Whispers Under Ground

the ballast, I guessed. Or maybe ancient soot from when steam locomotives pulled upholstered cars full of respectable Victorians through the tunnels.
    ‘For god’s sake somebody get that boy a hanky,’ said a large voice with a Northern accent. ‘And then someone can fucking tell me why he’s here.’
    Detective Chief Inspector Seawoll was a big man from a small town outside Manchester. The kind of place, Stephanopoulos had once said, that explained Morrissey’s cheery attitude to life. We’d worked together before – he’d tried to hang me on stage at the Royal Opera House and I’d stuck him with 5cc of elephant tranquilliser – it all made sense at the time, trust me. I’d have said that we came out about even, except he had to do four months of medical leave which most self-respecting coppers would have considered a bonus.
    Medical leave was obviously over and Seawoll was back in charge of his Murder Investigation Team. He’d taken a position up the platform where he could keep an eye on the forensics without having to change out of his camelhair coat and handmade Tim Little shoes. He beckoned me and Stephanopoulos over.
    ‘Glad to see you feeling better, sir,’ I said before I could stop myself.
    Seawoll looked at Stephanopoulos. ‘What’s he doing here?’
    ‘Something about the job felt off,’ she said.
    Seawoll sighed. ‘You’ve been leading my Miriam astray,’ he told me. ‘But I’m back now so I hope we’ll see a return to good old-fashioned evidence-based policing and a marked reduction in the amount of weird bollocks.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
    ‘That being said – what kind of weird bollocks have you got me into this time?’ he asked.
    ‘I don’t think there was any magic …’
    Seawoll shut me up with a sharp gesture of his hand.
    ‘I don’t want to hear the m word coming out of your mouth,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t think there’s anything odd about the way he died,’ I said. ‘Except …’
    Seawoll cut me off again. ‘How did he die?’ he asked Stephanopoulos.
    ‘Nasty stab wound in his lower back, probably organ damage but he died of loss of blood,’ she said.
    Seawoll asked after the murder weapon and Stephanopoulos waved over the Exhibits Officer who held up a clear plastic evidence bag for our inspection. It was the biscuit-coloured triangle I’d found in the tunnel.
    ‘What the fuck is that supposed to be?’ asked Seawoll.
    ‘A bit of a broken plate,’ said Stephanopoulos and she twisted the bag around so we could see what was indeed a triangular section from a shattered plate – it had had a decorative rim. ‘Looks like earthenware,’ she said.
    ‘They’re sure that’s the weapon?’ asked Seawoll.
    Stephanopoulos said that the pathologist was as sure as she could be this side of an autopsy.
    I didn’t really want to tell Seawoll about the concentrated little knot of vestigia that clung to the murder weapon but I figured it would only lead to more trouble later if I didn’t.
    ‘Sir,’ I said. ‘That’s the source of the … weird bollocks.’
    ‘How do you know?’ asked Seawoll.
    I considered explaining vestigia but Nightingale had warned me that sometimes it was better to give them a nice simple explanation that they can relate to. ‘It just has a kind of glow about it,’ I said.
    ‘A glow?’
    ‘Yeah a glow.’
    ‘That only you can see,’ he said. ‘Presumably with your special mystical powers.’
    I looked him in the eye. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My special mystical powers.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Seawoll. ‘So our victim gets stabbed in the tunnel with a bit of magic pot, staggers up the track looking for help, climbs up on the platform, collapses and bleeds out.’
    We knew the exact time of death, 1:17 in the morning, because we got it all on a CCTV camera. At 1:14 the footage showed the blur of his white face as he pulled himself onto the platform, the lurch as he tried to get to his feet and that terrible final collapse, that slump down onto his side – the surrender.
    Once the victim had been spotted on the platform it took the station manager less than three minutes to reach him but he was definitely, as the station manager put it, brown bread by the time he found him. We didn’t know how he’d got in the tunnel and we didn’t know how his killer had got out but at least, once forensics had processed the wallet, we knew who he was.
    ‘Oh bollocks,’ said Seawoll. ‘He’s an American.’ He passed me an