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 leaning 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.