Breakdown (14 page)

A

tread on the boards. The seating mechanism shifts. I look up. I squint into the dim light. A dark figure.
Kaylem?
My heart cuts.
Oh God.
My breath backs up, right down my chest.

‘Quinny.' Lenny lets go of my hand.

Tarquin's back.
A tremble shivers down to my toes. The ground seems to shift under me.
Tarquin's safe.

‘Come on, Lenny,' he says.

Lenny doesn't move.

‘Come on.'

For a moment I think he's traded me in
. He's leaving me here.
He's made that deal to get his brother out.

The General appears before me:
his watery eyes. His stubby, sloping teeth. The click of his shoes on a marble floor.

Lenny crawls forwards.
Lenny's going to leave me too.

They both pause.

‘
Come on
,' hisses Tarquin.

Thank God
. My legs go weak.

‘Thought for a minute you were going to leave me,' I whisper.

Lenny screws up his face, looks puzzled. ‘We ain't never gonna leave you, Missa.'

‘Keep well down,' instructs Tarquin.

I wriggle out, follow them both silently up the terraces, ducking low behind the rows of seating. I wouldn't have blamed them if they had. Not really. Everybody's got to look out for themselves.

When it comes to my turn, I'm going to.

‘We're getting out,' hisses Tarquin. ‘We're gonna box up London, get to your cottage.'

I close my eyes for a second.
God forgive me.

I send a silent prayer up to Prometheus, to Hera, to Orpheus, to Zeus
. Forgive me. I'll help take the Torch from here. I'll carry it as far as I can. I'll do my best to hold back the underworld. I'll try to be there for them.

But as soon as I'm out, I'm gone.

I'm going home to all that's left of Nan. To a life where I know how to survive. Not one mixed up with gangers. They'll be OK. I try to convince myself. Lenny'll be free of the Limehouse Boys. Tarquin'll be OK. He's strong. He's resourceful.

Forgive me.

Nan said once, ‘Survivors survive and that's the deal. They do what it takes, whatever it takes. Don't ever forget that, Melissa.'

But I warn myself.
Don't say anything. Don't give yourself away.

We aren't out yet.

We get up the terraces, away from the racetrack, into an access route, down a curving corridor. My heart pounds. My throat sticks.

‘They ain't raised the alarm yet,' hisses Tarquin. ‘If we meet anyone, don't say nothing. They don't know Careem's business an' they don't know mine. Peeps in here knows better than to mix business with Careem.'

‘OK.'

‘But don't let's be seen, neither. It'll land them in it. When Careem wakes up and we've gone, he's gonna ask if they seen us. And they gonna get it, unless they smart and stay shut.'

‘OK,' I say. I don't want to land anyone in it.

‘Shush now.'

At the bottom of the corridor a small foyer opens out. It's more like a conjunction of corridors. There's some stairs going up, some going down, about five different swing doors to other exits. Only the doors aren't swinging any more. Two are hanging off their hinges. The rest lie crashed on the floor.

We stop, pause. Hear footsteps.

Tarquin lays a finger across his lips, grabs Lenny, beckons us with his hand. We step over one of the doors, press ourselves out of sight into a door alcove.

The footsteps get louder. I keep my eyes on the foyer, glance down the exits. Sound of a heel striking cement. Coming this way. Shoes. Must be a ganger. Voice of a man. Broken, deep.

I hold my breath.
Don't let them find us.

They pause at the foyer. Two gangers. Then move off. Going the way we just came. They don't look.
Thank you.
We wait till the footsteps fade, ease ourselves out of the doorway. Lenny's trembling. Won't let go of Tarquin's hand.

We take the stairs going down. They're narrow. We turn the first corner. Suddenly there's a terrible banging.

Pans.

They drum out a beat. ‘
Merde
,' says Tarquin. ‘Hurry.'

We race down the stairs. The pans bang on. They cover the sound of our running. The stairs twist round and down. At each corner I'm terrified we'll meet someone. My knees shake. My chest feels like a hole's gone straight through it. At the bottom we pause, sprint down a corridor, take another, dive into shadows, flatten ourselves against the wall. Look at each other. Eyes wide. Terrified.

‘They know we're out,' mouths Tarquin.

The pans close in. We signal, mutely shake heads, lay fingers over lips.

The march of feet.

Oh God.

Tarquin presses Lenny behind him, motions me to keep back. The steps halt somewhere near, out of sight
. Please don't let them decide to check down the stairwell.
Someone says, ‘He was hanging around here.'

‘When?' says the other.

‘Before. 'Bout a half-hour ago. Killa seen him.'

‘Why?'

The first one snorts. ‘You don't know?'

‘I don't get it.'

‘You for real? Roguing shafts. Moron.' That's the first voice.

‘Here?'

‘Yeah. Right here.'

‘You a roguer, then?'

There's quiet.

‘I ain't no roguer. Moron. Nobody survives them tunnels. If I was a bootlegger, I'd be doing it some other way.'

‘Yeah,' says the other. Someone laughs like that's the funniest thing they ever heard.

‘If he went down there, he's a moron. Careem ain't got no worries.'

I feel Lenny's hand slip into mine. My heart thuds. I hear another set of steps. Someone running. They're out of breath. The footsteps echo down the corridor we just came by. Panting. Some coughing. Someone starts clanging tin pans. Soon pans clang everywhere again.

‘Get to the main exits.' Shouting. Excited. Pans drown everything.

Footsteps set off fast.

We stay there, pressed against the wall – damp concrete, flaking plaster. My blood thumps in my neck right below my jaw. Footsteps still echoing. Pans still beating. My knees tingle at the back. I don't trust them to hold me.

We step out of the shadows, turn back onto the corridor.

And there he is.

A huge ganger.

Pan in one hand, steel bar in the other.

Blocking our way.

‘Thinking of going somewhere, was ya, moron?' The ganger twirls the iron bar with a sudden dangerous speed.

Tarquin steps forward. ‘Aw, c'mon, man,' he says.

The big guy laughs, flicks his eyebrows up, licks his lips.

‘You know me,' says Tarquin. ‘You know what my li'l bro means to me.'

‘So?'

‘So you know, if you let us past, let us into them tunnels, I'm gonna owe you big time.'

‘And?'

‘If you don't, I'm gonna kill you.'

The big guy thinks about that. Shakes his head. ‘Nah, moron, I don't think so.'

Tarquin shrugs. ‘Well, OK, you're a big guy, I might not kill you, but I'll go for your eyes. Blind men ain't no use to Careem.'

The ganger thinks about that too. He shakes his head again. ‘Nah, you ain't.'

Tarquin bends, scoops something up. ‘Here.' He passes me a lump of loose concrete. ‘I'll get him to the floor. You smack him with this, low on the back of the head 'bout there.' He pats the top of his neck.

‘Hang on a minute,' says the big guy.

‘D'ya want to lose one or both eyes?' asks Tarquin. ‘Permanent? Or jus' a few months? She ain't no expert, so you better say. I'll try an' tell her where.'

The big ganger is slow to respond. Tarquin isn't. Like a flash he dives low, tackles the guy at his knees. There's a thump as they hit the floor. Lenny squeals.

‘Kick the pan out of his hand,' hisses Tarquin.

I jump forward, kick the pan away. It rattles across the corridor. The ganger twists and lashes out. They roll. I can't get close enough. Fists and feet flying. I jump towards them, bring the rock down anyway.

By sheer luck it hits the ganger on the head. The rock rolls aside. I pick it back up.

Tarquin has him in an arm lock, pressed to the floor. ‘Choose,' says Tarquin. ‘One or both?'

‘OK,' the big guy says. He lets his body go slack, lifts his head up. ‘You can go through.'

In one movement, Tarquin leaps up, crouches beside the ganger, then punches him in the side of the head right on his temple.

The ganger slumps to the floor. Out cold.

‘Who's the moron now?' says Tarquin.

‘Wow,' I say.

‘Works every time,' says Tarquin. ‘Snap his head to the side, bounce his brain off his skull.'

‘Is he gonna die?' asks Lenny.

‘Nah,' says Tarquin. ‘He'll live, but he'll have one helluva headache.' He gets his arms under the guy. ‘No need to blind him. Give me a hand.'

I grab the guy's feet and together we drag him back down the corridor into the shadows.

‘Do you really know how to blind someone?' I ask.

‘Yup.'

We leave the ganger sprawled against the wall, race back down the corridor. Tarquin picks up the pan and steel bar, hides them. ‘C'mon. We're going into the old roguing shafts.'

The rusty iron door near the bottom of the stairwell squeals as we open it. We step through and down a short flight of stairs. We head off into the darkness. The noise of pans dies away.

‘We're going to be OK, ain't we?' says Lenny. I can tell by the quaver in his voice he's trying not to let the fear out.

‘C'mon,' says Tarquin. ‘We ain't got long – we need to get clear before night catch and we can't see nothing. Stay as quiet as you can.'

I don't know how Tarquin can see where he's going. It's pitch black. I grope around. Crumbling walls. Smell of damp everywhere.

‘Hang on.' Tarquin strikes something and there's a light, a rag soaked in what smells like animal fat. It's smoky. I choke. Lenny starts coughing. I feel like coughing too. I hold it tight inside.

‘Shush.' I pat Lenny gently on the back.

The rag sputters, crackles. At least we can see where we are. We're in an opening. Concrete floor. Concrete walls. Ridges where the old decking has left patterns of sawn wood in cement. Everywhere's covered in dirt. Water dripping from a high place. In front of us another metal door with a round handle, long broken and not shut tight. It makes a terrible squeaking as Tarquin yanks it open. Beyond it is a tunnel.

‘Ain't gonna be as “massive” as you thought,' says Tarquin.

I don't answer. Maybe when Nan read that they were ‘massive', it meant massively long. This one's barely a metre high. ‘But there
is
a tunnel,' I say.

‘More'n one,' says Tarquin.

‘But we're gonna be OK, ain't we?' says Lenny.

‘They spread out in every direction.'

‘But you know the way?' Lenny's voice quavers.

‘Not exactly.' Tarquin holds up the light, examines the cables. ‘I ain't no roguer. I don't like underground places.'

‘So how're we going to find our way out?' I say.

‘I been down here before, though.' Tarquin runs his hand along a cable, seems to be scraping at its sides, feeling it. ‘You start here an' you got to chose a cable, follow it and don't lose it. It'll eventually take you out. That's what they say.'

‘But it might go miles,' I say, ‘and come out anywhere.'

‘It might,' says Tarquin, ‘but as long as it takes us out and we don't meet up with any roguers, and we avoid the chambers, you got a problem?'

‘We're gonna make it out, ain't we, Quinny?'

‘Yep. No dumb old roguer trying to smuggle stuff past Careem is going to stop us.'

There's something in Tarquin's voice that soothes. I want to believe him. Though I know he's only saying it to cheer Lenny up. Roguers are mean. They're lawless bandits, only interested in their own haul. They'll cut our throats if they catch us.

‘We'll be OK. You'll see.'

I shake my head.

None of this is ever going to be OK.

Three metal cables lie inside the tunnel. Huge. Twisted. Like long dark snakes slithering in a hole. They run together, half sheathed in bits of piping. Old plastic. Where the plastic is broken, the metal cables twist out, warped, tangled. In places even the cable itself is broken, and a vast forest of wires poke through. I touch up against one. Cut myself.
Oh hell.

Cuts are dangerous. Nan told me, ‘If you get a cut from anything in the garden, anything that's been buried for a long time out of sunlight, let it bleed, wash it clean.'

I squeeze my finger, suck at the blood and squeeze it again.

‘Stay away from the wires,' I tell Lenny.

‘We gonna have to crawl through the next bit.' Tarquin waves the lighted rag at the tunnel up ahead. Thick smoke swirls. It's very low. We can't walk. He's right – we're going to have to crawl.

‘I'm going to put out the light,' he says. ‘So I can crawl.'

‘I'm scared,' says Lenny.

‘You'll be OK,' says Tarquin. ‘Wrap this around you.' He passes Lenny his jacket. ‘I'll go first, you follow – in the middle. She can go last.'

‘Melissa,' I say.

‘OK. Melissa.'

The light goes out. Only the aftersmell, the stink of oily rag. The darkness swallows everything. Instantly I bump my head. Bang into cables. I think it's cables. I daren't stretch out my hand to make sure. A drip of water lands on my face.

Lenny cries out. ‘There's rats, Quinny. I felt one.'

‘Keep the jacket tight round you.'

‘I'm scared.'

‘Gotta be brave,' I whisper. ‘This is the underworld. But we got the Torch, remember?' I duck my head, feel for Lenny's feet. I give one a little friendly tug.

From time to time I keep checking for his feet. I feel how they slowly shift up ahead. The roof gets lower. I get down on all fours. I go like that for a while. I wave my hand above me, out in front. I feel for the ceiling. I feel for Lenny's feet. A cable underneath me suddenly branches off. A new cable branches in from another tunnel. Waft of stale air.

I feel around underneath. Four cables now. That's weird. Maybe two cables came in. The roof squeezes down. I get onto my belly. Where the cable is smooth, I slide along. Where it's broken, and the wires poke through, Nan's coat catches and rips. I try to pull the cloth out from under me. It tears. The walls are slippery. I reach up and touch the ceiling. Something unpleasant oozes between my fingers.

I lose hold of Lenny's feet. I start to panic. A darkness worse even than the tunnel gets into my head. I twist, waving my hand from side to side, like a maggot writhing in its casing.
I'm gonna be stuck down here, shrivelled up like a mummy in a tomb.

‘Missa?' I hear Lenny's voice. Echoey. Shrill. Panicky.

Up ahead? Have I taken a wrong turn? ‘Lenny?' I start to haul myself towards him.

‘Missa,' Lenny calls again.

‘I'm here,' I call.

‘Shush,' Tarquin hisses. ‘Quiet.' His voice a long way off.

How far've we come? Feels like miles. How far have we got to go?

Without warning we suddenly all end up together, kaleidoscoped into each other. Smell of damp concrete. Acid. Earthy. I can't figure out anything except that we can't go any further. We haven't come out anywhere. We lie there scrunched up in the dark.

‘I need to check the cable,' says Tarquin.

Somebody fumbles around. An elbow bumps my face. I can smell Tarquin. He must be right there and what I thought was Lenny pressing up against me is him.

‘Lenny?' I say.

A hand closes over mine. It misses my palm and grips onto my fingers. A face presses up against mine. The hand is too big, too strong to be Lenny's. I feel lips on my cheek and warm breath. ‘We've hit a dead end,' Tarquin whispers. ‘Don't say anything.' His lips move against my skin. ‘Don't scare Lenny.'

I half turn towards him, whisper back. ‘What is it?'
My lips brush against his.

I draw my breath in. His lips are soft and warm.

He strikes the flint, lights the rag.

He reaches over and examines the cabling.

He looks at me. Light of smoky flame. Eyes, glinting.

Shakes his head.

We've lost the cable.

We've come the wrong way.