The Cilla Rose Affair (23 page)

“It’s true,” he said, “that they wanted to make contact with someone at Young and Dailey. And they had two options: you or Maureen. I don’t think they totally trust Maureen.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know—perhaps she’s just the wrong kind of person for their purposes. Perhaps they wanted somebody who was…more intelligent.”

“More gullible, you mean. Not a lot of choice left, was there, as there is only me.”

“Sara,” Anthony said, “please believe me. I know the way this business works. Your name jogged Ian’s memory. He remembered you from the summer you spent with your aunt and uncle in Vancouver. He mentioned you to my father, and they saw a prime opportunity and rang Robin up and basically commanded him to appear before them in London—no explanation, nothing. He came, no questions asked. He was told what was required of him over lunch at his hotel. And he absolutely leaped at the chance to see you again. Truly. Honestly.”

Sara finished the milk and got up to throw the empty carton into a litter basket. Anthony trailed after her again, scattering the pigeons.

“Why couldn’t he have just told me the truth?”

“Perhaps he couldn’t. Not yet.”

“Oh yes, sworn to secrecy, national security above all else, and to hell if anybody’s feelings happen to get in the way.”

“He would have, Sara. Eventually.”

“When? On his way to the airport? ‘Nice seeing you again, kid—oh, by the way, you’ve been an invaluable asset for the cause of international espionage—stay in touch, won’t you? See you in another ten years’ time, if you’re lucky.’”

Anthony looked at her, and then at the sky, and then at some scaffolding-encased monstrosity that was undergoing a cosmetic transformation in the shadow of Canada House.

“Well to hell with all four of you, that’s all I can say. Find somebody else to do your dirty work. I’m not interested. And don’t think I’m worried about what’s happened to Robin, because I’m not. I don’t care about him at all.”

“Sara—”

“I don’t care. Can’t you understand?”

She stormed away from him, refusing to look back.

Robin studied the lock. He could reach it from his side of the grillwork, manipulating it with his fingers. Standard, heavy-duty padlock, standard, heavy-duty chain.

He limped back to his improvised bed of sacks on the floor. Clever gadgetry was the stock-in-trade of the Hollywood spies—technotricks disguised as watches, exploding cigarettes. Even if he had come equipped with a lock pick—which he hadn’t—he wasn’t altogether certain he had the talent—or dexterity—to be able to use it.

He eased himself down, and sat with his back to the wall, his arms wrapped around his middle. He didn’t, for a second, believe that woman. Of course he’d heard of Nora Darrow—but he wasn’t about to let her know that. He’d had the benefit of a two hour briefing over lunch in the company of his father. Nora Darrow was a woman who’d harboured absolutely no qualms about doing away with her husband in order to save herself—just as she wasn’t very likely to go beating her conscience over his fate, once she’d got what she wanted from Evan.

He shut his eyes, and listened to the thundering of another train as it pounded down the tracks on its way to God only knew where.

Sorry about the short notice, Robin, but we needed someone we could trust implicitly.

Blood often runs thicker than the Queen’s Printer’s ink.

He remembered a detailed conversation he’d once had with his oldest brother about the curriculum at Spy High. They covered situations like this. Close combat; the theory of international relations; techniques of successful report writing; the possibility of capture.

Ian could kill a man with a toothbrush.

He could write up a pretty graphic account of it, too.

Ian would undoubtedly advise against an escape attempt.

It’s a last resort only, Robin. You have to use your good judgement. If there’s a chance you’re going to be let go, there’s no point doing anything silly. The beatings hurt like hell, but eventually they stop. You have to make yourself useful. You have to keep being needed by them. If you make a run for it and they catch you…You have to weigh up the odds and ask yourself: is it worth the risk?

Robin leaned his head back against the wall.

He had once before run afoul of the driftnet cast by his father’s clandestine fishing expeditions. He was much younger then, with far fewer experiences to guide his decisions. He was nineteen, and terrified.

He’d tried to run, but they’d tracked him down in the rain and the mud and he’d received for his troubles the lacerating edge of a leather belt across his back.

That had been a very long time ago.

He had a stock answer for the questions that invariably arose about the scars, a believable lie that generally put an end to the inquiry.

He’d been caught off-guard with Sara; he’d forgotten the marks were there. And when he’d summoned the story, Old Faithful, the lie had suddenly failed him, and he’d answered her instead with silence.

The timing was rotten. He hadn’t received permission to tell her the truth. The entire truth, everything.

He supposed now that she did know everything, or as much as his father and Ian were willing to part with, anyway, and not jeopardize their plans.

He supposed she’d be angry.

Robin opened his eyes again. There were voices on the stairs. And despite what he thought Ian’s advice would be—and he respected his oldest brother’s judgement implicitly in this particular matter—there was absolutely no way he was going to sit back and wait for Nora to do to him what she’d done to her lately beloved husband, Simon.

“No word of a lie,” Kevin’s boots clattered in the darkness. “Number 23 and Number 24 Leinster Gardens. Nothing but facades—a bloody come-on. A blank wall with windows and doors stuck on it to make certain people happy.”

From the far end of his tunnel, Robin listened. Two of them this time—Sid Vicious and his cohort, The Suit.

“What for?” Tommy asked. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs.

“What for? It’s from the great age of steam, that’s what for. When the first Underground was all steam engines, and they needed somewhere to blow it all off. So when they was digging the track under Bayswater, they left a hole, and some posh twat over the road complained about it, so they put up a wall, and then another posh twat said it didn’t do justice to the neighbourhood, so they put up windows and doors and made it look like a pair of houses.”

“Bloody stupid, if you ask me,” Tommy remarked.

“Nah, it’s bloody clever, that is. My old man told me about it when I was a kid. Took me round to see it, special, one Sunday.”

They stopped at the mesh gate.

“What’s the matter with him, then?”

“Dunno,” Tommy said, curiously.

Sid Vicious had his key out. Robin waited, his body limp on the sacks, while the lock was sprung, the mesh door swung open. Ian had taught him much more than mere theory.

“Anyway, it only makes our job easier, him out like that. No struggle, see.”

The toe of a boot explored Robin’s chin.

“I reckon he’s already dead.”

The Suit bent over to see for himself. “He doesn’t look at all well, though, does he? What d’you reckon? Food poisoning?”

“Ruptured spleen, more like,” Sid Vicious answered, with a crude laugh. He gave Robin a boot in the ribs, to drive home his point, and there was an audible response from the sacks. “Told you.”

“What d’you reckon, then? Wait for your mum?”

“Yeah, she’s buggered off to Stonehenge or something. Promised she wouldn’t be long. Have a ciggie.” He turned to Robin, and shouted down at him, as if he was deaf. “Got a few moments to kill yet, Christopher Robin. Don’t wander off nowheres, will you?”

They turned their backs, and began to hunt for cigarette packages and matches.

It was an astoundingly simple matter to take the first of them down—one arm locked around The Suit’s carotids, a thrust between the legs and a sharp kick backwards to hook him below the knee and send him sprawling to the hard concrete floor.

Sid Vicious was surprised in mid-match-strike. Taken off-guard, he recovered his wits quickly, and launched himself onto Robin’s back. Robin retaliated by hurling him to the ground, head over heels, and dispatching him with a swift kick to the side of the neck.

“I owe you one, big brother,” he said, under his breath, not waiting around to gauge the results of his attack. He bolted—out through the cage door, skidding into the larger tunnel—God, it was huge—what was this place?—pounding down its length until, in virtual darkness, he reached what he thought must be the stairshaft.

He stopped, wishing he’d taken The Suit’s torch. It wasn’t as if he’d heard anybody else—it wasn’t that at all. It was that sixth sense that let you feel an extra presence—

There was a click, and a bright light dazzled him, catching him full in the face.

“Hello, Christopher Robin,” said a voice—the unmistakable voice of Nora Darrow, cool and calm and exuding confidence. “Now just where do you suppose you might be going?”

Robin stepped backwards, dodging the light. It followed him, and he was momentarily blinded again, with spots dancing in front of his eyes.

“In case you were wondering, yes, this does happen to be the only way in or out.”

The wisest thing would have been to have hit her. Robin’s instinct told him to do it, to smash and run, to run for his life. But he had committed the fatal error: he had hesitated, battling chivalry. And in that brief moment of indecision, Nora Darrow had gained the upper hand.

He saw movement and in self-defence thrust out with his arm, swinging blindly. There was a small hiss, short and abrupt, and something stung him.

And with the sting, in that same split second of recognition, came the certain knowledge that he had been struck.

He had been struck on the head from behind with a very heavy object, and he was falling.

“Goodbye,” Nora Darrow said, pleasantly, “Christopher Robin Harris.”

Ian shone his light on his watch. The Clapham South and Common shelters were empty. He and his father had checked them, laboriously, helping each other over the hoardings that separated the distinctive grey pillbox surface structures from the road, picking the heavy rusted padlocks open on the entrance doors. Once inside, it was a long descent to the bottom of a dank, black, circular stairwell. The two torches had illuminated an eerie cavern stretching off into the distance, rivulets of water, evidence of occupation by nocturnal animals.

“We’re wasting our time,” Ian said. “Nobody’s been this way in years.”

“One more left to check, old son,” his father reminded him, as they began the lengthy ascent back to the surface.

The squat, grey-painted pillbox of Clapham North’s stairshaft entrance was hidden behind a camouflage of old brick blast wall. Ian approached with caution; he could see that a trail had been tramped through the weeds, and that the padlock on the door was new. With his father standing watch, and holding his penlight between his teeth, he made quick work of the lock. The door swung open easily.

Eighty feet down, at the bottom of the stairshaft, were twin tunnels, each separated into upper and lower sections then subdivided further into sleeping accommodation, snack bars, sick bays, lavatories, warden’s offices and children’s play areas.

There were cobwebs and dust, and as Ian shone his light around the walls, he could see rivers of sludge from decades of uncontrolled seepage. Warily, in silence, he explored the length of the tunnel, his father covering him from the rear, making note of the smaller passageways leading off at right angles—spigots in that one—canteen—lavatory sign—

He turned into the last passage, shining his light. There was a kind of cage constructed across the tunnel, and its door was ajar. There was something lying in a heap against the wall.

With some trepidation, Ian went over to investigate. False alarm. Sacks. He gave them a nudge with his foot, and something dropped out onto the floor.

He knelt down, waving his father over.

“Canadian money,” he said, quietly, as his torchbeam caught the coins: dimes, nickels, three quarters and a dollar. “He was here.”

“But here no longer,” his father said, heavily. “Take me away from this place, old son. I’m feeling very old and tired.”

Wednesday, 04 September 1991

Robin opened his eyes. The walls were unfamiliar, the floor, the shadows.

He’d been moved.

This wasn’t his white-ribbed tunnel, with its bed of sacks and its air-mail toilet paper. The trains were still with him…he could hear their rumble, further away—but they were no longer pounding above his head. They were over there somewhere, hidden in the darkness.

He touched the back of his head with his hand, carefully, and located a very tender bump—which accounted for the rampaging pain. There was no blood, but he suspected they’d had another go at his ribs and his back with their boots. Payback for his escape attempt. Things hurt that hadn’t before.

Dragging himself to the wall, he sat up, supporting his head against the bricks. He was in the middle of a cold and empty hallway. There were lights in this cavern—dirty, tungsten filament lamps in glass shades from another era, casting eerie shadows across the walls and the floor.

The walls were brick or tile—Robin couldn’t tell. They were shiny, and through the grime he could see a repeating pattern, green and black and white. The plaster ceiling was a web of cracks; in some places it had disintegrated altogether and come crashing to the ground, where the shattered shards had been swept to one side in a dusty heap. His eyes caught a sparkling glitter of water, trickling down from above in an uncontained rivulet, disappearing into a long eroded gutter.

Where the hell am I now
? he thought, closing his eyes.

He waited for his head to clear, then looked to his left, and saw the dingy sign hanging over the entrance to a low-ceilinged, very dark tunnel.

TO THE TRAINS, it said, white on black, sans serif.

To the trains.

He was underground.

Absently, he scratched his arm, which had begun to itch.