Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  I suddenly realise I am standing in the way of the doors and people are barging their way past me. I move aside. When the last person has exited, a man waves me to go ahead of him, but I shake my head and tell him, “I’m in the wrong place”. He frowns gently but I turn away and make my way off the platform.

  It is only when I reach the surface that I feel I can breathe again. I gulp in so much air that I feel dizzy. At the same time, I feel so alive. Although I believed killing Daniel brought me to life, I know now that facing up to everything has made me alive again. No matter how hard this all is, I am living a normal emotional and complicated life. My feelings are more realistic now.

  I am aware now that I am connected to only some things in this giant maze of a city, not connected to everything. I can’t see emotions in the air anymore. I can’t save that family from implosion. I can’t make up for the murder by joining their lives. I can’t blame anyone but myself.

  In a sense, I am limiting my world again but it feels good. By realising my limitations, I am setting myself free again. I am putting the objects and people and thoughts back in the ’right’ places. When I look at the street now, I am fascinated by the shop signs, the signs telling people what to do and what not to do, the traffic lights, the paving slabs set in lines – how controlled everything is and how everything is there to warn and instruct.

  This is the world I left behind several years ago. It is coming back to me like a lover I rejected, still enthralled by me. I am remembering its beauty, the way it merges together and functions. Having imagined my own messages for so long, I realise they are naturally here all around me. Yet, I have ignored them. Now their messages are like kind words sent to a recovering relative.

  I can never rewind time and take back my actions. It is too late to save Daniel but I can save myself. I can feel regret. I could go as far as to report myself to the police but I am not brave enough and I can’t see the benefit. After all, what I did is exactly what Daniel planned. Can you be a real murderer if someone led you to do it?

  Beginning to shiver, I’m suddenly aware there is a sharp wind whipping at my face. I pull my coat around myself and begin to walk away from the station. Looking back a few times, I see the cars continuing to jam and crawl and argue. I see the people passing but not noticing one another. I decide that life is continuing for them so it should continue for me. He is gone. Not even the platform remembers him.

  48 The Beginning

  Thom misses Sarah by only moments. He may not have seen her anyway, as he is in a trance, his feet leading him to the one place he hasn’t allowed himself to investigate.

  The first time he is aware of anything, he is standing in front of the barriers, which won’t open. Thom thinks for a moment and decides it’s money he needs. Digging a few coins from his pocket, he slots them into the machine, buying the first option he sees. He hasn’t come here to travel; he’s come to see the place where his ‘brother’ died. The brother he never owned, the brother he has lost before he even had him. Can this all be true? Can the woman who saved him after his parents’ death really be half of what made him?

  Thom feels nauseated whenever he even tries to think about it. He had spent the entire night walking through the city, darting through the backstreets, believing he could hide from himself.

  He shakes the thought of his ‘Aunty’ away and gets through the barrier. The world can’t get through though. In the station, it is only he and Daniel. This is what Daniel wanted, to show him the truth, to punish them all for their lies.

  He follows the signs for the platform. He remembers reading the platform direction in the paper and thinking it an odd addition. It was probably just to explain to everyone why the tube service was disrupted that day…

  As Thom takes each step, he begins to shiver. He thinks it’s the wind but he realises it’s his legs softening and failing him. He feels humiliated, letting some people pass while he recovers himself. Was Daniel afraid? Did he clutch onto the banister with sweaty hands? Did he consider changing his mind?

  Thom decides that he must move quickly or he won’t get there at all. He almost runs down the last ten steps and lands on the platform he has been running from since the day of Daniel’s funeral. He hasn’t been in a station for a long time. Yet it looks the same as most others. There are people dotted along it, a countdown machine reporting on the train destinations and times, large posters faded by dust and soot, an empty track.

  The track is a snake that can sliver to life at any moment. It can take him into its dark mouth. It seems to wrap its chain-like body around his chest and leave him gulping for air. He leans against the wall and tells himself to breathe. When he finally feels calmer, his hand comes back to him covered in dirt. Like the lock up, he will leave dirtier and more damaged than when he came.

  “Are you okay?” a woman, who is standing several feet away, asks. Thom nods hastily and moves hurriedly past her, further down the platform. Thom realises then that he doesn’t have a clue where Daniel jumped. Was it that end nearer the entrance? Or this end nearer where the train comes from? Thom wishes there is some kind of marking, or a sign: This is where he jumped! Yet, there is nothing that can tell him anything about that day.

  This is useless, he spits in his mind. He stamps his foot so hard that some people give him a sideways look, too afraid to stare in case he becomes vicious.

  The wind begins to increase and Thom hears a faint roar. If he really concentrates, he can already feel the platform vibrating. The increasing rush revives the crowded air. He closes his eyes and thinks about the lights of the train, the people inside who don’t know what awaits them, the driver thinking about his dinner plans, and Daniel.

  The roar gathers momentum, the sound making Thom’s heart bang to its rhythm. He is no longer a person; he is a beat, a heart standing alone with its scars and holes. The train is speaking to him in a language that only he can hear.

  Thom is hypnotised by the train. Thom is captured by the track. He doesn’t realise how enthralled he is until he feels the train whip just past his nose, a fraction of a millimetre away. He is being dragged back by something. He tries to pull forward but he can’t escape. He has a knot in the middle of his back and it won’t release him.

  “What are you doing?” a voice cries out by his ear. As the doors of the train slide open, Thom finds himself sagged against some-one. The other people on the platform stare at him; the passengers coming off the train step over him and look back.

  Thom pushes away from the person he is lying on and sits up. He turns to see a man, breathless and still clutching onto him. He is wearing a luminous waistcoat and Thom recognises the London Underground uniform beneath it. His face is wet with sweat. Thom is sweating himself, his t-shirt clinging to his body.

  “What are you doing?” he cries again. The crowd of people who have got off the train have gone away, but some linger to watch the two men tangled on the floor; unaware they have just avoided screeching breaks and chaos. The doors of the train have snapped shut and the train is now moving off.

  “I’m sorry”, Thom mumbles to the man. He can’t force himself to stand up. The man finally lets go of Thom’s coat, satisfied he can no longer harm himself, and gives him an encouraging pat instead.

  “I’m Sam”, the man tells Thom and offers his clammy hand.

  Thom thinks about refusing but decides he is just as sweaty, “Thom”.

  “Let’s get you out of here”, Sam says, pulling Thom up. Thom leans on him, like an injured footballer limping from the pitch. Thom leans on this stranger because he feels like he hasn’t got anyone else.

  Sam takes Thom to a door along the platform. Thom has never really noticed these doors before, or not properly anyway and experiences an odd stab of adrenaline thinking about what could be behind it. Yet when Sam struggles with the key and heaves it open, there seems to be nothing spectacular there. There is only a harshly lit corridor that Thom can’t quite see the end of. Sam carries Thom inside and lock
s them in.

  Thom can now see the doorways lining the corridor. There is the sound of a television or a radio coming from one room, the smell of burning toast and the faint hint of smoke hanging in the air. Sam directs Thom to the second door on the left and deposits him on a rundown looking sofa. Thom feels quite comfortable on this, as though a new sofa would offend his state of mind.

  “Tea?” Sam asks. Thom nods and watches the man disappear out of the room. Thom leans into the chair and seems to breathe for the first time since he entered the station. Perhaps for the first time today.

  His whole life is irreversibly changed. There is no way to retrace the steps and go back, no sense in which his existence isn’t different. Everything he thought he was, he is now not. He is not a nephew, not a cousin, not a boyfriend, not an employee, not a detective, not a victim…

  “Here”. Sam appears beside him and hands him a mug. Thom accepts it and wraps his hands around it, letting the warmth of the mug attempt to melt the icicle speared through his heart. Thom knows it is meant to be tea but he can’t taste anything. It could be blood or poison and he wouldn’t be able to distinguish it.

  “Don’t people usually say thanks for saving their life?” Sam jokes, sitting on the arm of the chair. Thom looks up at him, almost amused, wondering why he doesn’t feel thankful.

  “I guess they usually do”. Thom shrugs and rethinks, “thanks for doing that”.

  “So were you going to do it?” Sam says quietly. Thom considers the question for a long time, staring into his tea.

  “I don’t know”, Thom admits. “I didn’t even realise what I was doing”.

  “Someone was hit by a train not long ago”.

  “You saw it?” Thom jumps, spilling a few drops of his drink on his trousers.

  Sam sits upright in his chair. “You sound like you know something about it”.

  “It was my... brother”. Thom exercises the term. He has been an only child all his life, an orphan since twelve. Now he has a brother, a mother, and a half-brother. If only it didn’t all come from lies, he could feel happy about it all. Yet he only feels betrayed and lost. He didn’t even know about him and Daniel being twins until it was too late...

  “Your brother?” Sam gasps. “And what were you doing? Going to join him or something?” Sam’s heroic act is now undermined. Has he merely saved someone who is ready to die?

  “I just came to see where he died. I didn’t plan on anything… like that”.

  “But you were about to do it. You were about a millimetre away!” Sam wriggles, biting his lip hard.

  “I’m a bit of a mess. I have no idea what I was doing”.

  “But what if you’d died?”

  “Then I guess we wouldn’t be here”. Thom shrugs. He even smiles, although it isn’t funny. Sam’s mouth also curls into a small smile in response, not knowing how else to put his face. They fall silent for a few minutes, the trains rumbling on the platforms, the smell of burnt toast weakening.

  “Did you see him die? Were you on the platform?” Thom finally asks after the silence nags him into speech.

  “I was in the surveillance room that day”, Sam tells him. The full stop on his sentence seems so final that Thom’s suspicions instantly swell out of him like a scab forming, forcing him to scratch.

  “So you saw it happen?” Thom looks up at Sam, who is staring into his mug, with an expression as though he is falling into a black pit.

  “I saw it, yes. That’s why I’ve been watching people even more”, Sam confesses. “I don’t want it to happen again”.

  “What did you see, Sam?” Thom asks desperately, appealing to the stranger like he is an old friend. Yet, this man owes him no-thing. And equally Thom knows nothing about this man except what he can see: a broad-shouldered man with a hint of a Jamaican accent, wearing a loose-fitting London Underground uniform, with a wedding ring that clatters against his mug. Does this add up to disclosure?

  “I can’t believe I’m talking to that guy’s brother”. Sam shakes his head.

  “His name was Daniel”, Thom tells him, hoping the personification will appeal to him. Sam nods and exhales heavily.

  “What do you know, Thom?”

  “I know he’s dead, that’s all”. Thom doesn’t tell the entire truth, that Daniel knew about his own death, that he left behind clues to let Thom know. It will only confuse this man if Thom tries to explain.

  “I think I need to show you something”. Sam stands, scratching at his short afro. He puts his mug down on the table. Thom does the same. “Come on”, Sam gestures and leaves the room. Thom scrambles after him.

  He takes Thom further down the corridor, stopping in front of a door. The sign says surveillance room. Sam enters and Thom slowly follows him, the room seeming like a tunnel leading into a deep cavern. Even if he physically exits the room, will he ever be able to really take himself out of here?

  “Do you really want to see this?” Sam asks as he takes a seat in front of a screen. On the screen, people are standing on the escalator, staring ahead or playing on their phones for the last time before they are cut off. Thom meets Sam’s eyes and nods weakly. Does he want this? Does he need this?

  “I didn’t think about a video”, Thom mutters inaudibly, shrinking into himself.

  “I’m sorry”, Sam says, digging under the desk and retrieving a DVD. He checks the date on it as though he is checking which film he recorded from the TV, nodding to himself in agreement. “I may have held onto it for a few days afterwards”. He flashes Thom a guilty look, bowing his head as he pushes the DVD into the machine. “But I gave it to the police last week. Didn’t they call you?”

  Thom guesses that it explains why Aunty Val has only just heard from the police, simply to be brushed off with the words ‘open and shut case’ and ‘suicide’. Thom begins to speak but, as the fuzzy screen flicks on, Thom’s head feels just as fuzzy.

  The platform appears on the screen, a time and date tattooed on the edge of the screen. It says 15:29. It is nearly time. Thom guesses Sam has looked through the footage and recorded only this part. Perhaps he has watched it several times, wondering why Daniel jumped too.

  The camera must be at the far end of the platform, near where the train will soon shoot out of the tunnel. The platform looks crowded. Lots of the people seem to be wearing scarves, hats or a football shirt. If Thom didn’t know better, there would be nothing remarkable about this scene. In fact, it wouldn’t even be worth his attention.

  However, he is searching for Daniel in the crowd. The people look blurry and Thom has to concentrate hard to distinguish them. Yet eventually, he manages to recognise Daniel. Thom finds it strange seeing him again: moving, breathing. Thom has the urge to touch the screen so maybe he can feel Daniel’s life once again. This is his brother, minutes before death. This is his brother, and he hadn’t known.

  Thom focuses hard on Daniel. At a few points, Daniel’s head seems to turn as his curly hair flashes in the camera. As Thom locks his gaze on Daniel, Sam stares at Thom. Strangely, Thom feels safer knowing someone is watching him.

  Thom can hardly understand what he is watching. The clock is rolling ruthlessly fast, indifferent to the fact it is counting down to the moment that Thom will lose Daniel forever. Thom wonders what Daniel had been thinking at this moment. Thom wonders if his legs had ceased up as he waited. Thom wonders if Daniel hesitated. Thom wonders how much longer Daniel would have lived otherwise. Thom wonders and thinks until his mind is a vacuum.

  Thom doesn’t realise he is sitting on the edge of his seat. He is gripping the sides so hard that his hands are turning numb. Yet all he can do is stare at the screen, helpless, wanting to climb inside and pull Daniel back. Why hadn’t he wanted to be Thom’s brother? Why was this a better alternative?

  Then Thom sees it. Some people’s hair has started to move, their clothes flapping from a wind that Thom cannot fully understand. He can’t feel it, and he wants to, more than anything. He wants to have the air rushing to
wards him as Daniel felt it in those few seconds. The only way he could relate was standing on that plat-form before, hoping he could connect to Daniel, too late.

  Then the train is there. 15:32 – his note is two minutes early. And Daniel is falling. In a snap second, Daniel disappears and the train keeps rocketing through the picture. Thom screeches, rocking in his chair but unable to let go. Sam jumps up and switches the screen off. He grabs Thom by the shoulders and tries to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry”, he whines breathlessly.

  “Put it back on”, Thom orders. Sam stands up, his forehead furrowed, putting himself between Thom and the screen.

  “I really don’t think...”

  “Put it on!” Thom shrieks, jumping up and pushing Sam out of the way. He jabs the ’stop’ button and then ’play’ again. It’s 15:29 and Daniel is still alive.

  Thom watches it all again. Thom counts down the longest three minutes. Thom grabs the sides of the screen and is so close his nose is touching. It is almost time when he sees something. Behind Daniel: a person. This is not spectacular at all, being a crowded platform, but Thom knows this person.

  Thom has been fascinated by this person; her strange mechanical voice, her dark curls, her evasive love. The only woman who has kissed them both. She is there. Thom turns and grabs Sam, pointing at her.

  “Do you see her?” he asks desperately, pushing Sam’s head close to the screen.

  “Who?” Sam asks; trying to push back but Thom holds him there.

  “The woman with the black curly hair. Do you see her?” Thom wheezes.

  “Yes”, Sam nods. “I see her”.

  Thom releases Sam. So he isn’t imagining her… She is standing right behind his brother on the day he died. She is there and now she is in Thom’s life. How did she get from this platform to his lips?