Bone Machine (25 page)

Amar pressed a button. ‘Let’s just fast forward here.’ Bars appeared across the screen. The picture speedily swapped daylight
for streetlit darkness. Nothing happened quickly. Then a movement.

‘There,’ said Donovan.

Amar moved his fingers, reversed the picture in slow motion, let it start in real time.

‘Here we go,’ he said.

‘We got sound on this?’ asked Donovan.

‘What do you think?’

They saw two overcoated figures stand at the door, one bulky, one medium-sized. They watched as the bigger one pulled out
a mini battering ram and smashed the door open.

‘Jesus …’ said Donovan.

They heard the alarm go off, saw the action switch to the hallway. The medium-sized man fumbling with the alarm box, the bigger
one ripping it off the wall.

‘One way of disarming it,’ said Peta, trying to hide her horror.

They watched them enter the front room, pull the sofas about.

‘They bein’ real gentle,’ said Jamal curiously. ‘When I broke in somewhere, man, I went apeshit.’

‘When you broke in somewhere?’ Donovan said.

Jamal felt his cheeks colour. ‘All in the past, man, all in the past.’

To a collective gasp from those watching, the two thieves smashed their way into the office.

‘Recognize them?’ asked Peta.

Donovan frowned. ‘Don’t know, something …’

They prised open the filing cabinet, took out Donovan’s file.

‘That’s my stuff!’ he said, pointing at the screen. ‘They’ve taken my stuff!’

They all looked at him, eyes off the screen for a second.

‘Listen!’ said Amar.

He punched in some keys, rewound the action.

‘Watch. Don’t speak.’

They watched silently as the two burglars broke into the office again, crowbarred open the filing cabinet, took out Donovan’s
details. One of them waved the file about, spoke.

‘There,’ said Amar.

‘What did he say?’ said Donovan.

Amar rewound, played with the sound filters. The action played again.

They heard it loud and clear: ‘Fuckin’ jackpot.’ But more than that: the man had looked directly at the hidden camera when
he had said it.

‘Got you,’ said Donovan.

‘D’you recognize him?’ asked Peta.

‘Yeah,’ said Donovan. ‘Decca Ainsley.’

Amar froze the picture. Decca looked at the camera and smiled.

‘Decca Ainsley. Gotcha, you bastard.’

They watched the remaining footage, saw Decca and his associate make off with the desktops. Then sat back on the office chairs,
looked at one another.

‘We gonna tell the police?’ asked Jamal.

Donovan thought it over. ‘Not yet, I don’t think.’ He looked around. ‘Feel free to contradict me, but this is the way I see
it. If Decca Ainsley is breaking into our offices, that means Kovacs knows we’ve got Katya and her brother and is trying to
find out where. And to do that they’re following me.’

‘Or bypassing you and looking through the computer databases,’ said Amar.

‘You reckon they could do that?’ asked Jamal.

‘I reckon,’ said Amar.

‘True,’ said Donovan. ‘Either way, they’re on to us. We’ll have to get on to Sharkey, get the Tokics moved to other safe houses.
Hotel, anywhere.’

‘And then what?’ asked Peta.

Donovan whistled out a stream of air. ‘This is what I think. Again feel free to shoot me down if you disagree. Or chip in
with other ideas. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.
Looking for Michael Nell through the prostitute photo trail. We’ve just been burgled. We’ve got insurance, but it’s a well-paying
job and we need the money. So we go on with that, show we’re professional about it. That OK?’

The others nodded in assent.

‘Good,’ said Donovan. ‘Peta, you keep going to college. The girls all disappeared from there. There might be a connection
with Michael Nell.’

Peta nodded, face blank. Whatever thoughts she was having were kept hidden.

‘Amar and Jamal. Why don’t you two see if you can pick up a trail on Decca Ainsley?’

Amar nodded. Donovan looked at him, deciding whether to speak to him in front of the others or not.

‘I’m OK. I can handle it,’ he said, pre-empting him.

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ He looked at Jamal. ‘We can both handle it, can’t we?’

‘Don’ worry ’bout him,’ Jamal said. ‘I’ll look after him. Ain’t nothin’ happen to him with me there.’

Amar gave him a smile of gratitude. Jamal broke into a smile of his own for the first time that day. Donovan noted the fact.
He would have to talk to the boy soon, set things straight between them. But not now. When this was all over.

Jamal nodded.

‘Good,’ said Donovan.

‘Now remember,’ said Peta, before he could speak again. ‘We’re not police. We’re just doing our jobs. We’re making a good
reputation for ourselves and we want to keep it. The best way to do that is to be professional. Any questions?’

‘Yeah,’ said Donovan, patting his pockets. ‘You seen my mobile? Must have left it somewhere.’

There were no other questions.

They all went to work.

‘Listen …’

The Historian stood still, hand in the air, head cocked to one side.

‘Listen … Can you hear them? I can.’

Jill couldn’t see him, her eyes sewn tight shut. She couldn’t respond to him either. Her breath was expelled as a kind of
wheezy keening, like the death rattle of an old, pained, dying dog.

He threw words at her, talked incessantly. Sometimes to her, sometimes to others. At first she had listened, thinking someone
else was in the room with them or nearby; a collaborator of his who would take pity on her, perhaps a potential helper or
even saviour. But gradually she had tuned out. There was no one else there, she realized. He was talking either to himself
or to people only he could see. Now she paid him no attention at all.

‘Shh, they’re here. They’re with us. I wish you could see them.’ Then a laugh. ‘But you will. Soon enough.’

He moved around, caught the light of one of the swinging overhead bulbs, stood before it. Jill felt rather than saw the shadow
fall across her. The sudden absence of weak heat on her naked, bruised body.

‘Bet you wonder where we are, don’t you?’ The air swished as he moved around her. She felt his breath on her ear. Excited,
rasping. Smelling like earth from an age-rotted grave. ‘Mm? Don’t you? Well, this is my chamber. My world. My home. And it’s
secret. No one will ever come
here.’ He stood up. She heard him laughing to himself again. ‘No one.’

The air moved and swirled around her again as he walked around the table.

‘What are you studying? Psychology, is that it? A pretendy science. Think you know what makes people who they are. I’ve seen
you all, walking around like you know all the answers. Like you’re the first ones ever to be here, to experience life, to
… to know things.’ He spat. ‘Self-important, arrogant. You don’t have to go to university to show you’re smart, you know.
I’m just as clever as you. Just as clever. More so, in fact.’

He breathed hard, bringing himself under control.

‘You know nothing. You don’t even know your history, do you? What happened before you got here. Can’t say you’ve forgotten
because you don’t know; you never knew, did you?’

Jill continued to struggle for breath.

‘There used to be a gaol here. Not jail, gaol, g-a-o-l. And a big one. Yeah, right in the middle of town. Right in the middle
of Newcastle. Fancy that.’ His voice took on a distant, whimsical aspect. He huddled down close to her. ‘Newgate Street gaol.
For over four hundred years until the eighteen hundreds. Eighteen hundred and—’ he tried to think, the exact date eluding
him, making him angry at forgetting ‘—until the eighteen hundreds. And they had dungeons. Lots of them. Under the streets.
Now when they pulled it down, the gaoler’s house they turned into a pub, but d’you think they got rid of the dungeons? Hmm?’
He laughed. She felt him move in closer, that dead breath on her ear. ‘There’s more than rivers hidden under these streets.
Much more. And I found it. But it wasn’t empty. Oh, no.’

He stood up. She heard him move over to the far side of
the room, heard him touching something, his voice crooning, muttering words too low to hear, holding a conversation she wasn’t
privy to.

‘Occupants, inhabitants … to be expected, really. We didn’t get on at first.’ He gave a snort of laughter. ‘Imagine that.
Wouldn’t believe it, would you? To see us now you’d think we’d always been the best of friends.’

He stopped talking. Jill thought he had left the room, left her alone. She let out a ragged sigh. She preferred being left
alone. Her mind created vistas, Cinemascope visions of open fields, sunsets, happiness. She was in Ireland, where she had
holidayed with her family several times as a girl. The Mourne Mountains. The beach. She could feel the sun on her shoulders,
the gentle breeze ruffling her hair. Hear the susurrating fizz of the tide lapping the shore. And she was there, away from
him. Away from this. Her heart, in desperation, in madness, clung on to the fantasy, willed it into reality.

‘Ghosts,’ he said. ‘The souls of the departed.’

And hearing those words, her spirit crashed once more. The involuntary keening sound came raggedly from her once more.

‘Course, I didn’t believe it at first. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? You see, I’d found this place by accident just before
my mother died.’ He sighed. Shook his head. ‘What a difficult time that was, I can tell you. Well, I was broken-hearted, as
you can imagine. I stopped taking my medication, even. Oh, I was a handful. And then I found this place. But it wasn’t easy.
Shall I tell you how I did it?’ Pride rang through his words. He told her the story. All the while she was trying to return
to Ireland while he talked.

He told her of his mission, his quest. The Hidden Rivers project giving him the idea. He went to the library, the Discovery
Museum. Pored over old maps and plans. Looked at the rivers, charted their courses. Thought about the
prison. Tried to work out where the old tunnels, passageways and dungeons would have been. He had a head start. Somewhere
to dig from without anyone watching. He pulled open the manhole cover and, armed with a torch, a pickaxe and a pair of strong
boots, down he went.

At first he hit the sewer. It stank. Made him throw up. Several times. Wasn’t like you see it on TV. But he kept going. Kept
walking. Looking at the walls, feeling his way with his fingertips, following the map he had memorized. Eventually he found
the spot he was looking for. A patch of wall with different brick. This was it. He didn’t know how, just felt it.

He began to chip away. Took him ages. But that was OK; he had ages. All the time in the world. The first brick came out. He
felt behind it. Nothing. Just stale air. He doesn’t mind admitting he wet himself with excitement. He was right. There was
the tunnel.

He got to work in earnest, chipping away in a frenzy. Pulling out bricks with his bare hands. Throwing them, one by one, into
the filth at his feet. He kept going, ignored hunger, ignored the tiredness of his arms. Working until he had created a big
enough gap to crawl through. With the torch held out in front of him, he crawled in.

It was just big enough to take his body. Pitch black, filthy dirty. He breathed in cobwebs and their spiders. Dust and dirt.
Knocked rats out of the way, scared them off with his light. But he kept going, pulling himself along with his arms now beyond
feeling, beyond tiredness.

There was an incline; it took him down. Never once did he doubt what he was doing, never once did he fear it would go wrong
and he would be left there under ground to rot. He was right. He knew he was right.

And eventually his hard work and perseverance were rewarded. He found what he was looking for.

A dungeon.

Deep, deep under ground. Further down than the cellars and basements of shops, the foundations of buildings, the tunnels for
the Metro. The hidden rivers. Deeper than all of them.

A dungeon.
His
dungeon.

He swung his torch around, pleased he had remembered to pack extra batteries. It was a small room. Stone, rather than brick,
with old, rust-perished manacles and chains still attached to the walls. Still, the only air coming from the passage he had
just entered by. It stank of rot, of corruption. A thrill went through him. He loved it. Felt instantly at home there.

‘And then the voices started again …’ He pounded the sides of his head, reliving the experience before Jill. ‘All around me,
deafening me …’ He swung his head around to emphasize the point. ‘But I didn’t give in, didn’t let them overwhelm me. I thought
it was just the voices, you know, the ones I was supposed to take my medication to stop hearing. But then I thought for a
bit. And I realized it wasn’t. And I knew who they really were.’

He came close to Jill again, his voice right in her ear.

‘Ghosts.’

She increased the volume in the sound she was making.

‘Yeah, ghosts. The men and women who lived here. Who died here. It was their space, their room. I was an intruder, an interloper.
It was time to leave. But I knew I’d be back. I was determined to remember the place.’

He told her how he made his way back up the tunnel, through the sewer and back on to the street.

‘And the journey didn’t seem half as bad on the way back. I suppose it’s that old thing where people say that it only seems
a long way if you don’t know where you’re going. Well, I did. And I would be back. And the sewer – even that didn’t smell
as bad. Funny what you get used to.’

He laughed again, chuckling as if recalling a joke from the previous night’s television.

‘Mind you, when I got up top again I didn’t half get some looks. It was the next day and folk were going to work. I must have
looked a sight, stinking and filthy. But I didn’t care. It was them who was wrong, not me. I’d found something special, something
different. I had more than they had.’

He sighed, trailing off into a self-satisfied hum.

‘I went back. Course I did. Loads of times. Well—’ he laughed ‘—look around you.’ His laughter trailed away. ‘But we came
to agreement. And here we are.’ He smacked his lips. ‘Here we are.’

Silence fell. Jill knew he was still there. She could hear his breathing. It began to get heavier.

‘You’re a good-looking girl, you know. Bet you have all the boys after you.’

She felt his eyes explore her body, imagined the look on his face.

‘Yes, you’re a looker, all right. Not my usual type but you know. Needs must and all that.’

She felt his fingers, cold, clammy and trembling, on her stomach. She recoiled at his touch, even though she had nowhere to
go to.

‘Needs must …’

Her mind created vistas, Cinemascope visions of open fields, sunsets, happiness.

It was all she could do.

It wasn’t enough.