Underground

by Tobias Hill

  ‘Cheers. What’s all that noise?’

  He listens. Off to one side of the steps are wooden racks of fuses, bright and intricate as the trays of a beehive. Casimir hears the clatter and spit of electricity coming loose. He turns his head and shoulder, allowing light past his bulk. Water runs down the corner walls in slow, flat sheets. He unbelts his radio, clicks it on.

  ‘Leynes?’

  ‘Cass? You’re late. What’s up? You struck gold or something?’

  ‘There is water in the substation again. By the fuse boxes.’

  ‘Aha. That’ll be why the bog lights are buggered. The monitors are down too. I’ll call the Water Board to check the mains, OK? Out.’ The radio line goes dead. Casimir turns and goes up the steps, walking between pools of groundwater.

  ‘Sir? Did you get to talk to that policewoman?’

  He digs in his overall pockets for keys, looks round. ‘Stay out of the water. Inspector Phelps, yes.’

  ‘All right, wasn’t she? Bit built, though. Built for the beat. I wouldn’t want to walk into her on a dark night.’ Weaver is kneading the small of his back, massaging the spine. He screws his face tight, a quick expression of pain. ‘Do they reckon she was pushed, then? That woman who fell.’

  ‘They don’t know.’ He unlocks the heavy door, steps through. ‘No one does.’

  The door clicks shut behind them. They have come out into the warren of side-passages by the emergency stairwell. The sounds of the Underground change abruptly, from the humanless hum of generators to the commotion of the midnight trains: footsteps, voices. The rumble of train doors closing, the rising whine of acceleration.

  ‘That’s weird, down there.’ Weaver walks over to the far wall, looks left and right to the platforms, then leans back on the cracked blue tiles. ‘Being behind the scenes. I’ve got a friend, he’s Aladdin at EuroDisney every summer, good money but a bit hot. He said it was weird behind the scenes there too. All the characters sitting around with their heads off, drinking tea. Last year he got off with Goofy. She was from Poland. Isn’t that where you’re from, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’ Casimir looks down the tunnel, towards one of the West End- and City-bound platforms. On the corner is a convex mirror and he remembers the dog woman. Now there is only the sound of the crowd, coming closer. ‘Stand up. There are people coming.’

  Weaver elbows himself upright. An old man with a folding bicycle hurries by, flat cap pushed back on his head. Most of the passengers go slowly, though, making for home at the end of their days and evenings. No one looks at the uniformed workers as they pass by. Weaver grins across at Casimir, rolls his eyes.

  The crowd peters out to three girls in purple puffa jackets, the first girl pulling off gloves with her teeth as she walks and talks.

  ‘It’s all babies with her now, it’s boring as fuck. I don’t care if she’s my sister, I just feel like leaning over and turning the volume down.’ They swagger towards the stairs, laughter carrying back.

  Weaver follows them with his eyes. ‘They make me feel old. I know I’m not, but still. How old are you, Cass?’

  He looks at his watch as he answers. ‘I am twenty-eight.’

  It is ten minutes until the last train, out north to the depots and yards. Casimir imagines he can feel it approaching through the tunnels and passages, a fractional pressure of air against his face. But then there is wind all the time down here. The air rushes and falters, always in motion. Sometimes if he closes his eyes, the Underground feels like open land. The coalfields of Silesia, anthracite dust blown against his hair and skin. Blue-black, the colour of his parents’ hair.

  ‘Is that all? Jesus. Sorry. What time is it?’

  He smiles at the other man, amused despite himself. ‘Past midnight. We have to check the platforms now, to see they are clear of people and belongings before we close. If you could check Three and Four, I will do the other two. Wait for the last train on Three.’

  ‘No sweat. I’ll see you back at the control room, will I?’ Weaver is already walking away, looking over his shoulder as he goes.

  Casimir watches him reach the Barnet platform, then turns away. In the fish-eye mirror Platform Two looks deserted already, its motionless strip of bright track and black bitumen curving to a vanishing point in the pocked metal surface.

  He walks out on to the platform, to be sure. Posters line the opposite wall, massive rectangles of gaudy reds and golds advertising suspenderless stockings and Japanese beer. Small flyers have been stuck across the Japanese beer and Casimir recognizes them from days ago: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD? He wonders how the posterer got across the live tracks, shakes his head to clear the crazed image.

  The far end of the hall looks hazy and for a moment Casimir thinks it is his eyes before he smells the peppery odour of smog, dust pooled from the streets above. He walks the platform’s length, checking the catch pit beside him, remembering other closing times. Umbrellas and cashmere coats left on benches, underwear and used condoms on the track. A broken branch of blossom one spring, laid neatly on the platform’s edge. He hadn’t recognized what kind. Black bark, and the buds plush and almost blue, the colour of cigarette smoke. Startlingly beautiful.

  There are no people sleeping on the benches, no belongings left behind or abandoned. All around is the sound of the station closing down, echoes of movement draining away. A good sound, Casimir thinks. He tries to remember who else will be line-walking tonight. How long he will have to get to Alice, if she is there. If she is waiting.

  He turns back, takes the stairs up to Platform One, and comes out of the side-passage beside the southern tunnel mouth. He looks up at the great keystone of its archway. A pair of closed-circuit monitors is bolted to the platform ceiling, placed for train drivers to check their rear view as they leave. Casimir stops under them, looking along the empty hall and then up. The screens are dead, a flat grey-green.

  The air here is also hazy, the far tunnel mouth shadowed with dust. Machinery lines the near wall: wall telephones, chilled chocolate dispensers. Casimir screws up his eyes and nose at the harsh smell, trying to see clearly. A crimson plastic bag fishtails in an air current, floats out across the catch pits.

  There is something at the platform’s main entrance, a hundred feet away. Casimir looks up at the monitors then down, frowning at the lack of a closer image. Something protrudes from the entrance arch, a shining vertical bar and the edge of a small, black wheel. From where he stands, Casimir thinks it looks like the front end of a shopping trolley.

  He walks up the platform towards it, the slow steps of his long stride echoing in the bright, empty place. Now he can see that the front of the object is no more than four feet high with a horizontal bar at the top, padded black. An armrest. Casimir breaks into a run.

  At the entrance he stops. The wheelchair sits abandoned in the side-passage, skewed slightly to one side. Casimir reaches out to touch the armrest but the brakes have not been set and the apparatus jitters away from him, down the empty corridor. He takes two steps towards it, to halt its movement, then stops. Turns round and begins to move, slowly at first then running, back on to the platform. He sprints north, towards the far tunnel mouth, its circle of dark encompassed by the end wall of the platform hall.

  He is still some distance away when he sees the body. It has slumped down, half-hidden by the walls of the catch pit. Casimir backs away, not crying out. After three steps he is able to make himself stop.

  It is a woman, slight and blonde. She has been wearing a transparent plastic watch, cheap and gimmicky. Through it Casimir can see blood. The watch-works are still moving, tiny and regular, over the blood. For a moment he can’t understand how the watch is still moving, now the woman is dead. The detail pulls at his vision, nagging at him.

  The smell of burning and electricity is sour in the air. Under the woman a crumpled mass of litter is charred black and glowing, ready to catch. As Casimir scrabbles at his radio a strand of blonde hair lights, burns and shrivels back towards the turned
head.

  He covers his mouth with one hand, breathing shallowly. There is a lot of blood, more than he would expect. It is still bright red, oxygenated, staining the piles of trash, the skin and clothes. The radio has become stubborn, banging against his clumsy fingers.

  He can’t take his eyes off the catch pit. The suicide pit. The watch-face, the tiny wavering mechanism. On the woman’s arms veins have broken, a hatchwork of violet exposed in the white skin.

  Casimir remembers that the wheelchair is behind him and he looks round quickly, then back at the body. He sees how its nails are painted reddish brown. Sepia. There is blood on the hands too, but that isn’t sepia. The nail varnish is cracked – no; the nails themselves are cracked, like the skin. Casimir’s mind races and stumbles. White-blonde hair is jumbled over and through the stained catch-pit litter.

  He unclips the radio from his belt. It almost falls on to the track but he catches it, hands held out together.

  He can feel the terror rising in him and he makes himself close his eyes and wait, shaking. Clicks the transmitter on.

  ‘Leynes.’ His voice is too soft. He tries again. ‘Leynes. Aebanyim.’ He cannot raise his voice beside the body. The names whisper around him.

  ‘Cass? Cass, is that you?’

  He opens his eyes as a shiver runs through him, rocking him forward towards the platform’s edge. Abruptly he realizes how close he is to falling himself. He stands slowly, finding his balance. ‘Leynes. Turn off the tracks.’

  ‘You what? Cass, where – Is that you on One?’

  He sees that behind the watch-face the blood is still moving and gathering. As if the blood, like the watch, has somehow survived. ‘Someone is dead. In the catch pit.’

  ‘Oh no, Christ. Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus.’ The supervisor’s voice has become a whine, almost blaming. Like a child, Casimir thinks. He closes his eyes again.

  ‘Leynes. Please turn the tracks off.’

  A large man standing alone. The wheelchair, skewed and empty. His voice whispering on the silent platform.

  ‘Please. Turn off the tracks.’

  ‘Mister Kazimierski?’

  He blinks. Someone is bent over him, silhouetted against bare bulb-light. There is a hand near his face, too close. The first two fingers and thumb are extended in a curious gesture. Like a priest, he thinks.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  He remembers the sound of fingers snapping. The figure draws back, into the light. It is the policewoman, Phelps. He tries to remember what she is doing here, then realizes he doesn’t know where here is. He focuses beyond the inspector, taking in the control room. Leynes and Sievwright are there, other people he doesn’t recognize. Voices, low and urgent. There are the smells of sweet tea and work-clothes sweat. He breathes deeply, once, twice. The odours become overpowering, like the smell of burning. Of rank fish and caviare in a Russian market, his father’s footsteps ahead of him.

  He closes his eyes again. ‘No. My name is Ariel Casimir.’

  ‘Good for you. Up you come –’

  Blinks. The world has altered again. Ahead of him is a street at night, its junctions dark and deserted. The chuff of windscreen wipers. Acceleration tugs him back into the warmth of a passenger seat. It is raining hard, shimmering on the road ahead. Car alarms whicker, disturbed by the downpour.

  Fast. Everything is moving past him before he can react. Then he breathes deeply and time slows down.

  He turns his head. Phelps is driving. Streetlight passes across her calm face.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  His voice is quiet, an accompanying calm. The police officer glances at him, looks back at the road.

  ‘The station. Mine, not yours.’

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘No.’

  Her intonation is level, inconclusive. The police radio stutters news of other accidents, other deaths. She clicks it off. ‘I just want to ask you some questions.’

  He looks out of the side-window, into the rain. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Asher. Marion Asher.’

  They pass between low walls, a view downwards to flat, hazed water. Casimir recognizes the Grand Union Canal and then their route, heading north on the Kentish Town Road.

  Phelps’s voice is dry and level, used to its undertone. ‘She suffered from multiple sclerosis. Recently it was getting worse. She was twenty-four.’

  The traffic lights are red by Castle Road. They wait without talking. Outside the rain begins to ease. Neon winks over shop entrances. Casimir sits back, eyes running across the bright names: AL ARAF SAUNAS, CASH CONVERTERS, VENUS OFF-LICENCE NO. 5.

  ‘Sad. She had a Filofax, which helps us. Role Models Islington comes up regularly – it’s a fashion agency. We can’t get hold of anyone there tonight, but from the diary entries it sounds as if she modelled one day a week. Catalogue clothes. A year ago she was working double that. Remarkable, don’t you think? To go on modelling. Beautiful girl.’

  Beautiful. He thinks of her hair, thrown out by the impact. Burning white strands. ‘I need to see a picture of her.’

  The lights change to amber. Phelps turns in her seat, not releasing the handbrake. ‘Why?’

  He shakes his head. Green-lit rain ribbons the glass beside him. A young man comes out of Al Araf Saunas. Shakes open an umbrella under the doorway’s black plastic awning. ‘How long were the cameras dead?’

  Headlights shine in from the car behind, stark and colourless. Phelps releases the handbrake and accelerates.

  ‘Too long. Hours. How often does that happen?’

  He raises one hand, the gesture meant to explain something of the Underground’s age and decrepitude. Lets the hand drop back. ‘Often. What happened? After I found her.’

  ‘You were in shock. I’d be surprised if you remembered nothing.’

  ‘What time did she die?’

  ‘Not sure yet. The tracks didn’t kill her, though. There were stab wounds. In her back. The shock stunned her, but she bled to death. I think the knife was just to make sure, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes.’ His own voice sounds brittle.

  Phelps clicks on the left indicator, voice rising as she turns the wheel. ‘You sound angry with yourself, Mister Casimir. Why is that?’

  He allows his eyes to close again. The sense of disorientation grows and fades. ‘I would like to have been stronger.’

  ‘Really. Welcome to the human race.’ She pulls up, switches off. ‘Can you get out by yourself?’

  They cross the pavement and go on, under the blue light of a Metropolitan Police lamp. Casimir has never been inside a police station. He imagines the institutional chipped-paint walls, cracked plastic chairs, the smell of antiseptic and linoleum. Then they are inside and it is too late.

  A drinks machine hums against the far wall. The cropped office carpet smells of old tea. Casimir is surprised; the room carries no sense of threat, or authority. It feels more like a bank waiting room than a place of law. Posters are arranged on two large pinboards: MISSING PERSON: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?, TERRORISM: SUBSTANTIAL REWARDS, KNOW YOUR COLORADO BEETLE. Only the lighting suggests any potential for strength or violence, the neon dimmed fractionally behind metal grilles. A desk officer watches them through cash-till glass.

  ‘Hello, missus. Who’s this?’

  ‘Inspector missus to you.’

  ‘Inspector missus, ma’am.’

  ‘He’s from Camden Tube. Any problems?’

  ‘The Noise Pollution unit clocked off three hours early. We’ve had eleven complaints … Mrs Trueblood of Lady Somerset Road is not happy. That’s about the worst of it. Quiet night.’

  ‘Here. Photocopy this lot, will you? I’ll be back for it in a minute.’ Phelps passes a green card folder through to the policeman, then turns back to Casimir. ‘Right. Are you tired? Coffee any help, no? Good.’

  She is already walking away. Her heels echo along the unlit corridors.

  Casimir follows the policewoman slowly, trying
to gauge his own state of mind. His head feels very clear, as if he has recently woken from a long night of sleep. Only the memory of Asher disturbs him. His thoughts slide away from the event, forgetful even when he tries to remember. He thinks of Alice at the abandoned station and wonders if she is waiting for him. He wants her to be waiting.

  ‘Here. Sorry about the walls.’

  Phelps opens a door, clicks on a light. The interview room has been painted pastel-pink, the catalogue colour wildly out of place in the institutional building.

  There are chairs, a TV. Casimir sits down. ‘She must have been able to stand, a little.’

  ‘Why must?’

  ‘It is regulations. Passengers must be able to stand on the escalators. So if there is an accident, a fire –’

  ‘Leynes says you’re not supposed to help, is that right?’ She half-turns in the doorway, light cutting across her face as she studies him.

  ‘Yes.’ He thinks how hard it would be, at his station in a wheelchair. The fear of being trapped underground. ‘Did she have no one with her?’

  ‘No one. Leynes remembers seeing her before. He says she made a point of asking the staff for help every time. A one-woman access campaign. Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  He waits. The rain has eased, he can hardly hear it. Sirens go past outside, heading south. A wall clock clicks towards four a.m.

  ‘I want you to go over the Saville tapes with me, tell me what you see, all right?’ Phelps comes back in with folders and a video, its casing marked with the London Transport insignia. Red ring, blue bar.

  ‘Why are you asking me now?’

  Phelps passes him the folders, kneels down by the television. ‘Why do you think?’ The video display lights up. ‘Two people are dead.’ She unpacks a cassette, pushes it into its slot. An image of a deserted Underground platform appears on the screen, marked with white digits: PLAT 4 CAM TN. 03/09/96. 13:10:26. Eight days ago. The seconds accumulate as he watches.

  The recorded picture is linked up to one of the end-wall cameras, so that the whole platform is covered. The far tunnel mouth is tiny with distance. The nearest advertising poster looms up, a giant image of a woman’s throat and teeth.