Lost (30 page)

I feel my way along the ledge by sliding each foot a few inches, expecting the stonework to col apse at any second and pitch me into the stream. I can pick up only smal sections of the tunnel. Tiny yel ow lights reflect back at me—the eyes of rats escaping along the ledge.

The moss on the wal s is like slick black fur. Pressing my ear against the bricks I feel a slight vibration. Somewhere above my head is a road and traffic. The sound makes the tunnel seem alive, like some ancient, consumptive beast. Breathing. Digesting me.

Time and distance seem longer underground. I feel like I've been down here for hours yet I've probably only traveled a hundred yards. I don't know what I expected to find. Any evidence could never survive—not this long. The tunnel has been swept clean by seasonal downpours and storms.

I try to imagine someone taking Mickey through here. Unconscious she could have been lowered down the pit and then carried. Conscious she would have been terrified and too hard to control. Another possibility catches in my throat. What better way to dispose of a body? The river would sweep it away and the rats would pick it clean.

Shuddering, I push the thought aside.

Any kidnapping would have needed at least two people and remarkable preparation. Someone had to replace the grate and cover it with bags of plaster and cement.

My clothes cling to me and my teeth are chattering. Unlike the expedition with Moley, I'm not prepared for this. It was a stupid idea. I should go back.

Ahead of me the ledge suddenly stops and starts again. There is a four-foot gap where it has col apsed into the stream. I could try to jump it but even with two good legs I couldn't guarantee landing safely.

I kneel down and feel ahead with my fingers. There's a gap in the wal just above the level of the water. Rol ing up my sleeve, I reach down, feeling for the bottom. The opening is two feet high and a similar width, channeling water away from the river. This could be one of the conduits that feed the sewers.

Lowering myself into the channel, water soaks my trousers and fil s my shoes. My chest is submerged and my back scrapes against the roof. Holding the flashlight in my mouth, I crawl forward. The darkness pushes back at me.

Mud sticks to my knees and shoes. Three or four inches deep, I feel like I'm wiggling through it like an earthworm. The grunts and groans belong to me but echo back as though there's someone ahead of me . . . waiting. After fifteen feet the channel begins to slope downward, getting gradual y steeper. My hands slip and I fal on my face into the water. The flashlight is submerged. Thank God it stil works.

The steeper gradient and the force of the water behind me push me forward. If the tunnel gets any narrower I'l be wedged inside, trapped. My back scrapes against the ceiling.

The water seems to be rising. Perhaps I'm being paranoid.

I slip again and shoot forward, pushing mud, gravel and water ahead of me. Convulsing and trying to retreat, I can't stop. My legs are useless. I rise over a hump and then feel myself in midair, fal ing. I land with a splash in water and muck. The smel is unmistakably a sewer. My first impulse is to vomit.

A poultice of dark mud covers my eyes. I scrape it off, trying to see, but the darkness is absolute. The flashlight is gone, either washed away or water-damaged.

Sitting up, I check that nothing is broken. My hands are shaking from the cold and I can't feel my fingers. Water cascades from the opening above my head. I have to get out of here.

Taking stock, I try to plot where I might be in relation to Dolphin Mansions. I can't read my watch so I don't know how long I've been down here. The ledge was narrow and my progress slow. I might only have traveled a few hundred yards. I heard traffic. I must have passed under a road. I listen again. Instead of a distant rumbling I feel a faint breeze against one cheek.

Standing too quickly, I smack my head against the roof and curse. Don't do that again. Crouching, I spread my palms against the curved brick wal and edge my way forward like a blind man in a maze. Occasional y, I pause and try to feel the breeze again. My mind wants to play tricks on me. Either the breeze disappears or seems to be coming from the opposite direction.

I can feel the desperation rising in me, scalding my esophagus. In the darkness I could plunge into a shaft and never get out. Maybe I should turn back.

Suddenly, a faint glow appears ahead of me. The shaft of light looks like a ghostly hologram in the center of the tunnel. I step inside and raise my face. I can see the sky through a rectangular grate. The edges are softened by turf spil ing over the sides. I see footbal boots, shin guards and muddy knees. A handful of schoolboys and teachers are watching the game. Someone shouts, “Press forward.” Someone else bel ows, “Offside!”

Nearest to me a lone teenager appears to be reading a book.

“Help me!”

He looks around.

“I'm down here!”

He peers at the grate.

“Help me get out!”

Dropping to his knees, he puts an eye against the bars.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“I'm a police officer.”

I know it doesn't answer the question but it seems to be enough. He goes to fetch a teacher. I can hear him.

“Sir, there's someone in a hole over there. I think he might be stuck.”

A new face appears at the grate, older and in charge.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Trying to get out.”

More faces arrive and stand around the drain. The footbal game appears to have been forgotten. Most of the players are now scrabbling to get a look at “this guy stuck down a hole.”

A crowbar is summoned from a car trunk. Turf is kicked away from the edges. The grate is pul ed aside and strong hands reach inside. I emerge onto a patch of English autumn, blinking into the sunlight and wiping the remains of the sewer from my face.

Reaching into my sodden pocket I retrieve the last of the morphine capsules. Magical y, the pain lifts and a wave of emotion passes over me. I don't normal y like emotion. It's a wishy-washy, moist-eyed, soft-in-the-head state, good for postcoital bliss and rugby reunions, but you know something, I love these lads. Look at them, al dressed up in their school scarves, kicking a bal around the place. They look so cute. They even let me shower in the pavilion and someone lends me a shirt, tracksuit bottoms and a pair of sneakers. I look like a senior citizen on a power walk.

The Professor is summoned and finds me in the pavilion. Straight off he treats me like a patient, taking my face in his hands and holding my eyelids open.

“How many did you take?”

“The last two.”

“Jesus!”

“I'm fine, real y. Listen to me. I've been down there . . . in the river. We should have seen it years ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know how they got her out of Dolphin Mansions. She went down the hole—just like Alice in Wonderland.” I know I'm not making sense but Joe perseveres. Final y, I tel him the story but instead of getting excited he gets angry. He cal s me stupid, foolhardy, rash and impulsive, but each of the criticisms is prefaced by the term “with al due respect.” I've never been so politely told off.

I look at my watch. It's almost eleven o'clock. I'm due in court at midday.

“We can stil make it.”

“I have to stop off somewhere first.”

“To change your clothes.”

“To see a boy about a light.”

25

The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand are composed of a thousand rooms and three miles of hal ways, most of them lined with dark wooden panels that soak up the light and add to the gloom. The architecture is Victorian Gothic because the courts are meant to intimidate the crap out of people, which they do.

For Eddie Barrett, however, it's just another stage. Striding along corridors, he pushes through doors and scatters the clusters of whispering lawyers. For a man with short legs and a bul dog swagger, he moves surprisingly quickly.

Barrett is to the legal profession what hyenas are to the African plains—a bul y and a scavenger. He takes cases according to how much publicity they generate rather than the fees and he uses every legal loophole and ambiguity while grandly extol ing the British judicial system as “the finest and fairest in the world.” In Eddie's mind the law is a flexible concept. It can be bent, twisted, flattened and stretched until it becomes whatever you want it to be. He can even make it disappear when turned sideways.

A dozen steps behind him comes Charles Raynor, QC, known as “The Rook” because of his black hair and beaked nose. He once made a former cabinet minister cry under cross-examination about his taste in women's underwear.

Eddie spies me and swaggers over. “Wel , lookie see who's here—Inspector Roooeeeez. I hear al sorts of stories about you. I hear your wife is banging someone else—his dick, her pussy, making whoopee. I'd be pretty pissed if I caught my missus shagging her boss. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, isn't that what they say? No mention there of giving it up for the firm's accountant.”

My jaw clenches and I feel the red mist descending.

Eddie takes a step back. “Yeah, that's the temper I heard so much about. Have fun in court.”

I know he's winding me up. That's what Eddie does—gets under people's skin, looking for the softest flesh.

Spectators are crammed into the public gal ery and there are three ful rows of press, including four sketch artists. The furnishings and fittings predate microphones and recording equipment so cables snake across the floor, pinned beneath masking tape.

I look around for Rachel, hoping she might be here. Instead I see Aleksei, who is watching me as though waiting for me to instantly disintegrate. To his left is the Russian and to the right a young black man with loose limbs and liquid eyes.

The Rook adjusts his horsehair wig and glances across at his adversary, Fiona Hanley, QC, a handsome woman, who reminds me of my second wife, Jessie, who has the same cool detachment and honey-colored eyes. Miss Hanley is busy shuffling papers and rearranging box files as though creating a mini-fortress around her. She turns and gives me an uncertain smile as though we might have met somewhere before (only about a dozen times).

“Al rise.”

Lord Connel y, the Chief Justice, enters and pauses, surveying the courtroom as though keeping watch over the pearly gates. He sits. Everybody sits.

Howard Wavel appears next, climbing the stairs into the dock. Gape-mouthed and gray, with his hair hanging limply across his forehead, he has a vague, forgetful frown as though he's lost his bearings. Eddie whispers something to him and they laugh. I'm seeing conspiracies everywhere.

Campbel thinks this has been Howard's plan from the very beginning. The ransom demand, the lock of Mickey's hair, her bikini—al were part of an elaborate hoax designed to cast doubt on his conviction and set him free.

I don't buy it because it begs the same question that Joe keeps asking me: Why wait three years?

Lord Connel y adjusts a lumbar cushion behind his back and clears his throat. He spends a moment studying the courtroom ceiling and begins.

“I have studied the defense submissions regarding the original trial of Mr. Wavel . While I am wil ing to agree with several of the points raised about the trial judge's summing up, on balance I don't feel they altered the outcome of the jury's deliberations. However, I am wil ing to hear oral arguments. Are you ready to proceed, Mr. Raynor?” The Rook is on his feet, pushing his black gown along his forearms. “Yes, Your Honor, I wil be seeking to introduce fresh evidence.”

“Does this evidence address the grounds for appeal or the original offense?”

“The original offense.”

Miss Hanley objects. “Your Honor, my learned friend seems intent on rerunning this trial even before being granted leave to appeal. We have been given a witness list with two dozen names. Surely he doesn't intend cal ing them al .”

Lord Connel y looks at the list.

The Rook clarifies the situation. “It may be that we cal only one witness, Your Honor. It very much depends upon what he has to say.”

“I hope you're not embarking on a fishing expedition, Mr. Raynor.”

“No, Your Honor, I can assure you that's not the case. I wish to cal the Detective Inspector who was in charge of the original investigation into the disappearance of Michaela Carlyle.”

Lord Connel y underlines my name on the list. “Miss Hanley, the overriding purpose of the Criminal Appeal Act is to further the interests of justice. It al ows fresh evidence to be admitted by the prosecution and the defense. However, I warn you, Mr. Raynor, that I'm not going to al ow you to rerun this trial.” Miss Hanley immediately makes an application for the proceedings to be heard in a closed court.

“Your Honor, there are issues involved that go beyond the immediate fate of Mr. Wavel . An important criminal investigation could be jeopardized if certain information is made public.”

What investigation? Campbel is only interested in nailing me.

“Does this investigation involve Mr. Wavel ?” asks Lord Connel y.