The Detective's Daughter

26

Friday, 14 January 2011

Jack stood on the platform at Earls Court and consulted his duty book. The spiral-bound wad of pages, with a picture on the cover of a red and silver District line train, was encased in plastic so scratched with use the train seemed to come out of a fog.

The pages held the details of every shift on the District line for the year: times of trains in tiny print, set to the half-minute. Only when Jack was driving would he submit to the constraints of measured time. The public had no knowledge of this timetable, aware only of what the electronic boards announced: a train was due in three minutes or ten or ‘Approaching’ with a distant roar and a dusty breeze from the tunnel.

He confirmed the set number of the 11.13 and 30 seconds pick-up. It was ‘277’. He had no need to ponder what the figures meant, yet he felt afraid. Was he one of those hunters he despised, who live not for capture, but for the hunt itself? When the prey was in sight he wanted to drive his train into a tunnel and ignore the signs. No, he was not one of those, he told himself. He would not shirk his task.

Jack stayed behind the bright yellow gate on the platform’s edge, clutching his driver’s key. He grew excited, believing that Wednesday night’s crack in the pavement had indeed been a sign. When the open cab door slid to a stop precisely next to where he stood, Jack was a god and ready for what would come next.

Jack eased the handle forward and his train slid into the brick tunnel. As the curved roof passed overhead, he allowed himself to think about his day. ‘Tired, cold or hungry?’ his mother would say when he grizzled in his pushchair, presumably unable to conceive of a child being anything other than these three conditions. He was rarely hungry. Out at night, he was cold, but was used to it. He had never spent so long in the company of someone else. He was tired.

He had not liked leaving Isabel’s house so abruptly. What luck it was that Stella had been upstairs when his telephone rang; she had not heard his conversation. These days the Underground was demanding more; he would have liked to walk away except he depended on his times deep below London with only the bricks and the lines for company.

Jack had enjoyed cleaning Isabel’s kitchen; it did not nullify her death, but did soothe. He had been aware of Stella two flights above; would she tell him if she found anything? She was not the sharing type.

He pulled into the station and in the monitor saw a man and a woman boarding different cars; the night-time rush was over. Once more up to Upminster then to Earls Court and home, except that since leaving Michael and Ellen Hamilton’s he had no home.

Jack Harmon had told Stella the truth; he did not know why the colour green – Pantone 375 – provoked such violent symptoms.

He mulled on the other colour in Stella’s branding: Pantone 277. He had hidden his shock well when she told him: twenty-seven and seven didn’t take working out; the signs were thick and fast. Today the set number for the relief train was 652 and as was often the case it had not immediately communicated anything.

He took the train along the open track after Ravenscourt Park towards Stamford Brook. This was his favourite part of the journey. Jack loved the tunnels, but he also appreciated the long vista at this point. The stations with the highest death rate are those near mental institutions. This was a good place: a Piccadilly train passes the unprotected platform at Stamford Brook at speed; no driver can stop in time.

None of the drivers referred to their shifts as journeys; they were shifts for which they were remunerated, but for Jack every minute counted, every mile travelled was progress.

It was one o’clock in the morning when Jack came out on to Earls Court Road. He avoided the crack in the paving that had got him the other night. Half an hour later he cut under the Hammersmith flyover, dodging between the supports where with no snow it was easier to walk.

There was no green to bother him at night. Jack remembered the light blue: Pantone 277 and got it: the two colours, 277 plus 375, added up to 652: tonight’s set number.

He was getting hotter.

He entered Furnival Gardens and skated along the icy path to Hammersmith Terrace, singing softly:

Outside Sarah Glyde’s house, by the Bell Steps, he turned on his phone; Stella had left a message asking him to call. He turned to page 141 of his A–Z. The next page in his quest took him to Biggin Hill. Too late tonight, but with so many signs he must persevere; he texted that he had to take his mother to Biggin Hill and switched his phone to voicemail.

With insistent stealth, snow fell over the sleeping city, rendering it timeless. No one saw a tall, loping figure, hands in the pockets of a long black coat, enter the subway tunnel that came out beside the statue of the Leaning Woman.