The London Eye Mystery

by Siobhan Dowd

  ‘Marcus,’ she said, ‘I want you to think. Take your time. Was there anything Salim said – anything –

  that might give us a clue to where he went next?’

  Marcus’s hood shook. ‘No. That’s it. I’ve told you everything I remember. He said he was coming straight back here. Honest to God.’

  ‘Did he say how?’

  ‘No. He had a travel card. He’d shown me it earlier.’ He pulled the hood down more over his face. 292

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  The policewoman who was looking after him put an arm round him.

  ‘I want to go home now,’ came his voice, muffled. Detective Inspector Pearce nodded. ‘Take him home,’ she said. ‘If he remembers anything else, call me right away.’

  Marcus was led to the door, but just as he was about to go, Aunt Gloria stood up.

  ‘Marcus,’ she said. The room went quiet. Marcus paused, but didn’t turn round.

  ‘I want you to know, Marcus. Know it from me, Salim’s mother. This was none of your fault.’

  Then she sat down and groaned.

  Marcus shuffled over to her. ‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘To give you this.’ He held out his hand. In it was Salim’s mobile. Aunt Gloria took it from him with shaking fingers. She held it up to her cheek.

  ‘Oh, Salim,’ she whispered to it. ‘Where are you?’

  Marcus and his police escort left.

  Detective Inspector Pearce touched Aunt Gloria on the shoulder and said how she was going back to headquarters to mount a London-wide search. The 293

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  workers in the underground, the bus drivers who went through Euston would be questioned. She’d leave no stone unturned, she said. Then she left too and Aunt Gloria started to cry again.

  Then Mum sent Kat and me up to bed.

  We didn’t even try to go to sleep. Kat sat up on the lilo. I sat up in my bed. I had the bedside light on. My head thumped.

  ‘Ted?’ Kat said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You thought you’d found him. And you hadn’t. He’s gone again.’

  ‘Yes, Kat. Gone.’

  ‘I don’t like it, Ted.’ She shivered. ‘Inspector Pearce doesn’t like it either.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All along she thought Salim had run away. Now she doesn’t think so any more.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There are only two possibilities, Ted.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Either he ran away. Or he was kidnapped.’

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  ‘Kidnapped?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why? Aunt Gloria isn’t a millionaire, is she?’

  ‘Oh, Ted. You’re so young. Kids get kidnapped for other reasons.’

  ‘What other reasons?’

  ‘Stop looking at me like a duck that’s forgotten how to quack!’

  I stopped tilting my head and blinked. ‘What other reasons, Kat?’

  ‘Sex stuff.’

  My hand shook itself out.

  Kat lay down, curling up. She didn’t go to sleep. I heard no lapping like a dog drinking. After a long while I turned the radio on low. It was the shipping forecast, at midnight. ‘ The general synopsis at o-o-hundred hours issued by the Met Office . . . Fitzroy, mainly northerly, five or six becoming variable, thundery

  . . . Forth Tyne Dogger six or seven . . .’ Down south, the rain came in. The winds rose. I heard tree branches tapping the roof of our garden shed. I thought of the washing on the line, soaked again. 295

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  Squalls of hard raindrops drummed against the window. I got out my weather book and looked up the section on the Coriolis effect. I heard Salim’s voice, at Euston Station, talking to Marcus. They’re great, Kat and Ted.

  I thought of the boy on the slab. I thought of Salim, somewhere in the great silent void, or lying somewhere out there in the growing storm. Two possibilities. Hiding or kidnapped.

  ‘Switch it off, Ted. The radio. It’s driving me nuts.’

  It was Kat. I switched it off.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ she moaned.

  ‘Kat, you know the theories? The nine theories?’

  ‘Not them again, please.’

  ‘One of them was right, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. Number six. Clever-clogs.’

  ‘But you remember how I first thought of eight, and then later I thought of a ninth?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Maybe what you said earlier isn’t true.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You said there are only two theories. Either he’s 296

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  hiding or he’s kidnapped. But maybe there’s a third theory. Like the ninth one before. One that we haven’t yet thought of.’

  Kat was listening now. She got up and switched on the main light. ‘Now you’re talking,’ she said. ‘A third theory. There must be one.’

  She walked up and down beside the lilo, thumping a fist into her palm, like a stone hitting paper in the stone-scissors-paper game you play when you are small. It was the one game I knew how to play and it was my favourite. I made a scissors out of my hand. It was like the third theory we were trying to find. I thought out loud. ‘Maybe Salim went missing again deliberately. Willingly. Maybe Marcus is lying.’

  Kat stopped pacing. She looked at me. ‘Marcus was telling the truth.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just know. It’s a body-language thing, Ted. Like how I knew that the ninth theory was wrong. It’s the same now. I just know it was the way Marcus said. Salim didn’t mean to vanish. He meant to come back here. He’d changed his mind about running away.’

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  ‘So that means he vanished unwillingly.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She sat down on the bed. ‘There are only two possibilities, Ted. There are only two theories. He either vanished of his own accord – or of somebody else’s.’

  ‘Somebody else’s,’ I repeated.

  ‘Which means that somebody – out there – is holding him.’

  ‘Holding him.’ I got out of bed and opened the window. ‘Somebody out there,’ I repeated. The northeasterly wind blew in. The papers on my desk flew across the room. A leaf came in. I thought about the Coriolis effect. I could smell the outside. I could smell London.

  ‘Somebody out there,’ Kat whispered, joining me at the window. She put her arm around my shoulders.

  ‘Or some thing,’ I said.

  The gale came into the room for a few seconds more, then Kat shut the window again. ‘What d’you mean – some thing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe something got in 298

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  Salim’s way and deflected him off course. Like the Coriolis effect. That puts the wind off course all the time. And it’s not a person. It’s a thing. It’s a thing you can’t even see.’

  ‘D’you mean – he met with an accident?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘OK. He met with an accident of some kind and couldn’t get home. But he’d have shown up – his body would have been found. Or he’d be in a hospital somewhere. The police would have found him. Unless—’ Kat’s hands went up to her neck. Her eyes went large and round.

  ‘Unless what?’ I said.

  ‘Unless he fell in the river. Unless he drowned.’

  I thought of the cormorants ducking and diving. My hand flapped.

  ‘You don’t just fall in the river, Kat. There are walls all around. You’d have to throw yourself in deliberately.’

  Kat gasped. Her eyes got even bigger. ‘Maybe Salim did. Throw. Himself. In.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

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  Kat stared. I put my flapping hand on her soft, bony shoulder.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  She breathed out. ‘No. You’re right. Salim wouldn’t do that. He w
ouldn’t.’ She shook her head.

  ‘OK. So this Coriolis thingy. What was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. I put my hands up to my head and shook it. ‘I’m trying to think. But my brain’s tired.’

  ‘Let’s be Salim, Ted. Let’s both imagine we’re on Euston Station. Let’s retrace his steps. In our heads. Remember. He doesn’t know London well. He has a travel card. Right?’

  ‘Right, Kat.’

  ‘He’s waving Marcus goodbye. Got that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He looks at his watch. It’s four o’clock,’ I said.

  ‘And he knows Auntie Glo will be frantic. So he goes to get out his phone.’

  ‘And he realizes he doesn’t have it. He left it in the pink fluffy jacket.’

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  ‘So he goes to a public phone, right?’ She frowned.

  ‘Wrong. He didn’t have the money, Kat. He’d spent it all. The disposable camera. The Mars bars. The Cokes. The busker.’

  ‘Yeah – of course. All he’s got is a travel card. So he decides to just get home.’

  ‘He goes down the underground.’

  ‘How do you know, Ted?’

  ‘It’s the fastest. And the easiest if you don’t know London.’

  ‘OK. He looks at the underground map. He’s already been on the Northern Line this morning. He’s not stupid. And it’s simple. From Euston to our stop it’s direct, no changing. Easy. He goes to the platform. He gets on.’

  ‘Euston. Tottenham Court Road. Leicester Square. Embankment. Waterloo,’ I said.

  ‘Then on to our stop, Ted.’

  ‘He gets out.’

  ‘He gets the lift.’

  ‘He’s back to ground level, Kat.’

  ‘He shows his travel card, or puts it through the 301

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  barrier, and then he’s back. Back here! We’re just round the corner from the tube.’ Kat blew out a hot, angry breath. ‘It’s useless, Ted.’

  ‘He might have got confused about which

  direction to take when he got out on the main road. I do.’

  Kat stared at me. ‘I don’t think so. Not Salim. He’d walked the way with us just that morning. It’s dead easy – just two hundred metres down the main road, past the Barracks, and then left onto Rivington Street. And then our house, halfway down.’

  I nodded. ‘Our house. Halfway down.’

  Kat slumped back down on her lilo. ‘It’s useless, Ted.’

  ‘Useless,’ I said.

  My hand started shaking itself out. My head went off to the side. ‘What did you say, Kat?’ I said. ‘Say it again.’

  ‘Useless.’

  ‘Not that. What you said before. From the bit about the main road.’

  ‘ “Two hundred metres down on the main road, 302

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  past the Barracks, and then—” ’ She stopped. She stared.

  ‘In the pod, Kat. At the top. Marcus said he was staring straight at the sun. He was looking south.’

  ‘He said he was looking at Manhattan,’ Kat murmured.

  ‘He wasn’t looking at Manhattan, Kat. Or the sun. He was looking at something that reminded him of Manhattan. A big tower block. He was looking at the Barracks.’

  ‘That’s the some thing,’ Kat said. ‘That’s it. That’s the Coriolis thingy. The thing that made him go off course.’ Then she shook her head. ‘But Ted – he was anxious to get home. Surely he wouldn’t have stopped and gone wandering off into the Barracks?’

  ‘He likes tall buildings, Kat,’ I said.

  Kat nodded. ‘He had his disposable camera. He might have wanted to take some pictures.’

  I nodded. ‘It was a fine day, Kat. Good views.’

  ‘Views which he knew soon wouldn’t exist any more . . . Besides, Ted, he may have dreaded Auntie Glo going ballistic when he showed up. A little 303

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  delay was maybe appealing . . . he goes into the Barracks, just for a quick look . . . then what?’

  ‘Dad came home that evening,’ I squeaked. ‘He said he’d made it secure. He’d locked it up. He hasn’t been back since. He said he’d been down Peckham today. On another site. He locked it up, Kat. With Salim inside it. And nobody’s been there since. Salim’s in there, Kat. Trapped. And the concrete crushers are going in. Tomorrow.’

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  Night Rain

  ‘M other of God,’ Kat shrieked. She ran out of the room. ‘Dad! Mum! Come quickly.’

  When I talk to people about something I’ve found out, they don’t listen. When Kat does, everybody listens. Within five minutes everybody was half dressed and out of the door, into the driving rain. Dad brought two torches and his massive bunch of work keys. We ran down the road – Rashid, Aunt Gloria, Mum, Dad, Kat and I – with coats flapping, umbrellas blowing inside out, hearts pounding, hopes rising, my hand shaking itself out. Dad’s hand trembled as he undid the padlock. A great howl of wind moaned its way round the big dark tower above us. Mum held a torch. We crossed a muddy strip of grass and peeled around the back of the building to the entrance. Another key. Another shaking hand.

  ‘Hurry, hurry!’ screamed Aunt Gloria, almost grabbing the keys off Dad.

  We were in. The door closed behind us. Dad 305

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  played the torch around the lobby. It stank like bad toilets and dead animals. Another key to a room, set back in the darkness. It was like an engine room. Pipes, boilers, cables, fuse boxes. It was silent like a morgue. The torch picked out what Dad was looking for. A cupboard. He unlocked that with a fourth key. There was a switch. He turned it on. Then he turned on a row of switches by the door.

  Light. The tower-block lobby came alive. Yet another door to the stairwell, another key, more lights.

  ‘Salim! Salim!’ we shouted.

  Up and up. Floor after floor. Kat and I were the fastest. I knew where Salim would be. He’d be right at the top on the twenty-fourth storey. By floor fifteen I was rasping. Kat was half a flight ahead. I heard her moaning and whimpering, ‘Salim, uh-uhuh, Salim.’

  Our lungs had given out by the time we got to the top. Kat had a stitch.

  ‘Salim,’ she said. It was little more than a whisper. There were four doors on each floor.

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  The first three we tried were locked. The fourth was ajar. I felt something scuttle past my foot in the darkness.

  ‘Salim . . .’ Kat faltered. She grabbed my hand. It was clammy and cold, but it kept my hand from shaking itself out.

  ‘Don’t go in there, Ted. I don’t like it. I don’t like the way it smells. Let’s wait. For Dad.’

  We waited hand in hand on the twenty-fourth storey, by the open door, the door that led into darkness. It was the longest wait of my life. The theories, all of them, the photos, the words on the T-shirt, the pods on the Wheel were like floating strands in my brain. There were no more theories. This was the last one, the only hope.

  My heart thumped. My eardrums pounded. It was the sound of time.

  Dad came, panting. He had the torch. He

  staggered into the dark doorway. Kat and I crept after him.

  ‘Salim?’ he said. He pushed through another door. The torch beam quivered across some grimy walls. 307

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  ‘Salim?’

  That’s where we found him. He was shaking all over, just waking from sleep. He was curled up like a foetus in an empty room on an old mattress that the last people to leave the Barracks had left behind in the flat. He was alive. Aunt Gloria rushed in and hurled herself down on him.

  ‘Salim!’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, Salim. My love, my love.’

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  FORTY

  After the Storm

  V oices, tears, reconciliations: I remember them as waves of words, going back and forth,
running over my head, around, past, through me. I walked to the window and pinched my nose to block out the smell of a building that Dad said was sick and I had to agree. Somewhere pigeons cooed. They’d got in through a broken window. Cold air brushed my cheek.

  Somebody took me by the shoulder. It was Dad. While Mum and Aunt Gloria helped Salim to his feet and wrapped him in their coats, we looked out. The gale blew itself out and a new push of air, cool and calm, stole in. The moon appeared from behind a bank of cloud.

  That’s when I saw it. London, from the twentyfourth floor, lit up like frost on glass. The dome of St Paul’s was a luminous curve straight ahead. To the left was the white Eye. It was motionless, a giant bicycle wheel in the sky that did not turn. 309

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  And we went home.

  In a hoarse, shaky voice, Salim told us what had happened. He had starved for nearly three days. He’d found water in a toilet cistern in the flat. That is what he drank.

  He’d tried to shout from the window on the twenty-fourth floor. Nobody heard. Nobody looked up.

  He’d tried to get into other flats. They were all locked.

  He’d tried to get out of the stairwell. The door at the bottom was bolted.

  He tried to break out of the building a thousand and one ways. But he couldn’t.

  He was trapped. All he could do was wait and hope. He sat where there was light and a view, in the empty flat on the twenty-fourth floor. He slept on the abandoned mattress despite its dank smell. He had half a Mars bar left from his outing with Marcus, a disposable camera, the clothes he had on and nothing more.

  Then our doctor came to check him over. He 310

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  pronounced him shocked but strong. He said how brave Salim was to have endured what he had and prescribed a bowl of soup and bed. Dad phoned the police and told them how we’d found him. The next day Aunt Gloria, Rashid and Salim talked quietly together all morning in the living room. I don’t know what they said, but afterwards Aunt Gloria announced that Salim wanted to give New York a trial period of six months. This time it was his wish, she said, not just hers.