Deep Shelter (7 page)

He radioed a request for any local officers to attend—said he was interested in the vandalism from the night of Saturday, 1 June—and a patrol car swung by five minutes later. It contained a silver-haired sergeant and his young probationer, who was sporting fresh lipstick.

“There was an incident, Saturday the first,” Belsey said.

“Yes. We called it in,” said the Sergeant.

“What did you see?”

He got out of the car and pointed towards the base of Pear Tree House. “Bloke was trying to break open those doors. Then, when we approached, he bombed it back to the van and tore off. Almost knocked some kid off his scooter.”

“What’s in there?”

“I don’t know.”

“There are no windows on the lower floors.”

The Sergeant looked at the block as if seeing it for the first time. “No.”

“Do you know why?”

“No idea.”

Belsey approached the double iron doors and saw the beginnings of an attempt to cut through them with a blowtorch. He went to the front of the building and rang each flat number until someone buzzed him into the entrance hall. There was a pushchair, two bikes, no stairs down. He checked the lift. The buttons inside offered nothing beneath the ground floor. A man called down the stairway.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Belsey said. “Do you know what’s beneath the flats?”

“No. What’s there?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“Who are you looking for?”

Belsey walked out. He took a picture of the building on his phone and emailed it to Ferryman with a question mark.

The city was getting stranger by the minute.

HE SAT IN HIS CAR AT THE TOP OF GIPSY HILL. THE
Umbro bag contained nothing on Pear Tree House. He found the meds under the papers and inspected the labels.
Site 3
.

South London stretched beneath him. He knew a lot of people down there; a lot of esoteric knowledge was archived in those brown terraces and grey estates. Someone had to have a lead.

THE CHEMIST ANSWERED HIS
door ten floors above Lewisham Way, at the summit of one of the area’s more respectable tower blocks. He wore a white bathrobe, long rust-coloured hair wet around his shoulders. A pendant hung against his chest where the robe sagged, the goddess Shiva glinting in the light of New Cross Gate.

“I know it’s early,” Belsey said. “I need your mind.”

The chemist checked the walkway with faintly luminescent eyes. He let Belsey in. Cushions lay on the floor around a square of glass propped up on bricks. The glass supported an ashtray full of eggshells and a pint glass containing a fork and three raw eggs. Belsey took the bottles from his bag and lined them up beside the ashtray. The chemist whisked his eggs. He considered the bottles. He drank and Belsey averted his eyes. When he looked back the chemist was wiping yolk from his moustache. He turned the bottles to read the labels then unscrewed one and poured small pink pills into his palm.

“Where did you get these?”

“Underground.”

“What’s Site 3?”

“I don’t know.”

“You busted someone?”

“Not exactly. Seen anything like this before?”

The chemist rolled a pill between thumb and forefinger. He touched it to his tongue.

“How many of these can you get?”

“I’m not selling. I need to know what they are, where they’re from.”

“Modafinil’s a pep pill. Soldiers use it on patrols to stay awake. Same with the benzyls and Dexis.” He moved three bottles to the side. “These are downers: Evipan is a sedative. Amytal’s similar—those are the yellow ones. Pentothal’s a brand of sodium thiopental; more like an anaesthetic.”

“What are these fentanyl things?”

“Fentanyl citrate. One hundred times more potent than morphine.”

“Why a lollipop?”

“Emergency situations. You don’t have to fuss about with fluids or needles. Just suck it and see. What you’ve got is a field kit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Military supplies. That’s where I’ve seen it, not on civvy street. Most of these haven’t been available on script since the seventies.”

“Too much fun?”

“Too much fatality. Six or seven of these barbs and it’s goodbye cruel world. Like signing a prescription for a noose.”

“When did they stop doing them?”

“I’d say they were phased out 1985, 1986. I used to see amobarbital and Evipan around in the early eighties, before it all went heroin.”

Belsey’s phone rang. It was the CID office, which felt ominous. He let it ring. The chemist contemplated an unopened bottle.

“The pills are in good condition. Where have they been?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to go. I owe you one.”

The chemist nodded. He watched Belsey gather up his merchandise and walk to the door.

“I’d give you twelve hundred for the lot,” he said.

Belsey stopped.

“You’re kidding.”

“Have you tried them?”

NINE O
’
CLOCK AND THE
CID office was getting lively. Craik’s door was shut, but he could see through its small window that she had company.

“Who’s with the Sarge?” Belsey asked his colleagues.

“Head of security, St. Pancras Library.”

“Great.”

Belsey surfed the gloom. He walked past her office again and recognised the man as his sparring partner from the library that morning. There were CCTV stills being spread on Craik’s desk.

Belsey sat down at his own desk and checked his emails. No more word from Ferryman. He checked the intelligence system; no bodies had been found. He tried Jemma’s phone with no more luck. Thirteen hours gone. People would be starting to wonder where she was. He got a landline for Jemma’s home off his arrest report.

“Hello,” a girl answered, and for a brief second his heart soared.

“Jemma?”

“No. This is Eva.” Now he heard the Eastern European accent. “Who is this?”

“Does Jemma Stevens live there?”

“Yes.”

“This is the police. When did you last see Jemma?”

“I haven’t see her since yesterday. Is she OK?”

“We’re concerned about her whereabouts. If she shows up, call me. If she doesn’t, call me. OK?” He gave his direct number.

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Just let me know.”

He poured a coffee. He had missed calls, two messages: the chemist offering fifteen hundred for the army drugs, Mr. Kostas calling from Diamante’s: “When can I collect those bottles?”

He told Kostas to forget the arrangement, then tried another reply to Ferryman:
Is she OK? What do you want?

No action from Craik’s office; they were still tight in discussion. He called the Marine Policing Unit. For reasons that had never been entirely clear MPU incorporated the Confined Space Search Team. Maybe they wanted all the adventure boys together, gazing over the Thames from their Wapping base, planning their next challenge. He asked for DI Mick Conroy, a former Olympic rower and amateur cliff diver he’d met on a stag do.

“It’s Nick Belsey, from Hampstead CID.”

“Nicky, you rascal.”

“Got a hypothetical situation, Mick, need to pick your brains. Say there’s a girl lost somewhere down in disused tunnels under London—how could I get you down there searching?”

“We’d need authorisation from a Yard unit. Chief Inspector. Something like that.”

“And how would you go about finding where she is? What kit do you use?”

“Audio equipment, probably. If it stretches more than a mile. Maybe heat-detecting cameras.”

“You could respond immediately?”

“We’d have to check safety first. Especially if it’s disused. See if there was structural damage. See who has the latest map of the system.”

“If it was a hostage situation underground?”

“Christ. I suppose we’d need negotiators with us, maybe firearms. Would be a bit of a nightmare.”

“OK.”

“This is hypothetical?”

“Until you hear otherwise.”

A map of the system. Belsey looked at his
A-Z
, the shelters marked. He ran a check on the stolen Vauxhall Vivaro seen touring the entrance towers. The van had been taken ten days ago, from a back road in Clerkenwell, EC1. It was a face-to-face jacking. A whole new style compared to the theft of the BMW.

The Vauxhall’s driver had been returning from a cash machine at 10:15 a.m. when a man stepped out from beside the van. The man threatened him with a kitchen knife, took his wallet and car keys and drove off with the van in the direction of Holborn. The hour alone made Belsey pause—a mid-morning carjacking was novel. Suspect described as white, twenty-five to thirty-five, fair, some stubble, six foot or thereabouts. An unhelpful note informed Belsey that an e-fit was yet to be completed. The officers on the case probably thought one of the usual suspects would be apprehended by now. But it was unusual every way you looked at it.

The robbery occurred on Phoenix Place. Belsey checked Phoenix Place in his
A-Z
. It was behind the Royal Mail depot. The robbed owner was Victor Patridis, a chef at the depot itself. The van contained eggs, a tin of coffee and twenty-three loaves of white bread.

What was the suspect doing behind a postal depot at 10.15 in the morning? And why steal a van? The Vauxhall was five years old, one of the old Royal Mail fleet repainted, with minor scratches and a dent on the left side. Hardly very desirable. And not discreet, either—a Vivaro was big. It seemed an odd choice for a surreptitious run-around. Good for transporting all sorts of things, though. Tools, people. It was yet to turn up.

For whatever reason, six days after his tour around the shelters he stole the BMW. New wheels, new start. The BMW theft had been reported at 4 p.m. on Friday, 7 June. It crashed into Belsey’s life Monday the tenth.

Three days was plenty of time for a BMW 7 Series to draw attention. Belsey returned to the force intelligence system. The car didn’t come up in connection with any crimes. But there were other lines of inquiry; this was London, it was a lot easier to kill a man than to park legally. Belsey called Camden Council Parking Enforcement. Sure enough the BMW had been ticketed the day before yesterday, 7:34 a.m. Sunday, 9 June, on double yellows and a bus route.

“Do you know if any of your officers spoke to the driver?”

“No. It says the vehicle was unattended My officers didn’t see anyone return while they were there.”

“Where exactly?”

“Earnshaw Street. Just behind Centre Point.”

Earnshaw Street was a good result. Bang in the centre of town. The street itself was a back road off an incredibly busy junction. It was a hive of muggings and dealings. It was bound to be cameraed. He wanted the man’s face.

Belsey called the council’s CCTV control room and told them he needed footage relating to an urgent investigation. He gave the time and location of the parking ticket and said he was on his way. Halfway out of the door Belsey heard his name. He turned.

“Kirsty.”

“Nick, could I speak to you?”

He entered her office as the security boss left. The man turned back to Craik and nodded at Belsey.

“That’s the one.”

Belsey shut the door. Craik gestured at the images from the library spread across her desk.

“Is this you?”

He picked up a CCTV still. He’d been caught on two cameras, two angles, both good shots, neither flattering. At the time he had been staggering around in disbelief, but he looked like he’d broken in, filthy, desperate to browse the shelves.

“It seems to be.”

“You’ve been breaking into the library?”

“No. And the break-ins are more likely to be break-outs, someone trying to leave the building having arrived via tunnels beneath it.” Craik looked bemused and slightly pained. “That’s why I was there.”

“Could you expand on this a little?”

“Underneath the library is an old war control centre or something—tunnels lead from it up to the deep shelter in Belsize Park. That’s how I got there.”

“The shelter that you wanted a warrant on and I said we weren’t in a warrant situation.”

“I have reason to believe someone is down there. I went in because I thought a life was in danger.”

Belsey evaluated this new strategy as it came out of his mouth. He was embarking upon a course of half-truth, it seemed. A necessary risk. He had to account for his presence in the library and force some action. But it was still a door he had opened and would be unable to close.

“Someone’s down there?”

“I heard cries from the shelter. There’s definitely signs someone’s been in. Ask Constables Andy Durham and Ravni Singh. They were there this morning.”

“What kind of cries?”

“A woman. That’s what I thought I heard.”

Belsey wanted to tell her about the email but that would give them half an ID on the girl and place him centre stage at the same time. It was there if he needed it. He still believed he could get a team down to the tunnels without ever needing to be the object of an investigation himself.

“You threatened council staff with an axe.”

“I didn’t threaten them. I had an axe with me. I was trying to get to the tunnels and they were obstructing an investigation.”

“And what did you find? When you turned up wielding an axe?”

“I was
carrying
it. I didn’t find anything. I couldn’t find the cupboard with the door behind it. The door’s . . . behind a cupboard.”

Craik winced.

“Nick, the security manager didn’t mention anything about a bunker.”

“No one knows about it. I don’t think current council staff realise it’s there. It’s disused. But we need to move on this. We need a specialist team down there taking a look. We might not have long.”

She checked his eyes.

“Calm down, Nick. OK?”

His phone rang. He thought it might be CCTV control. He picked it up without looking at the number.

“Two grand, final offer,” the chemist said, loudly. “I can clear those pills in a—”

Belsey killed it. Craik stared at him. He began to leave. Then he saw the flowers.

A vase on a shelf at the back was filled with carnations. They had creamy white petals, a line of crimson encroaching on the white. Belsey stared at them. He went over and touched a petal. Black dust came off on his fingers. He turned.