The Cilla Rose Affair (28 page)

“Yes, I’ll be all right,” Victor answered, irritably. He seized Rupert’s torch, and switched it on, and went in.

Rupert followed him down.

They were met at the bottom by Bob Lewis, shining his own bright beacon up to greet them.

“At last,” he said.

“Yes, sorry, Mr. Lewis. Unavoidable delays.”

“What is this place?” Victor asked.

“King William Street Station. Or what’s left of it. The original site dates from 1890. It was modified once—in 1895—and finally abandoned in 1900. Made redundant when the present City branch of the Northern was tunnelled through from Borough to London Bridge to Bank.”

Victor aimed the light over Bob’s shoulder. “Something was mentioned about water.”

“Yes, and there’s rather a lot of it, I’m afraid. You’ll want these.” He produced two pairs of rubber boots, and waited for Rupert and Victor to change into them, then led the two men through a sloping passageway to a black, oily lake that lapped at the brick walls of the abandoned station and sulked off through its dark, echoing archways.

“It’s only two inches at this point, but down there, where the main station tunnel is, it’s quite a bit deeper. The rail pits are full and the water’s flooded over what’s left of the platform.”

Victor swung the light around, glancing it off the walls. He took little comfort in the tattered remnants of the wartime posters, testament to the old station’s conscription as a shelter in the summer of 1940. It was dank and cold and suffocating, and he had lost sight of the way out.

“Where do these tracks go?” he asked.

“Under Monument Street and Swan Lane, then under the river to the west of London Bridge.”

“Are they linked to the existing Northern Line?”

“Thankfully,” Bob replied, “no. The present City Branch leaves the original excavations north of Borough. Both ends of this section were plugged with concrete at the start of the last war to guard against flooding from bomb damage.”

Rupert made a swirling pattern in the water with the toe of his rubber boot. “So there’s been some sort of a leak, is what you’re saying.”

“A rather large one, in fact. The roof of one of the tunnels in the riverbed appears to have been breached, as well as the concrete plug.”

“And what’s the cause of these failures?” Victor asked, his voice betraying impatience.

“Difficult to say. Natural erosion, perhaps. A stress fracture, a fault in the tunnel’s lining.”

“But that wouldn’t account for the concrete plug going as well, would it?” Rupert asked.

“No, you’re quite right, it wouldn’t.”

“Your suggestion is that we’re dealing with the possibility of sabotage,” Victor said.

“There is that potential, yes. We’re always on the alert for terrorists, of course, as there are quite a lot of useful tunnels criss-crossing under the river—footpaths, cable conduits, motorways. Ten belonging to us.” He listed them on his fingers. “Wapping to Rotherhithe on the East London Line…London Bridge to Bank, on the Northern, as I’ve already pointed out…Waterloo to Embankment on both the Northern and the Bakerloo. Vauxhall to Pimlico on the Victoria. A north and a southbound tunnel for each crossing. Plus BR’s Waterloo and City, this stretch of tracking here, and the old single tunnel belonging to the Charing Cross Loop. That’s another five.”

“The Charing Cross Loop,” Rupert said. “Where’s that?”

“Strand. Or what was Strand before it was incorporated into the Trafalgar Square-Charing Cross redevelopment. Strand was the original southern terminus of the Northern Line. During one particularly fruitful period of expansion—1914, I believe it was—the line was extended south by way of a single track running out under Villiers Street and Embankment Gardens to the river. It then looped back under the Thames, and a platform was built on the outside of the loop to connect it to the Bakerloo and District Lines. The resulting station is present-day Embankment. The northbound platform is a part of that original loop. You can still see the curve: it’s fairly severe.”

“I knew we ought to have got some sort of alert out, sir,” Rupert said, worriedly. “Sir…?”

Victor didn’t answer. He was hot—uncomfortably hot—and his heart was beginning to pound. Which way had they come in? He searched the arches with his light.

“The part of the loop under the river,” Bob continued, “was abandoned in 1926, when the Northern Line was extended south to Waterloo and Kennington. I mention it now, gentlemen, because the roof of the tunnel is only 10 feet below the riverbed, and it received a direct hit during the bombing of London in 1940, and a section of tracking over 200 yards long was flooded. If the precaution had not been taken a year earlier to seal the tunnel at both of its ends, the entire Underground network from Shepherd’s Bush to Liverpool Street, from Hammersmith to Kings Cross, from Clapham Common to Euston and from Elephant and Castle to Marylebone would, in fact, have been swamped. The possible implications of damage of this scope and size are, of course, catastrophic.”

“Not to mention the proximity of the Charing Cross Loop to the vital Whitehall installations, sir,” Rupert added.

“You have floodgates,” Victor answered, irritably.

“True. They weigh six tons each and can be shut tight in less than a minute. They ring all of the stations along the river. They’re electrically operated, of course.”

“Electrically operated?” Rupert asked, faintly.

“That’s right.”

“So if the mains were somehow shorted out—”

The beam of Victor’s torch had at last caught a black and white frieze in the tiles—an old-fashioned arrow and the words WAY OUT.

“Sir—this is terribly important—it explains everything—the outages, the Underground—the damage—the water—”

But Victor was already splashing off towards the stairs.

“Sir—please—”

Rupert was momentarily taken aback by the appearance of a fourth individual from behind one of the archways, effectively blocking the Deputy DG’s access to the exit.

“Good evening, Victor,” Evan Harris said.

“Who’re you?” Rupert demanded.

Victor Barnfather glared at the Canadian agent. “It’s Harris, isn’t it,” he said, curtly. “What do you want?”

“I have news concerning one of your friends, Victor.” Evan held the torch low, so that it exaggerated the shadows around his face, lending him an altogether ghoulish appearance. “A little singing bird named Nora Darrow.”

“I don’t know any Nora Darrow,” Victor said, tersely.

“As you wish,” Evan acquiesced. “I’m sure you’re aware, however, that she was taken in by Special Branch earlier today for questioning.”

Victor attempted to step around the Canadian; Evan moved quickly to impede his progress.

“Mrs. Darrow’s been extraordinarily helpful to us, Victor. She’s even given me a little book—one I’m certain she’s told you about. The journal of Trevor Jackson?”

“I know nothing of that. Who is Trevor Jackson?”

Evan smiled. He shone his light on a slender, hard-bound diary he held aloft in his left hand. “There’s an entire page devoted to you in here, Victor. Not enough to convict you of violating The Act, of course—it’s only the handwritten testimony of a dead man, and none of it can be proven. But, added to the information Mrs. Darrow’s promised to provide in exchange for a lighter prison sentence on her part…well. What a treasure trove, Victor.”

“What reason,” the Deputy DG replied, choosing his words with care, “could this Mrs. Darrow possibly have for turning over that so-called diary to you?”

“Mrs. Darrow recently committed a very grave error in judgement, Victor. She took it upon herself to kidnap my son. And after she’d got what she wanted from me, she decided to kill him. But before she could accomplish that, she had him hidden away in an abandoned tube station. Romilly Square. I’m quite certain you’re familiar with the place I’m talking about. My son’s an enterprising young man, Victor, and he doesn’t take the possibility of his imminent demise lightly. So he looked for a way out of his predicament. And he found it—but not before he happened across something else: a dozen wooden boxes filled with guns and ammunition—no doubt destined at one point for one or more of the embargoed countries scattered around the globe. Rather a serious business, Victor, wouldn’t you say?”

For a moment Victor appeared to digest the news, reacting with only a stony silence. Then, brusquely pushing Evan aside, he made for the staircase, and the safety of the surface.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he muttered, under his breath, as he elbowed past the Canadian in the dripping darkness.

“Mission accomplished?” Ian inquired, glancing up as his father appeared in the doorway of the night-lit office at Canada House.

“We had rather a lot of water to contend with, and a most disgruntled official from MI5.”

“And where did all this water come from?”

“Difficult to say,” his father replied. “The Thames, I should think.” He dropped a very old pair of Wellington boots into a bin in the corner. “My feet are wet but, yes, mission accomplished.”

Ian paused. “Anthony came up with an interesting idea.”

“Did he?”

“He wondered whether Victor might be channelling his ill-gotten gains through the travel agency.”

“That is interesting,” his father agreed.

“So we had a look through some of Harry’s group bookings. And we found these.”

He produced the photocopies his brother had made of the model railway enthusiasts’ file. Evan pulled a chair across to the desk and sat down, putting on his glasses.

“Ostensibly, they attend conventions at least twice a year—always the same group of twenty people, always handled the same way: one person delivers the cash to Harry, Harry books the trip through a wholesaler, subtracts his commission and sends on a cheque for the net amount. I did a little research over dinner. They’re all legit names belonging to real people. The only thing is, Mrs. Violet Trueman’s 82 years old and hasn’t ventured beyond Wood Green since her husband died five years ago. And Mr. Charles Gresham’s been confined to bed since he broke his hip in a fall last January. And Mrs. Tessa Wilbury’s hearing aid wasn’t working and she had to put her grand-daughter on the phone to answer my questions. There’s a whole filing cabinet full of similar examples.”

“It’s a clever little scheme,” Evan observed. “Are any of these people actually model railway enthusiasts?”

Ian leaned over the desk. “This one—Bill Humphreys—is. But he’s manning a display at a convention in Earl’s Court at the same time he’s supposed to be in Las Vegas.”

“And this company—Gallimore Tours?”

“They’re legit as well. Highly regarded in the industry. All the right appointments, affiliations and associations. They’ve been in business for 32 years. It would take some digging, but I’d be willing to bet there’s a connection with either Nora Darrow or Victor Barnfather somewhere in their financial prospectus. Not only could Gallimore be taking care of Victor’s extra income—it might also be a handy little holding company for whatever profits Nora might see from her sideline in arms sales.”

Evan closed the file. “If you can find that connection, it’ll be the icing on the cake. Oh yes, and somebody’s been leaving sticky little finger marks all over your personnel file in the Registry. Be forewarned.”

“Consider it done,” Ian said.

By day, Piccadilly Circus was astream with tourists jumbling maps and guidebooks and 20p off coupons; newspaper vendors; underground travellers venturing to the surface for a glimpse of the sun. By dark, it was a dazzling cascade of humanity—lights, flashing adverts, police sirens and ambulances, a roundabout torrent of cars and pedestrians tumbling into the night. By dark, the disaffected youth of Britain descended, draping themselves down the steps of the fountain, joining vagrants, druggists, bored hostellers, exhausted tramps.

Evan found his middle son leaning on a pedestrian barricade, intent upon observation.

“Hello,” he said, offering Anthony a late night hamburger he’d bought from a nearby fast food outlet.

“Hello yourself.”

“I understand you’ve been masquerading as a computer repairman.”

“His apprentice, anyway,” Anthony said.

“His very wise apprentice. If we’re able to trace Victor’s financial records over the past twenty-five years, we’ll have one more solid piece of evidence against him.”

“He knows what you’re up to, doesn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t say he knows everything, old son. Although I had a rather interesting exchange with him late this afternoon, the consequences of which I expect to be dealing with shortly.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?”

“I’ve been in this business for a long time, Anthony. Precautions have been taken.” He looked at his son. “Are you worried?”

“Look what happened to Robin.”

“Your brother’s spending the night with me. I’ll arrange for a room at a hotel for you, if you like.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Sure?”

Anthony nodded.

“By the way, earlier today I left a fairly strange message on your answerphone. It’s to do with a Detective Inspector Crowther. Have you been home?”

Anthony shook his head.

“Best ignore it, then,” his father judged, leaning on the barricade.

They stood together for a few moments, in silence, watching the taxis and buses as they roared past Eros.

Finally, Anthony spoke. “You’re going to ask me to do something else for you, aren’t you?”

“You’re getting to know me too well, old son. Only if you’re interested.”

“Try me,” Anthony suggested, unwrapping his hamburger.

Friday, 06 September 1991

Robin wondered what had woken him up. Lying between the freshly laundered sheets, the lights from outside throwing orange patterns onto the wall opposite the window, he realized it had been his father’s alarm clock, going off at some godforsaken TV actor’s hour.

Pursuant to the persistent buzz, the actor himself was now pottering around in the kitchen, running water into a kettle, dropping bread into a toaster, taking lids off jars of things he’d removed from the fridge.

The sounds of early morning.