The Under Ground (Strong Women Book 4)

by Sarah Till

  Swiss Steve was holding a cigarette between his finger and thumb and I found it strange as he didn’t usually smoke these days. Around his feet, up-lit by the white pavement, were twenty or more cigarette butts and a small pile of ash that remained in the still day. His visage was partially veiled by an acrid wisp of grey smoke, yet I could see that his gaze, for the first time in a decade, held no hatred. Instead, his eyes held the defeated hollowness of my father's stare.

  Normality

  I stood at the top of the escalator in Victoria station. I had been off work for a month now, the front of the house had been rebuilt and a new floor fitted. The damage, although considerable had not been as severe as first expected. We had moved into the undamaged back of the house the previous week. Ellis' arm had, after all, required surgery and I had developed a twitch over my right eye when I was under even the smallest amount of stress. The most important event had been the arrest of Sandra Reid without bail and the fact that John Baxter had been buried. I didn't go to the funeral but I made Shiralee relate every single part of the whole service and cremation. Jupiter had been to see me once at the apartment Ellis and I had rented and Shiralee had dropped by a couple of times. Neither of them had apologised to me but I didn't expect them to. I didn't ask them about Swiss Steve and they didn't mention him. Henry had put the cottage up for sale and it had been snapped up by a young couple who were interested in buying the farm and continuing working it as a going concern. I was happy but detached from the farm business, and happy that I never had to go back to the village again. As far as I was concerned, the door was closed.

  I stared down the escalator into the darkness where I knew I would find my inner thoughts. Whereas before I had anticipated every journey with a growing sense of personal development, closer to my goal of personal enlightenment, now I felt like I knew less than before. It scared me to think about what would occur when I hit rock bottom, when I face the toilet door where I had been brutally assaulted, when I walked along the platform where John Baxter had watched me for what was probably years.

  I had cosseted myself for a full month in the knowledge that each day when I awoke I wouldn’t have to go anywhere. I had become used to lying in bed with Ellis, first in the apartment, then in my own home, feeling secure. I knew that Swiss Steve was still on the loose and I knew that this scenario would remain until I made a statement. I had been told that the police had reopened the Jimmy Slade file and would reinvestigate the murder. I was assured by DI Payne's supervisor that I could take all the time I needed. He didn't feel that Swiss Steve was an immediate danger to me, but just to be sure, Henry arranged for a restraining order to be prepared and for him to be warned, by letter, to keep away from me. It had worked so far but I knew that it was temporary. He was out there, waiting for me. The knowledge we shared was a thick rope of implication that neither was willing to sever for fear of what would happen to the other, what the morbid consequences would be. He could have admitted everything when he was questioned in connection with John Baxter’s death. But he remained silent, telling the police to 'Ask Jinny'. I had dithered over my statement, appearing conveniently distressed then distracted by Ellis' operation. I eventually told them that I would have to wait until I returned to work to give it, until I was back to normal.

  And here I was, back at work today. The first day back after a month and I was stranded at the top of the escalator. I took the first unsteady steps downwards and felt the butterflies in my stomach. I was at the bottom. I flashed my card through the turnstile, no longer afraid that I would be identified by the security services above. I dragged my feet along the fake-fresh corridors, down, down, noticing that the posters on the wall were different to the last time I was here. Noticing that the man with the guitar was singing a new song that I hadn't heard before, I hurried past onto the platform and sat down on the red plastic seats. Somehow, I felt much older than I did last time I was here. It was only a relatively short time ago but I had aged, both physically and mentally. My whole body was heavier with the knowledge that two members of my family had died. Two members. Of my family. My mother and the brother I never knew I had. I had mourned the possibility that, somehow, in an alternative universe where both our parents had been different people, that we could have had a relationship. If my father had been the honourable man I thought he was, we could have played together as children, or at least known each other. Ellis had, as usual in his level-headed manner, had pointed out that they had probably done the best job they knew how to do. As we had with our children who disapproved of us. So, I mourned him even though I barely knew him. And I finally had mourned my mother. Acknowledging that her flaws were weaknesses and not intentions, I reran the whole of my memory bank of her in this perspective and realised that I still didn't like her. Of course, I loved her, she was my mum. But I still didn't like her. It was such a relief to not hold a burning hatred for her – it had been snuffed out like her life. I had made the connection between her and John Baxter but was thankful now that I had never seen them together, never witnessed their shared lives. Shiralee was devastated. She had not understood at first the implications of John being my brother, my father's son, or the reasons for him marrying granny. She naively tried to suggest that it had been a mistake, and I glimpsed an insight into her thought process. Maybe she thought that all the dishonesty and deceit so ambitiously and vigorously taught to her and Jupiter by Swiss Steve had been innocent too, did she?

  I knew that it would be a mistake to get too close to them until I had made a full statement against their father. They had been through a lot and now they would have to learn the truth about what had happened in their parents’ bedrooms. They would inevitably have nothing to say about it. I realised, on the damp platform in November, that I didn't like them either. Jupiter's sulky face that barely hid his impatience with me, and Shiralee's false smiley grin, as even now she scavenged the apartment for anything of value had irritated me. I loved them, too. They were the tiny people I had reared and the teenagers I had mostly tolerated. Oh, and the little humans I had given birth to. So, I loved them, or my idea of them. But every time I encountered them, right in front of me, their intentions so transparently flooding out of them, I wondered why they were there if they didn't care about me.

  Duty, I supposed. Like me, trundling along through the family thing, feeling the appropriate feeling in whatever amounts seemed appropriate on the day. Except I hadn't lived my life like that. I had forced myself into what I thought was authenticity. I had treated the landscape of my world like an ever-changing mural and settled myself according to those around me and their input, sometimes teetering on the edge of my high stool, legs shaking or sometimes sitting back in a comfy armchair. My mind had never been steady or still. Particularly on my tube journeys.

  I heard the rumble as the train approached and felt the breeze as the commuters moved forwards to the line. I didn’t rush to the front or push my way through the crowd. I lingered until the end, almost hesitating. I admitted it to myself: I was afraid of what would spring from my soul.

  I took my place near the doors and grabbed the plastic loop. I stared at my reflection in the glass partition, as I usually did, a daily appraisal of my outer self to prepare for the cross-examination to come. My hair looked longer and sleeker. My face was thinner and my eyelids a little heavy. Overall, I was pleased. I looked the part, a businesswoman making the short hop across the capital to her place of work.

  The anonymous solitude did its work and a drizzle of privy thought pushed up through the mundane, everyday top layer of my mind. The silt and ballast of conditioned consciousness was slowly punctured by the emerging globules of bubbling me, popping the surface membrane of predictability towards what I really thought. There it was, an exciting burst of starry tingles, exploding through my body and diminishing the past month to a pancake-flat path that I had merely walked to get to this point again. I savoured the inherent desert and climbed fully into the reclusive space that I loved. Inside me.


  I felt around in the darkness and my anger had gone. All the anger over my mother had been replaced by a light humming. My own role as mother was now, if anything, clearer and much more neutral than before. The ‘shoulds’ had dissipated into a sea of smaller bite-sized pieces that now appeared to me as optional extra side dishes that I could pick and choose at will. The biggest of my worries were about my relationship with Ellis and towards making sure that we had everything that we needed. As the new information was drip-fed to him, like a Chinese water torture, it had the power to wear him down and the potential to kill our relationship. But drip it would, until every last drop of Steve had been squeezed from my being.

  The train stopped and I eased myself towards the door. I walked along the platform, swinging my handbag and smiling. Moving upwards on the escalator toward the daylight, the warm feeling of authenticity stayed with me and I was real.

  Epilogue.

  Pressing the red button on the lift, I felt the butterflies in my stomach. My colleagues awaited, bated breath and fingers ready to point. Ted Brierly had been more than happy at my request to return, and in celebration he had set up a management meeting at eleven. It was one-minute past nine when I entered the office. I walked serenely through the gawping congregation and took my seat in my see-through office. I straightened my pen and pencil and neatened my calculator. A small post-it note nestled amongst the office necessaries with red ink smudged across it. I could just make out the words 'Glad you are back.' I turned and smiled at Ted who tried to pretend he wasn't watching me. The story boards for the prayer project lay against the wall where I had left them more than a month ago, and it looked like no one had actually been in there since then. I checked my email and opened my post. At ten o’clock, the procession to the coffee room started and the clerks and typists filed out, one by one, glancing my way from the corner of their eyes. I waited for a few minutes then went over to the coffee machine and switched it on. I could clearly hear the conversation from behind the wall.

  “Looks well, doesn’t she?”

  “Well, bearing in mind what’s happened to her...”

  Linda or Janet or Emma chipped in, spoiling the sympathetic mood.

  “Coming back to work so early, though, it doesn’t seem right.”

  Someone else interjected.

  “Well, she came in the same day she found out her mother had been murdered.”

  Silence. Then more sympathy.

  “Not a mark on her though. Not on the outside.”

  “You can bet she’s suffering though. After everything she’s been through.”

  I went back to my desk and caught Martina’s eye. She smiled at me and carried on typing. I wasn’t suffering. In fact, everything was clearer to me now than it had ever been. I was actually happy. Not just temporarily happy, but a deep, deep happiness that comes from the long haul, the effort put in and the attention paid to detail. I had a surety that I had never experienced before, a confidence that whatever happened, I would always default to me. I tapped my finger on the desk and waited for eleven o’clock. I could see the others in their offices, preparing the storyboards for their latest venture. I looked over mine now and focussed on all the question marks I had written beside my research points. I laughed as I realised that I had been on the wrong path completely and hadn’t understood what the project meant until I had experienced it through myself. I took my marker pen and drew a line under the work I had already done. I then wrote three bullet points but couldn’t think of anything to write beside them.

  I replaced the cap and stood back to admire my work. I knew it was time to contact Lynus. I picked up the telephone and dialled Martina. She looked at me through her glass partition.

  “Welcome back!”

  I smiled back.

  “Thanks. Martina, can you get Lynus Brown on the phone for me? I don’t seem to have his number and he called the office on the last day I was in. I went to meet him in the park.”

  There was a short silence then Martina answered.

  “I don’t remember. Maybe I have it in the telephone log.” I watched through her window as she fielded through her screen. “No, no. I don’t seem to have it here. Sorry.”

  I persisted.

  “He works for Joseph Emmanuel Institute. Could you...” I thought for a moment. I was going to need his number myself in the future. “It’s OK, I’ll do it. Could you get my files ready for the meeting, please?”

  She nodded and replaced the receiver. I quickly dialled Ted.

  “Hi, Ted. Can I have the number for the people who run the prayer project, please? Joseph Emmanuel.”

  I could see Ted rustle about in his desk drawer and he finally spoke.

  “Yes, its 0207897345. Just give Jack Crawford a ring. He's the project manager.”

  I frowned.

  “Oh, did Lynus leave then?”

  Ted Laughed.

  “Lynus? Sorry, Jinny, not aware of anyone there except Jack. I explained to him that you had been away on a covert mission.” I tried not to laugh as Ted's voice lowered. “He’s handling it. About time we made contact.”

  “But I already met with Lynus Brown to discuss it, before, well before all this. He came to my house, and we chatted about it. You must remember him, Ted, he's blind, tunes pianos.”

  I could see Ted in his office, rubbing his head like he did when he was confused. Then suddenly he became alert.

  “Yeah. Yeah. I get you, Jinny. Some kind of code, right, to do with what happened? Blind piano tuner. Very good.”

  “No, Ted, it's not some kind of code. The person I met and spoke to about the project is a blind piano tuner.”

  “Oh, I get it, like in the films where the blind piano tuner saved everyone. You know, he's the wise person with all the information?”

  I felt a strange familiarity and couldn't decide if it was for Lynus or for the deja vu feeling of being back in my lounge watching a film, with Ellis, just after my mother died but before I had this new knowledge about my family.

  “All I know is that Lynus Brown knew all about the project, and me and I've got a much better overview of what I need to do now through talking to him.”

  Ted was nodding knowingly through the partition walls and I felt a slight stab of work-related stress. It was clear that from now on our employer-employee relationship would be conducted by the etiquette of the secret service, from Ted's part at least.

  “Bloody hell, Jinny, those drugs you took must have been something! Blind piano tuner? Bloody hell! Anyway, I spoke to Jack yesterday and told him you would make first contact today. He never mentioned a blind piano tuner. Bloody hell! Good gear.”

  I sighed. It had taken only a couple of hours before the first drug-related reference.

  “OK, Ted. I’ll give them a ring.”

  I quickly tapped in the telephone number Ted had given to me and waited for the connection. My heart had quickened and I felt apprehensive but excited. I had looked forward to meeting with Lynus again and telling him of my progress. I wanted to sit with him and tell him that I had seen both sides, I had stood in someone else’s shoes, and had stood up for myself. I was fit for purpose. I could still hear his laugh echo through my soul and the brown tones of his skin reminded me sometimes of tree bark or milk chocolate or the earth. I felt like I was reuniting with an old friend, someone who could compliment my anima with his animus. He had helped me to press home the pieces of the complex jigsaw puzzle that I was trying so hard to complete, and now that it was nearing the end, I wanted to report on my progress. And, of course, there was the project. I smiled to myself as I anticipated the days I would spend designing the project, a thoughtful compilation of sensitivity guided by qualitative experience. It seemed like heaven.

  The telephone rang out ten times then a woman answered.

  “Joseph Emmanuel Institute. Can I help you?”

  I cleared my throat and announced myself.

  “Yes, I think you can. I’m Jinny Munro, a senior advertis
ing agent working on a project for your company. Could I speak with Lynus Brown, please?”

  The woman paused for a moment.

  “I’m sorry, we don’t have anyone of that name here. Could someone else help you? Perhaps if you told me the nature of your business.”

  I was confused.

  “But I met with Lynus while working on a project for your organisation. I met with him a month ago, in Hyde Park, and he came to my house. Could you check, please? Perhaps he had left in the past month. He’s a piano tuner and he’s blind.”

  The woman sighed.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs Munro, we have never had anyone of that name work for us. We are a very small organisation and I would have known. Most of us work here on a voluntary basis, so maybe he could have been a volunteer but he would still be on our register. And he isn't there. The contact for your organisation would be Jack Crawford.”

  I didn’t understand. I repeated myself just to make sure.

  “So, Lynus Brown never managed this project, not even before Jack Crawford?”

  The woman shuffled some papers.

  “No, I’m sorry. Jack has been overseeing the new projects for seven years now. Before that it was a man called Kevin Jakowski.”

  READ AN EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER SARAH TILL’S NOVEL THE WAITING LIST

  Chapter One

  You know when something changes in your world? When it feels like a cog on the wheel of life misses a turn, sending you in a slightly different direction? It happened to me that morning. It was mid-September and my life seemed perfect - almost. If it hadn’t been for the secret backdrop to my life, the hurt that I carried etched behind my heart, it would have been perfect.