Whispers Under Ground timeline

[sixthlight]

Imported from tumblr.

This one is cheating a bit because the days are labeled in the book, but I think it’s still helpful. (Foxglove Summer will be easy, Rivers of London and Broken Homes difficult because they both cover several months.) I plan to do these for all the books, and then integrate them into a during-the-series-timeline - I find it hard sometimes to keep track of how long Peter has been an apprentice, how long it’s been since Lesley was injured, etcetera. (For those keeping score: Peter has been an apprentice for a year and a half as of Foxglove Summer! Which is presumably why he’s getting pretty damn competent at a lot of the basic formae.)

Day 1 (Sunday, December 18th):
Peter and Lesley take Abigail to visit a ghost; Nightingale tells Peter they have word of possible Little Crocodiles in Henley and in London; Peter does some paperwork.

Day 2 (Monday, December 19th):

Peter is woken at 3am by a call from newly-promoted DI Stephanopoulos about a body found at Baker Street Station, James Gallagher. He investigates the crime scene, meets Jaget Kumar, and is assigned to the Murder Team. He and DS Guleed and DS Carey go to interview the victim’s flatmate, Zach Palmer. Peter visits Gallagher’s art school, then he and Lesley go to interview Albert Woodville-Gentle, suspected Little Crocodile. They meet him and his nurse, Varena (Varvara Tamonina). Nightingale has gone to Henley to speak to the other suspected LC. He doesn’t come back in time for dinner, and Lesley agrees to eat in the dining room with Peter for the first time since moving into the Folly.

Day 3 (Tuesday, December 20th):

Peter has a morning meeting with the Murder Team at Belgravia and meets FBI Agent Kimberley Reynolds. He goes to Portobello Market to investigate the fruit bowl with Zach Palmer, then to Ryan Carroll’s art exhibit at the Tate, where he runs into Fleet and Madame Teng. On the way back he gets a call from Zach, who is being pursued by the Nolan brothers; he rescues Zach, manages to talk Reynolds out of interfering when she shows up, and takes Zach back to the Folly.

Day 4 (Wednesday, December 21st):

Zach is sent to find out where the goblin market is taking place. Lesley and Peter visit it and have a beer with Effra and Oberon, and then feel a demon trap going off and go to help Nightingale, who had gone to re-interview Woodville-Gentle. He’s gone and a demon trap was left in the flat. In the evening, Peter takes Lesley out drinking with the Belgravia coppers and has to fend off her advances on the way home.

Day 5 (Thursday, December 22nd):

Peter and Lesley track the Nolan brothers and find the house that doesn’t exist, as well as someone else’s tracker on their car. Peter finds a secret entrance to the Underground. Peter and Stephanopoulos interview Graham Beale about pottery. That evening, Nightingale, Peter, Lesley, and Kumar go to see where the secret entrance goes. Peter and Kumar run into first Reynolds, also in the sewers, then one of the Quiet People, who tries to shoot them. They accidentally find Olympia and Chelsea at a rave with Zach tending bar.

Day 6 (Friday, December 23rd):

Peter and Kumar exit into Oxford Circus station and see another Quiet Person (Stephen, this time) who panics when chased and buries Peter under the platform. Peter hallucinates a conversation with the original spirit of the Tyburn, and is then rescued with the help of Lady Ty, who claims he now owes her a favour. Peter is delivered to UCH, sees Dr. Walid, and falls asleep in the MRI.

Day 7 (Saturday, December 24th):

Peter wakes up in hospital, talks to Lesley, is visited by his parents and Tyburn, then Zach, chases and arrests Zach, and gets himself discharged. He and Lesley interview Zach at Belgravia. Thinking that the Quiet People might be at risk from E. coli-contaminated food, they organise to go into the tunnels and speak with them, and basically everyone comes along, including Reynolds (because she tails them.) They speak with the Quiet People and Peter figures out Ryan Carroll is the killer. He’s arrested, interviewed, and confesses.

Day 8 (Sunday, December 25th*):

In the morning, presents are exchanged, then Lesley goes out to Brightlingsea; Peter goes to his family Christmas party; and Nightingale says he has to stay with Molly and instead goes to find Kumar, goes over the Crossrail plans, and identifies the Faceless Man’s lair.

Day 9 (Monday, December 26th): Nightingale, Peter, Lesley, Stephanopoulos, Guleed, Kumar, the TSG, and sundry others raid the Faceless Man’s suspected lair and find Woodville-Gentle’s body. He’s been dead for two to three days.

Day 10 (Tuesday, December 27th): Peter farewells Reynolds at the airport, then goes to rescue Abigail from the British Transport Police and tells her Nightingale has agreed to let her be the Folly cadet branch.

*This makes it 2011 because Christmas happened on a Tuesday in 2012, and we are explicitly given the days of the week in this book. The last time before that Christmas was a Sunday was 2005, and the next time will be 2016, neither of which are really viable as alternatives. Of course, it’s not that simple, but it should be 2011.

Thoughts:

- Wow, this is really the book for introductions! We meet some key players going forward, including but not limited to Zach, Kumar, Varvara, Effra, and Oberon, and get re-introduced to Abigail and Guleed.

- I think in retrospect Nightingale’s “have to stay with Molly” excuse was just a kind way to get Peter off to his family party while he did work; he, Peter and Lesley were all in the Folly with her until “late morning” when Lesley was picked up by her sister, and he can’t have spent much time there if he then went and interrupted the Beale family dinner, went over all the plans, and arranged for a full TSG-equipped raid the next day.

- Do we think Nightingale gave Lesley anything for Christmas, or vice-versa? The way it’s written it’s implied not (Lesley leaves -> presents are exchanged.) She can’t have been at the Folly for more than nine weeks at this point; she demonstrates the werelight mid-October, this is late December.

- This is a really fast murder investigation; they wrap it up in under a week. And Peter solves it largely by doing basic police work (interviewing witnesses, looking for clues at the crime scene/suspect’s house, and then putting the two together.) The magic stuff is in some ways peripheral to the actual crime, it’s only magical insomuch as the principals were people connected to magic.

- Nightingale’s attention is 100% on the Faceless Man issue for the entire book, Peter’s largely running the Underground case on his own until he calls Nightingale in for things (the sewers & visit to the Quiet People.) Which is probably as it should be.

- An addition to Chekhov’s Armoury: the car trackers Reynolds gives Peter at the end of the book. We haven’t seen him use them yet…that he’s mentioned.