Бен Ааронович - Lies Sleeping

‘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.

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 her 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.

Having started her tale, Foxglove couldn’t wait to continue, even as I was having my breakfast the next morning. I was less ready. I had an inkling about what was coming next.

Then the darkness lifted and they were rescued.

‘Who by?’ I asked.

Foxglove made a gesture as if elegantly placing a mask upon her face. The same gesture she’d used to describe Albert Woodville-Gentle. This would be the Faceless Man mark two – Martin Chorley. He was their new master, and a much kinder master he proved. There were soft beds and good food and clean clothes and, best of all, he not only let Foxglove paint but encouraged her to do so.

She disappeared after lunch and returned with a plastic bucket stuffed with art supplies. Then she proudly showed me her museum-quality oils and acrylics and a truly astonishing range of brushes kept in a series of baked beans tins, round-tipped and pointed, sable or bristle haired depending on style.