Deep Shelter (12 page)

Fabric. Shin bone. Calf muscle taut. He grabbed ankles and pulled hard. The individual tumbled. Belsey levered himself out and onto them. Fingers went for his eyes. He felt the Kevlar padding of a stab vest against his chest.

There was a blue glow and then he was convulsing, electricity in his teeth and fingernails, stars buzzing before his eyes. He managed to think: Taser. He waited for the stun-cycle to pass. Then the world came back. Some more stars. Then the sun. Then the sun moved out of his eyes and he could see Kirsty Craik.

“Shit,” she said.

“Jesus Christ.”

Craik lowered the torch. She was injured. Blood smeared her blouse.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“I’m OK. You?”

Belsey found the Taser barb in the flesh beneath his ribs and plucked it out.

“I think you’ve cured my depression.” He lay back, holding the barb, catching his breath. She sat beside him. He could see she’d grazed her right cheekbone and right ear. Most of the blood came from her lower lip, though. “What are you doing here?” he said.

“Hampstead Way. There’s a building . . .”

“Leads down to North End.”

“To something. A dead station of some kind.”

“Why were you there?”

“We got a report, just after you left—someone worried about a man in their garden. Matched the description of our man at the station: grey hood, black gloves. I was taking a look, then I heard someone breaking into my car. I think it was him. When I got closer he ran into the small building—like a white cabin. I looked in there, and I think it was rigged to lock behind me. I don’t know. I couldn’t get out, so I went down the stairs . . .”

“And got here.”

“Someone was chasing me.”

“I was chasing you. I went into the tunnels at Golders Green. You pursued him on your own?”

“I didn’t have much choice.”

“And he attacked you?”

“Here. Yes. I didn’t see him. I think he got my CS spray.”

Belsey listened. He didn’t like the idea of getting sprayed underground. He saw the desk of communications equipment had been knocked in the fight, amplifier toppled,
Guide to the Standing Stones of Wiltshire
on the floor. The ceiling showed broken ends of wood where he’d smashed his way out. He couldn’t see Jemma’s bag or the box of candles. There was one other difference: the door marked
To Situation Room
was ajar. Faint light leaked through the crack. And now there was a noise from the same direction. A splash and then what sounded like rusted hinges creaking.

Belsey and Craik exchanged a glance. Craik was at the doorway before Belsey could say anything. He followed her into a bare corridor. An arrow scrawled on the concrete wall pointed left. Craik touched the mark. Belsey did the same. It was greasy. It smelt like lipstick.

They turned the next corner. There was a line of light beneath a narrow door at the end. Both stepped closer, exchanged a nod and Craik kicked it open. Birthday candles flickered and swooned. Twelve of them lit a double-height room centred on a large, hexagonal table. Calcium bled out of the concrete ceiling, dividing the space with tapering white stalactites. Similar growths rose up beneath each strand, from the table surface and the floor, like two thin fingers trying to touch. Candles burnt among them, five on the table itself, seven up on the rail of a balcony casting a glow over old maps. They’d been lit no more than five minutes ago.

Around the edges of the room were bottle-green filing cabinets, ledges covered in papers, blackboards with painted columns headed
Reconnaissance
,
Rescue
and
Casualty Collection
. The place had been methodically searched. A filing cabinet stood with its drawers open. The papers spread across the hexagonal plotting table had been sorted into rough piles: maps, graphs, tables of figures. There was a yellowed
Guardian
: “US Troops Invade Grenada,” “CND March Attracts Biggest Ever Crowd.” Belsey picked up an exercise book from beside a mug with a head of mould. On the front, in heavy black pen, someone had written
Regional Defence Group 4, London North
. He opened it.

Wednesday, 2 November 1983

USSR has demanded Norwegian and Dutch withdrawal from NATO. Local Government Emergency Planning Officers have taken up contingency roles.

Warsaw Pact forces mobilising.

“Look,” Craik said, quietly. Belsey slipped the book into his pocket. At the back of the room was a chair with silver duct tape around the legs, the tape sliced roughly to free whomever it had restrained. Craik pointed the torch beam down. Something red reflected back beneath the chair. A Costa Coffee loyalty card. Craik peeled it from the dirt.

“No ID on it,” she said.

She held it by the edges and showed him. It was red, with a picture of a coffee cup.
Costa Coffee Club
.
Enjoy FREE Costa coffee when you collect points!

“Don’t reckon it’s from the cold war,” Belsey said.

“Know how these work? Would it be registered to a name?”

“Possibly.”

He remembered Jemma using it. The card must have been in a pocket of her shorts. It would have recorded details of their visit—which store, what time, two coffees. Easy lead to in-store CCTV. That would look cute, the two of them at the till, just before she disappeared. If she’d registered it there would be her name and address on the system. Clever thing to drop if you wanted to notify the world of your predicament.

Craik pocketed it carefully.

“Hello?” she called. There was another door at the far end of the room. She investigated the darkness on the other side. “Nick, look here.”

The doorway led into a short stub of bare, unpainted corridor that ended at a locked grille. More tunnel was visible through the bars, steel sections bolted together with rivets the size of fists. Directly in front of the grille was a wooden sentry post, not much larger than a cupboard. It contained a bench seat. Nailed above it was a sign in a slightly hysterical antique font:
Red Passholders Only!

“You think he went through here?”

“We heard this gate closing.”

Craik shook the bars. The grille was secured with a new D-lock. They took turns rattling the metal, which must have amused their suspect if he was still in earshot.

“How did you get out last night?” Craik asked.

They returned to the communications room. Belsey gave Craik a leg-up through the crumbled ceiling panel to the next floor, then pulled himself after her. They splashed their way down the fetid corridor and climbed the winding stairway up to the door that led into the library basement. The cupboard was wedged firmly in front of it again but together they pushed, hearing the cupboard shift loudly until it toppled over. By then the young black guard with the sideburns was waiting.

“Good to see a familiar face,” Belsey said. The guard looked slightly horrified. He was joined a second later by his colossal friend. They peered past Belsey and Craik at the darkness from which they’d emerged.

“Call the police,” the first guard said to his companion. Belsey turned to Craik.

“You explain.”

Craik got her badge out and persuaded him there was no need. She was more convincing than Belsey had been. They went upstairs. Belsey made a mental note of their route to street level and its landmarks. He wasn’t going to lose the door again. When they were outside the library, Craik got on her radio to Serious Crime and told them to hustle a full SOC team. She gave directions along with a brief explanation of what they’d find. It was quarter past ten. The rain had stopped; the city glistened.

“How are you feeling?” Belsey asked.

“Worried.”

The first patrols arrived, followed by CID from local stations, then senior command. Craik directed them down. Belsey hung back. She spent fifteen minutes giving an account to two chief superintendents from the Yard’s Serious Crime squad. Craik dispatched Jemma’s loyalty card with instructions to get owner ID and a record of recent use, along with files on any missing women, by dawn.

And then there was a moment’s peace. The two of them swept aside by the arriving army of crime scene investigators like people who’ve had their party crashed.

“Need us here?” she asked the Yard team.

They were instructed to clean themselves up and get some rest.

“Well, I need a shower,” Craik said to Belsey. “I’m still shaking.”

“You say he broke into your car.”

“That’s right.”

“Was there anything in it with your address on it?”

Craik thought about this.

“Some post.”

“I don’t think you should go home.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Nightcap, my place.”

EVEN MARTYNA
’
S POKER FACE WAS TESTED AS BELSEY
led Kirsty Craik, bloodstained, through the reception of Hotel President. The women exchanged glances.

“Does she see this a lot?” Craik asked, when they were in the lift.

“No.”

“Is this really where you live?”

“For the moment.”

The lift took them unsteadily upwards. They were both silent, then silent along the corridor to his room.

“This is the Presidential Suite,” Belsey said. He unlocked his door and scanned the room for any traces of corruption and deceit. It looked innocent enough. It looked inadequate for a man in his late thirties. Craik managed a smile. She appraised the uneven stacks of books, the well-stocked bar on an upturned grocer’s crate. She sat on his bed. Belsey opted for the window seat. When they were sleeping together in Borough he had a London Bridge apartment. Not paid for out of entirely legitimate income. Maybe this new set-up looked honest, ascetic. Her presence made it feel a little absurd.

“What does he want?” Craik asked, finally.

“To show us that he can,” Belsey said. “He has knowledge and power. I think these tunnels involve more than is in the public domain.” He paused, choosing his words. “Kirsty, there’s a possibility we’re into more than we can handle, something that has confidentiality from the top, from the government, or military intelligence. That kind of scene.”

“Why do you think that?”

“All sorts of reasons. I had a disc of what looked like someone disposing of a body behind Centre Point—same suspect, moving a corpse from the BMW he stole on Friday. I couldn’t tell much about the corpse. On CCTV you can see police and ambulances attending. But there’s no record of it happening, nothing on the system. The site has been cleaned up. I think someone stole the disc from me when I was examining the area.”

Craik digested this. The night’s events had opened her mind.

“You think he’s connected to the government?”

“No, but I think he’s possibly encroached on their secrets. I don’t know how or why. I think he’s holding someone hostage because he wants to draw us into whatever game he’s playing. It involves revealing this system. Look.” Belsey found his
A-Z
in his jacket and sat beside her. “They’re deep-level tunnels. The system involves the old shelters but extends further.” He took a pencil and put a cross between Hampstead and Golders Green. “We saw North End station. We know it connects to St. Pancras Library. We saw tunnels beyond that. Red Passholders Only. From the library it’s just a kilometre along the Gray’s Inn Road before you hit a secret telephone exchange under Chancery Lane.” He placed a cross on Furnival Street.

“A telephone exchange.”

“A huge exchange. All underground. There’s bound to be some tunnel connecting them. If you follow that west you get to Centre Point where he decided to leave the body. He was deliberately placing it there. He sprayed the word ‘CAVE’ on the side of the building. Centre Point’s got an interesting history. There was a dispute over planning permission: the building went against all regulations. At the last moment, the government steps in and says it has to be built. The permit’s waved through. But it sits empty for ten years. Totally unoccupied.”

“What are you saying?”

“The main problem with the planning permission was the height. It meant they had to excavate incredibly deep to stabilise it. Something is in that space beneath the building, and it’s being watched by the same people who have their cameras trained on the deep shelters—Property Services Agency, which is a government subsidiary and doesn’t like answering its phones.”

Craik studied the map.

“Where else does this system go?”

“I don’t know. If the Chancery Lane exchange continues east along High Holborn, you’re in the City. If the Goodge Street shelter goes south, then you’re approaching Trafalgar Square, then Whitehall. Obviously there are tunnels down there.”

He took a handful of papers from the Umbro bag and passed them over. Craik leafed through. The online aficionados couldn’t help themselves when it came to Whitehall. But amid their wilder speculation, there were recurring points of consensus. Downing Street and Parliament connected underground. Each government department had extensive tunnels beneath its own headquarters, each warren probably leading to the next. Belsey knew that for Diana’s funeral they had to plant Parliament Square with flowers to deter the huge crowds that would have fallen straight through. A few streets away, under the Treasury building on Horse Guards Road, were the old War Rooms, preserved for tourists with a waxwork high command in place. And from these, logically enough, a select few could have walked the few hundred metres to the Prime Minister’s residence, or passed under Whitehall itself to whatever delights lay beneath the glum colossus of the Ministry of Defence.

Less certain, but far from implausible: there had been a tunnel dug under the river connecting Westminster and Waterloo. There was a bunker retained for an unspecified purpose beneath the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre on Broad Sanctuary. Tunnels had been extended from the Cabinet War Rooms to a new subterranean complex under Victoria, with an emergency exit in the basement of the old Westminster Hospital.

“He’s not going to get beneath Whitehall,” Craik said.

“Maybe not, but I reckon he’d like to. This individual has sent threatening emails to members of the press, signing himself as Ferryman. Ferryman was the codename for a Soviet spy.”