The Evil Beneath

by A J Waines

  ‘But DCI Madison wanted to get as far as the floodgates,’ I said. ‘I know he wanted to check the whole area.’

  ‘Not today, he won’t. We’ve got to move. NOW!’ He turned round and took the lead. I wasn’t going to argue. I quickened my pace, forcing my legs against the water. Colin was right, there was an immediate change in the atmosphere. The wind was fuller and the noise in the distance was turning into a low rumble. The air-quality shifted and ominous gusts of fetid wind whipped past us. I retched into my rubber glove at the sudden increase in stench. The water level had already risen an inch or two and thrusting my legs against it was making my thighs ache.

  The floor beneath us was slightly concave and with the quickening flow, I was having to focus on staying right in the centre to make sure I didn’t lose my footing. In the next two minutes, the water climbed to within three inches of the top of my rubber waders. Suddenly this didn’t feel like such a good idea anymore.

  Ahead of us, I could see a cone of light radiating from street level, looking like a scene out of Star Trek. Only about twenty meters to go. It wouldn’t come soon enough. The water was surging and swelling, getting harder and harder to push against. Without warning a weight fell against me from behind and I staggered forward. Like a domino, I fell against Colin in front of me, but being of sturdy build he barely shifted. He came to a halt and turned round.

  ‘You okay?’ he shouted, above the increasing roar of gushing water.

  ‘Yeah. Someone slipped,’ I said, ‘but we’re okay.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ shouted the man who had fallen against me. ‘I’m PC Craig - Jack - by the way. I thought I was going to be down for one horrible moment.’

  Colin was beckoning us all to move faster. ‘Where are the last two?’ he shouted over me. He must have meant Brad and the man with him. They had pulled away from the rest of us on the first leg of our search.

  I didn’t dare look back. I couldn’t risk losing my balance. Colin flipped a switch on his radio. ‘Come on, guys,’ he said. ‘Let’s not hang around.’

  We reached the ladders and Colin started to climb. Once he was out, it was my turn. The water was gurgling fast now, wanting to take me with it. I stuffed the torch in my pocket and just as I placed my foot on the bottom rung, I heard a cry from behind me and twisted round. Jack had lost his balance again and this time he fell, splashing facedown into the gushing mass. The water was rapidly rising and he started coughing and spluttering.

  Colin was almost on the surface, out of ear-shot. I’d lost my footing and air-cycled madly, trying to find the rung again. Once I was secure, there was no question in my mind. I had to go back. I retreated down the ladder and waded back into the main tunnel. The water was now up to my armpits. Brad and his mate, behind us, had still not emerged around the final bend.

  Jack was trying to stand up, but the torrent of water got the better of him. I didn’t hesitate. I waded further in and reached out to grab his arm. He was thrashing around and I couldn’t get a firm grip. I shuffled a couple of steps further in, the water reaching my chin. There was no other thing for it, I had to start swimming. For goodness sake, don’t get this dreadful stuff in your mouth.

  I clamped my lips shut and thrust hard with my legs, managing to get as far as Jack’s head. He was trying to keep his face out of the water and I reached over, grabbing him around the shoulders. I dragged him onto his back and started kicking furiously again, back towards the cone of light.

  Then I saw it.

  It shot out from behind the entry ladder and lodged against Jack’s shoulder. It was the smell that gave it away. A putrid rotting smell that was even worse than the stench that belonged in the sewer.

  ‘Shit!’ I screamed, trying not to get water in my mouth. ‘It’s her. She’s here.’

  An arm came from nowhere and flung itself around Jack’s neck as if in a drunken greeting. The hand was black and curled like a claw. Jack reared up when he realised what I was shouting about, his eyes bulging, his mouth twisting into a petrified grimace. He flinched and tried to pull himself out of the corpse’s path, but in his struggle he ended up sending his head under the water and gulping down more mouthfuls. He sounded like he was choking now in between terrified blubbering sounds.

  Getting Jack out was my priority. I had to work the bloated corpse loose, tugging at the hood of the jacket, to pull it away. The body had the pliability of rotten fruit and felt like it was about to break apart. The jacket, zipped up at the front, was probably holding it together. Thankfully, I was too preoccupied with Jack to see her face. Suddenly she surged forward, as though she was in a rush to be somewhere.

  Once Jack was free, I did my utmost to keep him afloat, thrashing with my legs and my free arm, fighting the fierce thrust of the water, to reach the ladder.

  Eventually I reached something solid. I bundled Jack up the concrete steps into the shallow water at the base of the ladder, just as Colin was coming back down again, wanting to know what was taking us so long.

  ‘Jack’s been in,’ I shouted, hurriedly, ‘and the body’s turned up.’ I pointed to the dark shape fast disappearing away from us.

  Jack leant against the ladder and threw up as Brad and his colleague emerged around the final bend, the water now nearly reaching their shoulders. I waved at them on tiptoe and pointed frantically at the shape in the water, watching it bob and rock and career towards them.

  ‘They’ve got the message,’ shouted Colin, ‘But, we’re getting out - right now.’

  At this stage, the ledge at the base of the ladder was fast filling up. The roar was deafening and we had to communicate in signals from then on. Colin helped me drag Jack, once all in white, now in nothing but brown, up the ladders.

  I hesitated when it was my turn to climb out on to the surface. I wanted to wait to make sure Brad got out safely, knowing he and his colleague also had the corpse to contend with. Colin, however, grabbed my arm and hauled me out, taking my brief halt as a sign of flagging energy.

  ‘You alright?’ he said, out of breath.

  ‘Yes. Fine.’ I tore off the gloves and sank down to the pavement. Two police officers in abseiling kit were crouched over the hole with torches. Colin joined them.

  ‘Are the last two okay?’ I croaked. ‘Have they reached the ladder?’

  ‘They’re on their way out,’ cried Colin, straightening up. ‘You did a good job there,’ he said, patting my shoulder.

  ‘What about you?’ he said, squatting down beside PC Craig. The constable responded by vomiting again, narrowly missing Colin’s boots.

  Jack looked terrified, bedraggled and filthy. I looked down and realised I must look the same. Bystanders started backing away from us, repelled by the smell. Colin and several police offers were instructing them to move back even further, knowing that something far worse was on its way.

  A man from Thames Water handed me a towel and a bottle of water to pour over my face and hair. Jack, who had by now got to his feet, was being sick again.

  ‘He’s swallowed a lot,’ I said to a paramedic who was on standby. ‘He’s going to need some treatment.’ I was constantly watching the hole in the pavement, waiting for the moment when three shapes, instead of two, broke the surface.

  ‘What about you?’ she said.

  I ran the clean water over my lips. ‘I didn’t take any down,’ I said.

  ‘Wash your mouth out with this a few times…’ She handed me a bottle of grey-coloured liquid. ‘And you’d better come to the hospital, just in case. Don’t want you picking up any E. coli infections.’ She handed me some antiseptic wipes to clean my face.

  An officer from one of the police vans brought over a folded grey blanket and left it beside the manhole. Another carried over a barrier wrapped in orange tarpaulin and erected it around the opening in an attempt to provide some element of dignity for what was to follow.

  There was a hush all around. Then I saw the top of a white helmet and Brad’s colleague came out first. He was dragging
the dark dripping bundle, craning his neck away from the smell. A horrified gasp rippled through the crowd. Brad followed, the same strained and exhausted look on his face. They laid the body down inside the makeshift enclosure and a paramedic laid the blanket over it. I didn’t quite cover her face. Her puffy skin was purple and waxy. It looked like she’d been down there for several days.

  A team sprang into action and the body was quickly shifted onto a stretcher and taken out of sight into the back of an ambulance.

  I was exhausted and still had to remove all the gear I’d pinched, but all I could focus on was the smell that was still lurking in the street. The unmistakeable gangrenous stink - way beyond the sticky sweet smell of a dead rabbit. I had a feeling that this final trace of her – whoever she was - would be with me for many weeks to come. It seemed even more of a tragedy that this was the only thing I knew about her.

  I turned round just as Brad was walking away from the ambulance. He saw me instantly, a look of confusion, then anger, consuming his face. Confirmation that he hadn’t known I was there.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing,’ he said, pulling me by my arm away from the others.

  ‘Did I break the law?’ I broke free, rubbing my bicep.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did I break the law?’

  He stared at his boots unable to meet my gaze, his hands on his hips, bearing his teeth.

  ‘You hampered a police operation,’ he said, his eyes wild with fury, his damp hair curling with perspiration.

  ‘Did I hamper it?’

  ‘Well…I don’t know…but if you were down there, you were a liability. I should arrest you.’ He leant towards me, waving his rubber glove in my face. ‘You shouldn’t have been here.’

  ‘DCI Madison?’ A man wearing a Thames Water bib was calling him and Brad turned away. I stripped myself of the gear I’d borrowed and made my way over to the second ambulance.

  It wasn’t until later that afternoon, when word must have got out, that Brad phoned.

  ‘I heard about PC Craig,’ he said. He sounded contrite, but a touch of belligerence was still loitering in his voice.

  ‘Oh.’ Nonchalant. No big deal.

  ‘He said you saved his bacon.’

  I laughed. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘It was still a very bad idea.’

  ‘I know. I couldn’t help myself.’ I decided to move on. ‘Was there any sign of William or…Leyton Meade…Andrew..?’

  ‘No. We’re waiting for an ID on the body. Definitely a young female.’

  A short silence followed.

  ‘Is PC Craig all right?’

  ‘Bruised ego, but apart from that, he’s fine. Craig was on our list as a good swimmer,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened to him.’

  ‘Water’s like that. It’s unpredictable. He slipped and started to panic.’

  ‘You’re making a habit of this.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Rescuing people who are drowning.’ I didn’t make the connection. ‘Those girls you saved in the Lake District,’ he said.

  ‘Ah. Yes. You see, I’m a pretty useful person to have around. I’m surprised they let you go down, given you’re not a swimmer yourself.’

  There was a brief silence, long enough for me to grasp that he hadn’t told the team. Or he’d lied.

  ‘I think perhaps we’re both guilty of a misdemeanour,’ I said, allowing the slightest hint of smugness to flavour my voice.

  ‘No point, I suppose, in getting you to promise that nothing like this will ever happen again?’ he said.

  ‘You’re right. No point.’

  He sounded like he was going to say something else.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Not sure I should mention it.’

  I tutted. ‘Come on, Brad. Put me out of my misery.’

  ‘It’s Andrew.’ His voice was clipped.

  ‘Oh, no. What’s happened?’

  ‘Looks like there’s a connection…between Andrew and William Jones.’

  I couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘I don’t understand. How?’

  ‘Andrew has been teaching at an evening class. A painting course. William is in his group.’

  I could feel my face snap back to the expression of dread that had been its natural position all day. I stared at the carpet unable to move. William was in Andrew’s painting class. They knew each other. I thought again about Andrew’s gruesome pictures of the river. I’d thought that had all been explained. Now I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t hear Brad end the call.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I stayed in on Saturday night, watching vacuous DVDs. I kept going to the window to watch the rain. Images of the underground passageways I’d walked along filling up with more and more water played on my mind. Visions of the corpse looming out of the darkness. I traced the wobbling course of the rain drops, as they made their way down the glass and wondered if the police had found out by now who the victim was.

  It was the early hours of Sunday when I finally got to bed. As soon as I sank my head down I knew I couldn’t sleep. My body was exhausted with the emotional turmoil, but when I closed my eyes all the lights were still on and my brain was firing on all cylinders. Who was the dead woman? Could we have prevented it? Would there be another creepy connection with me?

  I had an awful sense of foreboding in the pit of my stomach that felt like rotting fish. I went to the kitchen to fetch a bucket and stood it beside the bed. I couldn’t trust the soup I’d had earlier to stay where it was.

  I tried picturing sheep, but they wouldn’t come out to be counted, one by one. Instead they huddled under a tree, refusing to budge. I let them be. I couldn’t blame them. I hadn’t known dread like this - ever - in my entire life. I didn’t expect sheep to save me at a time like this.

  I listened to the occasional passing car, hissing in the rain. It was 3.15. I didn’t want to be in the dark, so I put the bedside lamp on and then, restless, I got up to make a cup of tea. Sometimes just hearing the kettle come to the boil is comforting, but not this time. I sat on the edge of the bed and breathed into the hot steam, hoping it would somehow scorch away the evil. I finally put out the light at nearly half-past four.

  * * *

  Sunday came and went. I heard nothing. Then Monday morning came round again, dragging itself out of the dawn; heavy, dull and still drizzling. The last thing I felt like doing was listening to other people’s problems, but I had a full day of clients and feeling grim didn’t seem a good enough excuse to let them all down.

  Once I got into the swing of things, I didn’t feel so bad. There really is truth in the notion that focusing on other people’s problems tends to make your own retreat for a while.

  At the end of the day, there was a message waiting for me from Brad.

  ‘Can you come into the station, first thing tomorrow?’ he said, when I rang him back. ‘There’s something I’d like you to see.’

  I didn’t have enough energy to ask what it was about - no doubt it would involve the recent victim - so I just agreed and tried to make myself eat something.

  On Tuesday morning, Brad led me to the incident room, his shirt crumpled, his sleeves rolled up. As I followed him, I caught the same musky aroma I’d noticed when we’d embarked on our short-lived intimate moment, which now felt like months ago. I wondered if Brad had forgotten all about it, by now. He’d certainly not referred to it, but then he did have rather a lot on his mind - and I had to admit, some of my actions probably hadn’t helped.

  We stopped at the white board dedicated to Operation Chicane. Another photograph had been added to the three already up there. It was hard to tell whether the disfigured shape was a person or an inanimate bundle of sodden clothes. Beside it was a small snapshot from happier times, showing a teenager with braces on her teeth, her hair tied back into a ponytail.

  ‘Suzanne Mahoy, seventeen,’ he said. ‘Been dead about five days, according to the post-mortem. We think she was the victim
intended for Kew on November 9th. Recognise her?’

  I forced myself to look at the smiling face and leant against the nearest desk, shaking my head. The place had filled up even more since I was last here: plastic crates and boxes of files were stacked in every corner and there was a heightened buzz of activity.

  ‘We think she’d been in the sewer for several days,’ he said, stretching his arms over his head. He invited me to sit on a spongy typists’ chair; the kind you pump up and down, but I preferred to remain on my feet. ‘Must have got the body down long before we went over there. Witnesses said there were gas works on New Bridge Street on the twelfth, on the exact spot where we got access to the sewer, but British Gas says no work was scheduled to take place there that day. They did admit, however, that equipment - red barriers and the like - had been stolen a few days earlier from a nearby street, but they didn’t report it. Happens all the time, apparently.’

  ‘She was down there all along…’

  ‘Yeah. We found some frayed elastic attached to the belt of her jacket. She’d been tied - perhaps to a tethering ring set into the brick - just upstream from the ladders we went down. Killer must have hoped that, with the rain and the high water-flow down there, she’d eventually break loose and head towards the Thames on the fifteenth.’

  ‘We found her on the fourteenth. He must have got his calculations wrong by at least twelve hours,’ I said, cynically.

  ‘There must have been more rainfall than he - they - thought. The weather was one thing they couldn’t control. And they hadn’t banked on us getting down there.’

  He dragged his hands through his hair. It was lank and could have done with a wash and he seemed to have extra folds under his eyes. He must have been at the station all night.

  ‘It’s still a considerable achievement to pull off.’ Brad yawned and didn’t bother to hide it. ‘Jones might have mental problems, but from the papers we found in his flat, he’s got an amazing brain.’

  ‘Where was he?’ I said.

  ‘Didn’t leave his flat all night. Went to the corner shop this morning…’