Close to the Edge Read online

  CLOSE TO

  THE EDGE

  Toby Faber

  To Matilda, Lucy and Amanda

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Monday, 27 July – 2.45 a.m.

  Tuesday, 21 July – 8.30 a.m.

  Tuesday, 21 July – 10 a.m.

  Tuesday, 21 July – 5.30 p.m.

  Wednesday, 22 July – 7.30 a.m.

  Wednesday, 22 July – 5.30 p.m.

  Thursday, 23 July – 9 a.m.

  Saturday, 25 July – 5 p.m.

  Sunday, 26 July – 9 a.m.

  Sunday, 26 July – 3 p.m.

  Monday, 27 July – 2 a.m.

  Monday, 27 July – 3.05 a.m.

  Monday, 27 July – 9.40 a.m.

  Tuesday, 28 July – 8.30 a.m.

  Friday, 31 July – 6 p.m.

  Saturday, 1 August – 10 a.m.

  Saturday, 1 August – 1 p.m.

  Sunday, 2 August – 6.30 a.m.

  Monday, 3 August, – 7 a.m.

  Monday, 3 August – 5.30 p.m.

  Monday, 3 August – 10.30 p.m.

  Tuesday 4 August, 7.30 a.m.

  Tuesday, 4 August – 7.30 p.m.

  Wednesday, 5 August – 7.30 a.m.

  Wednesday, 5 August – 7.45 p.m.

  Thursday 6 August – 10 a.m.

  Thursday, 6 August – 4 p.m.

  Friday, 7 August – 8.30 a.m.

  Friday, 7 August – 4 p.m.

  Saturday, 8 August

  Sunday, 9 August – 10 a.m.

  Monday 10 August – 12 a.m.

  Monday, 10 August – 5 a.m.

  Monday 10 August – 7 a.m.

  Monday 10 August – 10 a.m.

  Monday 10 August – 12 p.m.

  Monday, 10 August – 1 p.m.

  Monday, 10 August – 8 p.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 6.15 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 8.15 a.m.

  Tuesday 11 August – 8.30 a. m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 9 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 9.30 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 9.50 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 9.55 a.m.

  Tuesday 11 August – 10.30 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 10.40 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 11.05 a.m.

  Tuesday, 11 August – 5 p.m.

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Monday, 27 July – 2.45 a.m.

  Near the top of the second escalator, Laurie released Paul’s hand. They had climbed from the darkness of the Underground, back into the light of Euston’s deserted ticket hall. The CCTV cameras meant she had to hide her face. To soften the feeling of separation, she turned around and gave him a kiss, a reminder to them both of why they were there, before using the hands she had freed to pull the back of her t-shirt over her head. They were smiling at each other as they created their makeshift hoods. Then Laurie led the way up towards the barriers.

  She only saw one of the men at first. For a moment Laurie thought he must be a night worker, but in that case he would surely have been wearing a fluorescent jacket, not a vest. Everything about him spoke of aggression: his stance, legs slightly apart, poised on the balls of the feet, his arms thickly muscled and tattooed, and the way he was staring at the midriff Laurie had exposed through her misuse of her t-shirt. She felt naked beneath his gaze.

  ‘Well,’ she heard, ‘this is an unexpected bonus.’ The words came from another man, somewhere to the side. They were almost drawled, such was the relish that lay beneath them. For an instant, Laurie swung her head around, tunnel-visioned by the neck-hole of her t-shirt, desperately trying to locate the voice’s source. Then common sense took over. She turned to flee.

  Paul, on the stairs immediately below Laurie, was unable to see the reason for her alarm. ‘Run!’ she shouted, powered by fear. Then, while his face was still digesting the news, and with his body still blocking the more obvious escape route, she leapt to sit on the escalator’s rubberised handrail.

  Laurie had seen this done once before, by a man only a little older than her – late twenties perhaps – who had drunk one too many. The speed of descent had taken him by surprise, and he had ended up tearing his suit halfway down. She, at least, knew what to expect.

  From the moment Laurie started to slide, it was clear that there was little friction between the rubber and the cotton of her leggings, but she took a moment to pick up speed, and while she was travelling slowly past the still-immobile Paul, she managed to bring her top back down behind her head, regaining the full use of her arms. That was just as well. With one hand holding the torch, she could trail the other behind her on the handrail, for balance as well as a brake. She was glad of the glove that protected it from the worst of the friction as she slid into the darkness, heart pumping with terror.

  Soon enough, Laurie felt the curve that indicated the handrail was coming to an end. She flew forward a few metres more before her feet hit the ground with a jar that required all the strength in her knees to absorb. If she had not been so frightened she might have tried to stop and regain control; perhaps then she would have stumbled. But instead she ran, maintaining the speed she had built up during her descent, not even bothering to look round, although a drumbeat of rapid thuds told her the pursuit was under way.

  Pitch black, the entrance to the staircase down gave a hint of safety. Before Laurie even reached it she had ripped off her gloves and transferred her torch to her left hand, ready to grab the right handrail she knew would be there. She took the stairs two at a time, keeping her knees soft, spiralling down, absorbing the occasional changes in rhythm every time she reached a landing. Down and round she went until there were no more steps.

  Could she allow herself to use the torch now? She had to if she was going to maintain her speed. She flicked it on. There was the T-junction she expected: southbound or northbound, left or right. She headed left, round a curve in the passage and down another flight of steps.

  It was her running belt that Laurie worried about now. Its reflective strips made it a liability. As she ran she was unzipping it with her left hand, feeling inside for its contents: the three keys she had taken off the ring earlier, her mobile phone, her Oyster card, and the key with the numbered tag, the cause of all the trouble. She stuffed them down the front of her leggings. Why had she not worn pockets?

  She was at another T-junction: left to the Northern line, or right to the Victoria. The belt was empty now. Not wishing to make a sound, cautious in her terror, Laurie laid it on the floor. The pause amplified her hearing. Footsteps echoed somewhere behind her. There was no time to waste.

  Left again, and Laurie came onto the platform, at the end where the trains emerge. She switched off her torch and sprinted noiselessly along towards the southern end, anxious only to get further ahead of her pursuers. The sound of her breathing filled her ears, competing with the thud from a heart kick-started by adrenaline.

  She must be approaching the end of the platform. Laurie slowed to a walk, arms in front, feeling for the end wall. There it was! If she could just hide in the tunnel then perhaps they’d give up looking for her. A look behind: she couldn’t hear footsteps, but she could see the faint glow of a torch from the passage through which she’d come. They must have found her running belt: let them go right, let them go right.

  Suddenly, Laurie felt a sickening sensation: her mobile phone, slipping down inside her leggings. But there was something else: before Laurie even had time to react, she heard the tinkle of a key hitting the floor. Had her pursuers heard it? To Laurie, no sound had ever seemed so loud. Frantically, she crouched down and swept around with her left hand. She couldn’t risk the torch now. Meanwhile, her eyes gl
anced towards the far end of the platform. Was that glow getting stronger?

  Finally, Laurie’s hand caught the hard edge of curved metal, almost at the end of the platform: that tagged key again! As she grabbed it, the glow coalesced into a definite beam. They were coming this way. What to do with the key? She was still holding the torch in her right hand and had to retrieve her mobile from somewhere around her knee. She didn’t have enough hands. No time to think. She’d just have to dump the key. Was there anywhere to hide it? Laurie pushed out with her left hand, searching.

  Yes! There was some sort of grille. That would have to do. Still crouching, Laurie pushed the key through it and then reached down through her waistband to grab the errant phone. There was a definite circle of light at the far end of the platform now. Was it strong enough to pick her out? Laurie didn’t waste time finding out. She manoeuvred herself to the side of the platform, and slid down onto the near rail. As she did so, the torch in her right hand fell.

  The clang reverberated down the platform. There was no possibility Laurie’s pursuers hadn’t heard it. No longer caring about the noise she made, she moved as quickly as she could into the tunnel, edging along by the platform with the rail as her guide. In seconds, the wall to her left was lit by a torch beam. The only reassurance was that her shadow did not appear within it. Laurie risked a look round. Without even realising, she had come into a tunnel that bent round to the right. The curve of the wall obscured the platform. To anybody there she was invisible. The torch moved away. She was in darkness once again.

  Then a shout. Laurie’s stomach lurched. She must have been spotted. No, of course not. The shout was not at her.

  ‘Brian. Come here. Northern line, southbound.’ Was that the man whose voice she’d heard before? She thought so.

  They must have split up to follow her. He was calling for backup, but why wasn’t he chasing her? Surely he knew she was in there? Now was no time to wait to find out. Laurie moved on down the tunnel, but carefully, containing her panic as she strained for sounds of pursuit. Perhaps it was worth staying silent after all.

  For the first time since she’d started running, Laurie had time to wonder what had happened to Paul. He couldn’t have been far behind her as she slid down the escalator, but he hadn’t followed her down the staircase. She’d have heard him. Had they caught him? Laurie had a sudden vision of him beaten up and bleeding somewhere in the tunnels beneath Euston. Casting the image aside with a shake of the head, she forced herself to be rational: she’d surely have heard something. Presumably he’d cut either left or right at the bottom of the escalator and had the luck not to be followed.

  Laurie walked on. She’d been going for a few minutes now and there was still no sound behind her. From ahead, on the other hand, there were scuttlings and an occasional squeak. Rats! Laurie had never thought of herself as squeamish, but she still didn’t relish the idea of treading on something. Could she risk the torch again? It was as dark behind her as ahead. She must be well out of sight of the tunnel entrance. And what time was it? She checked on her phone: just coming up to three; no particular need to hurry, but what wouldn’t she give to be back home in bed?

  There were no shouts from behind when Laurie turned on the torch, no quickening footsteps, but ahead half a dozen pairs of small red eyes fled the beam as if it were a flamethrower. The light meant she could move faster. As for what she was moving towards, she still wasn’t sure. The next station south of Euston was King’s Cross – not far away – but so large that it was bound to be well protected with CCTV and locked doors. It was no place for trying to leave the Tube network.

  And what about her pursuers? In retrospect, Laurie was not surprised that they had not chased her into the tunnels. At some point an ‘unexpected bonus’ stopped being worth the hassle. Nevertheless, she had few illusions about what they might have done if they’d caught her. Now that she seemed to have got away and the adrenaline was leaving her system, she could allow herself to imagine the worst. Her jaw stiffened at the thought. What if they had not given up? What if she found them waiting for her at King’s Cross? The answer, she realised, was to run.

  In less than a minute, however, the light from Laurie’s torch picked out a junction with another set of train tracks coming in from the right. The sight brought her up short. What was going on? For the first time she faced the terrifying possibility that she might be lost, that she might be stuck down here until the morning switch-on. All she could do was make a note of the intersection and press on. If she had to turn back, she could try going down that other track instead.

  Reassurance came within seconds, when the beam showed an exit to the tunnel. Laurie was coming into a station. She turned off her torch and moved forward carefully until she felt the ground fall away from her feet: the ‘suicide pit’ that ran along every platform. A clatter echoed from somewhere to the right. It could have been anything, but it forced her to contemplate another unpalatable possibility. What if her speed had been in vain? What if she was heading for an ambush? In that moment she reached her decision: she would carry on through King’s Cross and get off the line at the next station, Angel. Surely no pursuer would expect that?

  Laurie negotiated the step down into the suicide pit and felt her way along the track, using the rails as guides. At the end, she clambered out and back into the tunnel, the atmosphere closing around her once again. After a minute or so more of careful walking she turned the torch back on, to reveal – what? – more track, more tunnel. But once again it meant she could move faster, to safety, away from any pursuit. She was developing confidence, but even as she picked up her pace a low glow ahead brought her to a sudden halt. Were there workers on the line? Or was this the ambush she was dreading? In an instant, Laurie had switched off her torch, ready to flee back towards King’s Cross if the glow got any stronger. But it stayed there unwavering and, she soon realised, entirely silent. What was it?

  Laurie watched and waited, ruled by uncertainty. Until now, despite her sudden conversion from excited discoverer to prey, despite almost overwhelming panic, she had always, at her core, known what she was doing. This light, however, represented the unknown far more powerfully than the gloom it displaced. She yearned for the comforting familiarity of the dark. It would be so easy to turn around. Perhaps she could go back through King’s Cross and Euston as far as Camden?

  Madness – that’s what it was. Whatever the source of the light ahead, it couldn’t be worse than stumbling around on the Tube network until the line went live at half past four. Laurie had to press on; she had to get out. She was tired of running. Why try to hide any longer? Resigned to discovery, she stepped out towards the light. She could explain how she had ended up here, couldn’t she?

  Tuesday, 21 July – 8.30 a.m.

  Six days earlier

  Of the ten fingers splayed out before her, the little one on the right hand seemed at least reasonably clean. Laurie used it to hook a loose strand of hair out of her eye and tuck it behind her ear. That was the fifth time her chain had come off in the last two miles; she’d spent an hour on a journey that should take twenty minutes.

  Enough: there must be something wrong with the bike that roadside repairs could not put right. It had sounded a bit creaky yesterday. Perhaps that solitary adventure along the Parkland Walk on Sunday had been too much for it. Well, at least she’d got to within spitting distance of Euston. She could take the Tube to Green Park and walk to Berkeley Square from there.

  Laurie pushed her bike up the steps from Eversholt Street, locked it to the racks outside the main concourse, unhooked the pannier, checked she still had her Oyster card, and set off for the entrance to the Underground. She was going to be late for work and she’d be travelling on the Tube when the morning crush was at its worst.

  There was an attendant by the turnstile into the toilets. Laurie considered explaining that she only wanted to wash her hands, that she’d been cycling and had no change, but thought better of it. Until she got into the
office, a wet wipe would have to do.

  The Victoria line platform was as bad as Laurie had feared. A mass of commuters lined the edge, waiting to squeeze onto the next train. Behind them there was more fluidity; people moved along looking vainly for a space. Laurie joined the flow, heading gradually for the far end, trying to ignore the way her cycling shirt was sticking to her back. It would be a relief when she could finally change into the dress in her pannier.

  At the end of the platform, by the tunnel’s mouth, things were marginally quieter; there was at least a prospect of getting on the next train. Laurie positioned herself near the edge and stared down at the tracks beneath her feet. The heat and the crowd were not just physically oppressive; she felt the weight on her soul too. The frustration she had been feeling after her abortive cycle ride was magnifying into an awful, all-encompassing lassitude. The sense of despair that came in its wake was familiar but no less unwelcome. What if she were just to let herself go, fall onto those tracks, leave it all behind?

  Once, in the terrible months after Mum died, Laurie might have followed through on her impulse. But not now: that behaviour belonged a decade in the past. She pulled her gaze away from the tracks and looked around, deliberately reconnecting with the world around her.

  Almost as if he knew what was required when she caught his eye, the man beside her smiled. He was too old for it to be a come-on and Laurie felt her cheeks crease in response, pushing away the wisps of depression before they could take hold. He was wearing a surprisingly smart but quirky suit, with patch pockets and pleated trousers – a bit out of place among the more uniform offerings of Laurie’s fellow commuters, and a sharp contrast to her own Lycra.

  The man was trying to talk to her; he was leaning over and pointing at his nose. Something shiny was hanging from his hand. Laurie watched it swing as she bent her head towards him, straining to hear against the sound of the station tannoy, continuing her smile in response to his. Then the mood of the crowd around them changed. The roar from the tunnel to their left increased; the next train was approaching. People were moving into position, jockeying for spots where doors would soon be opening.