by Tom Becker
There was no more time to think. Jonathan hurriedly wiped the blade clean, placed it in his pocket, and slipped back inside his dad’s room.
“What’s going on in there?” asked Mrs Elwood.
He saw the concerned look on her face, and then shrugged. “Not sure,” he lied.
A cry of pain from the bed made them both turn round. Alain had sat bolt upright in bed, hands clenched into fists, his whole body racked with spasms.
“My God. What’s wrong?”
Veins were bulging in Alain’s neck and his eyes were wild, as if he was trying to scream out one final warning, but all that escaped through his gritted teeth was a high-pitched choking sound. Jonathan raced towards him but there was nothing he could do: Alain screamed and fell back on to the bed, eyes gazing blankly at the ceiling. The darkness had reclaimed him once more.
7
They stopped back at the Starling house only long enough to stuff some clothes into a rucksack and wolf d own some food. Mrs Elwood was insistent that Jonathan reached the crossing point as soon as he could. “If you’re going to cross you should do it now, before it gets too late.” She gave a worried glance at the night sky. “We don’t want anyone coming for you tonight.”
As they were leaving the house, she scribbled down Carnegie’s address on a piece of paper and handed it to Jonathan. Then she took a small object from her handbag, toying with it in her hands for a second. “There’s a chance that you might need this,” she said eventually. “Carnegie’s a good friend of Alain’s but he can be . . . awkward sometimes. If you’re having any problems with him, then show him this. It should make things easier.”
He peered closely at the object in her palm. It was a small, misshapen lump of metal. “What is it?”
“It was a bullet.”
Jonathan gave Mrs Elwood a suspicious look. “So if I have any trouble with this guy, I show him a used bullet?”
“That’s right, yes.”
“Could I not have a new bullet instead? And a gun?”
Mrs Elwood reached up and gave him a fierce hug.
They drove through London in silence, lost in their own thoughts. The radio news was reporting on the disappearance of Ricky Thomas. The police still had no leads. Now that he had time to think about things, Jonathan could feel the apprehension rising within him. From what he had read and heard about the place, it didn’t sound like Darkside was the safest place in the world. And now he had to travel there on his own, with a gang of kidnappers on his trail. He hoped that Carnegie was a good friend, because he needed one more than ever right now.
They had to halt driving westwards on Upper Thames Street. There must have been some sort of accident up ahead, because both sides of the road were jammed solid with cars. Jonathan was on the verge of telling Mrs Elwood that maybe they should go to the police instead of carrying on with the journey when he spotted a tall, familiar figure in a black suit walking slowly along the pavement towards them.
“Oh God,” he whispered.
Mrs Elwood turned round. “What is it?”
“It’s him. Humble! One of the guys at the library I was telling you about. He’s walking towards us now. Look!”
He was about eight car lengths away, moving as solemnly as if he was carrying a coffin. Though he wasn’t closing in quickly, he was still closing.
“How did they know I was here? Can’t we drive away somewhere?” Jonathan asked, his stomach lurching with panic.
Mrs Elwood threw her hands up in despair. “The road’s blocked solid. There’s nowhere to go. Anyway, he wouldn’t dare do anything in public. We’re surrounded by people, Jonathan.”
The tall figure was starting to fill up the rear view mirror. He had to be seven feet tall at least.
“I was surrounded by people in the British Library, and they got me there too! We’re not safe, I’m telling you!”
The giant was close enough now for the smile on his face to be visible. It looked as if he was welcoming an old friend. Mrs Elwood began to look less certain.
“Are all the doors locked?”
“Yes but . . .”
It was too late now: he was alongside the car. For a second Jonathan thought the giant was going to carry on walking, but at the last moment he stopped. He bent stiffly down to Jonathan’s window and gave him a mute wave, a grin still plastered over his face.
“Don’t look at him!” Mrs Elwood began futilely beeping her horn. “Why can’t we move?”
Jonathan couldn’t have look away if he tried. He was transfixed. The giant knocked on the window with surprising gentleness. It was all Jonathan could do to shake his head. The giant shrugged, and wrapped his huge fingers around the door handle.
“What is he doing?” Mrs Elwood gasped.
Humble braced himself, and began to pull. Unbelievably, the metal door began to creak and buckle.
“Oh my God!” Mrs Elwood screamed. “He’s ripping the door off!”
It seemed impossible, but he was. A chink of light had appeared between the door and the car, and it was starting to widen. Around them, the other drivers carried on chatting to their passengers and listening to the radio. No one beeped their horn or got out of their car. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. Surrounded by people, they were utterly alone.
It was at that moment that Jonathan broke out of his stupor. The gap was almost wide enough for the giant to reach through. Despite the strain on his face, he was still grinning in triumph.
“It’s me he wants! If I go, he’ll follow me!”
As the man peeled the door off like opening a tin, Jonathan unbuckled himself and slipped through the gap into the back seat. He opened the door on the driver’s side and with that he was out. The giant threw the door down on to the pavement, only to see Jonathan sprinting away on the other side of the car.
“Jonathan!” Mrs Elwood screamed out of her window. “Run!”
He didn’t need telling twice. Jonathan raced down the central lines of traffic, protected by the massed ranks of stationary cars. He turned his head to check that Mrs Elwood was safe, and was relieved to see that the giant had forgotten about the car and was walking unhurriedly after Jonathan instead. Slipping between two cars, he cut left and headed down a side street that led to the Thames waterfront. His attention firmly fixed on Humble, Jonathan didn’t notice the black van parked on the side of the road. He didn’t see the side door open and a small, bald man come bounding out. Nor did he see the woman dressed in a long black cloak with fluorescent yellow hair. He didn’t notice any of this until it was too late.
Jonathan ran crashing straight into Marianne’s arms. At once that familiar intoxicating scent washed over him.
“Hello again, Jonathan. It’s nice to see you again. We missed you last time.”
He wriggled in her arms, trying to hold his breath. Beside him Skeet giggled and poked him sharply in the ribs.
“No way, heh, no way out this time, puppy.”
The giant was catching up with them. If he got his hands on Jonathan then he was doomed. Still writhing and kicking, Jonathan’s hands scrabbled around for anything that might help him. His left hand closed around a chunk of Marianne’s hair. He yanked as hard as he could, and she screamed in pain. Skeet threw his head back and screeched in sympathy. Jonathan seized the opportunity to kick him sharply in the shins, and break away from the two of them. He spun off down towards the Thames Path.
“Humble!” Marianne shouted, clutching her head. “Get him!”
Jonathan pounded along the Thames Path. The weather was closing in, and the biting wind and rain had driven people off the streets and indoors. The river was at low tide, but under the bridges waves lashed at the struts. Globular lamps lined his route, giving the path a ghostly white hue. Behind him, Jonathan heard a sound and looked back over his shoulder. What he saw chilled him to the bone. The
giant Humble had broken out of his show shuffle into a full-pelt sprint. His long, spindly legs stepped up into a spidery scuttle that ate up the ground and propelled him forward at an unnatural speed. Jonathan gasped and redoubled his efforts. As he ran, the metal girders of Blackfriars Bridge loomed into view.
He skidded to a halt at the base of the bridge, where the explorer Raphael Stevenson and Molly had come over a century before him. A metal staircase led up from the path and on to Blackfriars Bridge proper, which stretched out across the black expanse of the Thames. The path carried on underneath the bridge, and on through an extended section of scaffolding. To his left, a ladder curled over the top of the riverfront wall and led directly to the bed of the Thames. Jonathan glanced hurriedly over the side. The tide was low enough for the muddy, stony bottom of the river to be visible at the fringes of the waterway.
Jonathan hesitated, the wind whistling across his face. Up the stairs lay London, the city he knew, crammed with bright lights and crowds of people. If the book was right, down the ladder lay a crossing point, and the unknown dangers of Darkside. The giant would be on him in seconds; he had to decide . . .
With one last look at the London skyline, Jonathan hoisted himself up on to the top of the wall and began to shin down the ladder. The rungs were cold and slippery from the rain, and in his haste he lost his footing. His feet shot out into the air, and his arms yanked in their sockets as he gripped the rung. He had to cling on with all his might to stop himself falling down to the riverbed. From somewhere back on the path he heard a distant shout from Marianne. “Don’t let him get away!”
He clambered down to the bottom of the ladder and stepped down on to the riverbed. The ground underneath his feet was muddy and treacherous, and at every footstep mud grasped at his legs, as if hoping to suck him down under the surface. Lifting his knees up as high as he could, Jonathan staggered away from the ladder and along the side of the wall. It was like trying to run through glue.
He looked up and saw Humble moving swiftly down the ladder after him. There was no telling what the giant might do if he caught him down here. Everything was black: the horizon dominated by the vast silhouettes of the bridge columns. There was no escape, no hiding place. Jonathan tried to move more quickly, but the mud was pulling him back, and he could feel his legs beginning to tire. Humble dropped lightly on to the riverbed and began to take purposeful strides in his direction. The mud was slowing him down too, but not by much.
The sound of traffic rumbling on the bridge overhead filled Jonathan’s ears. Glancing around for an escape route, Jonathan saw that the low tide had revealed a small inlet pipe feeding into the Thames. A battered grille had fallen away from the entrance, and a stream of brown water trickled forlornly out of it. A couple of stones had collapsed, blocking off part of the opening, but there was just enough room for him to squeeze through. It was hard to believe that a secret world lay beyond this grimy maw.
Humble was only a couple of squelching footsteps behind him. Jonathan forced one last effort from his legs and waded over to the pipe. He tossed his rucksack into the blackness and heard the splosh as it landed inside. Getting a handhold on the inside of the pipe, he lifted himself up and through the entrance. The mud released his feet with a defiant sucking sound. Jonathan’s body was now pressing down on his arms, and he had to wriggle like an eel to make any progress. The pipe sloped sharply upwards, and it took the last reserves of strengths in his body to scrape along it. The atmosphere was suffocating: there was hardly enough room to breathe, let alone to move. To make matters worse, scummy water soaked his face and seeped into his mouth.
A scrabbling noise came from near his feet. Twisting round, Jonathan could make out Humble’s long arm slipping down the pipe after him like a python. There wasn’t enough space for the giant to crawl after him, but he could still drag him out of the pipe. Jonathan cried out and forced himself deeper into the pipe, cutting his knee on a sharp edge in its concrete wall. His rucksack was blocking the way, and he had to frantically shove it forward with his head.
The hand was almost upon him. Jonathan felt a fingertip brush his trainer, and then suddenly the rucksack popped out of the other end of the pipe, and with one final thrust he followed it. Jonathan hit the ground with a thump and lay still, his breath coming in hoarse gasps. He had made it.
Jonathan had come out in an underground circular chamber. Large grey pipes jutted out from the walls, and spat streams of water in the dank pool at the heart of the room. A wide run-off channel then carried the water out of the chamber and away into the blackness. The roaring of the cascades hurt Jonathan’s ears, and there was a stale smell in the air that stuck to his damp clothing. A ladder hung down from a small grille in the ceiling. Through the grille’s thin bars a London street light threw down a glowing orange lifeline. It provided the only light in the room.
Moving his limbs stiffly, Jonathan checked his possessions. Amazingly, despite his desperate scrabble through the pipe, his rucksack hadn’t been too badly damaged, although his clothes were wet through. And he could still feel the knife in his pocket. But his mobile phone wouldn’t turn on and, even worse, the ink had run on the piece of paper with Carnegie’s address on it. There was just an illegible smear. Jonathan slapped a hand to his wet forehead. How was he supposed to find this guy now?
He walked round the pool and climbed the ladder up to the grille. He was hoping that he could lift it up and get back on to the surface, but it was locked. There was no way back. Jonathan was about to slide down again when he heard a familiar, well-spoken female voice on the street above.
“So where’s the boy, Humble?”
There was a brief silence.
“He made it through the pipe?” Marianne said incredulously.
Another silence.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
More silence.
“You want Skeet to chase after the puppy?”
“Is he still alive?”
“Can still smell him. Puppy not dead. Puppy very close.”
“Is that so?” Marianne raised her voice. “Can you hear us, Jonathan? I bet you can.”
Underneath the grille, Jonathan held his breath.
“You’re a brave little one, aren’t you? It’s not over, though. If you’re going to Darkside, we’ll go too. You’ll be a very long way from home, little one, and we know every street corner and back alley. There’ll be no escape . . .”
Jonathan was relieved to hear the whir of sirens approaching. Marianne turned back to her companions.
“I think that little show has attracted attention. Let’s get out of here. Oh, and Humble? You’d better start thinking of ways to break the news to Grimshaw.”
At least he had given them the slip. All he had to do now was work out how to get out of here. Jonathan wiped a sleeve across his dripping nose and peered into the gloom. In the corner of the room a set of crumbling stone steps led down into a wide, arched passage propped up at regular intervals by rounded pillars. Amid the stillness the only sounds were the dripping of water, the squeak and rustle of rats, and – somewhere in the distance – the low, throaty rumble of an Underground train.
There didn’t seem to be any choice. Jonathan hurried down the passage, choking on the foul stench of decay that rolled in waves towards him: the smell of sewers, toilet waste and rotting rodent corpses. The floor was uneven and covered in a thin film of dank water, and the splashing sounds of his footsteps echoed off the curved walls. Jonathan clenched his fist in triumph when he spotted an iron spiral staircase at the end of the passage, flanked by a pair of gas lamps. Desperate for a taste of fresh air, he scampered up the steps. And with that, he came out on Darkside.
8
“So then, Ricky Thomas. . .”
PC Ian Shaw burst into the briefing room slightly out of breath, spilling coffee from his polystyrene cup on to himself in the process. A crowd of people �
�� a mixture of uniformed officers and plain-clothed detectives – were seated on chairs and perched on desks in an informal semicircle. The scene looked more like a sixth-form classroom than the heart of a massive police operation. At the front of the room, the Superintendent stood next to a whiteboard covered in various photographs. He was clearly in the middle of a speech, and stopped pointedly as Shaw entered the room. Shaw cursed himself under his breath. If only he hadn’t made that blasted coffee! The Super didn’t tend to forget things like that.
“Sorry, guv,” he mumbled.
The Super glared at him.
Feeling everyone staring at him, Shaw shuffled red-faced through the ranks of officers to the back of the room. Even the aroma of stale cigarette smoke and sweat couldn’t mask the sense of anticipation in the air. Every policeman in the room knew that this could be the case that made their career. One lucky break, one discovery, one arrest: that would be all it would take. There was more than enough media attention surrounding the case to guarantee promotions for those who did well. Even on a dreary Tuesday morning, there was a gaggle of reporters and photographers gathered around the entrance of the police station. PC Shaw watched them from the window, chatting away on their mobiles under brightly-coloured umbrellas, and wondered what he would look like on television.
“Now that everyone’s bothered to turn up. . .” said the Super. Shaw winced. “As I was saying, we’re in a bit of a fix here, ladies and gentlemen. We need a quick result, or believe me, we’re all going to get it in the neck.” He took a biro from his top pocket and tapped the first photograph. “This unfortunate young man is thirteen-year-old Ricky Thomas. He travels down to London on a school trip. In the middle of Trafalgar Square he wanders off. No one has seen him since. Broad daylight in one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, and no one sees a thing.”
