by Chris Ryan
* * *
Meena looked down at the reflection of the Puma in the water. They were over Epping Forest, but now the tops of the trees below looked like a paddy field. She wondered what her home near Chelmsford would look like now. Well, not long and she would find out.
‘Hey, Dorek? Do you think you could drop me at Brentwood playing fields? I’ve missed my lift home with Mike from the Flying Eye.’
Dorek made a minute course correction. ‘Don’t see why not.’
Meena smiled. ‘Thanks. I’ll mention you on the breakfast show tomorrow.’ She’d said it automatically, then caught herself. ‘If there is a breakfast show tomorrow …’
A voice came through on Dorek’s headset; he listened to it for a moment, then stated his position. ‘Just passing over Epping Forest.’
The voice squawked in Dorek’s headset for a moment, then he replied, ‘Roger,’ and changed course again. The helicopter swung around in a big circle and began to head back the way it had come.
‘What’s going on?’ said Meena. ‘Why are we going back?’
‘Sorry, Meena, you won’t be going home for a while. This takes priority. We’ve got to go see someone.’
Chapter Twenty-three
Ben lay in the pipe and let his forehead rest on the rough concrete. He was exhausted. He’d had enough. He just wanted to tune out the world and go to sleep.
The rain pattered onto the back of his head. It felt pleasantly cool. He hadn’t realized how hot he was getting, inching along in the confined space. His shoulders, knees and elbows were sore from the friction. As he looked at the concrete pipe, the water trickling down the silt in the middle, he imagined pulling himself along on raw elbows again.
Perhaps he should just wait there until someone came to the building site. At least he could breathe: he wasn’t going to suffocate.
Even Bel might give up in a situation like this. Especially if there wasn’t a camera to see it. She’d probably turn over and have a snooze, and then, when rescuers pulled her out, she’d be berating the government for allowing concrete to be used in construction, because it cost so much energy to produce and contributed to — you guessed it — global warming.
Ben shivered. He was cold again now. He’d have to get going again or he’d freeze. The purple cable snaked on into the distance. It had to lead somewhere. He just had to hope it was somewhere he could go too.
He started to inch down the tunnel again. His elbows, knees and feet were sore and his breathing was loud in his ears, echoing off the walls. In the confined space he could smell his own sweat and his clothes, which reeked of rat.
He started to think of his unpleasant Tube journey that morning, crowded in with people smelling wet and sweaty, water dripping off their umbrellas. He thought that had been unpleasant enough, with the wet seats and stale tunnel air, but compared with where he was now it was luxury.
He went on and realized that the tunnel was getting darker. Should he stop and turn back? He could barely see his hands in front of him on the ground now.
But he could smell something. He was no longer imagining being in the Tube; surely this was the Tube.
Suddenly his elbows had more room to move. Much more room. There was a big space beside him. He explored it with his hands. It was big enough to squeeze out of.
Ben felt almost dizzy with relief.
He pulled himself out and his hands met sharp items on a wet floor. As he brushed them aside, they made a metallic noise and one of them gave off a faint glint of light. But where was the light coming from?
In a wall high above Ben’s head he saw a row of narrow slits. In front of him he could make out an open tool box, with wire cutters, spanners and screwdrivers strewn around the floor. That was what he had felt. In the wall was a cable conduit, its cover off.
Ben stayed on his hands and knees for a moment, taking in deep breaths. He had done it: he had got out of the tunnel.
The smell of the Tube was really strong now, not just a faint odour stirring the memory, and he saw that the toolbox had a logo on it: London Underground. He must be in a station. The slits above him must be one of those ventilation shafts he had seen on the roofs of station buildings.
As he got to his feet, he realized he was in a tall room and below him he could hear a watery sound, like an open well. Nearby was a sign pointing to a staircase. He went over to have a look and saw that it led down into the dark depths. The slits of light in the roof above reflected down there as if in a mirror. The well was filled with water. Shapes floated there motionless, the water almost covering them like varnish. It was a few moments before Ben realized what they were: heads, backs, hands, a sodden baseball jacket, a hoodie, a Drizabone hat. An iPod floating like a white tentacled thing in the water. Bodies.
He moved away quickly, and saw, on the other side of the room, a heavy dark wood door. It was open. On the floor by the toolbox was a torch. He picked it up and flicked it on, being sure to point it away from the bodies floating in the stairwell, then went through the door.
He found himself in a corridor. At the end an open door led to the booking concourse, where a sign said WELCOME TO HYDE PARK CORNER.
On the back of a chair beside the ticket barriers Ben spotted a navy blue jacket with LONDON UNDERGROUND on it. He shrugged off the mac and put on the jacket instead. At least it was warm and dry.
Then he picked an exit from the concourse and went up to street level.
He found himself on an enormous traffic island. He’d almost hoped that the scene would have changed when he got out, but it was the same desolation he’d left behind when he’d gone into the sculptor’s studio in Belgravia. Car and burglar alarms still shrieked alongside the seagulls and the rain came down relentlessly. You didn’t need a compass to work out where the water was; you could see the cluster of helicopters hovering over it like birds of prey. Buses and coaches stood abandoned all round the island, and ducks, geese and swans from the royal parks still patrolled the puddles. Manhole covers lay on the tarmac, water bubbling up onto the road as though from some cauldron below. It stank of sewage.
But it wasn’t a bad vantage point. The land sloped down towards Buckingham Palace to the south; it was surrounded by the dark lip of the water. If he remembered right, Charing Cross was near the river. All he had to do was follow the edge of the flood water eastwards.
As Ben turned his collar up against the unforgiving rain, he was back in the same miserable rhythm, one foot in front of the other. It was almost as if he had never strayed into the studio; as if he’d just been walking the whole time and imagined the whole bizarre incident. He was hungry and cold. If he kept moving, he thought, surely he’d get warm.
The image of the bodies in the Tube station followed him like a ghost, sending shudders through his rain-soaked skin. He began to think how lucky he’d been. What time had he come out of the Tube at Waterloo? And when had the flood hit? His train into London had been delayed. It could so easily have been delayed longer. He could have been trapped in the Tube himself. How many people were cocooned in that black water?
He reached Green Park Station and smelled that stale wet Tube station smell like the breath of old drains, heard the slap of water on shaft walls; saw in his mind’s eye the bodies, hanging like discarded wetsuits in a dripping stairwell.
He passed the Ritz and glanced down a side street. He realized that he needed to keep closer to the edge of the water and went down a narrow street — one car wide and lined with very old, expensive-looking shops: a tailor with gold lettering on the window; a tobacconist with a dark oak humidifier, cigars laid out inside it like a bizarre delicatessen counter.
As he made his way south-east, Ben looked down the next street and realized it was flooded. He stopped and thought. Maybe he should turn back.
A figure was walking further down the street, his green gum boots splashing through the filthy water. The water was moving, as though it still carried the ferocious current of the Thames like an electric charge,
but it didn’t seem to be causing him any trouble.
Ben stepped in cautiously and carried on, past a wine shop displaying a dusty bottle of champagne as big as a traffic cone. He was so wet anyway, he didn’t notice any difference between walking on dry land and wading. When he got to the end of the street he could head back up to the main road.
Ben had nearly caught up with the figure in wellies. ‘Hi there,’ he called out, but then the man took a step and vanished.
It was as if the ground had swallowed him.
Chapter Twenty-four
Ben froze. The man must have stepped into an open manhole. Stepped into it and gone straight down.
Ben searched the surface of the water. It swirled around his feet, a parked van, the lampposts, the bollards. There was no sign of the figure he had just seen walking along just moments before. No bubbles, no splashing; nothing rising to the surface. Not even a change in the swirl of the water to show where that manhole waited like an open mouth.
‘Hello?’ called Ben. There was no sound, just the ripple of moving water, claiming the city as its own. Ben’s skin prickled colder and colder. He remembered being in the pipe, the feel of its walls pinning his arms in. A drain probably wasn’t much bigger. You couldn’t move your arms to keep yourself afloat. You’d go down like a stone. Then be swept away? What a horrible way to die.
It was like the city was a monster turning on its people.
And where was the drain? If he couldn’t see it, how would he avoid it? He’d run back the way he’d come.
No, he couldn’t, he thought. There might be open manholes there as well. He would reach dry land faster if he carried on to the end of the street than if he went back. Statistically there would be fewer manholes that way too.
OK: start walking.
Ben’s body wouldn’t obey him. He couldn’t just play a game of Russian roulette and hope he wouldn’t hit the unlucky spot.
There had to be a way to see them. Was there anything he could use as a guide? And where had the man disappeared? In the middle of the road? In the gutter?
He didn’t know. It had happened so fast.
Ben shivered. He had been standing motionless and was getting cold again. He had to get moving. He moved one foot forwards, keeping his weight on his back foot, and tested the ground ahead carefully.
The ground underneath seemed stable. He stepped forward and transferred his weight, then put the other foot forward and tested the ground again. So far so good. He was reminded of films he’d seen of people walking through minefields. He just had to keep his head, be sensible and not rush. That man had disappeared, straight down, in the time it took to blink an eye. Ben just had to take it one step at a time. Foot forward, test, transfer the weight. Repeat again, slowly. No rush.
The end of the road was coming steadily closer. Was he at the point where the man had disappeared?
Ben wished he hadn’t thought of that. Somewhere, not far from where his feet were slowly passing, a man had lost his life. His body was probably still warm.
Once Ben’s imagination started, it wouldn’t stop. Once again he saw the bodies floating in the stairwell at Hyde Park Corner, the heads drooping, the shoulders rounded. He imagined the man with his head bowed like that in the narrow pipe.
Get a grip, he told himself. It’s not far now. One step, then another. Soon he would be at the edge. Another step. He just had to take it slowly. He had come this far safely.
Carefully he felt around with his front foot — and this time it carried on down.
He stumbled backwards. There was open space beneath that foot and he’d nearly put his whole weight on it. He froze, his body shaking. He looked at the carpet of grey-brown water and saw a mass of hidden traps.
Helicopters were still buzzing over the water. He’d tuned them out, tuned out the alarms still calling to the wet sky, tuned out everything but his own footsteps. Now the noise clamoured in his ears, stopped him thinking.
He looked up at them. If he waved hard enough, would they swoop down and pick him up? Anything to avoid this tortuous walk.
But of course they couldn’t see him, or if they could, they probably thought he wasn’t in immediate danger.
He had to carry on, but the manhole was in front of him and he dreaded that awful sensation of his foot going down and down.
He moved across to the side. That was OK. Then he took another step to the side. Surely a manhole couldn’t be wider than two strides across.
He stopped, trying to screw up the courage to go forwards. The end of the street was just twenty metres away and then there would be firm ground.
He felt with his foot. The ground was solid, so he transferred his weight onto it. An irrational surge of adrenaline fired through him, and before he realized what he was doing, his legs were pumping hard, running through the water. It was like a switch had flipped in his brain. Forget the softly-softly minefield approach: he just had to get out. He wasn’t thinking, he was just running crazily.
He reached the dry road and fell forwards onto his knees, his lungs dragging in air.
Chapter Twenty-five
As José Xavier walked along, he saw that this part of town was full of signs for lawyers’ offices and financial institutions, punctuated by the odd sandwich bar. He was hungry, desperately hungry.
Once he saw the sandwich shops, he couldn’t stop thinking about food. All that time in the pouring rain had taken its toll and his body craved calories just to keep warm. He tried the doors but they had been locked up carefully. People in this part of London obviously didn’t just abandon their premises.
Through the windows of a solicitor’s office he could see a figure moving around inside — a bald man in a suit; no doubt one of the solicitors. He had a packet of Hobnobs beside him.
José stopped, transfixed by the sight of the biscuits. He wasn’t even aware that he was staring until the man caught sight of him and beckoned to him frantically.
José walked in, careful to keep his policeman’s raincoat buttoned up high, his eyes fixed on the biscuits.
The bald man pointed across to a figure lying on the floor. ‘She’s there,’ he told José. ‘We pulled her out of the basement when it flooded.’
A woman was stretched out on her back. Her clothes were soaked and her black tights had gaping holes in them. Her hair flowed over her face like seaweed. The carpet around her was sodden, as though she was bleeding river water. A man in half-moon glasses was kneeling over her, trying to give her the kiss of life.
‘The police are here,’ the bald man told him, and Half-moon Glasses sat back on his heels looking relieved.
José put his hand out to the man with the Hobnobs. ‘Give me those,’ he ordered.
The bald man handed the packet over. José wolfed four of them immediately. It was the first thing he’d eaten for hours. Better than what was on offer in Snow Hill police station.
The two men looked at him, amazed, as though they’d expected him to give them to the unconscious woman as some kind of miracle cure.
‘She needs help,’ said Half-moon Glasses. ‘We can’t get her to breathe.’
José glanced at the woman. Even from this distance her clothes smelled of sewage. A drain must have flooded into the building. Her skin looked pale and waxy and her lips were blue.
While he’d been taking this in José had eaten four more biscuits. The rain dripped off his uniform onto the floor.
‘She looks dead,’ said José. He wandered through to the kitchen and opened the fridge door. The light didn’t come on — of course — but there was a packet of sandwiches in there from one of the upmarket shops he had passed on the way here. He tore the packet open and took an enormous bite.
The bald man followed him. ‘Aren’t you even going to look at her?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you call for help on your radio?’
José straightened up and hit him around the mouth. The bald man crashed to the floor, letting out a grunt of surprise and pain.
In
the other room, Half-moon Glasses froze where he was, still kneeling by the dead woman. His eyes were wide and horrified.
By the sink was a bottle of bleach with a trigger nozzle. José seized it and pointed the nozzle downwards at the bald man’s face, like a gun. Just in case he was thinking about trying to stop him getting away.
The bald man understood. He stayed where he was, leaning up on one elbow, his other hand on his bleeding mouth, watching José.
José walked to the door.
Outside, the rain was still tipping down, splashing noisily off the road and the gutters. José put the bleach bottle in his pocket, turned up his collar and went out.
* * *
In a back street in Mayfair, Francisco Gomez walked into a repair garage. It was very upmarket — there were no oily patches on the forecourt, as if cleaners came and scrubbed them away every day. A Mini stood on the inspection ramp, where it had been abandoned in the middle of an MOT. It was rather a modest car for this part of town, Francisco thought, but he guessed the mechanics had taken the Mercs and Jags and scarpered when the disaster hit.
The station had one petrol pump. Excellent: he could help himself to a can while he was here. You never knew when it might come in useful. He pulled the petrol nozzle out of the holder and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. It was probably locked from some central control indoors.
He made his way across to the office. A puffy jacket like the top half of a Michelin man outfit lay abandoned on an office chair. Francisco shrugged off the sodden donkey jacket and put the puffy jacket on. The warmth cocooned his soaking skin.
Now to find the switch to release the petrol pumps.
He found it first go, under the cash register. He pressed it, but still nothing happened. Too bad.
