All the Empty Places

by Mark Timlin

  He stood over it and said, ‘This is it.’

  ‘Come on then,’ I said.

  ‘A minute.’ And he unlocked one of the doors to expose a darkened room. He hit the lights again and I saw that the room contained a motley collection of equipment including a huge pile of cardboard boxes, a couple of torches that made the tiny Maglite I’d brought with me look as powerful as a candle, and a pair of brightly painted tools that I didn’t immediately recognise. In the far corner was a pile of clothes, iced brown with mud, on top of a coil of rope.

  He picked up one of the tools, hooked the end into one of the grooves in the cover and with a tug pulled it out of the floor. The bad boys had obviously thought of everything.

  ‘Stop there,’ I said, and looked into the hole that the cover had filled. It was very dark inside and a bad smell hit my nostrils.

  ‘This leads into the main sewer,’ he explained. ‘It’s a bit of a walk to where we’re going. But it was the closest place we could get that led directly to the depository and had no night watchman.’

  ‘So what’s the exact plan?’ I said.

  ‘Simple. Right now the chaps are looting the boxes. Early tomorrow morning they start transferring the stuff through the tunnels to here, where they’ll store it in that room.’ He pointed to the open door beside me. ‘Then they box it up in the cartons provided, and on Tuesday morning early we bring round a truck and load it up. Simple. With any luck we’d’ve been over the river before the time lock on the vault tripped.’

  ‘And Independent Removals are out of business.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Nice idea, Fin. Pity it ain’t going to work.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure, Nick. Those boys are bad people. They don’t take prisoners. If you’re not careful they’ll leave you down there to rot with the rest of the sewage.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll be doing me a favour,’ I said, picking up the rope and hanging it round my neck. ‘Come on, let’s take a walk.’

  38

  I let Finbarr go down first. It was a dangerous thing to do but I had no choice under the circumstances, so I gave him one of the big torches, kept my gun in my hand and warned him that if he tried to make a run for it I’d have no alternative but to shoot. Of course if he’d thought about it he’d’ve realised that I didn’t know where the hell we were going, and if he managed to vanish into the labyrinth below I’d be literally up shit creek without a paddle. And the odour from beneath told me exactly what shit creek smelled like. Man, but it was strong. The long dry spell had ripened the contents of the sewer until it was hard to breathe without dry-retching, but I just swallowed the bile and kept going.

  I followed him down the narrow, rusty, wobbly ladder that led into the sewer, one handed, holding my pistol in the other with the other big torch stuck in my belt and relying on his for light. Once again, if he’d thought about it he could’ve just killed his light and left me halfway up the ladder with my thumb up my arse whilst he made his escape. Thank Christ it was only a short drop because the ladder felt as if it was going to give way with every step. It must have been as old as the sewer system and no one had bothered to maintain it over its long life. When I finally got to the bottom he was waiting like a good dog. I didn’t give him a pat on the head. The sewer was indeed ancient. Christ knows how long it had been since a bunch of navigators, as they had been called, dug through the soil under the city and built this vaulted brick tunnel where we found ourselves. The beam from Finbarr’s torch illuminated the stained brickwork that hung with stalactites of green moss that dripped into the slow moving river of filth that moved beside the narrow walkway where we stood. I took the other torch from my belt and added its light to his.

  ‘Which way?’ I asked, breathing through my mouth against the stink, and my voice echoed as if we were in a cathedral.

  ‘This way,’ he said, and moved off to our right. ‘But watch out for rats, they can get quite proprietorial.’

  The only rat I could see was Finbarr himself but I didn’t say it. Instead I stopped him with a word. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘How far is it?’ It had suddenly occurred to me that I might be walking into a trap, what with all the light and conversation we were having. There could easily be someone waiting just around the corner with a gun.

  ‘Not too far,’ he replied. ‘About ten, fifteen minutes walk.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘You lead the way, but keep your voice down. I don’t want anyone to hear us coming.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. I didn’t like it one bit. I had no choice but to follow him, and moved off behind Finbarr, our shadows dancing together against the walls as we went. ‘Stop,’ I ordered after we’d gone a few yards. ‘How do I find my way back?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Fin, but by the look in his dark eyes that reflected the torch light back at me, we both knew only one of us would make the return trip. If that.

  We followed the sewer for perhaps three quarters of a mile, then came to a junction and took a right turn. The walkway became narrower and the roof lower and the smell stronger if that were possible, and the brickwork beneath our feet more slippery as we moved into what seemed to be an even older part of the sewer. All along our route someone had marked X’s in chalk at about shoulder height, and Finbarr pointed them out to me. ‘That’s for us,’ he said. ‘It’s not far now.’

  ‘Good,’ I replied.

  Then there was another right and the ceiling became even lower. Set into the wall was an iron door that looked as if it hadn’t been opened for a hundred years. ‘This is it,’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘So what now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m going to tie you up and leave you here, then I’ll go in and find your buddies. And if it turns out that you’ve lied to me, I’ll come back and kill you.’

  ‘They’re in there.’

  ‘Four, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come on then,’ and I pulled the coil of rope over my head. The pistol wavered in my hand and without warning Finbarr threw the torch he was carrying at me. I ducked as it smashed into the brickwork beside me and bounced once on the walkway before falling into the sludgy river next to us where it floated on the surface, as he took off. I shouted for him to stop, but he ignored me. I fired once, twice, the muzzle flashes bright in the semi-darkness and the sound exploding off the walls so loudly that they almost split my eardrums. The first bullet missed by a mile and struck sparks off the walls so I took more care with the second, which hit him in the middle of his back and threw him into the water where he floated face down, perfectly still, just another piece of shit amongst so many others, as the torch he’d thrown was sucked down into the mire.

  I shone the torch I was carrying onto his body and watched as it bobbed along with the slow flow of effluence, dropped the rope that I didn’t need, then I turned and opened the door that he’d shown me. I briefly pointed my light down and saw that inside there were fresh tracks in the dirt that lay on the floor of the tunnel, and I deduced that Fin had brought me to the right place. Shit, I thought as I turned off my torch and hoisted myself into the darkness. Here goes nothing.

  Out of the blue and into the black. That’s what the tunnel rats in Vietnam had called going into the maze of shafts that Victor Charlie had built underground. I don’t know where that came from. It must’ve been from some book I’d read or film I’d seen.

  And it was black inside that tunnel, the kind of blackness you rarely see in our industrial society, where lights burn night and day.

  Out of the blue into the black, maybe never to return.

  But that was the chance I had to take, and I slid the warm gun that had killed Finbarr into my jeans at the back, took my knife from its scabbard around my neck and clenched it between my teeth pirate fashion.

  This is for you, Sheila, I thought as I squeezed into the narrow tube and pulled the door closed
behind me.

  39

  I hated it inside that pitch black tube, not knowing how far I’d have to crawl and what or who I might meet. The rough ceiling scraped my head and back and the dirt underneath my gloves and knees was damp and sticky. And it stank too, like there was a million years of shit all around me, which there probably was going right back from when a bunch of cavemen first set up camp next to the river that blocked their way to the south and the sea beyond.

  I’ve never liked enclosed spaces ever since I was a kid, and this was the worst I’d ever experienced.

  I allowed myself one quick burst from the torch after half a minute or so, but all it revealed was more tunnel and thick blackness ahead where the light ran out. And it was getting warmer, like this was the entrance to hell and the devil was waiting just down the road apiece to welcome me to eternal fire and damnation.

  Not that I didn’t deserve it.

  Then it occurred to me that Fin had been lying, that he’d shown me some other tunnel that led nowhere, and panic hit hard. It took me all my willpower not to start back the way I’d come, but I managed to calm myself and I lay flat and tried to hug the ground as the roof of the pipe seemed to come down on me, and I swore I could feel the weight of earth and clay and the buildings above and that they were all ready to come crashing down on me and squash me like a bug.

  After what I reckoned to be another half minute, which could have been five seconds or two hours, I switched on the torch for a second again. Same sight, same feeling of claustrophobia. How those boys in Vietnam had done this sort of gig day after day I couldn’t imagine. And it was getting hotter and the sweat was stinging my eyes like acid.

  And then, all of a sudden I felt a change in the atmosphere as if a weight had been lifted off me, and I thought the quality of the blackness changed. I gave a third burst on the torch and found that I was in a square dugout with another tunnel leading off at right angles, but this time the tunnel was fresh and it had been shored up with wooden supports.

  Fin had brought me to the right place.

  And there were heavyweight black garbage bags in the dugout. Piled up in corner. The loot the boys were bringing out, it must be. I checked one. It was full of cash. Currencies from all over the world. Pounds, Dollars, Francs, Marks. A bloody fortune.

  And it had got lighter. Definitely. I set off up the fresh tunnel and when it turned I saw some way further up a battery-driven lamp set into the wall. Not much of a light, but a light nevertheless, that told me I was getting close to Tufnell and his crew.

  Then I heard a sound, a faint scrape from beyond the dim light. I killed the torch and moved backwards into the dugout, pressed myself into the corner away from the tunnel entrance and waited. It could’ve been a rat, and I was sure it was. But one of the two legged variety.

  And then the light faded as someone passed between it and me. Now who could this be?

  I heard him breathing hard and he sounded like he was dragging something behind him. More swag. Which meant at least one of his hands was occupied with whatever he was dragging and the other was pulling him towards me. Perfect. That meant he wasn’t carrying any weapons.

  I took the knife out of my mouth and held it tightly, feeling the dimples in the metal handle pressing into the flesh of my hand through the thin leather of my gloves, and waited.

  Just like whoever had stabbed Sheila had waited outside her door for her to answer it.

  Come to Daddy, I whispered to myself, and there he was. A dark shape against the darker whole. I hunkered onto my knees and flashed my torch straight into a face I didn’t recognise, and the look of surprise, and the scream that left his lips was perfect. ‘Who the fuck—?’ he said.

  ‘Your worst nightmare,’ I replied as I dropped the torch I was carrying in my left hand and grabbed the sweaty fringe of hair he wore across his forehead and stabbed the knife I was clutching in my right into his throat, and felt the warm surge onto my glove as I pulled out the blade and stabbed again and again, until the only sound in the dugout was my breathing and the drip drip drip of his blood onto the ground.

  40

  When I was sure he had stopped breathing I dropped the knife on the ground, wiped my blood-sodden gloves on his clothes and checked him for weapons. He was carrying a small calibre revolver in a holster in the small of his back, which I added to my arsenal, and I thought that Blair’s poxy government and the cops had got all handguns off the street. That was a waste of the sodding taxpayer’s money if ever I saw one. Then I shone the torch onto his face, or what was left of it. It was like I thought, I didn’t know him, even though his mother would hardly recognise him, the state he was in now. And I wasn’t likely to be introduced at this late stage in the game. Still, that’s life. Then I had a look in the heavy duty, double thick, reinforced garbage bag he’d been dragging behind him. It was full of more cash, some very expensive looking jewellery and a thick sheaf of bearer bonds. Not bad for a couple of days’ work, especially combined with what had already been stashed at the front of the tunnel.

  I dragged it and him into the dugout and pushed both as far into one corner as I could, then I set off in the direction he’d come from. I put my knife back in its scabbard. I reckoned it was too late for knives now. I just hoped I didn’t meet anyone else coming towards me.

  I crawled along the tunnel that Tufnell’s boys had dug, through a half inch or so of filthy water that had collected on the bottom, past more battery powered lights they had set into the walls that had been strengthened with wood, until it started to head uphill and I could smell the remnants of the charge that had blown out the floor of the vault, and then finally I found where brick and concrete had been blown, and above me was the vault itself.

  I took the Detonics from inside the back of my jeans and popped my head through the hole. Inside the massive vault it was carnage lit by a single, powerful gas lantern that hissed like a snake in a bag.

  The blast itself seemed to have been perfectly judged to blow the floor and not much else, but afterwards the chaps had rifled every box in the place and the floor was covered with the empty drawers, money, papers, books, photos, jewellery and all sorts. Personal stuff that meant a lot to the people who’d stored them, but nothing to the thieves.

  As I scoped the room I saw the remaining trio of robbers filling more black sacks with loot like three of the seven dwarves. I was surprised they weren’t singing Whistle While You Work.

  One of them was Johnny Tufnell, who’d put on a little weight since I’d seen him last. The second was a big, powerful bloke, stripped to the waist, his muscular body greased with sweat. The other was an older man, grizzled and grey haired who I imagined had to be Morris, the Australian Vietnam veteran Fin had told me about who’d cooked up the plan to rob the depository, the bloke I’d stabbed having been too young to have taken part in that old, half-forgotten war in South-East Asia.

  As I made to climb up into the vault and join them, the barrel of my gun scraped on the concrete and the big fellow turned and said, ‘Come on Billy, time’s a-wasting, my man.’

  At least I knew the name of the man I’d butchered. ‘Sorry, my man,’ I said. ‘Billy’s otherwise engaged.’

  He looked at me in amazement and dived for a leather jacket that was draped over a pile of empty safe deposit boxes that I assumed held a weapon, and I shot him twice. The twin explosions of the heavy calibre gunshots were deafening in the confined space but he kept going, tugging a pistol from the jacket, so I shot him again. And do you know the fucker wouldn’t die. He turned towards me, the gun’s barrel pointing in my direction until I put a bullet in his face and he crashed over the pile of boxes and into the wall and lay still. Meanwhile the older bloke had pulled a gun from somewhere on his person and got off a shot that whipped past my head and smacked into the wall behind me. I shot him too, but this time it only took one bullet to put him down. I was improving. Tufnell made a move a
s well, but I wanted him alive and fired to miss, and after the bullet had finished ricocheting round the room I said, ‘Don’t do it, Johnny. We’ve got things to talk about.’

  He froze and looked at me through the smoke and the stink of spent gunpowder, and I saw recognition bloom on his face like a flower. ‘Nick Sharman,’ he said. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  41

  ‘Just visiting with an old pal. Looking for a little chat,’ I replied, holding the gun on him whilst I checked out Morris. He was dead with his open eyes staring up at the ceiling. I wondered what he saw. And what he’d thought as I’d come up out of the tunnel, dressed all in black, and shot him. Maybe for a moment he imagined he was back in Vietnam and I was the Viet Cong come for him at last. I checked his jacket and found another revolver. I opened the cylinder and let the bullets fall to the floor then tossed it on the ground. I didn’t have a pocket free for yet another gun. Then I checked the other bloke. Not that he needed much checking. He’d taken enough lead to kill a horse. He was dead. His gun and bullets joined Morris’s in the dirt.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ said Tufnell. ‘You’ve killed them. What the fuck did you do that for?’

  ‘Because I could,’ I replied.

  ‘You’ve ruined everything,’ he said in disbelief, as if I’d opened the oven door on his Victoria sponge and it had gone all flat.

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Finbarr brought me. You got a gun?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Put your arms out,’ I ordered. He did as he was told and I frisked him from behind. He’d told the truth. ‘You never did like guns much did you, Johnny?’ I said. ‘Prefer knives don’t you?’

  ‘Where is Fin?’ he asked, ignoring my question.

  ‘Hip deep in shit, son,’ I replied as I stepped back and moved round so that I was in front of him and could see his face. ‘Just like you.’