The Under Ground (Strong Women Book 4)

by Sarah Till

  I knew my mother was dead. I felt the heavy weight of the past week in my stomach again and mourned the carelessness of not being able to think. I knew the rumble I felt throughout my body was the tube trains passing above and below, after all, hadn’t the woman said that I was at Victoria Station? It hadn’t seemed so strange, as I was here every day or so. Then it lazily occurred to me that I wasn’t on the platform or in a train, or even at the turnstiles, but lying paralysed on the bathroom floor, behind a door that said, ‘Out.Of.Order.’ I laughed inside hysterically. Out.Of.Order. like me. I am out of order, lying here, unable to move. Except for my eyes, my whole body was a festival of tingling sensations.

  After the melee of imaginary meetings with familiar characters, I heard footsteps again. Banging, footsteps, banging. A slamming door. More eyes, brown and male this time.

  “She’s here. She’s in here.”

  I drifted away again and remembered Jupiter telling me to fuck off. Why was that? Very rude. And Shiralee with her aloofness. Ellis. Oh no. Ellis. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here, holding me, making me OK again, saying that it would all be alright? Ellis. I tried to say it. Ellis. My limited attention was taken by a movement above. I saw his head and shoulders, his red hair and green suit. It wasn’t Ellis. Who is this? He was in the stall with me, unlocking the door. Pulling on rubber gloves. Putting something in a box. Looked like a syringe and some paper. Had I been ill?

  “Looks like a smackhead. Gloves. She’s wet herself. 4mg Naloxone.”

  I looked around the best I could for this other person everyone seemed to be discussing.

  “Help.”

  “Yes, all right love. Let’s get you to hospital. Come on. Can you move?”

  I tried to blink as negatively as I could. He dragged me out of the cubicle and lifted me onto a green stretcher, hurling my bag on top of me. He stopped for a moment, unfurling the trestle underneath me and resting me down. I felt an injection in my arm and for a moment everything cleared. I saw the syringe in the paramedic’s arm withdraw from my line of vision then I felt like I was floating again, floating away. I saw Kevin Jakowski in the distance, laughing in his chair and beckoning me. I tried to speak to him, managing to lift my arm a little as I tried to touch him. Kevin just laughed and waved, I waved back, sniggered inside. I felt safe. Safe and warm. Safe and warm. Out of the doors and up the steps. People on the station leaned over me to see who I was. Their faces were lined with pity, or sorrow or irritation. The noise of the footsteps all around me confused me and I fought to keep awake. Out of the station. Home. He was taking me home. Towards my house, which I could see now in the distance. Turning off to the left now.

  “No.”

  I managed a no as they loaded me into the ambulance. They checked my vital signs and took off my jacket and T-shirt.

  “No previous by the looks of it. Possible attempted suicide. She’s certainly had enough to put her out for a couple of days. If not worse.”

  I looked around for this poor person who had attempted suicide. There appeared to be just myself and the paramedic. I vaguely wondered if there was another compartment, if this was a multi-ambulance, if there was such a thing. If not there certainly should be.

  “Help.”

  “Yes, love. Alright. I’m just going to give you an injection to help you until we get you to the hospital. Just lie still now and try not to worry. We’ll be there in about five minutes.”

  I heard a siren and felt motion. Hospital. Why was I going to hospital? I felt disgruntled, the sort of disgruntlement I usually experienced when someone had committed a social injustice. Hospital? Why? I had only just been to the cottage to sort out Mums’ stuff. Seen John Baxter and his mum. I tried to get off the stretcher. I was strapped in but I had to escape. I had to get to a police station and tell them that Sandra Reid had killed my mother.

  “Lie still love. Just keep calm. We’re nearly there.”

  “Help.”

  I felt the vomit rise in the back of my throat and threw up over myself. Then I passed out again.

  Chapter Nine

  “Jinny. Jinny. Jinny.”

  I could hear Ellis’ voice whispering in my ear. I opened my eyes slightly and saw the dimly lit ceiling above me. I moved my head to one side and Ellis’ face was close to mine.

  “Can I have a drink?”

  I croaked my words and Ellis’ eyes filled with tears.

  “Yes, I’ll get you one. Oh, Jinny, I’m so glad you’re awake. I’ve been so worried.”

  I remembered the cold tiles and the blinking eyes.

  “Am I in hospital?”

  Ellis ran the tap on the other side of the room.

  “Yes. You were brought in this morning. They found you at Victoria Station, zonked out of your brains. You could have talked to me, Jinny. I didn’t realise you were so upset.”

  I tried to move but every inch of my body ached. My right hand seemed heavy and I noticed a drip attached but could not really feel the needle.

  “El, I need to talk to you. I need to tell you what happened.”

  He smiled.

  “All in good time. The police want a statement then we can talk after that.”

  I felt a surge of excitement.

  “Have they arrested him? Have they got him then?”

  Ellis sat down beside me and held my hand.

  “Look, Jinny, you’ve gone through a rough time. Just concentrate on getting better.”

  Even so, I insisted.

  “John Baxter. Have they got him?”

  Ellis balked.

  “Sorry, Jinny, I don’t understand. Why would they want John?”

  I tried to get up. Ellis hugged me and I started to cry.

  “He did this. Him and his mum. They drugged my tea.”

  Looking slightly embarrassed, Ellis looked at me leaned back in his chair.

  “Jinny. The ambulance men found you locked in a toilet in Victoria Station. Locked from the inside. You have Valium and heroin in your blood. A syringe was found beside you and a wrap of the brown stuff in your bag. I know it must be difficult to admit it, but...”

  “Ellis, I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. I went to John’s to get Mum’s stuff as arranged. They drugged my tea. You do know he’s my half-brother, don’t you? My half-brother and he married Mum to get the house. Him and his mum had some crazy plan to get what they thought they deserved.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Really, El, do you really think I’m capable of this?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. No I don’t. In fact, when they told me I couldn’t believe it. The doctor told me that you didn't have anywhere near enough heroin in your system to kill you. On its own you would have come around fairly fast. But it reacted with the Valium. I didn’t believe that you had it in you to top yourself. So, you didn’t try to kill yourself?”

  I shook my head. The bed shook as my body became wracked with sobs and Ellis held me.

  “No. Never. My God, Ellis, I’ve done a lot of stupid things but killing myself wasn’t on the list. I swear that it’s true. I was in the cottage one minute and then the next, well, I was lying semi-conscious on the bloody floor.”

  Ellis’ expression showed brimming-over disbelief.

  “My God, Jinny. They could have killed you. I’m getting the police. So, his mother is the woman you saw at your father’s funeral? And they had a child together? Did your mother know about this?”

  I shook my head.

  “I asked them and they said that she didn’t know until the end. They held this grudge against her for forty-odd years, waiting all the time for Dad to come back until he died. Then they hatched this plan to get all his property. I can’t believe it.”

  Ellis stood up.

  “Look, Jinny, the police are ready to do you for possession. They think you did this to yourself. I’m going to get them so that you can explain.” He stepped towards me. “I was so worried when you didn’t come home last night. I thought you might have stayed
somewhere to straighten your head out, but when you didn’t call, I knew there was something wrong. I called John Baxter and he said that you had been there but had left. I don’t think he’s going to back you up on this one.”

  I sighed and Ellis kissed me.

  “I don’t think he will either. You do know that they killed my mother? She drugged her then stabbed her. All this terrorist stuff, it’s all bollocks. They did it. I guess if I would have agreed to let them stay in the house this would never have happened. They were after taking over all my father’s property, making sure that they had control.”

  “What I don’t understand is how the police hook onto this terror plot? How has he managed to direct them along that path?”

  I tried to iron out my twisted thoughts to make sense of the situation.

  “John works for the underground. He works in security. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to drag those two kids off the train. He must have planted the chemicals on the boy somehow. Don't ask me how, El. I hate thinking about him sneaking around underground like some kind of giant rat. The police got them and unfortunately one of the boy’s relatives had been involved in a terror plot. Hey presto, their very own major security risk. It couldn’t have gone better for John.”

  Ellis kissed my forehead and left the room. I tried to turn over in bed but my sides felt bruised and battered. I felt like I had been dragged, step by step, down a staircase. The back of my head was swollen and I had a gash above my eyebrow. I could see my face in the reflection of the light fitting and I looked much older than my forty-nine years. My skin was pale and uneven and blotchy around my chin.

  Heroin. In all my chequered life, I had never been a junkie. I had verged on alcoholism and had been addicted to nicotine. I had snorted cocaine with Swiss Steve when he had violently insisted I do it and smoked cannabis with friends, but never heroin. I considered it dirtier than the other drugs, more illegal. The effects of it, which I had previously witnessed in others and now had full knowledge of myself, were devastating to me. Taking away my senses and my control, leaving me now in a state where my emotions would not rise in my chest no matter how much I summoned them. I tried to conjure up hatred for John Baxter, but to my disgust, I felt nothing. Numb indifference was the main nothingness I didn’t feel. I tried to move my legs and hips, but the pain was defeating. I watched the saline drip, drip, drip into my arm and tried to feel the cool liquid coursing through my veins.

  Eventually, my mind caressed the inevitable form of the missing day. I gathered that it was now Sunday. I had been missing a full day and presumably I had been at the cottage then here. What had happened? What had John and Sandra done to me? I certainly felt like I had been used as a football. I lifted up the sheet and craned my neck to peer down at my legs. My left inner thigh was purple and black with bruising. I clenched my buttocks and pulled up my stomach muscles.

  My mind blanked and I saw the blackness of blind panic. I had been in a public toilet, possible overnight: what the hell had happened to me? I had no recall whatsoever. I still had my bag and belongings, so I hadn’t been robbed. I traced back the possibilities and concluded that it was extremely unlikely that anyone else could have done this to me and left my belongings intact. If I had been left somewhere unconscious, someone would have had to drag me into the toilet and then climb back out over the door. Why would they do that? Why would they do that when John, who worked in tube security, could probably provide a cover for himself to bring me here. He could probably mask the CCTV and clear the area before dragging me into the toilets. So, I was nearer to how I got here. All I had to work out now was who attacked me. I became slightly excited when I thought about DNA evidence but reminded myself that John was no amateur and the Met didn’t actually employ Cracker. He had fooled them about my mum’s murder; this should be a piece of cake for him. I momentarily wondered why he would do this, knowing that the suspicion would rest on him, knowing that I would tell the police immediately when I regained consciousness. Why would he cause such trouble for himself? Then I realised: he thought that I was dead. Ellis arrived with DI Payne and a policewoman. I nodded best I could at them and tried to smile. Payne shook his head.

  “I’m sorry this has happened, Virginia. I understand that you have tried to harm yourself and that the circumstances of your mother’s death have weighed on you, but I have no option but to charge you with possession of a Class A drug.”

  He stared at me, waiting for an answer.

  “El, will you prop me up?” Ellis dragged me up the bed and rested me on three pillows. I didn’t want to broach the subject, but I knew I had to. “Thanks. Right. So. I see how it looks. It looks like I tried to take my own life, doesn’t it?”

  Payne nodded.

  “Well, you collapsed unconscious through the use of Valium and heroin. Are you saying that you didn’t intend to take your own life? Are you a user, Mrs Munro?”

  I sighed.

  “No, I’m not a user. I need to give a statement.” The policewoman took out a pen and statement pad and began to write. “I went to John Baxter’s home on Saturday at twelvish. He was there with his mother, who I recognised as my father’s mistress. I saw her last at my father’s funeral. During the course of the conversation John told me that he was my brother, and that he married my mother to get what he and his mother had missed out on by my father staying married to my mother, then dying in probate. Then I started to feel dizzy and they told me they had killed my mother. Then they told me they had put Valium in my tea. Then I passed out. Then I woke up in the toilets at Victoria station full of smack.”

  DI Payne carried on staring at me.

  “So, you are saying that John Baxter is your half-brother and he killed Sally Baxter?”

  “It was Sandra Reid, his mother, who actually killed her. Didn’t he say that she visited Mum that day?”

  The policewoman scribbled the words as fast as she could, and Ellis watched as Payne sat down and rubbed his forehead.

  “This does seem far-fetched, Virginia. We have CCTV images, two in fact, from the twelve hours either side of Sally’s murder. It wouldn't be impossible. But you are saying his mother actually killed her and she was in the location at the time or thereabouts.”

  I snorted.

  “Why didn’t you ever suspect her then? Why didn’t you question her? If you knew she was there, why didn’t you speak to her?”

  “We did. She’s been interviewed and eliminated. What with John Baxter’s honesty about his mother calling on that day and his distance from the event and there being no motive at all, we eliminated her.”

  Ellis intervened now.

  “So, will you follow this up?”

  Payne sighed.

  “Yes, yes, but to be honest, it does seem a little bit contrived. For example, Virginia, all through this case you have provided us with various reasons why John Baxter would kill your mother. How do I know this isn’t just a drug-induced fantasy?”

  I gasped. I could sense that this was just the start of a long road where my now alleged drug use would be another variable thrown into the mix of hard-to-understand issues surrounding my mother’s death.

  “I didn’t take drugs. Someone, John Baxter and his mother, doped me with Valium then set me up. Charge me if you want to. But while you’re at it, I want to make a complaint myself. I want to make a complaint of assault against those two, for drugging me, and for this.” I pulled back the bed sheets and Ellis gasped at the bruises on my legs. “I’ve been, been, been, assaulted.”

  Payne paled. I couldn’t say the word ‘raped’ but the bloodshot skin and purple hand mark on my thigh conveyed the meaning. The policewoman stepped forward and placed her hand on my arm.

  “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions here, making accusations. After all, you were intoxicated in a public place for perhaps a full day, anything could have happened.”

  Ellis began to shout.

  “Oh, come off it, she’s been attacked by her fucking brother. The person
who murdered her mum. You were there at the funeral, so you can see what kind of a nut job we’re dealing with. He’s a controlling freak with his eye on her mother’s money. What kind of sick person would do this? He didn’t...?”

  I sat up fully now.

  “No. No. The bruises stop at my thigh.’ I mentally check. It doesn’t bear thinking about, but I know this isn’t sexual. “Like I said, I want to make a complaint. I want this looked into.”

  Payne looked tired. He rubbed his forehead even more.

  “The thing is, we’ve already got a pretty rounded case here. I need something to substantiate what you say. To be fair, we already spoke to Mr Baxter about the time you left his house. We have no reason to believe that he did this, apart from the fact that you say so.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “OK then. How about this. I will bet my life that there is no security footage of this area between twelve yesterday and when I was removed. I would bet my life on it. Sometime between now and then it will be missing, that will be the time that John Baxter got me in there. He works in tube security and he could have tampered with it. Just check it.”

  Ellis was still crying but managed to speak.

  “He could have messed around with it. It might not even look like some of it has been removed, He’s obviously thought this through. Oh, Jinny, how could he do this?”

  Payne stood now.

  “OK. We’ll get the CCTV footage and look into what you say about this family business, about him being your brother and we’ll take it from there. We won’t charge you for now, but I have to warn you that the press has been on to us about this. They know it’s you and they will probably print the details of the story.”

  I snorted.