Underground

by Tobias Hill

  ‘We’re a few hours early.’ She looks back over her shoulder. He is struck again by the contrast of her face and eyes. The hard lines of her forehead, the gentleness of her gaze. ‘I’ll fast forward, shall I?’

  He nods, wondering which is real and which instilled. Looks back at the screen. A Tube train careers towards the camera and stops dead. Crowds flood out of the carriages and disperse. Speeded up, the platform movements make Casimir think of time-delayed nature films – flowers bustling towards light, the circular flight paths of stars. On screen the Underground crowds are reduced to a pattern, simple as breathing.

  The image clicks back to normal speed. Two children stand on tiptoes by a chocolate-vending machine, tugging at the wall brackets. Another walks round and round a laughing couple, tying them up with elasticated gloves. The screen readout shows 16:54.

  Phelps sits down in the chair next to him. ‘Are you ready?’

  He nods again, not taking his eyes off the screen. The rush-hour crowd is building up, pushing itself closer to the platform’s edge – an ordinary, everyday kind of danger. Casimir remembers the photograph of Saville, days ago in the control room. Now a tall man in anonymous City pinstripe steps closer to the platform’s edge and becomes familiar, part of a set background. Casimir searches the mass of people behind him. It is an odd sensation, he thinks, to watch the photograph falling into place. Knowing the future.

  A young woman is moving through the crowd. Her hair drapes against shirts and jackets as she turns her shoulders to get past. Faces turn to follow her. From the camera’s-eye view they are expressionless with distance.

  Casimir leans forward, intent on the recording. For a moment he thinks the woman is Alice, but the similarity is superficial; this woman’s movements and attitude are different. More elegant, less quirky.

  Rebecca Saville looks down at her wristwatch, then puts her head back, stretching the shoulder muscles. Her neck is startlingly thin, as it was in the photo-booth picture. Figures move in the crush behind her, almost indistinguishable, like forms under water. There is a monotone flash of clothing as someone steps through a gap, back into shadow. A black woman reaches up to adjust her headphones, nodding to their rhythm. Casimir stares, trying to take in everything.

  It happens in the space of seconds. Rebecca Saville twists at the white platform edge, toppling forward. The crowd moves back from her as she falls, like water from the impact of a stone. There is a flash of electricity as Saville’s arm grazes the negative live rail. Concussively bright.

  Motion ripples back through the crowd, as if it is they who have been pushed away. The pinstripe man turns, shoving. The black woman half-kneels, both hands going out. Black skin, pale blouse sleeves.

  ‘It was not her hand. In the photograph.’

  ‘Watch again.’

  The tape whirrs. Saville flails back up on to the platform, ungainly and unchangeable. Phelps clicks the remote. Saville stands at the front of the crowd with her head back, eyes closed, stretching her thin shoulders. Inexorably, the sequence begins again.

  The woman falls. Every part of Saville is in motion, her face, arms and body turning as she goes down. Behind her the hand is drawn back into the crowd, its outline already lost in shadow.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Nothing. Just the hand.’

  He searches the packed faces of the crowd, looking for intent. But the passengers are a grainy blur of movement. The only expression visible is in their motion. The panic of bystanders, fighting clear of violence.

  After a moment Casimir looks at Phelps. She is waiting, studying his face. ‘I’d have seen you in this crowd. If it was you. But it isn’t.’ She is thoughtful, her voice quieter.

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought I could help.’

  Casimir begins to stand up but the policewoman doesn’t move. ‘Not yet.’

  He sits down again. In his mind he can still see Rebecca Saville, so like Alice from a distance. The body in the catch pit, its hair paler than yellow.

  ‘The photograph of Marion Asher. Do you have it?’

  ‘In a minute. Tell me about the Tube first. What’s it like, working down there?’

  He sits back, requiring himself to be patient. ‘Like anywhere. No.’ He is thinking, so that when he talks his English will be clear, precise as his thinking. ‘The Underground starts out perfect. At first it isn’t like the city above it because it is conceived all at once. Everything must be created, heat and the passage of air. For the engineers and architects it begins as a perfect technical form. Then years go by – decades. Cross-tunnels are found to be unnecessary, so they are bricked up. Deeper tunnels are added by the government, then closed down. Limestone comes through the concrete as if it were muslin. Up above, communities die out. Stations are abandoned.’

  He looks up and she nods for him to go on.

  ‘The Underground becomes a reflection of the city above – organic, not perfect. Full of small animals and weak plants. Good hiding places, and places that are dangerous. Some people – Adams – he felt it was becoming more dangerous.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t know, but I also feel it. The first Underground trains had no windows. They were padded, to keep people safe. Now there are children who ride flat on top of carriages. They call it Tube-surfing. Dangerous, you see? Muggings, killings. People end up on the Underground who are –’

  Force of gravity, Burton. All the dirt ends up down here. The voice comes at him out of nowhere. He shakes it away.

  ‘– needing to shelter. Sometimes weak people, sometimes not. It is not only victims who need to hide. You see?’

  ‘I don’t know. It sounds like you care about it. Still, you haven’t answered my question. What’s it like, for you?’

  He shrugs. ‘It is safe.’ Hesitates. ‘Most of the time, it feels safe.’

  The policewoman sits back from him, as if she is still waiting for something. When Casimir doesn’t go on, she reaches down for the files. Opens the newest, leafs through for a sheet of paper. ‘Thank you. Here. You asked for this.’

  He takes the paper. It is a photocopied snapshot, shades reduced to stark black and white. Two girls sitting on a low wall under broad trees. Looking down as they laugh. Sunlight coming through their hair.

  ‘From her Filofax. The one on the left’s Asher.’

  He turns the page in his hands, as if he could see more of the photograph in that way. Marion Asher leans forward slightly as she laughs, supporting herself on the flats of her hands. Her hair is much lighter than the other girl’s, the photocopy reducing it to page-white. Light is reflected up on to her face. Casimir is struck by the long cut of her cheekbones. The nose curved outwards towards the bridge, not quite aquiline. A small, neat hook.

  ‘Remind you of anyone?’

  He looks up fast. Phelps is turned away from him, clicking the video back into its case. ‘Like Saville. Don’t you think? A little, anyway. Enough for it to matter.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Casimir looks down again. Collecting his thoughts. The urge to run is stronger now, to get to the abandoned station and ask Alice – what? At least to see her, to see she is safe. The picture lies on his open hands, almost weightless. He is aware of the policewoman moving around him, clearing things away. When he looks up Phelps is standing in front of him, the folders in her hands.

  ‘That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To see what she looked like.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ He stands and stretches, an automatic movement. Rolling the shoulders back, feeling the circulation quicken. He screws his eyes closed for a second and Asher’s image flares and fades. He glances up at the wall clock; it is long past five. And there is someone else he has to see. He thinks it is not too late. ‘I’m sorry I was no help.’

  ‘You tried. It’s more unusual than you might think. You must be tired. I’ll get one of the officers to drive you home.’ She is already turning towards
the door.

  ‘No. I would like to walk.’

  ‘To Lower Marsh?’ She opens the door, looking back at him.

  ‘No.’ She remembers his address so quickly. He wonders how long she has considered him as a suspect, and if the consideration is over now. ‘Just to walk.’

  Phelps raises her eyebrows, shrugs. ‘Whatever gets you through the night. Just remember you’ve been through a traumatic experience. I wouldn’t advise walking along the canals, or down to any King’s Cross nightspots. Not tonight.’

  ‘Thank you for the advice.’

  Together they walk back, past the desk officer to the station doors. Outside, Casimir can see the sky beginning to lighten. Over the rooftops, the dark is faintly hazed with blue, like dust.

  ‘I may need to talk to you again. And call me, if you think of anything.’

  ‘Of course,’ he says. He lies. He has never liked authority and he doesn’t need its help now. Casimir opens the doors, steps out. The air is cool, still smelling of rain. It makes him feel alert. And he likes to be alert.

  Phelps waits in the doorway behind him. ‘Thanks again. Remember you’re in London. It can be dangerous here, even if you’re big and strong. Especially then, Mister Casimir.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ He walks down the steps without looking back.

  On the Kentish Town Road he turns south, heading back towards his station. The streets are still almost deserted. When cars pass Casimir can hear them coming from far off, tyres hissing against the wet asphalt.

  It feels colder now he is outside and alone, and he presses his hands down inside the pockets of his uniform jacket. Somewhere behind him a burglar alarm begins to ring, the sound going on and on over the Victorian terraced streets and railway arches.

  The Castle Road junction is empty, traffic lights clicking through their sequences, red and green reflected across the wet ground. Casimir crosses over and stops, breathing slowly, feeling the gentle adrenalin of walking go through him. Outside a row of shops he stops.

  He looks up at the shop signs: ‘Cash Converters’ on a white Perspex lightbox, ‘Al Araf Saunas’ in pale green neon, the tubular letters looped together like graffiti. Both shops are housed in the same two-storey building. From where he stands Casimir can see the whole façade. Rain against plate-glass shop fronts. Oxblood tiles, gabled and patterned with old lettering. The second-floor windows are flat and arched, like tunnel mouths.

  The design is familiar to Casimir as the warren of his own station. Above the arch windows, foot-high letters are moulded into the ceramic tiles. Even in the streetlight they are faint, the colour weathered away. Casimir moves his head so that the illumination catches the raised characters. Narrows his eyes against the rain as he reads: SOUTH KENTISH TOWN STATION. Lower down, UNDERGROUND.

  He drops his head and looks around, but the street is empty. Casimir is breathing faster, already nervous at what he is about to do. Exhilarated to have got something right; the concrete fact of the abandoned station, here in front of him. At the side of the building an alley leads off towards high blocks of post-war flats. Casimir ducks down past the Al Araf Saunas plastic awning, following the old station wall back out of the streetlight.

  The side of the building is untiled, bare brick covered slapdash with mortar. There are no doors or windows, only wild screeds of graffiti in bright silver spray paint, towering over Casimir’s head: SEX IS GOOD, TIME FLIES BUT AEROPLANES CRASH.

  The back of the building is surrounded by a rambling fence of corrugated iron. A small door has been blowtorched into the fence and padlocked shut, and Casimir puts his face up to the wet iron edge, looking through the gaps. Beyond are a few yards of wasteground, old carpets and empty boxes half-lit by the lampposts on Castle Road.

  Casimir reaches down for the padlock. The bar is clamped down over the latch. He pulls hard. Harder. The bar chafes open, stubborn but unrusted. He wonders how many times someone has come here, at night, unnoticed. Whether it is always Alice, or Alice alone. Carefully, he lifts the door open and goes through.

  The yard is uneven, with piles of rug ends and carpet stair-lengths. The ground is covered with their waterlogged patterns: mottled purple flowers, yellowed kilim abstracts, a deep greenish design of branches and birds. The back of the station is windowless, cracks opening in its damp brickwork. A peeling wooden door has been propped open with a sagging roll of blue linoleum. The doorway itself is blocked off with a jumble of barbed wire and red-white striped emergency tape.

  He squats down. The carpets are heavy and very cold in his hands, slippery with an accumulation of grease and dirt. Casimir shoulders them away layer by layer, working down until he finds a piece small enough to make use of. He wraps it around both hands like a muffler and goes up to the doorway.

  The barbed wire scratches against his forearms as he gets a grip. When he pulls it comes out easily, bouncing and skittering against the walls of the doorway. The warning tape flutters its writing into his face: LONDON TRANSPORT PROPERTY. KEEP OUT. Beyond the obstruction is a straight unlit staircase, leading down.

  The mass of metal is surprisingly heavy. He turns at the waist and drops in on to the carpets. Their fabric oozes groundwater. In the streetlight Casimir can make out one flight of descending steps. More faintly, light from behind him illuminates a square white patch of floor further down. It is hard to tell how far down the stairwell goes.

  He thinks of Phelps. Her voice measured, like hard footsteps. Something about strength and danger. It reminds him of childhood, the time he went through spring ice on the canal. The sour taste of ice and the feel of it against his face, coming up under a frozen surface. Something behind him in the dark green water, beautiful and monstrous.

  He pushes the thoughts away. For now there is only Alice, the killings, and the dark stairwell in the abandoned station yard. Casimir looks back at the lampposts behind him, blinking in their glare, grateful for the after-images of light. Then he goes through the doorway. Edges forward, feeling the ground with his feet.

  At the third step he stumbles and again at the ninth. He makes himself stop at the first landing, waiting impatiently until his eyes adjust. The staircase is not truly dark, but his pupils are still narrowed to the strength of surface light. Mica flecks glitter in the stone under his feet. Illumination comes down from the street above but also dimly from below, filtering up the shaft of a spiral staircase. A huge worm-like ventilator extends from the vertical well, segments curving upwards to its silver turbine mouth.

  Sound carries up from the tunnels underground, faint as the light. There is a rumbling gust of air as a train passes, north or southwards. An irregular musical banging, metal against metal. Casimir stands entirely still, listening. He can make out voices, high and childlike. Like something out of Alice in Wonderland, but more real. Down to earth.

  ‘Kevin would strip your hide, man.’

  ‘Yeah. But I’d slap him though. I’d kick him with six legs though.’

  ‘He’d strip your hide.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The core of the spiral stairs is iron mesh, furred with dirt. Casimir can see lift cables and pulleys inside, moving in the air from the doorway above. He puts his face up close to the wire, then pulls back. There is a door in the mesh and next to it a palm-sized red button on a flat metal panel.

  He presses the button. There is a jerk of machinery from above his head and voices below cut off abruptly. Casimir steps back as engine machinery clatters into life, shockingly close to his face.

  The lift cables loop and wind. A red cage-work lift rocks up into place and Casimir pulls at the door. It has been wired shut, but his movement breaks the wire cleanly. A bundle of tunnel workers’ clothes is slumped in the far corner. On top of the bundle someone has propped a London Transport sign: THIS LIFT IS NOT IN USE. PLEASE WALK DOWN.

  He swears softly and turns away, going on down the spiral staircase. Carefully, staying close to the outer wall, where the steps are at their widest. At the bottom a me
tal door leans open in the staircase’s core and a pair of archways lead off through the stairwell’s curved walls. Casimir reaches out and carefully opens the heavy door. From experience he knows that this must be the entrance to South Kentish Town’s substation. But he can see nothing, not even the steps that will lead on down. He can hear the soft lapping of floodwater, and against his face the darkness is solid and cool. He steps backwards towards the nearest archway and through it, breathing fast. Turns round.

  He is in an Underground cross-tunnel, a long low hall, lit by a row of light bulbs hanging from the roof. There is the church crypt smell of damp and sweet dust that he remembers from the abandoned platform. The harsher smell of urine fermenting in closed-off rooms. There is writing all over the ceiling in neat black charcoal, and Casimir cranes his head back to read the nearest message: ‘Royal Lincoln bound for Malaya 1955. RSM Brown is a fat ugly barrel-gutsed bastard.’

  He looks down again. At one end the tunnel stops dead at two public lift doors, their square apertures bricked up with breeze-blocks and sloppy mortar. At the other, the corridor turns away out of sight. Casimir walks down towards the corner, quiet and alert. Here the cream-and-oxblood-patterned walls shine with damp, wet as bathroom tiles. There are wooden storeroom doors along the walls, but when he tries them they are all locked up.

  There is the sound of running water, and Casimir stops again to listen. The voices have gone quiet but the metallic hammering is still audible. Casimir bends forward, frowning, trying to make out where the sounds are coming from. But it’s hard to tell; the tunnels and chambers trap the sound, echo it, turning it back on itself.

  Ahead of him is another flights of steps. There are no lights here, but stuck to the walls are long strips of luminous tape. They cast a faint, greenish radiance around Casimir as he walks down. A narrow arched cross-tunnel leads off left and right. In the wall ahead are two enamelled Underground maps, South Kentish Town circled in red and black like a bull’s-eye. Between the maps is a high, thin wooden door. Light shows under it. Without letting himself stop to think, Casimir turns the handle. Steps in.