Cover

In memory of Blake Snyder (1957–2009)who not only saved the cat but the writer, the mortgage and the career as well.

Title Page

WHISPERS
UNDER
GROUND

BEN AARONOVITCH

Contents

Cover

Dedication

Title Page

Epigraph

Sunday

1. Tufnell Park

Monday

2. Baker Street

3. Ladbroke Grove

4. Archway

5. The Barbican

Tuesday

6. Sloane Square

7. Nine Elms

8. Southwark

9. Shepherd’s Bush Market

Wednesday

10. Russell Square

11. Brixton

12. Barbican

13. Sloane Square

Thursday

14. Westbourne Park

15. Bayswater

16. South Wimbledon

17. Bayswater

Friday

18. Notting Hill Gate

19. Ladbroke Grove

20. Holland Park

21. Oxford Circus

22. Warren Street

Saturday

23. Warren Street

24. Sloane Square

25. Ladbroke Grove

Christmas Day

26. Sloane Square

Boxing Day and Beyond

27. Tottenham Court Road

28. Biggin Hill

29. Mornington Crescent

Acknowledgements

Also by Ben Aaronovitch

Copyright

Epigraph

I would say to them as they shook in their fear,

‘Now what is your paltry book,

Or the Phidian touch of the chisel’s point,

That can make the marble look,

To this monster of ours, that for ages lay

In the depths of the dreaming earth,

Till we brought him out with a cheer and a shout,

And hammer’d him into birth?’

‘The Engine’, Alexander Anderson

Sunday

Sunday

1. Tufnell Park

1

Tufnell Park

Back in the summer I’d made the mistake of telling my mum what I did for a living. Not the police bit, which of course she already knew about having been at my graduation from Hendon, but the stuff about me working for the branch of the Met that dealt with the supernatural. My mum translated this in her head to ‘witchfinder’, which was good because my mum, like most West Africans, considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman. Struck by an unanticipated burst of maternal pride she proceeded to outline my new career path to her friends and relatives, a body I estimate to comprise at least twenty per cent of the expatriate Sierra Leonean community currently resident in the UK. This included Alfred Kamara who lived on the same estate as my mum and through him his thirteen-year-old daughter Abigail. Who decided, on the last Sunday before Christmas, that she wanted me to go look at this ghost she’d found. She got my attention by pestering my mum to the point where she gave in and rang me on my mobile.

I wasn’t best pleased because Sunday is one of the few days I don’t have morning practice on the firing range and I was planning a nice lie-in followed by football in the pub.

‘So where’s this ghost?’ I asked when Abigail opened her front door.

‘How come there’s two of you?’ asked Abigail. She was a short skinny mixed-race girl with light skin that had gone winter sallow.

‘This is my colleague Lesley May,’ I said.

Abigail stared suspiciously at Lesley. ‘Why are you wearing a mask?’ she asked.

‘Because my face fell off,’ said Lesley.

Abigail considered this for a moment and then nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said.

‘So where is it?’ I asked.