Close to the Edge Page 8

  Monday, 27 July – 2 a.m.

  Laurie was back outside Mornington Crescent station, locking up her bike. She put the keys in her running belt, next to the torch. She was wearing black – leggings and a long-sleeved t-shirt that zipped at the neck. Her shoes were dark, rubber-soled trainers.

  Paul was already there, waiting by the entrance and dressed in a tracksuit he must have picked up at the gym. The Action Man look was spoilt, however, by the conspicuous pair of Marigold washing-up gloves that extended halfway up his forearms. From his pocket he produced another pair for Laurie. This was something they had agreed. As she herself had put it, ‘Although I’m confident about the power being off, it would be a shame to be wrong.’

  Paul was not carrying a torch, but Laurie knew he’d have one in another pocket. Instead he bore an evil-looking object that she might have mistaken for long-handled secateurs if she had not known what to expect. It was lucky, she reflected, that the safety equipment at Paul’s gym included a pair of bolt-cutters, ‘In case we need to cut the cables on a weight machine in a hurry.’ For all its brevity, Paul’s laconic statement had immediately evoked the image of a sweaty middle-aged executive screaming with pain from fingers trapped in a pulley.

  Now he just said, ‘You’re punctual.’

  Laurie accepted the compliment. He wasn’t to know about the half hour she’d spent pacing about the flat after he’d left, wondering if she still had the courage to go through with this.

  Paul continued, ‘Can you keep watch and shield me a bit from view, while I deal with this?’ He gestured at the padlock, which was all that secured the grille across the front of the station.

  As if this was the most natural thing to be doing in the world, Laurie obeyed. She turned around. Fifty yards away, a man and woman noticeably the worse for drink were supporting each other as they walked down from Camden High Street. To the south, a couple of cars were waiting for the lights to turn green. In the distance, she could hear a police siren wail. It was miles away, she told herself. And in any case, they hadn’t done anything wrong – yet.

  From behind her back, Laurie heard a snick. ‘That’s it,’ said Paul. ‘Is the coast clear?’

  The drunken couple was now weaving away from them. The traffic lights were still red. The sound of sirens was growing fainter. ‘For another ten seconds,’ Laurie replied.

  ‘Well, in that case …’ murmured Paul. As Laurie turned back towards him, he pulled open the gate and held it expectantly. This was it: Laurie’s last chance to refuse, to admit what a ridiculous wild goose chase this was. She looked at Paul, ready to speak, and then, somehow, did not. Everything about him inspired confidence; she had to show that her determination could match his. She stepped though the gap. Paul swiftly followed, then reshut the gate and hooked the broken padlock back through. By the time the cars passed, they had both retreated into the shadows of the station, well hidden from the casual glance of any occupant.

  The street lights outside made it easy to see around the ticket hall. Paul stowed the bolt-cutters in a corner and led the way, clambering over the barrier. From above, the stairway down looked like a pit of inky darkness, but as they descended the first flight and then turned along a corridor to the left, enough light filtered down from above for them to see the top of the main staircase, switchbacking down. Each grasped the brass handrail with a rubber-gloved hand and, with it as a guide, continued on down.

  After two flights, Laurie heard rather than saw Paul stop. Even his gloves, she now realised, were invisible, but she could hear his whisper well enough: ‘I think we could risk some light now.’

  She fumbled for her torch, carefully rezipping her running belt: this would be neither the time nor the place to lose her keys. A beam sprang out from Paul, two steps below, almost simultaneously with hers. Laurie half expected to hear a shout, of surprise or alarm. Some of those websites had suggested there were communities that lived in the Tube system, evading authority in hidden tunnels. But no, the silence remained unbroken.

  Paul carried on down, still leading the way, keeping his torch pointed on the steps in front of him. As Laurie did the same, she noticed his shoes reflecting back at her, eerie spots of brilliance amid the gloom: presumably a safety feature for night-time jogging. That gave her a thought. She stopped, brought her running belt round to the front, and aimed her torch at it. Yes – its go-faster stripes leapt back at her, mocking her other attempts at camouflage. Ah well. It probably wouldn’t matter. She flipped the belt back round and hurried on after Paul.

  It was only sixty-three steps down – not that Laurie was counting, but she remembered the sign at the top from the afternoon. A short walk in front of the lifts and a further set of steps brought them down to the divide between the platforms. Paul made to turn right for the southbound platform, but a hand on his arm from Laurie stopped him. ‘Let’s walk south on the northbound track. They have these battery-operated cleaning trains. If there happens to be one on the track, I’d rather see it coming than be surprised from behind.’

  Left it was, then left again, walking along to the southern end of the platform. They both stood there, torches aimed down at the rails, as though that alone might confirm whether the electricity was really off. It should be, of course, Laurie knew that from her research, but now that they were down here, translating that confidence into action was unexpectedly difficult. She thought the problem through. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got anything metal with you that you wouldn’t mind throwing at the rails?’

  No, now that Paul had stowed the bolt-cutters he was travelling as light as she was. Laurie thought of the zips on his leather jacket, then of her keys: what if the rail really was live? She could hardly risk losing them. The key ring on its own, however, now that was another matter.

  Paul had the stronger fingers. Laurie aimed his torch at his hands while he slipped the three keys off the ring. Then he leaned out and held it above the middle rail, the one that, if the trains were running, would have been energised to 210 volts. From the side, Laurie confirmed his aim. It was good. The dropped ring hit the rail with a satisfying ping and bounced off it into the suicide pit underneath. There was no spark, no other sound.

  That was good enough for Laurie. Sitting on the platform, she felt with her feet for the near running rail, stood up briefly and then used her left leg to lower herself down while her right foot reached for the floor beneath. It was a graceful, almost gymnastic, movement and she found herself hoping Paul had noticed. She reached down to find the key ring and stuffed it back in her running belt with the loose keys. Then she stepped back up and into the tunnel.

  Paul, meanwhile, had switched his torch back on, but had not moved from the platform edge. Was he having second thoughts? Laurie could understand it if he were; she was having them herself. Then her mouth overruled her mind. ‘Let’s run it,’ she whispered, bolstering her own courage as she did so.

  Laurie ran on, her attention focused on the pool of light juddering in front of her. Every now and then she’d see the beam from Paul’s torch as well, when the rhythm of his running brought it into her path. Outside these points of reference was only darkness. The sides of the tunnel were invisible. If it wasn’t for the closeness that Laurie felt around her, she might have been in the open air. She had no idea how fast she was going. In her experience, the dark always increased perceived speed; she certainly wasn’t out of breath; and she must have been going for what, three minutes, five? It was almost as if she’d entered a trance.

  Whoa! Without any warning the light from her torch was shining on nothing. The ground had vanished. It could only be the beginning of the suicide pit at Euston. Laurie brought herself to a stop and aimed her beam around the walls. Yes. There, to the left, the wall disappeared too. They had arrived.

  ‘Nice,’ said Paul. He paused for breath. ‘Let’s get onto the platform.’

  Laurie stepped onto the left-hand running rail, walked along it until she felt the wall open out, and clambered up. S
oon Paul too stood beside her.

  Laurie aimed her torch to the left. The flight of stairs going up to the interchange level was right next door to them, as she knew it would be. They were almost there. She whispered as much to Paul: ‘It’s probably best if you follow me now. We’re changing onto the Victoria line – up, along and down again.’

  Paul had no quarrel with that, although there was, perhaps, a hint of irony in his immediate rejoinder, ‘Lead on, Macduff. I place myself entirely in your hands.’

  The air felt slightly fresher at the top of the stairs, although they were still two levels below the train station. A faint glow shone down from the ticket hall above. Clearly it had some kind of low-level lighting throughout the night. Laurie started confidently for the passageway that went to the other lines, and then stopped, bemused.

  The light from her torch had suddenly illuminated the bars of a concertina gate, pulled across to block the entrance to the passageway. It was secured by a padlock very similar to the one Paul had dealt with so efficiently at Mornington Crescent. Only now they didn’t have the bolt-cutters. Laurie was ashamed of herself. How could she not have noticed the gate that afternoon? And of course it was necessary. At the very end of the day, only one line would be open; this gate would stop people heading for the wrong one after its last train. Laurie sighed.

  Paul was beside her. He inspected the padlock. ‘It’s no good, I’m afraid. I guess we can come back tomorrow, and bring the cutters with us this time.’

  Laurie loved the sheer matter-of-factness of Paul’s offer to return, but she knew already she could never bring herself to do this again. Was there any alternative? From where they were standing, there only was one: to climb to the ticket hall up one of the two escalators beside them. Would it do any good? Laurie tried to remember what happened at the top. The route down brought you to where they were standing now, but how did you get back up? Laurie remembered her own mad dash the previous Tuesday all too well. You ascended on escalators that started from above the Victoria line. They could circumvent the gate by going via the ticket hall.

  There was no guarantee, of course, that other gates would not appear to block their path, but at least it was a possible plan. She put it to Paul, in a low but urgent whisper, excitement overcoming nervousness. His reaction, however, reduced her enthusiasm.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea. There may be people about. The moment we’re up there, in the light, we’ll probably be on camera.’

  He was right about the cameras. The last thing Laurie wanted was to have this visit recorded for posterity, especially if there was any chance that Sergeant Atkins was on duty the next morning. They should have worn hats. As it was, Laurie would just have to improvise something with her top. She experimented with pulling it over her head, so that she was looking out through the neck-hole. The result was not comfortable, and could hardly have been stylish, but at least it obscured her face, and she would only have to keep it like that for the ten seconds they were in the light.

  As for the possibility that there might be someone up there, Laurie doubted it, but to make sure, she and Paul stood in silence, straining their ears for any sounds of movement from above. All sorts of noises echoed up from the tunnels below: strange clanks and screeches, evidence of activity somewhere in the network. From above, however, there was not a sound.

  Laurie counted a hundred breaths before she whispered, ‘I’m off.’ Then, without waiting for a reply, she started climbing. Halfway up, with the glow from above getting stronger, she turned off her torch and turned round to make sure Paul was doing the same. He too had just stopped, and was aiming his torch down into the gloom, but when Laurie touched his arm he switched it off and set off to follow her once again, with a whispered explanation: ‘I thought I heard something.’ Laurie sympathised with his nervousness, but said nothing in reply.

  A few steps from the top, Laurie pulled her shirt over her head, and watched Paul follow suit, turning himself into some kind of headless hunchback. The action made the t-shirt he had on underneath his jacket ride up slightly, revealing the flatness of his gym-honed stomach.

  Coming up into the ticket hall, Laurie gave a quick sweep round, turning her head as she looked out through the tunnel formed by her neck-hole. Although bright by comparison with the gloom they had left behind, the hall was deserted. A few yards in front of her were the barriers, waiting for her to flash an Oyster card. Beyond them, the red LEDs of the ticket machines glowed, sleepless despite the lack of custom. Compared with the hall’s usual bustle, not to say air of barely controlled chaos, the quiet was eerie. It certainly left Laurie in no mood to tarry. She moved swiftly to the left, to the top of the other bank of escalators. Within seconds they were descending towards the Victoria line.

  After a few steps Laurie stopped, let her shirt slide back into its normal position, and bent forward, undoing her ponytail as she did so. She gave her head a quick shake and then swept her hair back, gathering it up in one quick movement. That was better. She picked up her torch and continued on down.

  By the time Laurie and Paul reached the bottom, their torches had become necessary once again. Laurie couldn’t help remembering the panic that had gripped her a few days before. It was at this spot, between the two escalators, that she had started to calm down, forced to be patient by the immobility of the crowd. Now they were surrounded by emptiness, and by a sense of stillness that was almost more disconcerting than the lack of light.

  If Paul noticed Laurie’s hesitation he didn’t let on. His torch picked out the top of the stairs, heading down deeper still. ‘Is this the one we want?’

  Laurie shook her head, realised he had no chance of seeing the gesture, and whispered, ‘The escalators are easier. Follow me.’ A short walk down a passage to the left brought them back on familiar ground, to the point where Laurie was repeating the journey she’d taken the morning of the accident, the one she’d replayed in her head the night before and the route she’d scouted out that afternoon: down the short escalator, right onto the Victoria line platform and, as well as she could judge it, opposite the point where the brass disc lay.

  On this occasion, however, Laurie wasted no time trying to pick out the object from the platform. Instead, she aimed her torch at the near rail, so as to be sure of the footing, and stepped down onto it. A similar careful step brought her down into the pit. Then she felt for the central rail, and swung first one leg over it and then the other, bringing her next to the far two rails. Leaning over, she shone her torch onto the far side of the fourth rail.

  For what seemed an age, Laurie was unable to find anything. She swept the back of the rail with her torch as the uncertainty rose within her. Had the disc already been picked up? Had it ever existed in the first place? What would Paul think if it turned out they had done this for nothing? Refusing to panic, she moved methodically along the tracks, carefully examining each white ceramic mounting that she passed. On the platform, Paul kept pace with her, aiming the beam from his own torch so it intersected with hers, and saying nothing.

  It was the glint of metal that ended the search. Laurie had misjudged her distances in the dark. There was the disc, about ten metres from where she began, lying exactly in the position she had spotted it half a day before. And there attached to it, invisible from the platform but now reflecting back the light from her torch, was a key.

  Laurie could hardly have hoped for more. Here was all the justification she required for this mad expedition – a genuine find. In a second she had reached out a rubber-gloved hand and plucked the key from its resting place. The brass disc, she now realised, was a fob. It bore the digits 869.

  ‘Have you found something?’ Paul’s voice came out of the darkness, making Laurie jump. He deserved to know. ‘Yes. It looks like it might be a locker key.’ Was it absurd for her to be feeling so delighted by her find?

  Paul’s reply was suitably appreciative but also a reminder that this was only a beginning. ‘You are something else. Is there
anything to say where it’s from?’

  ‘I don’t think so: just a number. Let’s have a closer look when we’re back in the light.’ With that, she carefully zipped the key into her running belt, stepped back over the middle rail, and graciously accepted Paul’s outstretched hand to help her back onto the platform.

  ‘Thanks for making me do this,’ Laurie said simply. Then, like any couple out for an evening stroll, but still wearing their rubber gloves, they walked hand in hand along the platform and up the escalator they had just come down. In ten minutes they would be back at Mornington Crescent, mission accomplished. Laurie had faced her fears and triumphed.

  Near the top of the second escalator, Laurie released Paul’s hand. 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 hand 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. Laurie led the way up towards the barriers.

  Then she saw the men.

  Monday, 27 July – 3.05 a.m.

  That casual moment with Paul felt like a distant memory, for all that it was only twenty minutes ago. Now, after her panicked flight, Laurie was deeper underground than ever. The lights ahead remained unwavering, waiting for Laurie to step towards them. She tried to put herself in the position of a night worker on the Tube. How would she react to a woman wandering in a tunnel? There must be procedures for dealing with trespassers on the line. Presumably they involved the police; would Sergeant Atkins somehow manage to be involved? Was prosecution inevitable? Fitzalan Capital would not be relaxed about something like that.