He emailed Belsey Kyle’s record sheet. Belsey took a breath then tried to focus. At the time of his Mount Pleasant escapade Kyle had already served eight months for a series of street robberies. Since 2007 he’d done time for intent to supply and, two years ago, for an attempted smash-and-grab in which he’d driven a moped at the window of a Dolce & Gabbana boutique and broken his neck.
He didn’t do time for his visit to the underside of Merrill Lynch. In fact all charges were dropped. There was no sign of his interview on file.
Belsey called Snow Hill police station, which had had the honour of dealing with Kyle on that occasion.
“Can you pull up details for the Kyle Townsend arrest, December 2007?”
They tried.
“They’re not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The file’s missing.”
Belsey searched for Kyle’s current whereabouts. According to the system, Kyle was acting shy. He’d been arrested for assault on his fiancée in May and then skipped bail, maybe knowing he was looking at a proper stretch now. Belsey made some calls. No one wanted to help. He called the chemist.
“Does the name Kyle Townsend mean anything?”
“Many things to many people, I imagine.”
“Where can I find him?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“What could you say if I offered you half the stash on a free?”
“What do you want?”
“Kyle.”
“He’s at his sister’s. Know Lacey Townsend?”
“Unfortunately.”
“If he’s not there check the loft. It’s his birthday.”
“Is that a family tradition?”
BELSEY ARRIVED AT LACEY Townsend’s large, bare semi-detached home between Holloway Nag’s Head and the Seven Sisters Road. There was a broken tricycle parked up in the weeds of the front drive. He could hear singing inside. He rang the bell, heard the steps to the door, and then the singing stopped. He counted the thirty seconds it would take for their lodger to seek refuge, then an old man answered the door with a baseball bat over his shoulder.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m looking for Kyle.” Belsey walked past the batsman into the birthday party. Twenty people, four generations, all high as a kite. Party poppers had been fired and the streamers lay among empty bottles. There was no furniture. There was a cake on the floor in the shape of a Rolex. Belsey took a slice and went for the stairs.
“He’s not here,” someone said.
“OK.”
Up the stairs to the loft. By the time Belsey made it in, Kyle’s legs were dangling from the skylight. He was in shorts. Belsey cuffed his ankle to the skylight’s handle. This presented Kyle with the awkward choice of remaining half on the roof or falling back with his leg dangling in the air.
Belsey looked around while Kyle pondered this crossroads. The loft was quite a priest hole, rigged for comfort. It had Call of Duty paused on the Xbox and a spliff burning in front of a sagging sofa. Belsey dropped onto the sofa.
“Happy birthday, Kyle. I brought you some cake.”
“Get this off me.” He kicked out with his free leg. There was a child’s face tattooed on the calf.
“I’m not here to arrest you,” Belsey said. “I’m here to absolve you of your sins, Kyle. In return for your knowledge.”
“I don’t know anything. Who the fuck are you?”
“I think you know about things most people don’t even realise exist.”
“Get this off me.”
“I hear that if I lay a coin on your tongue you’ll sing of sights I’ve never set eyes on.”
“What the fuck are you on about?”
“I need you to cast your mind back. You were in Merrill Lynch. Not like that, of course. You were under Merrill Lynch. But you started at Mount Pleasant.”
“They said I wouldn’t get done for that.”
“Who did?”
“They did.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, do I.”
“What were you after?”
“I was told to take a look.”
“For what?”
“That was the point. To see what was there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was casing it. Take the fucking cuff off. I don’t know anything.”
“You had a map.”
“Yes.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Terry Condell,” he snapped.
Belsey sighed.
“Terry Condell? Don’t mess me around.”
Kyle eased himself back to hang next to Belsey, leg in the air, grinning upside down at him with yellow teeth. It was funny—Kyle thought it was funny—because Terry Condell was untouchable; very dangerous, very criminal and generally regarded as a waste of police time.
“You’re winding me up,” Belsey said.
“I’m not.” A look of hurt returned. “Terry gave me the map.”
“And what was on this map?”
“Something three.”
Kyle said it casually, but when he saw Belsey’s expression he tried the words again. “That’s it. Three something.”
“Site 3.”
“He wanted to know what it was.”
“What was it?” Belsey asked, trying to sound only mildly curious.
“No idea. I never got there, did I?”
“Where was it?”
“Underground somewhere.”
Belsey released the cuff. Kyle fell tumbling into the Xbox. He lay on his side, holding his head. Belsey gave him the cake and walked back out through the party.
TERRY CONDELL ORGANISED THE robbing of banks. Sometimes, for variety, he did bonded warehouses and safety deposits. He’d expanded from a base in south-east London across Europe. He was at the top, where charges didn’t stick. The last job Terry Condell was associated with concerned four million pounds’ worth of gold bullion stolen from an Antwerp Airport security depot in January. Associated, but nothing more. He shot a police officer in his front garden in 2001 and ended up being paid damages. Those were the lawyers Terry had.
Belsey called Rosen again.
“Send me through the file on Terry Condell.”
“Kirsty wants to speak to you.”
“OK. Email me the file. I’m just going to try getting killed first.”
Condell’s file was two hundred pages long and almost entirely speculative, from circulating fake five-pound notes as a twelve-year-old, to the ongoing investigation into the death of a former accomplice whose charred body was found in Tenerife three years ago. One of the few crimes Condell had been successfully prosecuted for involved the theft of six undelivered packages of perfume. That was December 1975. Stolen from work. Terry Condell had been a postie.
Belsey called the mobile of DI Andrew Redditch, Serious and Organised Crime.
“Terry Condell still in Hadley Wood?”
“He hasn’t sent me any change of address,” Redditch said.
“Do you have that address?”
“Sure.” Redditch gave him the address. It involved a road called The Beeches. It seemed he didn’t have to look it up. “Why?”
“I want to ask him something.”
Redditch laughed. “What are you going to do? Pop round?”
27
HADLEY WOOD WAS SUBURBIA ON STEROIDS, DISCREET on the outskirts of London, roads lined with coniferous trees between which you sometimes saw fences but never the houses themselves. It was popular with footballers and other people rich enough never to meet their neighbours. The place was clean and silent.
Terry Condell’s home wasn’t easy to find but eventually Belsey came across what looked like a raised drawbridge with an entryphone beside it. He rang and a woman answered.
“Who’s that?”
“My name’s Nick Belsey. I wanted to talk to Terry about Post Office tunnels.”
“About what?”
“Tunnels. The Mail Rail.�
��
There was a moment as this apparent nonsense was conveyed. Then the gate divided. Belsey watched the miracle uneasily. He walked through and let it close behind him, then continued along a curving drive past a Jeep and two Porsches, what appeared to be a putting green and a goddess spouting water. He wondered at what point the last police visitor got shot. A few seconds later he arrived at a house in the style of a package-holiday villa. A lot of dogs started barking before Belsey reached the front door.
“Stay there,” someone said. The voice belonged to a young man in a white T-shirt with a Colt .45 in his hand. Belsey moved his arms away from his body. He could just make out a shorter man waiting in the doorway.
“Nick Belsey, Hampstead CID. I just had a few questions about the Mail Rail,” he said. The guard fished Belsey’s badge from inside his jacket.
“He’s police.” The guard held up the badge like a red card.
“Let me see him.”
Belsey stepped forward. Terry Condell came into view wearing a grey tracksuit and slippers. Pomeranians yapped at his feet. He was fat, with little eyes that twinkled and made him look gleeful, as well he might be. His head looked like it was made of a soft material that had been repeatedly dropped. He burst out laughing.
“You fucking walk in here . . .” He coughed and spat phlegm into the grass. “Search him.”
The guard patted Belsey down. He took Belsey’s phone and nodded him towards the house.
“Get in here, then,” Terry said.
The dogs continued to bark. The guard closed the front door behind Belsey and looked out through the window to the drive. An Asian woman in a silk dressing gown appeared at the top of wide, white stairs.
Terry turned. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s only the police.” He winked at Belsey.
They went down a lot of softly lit corridors, Belsey watching the folds at the back of the criminal’s head, thinking: I am in Terry Condell’s house. This is ridiculous.
Terry led the way through a bright white kitchen, down ornate spiral stairs to a games room: snooker table, signed football shirts in frames, leather sofas and a corner bar. A glass wall at the far end revealed a swimming pool lapping emptily against the smeared partition. Terry gestured to a sofa. The place felt lonely and it gave Belsey hope. First lesson of the interview room: everyone needs someone to talk to.
“Which branch of the Yard are you?” Terry asked.
“I’m not Yard. I work at Hampstead police station.”
“Just Hampstead?”
“It keeps me busy enough.” Belsey kicked a chewed dog toy out of the way. He could smell chlorine. There was a box of Montecristos on the coffee table.
“Just Hampstead CID,” Terry mused, as if the confines of such a life were barely imaginable. Finally he said: “Drink?”
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
“I was having tea. What do you want?”
“I’d like your finest cognac.”
“That’s more like it.”
The bank robber set up golden tumblers and collapsed onto the sofa opposite Belsey.
“Can I have a cigar?” Belsey asked.
“Be my guest.”
Belsey lit one up. Terry slid an ashtray across.
“So, Detective Constable Belsey of Hampstead CID, you’re interested in the Mail Rail. Why’s that then?”
“I think someone’s messing around down there. Probably holding someone hostage. Call me Nick.”
“Down in the tunnels?”
“That’s right.” Terry looked impressed. He seemed to give it some consideration. “It’s a young woman,” Belsey elaborated. “Twenty-two years old. She’s called Jemma Stevens.”
“And what do you want from me?”
“I got an idea you might know something about this system. Maybe more than most.”
Terry Condell gave a curious, lopsided smile. “So who’ve you spoken to?”
“Kyle Townsend.”
“Bloody hell.” He shook his head. “How’s Kyle?”
“He’s doing really well.”
“Never work with fucking crackheads. Life lesson for you, Nick.”
Belsey shaped his cigar ash on the tray.
“Kyle had a map. He was looking for Site 3. He’s erased from records. What were you up to?”
Terry leaned back, hands behind his head. His eyes went a little misty. Belsey gave him time. Professional criminals grow old; they dwell on career highlights and the jobs that got away. None were such nostalgia-bores as armed robbers. Most ended up doing long stretches or in exile and maybe this bred it. Maybe they knew their world was over generally, that some kid with an Internet connection was robbing more than they could with all the bagmen in south London. Belsey was ready to exploit this weakness.
“I just thought I’d have a sniff, you know. I’m curious. About history.”
“For a job.”
“Maybe.” He spent a good moment running a hand over his skull, summoning up the knowledge like static electricity. He picked up his Cognac. “I joined the Post Office in 1972. The General fucking Post Office. We were responsible for more than you would believe. And there was something moody about it from the off. First thing they made you do was sign a confidentiality agreement. Before you even had the uniform. I thought: what’s that about?”
“What was it about?”
Terry drank and looked almost bashful.
“I don’t get you, Nick. I’m still wondering if you’re mad or just stupid.”
“Just stupid.”
Terry smiled.
“I’d worked there a few years when I started hearing things that made me curious. There was more than just the Mail Rail. First it was rumours about blind tunnels under Trafalgar Square post office, old passages blocked off. Same at Mount Pleasant, running under Cubitt Street. I bided my time, Nick. 1981 they separated it all. You’re a young man, you won’t remember any of this. 1981. The Post Office became Royal Mail, Post Office Telephones became British Telecom. Government wanted rid. Anyway, the old GPO files get shoved into storage and I saw where a load of them got shoved. I thought—being a man who’s interested in history—I’d take a look. In particular, at those pertaining to underground tunnels.”
“Being a man interested in tunnelling under things.”
“Perhaps. Either way, I made one or two discoveries.”
“Like what?”
Terry watched the smoke curl. “How’s the cigar?”
“Smooth.”
“They were a gift from my accountant. I hardly ever smoke them myself. Makes my teeth sting.”
“It’s great. What did you discover?”
“A legal case that no one ever spoke about. Big one. 1952 the GPO gets sued for tunnelling under the Prudential insurance offices on High Holborn without permission. You know the big red-brick building near Chancery Lane?”
“That would have the telephone exchange beneath it.”
Now Terry visibly relaxed. It was as if Belsey had said a password and they could drop pretences.
“OK. You’ve done your homework.”
“I’m trying.”
“The Chancery Lane exchange was built between 1952 and ’53. A year later the government authorises an extension leading out from it.”
Belsey rested the cigar in the ashtray, took out his A-Z and uncapped a biro.
“Where?”
“Down to Covent Garden. To another telephone exchange under the Opera House on Bow Street. But it doesn’t stop there.”
“Where does it stop?”
“This particular stretch of tunnel stops at Trafalgar Square. Under Trafalgar Square is a junction. It’s a big space down there, but not an exchange. One of the tunnels off it they call Q-Whitehall, runs between the Treasury, the MOD building and Charing Cross station. Hang on.” Terry hauled himself up and fetched a pair of reading glasses that sat incongruously on his blunt face. He stood beside Belsey, took the biro and marked the route from Chancery Lane to Trafal
gar Square. He then connected Trafalgar Square to Whitehall.
“Then it goes on. Tunnels lead off from Trafalgar Square in all directions. I know there’s one east into the City.”
“To where?”
“Baynard House—the big telephone exchange by the river.” Terry pointed it out on the map. “By Blackfriars. I had a mate who worked there, an electrician. Said it went down seven floors below the pavement. In the lift you had numbers going down—minus one, minus two. Only, on minus three and four the lift never stopped.”
“Why’s that?”
“He was there half a decade and never knew. Then one day it did stop. The doors open and there’s just beds. Rows and rows of beds with some partitioned off. And, at the side, stacks of cardboard coffins.”
Belsey nodded as if he expected nothing less. “Coffins.”
“So he says.”
“In part of the telephone exchange.”
“In part of fuck knows what.”
“So it goes east into the city. Where else?”
“At Baynard it splits; a tunnel goes south, under the river to Waterloo, and another one goes north under the City to the telephone exchange at Moorgate. Moorgate was one of the hardened war exchanges, extends under the Barbican.”
“And does that connect back to Chancery Lane?”
“Yes. Here.”
He marked in the tunnel routes. The map now looked like a creature with tentacles. Trafalgar Square was the body. It reached a tentacle up to Holborn, down to Whitehall, then extended another east into the City of London, an arm that coiled back round upon itself, up from the river to the Barbican.
“What about beyond the centre? There’s deep-level bomb shelters connected to Northern Line stations, around Camden and then down in Clapham. Are they part of it?”
“Probably. Never saw the paperwork myself but yeah, why not?”
“How did you find all this?” Belsey asked.
“It was just a question of knowing which files to open.”
“And how did you know?”
“It sounds silly. They were all marked ‘Jigsaw.’”
Terry picked up his drink. The pool rippled glumly behind him. Cigar smoke knotted in the air.
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