Tuesday Falling (16 page)

And he doesn’t know why.

Loss sleepwalks round the streets of central London, trying to make sense of the lights, and the smells, and the noise. Trying to.convert the puppet show around him into something with meaning. But he just drifts through the crowds, and the fug, and the mortar of living, and sees nothing.

Nothing but ghosts.

He is pulled back to himself by his phone ringing. It’s DS Stone.

‘I’m off the case,’ he informs her. ‘Too much of a security risk.’

‘Too much of a self-indulgent old bastard, more like. I don’t give a damn if you’re off the case or not. Lily-Rose has gone missing.’

Loss stops; becomes a rock in the river of the street.

‘What? When?’

‘I’ve just left there. I called round with some follow-ups; see if there’d been any movement. The flat looks as if it’s been taken apart with a hatchet. There’s no sign of Lily-Rose or her mum, but there’s no blood, so I’m hopeful they left before whoever did it arrived. Are you still there?’

Loss tries to get his mind to catch up. He has so many things going on in his head that his thought processes are weeds.

‘Yeah, I’m still here. So are you saying someone came for her, but she was already warned?’

‘Looks that way, Sherlock. Anyway, their flat is a deadzone, and no one knows anything. What are you doing now?’

‘Nothing. as I said, I’m …’ Stone didn’t give him time to finish.

‘Good, because I’m on my way to meet the only expert I could find on the lost city of underground London, and I want your help.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, for one thing, because you’re not technically on the case I can be really, really rude to you; calling you “Sherlock”.’

Loss sighs deeply.

‘And?’

‘And? You need an
and
? And this expert I’ve dug up. The one who knows all about the secret underground network?’

‘Yes?’

‘When I spoke to him, and mentioned to him the name of my boss, i.e., you, he asked if you were related to Suzanne Loss.’ The detective closes his eyes. Behind his lids are tiny pinpricks of burning thought, waiting to be connected up. ‘When I confirmed that you were, he wanted to convey to you his belated condolences. It appears that he knew your daughter.’

Constantine does not have a last name. If he ever did he has kept it to himself. He is what is known in the underworld as a wet-smith: a man for hire when it comes to the cessation and disposal of human beings.

He is currently sitting in a shitty flat in King’s Cross, recently vacated by a prostitute. He has a laptop open in front of him, and for the last few hours has been absorbing all the information that he can find on the girl known as Tuesday. This includes a large selection of media reports, both legitimate and underground, along with stuff from all the social network sites. He also has the footage from the train, and the link sent to DI Loss’s computer. He has the audio from the phone conversation outside the kebab shop between his client and the girl, and he has set up a program mapping all references to Tuesday, or the weapons she used, or any internet footprint she might have made. He also has a constant feed of all the information gathered by the street crews that Caleb set in motion. He is very good at what he does. He has already given Lily-Rose’s address to Slater’s men.

Constantine sits in his chair, in the crappy flat that smells of broken dreams and twisted love, electronically thumbing through the city, until eventually he turns his computer off, packs it away in its Pelican hard case, and leaves, heading across the road, and into King’s Cross tube station.

On the tube he is amused to see a ‘Tuesday’ graffiti tag. He has spotted them all over the city since he arrived. He gets off at Knightsbridge, and enters Number One, Hyde Park. The cold-eyed security guard in a suit and bowler hat takes his card and makes a phone call. He is searched, his weapons expertly found and removed, and then he is escorted to the lift and accompanied up to the top floor. He is walked to the door of his client, who opens it and nods at the security guard. The guard inclines his head and withdraws politely, never taking his hand out of his jacket pocket, or off the gun therein.

Constantine grins at his employer and says,

“‘Dear oh dear, what did you do three years ago to piss this girl off so royally?’

Slater glares at him, saying nothing. ‘Because up until three years ago, Tuesday didn’t exist.’

I’m getting ready now.

I’ve restocked all my supplies out of the Oxford Street shops, and gone round all my cribs making sure everything’s ready. I’ve checked out the feed from the door at the British Museum and seen all the action going on there. Well done, boys and girls.

It shouldn’t be too long until everything moves underground. I just need to give them one more little push. I lie down on my bunk and listen to the
World Service
.

Not really listen to it, but let it carry my weight for a while.

Lily-Rose should be on her way to her new home by now. I hope she doesn’t hate me. I didn’t use her like the gang boys used her, but I still used her.

Still used her to stir things up.

Used her to break things down.

I wonder who’ll reach me first: Detective Inspector Loss with his guilt and his questions; the police with their standard issues and their righteousness; or the bad guys, with their lust for revenge and their dreams of girl torture?

Me, I don’t fucking care.

‘Aldwych Tube Station, originally called Strand Tube Station, was opened in 1907, and closed in 1993. In all that time the original lifts were still in use. It was built on the site of the Royal Strand Theatre, which was demolished in 1905. The platform we are standing on is ninety-two feet and six inches below street level. It is interesting to note that the station itself is built on one of the biggest plague pits in London. Indeed, when it was being constructed the workmen commonly saw the ghosts of rotting victims shuffling around the site. So if any of you ladies see something awful shambling around, feel free to hang onto my arm.’

‘What bloody century are you living in?’ DS Stone mutters under her breath. She and DI Loss are standing with a group of tourists being shown round one of London’s ‘hidden’ tube stations. To get here, they have had to walk down a high, spiral staircase containing more metal steps than DS Stone would have thought possible. While the guide entertains the group, the two detectives look around. With the tiny ceramic tiles and oak panelling; the whole place has a feel of quietly-collapsing gentility. The door to the station office opens and a smartly dressed man in his early thirties comes out.

‘Detectives Loss and Stone?’

The police officers nod. ‘How did you spot us?’

‘Well, you don’t have massive cameras strung round your necks for a start,’ he addresses his response to Loss, indicating the tourists receding down the platform in front of them. ‘And you just insulted my tour guide in language which I believe is standard police patois,’ he tells Stone. ‘Please, step into my office.’

As the three of them walk away from the tour party, the man in front of them looks over his shoulder and says, almost apologetically, ‘Plus. I can see your daughter in you.’ For a moment, Loss thinks he is going to fall over, but he recovers, and makes it through the door into the young man’s office and onto a seat. There’s a blade fan gently spinning in the ceiling, and the room is occupied – that’s the only word Loss can think to use – by a massive mahogany desk with a green leather top, upon which sits a monitor relaying the activity on the station platform. There is a standard lamp in the corner of the room, and an umbrella stand, Stone is pleased to note, containing an umbrella. She thinks of making a comment about the amount of rain falling underground, but doesn’t.

‘Colin Stevens,’ he says, holding out his hand. Stone shakes it.

‘How did you know my daughter?’ Loss grips the proffered hand a little more than perhaps he needs to. The young man’s smile fades.

‘I used to work with her at the hospital. Please let me say how sorry I am, Inspector. It was a sad loss. She was very much liked and admired, you know.’

Loss feels tears pricking his eyes, so he bites the inside of his cheek. ‘What was your role at the hospital?’

‘I was a therapist, Inspector. Part of the patient outreach team. I specialized in alienation problems and depression.’

‘How come you’re here? This is a long way from being a counsellor.’

‘Therapist,’ Stevens corrects him. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Half the tourists who come down here only seem to be able to view the world through a camera lens.’

‘Except it isn’t a lens, is it?’ Stone asks.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Well it’s all digital these days, isn’t it? No lens involved.’

‘Quite.’

‘So how come you’re here?’ Stone repeats the question. Stevens has a look of someone unsure if he’s been reprimanded. Stone is unmoved.

‘I’ve always loved the Underground. Ever since I was a kid and we first moved to London I’ve been fascinated by the stations and the trains. Did you know that originally each line had its own look, its own individual architecture? Right down to the colour of the bricks.’ He sits back in his chair. ‘Plus, I discovered that I wasn’t a very good therapist.’ He pauses, and considers the detectives for a second. ‘Sorry. It’s difficult to explain. All the work I did before becoming attached to Charing Cross, well, it just didn’t prepare me.’ He fixes his attention on Loss. ‘Before I took the post at the hospital where your daughter worked, I was stationed in the suburbs. At the other end of the equation, you might say. I never expected to …’

Loss sighs. ‘Ok, sir. Tell us about the Secret Underground.’

Stevens seems to lighten with the new direction of their questioning. ‘Oh, it’s not just the Underground. I mean the Underground is fascinating. All the lines that are still there, a whole forgotten transport network …’

Stone breaks in, ‘And are they connected to the present one? I mean, could you get from one to the other?’

‘Oh, yes. Many of the stations we use now were built to replace the old ones, because as new lines, new outposts, were added it was cheaper, and less structurally problematic, to create new stations above the deep Victorian ones, than to demolish and replace. But yes, the old stations are still there. Sometimes only a door away, in the side of a walkway, or sometimes just a few metres below, connected by a staircase similar to the one you came down today.’ The flickering flames of a true fanatic are dancing in his eyes. ‘And those stations have the old lines, no longer used, but perfectly navigable! Miles and miles of them down here.’

‘You said not just the Underground,’ prompts Stone.

‘No indeed. There’s the Royal Mail mini railway, for a start.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Royal Mail has its own underground train network. It was used to move all the mail around central London, allowing it to cope with the twice-daily delivery service they used to offer.’

‘What, its own mail trains under London?’ says Stone. Loss turns and looks at her.

‘Even I knew that. They had to have it for the second delivery.’

‘The
second
delivery?’

‘Yes. Amazing, isn’t it?’ Stevens interjects. ‘Then there are all the bunkers, and all the tunnels from private houses and department stores …’

‘And museums,’ adds Loss.

‘And museums, yes. And then, during the War, many of these tunnels were connected up in case of bombing or invasion. Did you know it was possible for the Prime Minister to walk from the War Office to Oxford Street without once coming to the surface?’

‘Amazing,’ says Stone dryly.

‘Indeed. In fact, many people living in London houses aren’t even aware that there are cellars beneath them, and tunnels leading from the cellars. After the Blitz, when much of London was rebuilt, these things were just, well, sealed off and forgotten. Plans were lost.
People
were lost. Things were forgotten or hidden for another time.’ Stevens pauses for a moment, contemplating the past, and then continues with renewed enthusiasm. ‘And then there’s the sewer system, and the old river sluices, and the smugglers’ pubs, and so on and so on.’

He reaches under his desk and starts rummaging in drawers. ‘I’ve been writing a book all about it.’

As he brandishes a detailed hand-drawn map at them Stone tries to keep him on track. ‘So are you saying it’s possible for our girl to have got off the train at Embankment, say, and then walk through the network of disused tunnels to wherever she wants to be without ever coming to the surface?’

‘Oh easily. There are tunnels everywhere. To the stations, yes. But also to the big shops in Oxford Street. To all the old hotels. Government buildings. Hospitals. Churches. If you wanted to, and were determined enough, you could set yourself up and live underground for years.’

And then all the lights snap on in DI Loss’s head. His mind palace lights up like Christmas.

‘So food, bedding …?’

‘The old department stores all have tunnels connecting to the network. Had to, so goods could be safely moved around during the War.’

‘Internet? Wi-Fi?’

Stevens thinks for a moment. ‘A lot of the stations are Wi-Fi-enabled. You’d have to ask someone technical, but I shouldn’t think it’s too difficult to set up some sort of relay system, if you could source the power.’

Loss murmurs to himself: ‘Christ. She’s been living underneath us. Not just using it to get around. It’s her world.’

The two detectives look at each other, the implications of what they have just learnt fizzing between them

‘We need to go.’ They get up, thanking Stevens.

As he leads them to the stairs, he says, ‘You know, Inspector, I was genuinely sorry to hear of Suzanne’s murder. She was very much loved around the hospital.’

Loss isn’t sure what to do with the man’s sympathy. ‘Thank you. We’d grown apart a little, and I wasn’t fully aware of her friends. It’s nice to know she was so well liked.’

Stevens smiles at him. ‘Well it wasn’t just me, it was everyone really. And not just at the hospital. All the kids at the refuge loved her too.’