Off the Rails

∨ Off the Rails ∧

38

On the Line

It was now 11:15 on Friday night, and the surveillance teams were still working across London, hoping to break the case.

To keep things fresh, they had swapped their subjects. Longbright had followed Nikos Nicolau to the Prince Charles cinema, where the young student sat through a double bill of lesbian vampire movies before returning home. Banbury kept tabs on Rajan Sangeeta, but lost him in between two nightclubs in Greenwich. Bimsley was close by Toby Brooke, who was now drinking alone in a crowded bar on Brick Lane. Mangeshkar took Theo Fontvieille because she could pace him on her motorcycle, and he had now pulled up in Mecklenburgh Square. Renfield was covering Ruby Cates, first at the college, then at the Karma Bar, and finally back to the house. For the most part, the PCU staff had managed to stick to their targets like shadows.

But there was a flaw in the plan. Nobody was running surveillance on Cassie Field. And Cassie was alone, on a deserted, rainswept railway station in South London.

♦

“I just don’t bloody believe it,” Theo shouted, hammering up the stairs of the house. “Look out the window!”

“What’s the matter?” Ruby swung her grey cast to one side and rose from the table, where she was making notes on the rubbishy laptop that had been supplied by Dan Banbury.

“Take a look, damnit. Down there in the street.”

Ruby thumped her way to the front window and opened the curtains. “What? I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly. Someone’s stolen my bloody car! I only left it a minute ago.”

“All right, calm down. Could it have been towed away?”

“What, at eleven o’clock at night? I’m outside of the restriction hours, and anyway, I have a parking permit.”

“You know how Camden traffic wardens are.”

“No, it’s been stolen. I knew it. You can’t keep anything nice in this city without some dickhead resenting you. I’m going to kill someone.” He stormed up and down in a rage.

“Okay, the first thing to do is to ring the Jamestown Road car pound, just to make sure it hasn’t been towed.”

Theo was pulled up short. “How do you know where the car pound is?”

“I can drive, I just can’t afford a car at the moment. Then call the police, or better still, get over to the station and fill in the necessary forms. If it has been stolen, you won’t be able to claim on your insurance without a case number. You didn’t leave the keys in the ignition again, did you?”

“No, of course not, I only – ” He patted his pockets. “Oh, no. I don’t understand. Someone must have been watching the house and waiting for me to return, standing there in the bloody rain – I only just got out of the bloody thing.”

“And you did it again. You should never have had the car customised. Come on, then,” she stuck her hands on her hips defiantly, “do something about it instead of just standing there feeling sorry for yourself.”

♦

Bimsley had lost him. Only minutes ago, he had watched Toby Brooke heading back to the packed Brick Lane bar, where he had ordered himself a Kingfisher, but then the student had simply vanished. Bimsley tried the toilet but it was empty. The bar had been constructed on the ground floor of an old carpet warehouse, and, he now discovered, had a rear exit along a corridor on the far side of the building. Brooke had given him the slip. Furious with himself for having made such a fundamental error, he called Longbright and explained what had happened.

“I’ll tell the others,” said Longbright. “We need to know that the rest are all accounted for.”

“I’m sorry, Janice. It was my own stupid fault.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. You could try the tube station.”

“No good. We’re halfway between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street.”

“Then you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of finding him. Put in a call to the house and see if he’s gone back there.”

♦

Banbury was having similar trouble keeping tabs on Rajan Sangeeta.

Minutes ago the Indian student had received a call on his phone, and had immediately conducted a search of the bar where he was drinking. Someone had clearly tipped him off that the housemates were being followed. If a warning had gone out, it meant that the others were attempting to slip off the radar, too. Sangeeta waited until the bar had become severely congested, then pushed away through the crowd, leaving Banbury trailing far behind. Only two members of the PCU – Longbright and the late Liberty DuCaine – had received surveillance training, so when the student made his move, Banbury found himself in trouble. Longbright had told him to fix the height of his target in his mind, but the room was being strafed with rotating rainbow lights, and Sangeeta had already slipped out through the throng.

Banbury was furious at being tricked. He called Longbright. “Has anyone else made a run for it?”

“Toby Brooke’s done a bunk; the others all seem to be accounted for,” the DS replied. “There aren’t enough of us to go around the clock. Go home, Dan. Get some sleep. Nothing’s going to change tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Banbury took one last walk around the pulsating bar, then wearily abandoned his search.

♦

Cassie Field was waiting for her train on Westcombe Park station. She shivered and stared at the truculent downpour as it sluiced and slopped from the roof, and told herself once more that she had thrown away the evening. She had sought advice from an old schoolfriend, but had arrived at Sophie’s Greenwich apartment to find her drunk and weepy. Sophie had been dumped by her creepy real-estate agent boyfriend and was consoling herself with her second bottle of bad Burgundy. Cassie had been hoping for some prudent advice about her own love life, but instead had spent the evening listening to Sophie’s increasingly slurred complaints about men, before having to hold her head over the sink. Feeling alone and friendless, she headed back through the downpour to the station and just missed a Charing Cross–bound train.

Cassie retied her acid pink jacket and watched the yellow carriage lights recede into the distance, as the train swayed and sparked toward the city. There was nothing to hear now but the sound of falling rain.

She wanted to talk to someone, but most of her friends regularly visited the Karma Bar, and there was a good chance that her confessions would reach the residents of Mecklenburgh Square. Her best bet was to try Sophie again, once she had sobered up and cleared her hangover. What a mess. Cassie’s jacket was stained with rain and red wine, and the high heels she had chosen to wear had blistered her feet. The station platform was deserted; the overland line was used less frequently now that the underground reached down into South London.

There was a grey shadow behind the steamed-up, graffitied glass of the waiting room. Cassie couldn’t see who it was, but the figure’s body language was vaguely familiar. She wondered if she should go and look, but the pinging of the rails told her that there was a train approaching.

She walked to the edge of the rain-pocked platform and wondered how long it would take to get back indoors, where it was warm and dry. There was a sound behind her as the waiting room door opened. She glanced back, but there was nobody there now.

She looked for the train, and saw that it was coming in fast. Typically, she had chosen to wait at the wrong end of the platform. Beyond the tracks, the ice-blue lights of the city glimmered in melancholy relief. She had never felt so alone and in need of a friend.

Cassie was still wondering if there was anyone else in whom she could confide when a pair of boots slammed onto her shoulder blades, barrelling her forward onto the tracks, right in front of the arriving train.