“It’s true. My granddad had one of ‘em. His missus was a Confetti Girl at Chiswick Works. She counted the bits cut out of tickets to tally the change, then sold them for weddings.”
Bryant had come down here to question the staff about unusual events occurring on the tube system, but had been sidetracked. He had not fully realised what he was letting himself in for; everyone here, it seemed, had tales of drunks and madmen, gropers, flashers, con artists, thieves, buskers, fights and suicides. Yet, for the most part, it seemed that the system ran with amazing efficiency. Nearly eighty million passengers passed through King’s Cross every year. Sometimes, over three million journeys were made through the tube system in a single day. Bryant was astonished by how few deaths there were.
“My cousin Benny, right, he was in charge of the track-mounted flange greasers at Rayners Lane,” said Sandwich, whose whole family worked down the tubes, “and one morning he got the grease dosage wrong, and every train on the Victoria Line ended up skidding straight past its stations. There was a devil of a ruckus about that.”
“So what happens if you spot something suspicious happening in the foot tunnels or on the platform?” asked Bryant.
“I can get the LT police there in seconds, but if there’s a problem, like it’s peak hour on a Saturday night or Arsenal’s playing at home and the LTP are busy dealing with something else, I can issue a station code and we send our nearest team down there. Other passengers used to help out more, but they’re scared to now, what with knife crime.”
“But I’ve heard about weird stuff at this station,” said Rasheed, hunching forward on his chair. “Always late at night. You follow someone on one camera, you know instinctively they’ll appear on the next one – only according to some of the guards they don’t. They just vanish into thin air. There’s this one bloke, I’ve heard about him a few times from a guard at Canonbury station, one moment he’s heading down the escalator, then he’s running in the tunnel and the guard’s thinking why’s he running? He can’t hear a train coming ‘cause there’s not another due for three or four minutes, then he watches the platform monitor, expecting him to appear – only he never does. The way this bloke tells it, he’s the ghost of a dead passenger, some bloke with a broken heart who threw himself under a Piccadilly Line train a few years back.”
“I heard about him, too,” said Marianne. “After the last Victoria Line train had gone. Creeping along one of the empty tunnels close to the floor. In a shiny black raincoat, like a giant bat. Gave my friend Shirley the willies. She saw him again a few days later, standing on the concourse at Highbury & Islington in the same outfit, surrounded by people, but nobody else saw him. Shirley thought she was going mad. A giant bat, just crawling through the empty tunnels…” She let the thought hang in the air.
“They reckon that passengers saw ghosts after the Moorgate disaster in 1975 – ”
“A real mystery, that was,” Sandwich interrupted. “Forty-three dead, train overshot the platform and ploughed into the dead-end tunnel. There was nothing wrong with the train, the track or the signalling equipment. The driver was a good bloke, careful, conscientious, he just didn’t apply the brakes. Hadn’t even raised his hands to cover his face before the impact. He was still sitting bolt upright at his post before the collision, still holding the dead man’s handle. If you release it the brakes automatically connect.”
“Had to have been suicide, then,” said Stone, opening a beer. “Bitter, do you want a bitter?” Bitter accepted a can.
“The driver had three hundred quid in his pocket when he died, was going to put a deposit on his daughter’s car right after his shift. That’s not the action of a suicide. I suppose some good came out of it, with TETS.”
“What’s that?”
“Trains Entering Terminal Stations, also known as the Moorgate Control. Special stop units put in place to release the air from the train’s braking system.”
“And what about the blood thrower?” added Rasheed. “About once every couple of months, someone on the last Piccadilly Line southbound gets sprayed with blood. They’re not hurt or nothing – it’s just this nutter who goes around chucking blood over people. We don’t know where he gets it, and we can’t catch him. Course, the tunnel power goes off after the last train, for the incoming workers from Tube Lines, the company in charge of the infrastructure, so maybe he escapes to the next station.”
“Can we stop now?” asked Marianne. “All this talk’s starting to give me the willies, too.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you the willies.” Sandwich laughed, cracking up the others. Even Bitter managed a lipless smile. “Hey, you know Upminster Bridge station in Havering?”
“Yeah, end of the District Line,” said Rasheed.
“There’s a swastika on the ticket office floor – can’t tell if it’s a Nazi-type swastika or like Hindus have, you know, the reversed swastika for good luck. I used to be a home-beat officer on a council estate in West London, and when Indian families got a flat, the first thing they did was create one out of dried beans on the floor.”
Bryant studied his new friends with interest. Perhaps the London Underground system was a place where men and women could come to forget the outside world, like the Foreign Legion. Was it really only a job, or did some of them feel uncomfortable when they finally ventured out, blinking into the sharp blue light of day?
“Come on, just one more,” said Rasheed.
Everyone groaned in protest, but he continued. “I heard about a man who got off the train when it opened its doors by mistake at South Kentish Town tube station. This was in 1951, and the station had been shut for years, but the train doors closed before he could get back on, right? His name was either Brackett or Green, there’s different versions of what happened next. He used his lighter to find his way along the platform, and burned bits of old posters to provide light. The lifts were turned off so he tried to get out by climbing all two hundred ninety-four steps up the spiral staircase, but when he got to the top he banged his head on the boarded-over floor of the shop above, and had to go back down. He tried to flag down trains for days afterwards, but none of the drivers would stop, and eventually he became too weak to move. He was found by a bunch of gangers coming up the tunnel, but they were too late to save him.”
“There are so many things wrong with that bloody story I don’t know where to start.” Marianne had a throaty, dirty laugh. “Why would he get out at an unlit station? And if he died, how does anyone know he banged his head? What do you think, Mr Bryant?”
Arthur was miles away. He was trying to understand why Mr Fox might have moved his operations underground. The tube system was vast, and connected every part of London. But more importantly, the axis about which it turned was now King’s Cross. The Eurostar linked it to the rest of Europe. Almost overnight, Mr Fox’s lair had become the gateway to forty-eight countries.
But what he was doing here, and what he might be planning to do, remained a disturbing mystery.
∨ Off the Rails ∧
16
Cruelties
“What a day. New funding for the Unit and a case properly sanctioned by the Home Office. Welcome back.” John May raised his beer in salute. The two detectives had dug down into a musty sofa at the rear of the Charles I, an oaky little pub tucked away behind King’s Cross railway terminal that had a fireplace, stag heads, bookshelves and an occasional willingness to continue serving behind closed shutters. It was very late, but neither of them slept much when they were on a case. May had wanted to share his discovery about the Karma Bar logo, and had caught Bryant leaving the underground station. He studied his pensive partner. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t like being made a fool of,” Bryant complained. “The case would have been closed by now.”
“There’s no point in dwelling on what might have been, Arthur.”
“I suppose Mr Fox picked his name because he thinks of himself as feral and adaptable. But he’s a small-time con man who
accidentally became a killer. Killing has strengthened him, John, that’s the awful thing.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He leaves bodies scattered around the neighbourhood and gets us to clear up the mess. We nail him, he kills again as he escapes – he didn’t need to do that – and he immediately returns to his old stamping ground to continue. He’s humiliating us. He thinks he’s above the law, and that can’t be allowed to happen.”
“We badly need the link between the beautician and the junkie.”
“Maybe she’s a former girlfriend.”
“No. Janice interviewed Gloria Taylor’s work colleagues. They swear she was very strict about her partners, happy on her own, wasn’t currently involved with anyone. Meera spoke to her ex and he says the same thing. They were still close; she called him two or three times a week. Never mentioned anything out of the ordinary. Had her hands full just keeping her job and looking after her little girl. The junkie – well, that’s a different matter. Maybe their paths crossed on the streets around here. You can imagine Mr Fox and his victim starting out as thieves together.”
“If Mr Fox is getting rid of anyone who knows who he was,” said Bryant, “it’s because he means to go on.”
“That might explain the junkie, but not why he would shove an innocent woman down an escalator.”
“And in front of witnesses. Can they be traced?”
“We can trawl through the tags on their travel cards. If we start checking records from, say, thirty seconds before Gloria Taylor passed through the barrier, we’ll be able to get all the registered user addresses. But it’s a lengthy process tracking them all down. The fact that St Pancras is an international station means many of them could now be abroad.”
“Well, I’ll leave the gadgetry to you and Dan. You know what happens when I touch anything electronic. Although I managed to fix your toaster.”
“It’s not supposed to fire bread that far. And it took out the lights.”
“I’ve been thinking about the sticker. If that’s some new part of the MO, why not do the same to the junkie?”
“Maybe he killed the woman for the sheer pleasure of being cruel.”
“But why kill both at the same tube station?”
“It’s the most crowded crossing-point in England, so that’s not much of a surprise.”
“The station staff are a lovely bunch of people; they were telling me ghost stories about the London Underground. Apparently, the developers tore down an old theatre, the Royal Strand, to make way for the Aldwych station. Before the 1970s, there was an army of women who used to enter the system after the last train had run. They were called Fluffers, and their job was to remove all the dust balls, flakes of skin and human hair that had gathered in the tunnels. They were frightened by the spectre of an actress from the Royal Strand who had committed suicide on the spot where her old dressing room had been. After that, they refused to clean the Aldwych tracks anymore.”
“Collective hysteria.” May took a swig of his beer. “Mind you, I imagine you’d be spooked, too, if you had to walk through pitch-black tunnels every night. It must have made people very jumpy in the days before they improved the lighting.”
“Did you get to meet up with that funny little boy?”
“You mustn’t call Rufus a boy; he gets terribly upset,” May admonished. “He has the IQ of a decent Oxford lecturer, and considers it a grave misfortune to be trapped in a child’s body. The sticker with the K is the logo of a bar in Judd Street. I’ve got a lead out of it, if you can call it that. A bunch of students. I’ll go and see them tomorrow.”
Bryant gave a weary sigh. “I miss the old cases. Things were more clear-cut when we started. Generations of robbers and professional thieves – you saw the same people year in and year out, and you could always get a lead by talking to the families. All those mothers, brothers and uncles who just couldn’t keep their mouths shut. It’s not like that now. Death has become so random. Angry children attacking one another over issues of respect, such a terrible waste of life. And I can’t categorize Mr Fox; he doesn’t fit anywhere. Half a dozen people have seen and spoken to him. We’ve actually interviewed him, for God’s sake. And what have we got between us? A pencil sketch of a nondescript man, nothing more.”
“There must be someone out there who knows what he’s like. I mean, what he’s really like, when he lets his guard down.”
“Janice is having trouble finding the witness in my tour group. She got hold of the Canadians, but they didn’t remember anything significant about him.”
“Wait, you’ve got witnesses trying to remember another witness?”
“Good to know you’re keeping up. I suppose we could have them hypnotised.”
“That’s illegal, Arthur. Let’s try and keep our noses clean this week, eh?”
But Bryant was taken with the idea. “Actually, I know someone who would do it. Old Albert Purberry – he’s legitimate now, almost, and he’d be cheap.”
“What do you mean, almost?”
“He had some problems a couple of years back; it was nothing. A trick that went wrong, that’s all.”
“What happened?”
“He was booked for a stag night and hypnotised the groom-to-be, told him he would fall in love with the first person he saw on his wedding day. Unfortunately the first person he saw the next day wasn’t his wife.”
“Who was it?”
“Barry Manilow. On the television. The groom drove to Birmingham, where Manilow was performing, broke into his dressing room and proposed, but Manilow turned him down. Then Manilow had to get a restraining order, and the wedding was called off and the fiancée’s mother burned Albert’s house down. But he’s better now. I’ll give him a call.”
“I’d hold off for a day or two,” May cautioned. “If we don’t find a link between the deaths tomorrow, we investigate them separately. Do we have a deal?”
“Do I have a choice?” complained Bryant.
♦
Janice Longbright was on all fours under her desk. There was something wrong with the electric socket on the floor that Dave and Dave, the two builders, had connected. It was crackling and popping, but as Bryant had blown up the other circuit, she needed it to work. She was tired and wanted to go home, but staying in the office stopped her from thinking about Liberty DuCaine.
“Need any help?” asked Renfield, bending low.
“There’s some kind of intermittent fault, the power keeps shorting out.” She refused his offer of a hand and clambered up. “Don’t worry, I can fix it.”
Renfield folded his thick arms and sternly regarded her. “You don’t always have to be so independent, you know.”
“It comes naturally to me.” She dusted herself down. “Was there something you wanted?”
“I’m sorry about DuCaine.” He looked awkward. “I know you and he got – close.”
“We slept together once, Jack. There’s no need to be coy about it. I’d be sorry for anyone I knew who got killed in the line of duty. So I’m sorry he died, nothing more.”
“Bit of a harsh way of looking at it.”
“Well, small cruelties are what get us through.”
Renfield looked uncomfortable. “I was going to say that I’m here if you get fed up, or need to talk to someone.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve been around the block, it’s happened before, if I think too hard about it I won’t come in tomorrow morning. So let’s just draw a line under the matter.”
“Okay. I just wanted to say – you know – ”
“Can we talk about this some other time? Go home and get some rest.” Renfield looked dejected. She touched his arm. “But it’s good of you to think of me.”
She dropped back into her chair and pinned a stray auburn curl behind her ear. Releasing a long, slow breath, she looked around the room. This is it, she thought, the other end of my rat run. It starts at my empty flat in Highgate, and descends to a derelict warehouse in King’s Cros
s. There and back. My life in the service of the public. I wanted to be a burlesque dancer. Instead, I ended up being a copper like my ma.
Liberty DuCaine had given her a glimpse of the outside world. Most men seemed to smile on her in the way that they might admire an old Land Army poster, for its vigour and colouring. Liberty had found more within her, and liked the very qualities other men found unappealing. She had no desire to change. She was big-boned, strong-willed, blunt, outspoken, womanly, as glamorous as a lipstick lesbian and as kind as a man’s memory of his mother. In the catalogue of desirable female attributes, it felt as though she had managed to tick all the wrong boxes.
She caught sight of herself in a huge gilt mirror that stood propped against the opposite wall and knew this was who she would always be, a Diana Dors look-alike who wore a corset under her uniform and made weak men afraid. To hell with them, she thought with sharp finality. If they can’t handle me, that’s their problem, not mine. I’m not going to change who I am now. Tomorrow I’m going to bleach the hell out of my hair and go back to being big, blond and buxom. I reined it in for you, Liberty, because I wanted you to want me. I won’t do that again for anyone.
She stayed in the office for want of something better to do. Paperwork smothered her desk; there were dozens of King’s Cross passenger statements still to sort through. With any luck, it would keep her busy for the rest of the night. She could sleep on Bryant’s moth-eaten sofa and start again first thing in the morning.
∨ Off the Rails ∧
17
In Plain Sight
At 11:47 A.M. on Tuesday, John May received a phone call from Cassie Field. “You said to call if I saw any of the stickers,” she explained. “Well, I saw some last night.”
“In the bar?”
“Yeah, on the backpacks of that group I told you about, the ones who spend all evening on their PDAs. They came in just after Theo left. I got talking to one of them, and got his mobile number for you.”
“Thanks, I’ve been trying the house phone, but nobody answers. That was thoughtful of you.”
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