Off the Rails

∨ Off the Rails ∧

22

The Ghost System

Late on Wednesday morning, the two elderly detectives stood in their usual positions, side by side, leaning on the balustrade of Waterloo Bridge, looking into the heart of the city. The clouds moved like freighters, flat-bottomed and dark, laden with incoming cargoes of rain. Bryant had ill-advisedly washed his favourite trilby after venturing into snowdrifts in an earlier case, and its brim had lost all shape. With his hands stuffed in the voluminous pockets of his ratty tweed overcoat and the backs of his trouser bottoms touching the pavement, he appeared to be vanishing entirely inside his clothes. It seemed that a breeze might come along and blow what was left of this bag of rags into the river.

May, on the other hand, stood with his back erect in a smart navy blue Savile Row suit, his blue silk tie knotted over a freshly pressed shirt, his white cuffs studded with silver links. As rain began to fall once more, he unfurled a perfect black umbrella and held it over them. Whenever May felt that his life lacked order, he redressed the imbalance by sprucing up.

It had commonly been noted by their partners that anyone becoming involved with one had to accept the priority of the other. This fact had resulted in two lifetimes of dissatisfying romantic attachments, but could not be helped. To remove either would have been like cutting away a supporting vine, and would have created a sense of misfortune in both that no woman would have been able to forgive herself for.

“Sorry to drag you down here,” said Bryant. “Old habits die hard. I needed to come and do some thinking. I was going to try the Millennium Bridge but there are too many tourists.”

“That’s okay.” May leaned forward to watch a police launch chug under an arch. “Brigitte called late last night. She wants me to visit her in Paris.”

“I bet she was drunk.”

“She was, a bit.”

“I hope you told her you’re in the middle of an important investigation.”

“I said I’d go if we could close the case and stabilise the Unit. But we’re not getting anywhere fast, are we, and unless something breaks – ”

“It will. If we fail the Taylor woman we’ll have struck out twice in a row. There won’t be a third chance. How did you get on with your student?”

“She thought I’d come to visit her because she’d reported her boyfriend going missing,” May explained. “Reckons he disappeared at King’s Cross station early this morning.”

Bryant’s ears pricked up. “Strange coincidence.”

“Most of the other students in the house had the same altered sticker on their bags. And I saw something in her flat that bothered me.”

“Oh, snooping around, were you?”

“Hardly. It was on the kitchen table, in plain sight. A pocket guide to the haunted stations of the London Underground called Mind the Ghosts, with her name pencilled inside. It resonated a little too much with what she was saying. I swiped it. Here.” He pulled the dog-eared paperback from his pocket and passed it to Bryant. “Take a look at Chapter Six. She’s bookmarked a section about the ghost of a girl called Annie Evans.”

“This is more my territory than yours. I’m impressed you’d think of it.” Bryant dug out his reading glasses, wound them around his ears and found the passage. “Says here ‘a sickly child, imprisoned, starved and beaten to death by the woman who employed her, in the year of 1758’. I’m not entirely with you.”

“If you look at the next page, it explains that Annie Evans’s ghost is supposed to haunt Russell Square tube station between midnight and one A.M. The guards hear her running along the platform, but as soon as she boards a carriage she vanishes. The girl I saw, Ruby Cates, said she had been waiting at Russell Square for her boyfriend under identical circumstances.”

“So you think she read this and concocted the story?”

“I really don’t know what to think. I mean, what would she have to gain by doing so? And why bother to report him missing at all?”

“You know, you’re finally starting to think like me. Leave me the book and I’ll see if there’s anything you missed.”

“Be my guest.”

“Students,” Bryant said with a sigh. “They’re all so impatient to get on with their careers now. Why can’t they go back to smoking pot and talking rubbish like the good old days?”

“At least they’re not scruffy anymore.”

“Oh, you think anyone who doesn’t wear a tie is scruffy. Your mother started your toilet training too early. I’ve watched you in restaurants, lining up your knife and fork with the edges of your napkin. And that new flat of yours, so bare that it looks like the furniture delivery van took a wrong turn and never found the place.”

“I can’t abide clutter, you know that. Rooms reveal the inner workings of the mind. I just thought it was odd that she had left the book out, that’s all.”

Bryant perused the chapter. “I say, listen to this – the section has been underlined. Thirteen-year-old Annie Evans, a child of sickly nature, locked in a cupboard for three years, left unfed and repeatedly beaten by her employer with a broom handle. She escaped twice but was sent back to the house both times. Died from infection and multiple fractures, compounded by malnourishment. Her maggot-filled body remained in the attic for two months, because her employer feared it would provide clear evidence that she had been brutalised. The property stood on the site of Russell Square tube. Parts of her burned body were found in Chick Lane gully-hole by the night watchman, and were taken to the coroner. Her employer was brought to trial at the Old Bailey and was found guilty, after being turned in by her own daughter. On certain nights just past the hour of midnight, the ghost of Annie Evans still appears in the last train at Russell Square station, only to vanish just as suddenly.”

“The house where Ruby and her boyfriend live is full of students studying public transport systems and traffic control,” said May. “Funny how everything keeps coming back to the London Underground.”

“Not really,” Bryant argued. “This guide has a UCL library tag. It’s a bit of light reading for anyone studying transport systems. Besides, you can’t help but be aware of the tunnels beneath your feet when you walk around the city.” He thumped his walking stick on the pavement. “I always think that the system operates as a kind of ghost London, just below street level. Its routes mirror the streets, which in turn follow the hedgerows marking out the city’s ancient boundaries. So you could say that the underground provides us with a kind of spiritual blueprint for the passage of London’s residents.”

“No, I’m not buying that,” May declared. “There’s nothing at all spiritual about the underground railway, just tunnels full of mice and dust.”

“But it’s also a closed system filled with dead ends and unrealised plans, and that makes it fascinating. All the stations that were excavated and never opened, the platforms that were used to hide art masterpieces in the war, follies like the theatre train that only ran in one direction. And of course there’s a lot more underground than just the tube network. I heard tell of a huge shelter beneath Clapham where the authorities chose to leave all the Windrush passengers.” The Empire Windrush had docked in June 1948, carrying nearly five hundred West Indian immigrants, ready to start new lives in the UK. Their arrival sparked a national debate about identity, and exposed deep prejudices. “Supposedly, the families were fed up with being forced to live in the shelter, and came aboveground to make Brixton the strong ethnic enclave it is today. You can’t hide people away; they find ways to blossom.”

“You know your trouble, Arthur?” said May. “You’re a hopeless romantic. You see a bit of old tunnel and imagine it’s a secret passage to another world. Nothing’s ever straightforward with you. It always has to have a hidden meaning. You have too much imagination. You don’t believe in filling out a tax form, but you believe in ghosts.”

“Of course. What about all the lives lost and changed below-ground?” Bryant’s rising passion changed the colour of his nose in the cold air. “I honestly believe that the rules are different down there. The suicides, the crash victims, the missed liaisons, the romances and betrayals, the lovers parting or rushing to meet each other. Don’t you think something of them has been left behind within those curving tiled walls?”

“The only things they leave behind are bits of dead skin and the odd newspaper,” said May. “You know how many deaths there are on the underground every year?”

Bryant peered out from beneath the ridiculous brim of his hat. “I’ve no idea.”

“Well, neither do I, but I bet it’s a lot, and no reasons ever come to light about why these things happen, they just happen and that’s all there is to it. Now, you’ve had me standing here in the freezing rain for ages – let’s head back to the tube.”

“The station guards I went to see might be able to help us.” Bryant clattered his stick against the railings like a schoolboy as they walked. “They can pull up camera footage of the entrance hall, the escalators and the platform, and form a sort of a visual mosaic that shows the boy’s movements.”

“Fine, give me your contact there and I’ll call them now, get them ready for our arrival.”

“This lad Matthew, he’s not been missing for very long.” Bryant pushed up his hat and fixed his partner with an aqueous blue eye. “He’ll turn up at a friend’s flat with a flaming hangover. We have to concentrate on closing up the Taylor case.”

“Giles Kershaw isn’t prepared to write the woman’s death off as misadventure. He’s convinced she was pushed.”

“He has no hard evidence for that.”

“Well, it must have been a complete stranger, because it’s not someone from her past. Taylor was ostracized by her family because of the pregnancy, but was on good terms with the father. She overcame the problems caused by her breakdown. Everyone at work liked her. There’s no-one else, Arthur. All we can do is keep on tracking witnesses.”

“Gloria Taylor couldn’t see her attacker, but the killer was also denied the satisfaction of eye contact with his victim. It was the act of an angry coward who simply wanted to maim someone.”

“I imagine it’s a bit too mundane for you,” said May. “Not weird enough, a woman falling down some stairs. The sticker on her back was the only mark of interest. You were hoping it was a sign that she belonged to some kind of secret society.”

Bryant pursed his lips, annoyed. “No,” he said, “I was hoping it was a sign that her killer does.” He gave his partner an affectionate pat on the back. “Come on, a quick cup of tea first, then we’ll see if we can find your student. You’re right, of course. We should concentrate on clearing up one mystery at a time. But the missing boy and the book of ghosts, they’re – well, suggestive.”

May could not resist asking. “Of what?”

“Oh, of an entirely different direction,” said Bryant, and he would not be further drawn.