Dark Winter

22

‘Stay put, Suzy. Watch.’

Outside, the street-lights had come on. Less than thirty seconds later Grey Streak passed the front window, heading back towards the station.

‘That’s the first one I saw.’ The source also walked past as she sat back in her chair and picked up her brew. He didn’t bother looking in. Finally, as she took a sip, Navy followed suit. I powered up my cell. ‘He’s lying. Let’s take ’em. You start.’

She did the same with hers, then her bag went over her left shoulder as she stood up, making sure that her leather jacket covered the Browning on her right hip as we kissed goodbye. I hit redial as she stepped out of the front door and disappeared. ‘Hello? Do you have me?’

‘Yep, good. That’s Navy on the right . . . approaching the station . . . into the station now. All three unsighted.’

I was on my feet and out on Cowcross. Suzy was maybe twenty metres ahead of me on the right-hand pavement, just short of the pub.

‘I’ll go complete the station.’ I could hear the PA system and the noise of the ticket hall before she spoke. ‘All three still unsighted, still checking.’

There was a lot of rustling as she checked the area. ‘Wait, wait, wait. Yes . . . I have all three down on the platform, can’t make out what direction. They’re still split up, but on the same platform. I’ll get the tickets.’

I joined her a minute later. She greeted me with a smile and ‘Nice to see you’, as we walked arm in arm towards the turnstiles. CCTV cameras were everywhere.

‘Look down the stairs.’

A flight of wide wrought-iron steps led down to the platforms. I could make out the top third of the source’s head above the billboards, and further along the platform a tell-tale streak of grey. Navy was nearer to us, sitting on a bench between a middle-aged black woman with two Tesco bags and a white man with a leather bag at his feet.

Suzy moved into me and laid her head on my chest, nodding as I whispered lovingly into her ear. ‘We’ll just have to wait for—’ A train roared in immediately below us. People shuffled to the platform edge. Navy and the two on the bench got up to join the shuffle. ‘Fuck the other two, they don’t know us. We take the source. You take the far carriage and I’ll do this one.’

She handed me my all-zone ticket and pushed hers into the turnstile. The gate flapped open as the train doors did the same below us. I followed her through, and down the stairs. She walked briskly on to the opposite platform, using the billboards as cover. My eyes didn’t leave the back of the source’s head. I needed to be as close as possible, which meant taking the carriage immediately to his right. I moved behind her, head down, losing myself among the waiting passengers until she’d overtaken him. Then I ducked back as the source boarded the train.

Shit. Navy was heading for the same carriage as me. No time to change direction: I was committed. The woman took a seat with her back to the platform, and so did Navy. I sat opposite her, trying not to get my feet tangled in her bags.

The carriage was only about half full. A couple of kids stayed standing because they wanted to look cool, but everyone else sat. I looked to my right, through the connecting door, but couldn’t see the source. Half standing, I leant across to pick up a discarded Guardian supplement a few seats to the left of the woman. As the PA told us all to mind the gap, I caught a glimpse of him on my side of the next carriage, seated about half-way along. I couldn’t tell if he was aware or not. Navy certainly wasn’t. He stared blankly ahead, his hands resting on his legs. That was it now, no more looking. I couldn’t afford eye to eye: I didn’t want to be someone he remembered later.

The doors closed and the train rumbled off, still above ground, although the grimy brickwork ran very close on either side. I checked the route card above the woman’s head and discovered we were on the Circle line. I felt myself rock from side to side as the train speeded up, then slowed. I played with the phone as if I was dialling, and brought the mike closer to my mouth. I smiled as if I’d just got through. ‘Hi, how are you?’

I could hardly hear her above the rattle of the tracks, so I lifted the phone right to my ear and pulled out the hands-free.

‘I’m fine. Are you seeing him today?’

My lips were touching the phone. ‘Yes, I’m seeing two. I’m going to lose you soon.’

She gave a girlish giggle. ‘Me, too. That sounds really great.’ I guessed there was somebody sitting right next to her. Maybe it was Grey. She went quiet and I checked the phone signal. It disappeared as the train was swallowed by a tunnel. I glanced around at my fellow passengers. They were all in their own worlds, reading books and newspapers, or avoiding eye-contact with the people opposite. Some, like Navy, just sat there letting their heads wobble from side to side. To my left, the man with the leather bag at his feet picked fluff obsessively from his corduroy trousers.

The woman bent down and rustled about in one of her bags, produced a copy of Hello! and started to flick through the pages. I played with the idea of Corduroy Man walking along crowded platforms in the rush-hour with his bag, letting its deadly cargo of Dark Winter leak from a small hole in the bottom of it. No one would give him a second thought as he moved about the Underground. He could walk as far as he liked until he needed to refill and start all over again.

Like thousands of others, the woman wouldn’t have seen, heard or smelt DW as it floated about her to be breathed in. She would go home tonight, and in a couple of days think she had a bit of flu and almost certainly infect her husband and kids. The husband would give the good news to everyone he passed on the way to work, then once there, he’d keep on going. The kids would go to school or college and do exactly the same. You didn’t need to be Kelly’s maths teacher to work out how quickly it added up to what Simon had called a biblical event.

The train’s PA system crackled and a female voice from Suzy’s neck of the estuary told us the next station was King’s Cross. The platform lights rushed in from the opposite side of the carriage, and long blurs gradually became Greek holiday posters. The train stopped with a gentle squeal of brakes and the doors lumbered open.

Navy got up. I looked through the interconnecting door. The source was on his feet too, overcoat on. I waited where I was, not knowing which end of the platform was the exit. Would he turn left or right? If I went too early and got it wrong, I might walk straight into him. If I waited too long, the doors would close.

Most of the people disembarking from my carriage turned to the right, and Navy followed them. If the source did too, Suzy would pick him up for sure.

I waited a while before falling in with the rear of the herd. I couldn’t see any of them, even Suzy, as the crowd followed the way-out signs. We were still all heading in the same direction, but I kept an eye out for other exits: King’s Cross was a major tube interchange, and there were two rail stations at street level.

I still had no signal on my phone as I pushed my way through a group of dithering foreign teenagers and joined the stream of business people hurrying for their trains.

I spotted Navy about half-way up the escalator – static, not aware. He glanced at the odd poster now and again, as everybody did. One signal bar flickered on the mobile’s display. ‘Hello, Suzy?’ Nothing.

By the time I’d got maybe half-way up he’d reached the top and disappeared. I started taking the stairs two at a time, barging past people when I had to, muttering apologies.

The escalator spilled us into an area from where maybe five or six tunnels led off in different directions. Navy could have gone down any of them, but he didn’t matter. The source did. I took the first option left, with only a one-in-five chance of being right, and made about a hundred metres.

‘Hello, Nick, hello?’

‘Suzy, you’re weak, you’re weak.’

‘He’s out of the tube. He’s in the main-line station, I have all three.’

‘Nearly there.’ I turned and moved against the flow, back to the top of the escalators and followed the sign for King’s Cross main-line station. More pushing, more apologies.

Suzy kept up her commentary: ‘All three heading out of the station towards the main, they’re taking the main exit, they’re still separate. You getting this?’

‘Yeah – nearly there. Excuse me, sorry, sorry.’ I pounded up the final flight of stairs and into the enormous high-roofed concourse. A large digital display showed the times of departing trains, most of them delayed. Pissed-off commuters stood around drinking hot stuff from paper cups and muttering into cell phones.

Suzy was nowhere to be seen, but I heard traffic in my earpiece and then her voice. I had to block my other ear with a finger to hear what she was saying, because the station tannoy had started up as well. All I caught was something about the main.

‘What’s he doing on the main?’

‘They’re all held at the main. Outside the station, they’re still apart and static. You get that?’

‘Got it. Can you hear me?’

‘Yes, yes.’ She shut up and the traffic took over in the earpiece. Then, ‘Stand by, stand by, they’re moving. Still apart. They’re at the main, still station side of the main, heading left.’

‘Coming out now.’