Mutant 59

by Kit Pedler

  Fierce anger began to replace self-pity. She leant over and switched on the light and pulled the envelope out. She unfolded it.

  It was a long letter written in a small feminine rather cramped hand. At one point she jumped out of bed and, running into the next room, poured herself a drink, bringing it back to her bedside table before reading the next page.

  It was more than a love letter. It was almost domestic at times. More than that, there was a warm intellectual intimacy between the two of them. The letter was full of little jokes and references to various aspects of science and personalities in the scientific world. Sharon, that was the name at the end, had obviously been on a long tour of Europe sponsored by the Canadian Research Council and had derived much profit from the tour.

  She was also, and here Anne felt a sharp pang of jealousy that made her forget about her injured shoulder, undeniably witty and sophisticated. As she finished the last page the phone started to ring, making her jump. Irrationally she bundled up the letter, put it back under the pillow before picking up the phone.

  It was Kramer.

  ‘Listen, honey, I’m terribly sorry about this evening.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the line. ‘Are you there?’

  Anne’s voice came across small and strangulated, ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you find at the store?’ Kramer didn’t pause for a reply. ‘No, honey, you must be tired. I guess I woke you up. I’m sorry. Three o’clock in the morning is no time for scientific reports.’ His tone was false, jocular, quite unlike the man she knew. ‘I’m afraid I’m stuck up here. I’ve just finished a conference. Won’t be home tonight. See you later tomorrow. OK, honey?’

  Finally she asked the Question: ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he said, ‘I’m up in Cambridge. Now I won’t keep you awake any more. Goodnight, honey. God bless!’

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Anne, and he had clicked off the receiver before she had finished the ‘night’.

  She leant back in bed, suddenly feeling weak and drained. She looked at the letter again. It was postmarked the day before and the writer had said that she would be phoning him at the office. The inference was obvious and somehow, now that the worst was out, she felt much more at ease. She raised the envelope, turned it over and glanced again at the address on the back, Dr Sharon Gerrard. Gerrard? That name, of course, the tall rather shy Canadian who had taken her to the toy department that afternoon.

  She thought of the man who had so carefuly examined her shoulder and who was so obviously attracted to her. There was something familiar about his face, his sloping wide shoulders, his long body, Yves Montand, that was it. He looked something like Yves Montand, not a close resemblance, his hair was lighter in colour, but enough to give one the vague feeling that one had seen him before.

  She remembered hearing that his marriage had broken up. Kramer had been very friendly with him out in Canada and had invited him over. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed. The letters had started arriving the moment Kramer had returned from his Canadian trip. Wait a minute … he had stayed with the Gerrards during his three-month sojourn there.

  For the first time Anne felt the real pain of hurt pride. Although they had both been steadily growing away from each other for the last two years, she had never thought that he had been having an affair during the early, euphoric stage of her marriage. It was horrible. It was a betrayal of everything: of their plans, their ideals, of the future – everything.

  And what about Gerrard? Had Kramer broken his marriage up? And then hired him? Her mind was racing round in circles. The large gin she had gulped down was beginning to work and the strain beginning to tell. She drifted off into a broken, restless sleep.

  She woke at nine the next morning feeling tired and feverish. Her arm stiff but otherwise a little improved now that the bruise had come out on her shoulder.

  As she dressed, her doubts of the night before gave place to a firm determination. She would have it out with him that evening. Anything was better than the empty limbo of the last two years. In a way the discovery of his infidelity was almost a relief. It was better to face a live flesh and blood antagonist than the feeling that he had simply lost interest.

  What about Gerrard. Should she tell him? What good would it do? Were they divorced? They were certainly separated and had been for some considerable time. She felt warm towards him. He had been conned, just as she had. For the first time a trace of a smile passed across her lips, if one had to join forces, she could do a lot worse than the tall, attractive scientist.

  Later she phoned Gerrard at the lab to ask about the results of the tests on the plastic gears. He told her of Wright’s decision to put off the tests. He also told her of the signal failure in the tube and that he was going down to investigate the next morning. She pleaded to go with him and, after a surprised hesitation, he agreed. He wasn’t quite sure what his motivation was, perhaps it was to reinforce his position with the group by having the boss’s wife down with him. He had no intention of telling any of the group where he was going until he returned with the actual samples taken from the insulation. Or, perhaps, it was the thought of meeting Anne again.

  That evening Anne, braced for the confrontation and with gin bottle to hand, dressed carefully in her best silk lounging suit, waited for Kramer.

  Three hours went by. She got quite drunk on the gin, changed into a negligée and then burst into hopeless giggles at the theatricality of waiting for a husband to come home with an accusing letter on the table between them.

  Later she grew sober, cold, frightened and changed into a nightdress and dressing-gown. By eleven o’clock she had a throbbing headache and felt sick.

  At eleven-thirty the phone rang, it was Kramer.

  This time his voice was almost brusque, formal.

  ‘Sorry, honey, not a chance of getting back.’ He sounded tired, overworked. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’m snowed up here, right over my eyes. Can’t come back until tomorrow. You understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anne faintly. Earlier in the evening she could have coped, answered him and said something, but now she felt shrivelled, cold and sick. Her voice was almost a whisper.

  ‘Well, there it is,’ said Kramer. I’ll see you tomorrow. Now take care of yourself, baby.’ He rang off.

  There was too much to think of, too much to contemplate. Anne went up to bed and, against the advice of her doctor, took a couple of sleeping tablets.

  The last thing she remembered before going to sleep was to put on some sensible clothes to go down the underground with Gerrard the following morning.

  The next morning Anne rose early. Sleep had sorted out her confused jumble of thoughts. Her mind was clear. She dressed, went into the living-room and sat down at the table and wrote a letter to Kramer.

  As always, her upbringing and her lifetime habit of concealing her feelings showed in the letter. It was terse, brief and to the point. It showed little, if any, feeling. She knew he had been unfaithful over a period of years. It was a betrayal of their marriage. She did not wish to continue that marriage. She was sure that he would find better satisfaction elsewhere, and only in this last sentence did she betray a little sprig of true feeling.

  Before she sealed it up she looked it over hastily. It was short, cold and to the point. If he’d wanted to use it as evidence in a divorce, she reflected bitterly, it would give a good picture of an unfeeling, cold wife. There was no time to consider that now. The decision had to be made. She sealed the envelope and put it on the mantelpiece.

  Outside the front door she flagged down a taxi to take her to her meeting with Gerrard and Slayter.

  Seven

  ‘We go down this way,’ Holden, general maintenance manager of the London Underground, jumped lightly off the platform and turned to offer his hand and arm to Anne Kramer. One by one they followed her down from the platform and stood by the electric rail.

  Holden glanced at his watch. �
�It’s only a shuttle line for the rush hour. No more trains are there, Station Master?’ He turned to the rather squat middle-aged man standing beside him in uniformed cap. His face was a blotchy red from high blood pressure and chronic bronchitis. He was breathing stertorously from the exertion.

  ‘Last one was ten-ten, sir.’

  Holden turned back to the others. ‘Good, let’s make our way then.’ He was carrying a heavy electric torch which he now pointed into the tunnel ahead. The station master had turned the service lights on from the switch box on the platform and the tunnel curved blackly away from them, the ribs picked out by a succession of pallid naked bulbs.

  ‘Careful as you go.’ Holden turned back to the others. ‘The current is still on.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ Slayter looked across at him.

  ‘Only if you fall between these two rails.’ He pointed: ‘That’s the conductor rail, the one in the centre here is the earth. You have to span the two in order to get a shock.’

  Anne grasped rather nervously at Gerrard’s arm.

  ‘This way.’ Holden started leading the way along the track followed by Slayter, Gerrard and Anne with the station master bringing up the rear. After a few yards they had left the comforting, familiar brightness of the station with its posters and white tiles and were in the dark oppressive atmosphere of the tunnel. The air was comparatively cool, cooler than Gerrard had expected, hadn’t he read somewhere that deep installations stayed at an even temperature all year round, cool in summer and warm in winter? The air seemed loaded with a dank fustiness. There was a strong, steady draught.

  Holden led the way ahead, occasionally pointing out obstacles and lighting them with his torch.

  ‘Here we are, I believe,’ said Holden, glancing around. ‘Right, Station Master?’

  The station master nodded breathlessly. ‘Yes, over there.’ He pointed at the far side of the tunnel.

  They had arrived at a junction where two lines crossed. One line was obviously long out of commission. The tunnel was bricked up to the roof with a strong steel door blocking the way. Diagonally opposite, the line ran into a narrow, obviously disused tunnel. In contrast to the bright metal of the main lines, the others were rusty. There was an air of crumbling decay about the entrance which made Anne shiver.

  ‘Over here.’ Holden led the way across to where the line led up to the blank bricked-in wall. Beside the heavy door there was a large mass of cables and some cast iron switch boxes, all covered in a thick mantle of dust. The party crossed from the main line and the station master switched on another light over the fuse boxes.

  Slayter stepped forward and very cautiously touched the insulation on the top cables with the tip of a pencil. It pulled away wet and tacky. He raised his fingers to his nose and sniffed. There was a smell reminiscent of decaying meat – with an underlying hint of ammonia.

  Gerrard took a haversack from his shoulder, unpacked some specimen jars and carefully started taking samples of the melted plastic with a nickel spatula.

  ‘How far does it extend?’ he asked Holden.

  ‘It’s hard to say. We’ve got a gang of men doing an examination of the entire area. So far it seems to be limited to this particular junction but we can’t be sure.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Anne. In the distance they could hear a deep rumbling, steadily growing louder. Anne nervously stepped back a pace.

  ‘Quite all right miss, you’re quite safe here, it’s in the other tunnel.’

  The rumbling grew louder and, looking along the tunnel, they could see the fast-approaching lights of a train. The next instant it was upon them, hurtling past with a shattering blast of air. The lights from the carriages flashed in their faces. The tunnel shook to the rattle of the wheels on the rails. Then abruptly it was gone and the noise died away again leaving the fusty air and the torch beams in the darkness.

  ‘Do you think it’ll be progressive?’ said Slayter. ‘I mean if the insulation falls away, the wires will begin to short.’

  ‘You’re the expert, aren’t you?’ said Holden sharply.

  Slayter fell silent and both men looked at Gerrard. Gerrard felt uneasy. Why the hell hadn’t he left Wright to clear up his own problems? He was being asked to pronounce on a subject he knew nothing about.

  ‘We’ll have to take these samples back to the lab and estimate the reaction rate of …’ he paused, ‘of whatever it is that’s causing the breakdown. I don’t see any immediate danger.’ He continued gently layering off the softened plastic with the spatula and dropping separate pieces into the specimen jars. These he carefully sealed and put away in his haversack.

  Anne brought out a small automatic camera and began to take flash pictures of the melted insulation and general area around it.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t use those without permission,’ said Holden.

  ‘We’re not going to publish them, we’re going to try to solve your problem,’ said Anne rather tautly. She adjusted the lens for a close-up and took a picture of part of the cable where the insulation was badly affected showing the bare copper core. ‘We’ll need them to locate where each sample came from.’

  ‘How long will you be, then?’ asked the station master, looking across at Gerrard.

  ‘I’m finished.’

  The station master nodded to Holden. ‘Well, sir, if you don’t mind, we ought to be getting on.’

  ‘Seen all you want to see?’ Holden turned to Slayter.

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Good, then we’ll press on.’

  The station master, who was becoming increasingly restless, shone the torch back along the tunnel. They followed in single file.

  Suddenly, without any warning, the tunnel appeared to move violently up and down. The concrete of the track slapped against their feet, throwing them down on the track.

  Then there was a rapidly growing rumble. Then a series of massive explosions. After each blast the walls of the tunnel shook. Segments of the concrete and metal lining distorted and pieces crashed down from the roof. The precise circular ribs of the tunnel flexed and whipped as if they were made of rubber.

  As they got to their feet in the billowing dust there was a series of more distant explosions and finally silence, except for the clattering of small pieces of debris dropping away from the tunnel roof.

  ‘God, what’s happened?’ said Slayter. As he spoke there was another explosion, this time slightly farther away. The tunnel shook again and they could feel a deep shuddering vibration under their feet.

  ‘Quick,’ said Holden, ‘back to the platform, come on!’ He hurried back along towards the station. As they followed, the lights along the tunnel flickered once and went out.

  Ahead, a train was still visible in the station where the dim, flickering emergency lights had automatically come on. They could hear shouts and the anxious cries.

  As they reached the station, they heard the hiss of compressed air as the conductor released the doors and the anxious passengers began crowding onto the platform. Then came two more distant explosions. Again the station and the tunnel shook and flexed.

  A woman screamed. The passengers began pushing through the exit tunnels leading to the escalators.

  ‘We’ll have to make our way through the train,’ said Holden. He leapt up on the step of the cab at the front and started to unfasten the driving compartment door. As he did so, there was another rumbling crack of thunder followed by a great blast of air that shook the whole train.

  From near total darkness the station flared into brilliant light. Ahead of them the station and the far end of the train were enveloped in a boiling mass of flames.

  Holden tore open the second door into the carriage and stumbled out onto the platform followed by Slayter and Gerrard.

  There was total panic. Passengers were running desperately in all directions, clawing past each other, trying vainly to escape the spurting mass of flames raging out of the tunnel mouth at the far end of the station. Children and the elderly w
ere trampled underfoot in the blind stampede.

  A woman stood transfixed in horror as her maxi-coat caught fire and flared up round her body.

  An elderly man carrying a polythene container of paraffin suddenly exploded in a ball of flame as the container burst and the contents ignited.

  A man in City dress – all reserve gone – hacked and kicked his way into the crowd, his clothes burning on his back.

  The dry wooden frames of the old Metropolitan line coaches flared up like tinder, the glass windows cracking and splintering in the furnace heat. People fell like blackened dolls as the flames washed over them. They writhed like ants doused in petrol and then finally lay still in awkward, charred poses.

  Anne fell back through the doorway of the coach and cannoned into a group of three people who were huddled against the far side of the coach.

  At the far end of the platform, two figures grotesquely blackened with bright ladders of flame still licking up from their clothing staggered towards the others.

  Shielding their faces against the intense heat Gerrard and Slayter started towards them, Gerrard put out his hand to grasp the hand of the nearest man who was staggering towards him. As he touched he recoiled in horror. The flesh on the man’s hand came away from his fingers like a crumbling glove. The man, sightless and blackened, suddenly crumpled and fell forward.

  The other figure suddenly disappeared into a gust of flame which licked around Slayter. He darted back, his eyebrows and hair singed.

  For a few seconds more Gerrard dragged the remains of the man farther down the platform but one glance told him it was pointless. He retreated with Slayter to join the others at the far end of the platform.

  They leapt back into the train. The leading man, a tall burly, authoritative figure, went over to the blonde girl and sat on the other side of Anne.

  ‘You all right, Wendy?’ he said.

  The girl opened her eyes and looked across and nodded weakly.

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ The man looked across at Anne. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’ He was a man probably used to command rather than request, there was an air of easy authority about his movements. They lifted the girl down the steps back onto the line followed by the others. The station master hung irresolutely inside the front coach of the now furiously burning train.