Beagle flicked a page. “After the show, they went to Covent Garden. There’s a place in the new piazza that sells gadgets. Eric wanted a South Park clock. Insisted on it. So although they were tired, they went. They got to the station at a quarter to five. That was when he vanished.”
“Eric Smith,” Falcon muttered. He closed his eyes and sighed.
Covent Garden is one of London’s oldest and deepest subway stations. There are only two platforms—the Piccadilly Line runs east and west. There are also no escalators. Four elevators connect the top and the bottom. There’s a steep, twisting staircase but not many people use it, as it has one hundred and ninety-nine steps.
“It was very busy,” Beagle went on. “After all, it was only three weeks to Christmas and the station was full of people shopping and all the rest of it. There was quite a crowd waiting for the elevators and that was when it happened. This boy, Eric . . . I’m afraid he doesn’t sound like a very nice kid. A bit spoiled and disobedient—”
“You’re not saying his parents did him in?” Falcon cut in gloomily. He’d investigated just such a case about ten years before.
“Oh no, sir. He’s their only son and they dote on him. That’s why I mentioned the seats. They were the most expensive in the theater.”
“Go on.”
“They were waiting for the elevators and there were people all around them. Hundreds of people. The Smiths were at the back of the line. And then what happened was, two elevators arrived at exactly the same time, one next to the other. The line moved forward and Arthur, Mary, and young Eric just managed to squeeze into the elevator on the left. But then, for some reason, Eric decided he’d get into the elevator on the right. He dodged out of one and into the other. His parents called out to him, but it was already too late. The elevator doors closed. Both at the same time. And that was that.”
“So he was in one elevator and they were in the other.”
“Yes, sir. They weren’t very happy about it. They’d told Eric to stay close to them but, like I say, he doesn’t sound like the sort of boy who does what he’s told. Even so, they weren’t particularly worried. After all, it only takes about a minute to get to the top and both elevators would arrive at exactly the same time.”
“Which they did.”
“Yes, sir. They arrived at the top and the doors opened at exactly the same second. The crowd poured out. And here’s the rub! There was no sign of Eric. The boy had disappeared.”
“They were certain he’d gotten into the elevator.”
“We have a witness—a Mrs. Nerricott—who saw him run out of one elevator and into the other.”
“Did Mrs. Nerricott get into the elevator with him?”
“No, sir. There wasn’t room. But she definitely saw the door close with the boy inside.”
“All right.” Falcon reached into his pocket and took out a chocolate bar. It was his last one. He ate it himself. “So Eric was in one elevator and his parents were in another. Could he have slipped out ahead of them at the top?”
“No. They’d have seen. And anyway, there’s the security tape.”
“Let’s take another look at it!”
There were closed-circuit television cameras at Covent Garden, just as there are at every London station. The time-coded tape had been sent over to New Scotland Yard and for the tenth time Falcon ran it on his monitor. The film was black-and-white, a little muddy, but still clear enough. He could see everything.
There were Arthur and Mary Smith, both of them weighed down with a load of bags and packages. Arthur was short and bald, in his late forties. Mary was a slightly mousy woman with permed hair, wearing a thick coat. Eric was standing next to them. He wasn’t holding anything. He was plump, with jug ears and freckles. His hair was spiky and (Falcon knew from color photographs sent to his office) ginger-colored. He was wearing combat pants and a down vest with a scarf around his neck but no jacket.
The film showed exactly what happened. That was the hell of it. The whole thing had been recorded.
At 16:44:05, the two elevators arrived simultaneously at the bottom. The crowd surged forward. Falcon saw Arthur and Mary Smith get into the car on the left with their son. And there, on the screen, was Eric, suddenly running into the car on the right, squeezing in behind the crowd. He saw Arthur turn and realize what the boy had done. He saw Arthur call out, although of course there was no sound. Both elevator doors were already closing. It was all exactly as Beagle had described.
Cut now to the top floor. There was no camera inside the elevators.
The time on the tape was 16:45:03. Fifty-eight seconds had passed. Both elevator doors opened. The elevators at Covent Garden actually have two sets of doors—one in the front and one in the back. You enter the elevator from one side but you exit through the other. Arthur and Mary were the last to come out. There were people everywhere, bustling forward through the automatic turnstiles. The camera mounted over the exit picked up every one of them and Falcon leaned forward, examining the faces carefully.
There were old people and young people. Well-dressed people and scruffy ones. A big man with a beard and a wart on his nose fed his ticket into the machine. A teenager carrying a football followed right behind him. Then there was a woman chewing gum, another woman walking with her arms crossed. There was a man blowing his nose into a handkerchief, a second man already lighting a cigar. A Chinese woman with a swollen cheek and an old lady bent over double, supporting herself on a thick walking stick. A constant stream of humanity flowing out of the elevator and away from the station.
But there was no sign of Eric. It was an impossible magic trick. Arthur and Mary were there, on the screen, searching everywhere, beginning to panic. A few minutes later they would call the police. But it was already too late. The boy had gone.
Falcon flicked a button and the picture froze. “So what do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know, sir.” Falcon had never heard his junior officer sound so defeated. “I just can’t work it out at all. I mean, we can actually see it. That’s what beats me. It happened exactly how Mr. and Mrs. Smith described it!”
“Where are the parents?”
“They’re waiting downstairs.”
Arthur and Mary were sitting in a room that smelled of new paint and old disinfectant. Her eyes were red from crying. Her husband had one hand resting on her arm, trying to comfort her, but he looked as lost as she did.
“We don’t often come up to London,” he said. “But Eric insisted. He wanted to go to Hamleys and see this musical.”
“We should have run after him,” Mary stammered. Fresh tears brimmed at her eyes. “But it was very difficult.”
“We had all his presents,” Arthur explained. “Eric had chosen a new train set, and the walkie-talkies, the keyboard . . .”
“. . . the Rollerblades . . .”
“. . . and the modeling kit. We had so many bags we could hardly move.”
“My little angel!” Mary wailed.
“He wasn’t a complete angel,” Arthur said gently. “I mean, we’d told him to stay close to us but he wouldn’t listen. And the truth is, he’d been in a bad mood all day. He was very upset when we wouldn’t buy him that remote-control helicopter.”
“But it was two hundred dollars!”
“He was also sick after that third ice cream at the theater. Maybe that was why he decided to run out of the elevator like that.” Arthur Smith shook his head. “We did tell him to stay close.”
“Just find him for us,” Mary said. She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “He’s got to be somewhere!”
Late that night, the two detectives returned to the Covent Garden station. The subway had already closed down but the station was busy. There were police officers everywhere, searching through the ticket office and moving slowly, step-by-step, up and down the stairs. There were more policemen below, some with dogs sniffing along the platforms and even following the tracks into the tunnel itself. Both the elevat
ors were being examined by forensic scientists in white coats and plastic gloves. The ticket machine had been opened and all the tickets—thousands of them—retrieved. There was just a chance that the police might find a fingerprint on one of them. Maybe it would lead them to a maniac, a murderer . . . but even that wouldn’t explain how the eleven-year-old boy with at least thirty complete strangers packed in tight all around him had managed to evaporate into thin air.
Falcon peered into the elevator that had carried Eric up. It was an ugly metal box with a heavy sliding door at each end. There was a small window in the side but the glass was too dirty to see through and anyway it was impossible to climb out. There was something almost Victorian about it all. The whole station was grimy and old-fashioned. The passageways, lined with off-white tiles, curved into the distance. The floor was black concrete. With no trains coming and no passengers to add color and movement, the place was somehow eerie and unnerving. The cold night air whispered over Falcon’s neck and he shivered.
He turned to Beagle. “Have you spoken to anyone who got into the elevator with the boy?” he asked.
“No, sir.” Beagle shook his head. “By the time the parents realized the boy had gone, it was too late. They’d all passed through the turnstiles and out into the street. We’ve put up a sign outside asking for people to come forward . . .”
“Yes. I saw it.”
“. . . but so far, no luck.”
There was a movement behind them and one of the forensic men appeared clutching a plastic evidence bag. There were three dirty swabs inside. “Excuse me, sir . . .” he began.
“Yes?”
“We’ve found traces of blood on the floor of the elevator.” He handed Falcon the bag. “Type O. And it’s fresh.”
“The boy’s?”
“Impossible to say at this stage, sir. But I’d think it’s likely.”
“And that’s all?”
“One button. Off a shirt. Could be his, could be anyone’s. We’re going to try and match it up.”
“Thank you . . .”
Falcon took the elevator back up to the surface. He felt almost suffocated, standing inside the metal box. There was a lurch as the car began to rise and then nothing but the creak of the ancient cables pulling him slowly up. What had happened to Eric Smith when he had taken the elevator at a quarter to five that afternoon? He couldn’t have climbed onto the roof or anything like that. He couldn’t have left it at all until the doors opened. But he had definitely gotten in and he definitely hadn’t gotten out.
It was enough to drive a detective crazy!
There was a team of policemen on the top floor, examining a great pile of tickets taken out of the machines. One of them looked up as Falcon emerged from the elevator. What was his name? Williams or Willard or something . . .
“What have you got?” Falcon demanded.
“Nothing very much, sir. Except one thing . . .”
“Go on.”
“When the used tickets are sucked into the machine, they fall into a compartment, sir. They’re emptied regularly throughout the day, but nobody touched the machines after the boy disappeared, so at least we’ve been able to work out more or less where people were coming from at around about a quarter to five this afternoon.”
“And . . . ?”
“Well, it’s quite strange really. There were about forty tickets from the same station . . . Burnt Oak. It struck me as odd . . .”
“Why?”
“Well, sir. Burnt Oak isn’t a very important station, tucked away at the end of the Northern Line. And it just seemed strange that so many people should have made the same journey—Burnt Oak to Covent Garden—at exactly the same time.”
“All right, Williams,” Falcon said. “Have the tickets sent to my office.”
“Yes, sir.” The policeman scowled. “My name’s Willard, sir . . .”
Later that night, Falcon lay in bed in the small apartment he rented in a backstreet in Victoria. He was only half-asleep. He was trying to dream about Norfolk. He could just picture himself out on the beach, watching the sunset with his dog. What sort of dog would he buy? An Alsatian perhaps? No—that would remind him too much of the police.
But try as he might, he couldn’t dream what he wanted to dream. The scene kept changing. There was Eric Smith, standing on the sand in his combat pants, surrounded by people carrying packages and shopping bags. Something rose out of the sea. It was the elevator. The doors slid open and Eric walked into it. But now the elevator had changed. It had become some sort of metallic monster and the doors had been replaced by jagged teeth that sliced down. Eric screamed. The waves rolled in. And Falcon woke up with a start, surprised and relieved to see that it was seven o’clock, the start of another day.
Beagle was waiting for him at the office. “We’ve had a breakthrough,” he said.
“Oh yes?” Falcon had bought himself a bacon-on-a-roll on the way in. It was still in the bag, beginning to get cold.
“One of the men on the screen,” Beagle said. He was pleased with himself and Falcon guessed that he had probably been working all night. “One of the men in the elevator with the boy. I thought I knew him from somewhere and I was right.”
He took out a photograph and slid it onto the desk in front of Falcon. A big man with a beard and a wart on his nose. Falcon remembered him from the security pictures. “Who is he?” he asked.
“He’s a professor at the University of London. Also a writer. His name is Abraham Orlov.”
“Doesn’t sound English!”
“I believe he was born in the Ukraine.”
Falcon studied the photograph. “You said you knew him,” he muttered. “Has he got a criminal record?”
“No, sir. But I was at London University and although I never met him personally, he stuck in my mind. Do you remember that plane crash about eight years ago?”
Falcon shook his head.
“A small plane went down in the Arctic Circle. There were seventy people on board—mainly academics, geologists . . . that sort of thing. They’d been studying the ozone layer up in Greenland. It was assumed that they were all killed but in fact more than half of them survived. Stuck on the ice for almost five months.”
“Yes. . . .” Falcon did remember something now. The story had made every newspaper at the time. There was something about it that made him feel uneasy. What was it?
“Orlov was one of them,” Beagle went on. “He wrote a book about it afterward. The Will to Survive. That was the title. I never read it myself. Anyway, at least it means we’ve found one person who was in the elevator with Eric Smith. I thought you might want to speak to him.”
“Do you have an address?”
Half an hour later, Falcon and Beagle were sitting in a small room on Gower Street, close to the Tottenham Court Road subway station. The room was so cluttered with books that it was almost impossible to move. There were books on shelves, on every seat, and in great stacks on the carpet. A pair of tattered curtains hung over a window that looked out onto a bare brick wall. Very little light found its way into the room.
Abraham Orlov was a big man; bigger even than the camera had made him appear. He was wearing a red vest, stretched over a great barrel of a chest, and his shoulders were so broad that his head seemed almost lost, balanced on a sprawling cushion of a beard that totally concealed his neck. His hands and wrists were also hairy and he had thick, bushy eyebrows. He wore thin gold glasses and smoked a pipe that had filled the room with a cloud of blue-gray smoke.
“Yes, indeed, Lieutenant,” he was saying. He had a loud, hollow voice and an Eastern European accent. “I was most certainly in London last night.”
“May I ask what you were doing?” Falcon said.
“My dear sir! You may ask what you like! I have nothing to hide!” He smiled and Falcon felt a shiver of disgust. The man had repulsive teeth. They were yellow and uneven and somehow looked too sharp for a human being. He had seen more attractive teeth than that in a dog. �
�Last night was an important anniversary. I met some very dear friends at our club and then we traveled into town together to see a concert.”
“It was your birthday, sir?”
“No, no. You haven’t read my book, Lieutenant?” The eyes twinkled behind the glasses. “It was exactly eight years since my rescue-—our rescue—from the Arctic ice cap. Everyone thought we were dead but then they found we were living. You can imagine, my dear sir, that we survivors became very close, trapped in the wreckage of our plane for so many months. When we were returned to civilization, we decided to form a club. We purchased our own small clubhouse, tucked away in the north of this delightful city. Nothing elaborate! It’s just somewhere private where we can talk in comfort. And we often meet there . . . socially.”
“This clubhouse wouldn’t happen to be in Burnt Oak, would it, sir?” Beagle asked.
“As a matter of fact it is! Just off the Edgware Road. We all met there at about three o’clock in the afternoon and then traveled into town together.”
“How many of you were there?”
“There are fifty-one members in the club including myself. Not everyone could make it last night but thirty-five of us set out together. On the Northern Line from Burnt Oak station.” He nodded at Beagle. “Change at King’s Cross . . .”
“Fifty-one members,” Falcon said. He remembered what Beagle had told him that morning. “But I understood there were seventy people on the plane.”
“Alas, nineteen of them failed to survive,” Orlov said. He twisted his face into an expression of pain. “You must know the story, Detective Lieutenant. I made no secret of it. In fact I wrote a book about it. Nineteen people were killed in the crash. The rest of us were trapped. We had water . . . we could use melted ice. But we had no food. I’m afraid that the will to survive forced us to make a painful decision.”
“Yes, sir?” Falcon said, but he already knew what was coming. Now he remembered the newspaper reports from eight years before.
“We were forced to cannibalize the corpses. For five months we ate nothing but human flesh.” For a brief moment Orlov’s tongue appeared, protruding out of his lips above his beard. Then it was sucked back into his mouth. “It was painful and, of course, disgusting. To cut strips of flesh and lay them out on the wreckage of the aircraft’s wings . . . to dry in the sun. To be forced, day after day, to swallow our unfortunate companions. I don’t need to describe it to you. If you want to know more, you should read my book. But it was a simple choice. We could eat or we could die. We chose to live.”
More Horowitz Horror: More Stories You'll Wish You'd Never Read Page 9
