Deep Shelter

by Oliver Harris

  “I’ll get a Bloody Mary. Not too much Tabasco. Do you have horseradish?”

  “Yes.”

  “Plenty of that, and a slice of lemon.”

  She went over to the bar. Belsey went to the kitchen. The chefs were busy over their pans. He saw an arched, wooden door in the corner. Staff Only. He moved for it before anyone could stop him, through to a very tight spiral of stone stairs worn to undulations. He ran down them, past a storeroom with boxes of vegetables, past a passageway crowded with mops. The stairs continued, unlit, scratched with antique graffiti. They descended another twenty feet to a dented steel door speckled with rust.

  Easton wasn’t working here for the money. He wanted access to what lay below.

  “Hello?” Belsey’s voice was dulled by the stone. A sign on the door had been painted over at least once, but through the layers he could make out the words: No Unauthorised Personnel. He got his fingers around the edge and scraped it open.

  A dank corridor, walls brick, floor dirt. Jemma’s phone lay on the ground. He picked it up: dead. The narrow passageway led beyond it for ten metres or so. He shone the torch. A white arrow painted onto the bricks pointed deeper in, to where the passage turned a corner.

  Belsey walked to the end and looked around it—another stretch. Only, now, the cathedral stone became breeze block. A sign on the wall said Cathedral: Congregation Zone C. Then, in smaller letters: Red Passholders—One Item of Luggage Per Person.

  It all ended at a single door. Belsey’s foot buckled as he approached it. He was on a grille of some kind. He shone the torch through the grille and felt dizzy. It was a steep drop, over fifty feet. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

  A long, ghostly white form, like a train. A train formed from strands of cotton wool.

  He got down onto the grille and shone the torch along the length of whatever it was down there. The white was mould. Beneath the mould was an old British Rail passenger train, flat-fronted, six coaches stretching towards a tunnel at the far end. It stood beside a platform with a row of shuttered bays, their concertina doors open to expose stacks of cardboard boxes. There were more boxes across the platform, some open: first aid boxes, ration packs, glass bottles.

  Rail track, Belsey thought: the FOIs Easton had rattled off: he’d asked about MOD purchase of rail track . . . Something was starting to occur to Belsey but he didn’t have time to pursue the thought. One item of luggage per person . . .

  Then the door back to the cathedral stairs slammed shut. He ran to it. It wouldn’t open. He could feel a padlock rattle on the other side of the door. Belsey shouted through but there was a lot of noise starting in the restaurant, drowning him out. People screaming.

  He ran back, over the grille, to the single door, and it opened—stairs went down to the platform, but there was a floor between, a red-brick passage into what must have been the embryonic St. Paul’s deep shelter, with the familiar ribs and rivets. Belsey searched through. Not unlike the one beneath Belsize. But at the end of the main dorm there was a low entrance into a maintenance tunnel of some kind. The metal panel that had once sealed it bore blowtorch scars.

  Belsey squeezed in. Bricks scraped his shoulders and knocked the bullet wound. For a disorientating moment he was between paler stone, an old crypt or Roman foundations. Then he emerged at another tunnel, crossing the first, this one with narrow-gauge rails. He could tell from its height it was the Mail Rail. He followed the tracks left and arrived at a platform with ornate, glazed tiles reflecting his torchlight. They spelt King Edward Street. He knew his way around a Mail Rail station now. Belsey climbed up to the platform, through the loading bays and up the concrete stairs.

  After two floors he found himself in a low, dark space crammed with sealed boxes marked For Shredding. Metal bins overflowed with rubbish bags. There was a small door in the corner. Belsey opened it. It was a cupboard. The cupboard contained a man sleeping. He was old, in a cleaner’s uniform. The walls of the cupboard were decorated like an improvised shrine, beads and plastic flowers and a hologram of the Virgin Mary. Belsey shook him gently by the shoulder.

  “I was looking for the way out,” he said. “I’m lost.”

  The man barely opened his eyes. He pointed Belsey towards the end of the corridor, past the bins, then settled back again.

  Belsey found a shabby service lift. It took him up one floor and then he was in a brighter corridor with humming servers behind frosted glass walls. He caught his reflection and saw he was still wearing the cathedral audio guide. Belsey hung it around a fire extinguisher. He turned a corner, passed a gym, then numbered doors. He tried doors until one opened. It was a boardroom, empty, with platters of sandwiches under cling film, a pack of papers in front of each seat. Belsey took a pack and marched a little more confidently.

  A smarter lift took him two more floors up to ground level. Now there were open-plan offices with Bloomberg screens and a lot of employees in headsets. Belsey gave a nod to a woman, winked at a man, ran towards the barriers at the front and jumped them. He dropped the file and circled back towards the cathedral in time to see a crowd gathering with the hesitant air people have after witnessing drama, unsettled and wanting a bit more. They were all staring at the front of the cathedral as if waiting for a headline act. Belsey joined the crowd.

  “What happened?” he asked as police pulled up with a lot of noise and lights.

  “Guy with a gun,” a man in pinstripes said.

  “Which way did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  An American woman with a tourist map turned. “He had a hostage with him. A girl.” She didn’t know where he went either.

  Belsey walked back to his car. No sign of Kirsty. He found the news on the radio. Nothing on what had just happened in EC4. He checked the news websites on his phone to see if things had got worse for himself. They’d got a lot worse.

  Recent photographs of him now, everywhere. The Express led the charge: Sick Cop and Seven Lovers. There was the picture of Jemma taped to HANDEL, which only Monroe had received. Nick Belsey came close to prosecution in his time at Borough police station. Express reporter Thomas Monroe was there. With a picture of the two of them ten years ago, down in the Ship, Belsey holding a wooden crutch like it was a rifle.

  He called Monroe’s mobile. Monroe wasn’t answering. Belsey tried his office line and got a recording. “This is Tom Monroe’s desk. Please leave a message.”

  “Hi Tom, it’s Nick Belsey. Here’s a message for you, you prick—”

  The phone was lifted. A woman said: “Hi there. You want the Advertising Department. Please call this number—”

  “I don’t want the fucking Advertising Department. I want Tom Monroe. Put him on.”

  “I can’t help you from this desk.” Her voice was unnaturally cheerful. “The offer is for jigsaw puzzles. If you have any complaints regarding the promotion please call this number.” She gave the number. Belsey wrote it down. It was a mobile number. She hung up. He waited for a moment then dialled.

  Someone answered but didn’t speak—heels clipped fast down a corridor, then a door opened, a tap ran, a second door was bolted.

  “Nick Belsey?” she said. Same woman.

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’re going through the office. We’re not allowed to leave.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Jill Banner. I work with Tom. They’ve taken his computer. But he wasn’t researching you, I’m sure. He said he’d found something to do with a thing called JIGSAW.”

  “What did he have?”

  “I don’t know. This is just from a note he left. There’s an arrest warrant out for him now.”

  “For what?”

  “Conspiracy to breach the Official Secrets Act.”

  “You know the stuff about me is crap.”

  “I don’t know anything. Just that Tom said you were working on something big. This JIGSAW thing. He was researching something for you. That’s all I know. Someone f
rom the Cabinet Office just visited the editor. I don’t know what’s going on. All this attention on Tom, it’s not coming from within the paper.”

  “What do you know about JIGSAW?”

  “Just that he left a note—that’s what he was working on. Honestly, that’s all.”

  “Where is Tom now?”

  “I think Kew.”

  “Kew?” The name startled him. Those lines, towards the end of Easton’s sessions with Green. New interest in nature . . . Has been spending time at the Botanic Gardens in Kew. Says they are teaching him patience . . . Everything breaks through eventually. An attraction to Kew was one of the remaining mysteries of Easton’s last months. “Why Kew?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Belsey was already finding the case notes and bank statements, searching through the torn pages.

  “The gardens?”

  “I really don’t know. When I last spoke to him he was driving to Kew. Please, that’s all I can tell you. Someone’s coming.” The call ended.

  BELSEY DROVE TOWARDS KEW, tuning his radio to the channel for Kew Constabulary. Sure enough, by the time he was on Chiswick High Road he picked up arresting officers. It seemed if you threatened to break the Official Secrets Act, you got the executive service—custody in minutes, and nowhere to hide.

  “Yes, a Mr. Thomas Monroe. A journalist. What exactly are we meant to do with him, sir?”

  “There are instructions to hold him. Just keep him detained while we clarify the situation.”

  “He’ll be at Kew police station, sir. By the gardens.”

  “OK. Apparently a Gabriel Bennington is on his way.”

  Belsey sped over Kew Bridge, swinging left towards the police station. He was there in two minutes. He felt some relief seeing the place: it looked halfway between a cottage and a large shed; a keep-warm area for the handful of constables assigned to the Botanic Gardens. Its own front garden was in full bloom.

  But it was outside of its comfort zone. Belsey could tell as he approached. A sergeant stood in the car park. They’d put a plastic cone down for their special visitor. A couple of officers glanced out of the windows. Belsey aimed for the cone and crushed it. He lifted his mobile as he got out of the car.

  “Yes, of course,” he said loudly into it. “It’s a police station not an embassy, sir. We’ll be with you shortly.” He walked past the Sergeant into reception. There were framed photographs of plants on the wall, no officers under fifty. “Sir, the Attorney General can speak to him when we’ve got him. I’m at the station now.” Belsey moved the phone an inch from his ear.

  “Where is he?”

  A nervous, moustached officer put his cap on and led Belsey through to the secure holding area. Monroe’s name was up on an old blackboard. Belsey wiped it off.

  “His possessions?”

  They were in a bag waiting on the desk. Belsey grabbed the bag. Someone slid the custody book towards him for signing and Belsey tore the page out. He started towards the cell.

  “No one in or out, no matter who they say they are. Open it.”

  The custody officer unlocked Monroe’s cell and backed away. The journalist was standing, red-eyed and unshaven. He’d eschewed the rubber mattress and placed himself as far as possible from an iron bucket in the corner.

  “Let’s go,” Belsey said.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Follow me and don’t say anything.”

  They left the cell. Belsey steered Monroe through front reception, past the open-mouthed Sergeant to his car. Monroe blinked at the daylight.

  “I need a lawyer,” he said.

  “You need Amnesty International, Tom. The intelligence services are on their way. Get in.”

  They climbed into Belsey’s Skoda as a fleet of more lustrous cars appeared. Belsey tore past. He was halfway down Mortlake Road before Monroe had the passenger door closed.

  48

  TRAFFIC WAS SOLID UP AHEAD, THE ROAD NARROWED TO one channel by Transport Police. Belsey tried to see if they were pulling vehicles over. It didn’t look promising. Belsey turned the car around.

  “You’re covered in blood,” Monroe said.

  “Someone shot me.”

  Kew Bridge now had an Armed Response Vehicle parked at one end, a police Transit van at the other. Belsey braked, turned again. It seemed they were trapped in a peninsula of south-west London. He saw signs pointing to Kew Retail Park. It seemed as good an option as any. Crowd cover, at least. Maybe pick up a bargain. He swerved towards it.

  “You know you’re all over the news,” Monroe said.

  “I know. I’m shot and I’m all over the news and now I’m trapped in Kew. Why the fuck is that?”

  Belsey swung into the retail park: T.K. Maxx, M&S, Next; each occupied its own monumental grey box. T.K. Maxx had the crowds. Belsey parked up close enough to be hidden, but not too far from the exit back to the main road. He kept the engine running.

  “The article, about you—they took the photos off my computer,” Monroe said.

  “I figured that.”

  “Well you didn’t figure this: the IT department had someone visit them two months ago, warning them that they might receive classified intelligence, and to pass on anything that looked remotely suspicious. Sure enough, someone began sending emails a week later, saying they had information about an event in 1983. The sender used the name Michael Forrester. The same thing happened at other papers apparently. Mr. Forrester was firing emails to anyone he could get an address for, only they were all diverted straight to MI6.”

  “What were these emails saying?”

  “I don’t know. But apparently a man using the name Michael Forrester went into Wood Street police station ten days ago saying he needed police protection. Did you hear about this?”

  “No.”

  “I spoke to the DI there. This individual thought his life was under threat. Some jobsworth at Wood Street notified the intelligence services and the police were told to place him under arrest. So he fled. Around that time he sends another batch of emails. Only now he’s Ferryman. He’s been gagged from the start, Nick. You see? Duncan found something. He passed it on. Now our Ferryman has put all press on standby. He wants them to watch you, where you go. He says something is about to happen.”

  “Great. And why are we in Kew?”

  Monroe pointed through the back windscreen. Rising above the retail outlets was a long modern building.

  “To see what’s been declassified.”

  “What is that?”

  “The National Archives. The date, you see. Now. It’s 2013.”

  “I remember.”

  “The exercise was 1983, thirty years ago. Duncan Powell tracked declassification dates. Government material is kept out of the public domain for thirty years. Then, unless someone raises objections, it’s released. Duncan would track dates, ascertain what made it into the light of day and what had been held back. He called it gap hunting. At the beginning of the year a tranche of new files was released. That was around the time he got in touch with his publisher. So I thought maybe he’d found something in the archives.”

  “And was there anything there?”

  “I never got the chance to find out. Your colleagues picked me up as soon as I crossed the river.”

  Belsey handed him the last page from the case notes.

  “Read this. It’s the final session Michael Easton had with his therapist.”

  Monroe read it out loud: “Even government secrets have their own seasons—they will surface when it is time. In his dreams or someone else’s. In slips of the tongue.”

  The journalist gave a dazed smile. “He’s talking about the release of files. Where did you get this?”

  “I borrowed it.”

  Monroe read the entry again.

  “He’s gone to the National Archives.”

  “It certainly sounds like it.”

  “No, he has. Look, this number at the bottom: DEFE then something like 1139.”

&nbs
p; “What is it?”

  “That’s a file reference. DEFE means defence-related material.”

  Belsey started the car.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where do you think?”

  Monroe pulled the handbrake on.

  “I’m not getting arrested again.”

  “OK. I’m going there. I need to see what it was Duncan Powell found. I need to know where Easton is heading. Kirsty Craik might get in touch with you. Keep an eye on your phone.”

  Monroe opened the passenger door and jumped out. Then he leaned back in.

  “You’ll need a pass,” he said. “For the archives.”

  “I’ve got police badge and a handgun,” Belsey said. “I think I’ll manage.”

  49

  BELSEY CUT THROUGH NEAT RESIDENTIAL STREETS. THE National Archives appeared again, rising from stagnant ponds, the size of an airport. He drove right up to the glass doors. He unpacked another fentanyl lollipop and stuck it between his teeth and his gum. His mouth was dry. Belsey tested his pulse. It was there. He could afford up to three pints of blood. He checked the Webley, transferred it to his jacket and angled the rear-view mirror down: blood through his clothes, eyes pinned, jacket bulky with antique weaponry. This wasn’t a surreptitious look.

  He got out of the car and stumbled. Sharpen up. He headed through the revolving glass doors into a reception. The young woman on the desk took one look at him and picked up the phone.

  “I’m police,” he said. He followed signs for the reading room away from the anxious receptionist through a canteen. There were screens everywhere, it seemed: all showing BBC News—in reception, up on the canteen wall—all with his face on. Why did an archive need so many fucking TV screens? Nationwide Hunt . . .

  Past lockers, up stairs, breathing, calm.

  The first floor had a public area with PC terminals and an enquiry desk before you got to security barriers into the reading room. The reading room was filled with men and women browsing yellowing tomes of officialdom. It shimmered on the other side of the barriers. Belsey blinked. His vision had known sharper days, splintering now into hallucinatory fragments. Posters advised on family research and local history. “Enquiries”: he headed for the sign. A small woman in a grey suit and a bald man with a brown beard took one look at him and pressed the alarm button.