“It’s not guilt,” I said. “I just ain’t happy not being in on the good shit. We’ll get more cop stuff in before we’re done. But, damn it, I tried to tell everybody that it would be like this. This is not our case. We haven’t got anything official to do. And we only get to cooperate when we’re asked.”
“Yeah, but. . . .”
“Yeah. Well, hell. Lighten up, Carson. We’ll get busy yet today. Trust me.” It looked to me like Emma’s death had really gotten to him. Too.
We got to Highgate, and waited at the tube station for Jane and Vicky. I noticed a guy kind of hanging around, then wandering off, then coming back again. He ended up just outside the main exit onto the sidewalk. He looked like an accountant or something. He sure didn’t seem threatening, but neither would a professor have yesterday. I kept sort of an eye on him, but didn’t say anything to Carson. We’d been there about five minutes, when Alice showed up.
“Would you mind if I talked with your daughter and Vicky about that professor, too?”
“No, not at all.” I’d expected somebody from MI5 to be around a little later, but this would do. “Glad to have you.” I considered how stupid I was about to sound, but went ahead. “You see that guy outside? Just to the left of the door?”
“Indeed.”
“Where?” asked Carson.
“Just a sec,” I said. “I can’t point just now. He should be the only one out there.” I had my back to the window at the time.
“Okay,” said Carson. “What about him?”
“That’s just what I was going to ask,” I said. “He’s been there since we got here, and I think he might have been on the tube with us, but I’m not sure.”
“No,” said Alice. “He’s been waiting in the station for the better part of the afternoon.”
“You know him,” I said. A statement, not a question.
“Oh, indeed,” she said. “But it would be best not to notice him. He’s a sensitive one.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Carson.
“We’re discussing our Phillip,” said Alice, with a smile. “He’s been one of the people assigned to you since the hostage business was revealed. I believe he expected you to continue outside. You’ll find there’s one with Jane and Vicky now, too. Been with them all day, in fact.”
“Security?” asked Carson.
“One would hope,” smiled Alice. “Wouldn’t one?”
As Jane and Vicky emerged from the station a couple of minutes later, I became aware of two things almost simultaneously. First, there was a man who was following them. Or, rather, accompanying them at a discreet distance. As soon as he saw the three of us, he just kept going out the door. A better job than ‘our’ Phillip.
The other thing I could tell was that Jane was absolutely furious. I think Alice caught it, too, and sort of hung back a little bit. Jane had a rolled up newspaper in her hand, and was saying, “Have you seen this? Have you seen this shit? What the hell is going on?”
Rolled up and all, it was pretty hard to tell what she was talking about.
“Seen what?”
They were on to us by that time, and Jane pulled the roll open. “This shit!”
She handed it to me, and she’d had it rolled so tightly, it was difficult to keep it open. It was a copy of the National Sun Express. The banner headline read “COOL IT GIRLS, DADDY’S HERE!” and had a photo of Carson, Sarah Mitchell and me at breakfast. The caption read, “He Didn’t Wear His Gun At Table.” A subhead line read “NEW DEVELOPMENT IN THE CASE OF AMERICA’S SWEET TART.”
I scanned the article pretty quickly. Basically, all it had for real content was just what we’d told the reporter. She’d added all the sensational stuff via headlines, captions, and subheadings. It didn’t look as if she’d actually misquoted me at all.
“What the hell is going on, Dad?”
It took a few minutes, but we got it explained. I’d seen Jane mad before, but I couldn’t ever remember seeing her so outraged. At least this time Carson didn’t point at me and say I’d done all of the talking.
Alice had sort of edged closer, and all of a sudden, Jane pointed at her and said, “Who’s she? Another reporter?”
“No,” I said. “She’s a cop.” Well, she was, sort of. I introduced them to Alice, who just said she wanted to talk with them about some stuff. That took a little of the heat off, at least. Jane was mad, but not mad enough to argue extensively in front of a stranger.
We all talked and walked, stopping every so often to allow a more detailed explanation.
“I should have warned you about this rag,” said Jane, finally, not so much totally calm, but more like tired of being angry. “This isn’t the first nasty bit this, this . . . sleaze has done. This whole crappy ‘Sweet Tart” bit really pisses me off. It’s the third time she’s used that in a headline. I swear to God, if I ever . . .”
“Well, now we all know,” said Carson. “we won’t let that happen again.” Nice try.
“She did an interview with us,” said Vicky, speaking for the first time. “We told her about the guy Emma was seeing, the one from the pub. That was the first time this Sweet Tart business came up. She was sure Emma ran off with him.”
“Even though he was still here?” I was surprised.
“Hell, she never checked, Dad. She just wrote it.”
“Oh, perfect,” said Alice. “True to form, at least.”
“She does this all the time?” asked Jane.
“Very nearly.”
“Oh. Then it’s not just us?”
“Not at all,” said Alice. “Between her and her editor, I’d say they try to do something like this with every story they cover.”
Jane sighed, and looked toward me. “I guess you had to say you were somebody’s dad?”
“She already had my name,” I said, “so I couldn’t very well claim Vicky. And I didn’t think I could pull off brother or uncle. . . .”
A small smile appeared on Jane’s face for a second. “Well, definitely not brother.”
We were standing near the intersection of Southwood Lane and Castle Yard, just about the first really level part of the quarter mile to the girls’ flat. There was nobody else around, so Alice took the opportunity to jump in with both feet.
“Do either of you know a Professor Northwood?”
“Sure,” said Vicky. “Why?”
“Was Emma dating him, do you know?”
There was a momentary silence. I was afraid that Alice had pissed off Jane all over again, but Jane just said, “She did a couple of times.”
“Would that have been for dinner,” asked Alice, “or an evening out, or just coffee . . . ?”
“This is important, right?”
“Yes,” said Alice. “Perhaps very.”
“Okay.” Jane took in a deep breath, let it out, and said, “She went out with him a bunch. Maybe ten, fifteen times. That we know about. It started with coffee, and went from there. She slept with him, I’m sure, because she told me she did.”
“Mmmm,” said Alice. “Do you know where they went, usually? Unusually?” She smiled.
“Well, unusually,” said Vicky, “the four of us went to an old Underground station.”
“How unique,” said Alice.
“Yeah,” said Vicky. “Weird. Not your average date. We had to pack a lunch, and we just climbed up and down this circular staircase.”
Alice’s brow furrowed. “Which station?”
“Wasn’t it . . . Downey?” Vicky was asking Jane.
“Close,’ she said. “I can’t quite pull it up . . . just a sec.” If there was ever any proof needed that she was my daughter that would have done it.
“Do you remember where it is?”
“Over by Buckingham Palace,” said Jane.
“But behind it, sort of. You know, along Piccadilly.”
“Hyde Park?” asked Alice. “Green Park? Those are the tube stations along Piccadilly . . .”
“Oh,” said Vicky. “It�
��s not a functional station. I’m sorry.”
“Down Street,” said Jane. “That’s it. It’s an abandoned tube station on Down Street.”
Alice nodded. “Brilliant. Yes, that would be it. Why there? Any clue?”
“He’s writing a book about the tube system,” said Jane.
“It’s a hobby of his,” said Vicky. “He got us in on a tour.”
“Really?” asked Alice. “How interesting. Was it fun?”
“It was kind of neat,” said Jane. “Old, and we had to go down a spiral stair that was more than a hundred steps. Musty. But full of historical stuff. Hey, Dad . . . you’d like that. It was part of some military facility back during the Second World War . . . there are still some old military signs and stuff.”
For a moment, there, she sounded just like Jane from the pre-kidnapping time. Interested, enthusiastic, happy. Just for a moment.
“Is there some reason you want to know this stuff?” she asked Alice.
Alice looked around. So did I. The only two stationary people I could see were Phillip and the other security man, about a hundred feet back down the hill, and on the other side of the street.
“Do you know anything about Professor Northwood’s political opinions?”
“No,” said Jane. Vicky just shook her head. “Why?”
I had to give Alice credit, she didn’t hedge, or try to be cute. She just played it straight up. “He’s a member of a group who have the same goals as the people who kidnapped Emma.”
I think that would have been a conversation stopper anywhere. On Southwood Lane, Highgate, London, England, it sure as hell was.
“Where should we eat?” asked Carson, glancing at the Gatehouse.
“Oh, not there,” said Jane. “Not tonight. Not with that article today. What about Zizzi?”
“Who’s Zizzi?”
“Not who, Dad. It’s a place, just kind of behind the Gatehouse. Italian. Good food.”
I was for it.
Chapter 15
Thursday, November 13, 2003
The Basement of “The Camel”
17:48 Greenwich Mean Time
It was time for supper for Hamza and Anton, too. They were in the sub-basement of a restaurant across the alley behind the old Down Street station. They’d gotten there in the very early morning hours, with Anton pulling on the back door as Hamza used the half inch spring steel bar that was used to prop the door open to slip the interior hook. Marwan had showed them the method, and said that he used it when they needed to take things to the secret place. He never divulged just who had showed him how to do this, but it was obviously an employee of the Camel.
They’d gone immediately through a small opening behind a counter, and into the abandoned tube station. They’d hidden their duffle, and scrambled back into the restaurant basement, looking for food.
Not knowing who their ally on the inside might be, the two fugitives were most reluctant to be seen. They were dining on things they were able to find in the sub-level storage area: onions, dried fish, dried apricots, and dried prunes. There were four large, wooden boxes of what they thought was goat cheese, but since the label was in Arabic, they weren’t sure. It was at least cheese, and Hamza was grateful for that. Unfortunately, they were each drinking from their last bottles of water.
“At least it’s clean,” said Hamza. He was looking at the pattern on the old tiled floor, done in light and dark green, and cream. “Dry, too.”
“It’s a palace,” said Anton. “Just like Windsor, except for the five foot ceilings. I hate this fish.”
Thinking the ceilings were a good foot taller than that, but wanting to avoid an argument, Hamza said, “Well, it’s supposed to be prepared with spices and oils. . . .”
“Shut fucking up,” said Anton. “Just shut up and eat. And think of someplace else we can go.”
“Want some cheese?” asked Hamza, a minute later.
“It can’t be worse than this fish,” said Anton.
Hamza got up, pried open the wooden box, opened the greyish wrapping paper, and very carefully used his pocket knife to slice off a small, even piece of the cheese. Satisfied that it hardly looked disturbed, he did it three more times, two slices each. Then, very carefully, he re-wrapped the paper, and quietly tapped the box lid back in place.
Hamza got up with the intention of replacing the wooden box on the shelf, when the sound of a door opening in the level immediately above, and the sound of feet on the stairs, caused him to grab the box and head for concealment. Anton, more self-possessed, quickly and quietly went up the steps to the closed door, and put his ear to it. Then he very carefully switched off the light, and used his flashlight to light his way back down. “Where are you?” he hissed.
Hamza blinked his light from behind an old wooden table that was covered with onions. Anton joined him.
“Should we go back into the station?” was the whispered question.
“Too noisy,” said Anton. “Shhh. Wait a bit. There are two of them.”
With their lights extinguished, it was pitch black in their little room. At least the abandoned tube station had some lights. Now that it was completely dark, though, they could see a light through a fine crack in the door at the top of the stair. A few moments later it went out.
“Right,” said Anton. “Back to the station. We’d best come back here when they’ve closed and gone home.”
“What about this?” asked Hamza, holding up the cheese box.
“Bring it.” Anton thought it would be safest to just bring the thing, rather than take a chance returning it to its place. “They’ll never miss it.”
Their entrance to the long abandoned tube station was underneath an old, worn counter with a marble top. Once the counter doors were opened, they revealed a narrow, horizontal slit in the basement wall, which had been originally covered with a grate. That obstacle long gone, they were able to slide through on their bellies, traversing some eight feet of very narrow, rectangular tunnel with stone walls. The opening was no more than two feet high and four feet wide for its entire length. Just small enough and long enough for Hamza’s claustrophobia to begin to gain hold of him.
“Hurry,” he gasped, pushing the cheese crate in front of him. He’d just had the irrational thought that Anton might somehow die in the short tunnel, and trap him. He told himself not to be foolish, just as an image of the stones around him slowly crumbling and collapsing caused him to nearly cry out.
Their exit was into the old tube station WC proper, near the urinals. Their passageway had been part of the old ventilation system that led from the toilet facilities to the roof of the original restaurant building.
Hamza was breathing rapidly by the time Anton eased himself through, and got to his feet.
“You’ve got your share of anxieties, don’t you?” asked Anton.
Hamza was too happy just being out of the shaft to care. “They’re my . . . hobby,” he said.
Anton took the cheese box from him. The two made their way through the toilet area, and through a swinging door onto a platform area in the station proper. This area was lit, although dimly, by a work light. They had been advised earlier to continue toward the far end, where the old track bed disappeared into the darkness.
They cautiously jumped down onto the filled in bed where the tracks should have been, and used their own lights to find their way to a steel door. Opened, it led down four steps into an old generator room, where they had stored their things. The old, grey electric motors, boxes and cable runs were still intact. Dusty, but intact.
There was a lightbulb in the corner, and Anton reached up and screwed it all the way back in. They had decided that not using the switch by the door was a good idea. This way, they were able to control the lighting in the large space, and anyone coming in the door would not be able to simply turn on the lights. There were three other lightbulbs they had unscrewed, as well.
“How did Marwan find this bleedin’ place?” asked Anton.
�
��He took a tour,” said Hamza. “He’s writing a book on the Underground, he says.”
“No, dolt,” said Anton. “Not this station. The entrance under the restaurant.”
“Oh, that,” said Hamza. “He was eating there, and had a book with him he was reading, about the old Underground.”
“I thought you said he was writing it,” said Anton, carefully opening the cheese box.
“His won’t be the only one. Just the best. He’s doing research.”
“Oh, he told you that, did he?” He unwrapped the thick paper, and selected a piece of cheese.
“It’s a reasonable assumption,” said Hamza, shaking off the last of his claustrophobia and pulling two bottles of water out of their carton.
“Fuck!”
“What?”
Anton was spitting the cheese out of his mouth. “Fucking awful!” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll never be hungry enough to eat that shit!”
Hamza reached over, and tore off a small corner of the cheese brick. “It can’t be that bad . . . must be feta.” He put the morsel in his mouth. His eyes widened, and he spat it onto the floor. “That’s not cheese!”
Anton was making a snorting, gasping, gurgling sound that passed for a giggle. “See!”
“Really,” said Hamza. “Really, that isn’t cheese. . . But it smells like cheese. . .”
“Sod the smell, it tastes like shit. Well whatever it is, you can put on your crackers at bedtime,” said Anton. “I’m just glad she gave us some tinned meat.” He took a large onion from his pocket. “I’ll cut this up . . . cleanse our sad fucking palates.”
Hamza glanced around their hiding place. “How long do . . . ?” He was drowned out by a rush of air, a roar, and the sound of a tube train passing a few yards down the tunnel on one of the active tracks of the Piccadilly line. It was a huge, rushing, thundering sound that prevented any communication for at least a minute.
After a few moments, Anton said “What?”
“How long? Do you think she was right when she said a week?”
“To stay down in this hole? I should say a fortnight, at least.”
Hamza looked dismayed. “Truly?”
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