The Baker Street Translation (26 page)

And then, at the very edge of the raised chamber, he fell again.

But this time, he didn't get his arms down. This time, he went face-first into the vile river.

And then—his head submerged, his arms slipping on the smooth tunnel floor as he tried to push himself up—Reggie felt someone grab the back of his collar and pull.

“Bloody tourist!” said a man's voice.

Reggie got both hands on the raised chamber floor now, pushed, and with that and the assist on his collar, he managed to stand.

Reggie shook the filth from his hands and stepped forward onto the semidry floor. Then he tried to wipe the sewer water from his eyes and focus. He gestured for his rescuer to lower the industrial-strength electric lantern that was shining in his face.

The man lowered the light slightly, and now Reggie got a look. He saw a man in knee-high rubber waders and a pale green uniform, with the logo of the Royal Parks Service on the shoulder. The man didn't introduce himself, but the name Aspic was sewn in red onto his shirt pocket.

“You're going to need more shots than you can even count. More gamma globulin than the Health Service even keeps in stock,” said Aspic. “You've no idea. Why anyone thinks it a lark to come take a stroll in a sewer is beyond me. It's not a recreation area. But you‘ll wish you hadn't. Bloody sewer tourer.”

“I'm no—what did you call me?”

Reggie took a moment to assess his benefactor. Aspic was about Reggie's height, of thick build, probably mid-fifties. White skin, pale even by London standards. A working-class accent much like Reggie's own before Reggie had gone to university, but with a bit of an affectation.

He wore a uniform that Reggie had seen frequently on Royal Parks workers; it wasn't a new uniform, and it fit as though he had been using it for a very long time. He carried the lantern as though he had done so for years.

“Sewer tourer,” said Aspic. “You're not the first I've found. There've been others. You think just because it's not easy to get into the sewer, and unpleasant once you do, that it makes you an explorer. It doesn't. And you can call it an underground river, you can claim you're exploring the hidden Westbourne River, or Tyburn, or whatever you want—but you're not. You're just a slogger about in turds and pee. You're a sewer tourer.”

“Believe me,” said Reggie. “I would not be here if I didn't have to be.”

The uniformed man regarded Reggie suspiciously.

“Look at me,” said Reggie. “Would I wear a suit like this into a sewer voluntarily? Would I have worn these shoes?”

The man nodded.

“All right,” he said. “I see your point. A chalk-stripe suit. That does make you a bit of a toff. I'll give you that.”

“Thank you,” said Reggie.

“What are you doing here, then?”

“I must get to Hyde Park immediately,” said Reggie.

Aspic considered that. “When people say ‘take the underground,'” he said, “they usually mean the tube—not the sewer.”

“In minutes,” said Reggie, “I believe there will be an explosion at an assembly in Hyde Park that will kill dozens of people. If my guess is correct, it will come from down here. If my guess is wrong, it will come from somewhere above. Either way, I must get there immediately.”

The park worker's face was hard to read as Reggie said this; Reggie couldn't see him clearly. But the man's posture stiffened.

“Sounds unlikely to me,” he said to Reggie. “Just who are you?”

“Reggie Heath, QC, Baker Street Chambers,” said Reggie, hoping it would sound impressive enough to enlist cooperation.

Aspic aimed the lantern at Reggie again and studied his face.

“All right,” said Aspic after a moment. “I'll take you there.”

He took the lantern off Reggie for a moment and scanned it quickly around the little chamber they were standing in. There were three tunnels, not counting the one Reggie had come from. The one in the center looked much like a continuation of the one he had been in. The ones on each side were slightly narrower, but still high enough that Reggie would have to stoop only slightly, and they were much drier.

“You can follow me,” said the man, illuminating the tunnel on his left. “I'll warrant you would have gone the wrong way if I hadn't come along. No one would have seen you again until they found you drowned and floating like a chalk-striped turd in the Thames.”

37

At Scotland Yard, Nigel was in the interrogation room reserved for only the most frightening terrorist suspects.

There were not just one, but two uniformed bobbies standing guard outside the locked door.

There were not just one, but two separate wall-length one-way windows, from which representatives from various agencies, if any of them were available, which they were not, could look in on the proceedings.

And Nigel had not just one, but three interrogators—a plainclothes detective named Pierce, in his late fifties, a woman from the forensics lab, fortyish, named O'Shea, and Sergeant Meachem himself.

Amazingly, when Nigel had blocked Sergeant Meachem's car at the gate and accused the officer of concealing a bomb detonator in a plastic duck, no one had taken his word for it.

Possibly, Nigel acknowledged to himself, this was the foreseeable result—but he just hadn't been able to think of what else to do.

The duck itself was now resting in the center of the table.

“Now then,” said Pierce. “Let me be sure I understand. You are saying that Sergeant Meachem here was attempting to drive past the Scotland Yard security gate with a bombing device in the boot of his car, concealed in the body cavity of a plastic duck. This duck we have here on the table in front of us.”

“Yes, but not the explosive itself,” said Nigel. “Just a detonator.”

“Yes, as I said,” said detective Pierce, just a tad annoyed. “A bombing device.”

“Correct,” said Nigel as agreeably as he could.

“You may not be aware,” continued Pierce, “that Sergeant Meachem graduated third in his class last year in ‘Detection and Handling of Explosive Devices.'”

“I was not aware,” said Nigel. He checked his watch. Time was running out, but it was a close call as to whether saying so would move things along or slow them down.

“If he had not,” continued Pierce, “I would never have saw fit to recommend my wife's nephew for such a position in assisting Inspector Wembley.”

“Understandable,” said Nigel.

“Well, then,” said Pierce, and he sat back with his hands folded, as if he had settled the matter. Then he leaned forward and added, “You do understand that interfering with a Metropolitan police officer in the performance of his duties is a felony?”

“Sergeant Meachem wasn't performing his duties,” said Nigel. “He was smuggling evidence in a murder investigation—including a detonation device intended for use at an event that takes place, as I've been trying to tell you, within the hour. Time is running out.”

“Well now, if there is a detonation device, as you claim, and if it is right here in this duck, as you claim, then there's not so much urgency now, is there?” said Meachem. “We already have it in our possession.”

“There are other ducks like this one,” said Nigel. “I don't know how many, but I believe each of these toys brought into the country and assembled by Elgar Imports is a potential bomb—containing a microchip for detonation and lacking only the explosive and the action of a person who knows the code to set it off.”

“Total rubbish,” said Meachem.

Now O'Shea, the forensics examiner, leaned forward and put her hands on the duck.

“Let's just have a look for this microchip, then, shall we?” she said.

“Fine by me,” said Meachem. “Let's.”

Nigel breathed a sigh of relief. Now they would get somewhere.

The woman carefully touched the toy all around the edges.

“So. We appear to have a plastic toy duck. Or possibly goose. Roughly fifty centimeters long and twenty wide. White plastic body. Yellow plastic beak.” She picked it up and set it down. “Weighing approximately twenty ounces.”

“Check the compartment underneath,” said Nigel.

She gave Nigel a look that told him to stop giving instructions. She proceeded to check the battery compartment.

“We have a battery compartment,” she said, “approximately four centimeters by six, containing”—she peered inside—“two double A batteries.”

“The other compartment,” said Nigel. “Right next to it. There. There's no tab on it, but you can pry it loose.”

Nigel received another one of those looks, but the forensic examiner proceeded to pry open the second compartment.

“A second compartment,” she said. “Approximately two centimeters by three. Containing”—she peered inside—“nothing.”

“Are you sure?” said Nigel to O'Shea.

She held the duck up, underside out, for Nigel and all to see.

Empty.

Meachem and his uncle by marriage both gave Nigel a smug look.

“A felony,” said Meachem, with great satisfaction. “Interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duty is a felony.”

For a moment, Nigel could say nothing.

He looked up at the clock. Ten minutes remained before the birthday celebration was scheduled to commence at Hyde Park.

Nigel glared across at Meachem.

“He could have put it in his coat. Or his pants pocket. He had just enough time.”

“This is completely unnecessary and more than a little insulting,” said Meachem.

Nigel looked for help to the forensics examiner.

“Coat, please,” she said to Meachem.

Meachem sighed, as if greatly put out. Then he stood and removed his coat. He handed it to O'Shea.

She checked the pockets. All empty.

She pointed at Meachem's pants.

Meachem, without further prompting, began to undo his belt buckle.

“No, no, please,” said O'Shea. “Just pockets inside out. Please.”

Meachem did as he was told, showing the cheap white inside linings of his pockets.

All empty.

“A felony,” said Meachem's uncle by marriage.

Five minutes remained.

This was getting extremely problematic. Meachem had to have the chip on him; Nigel had kept him in sight except for the briefest moment, and there'd been no place where he could have discarded it in the car park without it immediately being found in a search, and they had, in fact, done a search. The Yard was nothing if not thorough.

It would be found. It would have to be. But it would be too late.

Then, suddenly, Nigel realized the obvious.

“May I make a call?”

“You are allowed two calls from the public phone before we take you to your holding cell,” said Meachem with something of a smirk.

“Won't be necessary,” said Nigel. “Just one call—right now—from my mobile.”

Meachem looked suspiciously at Nigel.

“If it will wrap this up, go right ahead,” said Pierce.

Nigel took out his mobile and quickly punched in the coded number that they had identified at Baker Street.

From the look on Meachem's face, Nigel could see that the sergeant realized now what was up and was about to object—but too late.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,” said a plastic duck's voice.

But it wasn't coming from the duck.

Pierce looked at Meachem.

“Did you say something?”

Panic began to register on Meachem's face.

“Pardon me,” said Meachem, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Nigel dialed the number again.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.”

Now everyone in the room looked in the general direction of Meachem's stomach.

Nigel dialed again.

Meachem leaped up and bolted for the door.

38

Reggie stooped down to clear the six-foot ceiling and followed the Royal Parks Service worker into the tunnel.

Aspic moved quickly, as if on a mission. He shone the lantern ahead of them as he went, but never with a pause to actually look about, just charging straight ahead, and Reggie, not being so familiar with the tunnel, had to scramble to keep up.

After some five minutes, Reggie's shoulders and the back of his neck were beginning to cramp up. He tried to stretch them out, and he stumbled in the process; when he stood back up, he forgot the ceiling height for a moment and slammed the top of his head into the hard brick above.

Now he was so far behind that the light vanished for a moment. But then the worker came back.

“Get up! Come on! We're almost there! Fifty yards will do it.”

Reggie didn't see how that could be; he could see nothing on ahead of the lantern's beam. But he pushed on.

And then Aspic and his lantern halted at what looked like a dead end.

But it wasn't. Reggie caught up and saw Aspic unlatch a solid-steel gate that had been blocking that end of the tunnel.

“It diverts the flow,” said Aspic as he pushed on the rusty iron latch. “Not many know about this one. There are tunnels under London that no one but me has seen in a hundred years. This one's a shortcut. You're just lucky it was me that found you, lad.”

He pushed open the gate, and suddenly there was a rush of fresh air.

It brought with it a whiff of vanilla. Reggie tried to remember where he had encountered something similar recently.

He stepped through the opening. He and the Royal Parks worker were in yet another small chamber of intersecting tunnels.

The worker seemed to be having trouble getting the lantern focused on their next turn.

“Ah, here it is,” he said, motioning Reggie forward. “You first; I'll just fix the light, and I'll be right behind you.”

Reggie wasn't sure he liked that plan of action, but he took a step forward in the dark.

And then suddenly he remembered where he had noticed that scent of vanilla before, but it was too late—he had stepped forward onto nothing.