‘How come?’
‘I found out I can’t draw,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ said Kumar. ‘I didn’t know that was still a requirement. What with computers and everything.’
‘You still need draughtsmanship,’ I said. ‘Is that a turn ahead?’
Ahead, the passageway curved to the left. Kumar checked his map.
‘We must be following the curve of the trackway. I think you’re right about this being contemporaneous,’ he said. ‘It must have been built by the contractor.’
It made sense. If you’re cutting a nine-metre wide trench through the heart of London you might as well throw in a side tunnel. It could have all sorts of uses, a safety route, a utility conduit. But in that case, why not just make the cut wider? Or if you wanted it covered, why not a colonnade?
‘We should have checked the original plans,’ I said.
‘I did,’ said Kumar. ‘Definitely no secret passages.’
We stopped when we were far enough around the curve to start losing sight of the passage behind us. I flashed my light back towards where Lesley was hopefully standing guard and called her on my airwave.
‘Still here,’ she said, and I saw a flash as she waved her torch at us.
I told her that we might be out of communication soon. Airwave works in the Underground but only when it’s in range of a relay and the tunnels predated digital radio by a good century and a half.
Lesley told us that Nightingale had popped up on the other side of Bayswater Station, which meant that it was growing more likely that James Gallagher could have used the passageway to reach Baker Street. She suggested we look for any evidence that he’d been in our section.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Never would have thought of that.’
‘Stay safe,’ she said and hung up.
I was just wondering if we were going to end up walking all the way to Notting Hill when Kumar found the stairs. It was a spiral staircase wrapped around a thin cast-iron hub, unmistakably late Victorian – who else would expend that much effort on something no one was ever going to see? It was impossible to tell how far down it went, although I caught a strong whiff of excrement and bleach wafting up from below.
‘That’s the sewers,’ said Kumar. ‘No mistaking that.’
Beyond the entrance to the staircase the passageway continued in its curve to the left.
‘Down the stairs or keep going?’ I asked.
‘We could split up,’ said Kumar with more enthusiasm than I liked.
The floor of the passageway beyond the stairs seemed a paler colour under my head light than the section we’d just walked. I squatted down and had a closer look. There was definitely more dust on the far side and it seemed less disturbed. I admit it wasn’t much, but it was all we had and there was no way I was splitting up.
I explained my reasoning to Kumar, who cracked a glow tube to mark the spot and made a note on his map.
‘Down it is,’ he said.
We went down slowly counting revolutions as we went. Three turns down we encountered a landing with a doorway – the stairs continued downwards. When I had a look through the doorway the shit and bleach smell was strong enough to make me gag. The room beyond was barely larger than a broom cupboard and most of the floor was taken up with an open hatchway. Holding my nose and breathing through my mouth I peered down. Below I recognised one of Bazalgette’s famous sewers, complete with egg-shaped cross-section and sturdy English bond brick lining. It was over a metre across at its widest point and a quarter filled with surprisingly watery-looking water considering what it smelt like.
‘Tell me they didn’t take their food through that,’ I said.
‘Definitely an FSA violation,’ said Kumar. ‘We don’t want to go down there. I’m not qualified for the sewers.’
‘I thought you went caving in wild out-of-the-way places,’ I said. ‘Caves that no man had caved before.’
‘And none of them were as dangerous as the London sewer system,’ he said. ‘Or as smelly.’
I examined the hatch. It looked cast-iron and late Victorian. It also had the same ceramic camouflage as the door in the cut fused into its underside.
‘This is obviously designed to be closed.’ I swung the hatch back and forth a couple of times to demonstrate that it wasn’t rusted open or anything. ‘Somebody left it open, probably because they were in a hurry, and I think we’ve got to check it out.’
‘You know I’ve heard rumours about you,’ said Kumar.
‘Are any of them true?’
‘Understatements,’ said Kumar. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking what the rumours were.
‘We drop down and have a quick look and if we don’t find anything we come back.’
‘Smelling of roses,’ said Kumar.
My dad says that the Russians have a saying:
Since it was my idea I got to go first. The, let’s call it water, was freezing and knee-deep so that it cascaded over the top of my wellies. Later I learnt from a flusher, them that make their living maintaining the sewers, that only an idiot climbs into the sewers wearing anything other than waist-high waders. In my defence there were plenty of other idiots underground that night.
The ceiling was just high enough that I could wade upright, although the top of my helmet scraped the brickwork. I pushed upstream against the surprisingly strong current and Kumar splashed down behind me.
‘Oh god,’ he said.
‘Yeah I know,’ I said. ‘Water’s cold.’
‘That’s because it’s snowmelt,’ said Kumar. ‘That’s why we’re wearing wetsuits.’
I heard a splash from up ahead and pointed my helmet light in that direction.
‘There’s somebody ahead,’ I said.
‘Kill your lights,’ said Kumar. So I did and he followed suit.
It went completely black. I became aware of the sullen wash of the filthy water against my knees, of random sloshing sounds and a really disgusting slurping sound from somewhere behind us.
‘I think they heard us,’ I whispered.
‘Or there’s nobody there,’ Kumar whispered back.
We waited while the cold seeped into our legs. I’m not claustrophobic. It’s just that my imagination won’t let me forget how much the stuff above my head weighs. And if I start thinking about my breathing I start thinking about how it doesn’t seem to be bringing in enough oxygen.
There was a splash up ahead. The distance was difficult to judge, but I thought less than ten metres. I surged forward as fast as I could against the current and fumbled to turn my helmet light back on. When it came on I was rewarded with a flash of green and tan ahead of me. Despite the up and down of the light, I realised that I was looking at somebody’s back and shoulders as they tried to wade ahead of us. They were wearing woodland camouflage pattern, what looked like a skateboarding helmet and, unlike me. they were short enough to be submerged above their thighs.
‘Stop,’ I yelled. ‘Police.’ I hoped they would, because I was getting knackered.
Our fugitive tried to pick up their pace, but my height gave me the advantage.
‘Stop,’ I yelled. ‘Or I’ll do something unpleasant.’ I thought about where we were for a moment. ‘Even more unpleasant than what we’re doing now.’
The figure stopped, the shoulders slumped and then started to shake with laughter and I suddenly knew who it was.
Agent Reynolds turned to face us, her pale face caught in the bobbing circles of our helmet lights.
‘Hi, Peter,’ she said. ‘What are you doing down here?’
