Deep Shelter

by Oliver Harris

  Monroe had got to work, then. It was better than nothing. Unless the move was going to force Finch into something drastic, like slitting Kirsty’s throat. Andrea saw how intently he was watching the report.

  “Do you know about this?” she asked. “Is it to do with Duncan?”

  “Maybe.”

  No report on the St. Matthew’s doss-house murder, though. Obviously the homeless don’t always make the bulletins. Still, it should have done.

  Belsey called Cromwell Hospital. He introduced himself as Finch and asked to be put through to Kirsty Craik. He got a flat denial that she’d ever been in.

  “And if anyone ever was here, they’re not here now,” a woman said, pointedly.

  Belsey went outside, studied the vehicles parked on the road, took the Umbro bag from his own car, along with the cosh and his CS spray. He deadlocked Andrea’s door when he came back in and told her to set the burglar alarm. He checked the glaziers had done a decent job on the side. Andrea took a blanket upstairs. Belsey spread the papers from the Umbro bag on the coffee table.

  First he read through the FOI responses. Eastman had two techniques: he homed in on details until he was blocked, finding the edge of whatever remained secret; then he became more subtle. He was told information about MOD purchasing of furniture couldn’t be disclosed so he asked for general budgets: MOD budgets for 1970–1980 then the spending of individual departments. Eventually he must have been left with an excess, an amount of budget unaccounted for. He’d made FOI requests on steel, stationery, labour: employment of electricians and engineers, trying to find the space representing JIGSAW and its projects.

  Belsey sorted the requests into piles.

  The biggest related to Site 3: twelve requests, four to local authorities, eight split equally between the Home Office and the MOD. Easton asked about equipment kept at Site 3, research carried out at Site 3, experiments concerning Site 3. None received more than a polite refusal.

  Easton had more luck with a curious selection of FOIs about trains: government purchasing of railway tracks and associated employment of trackmen and track gangs. These did get a response. An information officer for MOD Procurement opened a chink. Yes, the Ministry Of Defence purchased ninety-two miles of disused railway track in 1957. Purposes undisclosed.

  To run beneath the city? A city beneath the city, like Terry Condell said? With some kind of private transport system connecting the exchanges? The Sites?

  Finally Easton hunted those responsible for the underground project. The clique. The Doomsday men. Obviously no one would release names, so he sent his own. Where was Douglas Argyle 1970–80? Where was Edward Strathmore 1970–80? Where was a man called William Lanzer?

  More requests than any related to this William Lanzer. The name kept coming up. No title given. Lanzer didn’t seem to be a lord or a sir or a corporal. Plain old William Lanzer. Easton asked: Where was Lanzer employed? How much was he paid? Do you hold any files relating to his work?

  Belsey searched the name on his phone and saw why.

  William Lanzer, architectural engineer, born 23 August 1919. First Supervising Engineer of the General Post Office and subsequently Chief Technical Officer at the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

  Lanzer was a pioneer and uncompromising visionary who worked his way to the heart of post-war planning. He helped introduce a new, Brutalist aesthetic to British architecture, a style that was to prove as inspirational as it was controversial.

  The entry was in an online encyclopaedia of twentieth-century architecture. It gave a list of buildings William Lanzer had either worked on or commissioned: Centre Point, Barbican, Archway Tower, BT Tower, Baynard House.

  So he’d found the Doomsday Department’s chief architect. Belsey read Lanzer’s entry in full. Lanzer started his career in the research section of the Ministry of Home Security, investigating the effects of bomb blast on reinforced concrete. After the liberation of Calais he went to northern France to examine the effects of the Allied bombardment on the heavily defended V-1 and V-2 sites. In 1953 he attended the atomic weapons trials in Australia.

  It was, then, a curious sideways move that found him in charge of the Post Office estate, before running things at the Ministry of Public Building and Works, where business really picked up:

  Lanzer was the central figure behind the post-war London Plan, sometimes referred to as the Lanzer Plan, involving widespread construction across the capital. Much of this work was criticised at the time, but under Lanzer the Ministry of Public Building and Works developed exceptional technical expertise. His engineering achievements included pioneering developments in air filtration, prestressed concrete and underground construction.

  There were no pictures of Lanzer online. No obituary either. He’d got a CB upon leaving government service in 1985. Belsey tried to imagine the man retired somewhere, rich on twentieth-century fear. He would have his designs framed on the walls; his Brutalist vision.

  Belsey turned the FOI rejections over and wrote the names of Lanzer’s buildings on the back, one per sheet. Then he moved the coffee table to the side and arranged the sheets across the floor until he had central London. He tried to see the route—the logic of Site 3. Easton’s taunting voice repeated in his head: Jemma says she wants to visit Site 3. While Croydon is all cinders, and Lewisham empties of life, London is defended from below. The machinery of government sinks down. Civilians climb under their tables and the government climbs under the streets.

  Where was the final site? The last stronghold? He tried to remember every detail Terry Condell had given him. The specs were more than five times bigger than the Chancery Lane and Whitehall exchanges put together. How would that be possible? He pictured Site 3 as monstrous, the surface of London as a placenta feeding what lay below. There’s something at the core of it, Terry Condell had suggested. Belsey imagined the place centred on extraordinary technologies, mechanisms of life and death. What was Michael Easton trying to reveal?

  It was late. His mind had stopped moving to any great effect. Belsey wandered the house, opening drawers, sifting whatever debris from Duncan Powell’s life had escaped Finch’s attention. He returned to the sofa, lay down, then sat up and turned back to the case notes. He tried arranging these in piles too, tearing them out. Dreams of forgetting something crucial, of having to return, of London and breakdown. He is breaking down. His attendance is erratic. Session 18, in the depths of his turmoil:

  I ask why he arrived late. M says he was walking and got lost. I suggest that getting lost is a way of escaping and he agrees. M says that when he was young he was always trying to escape. Wherever you put him he would leave.

  Belsey ate Andrea’s leftover toast, pondering these words. They are not missing, you are missing. He found whiskey in a cupboard under the TV and drank, then lay on the floor, hoping for sleep. He thought perhaps his dreams could pursue Easton’s own.

  HE SLEPT TOO DEEP and far too long. He didn’t dream of anything. When he woke Andrea Powell was standing over him pointing a kitchen knife at his throat. It had gone 9:30 a.m. The TV was on, a tanned woman above a news ticker.

  POLICE HUNT MET DETECTIVE

  The presenter read her autocue excitedly.

  “The investigation into missing art student Jemma Stevens took yet another dramatic turn this morning as the Metropolitan Police announced that one of its own officers, Detective Constable Nick Belsey, is wanted for questioning regarding both this incident and the whereabouts of his colleague Detective Sergeant Kirsty Craik.

  “Belsey has been described as a maverick figure in the force, whose career has already been dogged by controversy. Attempts to locate him have, so far, been unsuccessful and the search continues. Members of the public have been warned not to approach him.”

  Belsey got to his feet. The knife brushed his chest. Andrea stepped back.

  “Get out,” she said. She’d responded quite robustly to this, he thought, all things considered. On the news they had a picture of him f
rom God knows whose social-networking page, with a bare-shouldered woman in what must have been the Rocket or maybe even Majingo’s. From the 1990s, so at least he was barely recognisable. Sadie, that had been her name. A veterinary nurse. She’d also tried to stab him, eventually.

  “I’m being framed,” he said. The line didn’t sound as fresh as he’d hoped. He gathered up his papers and sighed. “What the fuck’s ‘maverick’ meant to mean?”

  He opened the front door and the burglar alarm went off.

  45

  ANOTHER GLORIOUS MORNING, SUN A HAZY slick in the sky, everyone out and about, whistling and thanking God it was Friday. Those who weren’t already at work were catching up with the news, reading about killer cops.

  Belsey drove into the centre of town. He parked close to Warren Street. There was a new attraction to an area with three mainline train stations out of London and a Eurostar terminal. Colours seemed very bright and he could smell chemicals coming through his skin. He walked into a newsagent’s at the top of Tottenham Court Road. Someone had released the story in time to make the day’s front pages. Met Police Detective On the Run. He bought a selection of papers. The shop owner didn’t connect him to the headlines.

  The tabloids had been on the scent long enough to produce pictures of Kirsty off duty, looking gorgeous and distinctly killable. These were run alongside Jemma in her tequila girl outfit, with the implication of some kind of threesome.

  He was suddenly hungry. He looked into a cafe, saw a lot of people with newspapers and walked on. The next cafe was empty. It had a dirty glass roof and a lot of dead pot plants. Belsey went in and ordered poached eggs, then changed his mind and went for a full English. He continued with the papers. He felt a perverse curiosity, picking at the scab of his life. He risked putting the battery back in his old phone. Everyone he had ever known had tried to get in touch. And Jemma had apparently sent him another text: Welcome to Doomsday—I will die at 6 pm. Site 3. It had been sent half an hour ago.

  It was already ten-forty and he had no ideas.

  His food arrived. He ate what he could, looked up and there was Centre Point, beyond the roofline opposite, mocking him. Indestructible. Clever old William Lanzer.

  Belsey checked William Lanzer again online. Eulogies, aesthetic condemnation, encyclopaedia entries. No death announcement. But no postal address either. He didn’t come up on any online directory. The most useful lead was in an article from nine years ago on the Academy of Engineering Innovation website: Lanzer still lives with his sister, Miriam, whose interest in marine life he credited with inspiring his research into chemoautotrophy.

  Belsey typed in chemoautotrophy. It was the biological production of energy by means other than photosynthesis. Energy without sunlight.

  A Miriam Lanzer did come up on a search of the BT directory. Belsey almost choked on his egg. There was a landline and home address. The address was on Wandsworth Road. He gulped a mouthful of pale coffee and went to his car.

  NUMBER 110 WANDSWORTH ROAD was not a Brutalist tower but a gabled Victorian house that looked draughty and in need of paint. There was a single brass bell by the door. Belsey rang and heard shuffling down uncarpeted corridors.

  “One moment,” a woman called.

  He got his badge and least threatening smile ready. The woman answered, already trembling. No tremble in the stare, though. Yellow blouse, pleated skirt, thick socks and sandals.

  “Miriam Lanzer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m a police officer. Does your brother, William, live here?”

  “Sometimes. He comes and goes.”

  Belsey tried to think what that might mean.

  “Do you know where I might find him? I’d like to speak to him quite urgently.”

  “Now? No.”

  “Can I come in?”

  She studied his badge for a minute. When there was nothing more to study she gave it back. They moved in disjointed bursts down the hallway. Miriam Lanzer held a radiator for support. One of her legs didn’t work. They entered a front room with a lot of porcelain—circus clowns, nativity scenes, shepherdesses searching for their flocks among the dust. He couldn’t see any architectural engineering. There was a copy of the day’s Times on the table. Belsey folded it over. The woman didn’t sit down. She gripped the back of a sofa and stared at Belsey.

  “What do you want William for?”

  “I’d just like to speak to him. About his work.”

  “His work? Why?”

  “I’m very interested in the work he did for the government. Some time ago now. It sounds like he was incredibly important.”

  “He is.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “It’s been months. He gets so busy.”

  “Busy with what?”

  “Events. He gives talks, attends ceremonies. People want to ask him about his ideas.” Miriam Lanzer took a well used, red address book from the coffee table. She was shaking again. Belsey couldn’t tell how much his presence played a part in that.

  “This is the number he said to call.” She gave him a number and Belsey dialled. He wondered if he could have this conversation in front of her, and he turned away, ready to step into the hall if necessary.

  “St. Matthew’s,” a man answered.

  It took Belsey a second to process this. Then he found he couldn’t speak.

  “Hello?” the manager said. “St. Matthew’s Hostel. Can I help?”

  Belsey hung up.

  “Was he there?” Miriam asked.

  Belsey looked at her. He took the address book. W: William—a list of seven addresses in increasingly shaky handwriting, crossed out one by one to form a ladder down to St. Matthew’s.

  William Lanzer. Bill Lanzer. Bill. What journey came to an end on the second floor of a doss house in Shacklewell?

  “No, he wasn’t there,” Belsey said.

  “Is it the right number?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  He gave her the book. She placed it on a dresser to the side. Then he saw, beside it, propped against a ballerina, a letter headed Victim Support. Belsey picked it up. It was a standard letter: the police are doing all they can, call us if you want a shoulder to cry on, etc.

  “Were you the victim of a crime recently, Ms. Lanzer?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had an intruder. Young man, said he was with the electricity board.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure. A few days ago.”

  “What did he take?”

  “I can’t tell. There’s no money here. I don’t own anything valuable.”

  “Did he look at this?” Belsey gestured at the address book.

  “I don’t know. Why would he?”

  “What did he do?”

  “He went upstairs. I can’t manage the stairs any more. William will check when he comes round.”

  Belsey climbed the stairs to the first floor. A study had exploded. Papers and files carpeted the floor; wooden furniture was smashed. A roll-top desk and lacquered cabinet lay on their sides, locks broken, one chest of drawers face down on the floor with its back smashed in. A trunk in the corner had a mess of loose papers inside two foot deep: school reports, photographs, dissertations, academic journals. Belsey rifled through the papers. William Lanzer had been a hoarder. There were plans of shop-fronts, houses, schools. He found a floor plan of the Red Lion in Westminster, dimensions pencilled in. Then less homely structures: reservoirs, power stations, seed banks. There were folders of intricate, hand-drawn sketches and diagrams.

  But no Site 3.

  Hence Easton’s next stop had been St. Matthew’s. Belsey tried to remember the blood map on the hostel wall. Then a sound came from downstairs, a slow, mechanical rattle he had not heard for a long time. The unwinding of a dial telephone.

  He walked back down. The Times had been unfolded. Miriam Lanzer spun, terrified, clutching the receiver. In he
r other hand was a piece of paper. Belsey prised it out of her arthritic hand. A one-line note, black copperplate script from a pen that oozed expensively.

  If any more problems—Flat 89, 1 Belgrave Square, 0207 245 1193—Edward Strathmore. Do not contact police.

  Belsey put his hand on the phone and ended the call.

  “Why don’t you sit on the sofa,” he said.

  Miriam Lanzer sat on the sofa. Belsey took the receiver from her and dialled 999.

  “I’ve got an elderly lady here who’s just had an intruder at her home. She’s in shock. Yes, come over please, someone should check she’s OK.”

  He took a knife from the kitchen and cut the phone cord. Then he pocketed the knife and drove to Belgrave Square.

  46

  TWENTY MINUTES PAST MIDDAY. LESS THAN SIX HOURS to find Jemma. Time to take it to the top.

  Belsey was learning a lot about his past on the radio, his relationship with Jemma and his various reasons for having killed her: a plot involving the recycling of seized cocaine, the ménage à trois, possible blackmail. She’d expressed fears about something recently. They’d dug out someone who remembered Belsey at Borough CID and had a nice anecdote about him setting fire to his desk.

  Celebrity had come: a blanket of misunderstanding on a vast scale. He was that thread of disgust and secret envy woven into strangers’ days. Disgust, envy and fear: “public warned not to approach. This is a highly trained police officer.” His employer had never been more complimentary. The detective fronting Belsey’s manhunt was DCS David Sandler, a jowly Welshman. The only thing Belsey knew about Sandler was that he’d cheated on his wife with a traffic warden. He was now solidly reassuring the public that all resources were being drawn upon in shutting this menace down. Belsey didn’t doubt it.

  He cruised into west London. Of course, he thought: Belgravia, where spies go to die; grand nineteenth-century squares of stiff, white houses, each pretty as a wedding cake and ice-cold as a vault. He cruised past the gleaming porticos imagining a whole secret service retired here, old wounds playing up. Belsey wondered if he was losing control, wondered about amphetamine-induced psychosis.