Scratch Deeper (15 page)

Chuckling, Elliot made his way down the steps and on to the old canal bed. ‘OK – I assume you want to check underneath the convention centre?'

‘Please,' Davis answered.

As they followed Elliot towards the mouth of the left-hand tunnel Iona examined the black opening with apprehension. ‘How . . . how cramped will it be in the tunnel?'

‘Pleasantly spacious, as a matter of fact,' Elliot answered. ‘The narrow boats it was built to accommodate were quite wide.'

‘Like ant hills,' Davis remarked, pointing to the little mounds of powdery earth dotting the floor.

‘Aren't they?' Elliot responded. ‘It's trickle-down from the ceiling.'

A sudden image of the bricks collapsing under endless tonnes of mud and stone flashed up in Iona's mind. Don't be stupid, she told herself, pushing the thought aside.

Elliot stopped short of the entrance and turned his torch on. At the side of the archway faint letters below an arrow said, To Bay Three. ‘From here on we provide our own light.'

The trio of spots cast by their torches bobbed and danced as they picked their way slowly along the dark tunnel. Every now and again Elliot would direct the beam of his torch ahead to provide a dizzying glimpse of the low roof stretching away. Iona could feel her heartbeat had picked up. Dozens of stalactites hung down, like streamers from a party held a lifetime ago.

Occasionally, she directed her torch off to the side and examined the waist-high towpath running alongside them. Scattered along it were fragments of broken brick, the odd length of cable or gnarled and rusted bits of metal. She passed some stacked pieces of wood, the uppermost ones rotted to a thick layer of splinters. Everything was encased in a grainy layer of brick dust and the sound of dripping water was all around.

‘Brian?' Constable Davis whispered theatrically.

‘Yes?'

‘Has anyone ever died down here?'

‘As a matter of fact, they have.'

They walked on in silence for a few more seconds, Iona clearly able to hear the thud of her heart.

‘Brian?' Davis again.

‘Yes?'

‘What happened?'

The other man gave a low laugh. ‘A boatman called Samuel Bennett drowned. He was returning to his vessel from the pub and fell in. His body floated out of the tunnel a few days later.'

‘Will you two stop it?' Iona hissed. There was a splashing noise and she looked down. A shallow expanse of watery brown sludge was at her feet. As she stepped carefully over the remainder of the puddle both men suppressed their giggles.

They reached a partition wall that stretched across the tunnel. An open doorway at one side led into the next bay. Elliot shone his torch to the right. A row of brick cubicles lined a side recess. ‘Some of the air-raid toilets. The third one along still has one in it.' The beam picked out what looked like a large metal top-hat turned upside down. Rust had half eaten the rim away and what remained of the wooden door was spread across the floor.

Several bays later, they emerged into a wider area with a flight of stairs stretching up.

‘What was an entrance,' Elliot said. ‘These steps once led all the way up to the street.'

‘Hang on,' Iona cut in. ‘You said there were no other ways to get down here.'

‘There aren't,' Elliot replied, torchlight etching deep shadows across his face. ‘They dug it as an extra air-raid shelter entrance but it's been bricked in and concreted over.'

‘Where did it come out?' Iona pointed her torch beam up the steep steps. Darkness defeated the thin shaft of light after about ten metres.

‘Grape Street.'

He led the way up to the first landing where an archway had been built into the right-hand wall. ‘Through here, mind the step.'

They entered another passageway that, judging from the echoes, opened into something far bigger. She played her torch beam about and realized the space they were now entering made the loading bay seem poky.

‘Where are we?' Davis asked at her side.

‘Directly below Central Station, the last main passenger railway terminus to be built in Manchester,' Elliot announced with a flourish.

And now the convention centre, Iona thought, climbing down a knee-high ledge on to bare earth. She aimed her torch up. The beam was just able to illuminate colossal spans of brick. The ceiling they supported was slightly shiny and black. ‘Is that the actual underside of the convention centre's floor?'

‘Correct.'

Iona pictured the mass of people scurrying about on it, all completely oblivious to what was below their very feet.

‘That main arch,' Elliot remarked, jumping down beside her and shining his torch to their left, ‘is the second largest unsupported span in Britain. Exceeded only by one down in London's Saint Pancras station. Shall we check around?'

‘If you don't mind,' Iona replied, feeling like she was in a cathedral during a power cut.

‘What actually are we looking for?' asked Davis.

Good question, Iona thought. A pile of recently dug earth? Bricks removed from a wall? A stack of strange-looking sacks with a timer on the top? ‘I don't know. Just anything to indicate people have been down here.'

They skirted round the base of the wall, looking for any signs of recent disturbance. Nothing. An opening on the far side gave access to a smaller, lower room.

‘And in here?' Elliot asked.

‘We've come this far,' Iona replied, beginning to sense the search was pointless.

As they looked for anything suspicious, Iona became aware of the intense silence. It seemed she could actually feel it, pressing in from every direction. The desire to be out of the place was starting to grow. She gave a cough. ‘Well, seems secure enough to me. Sorry if I used up your time for nothing.'

Elliot's torch swung round and his face showed faintly in its reflected glow. ‘Happy to head back?'

‘I am. Constable Davis?'

The spot of his torch drew closer. ‘Fine with me.'

As the electric light from the loading bay grew stronger, Iona felt relief starting to wash over her. By the time they stepped out of the tunnel itself, she could have pumped an arm up and down. She looked fondly at the bright bulbs above. ‘I feel like an explorer making it back to civilization.'

‘I know how you feel.' Elliot smiled.

Up in the visitor centre, Davis relocked the door and removed a roll of anti-tamper tape from his pocket.

Iona watched as he started to carefully stretch a length of it across the door and its frame. Did Wallace, she asked herself, set me up for this? Thinking about it, he didn't actually express any surprise at the tunnel's existence – he just asked me how I knew about it. But why would he let me make a fool of myself?

She thought about the report from the Sub-Urban Explorers: Vassen's interest in the tunnel system was real. Surely he and his mystery friend were planning something. She saw Elliot was arranging papers on the desk. ‘Do you know of many other tunnels beneath the city?'

‘Oh, yes,' he replied, ‘it's riddled with them.'

‘Like?'

‘The Duke's tunnel.'

‘What's that?'

Elliot sat on the edge of his desk. ‘It branched off from the River Medlock and ran under the city centre before ending at what's now the approach to Piccadilly Station. It was used to transport coal from the Duke of Bridgewater's mines at Worsely.'

Nowhere near here, Iona thought. ‘Is it still there?'

‘It had silted up by the early eighteen hundreds, after the level of the Medlock rose a few feet. Bricked up not long after.'

‘Any others?'

‘Victoria arches?'

‘Yup – I've heard about them. Any others? Ones near here?' Iona asked.

Elliot thought a moment. ‘Not that I know of. I've heard mention of them stretching out from beneath the cathedral. And there's a proper honeycomb under the campus of what was UMIST.'

What the Sub-Urban Explorers were trying to access, Iona thought. ‘What about,' she asked, ‘one running beneath the length of Deansgate?'

‘Oh, that.' Elliot shot a glance at Davis. ‘I don't believe it. Surely a tunnel of that scale would be charted somewhere.'

‘But you've heard it mentioned?'

His eyes flicked to Davis another time. ‘Yes.'

She turned to the constable. ‘Have you heard anything about it?'

He shrugged. ‘There are copies of some old maps – I saw them at our command post.'

Iona turned to him. ‘Whose are they?'

‘Council ones, I think.'

‘And?' From the corner of her eye, she saw Elliot had leaned forward.

‘All I can say is, anything deemed a potential risk has already been examined. Just like the one below us.' He turned away to double-check the padlock and Iona gave a sigh, wondering exactly what the maps showed.

I
ona walked nervously along the corridor leading to the CTU's main office in Orion House. After parting company with Constable Davis, she'd watched as he hurried off in the direction of Deansgate. Wherever the silver command post was that he'd come from, he'd be back at it well before she got to her desk.

The question in her mind was, how fast would the news of her error spread? Would raising an alert about a tunnel already checked and secured be a source of amusement for her new colleagues? Or were people too busy to pause and give her a hard time?

Two detectives stepped out into the corridor and started walking towards her. Anxiously, she kept her eyes on their faces and was able to see their expressions change as they realized who was approaching. One smirked as they passed her by.

Was that me? Was he grinning because of me? She paused with her hand on the office door. Well, I'm about to find out. She pushed it open to see that the office was a little busier than normal. A few uniforms on one side, a sprinkling of detectives at their desks. Several heads turned in her direction but no one seemed that interested in her presence.

Maybe I was worrying for nothing, she thought, as she made her way across to her workstation, searching for any yellow Post-it notes as she got closer. There was something in front of her keyboard. It was cylindrical and grey. No, not cylindrical. A cylinder cut in half. Cardboard tubes – the ones from the middle of toilet rolls. Three had been Sellotaped together. There was writing on the side: The Manchester and Salford Junction Canal. At the entrance to the miniature tunnel stood a little figure fashioned from Blu-tack. She looked about. Faces grinned back at her and people started to clap.

‘Nice work, Baby!' someone called.

Laughter broke out.

‘She'll boldly go where no man has gone before!'

‘Is it a badger? Is it a fox? No, it's a human mole!'

Knowing she was bright red, Iona tried to smile. ‘Very funny, you lot. Ingenious.'

The laughter wasn't dying down.

Gingerly, she picked up the toilet rolls and dropped them in her bin. ‘Were these things clean or do I need to wash my hands?'

An inspector – some huge guy with a squashed nose and cropped hair – paused as he passed her desk. ‘It's your shoes you need to clean. Been exploring, have you?'

Iona looked down at her mud-spattered shoes and held up a hand in acknowledgement. Even Euan, the civilian support worker she got on with, was trying to suppress his giggles. She sank into her chair and went to stick the little Blu-tack figure on top of her monitor. Someone had trimmed the newspaper clipping down so it now read, Baby.

The laughter began to fade and she noticed a plastic case on the corner of her desk.

FAO: Detective Constable Khan, CTU. From: Manchester Operations Centre.

The CCTV footage, she thought, as her phone started to ring. ‘DC Khan speaking.'

‘Detective?' It was Wallace, phoning down from the floor above. ‘Pop up to see me, would you?'

He was slouching in his chair, one hand draped on the edge of his desk, eyebrows half-raised.

‘Sir,' Iona said, stepping inside.

He lifted a finger and pointed to the empty seat opposite him.

She crossed the room as quickly as she could and sat down, glad to tuck her dirty shoes out of sight.

‘Tunnel was clear, then?' Wallace asked.

She nodded. ‘Yes, it was, sir.'

‘Good.' He tapped his fingers. ‘I'm glad they only sent a constable along with the keys. We've all got enough on our plates as it is.'

‘Sir, I'm sorry. If I'd known its existence was logged, I wouldn't have . . . wouldn't have . . .'

‘Jumped the gun so badly?'

She caught his eye. OK, she thought. So I jumped the gun. But did you let me? ‘It just seemed that no one knew about it –'

Wallace sat up. ‘No. You assumed no one knew. Which is the type of thing that happens when you stray into an operation you have no part in. Why were you down at the conference centre site, anyway?'

She gave a flustered shrug. ‘When I came out of the CCTV control room, it seemed to be an appropriate step – to, you know, check what I thought was a site at imminent risk of attack.'

‘Really? At risk from a student that – and here's the assume word again – you thought was making a bomb?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘With a piece of equipment you assumed could be used to manufacture explosive material?'

‘Yes.'

‘Have you much knowledge of explosives, Detective?'

‘Well, I did the course as part of my training. On how to recognize the different types.'

‘And what part would high pressure liquid chromatography play in making a bomb?'

She realized the university professor hadn't actually confirmed the Frac-900 could be used to manufacture explosives. Damn. ‘I . . . I don't know.'

‘Well, Detective. Most explosives I've dealt with – and I have a decade in the British Army behind me – are compounds. Different things, bonded together. Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen. You remember seeing that grainy white powder on your course?'