The tunnel sloped gently away from them, curving slowly, but with one or two sharper bends.
There was a lot of dust on the ground, but with an obvious trail of recent activity with footsteps pointing both back and forward going through it.
Every twenty metres Galbraith stopped and glanced at the meter hanging from his jacket, which indicated the quality of the air and its level of toxicity.
Strangely, for a tunnel that had supposedly been shut off for many years, the level of oxygen was high, and toxic gases were mostly absent.
Another sign that the tunnel had been in use recently, and that fresh air had successfully blown out any stale air that may have gathered previously.
A sudden sound ahead alarmed Galbraith and he threw up his balled fist in the classic command for everyone to a halt.
No lights showed anywhere ahead.
Suddenly a large rat ran along the top of the pipe beside him. As it drew close, it stopped and hesitated, looking across the gap between the pipe and the man, and staring straight at Galbraith’s face.
Its little whiskers bristled, and the rat rose up on its hind legs as it sniffed the air.
Galbraith gave the sign to move forward, and in response to the sudden movement of his arm, the rat turned and scuttled rapidly away back into the darkness further along the tunnel.
Galbraith and his team followed, their guns raised in front of them, searching the tunnel ahead for any threats, but being careful to manoeuvre around any of the obstacles that presented themselves.
It took them five minutes to walk the distance of the piping-duct, longer than Galbraith had expected.
As they neared its end, Galbraith could see a wall ahead of them, and at first thought that it was going to be a dead-end.
However, with only a metre to go, he realised that the tunnel and the pipe turned quickly to the right, through an archway. Once through the archway, the tunnel disappeared down into the ground, but the walkway on which Sergeant Galbraith was progressing came to a metal ladder which went down a few steps into a larger chamber.
Galbraith waited at the top of the ladder until the other two in his team were beside him, then he indicated for them to provide cover, and he stepped very slowly and cautiously down the ladder, being extremely careful not to make any accidental sound.
At the bottom of the ladder, he turned and surveyed the chamber they were in, gun extended and continuously sweeping the space in front whilst the others came down behind him.
The chamber was quite large. The ladder had brought them down into the middle of it. On the left, about two metres away, another ladder went upwards to the top of the chamber where a trapdoor could be seen. On the right, a trapdoor lay open, revealing a gaping dark hole underneath it.
Galbraith indicated for two men to go left to the base of the ladder, whilst he and another man stepped slowly to the right and took up positions on either side of the hole in the ground. At first kneeling, then lowering themselves down flat, upon another signal from Galbraith, they both extended their arms down into the hole with their weapons in front and followed quickly by lowering their heads through the hole and searching for a target.
Once again, their night-sights lit up the darkness below, enabling them to see that no threats were present.
Another ladder extended downwards beneath them into another chamber.
Several large pipes entwined each other with large stop valves at the far end of the chamber.
Descending the stairs into the empty room, Sergeant Galbraith crossed the room to the far wall.
Human excrement was everywhere, as well as puddles of urine, the ammonia from which now set off a flashing alarm on the air-meter hanging from his jacket.
In the corner there were a few items of clothing, and a ripped sheet.
Galbraith bent down and picked up one of the pieces of clothing, a jacket.
It was filthy and covered in faeces, and the Sergeant was just about to drop it when he saw some writing scrawled on the label at the back of its neck.
Pulling it closer he read one word: ‘Weir’.
His colleague, now on his left, tapped him on his shoulder and pointed at one of the pipes. A chain was dangling from it, an open set of handcuffs at its end.
Confirming that the rest of the room was empty, Galbraith led his colleague back up the stairs to the room above, and moved across the chamber to the other ladder.
Indicating his intentions, and holding onto the ladder rungs with one hand, he started to climb the ladder, slowly but steadily.
Until now they had made none or very little noise. Now was not a time to start.
The ladder was about two metres tall, and as soon as Galbraith reached the top, another man got ready to climb behind him, his weapon raised above his head, pointing upwards.
Galbraith put his hand on the trapdoor above him and started to push it upwards, expecting to meet resistance.
There was none.
The lid started to lift upwards.
Galbraith immediately stopped, and signalled to a man below him, who immediately reached into a backpack and pulled out a long thin bendy cable with a camera embedded in one end, and a small LCD Screen on the other. The man handed the camera up to Galbraith.
Slowly, very slowly, Galbraith inserted the tube with the camera in it through the gap in the trapdoor, and then rotated it in a wide circle.
The man below scrutinised the screen and what was revealed.
Nothing.
Another empty room.
A door at its far end.
Handing the camera back down, Galbraith moved upwards through the trapdoor, noting as he went a discarded heavy duty padlock on the floor, which had perhaps previously been used to keep the trapdoor secured, but which now lay abandoned on the floor.
One by one they came up the ladder into the room.
Another concrete room.
This time no pipes.
Just a wooden table and four chairs.
And nothing else.
Galbraith and the others gathered around the door at the far end of the room. The seal around the door was good, with no obvious gaps. No light came from the outside.
Whenever everyone was ready, he gave the sign, and one of his men placed a hand on the door and pulled it inwards.
The door moved slightly but did not open.
Next, be tried gently to push it open.
Again, the door moved forward a little, barely, but did not open.
Kneeling down on the floor, Galbraith looked for a pattern of scratching on the ground which might present itself, but saw none. To his experienced eye, he realised that this told him that the door opened outwards, not inwards.
Pointing to two men, he indicated for them to force the door on the silent count of three.
One finger.
Two fingers.
Three…
Two powerful feet lifted, and kicked, and the door burst open and outwards from them.
Almost as one, the men inside the room stepped back and swore aloud, the sudden light from outside temporarily blinding them with its brightness against their night vision headsets.
Ripping them off and stepping through the door, guns still searching, they were greeted with the screams of children who, only a few metres below them, were cycling along a footpath along the edge of a small loch.
They were standing in the middle of the Figgate Park.
-------------------------
Monday
Figgate Park Entrance
16.30
McKenzie stood at the entrance to the tunnel in the Figgate Park.
Immediately Galbraith had emerged into the afternoon light outside the tunnel, he’d phoned back to McKenzie and told them not to enter the tunnel. It was clear, but it was perhaps best not to disturb it until Forensics had been over it with a fine-tooth comb.
Instead he suggested that McKenzie came around to the Park, climbed into some protective overalls, and took a quick look at the
set of underground chambers the tunnels had led into. Upon arrival, Sergeant Galbraith had given them a quick report on what they had seen and experienced within the tunnel. He’d then handed the scene over to McKenzie and declared it safe from any immediate threats.
Now suited and booted in their white forensic overcoats, Brown and McKenzie were just about to enter the small concrete building on the edge of the Figgate Park.
He’d instructed the others to start setting up a cordon around the building and do their best to chase away the gang of children who were now gathering on bikes and skateboards around the building, wondering what on earth all the excitement was about.
McKenzie stood and studied the area around him, sizing it all up.
They were standing outside a small, rather nondescript concrete building on the edge of the Park, only metres away from a road behind them. The road itself was small and quiet, and ran along the back gardens of one of the two rows of houses that had been built on the grounds of the school since the original plans of the school had been drawn up. Most of the small road was shaded by trees, and the bottom of the gardens ended in high-walls, providing both privacy and security to the inhabitants of the houses.
A few metres from the side of the building there was a small parking area on the quiet road. A fence ran along the side of the park, but there was an entrance to the park through a space in the fence, where long ago a metal gate probably had hung, but had long since disappeared.
Trees lined the edge of the park, which ran around a small Loch, and a river, known locally as the Figgie Burn. It was obviously a popular area. The concrete building however was set about five metres back from the path on a steep grassy incline, and McKenzie could immediately see that foot traffic close to the building would be minimal. In fact, most people would not even notice the building from the park, with their being no real reason to climb the hill to see it.
The building was just part of the scenery.
It had probably always been there, looking quite official, with no one ever challenging its purpose.
It also had easy access to it from a nondescript road which hardly anyone ever used, and no one saw or paid attention to.
A few metres away from the building to the right, a little further down the steep incline that led down to the path and the pond, a clump of weeds, shrubs and trees hid a large pipe that partially emerged from the ground, and from which a steady trickle of water emanated and ran down a tiny stream into the pond below.
Brown had spotted it, and pointed out that this was most likely the end of the pipe that Galbraith had reported as running through the duct then disappearing into the ground.
“I would take a guess that this whole area was probably very marshy before they built the school, and even once they cleared it and then started building, keeping it dry was probably a problem. From what Galbraith said, and from studying that map, the whole campus seems to be criss-crossed with drainage pipes. When it rains it must get very wet, with a lot of surface runoff to deal with. It’s only a trickle now, but there’s probably a lot of water coming out that pipe when it rains. My guess is that they built the system to drain the ground, then elaborated on it to keep the ground dry and stable when they built the school.” Brown mused. “Sorry, my dad’s an engineer.” She said, turning to McKenzie and smiling.
“No, they’re all good thoughts. Can I ask you to talk to the council and find out more about this whole set up? And who had access to this building when the school was in operation? Who would know about this? That’s the key question here.”
“I’ll get right on it after we’ve been inside.”
“Okay, let’s go in.”
Stopping at the entrance, they studied the door for a moment.
The armed response team had managed to kick the door open from the inside, bursting out and breaking the rotten wood around what looked like a new metal padlock and fixing. The padlock was still locked and now hung from a metal support which was no longer attached to the broken door.
“A new padlock, but an old door. Effective in stopping people getting in, but not out!” McKenzie had pointed out. “Make sure that Forensics check that for fingerprints and DNA.” He said to McLeish who stood close by, but who remained unsuited and not able to enter the building.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Switching on their torches, they stepped inside the room.
The first thing that hit them was the stench.
Stale, damp air accosted their nostrils immediately.
Unprotected by the respirators which Galbraith’s team had worn, McKenzie and Brown were exposed to all the delights the tunnel and concrete building had to offer them.
Shining the torch around the building, they found nothing but the table and chairs.
A light fitting hung from the ceiling.
There was a switch on the inside wall, but apart from that no other fittings of any sort.
The ground was concrete, as were the walls. There were no posters, markings or anything of significance.
The trapdoor was the only remarkable object in the room.
A round metal half-circle protruded from the concrete on one side of the hole in the ground, and a heavy padlock was attached to it, closed, but with no key.
Interestingly, when Galbraith had come up from the tunnel, the trapdoor had not been locked shut.
Carefully McKenzie and Brown descended the ladder and disappeared into the gloom beneath.
Here the smell changed. It was no longer just damp, but disgusting.
The smell of rotting human habitation.
Faeces. Urine. Sweat.
Flashing their torches around the room, they found the entrance to the tunnel which carried the pipes, the ladder up into it, and they saw where the pipes disappeared into the ground. The same pipe which presumably emerged on the other side of the wall out into the Figgate Park a few metres away.
To the left, they saw another trapdoor, another padlock which could secure it shut similar to the trapdoor through which they had just come, and another metal ladder which led further down into another chamber.
Following the steps down into the chamber below, they realised that the air they had left behind smelt almost pure in comparison.
The latest chamber was putrid, and they both had to fight the urge to retch.
Finding nothing of significance on the floor or walls, they crossed to the far side of the chamber.
As Galbraith had observed, there was a collection of pipes coming out of the walls, and disappearing into the ground, some chains and padlocks, a few rags or piecing of clothing, and a significant amount of faeces, some now dried, but others looking still slightly moist.
And there were puddles of urine.
There were no signs of any forms of food or drink being consumed by whoever was here. In hostage situations like these it was common to find discarded paper plates, or plastic bottles, or wrappings from junk food. There was no such thing here.
“The victims were kept here, in the dark, probably without food or water, before they were taken along the tunnels to their deaths.” McKenzie voiced what Brown was thinking.
“If they screamed, no one would hear them.”
For a few moments they both stood in silence, absorbing the horror of the scene before them. Memorising as many details as possible.
“Okay, let’s go. I can’t stand this smell any longer. Please, when you speak to Forensics, can you get them to confirm from the faeces and any urine samples how many different people we had here? Was it three, or are we talking more?”
Brown nodded, then turned to go.
“Actually, please, just give me a moment here by myself, Elaine. Just a few moments and I’ll be up.”
“Are we going through the tunnel to the school?”
“Not for now. Galbraith says there’s nothing special along there, and there are quite a few footprints in the dust. Best not disturb anything more unnecessarily. We can have a look later once Forensics have be
en and done their thing.”
“Okay Guv, I’ll meet you outside.”
McKenzie watched her disappear up the ladder, then turned round again to face the pipes and where the victims had been shackled and kept prisoner for the last days of their lives.
McKenzie needed a few moments alone to process an uncomfortable train of thought. He switched off the torch and stood there in the pitch dark.
When McKenzie and his team had been preparing for the visit to the Reunion Ball, the likelihood was that Mark McRae had been down here, alone, waiting for his death.
If he and his team had discovered the tunnel earlier, McRae may well have been alive now.
He didn’t blame his team for not reading the scale on the plan of the building properly… he had seen it too, and he hadn’t noticed it.
Was there a case for blaming Gary Bruce? Should he have known more about what lay under the ground and not just above it?
Or was DCS Wilkinson to blame for taking back most of his team, and not giving them the resources to do a proper job. Maybe none of this would have happened if he’d had someone focussing on this earlier, not later.
Or was it his own fault? Was he not ultimately to blame?
They’d had the maps, they’d known there was a mystery about the access to the campus, so should he not have insisted on getting hold of the original maps a day earlier? Or immediately?
McKenzie closed his eyes.
A myriad of thoughts ran through his brain. His heart was beating faster, and he was starting to breathe more rapidly.
This was all his fault. Ultimately. He hadn’t done enough. And people had died because of it…
“Guv! Quick! You need to come!” Brown’s voice dragged him back to the present, her tone urgent and pressing.
McKenzie turned to find her hurrying down the metal ladder towards him.
“Anderson’s been trying to call us, but there’s no reception down here. As soon as I got outside he got through to me… ” Brown explained.
“What’s up? What’s happened?” McKenzie questioned.
“It’s Mark McRae’s mobile number. You asked Anderson to contact the phone company… ”
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