Department 19: Battle Lines (41 page)

His trial the following year was a media circus; twice he was attacked in the dock, leading the judge to take the extraordinary step of banning the public from his courtroom. Alastair Dempsey was charged with a single murder, that of the woman found in his basement, eventually identified as a prostitute named Anna Bailey, but was investigated in connection with more than thirty-five other missing persons, all women, all of whom had disappeared in the fifteen years prior to his arrest. And although none were conclusively linked to him, the Senior Investigating Officer on the case made it clear, in a number of classified memos, that he believed Dempsey had been involved in as many as twenty of them.

The man himself spoke only twice during the trial, to confirm his name and address. He refused to answer any questions, by either the prosecuting or defending QCs, and showed no emotion whatsoever when he was committed to a secure psychiatric unit for the rest of his life, a sentence that provoked the famous THROW AWAY THE KEY headline that filled
The Globe
’s front page the following morning, and which had now been cut short by supernatural intervention.

The three Operators sat in the back of the van, watching evening arrive in the capital via the cameras that were hidden in all four sides of the vehicle’s bodywork.

In front of them stood the glass and concrete of King’s College London; through the van’s external microphones Jamie could hear the laughter and chatter of students leaving the building and making their way along the Strand, and the steady thud of music from the students’ union at the bottom of Surrey Street.

“I can’t stay here, sir,” said their driver, over the intercom. “Not for more than a couple more minutes.”

“No problem,” said Jamie. “Just waiting for a clear moment to deploy.”

He sympathised with the driver; the large black vehicle was far too conspicuous to park on a busy Central London street. As soon as his passengers disembarked, he would take the van to a less busy part of the city, and wait for the order to return and pick them up. The problem facing Jamie was that he and his squad mates were also highly visible, and he had no desire for them to be on the street for a second longer than was necessary. He checked the screens again, waiting for the foot traffic to die down, for a gap in which they could approach their destination.

Aldwych station, which still bore its original name, Strand station, had been part of a branch of the Piccadilly line that had closed in 1994. The station itself was now a listed building, and the tunnels and platforms that lay intact beneath it were regularly used as locations for films and television programmes. It had been the subject of several reinvention and reinvigoration schemes, none of which had made it through the labyrinthine mess of bureaucratic red tape that stymied so many of the capital’s projects. “Surveillance are sure he’s in there?” asked Ellison.

“So they say,” said Jamie.

“How do they know?” she asked. “I get that our satellites can track vampires by their heat signature, but almost three hundred escaped from Broadmoor in about half an hour. There can’t be that many satellites up there.”

“There aren’t,” said Jamie. “Surveillance logged every escapee, but there’s no way they can track them all. They’ll be following as many as they can, at least one from each squad’s target list, and checking back in with the rest, cross-referencing them with hits from CCTV cameras around the country. When a squad destroys a tracked target, Surveillance will search for another one from their list and do a search based on last sightings, or on the direction they were headed last time they were logged. As soon as they find them, they’ll start tracking them.”

“So they tracked Dempsey all the way here from Broadmoor?” asked Ellison.

Jamie shook his head. “They tracked Eric Bingham all the way to Peterborough,” he said. “When we destroyed him, they tried to identify another one of the vamps on our list. Alastair Dempsey showed up on CCTV about a mile away from here last night, but we were locked down, so they tracked him here. They lost him when he went underground, but the plans show a closed system of tunnels, making this the only way in or out. They’d have seen him if he came back up.”

“There’s no such thing as a closed system,” said Morton. “There’ll be escape hatches, and air vents, and emergency staircases. He could be anywhere by now.”

Jamie gave his squad mate a long look. “You may be right, Operator,” he said. “But Surveillance has got this area covered for ten miles in every direction, and there’s only a mile of tunnel down there. So—”

“Those tunnels lead into other tunnels,” interrupted Morton. “And those lead into others, and so on and so on. He could be anywhere in London by now and you know it.”

“If you think going down there is pointless,” said Jamie, his voice steady, “you’re more than welcome to stay in the van.”

The rookie stared at him, then shook his head, slowly.

Morton had been cleared for Operations by the Science Division psychiatrist little more than an hour before the squad headed out. The assessment that had arrived on Jamie’s console had been frustratingly brief, and seemed more interested in the need for able bodies to take part in Operations than the mental state of its subject. He had requested more detail and eventually received a radio call from the psychiatrist who insisted that the rookie was fine. Morton was apparently a deep thinker with an unusually well-developed conscience, attributes, the psychiatrist suggested in a maddeningly patronising tone, that Jamie should perhaps be looking to harness rather than complain about.

The man himself had been sullen ever since arriving in the hangar, and had said very little during the journey from the Loop to London. He had not been rude or genuinely insubordinate; he had answered questions, although his answers had largely been limited to single words, and he had given the appearance of listening to the briefing update. Jamie believed his pride had been dealt a blow by the psych evaluation, which could end up being a good thing; if it made him determined to prove Jamie wrong, it could work to the squad’s advantage. But, as he looked at Morton, sitting stiffly in his seat in the back of the van, he was far from sure.

“We work with the information we have,” he said, forcing as much calm into his voice as he possibly could. “And Surveillance says he’s down there. So until we’ve checked every inch of those tunnels and found nothing, we’re going to assume they’re right. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Morton.

“Good,” said Jamie. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ellison?”

The third member of Operational Squad M-3, who had been watching the conversation between Morton and Jamie with gathering unease on her face, nodded. “I’m ready, sir. What’s the plan?”

“Right through the front door,” said Jamie. He had turned his attention back to the monitors and seen what he was looking for: a moment in which the pavement outside their vehicle had fallen quiet. “Move out.”

He threw open the van’s back door; cool air rushed in as Morton leapt out on to the temporarily empty pavement. Ellison went after him, the flicker of a smile on her face as she did so. Jamie followed them, slamming the door shut behind him, and strode quickly across to the pale stone façade of the station where his squad mates were waiting for him.

The two padlocks hanging from the security grille covering the station’s red metal doors were intact, and covered with a thin layer of dust; it was clear that no one had entered the station by conventional means in at least a number of weeks. Jamie glanced upwards and instantly saw what he had been expecting: a broken window on the third floor.

That’s how he went in. So he
was
here, even if Morton is right and he’s gone.

Ellison pulled a small cylinder from her pocket and sprayed liquid nitrogen over the padlock. There was a crackling sound, like milk hitting breakfast cereal, before she reversed the cylinder and brought its pointed end down on the centre of the lock. The metal shattered, tumbling to the pavement in a hundred jagged pieces. Morton reached between the bars, unwound the chain, and pushed one of the doors open.

The ticket hall had once been grand, and some of that grandeur still remained in the green and cream tiling, the carved wood around the ticket windows, the high ceilings and arched openings. But dust now covered everything, and evidence of the functional use of the building was everywhere: piles of cables, extension leads, yellowed printouts of script pages and call sheets.

Jamie called for torches and ordered Morton to lead them through the empty ticket barriers and towards the long-stationary escalators that would take them underground. A single lift remained in working order, for transporting equipment and lazy actors and directors down to the platforms, but it was sealed shut. Jamie would not have used it in any case; he wanted to be able to see his surroundings at all times.

Jamie followed Morton, with Ellison close behind, her MP5 in her hands. He had not drawn a weapon, but his fingers were resting within easy reach of the grip of his T-Bone. They rounded a sharp corner, the beams from their torches sweeping from side to side, illuminating the green tiles of the old station walls. Then Morton raised a single clenched fist, ordering them to stop.

“What is it?” asked Jamie, his voice low.

“Door,” replied Morton. “Broken open.”

He stepped forward, pointing for Ellison to stay where she was. The corridor widened to accommodate the three escalators that filled it, and white wooden doors were set into the walls on both sides. One of these was hanging open, its lock splintered and dangling by a few narrow splinters.

“Check it,” said Jamie.

Morton nodded, drew his T-Bone, and crept silently forward. He reached the door and pulled it towards him with the barrel of his weapon. It creaked once, then swung on its one remaining hinge, revealing a storeroom full of empty metal cages. Jamie stepped up to the doorway, his T-Bone against his shoulder, as Morton entered the storeroom, twisting and crouching to shine his torch up at the ceiling and the high corners of the room.

“Door,” he whispered.

Jamie nodded and stepped through the doorway. At the end of the storeroom was a second door, also open. Footprints had been left in the thick dust in front of it, footprints that led towards where he was now standing. Morton edged forward and craned his neck through the door.

“Spiral staircase,” he said. “Heading upwards. It must come out on one of the floors above the station.”

Jamie nodded. “This is how he came in,” he said. “Through the window, down the stairs, and—”

“What window?” asked Ellison, from out in the corridor.

“There’s a broken window on the third floor,” said Jamie. “I saw it as we came in.”

“Thanks for telling us,” said Morton.

“Sorry,” said Jamie. “I thought you might have noticed it yourselves.”

He shone his torch across the floor, following the footprints. They ended at the broken door, but that was far enough; they all knew where Alastair Dempsey had gone.

“The escalators are twenty-one metres,” said Jamie, walking back out into the corridor. “There are two platforms, one on each side. If there’s no sign of him, we’ll check the east platform first. The tunnel was closed in 1917 and it’s sealed at both ends.”

“What about the west tunnel?” asked Morton.

“It was closed in 1994,” said Jamie. “The tracks are still there and the tunnel is clear. It runs north for about half a mile.”

“Half a mile?” repeated Morton. “Don’t you think there might be one or two places to hide in half a mile of tunnel?”

“We’d better get on with it then,” said Ellison, glaring at her squad mate.

Jamie shot her a quick smile. “Agreed,” he said. “Morton, you stay on point.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, and started down the middle escalator, his boots thudding on the metal stairs. The beam of Morton’s torch rested steadily on the distant floor; Ellison’s and Jamie’s swept slowly in wide arcs as they followed him down towards it.

At the bottom, Jamie immediately saw that there was no need to check the east platform. A thick layer of dust and dirt covered the floor tiles, in which Dempsey’s footprints were clearly visible; spaced widely and evenly apart, they disappeared through the arch that led to the west platform. It was darker at the bottom of the escalators; the lights in the station still worked, but Jamie had not asked for them to be turned on. He did not want to make it obvious to Alastair Dempsey that someone was coming.

The three Operators stepped silently through the arch and emerged on to a perfectly preserved platform. The tiling on the walls and ceilings was immaculate, and a tube train sat silently on the tracks before them, its doors open, its seats empty.

“What the hell?” asked Morton, his voice low.

“It must be used for filming,” said Ellison.

“It’s creepy.”

“Tell me about it,” said Ellison, and smiled at her squad mate.

The footprints headed north, then disappeared at the end of the platform. Jamie led his squad in the same direction, their T-Bones drawn, their torches casting bright white light before them. It was hot on the platform, and humid; the air was warm and musty, and seemed thick, almost solid. It smelt faintly rotten, and Jamie felt his nose wrinkle in mild disgust as he reached the end of the platform. He lowered his visor, twisted the dial on his belt to thermographic and looked down the tunnel; it appeared as a flat tube of dark red, with no detail whatsoever.

The humidity’s blowing out the sensors
,
he thought, pushing the visor back up.
Awesome. No thermographics, no satellite overlook, no console signal. Welcome back to the dark ages.

A concrete walkway extended about three metres, until four wide steps led down to the tunnel floor. The train loomed over them, incredibly tall when viewed from the same level as its wheels. It seemed oddly threatening, as though it was merely sleeping; Jamie imagined its engines suddenly roaring into life, the flat metal front lurching after them in the darkness as they fled along its rails, and shivered. He turned his back on the train, felt his shoulders tense slightly, and shone his torch down the dark abyss of the tunnel.