes.
The light from above turned rainy grey and we could hear heavy drops bouncing off the glass roof far above. As it grew dark, Foxglove kept going until I was fairly certain that she was drawing from memory.
I used to think that being forced to attend one of my mum’s family’s christenings was most the boring thing I’d ever done – now I know better.
Posing also turned out to be surprisingly tiring and I think I fell asleep almost as soon as I got into bed.
Apart from delivering breakfast and lunch, Foxglove left me alone for most of the day. That at least allowed me to confirm that without her presence the bubble definitely weakened. Not enough that I could actually do a spell, but enough to explain why she had to sleep down in the oubliette with me.
I wondered if Molly could have the same effect. If she did, that would allow us to make truly magic-proof cells in the Folly. Then the main obstacle to locking up practitioners like Martin Chorley would be making the Folly PACE compatible – custody sergeant and everything.
Still, I’d got the impression that Foxglove had already slept in the oubliette before I’d arrived. Perhaps she was more comfortable sleeping in her little bubble. Which begged the question – would Molly be more comfortable sleeping in the same? Which, of course, led to one of those three in the morning thoughts – what if she already was? I knew she had her lair in the front part of the basement where Nightingale pointedly never intruded, and I’d always followed his lead. She could have been spending her nights in Narnia for all we knew.
After supper – kebab again, which at least meant I got to have Foxglove’s leftover pitta and salad – she brought out her sketchpad and charcoals and looked at me expectantly.
I clowned a bit to see if I could make her laugh, trying various heroic poses which backfired when she insisted that I stay fixed in my impression of Anteros, god of requited love, as depicted by Alfred Gilbert’s statue in Piccadilly Circus. Which meant standing on one foot while leanin
g forward and pulling an imaginary bow and arrow.
I lasted all of five minutes before falling over, which caused Foxglove to make the short hissing sound that I recognised as laughter. She motioned for me to take up the pose again, but I refused and she had to make do with Peter Grant heroically massaging his ankle.
Foxglove kept it up until the light began to dim.
‘Do you like working for Chorley?’ I asked, as she packed away her work.
Her head tilted as if considering the question.
‘I mean, does he pay well?’
There was a short hissing sound again.
‘So why work for him?’
The mouth turned down and she pressed her wrists together and held them out as if they were handcuffed or bound with invisible rope.
‘You’re a prisoner?’ I asked.
The mouth turned mournful.
‘Not prisoner,’ I asked. ‘Slave?’
Foxglove’s head drooped and her hands, still invisibly bound, dropped into her lap.
‘How?’
Without looking up, Foxglove shrugged and slid under her duvet and went to sleep.
I wished I could.
‘Hi, Peter,’ said Lesley. ‘You awake down there?’
It was after lunch the next day and Lesley, sensibly, didn’t come down to join me. Instead she stood at the edge of the hole and called down.
I folded over my page to mark it and sauntered over to look up at her.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I thought I’d pop in see how you’re doing,’ she said.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Although I’m finding Thingol a bit of a prat to be honest.’
‘Who’s Thingol when he’s at home?’
‘Guy in a book,’ I said. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘This and that,’ she said.
‘Aiding and abetting?’
‘Before, after and during the fact,’ she said. ‘Just like everybody else – if they’re honest.’
‘Slavery’s a new one for you, though, isn’t it?’
‘Slavery?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know you’ve been out of the police business for a while but they passed a whole new anti-slavery law this year. Specifically includes people that sit by and let it happen.’
‘Who the fuck do you think is a slave?’
‘Foxglove thinks she is.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘No, straight up,’ I said, ‘Told me so herself.’
‘She can walk out of here whenever she likes,’ said Lesley.
‘But she doesn’t, does she? Why do you think that is?’
‘How should I know? And in what way is that different from Molly?’
I know a losing argument when I’m having it, so I changed the subject.
‘Are you going to come down?’ I said. ‘I’m getting a crick in my neck here.’
She grinned, the old grin, the one I remembered.
‘That would be stupid of me, wouldn’t it? But don’t worry, you’re not going to be down there much longer. Job’s nearly done.’
‘Lesley,’ I said, ‘there’s no Merlin for you to bring back, no Arthur waiting for England’s greatest need and that sword is not fucking Excalibur. You’re just going to fuck things up for people.’
‘People is already fucked up,’ said Lesley. ‘And maybe instead of moaning, Peter, maybe you should help and make things better. That reminds me—’
She reached out of sight and pulled out a white and blue Tesco bag, which she dangled over the hole.
‘Watch out. It’s heavy,’ she said, and dropped it.
I should have let it hit the floor. But you can take caution too far, plus it was heavy and there was a glass clink as it landed in my arms.
‘Check you later,’ said Lesley, and was gone.
Inside the bag was a mega packet of Doritos, three packets of salt and vinegar crisps, a jar of Tesco’s own brand hot salsa dip and a bottle of Bacardi. Crumpled in the bottom of the bag was the receipt – I smoothed it out. Lesley had been shopping in the Covent Garden branch of Tesco. Unless I’d been the victim of a spectacular bit of misdirection I doubted we could be anywhere near central London – not with all this expensive empty space. Still, I noted the time and date of purchase and tucked it into my shoe for safe keeping.
When Foxglove dropped back in, half an hour later, I asked her for some glasses and she fetched me some plastic tumblers, the flimsy thin-walled kind that are difficult to fashion into a shiv.
I offered her some of the Bacardi but she sniffed the tumbler and handed it back. She did try the Doritos and the dip which, much to my amusement, she found too spicy. I think I must have overdone the Bacardi, though, because I told her some stories about my work – although I steered clear of anything involving Chorley or the fae. I don’t think she understood the haunted BMWs or the sentient mould, but she seemed to find the incident at Kew Gardens hilarious. Everyone seems to find that case funny, except for me – and the custodians at Kew, of course.
I woke up the next morning with that floppy buzz you get when you drink enough to get fuzzy but not enough to get a hangover.
I also had a cold feeling in my stomach.
Job’s nearly done, Lesley had said.
I needed out of the oubliette and fast.
28
I am Curious (Batman)
It started with me taking my shirt off so that Foxglove could get a good look at my rippling shoulder muscles, elegantly shaped biceps and my almost six pack. Not for the reason you might be thinking, because a) I ain’t that conceited and b) I’ve learnt that the fae don’t think like that.
But artists like the challenge of the naked human form – or at least that’s what Oberon and Effra tell me. And they’re from South London, so they should know. We also started straight after lunch, which was unusual and slightly worrying. I’d got the impression that Foxglove was off doing chores most of the day but now she seemed to have a lot of free time. I feared that one phase of Chorley’s operation was winding down in preparation for Punch Day.
I waited for a natural break in the rhythm of her work before asking how she came to be working for Martin Chorley.
Foxglove gave me a long stare, as if weighing whether I was serious, and then she made an elegant swooping motion with her left hand which ended with her fingers resting high on her chest. Her eyes locked with mine.
‘Yes, I want to know,’ I said.
So Foxglove started to tell me. It took ages to get the story out, and even after independently corroborating some of it there are parts where I’m not sure I interpreted her meaning correctly. I did suggest that she draw pictures, but either she didn’t understand the concept or she didn’t want to remember things that way.
The gist was that she had been traded by her queen for something valuable – Foxglove didn’t know what – to a strange man. The trade took place near the sea and definitely not in London. There’d been a group of them and at least two had been separated from the group immediately. Then they’d been put in a box on wheels drawn by horses – a carriage or a cart – and taken somewhere underground.
‘Where we are now?’ I asked.
Foxglove shook her head.
It got confused after that, but I think decades went by while Foxglove and her sisters worked in some capacity for their ‘owner’. I still haven’t discovered what work they were doing, but I think during that time Foxglove was taught to paint and draw. But not, I noticed, to read or write.
There was a break while Foxglove fetched supper, one of those incredibly greasy almost-but-not-quite KFC fried chicken buckets, which we divided up on paper plates and ate together sitting on the landing mat. Foxglove ate her chicken bones and all, happily crunching up the denuded drumsticks as if they were breadsticks. I offered h
er mine, which seemed to please her.
Afterwards we stayed on the mat drinking generic lemonade while Foxglove continued with her sad, sad story.
After some years they were put in a metal box, possibly a van this time, and taken to another place where they were put to work cleaning – I recognised some serious mop action in the mime show – and doing a weird strut while holding something aloft with one hand. When Foxglove mimed handing out drinks I realised she was waitressing. And when she demonstrated a smile of fake enticement I knew, with a sick feeling, which club she was waitressing in.
Albert Woodville-Gentle, Faceless Man the first, had owned a club in Soho in the 1960s and ’70s. Within its gilt and red velvet embrace he’d offered his exclusive clientele the exotic delights of people altered by magic to conform to their fantasies. There were real cat-girls and cat-boys, and other things that Nightingale has made a point of keeping from me. The place became known as the Strip Club of Doctor Moreau until Stephanopoulos threatened dire consequences if we didn’t drop the term.
Albert Woodville-Gentle was crippled in a magical duel in 1979 and finally died just after Christmas 2012 – a lucky escape for him. since I’m almost certain Nightingale had plans.
Which left the question of what had become of Foxglove and her ‘sisters’, of which two were left, after Woodville-Gentle was gone. The answer is: somebody put them in a pit, not unlike the one I was in, and left them in it for, I estimate, about fifteen years. They survived by luring rats and insects into the hole for food and licking moisture off the walls.
Foxglove was shocked by my reaction and so, frankly, was I. Us police are supposed to be tough, but there are limits. I hid my eyes with my hand and we both spent a long time staring at the ground.
We stayed that way as the light faded and we both climbed into our respective beds.
One day, I thought, I will find whoever it was put you in that pit.
And then what will I do?
Prosecute them for false imprisonment and/or attempted murder?
Make sure they were branded as sex offenders, that was for certain.
Lies Sleeping Page 25
