wading in filth and shit and it seems appropriate. When you consider the state of my life, my career and my relationships, I belong down here.
“The place you showed us on the map. We're under it now,” says Barry, his headlamp momentarily blinding me.
I glance up at a large opening and a side tunnel. The burst water main on the night of the ransom drop sent a thousand gallons a minute flooding through the streets and into the drains—enough to carry a ransom; maybe even enough to carry me.
“If something got washed down here, where would it finish up?”
“It's a top-down system. Operates on gravity,” says Angus.
Moley nods in agreement.
“Go-go-go-got flushed away,” stutters Phil.
Barry begins to explain. “These small local sewers feed into main sewers and the waste is then drawn off into one of five interceptory sewers that run west to east—all fed by gravity. The high-level sewer begins at Hampstead Hill and crosses Highgate Road near Kentish Town. Farther south you got two middle-level sewers. One begins close to Kilburn and runs under the Edgware Road to Euston Road, past Kings Cross. The second runs from Kentish Town under Bayswater and along Oxford Street. Then you got two low-level sewers, one under Kensington, Piccadilly and the City; and the other right under the Thames Embankment, following the northern bank of the river.”
“Where do they all go?”
“To the sewage treatment works at Beckton.”
“And the system gets flushed out by rainfall?”
He shakes his head. “The main sewers are built alongside old rivers that provide the water.”
The only river I know that enters the Thames estuary from the north is the River Lea, which is a long way east of here.
“There are heaps of them,” scoffs Angus. “You can't just wish a river away. You can cover 'em over or divert 'em into pipes but they'll keep flowing just the same as always.”
“Where are they?”
“Well you got the Westbourne, the Walbrook, the Tyburn, Stamford Brook, Counter's Creek and the Fleet . . .”
Each of these names is familiar. There are dozens of streets, parks and estates named after them, but I had never equated them with ancient rivers. The fine hairs on my neck are standing on end. You hear stories about secret cities beneath cities; tunnels that took prime ministers to war cabinet rooms and passageways that carried mistresses for rendezvous with kings, but I had never imagined a world of water, unseen blind rivers, coursing beneath the streets. No wonder the walls are crying.
Moley wants us to keep moving. The tunnel goes straight on with occasional vertical shafts emptying into it from above creating mini-waterfalls. Keeping to the center of the stream, our boots slosh through the sediment and cold grayish water. Slowly the passages grow wider and taller and our shadows no longer stoop against the walls.
Tethered together we descend into a shaft and wade silently along a larger sewer. Occasionally we slide down cement slopes, splashing through several inches of stinking water. At other times we near the surface and faint beams of light angle through iron grates.
I try to imagine the ransom, divided and sealed in plastic, being carried through these tunnels, dropping over waterfalls, floating through crypts.
For another hour we walk, crawl and slide. Eventually, we emerge into a cavernous Victorian brick chamber supported by pillars and arches. It must be thirty feet high, although it's hard to tell in the darkness. White-green water seems to boil at my feet, plunging over a waterfall.
Everywhere there are rusty iron gratings and long chains hanging from the roof. A concrete weir, made up of two large spillways, divides the room. Foaming gouts of waste are swept away by a great culvert that intercepts the flow above the spillway.
Below it, down the sliding concrete weir, is a large empty concrete pool featuring huge hinged steel gates with counterweights on the top end to act like levers and seal the doors closed.
Angus sits on the edge of the spillway and takes a sandwich from his pocket, unwrapping the plastic film.
He motions with his sandwich. “That over there is the low-level interceptory sewer. It starts at Chiswick and runs east beneath the Thames Embankment to the Abbey Mills pumping station in east London. Everything gets diverted from here to the treatment works.”
“Why the spillway?”
“Storms. You get a decent downpour in London and there's nowhere for the rain to go except into the drains. Thousands of miles of small local lines feed into the main sewers. First you get a gust of wind and then the whoosh!”
“Whoosh!” echoes Moley.
Angus picks a crumb off his chest. “The system can only accommodate a certain level of water. You don't want it backing up or the politicians would be knee-deep in shit in Westminster. I'm talking literally. So when the water reaches a certain level it spills over the weir and gets diverted through those gates.” He points at the huge iron doors, which must each weigh about three tons. “They open like a valve when floodwaters come roaring over the weir.”
“Where does it go?”
“Straight into the Thames at a good ten knots.”
Suddenly another scenario emerges, swirling around me like the smell of almonds. The Thames Water foreman described the water main having “blown apart,” creating a tremendous flood. This would have discouraged anyone from following the ransom and could also have served another purpose—to carry the packages over the weir.
“I need to get through those gates.”
“You can't,” says Moley. “They only open during floods.”
“But you can get me there. You know where it comes out.”
Moley scratches his armpits and rocks his head from side to side. My whole body has started to itch.
24
Weatherman Pete produces a high-pressure hose and hooks it up to a tap. The blast of water knocks me back a step. I turn around and around, getting pummeled by the spray.
The van is parked almost directly above an open manhole in Ranelagh Gardens in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The grand hospital buildings, painted by the rising sun, are just visible through the trees. Nearby, at Chelsea Barracks, I can hear the strains of a military band practicing.
These gardens are normally closed until 10:00 a.m. and I don't know how Weatherman Pete managed to get through the gates. Then I notice magnetic mats on the side of his van advertising the City of Westminster.
“I got dozens of them,” he explains, rather sheepishly. “Come on, I'll show you what you want to see.”
Shedding the overalls and waders, we seal them into plastic sacks and load up the van. Moley has changed into his camouflage uniform and blinks into the sunlight as though frightened it might do him permanent damage. The others are drinking tea from a flask and recounting the night's journey.
Piling into the van, I lean over the seat as Weatherman Pete drives along the narrow tarmac paths and waves at a trio of Chelsea pensioners on their morning walk. Pulling through the front gate, we circle the outer walls of the gardens until we reach the Thames.
Parking in the Embankment Gardens, I cross the road to Riverside Walk, overlooking the river. The Thames, caught between tides, smells like perfume after where I've been.
Pete joins me and glances across the brown slick of water. Clambering onto the wall, he hooks his arm around an iron lamppost and leans out over the muddy bank.
