Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(45)

‘Are you sure we should be cutting it up quite so casually,’ I said, ‘if it’s one of the talking ones?’

‘We are not being casual,’ said Dr Vaughan. ‘This is a post mortem, not a dissection.’

‘That’s why Jen’s doing the cutting,’ said Abigail.

‘Do you have a cause of death?’ I asked.

‘Multiple injuries caused by massive blunt force trauma,’ said Dr Vaughan.

‘Hit by a car,’ said Abigail.

‘Most likely,’ said Dr Vaughan.

‘Notification is going to be a bit tricky,’ I said.

Not that I wanted the job of telling this fox’s nearest and dearest.

‘Abigail’s thought of that,’ said Dr Walid proudly.

Abigail held up a large brown paper forensic envelope and opened it so I could see the white towelling face cloth inside.

‘I rubbed it over his fur,’ she said. ‘Other foxes should be able to identify him by his smell.’

‘They’ll probably know he’s dead by the smell, too,’ said Dr Walid.

‘Handy. That’ll save you doing that part of the notification at least,’ I said, which got me stony looks from all three.

‘Don’t go anywhere without telling me first,’ I told Abigail, and then deliberately let Toby in on my way out. I admit that was a bit petty, but in my defence I hadn’t had much sleep and I was worried about Carey.

I went to my room, set my phone alarm for later that afternoon and climbed into bed.



I didn’t really feel like I’d slept much when the alarm woke me, but I had my part to play in the continuing interrogation of Zachary Palmer. We’d done good cop, bad cop, patiently-trying-to-understand cop, and now we were going to try ‘I’m on your side really’ cop. By rights the last one should never work in a million years, but you’d be surprised. Certainly some people currently doing time have been.

I selected my wardrobe with care – jeans, trainers and my Adidas hoody of urban invisibility. Then I picked up a basket of surplus cakes from Molly, climbed into the Hyundai and headed off to Belgravia to liberate Zach the goblin boy.

‘I bought you a present,’ I said once he was out and we were safely in the Hyundai, and I passed over the basket.

He gave me a sour look before opening the basket and extracting a cupcake decorated with a bunny face in blue and white icing. He brandished it at me.

‘Do you think this makes everything all right?’ he asked, but took a bite anyway. ‘It’s not going to work,’ he said through a mouth full of crumbs.

‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked.

‘It’s not going to work.’

‘What isn’t going to work?’

‘You don’t get all friendly, give me cake and then think I’m going to lead you to my secret hideout.’

‘Do you have a secret hideout?’

‘See.’ Zach had a rummage in the basket to see what else he could find. ‘Want something?’

I said I was trying to cut down.

‘More for me,’ he said.

‘Lesley said that you can’t stay in the same place for long. She said it was a compulsion because you’re part fae.’

‘That there is one of them things, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘One of what things?’

‘One of them things that is sort of true. But at the same time not really true. I like to move about, but I have stayed put once or twice – like in Notting Hill.’

Where he’d happily lived in the unfortunate James Gallagher’s flat for at least three months without moving on.

‘I get restless sometimes,’ he said. ‘And sometimes I don’t.’

Then to my surprise he snapped the basket closed, put it on his lap and folded his arms firmly over the lid.

‘Maybe you should leave Lesley alone,’ said Zach, after we’d sat in silence for a bit. ‘It’s not like there’s nothing else going on, is it?’

People are often willing to tell you all sorts of secrets when they’re trying to hide something from you. You should always make a mental note – it may not be your case today but you never know, it might come round later.

I asked what else was going on.

‘For one thing, the Vikings have gone at Holland Park,’ said Zach.

‘The Vikings?’

‘There used to be loads of ghosts at Holland Park.’

I said I’d never had any reports of mass ghost sightings at Holland Park and Abigail had done a really serious search the year before.

‘Not on the main tube tunnels,’ he said. ‘The other ones. The secret ones.’

A secret bunker had been adjacent to the station during World War Two, which was now used as a private nightclub by my least favourite pair of Bev’s sisters and also connected to the Quiet People’s warren under Notting Hill.

‘Vikings?’

‘Danes maybe, Northmen certainly,’ said Zach. ‘Raiders from across the sea what got themselves done in by Alfred or ?thelred. One of them early kings.’

‘You saw them?’ I asked.

‘Nah,’ said Zach, ‘but you could hear them, couldn’t you? All screaming and yelling and lamenting.’