The Underground City (4 page)

“Will you mind what you’re doing with that pick!” muttered Murdo irritably as Wullie wielded it with gusto.

“I’ve hit a tough bit,” panted Wullie defensively. “A bit of wall must have fallen in and I have to break it up if we’re going to get through!”

“Hit a tough bit! You nearly put a hole in my head, you great oaf!”

“Well, if you’re so anxious, why don’t you do a bit of the work? I’m exhausted!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, have a break and we’ll have another look at the map. There are so many of these blooming alleys that it’d be easy to pick the wrong one.”

Wullie picked up one of the battery-operated lanterns and put it on a flat stone so that it shed some light on the creased sheet of yellowing paper that lay spread out over their
makeshift
table. With a lingering look at the inky blackness that
surrounded
them, he inched towards the lamp’s comforting glow and reached for his cigarettes.

“Nane o’ they ghosts around tonight,” he muttered, lighting up and inhaling deeply. “I wonder what they’re cooking up for us this time!”

Before they’d found the old map showing the network of streets that lay under the city, neither Wullie nor Murdo had believed in ghosts. After their first few sorties underground, however, this attitude had fundamentally changed. A
succession
of shoves, pushes and blasts of freezing cold air that had turned them blue with cold, had done much to convince them
that ghosts most certainly did exist and, more to the point, had let them know quite plainly that they did not like anybody invading their territory.

Murdo had found the old map in a charity shop in Newington. Not that he usually went into charity shops, but a prowling police patrol had unnerved him and while
waiting
for the constables to pass, he’d nipped inside the shop and buried his head in the first big book he’d seen. The map had fallen out as he’d pulled the book off the shelf and rather than fiddle around putting it back, he’d hastily stuffed it in his carrier bag and promptly forgotten all about it until he’d got home. When he’d worked out what it was, however, he’d seen definite possibilities … yes, very definite possibilities. So much so that, hands trembling and imagination racing wildly, he’d reached excitedly for his mobile.

“Wullie, get yerself over here right now. We might have a job on!”

They pored excitedly over the map. “Look,” Murdo pointed out once they’d got it the right way round, “there’s even a tunnel that goes up to the castle and if you follow it through here … and here … it ends up in Holyrood Palace!”

“We’re going to do the Palace?” Wullie gasped, impressed.

“No, we’re no’ going to do the Palace, you idiot,” Murdo said exasperatedly. “What’s in the Palace, you clown? Nothing but auld pictures that nobody would give you tuppence for.”

Having thus summarily disposed of the Queen’s Collection, Murdo gave a smile of pure, unalloyed glee. “No, Wullie. Just look here. See this alley,” he said, his grimy finger tracing the course of a passage that led from the cellars of Deacon Brodie’s Tavern down to the outline of another imposing building on the Mound. “See where it goes!”

“Man!” Wullie looked at him in awe. “Man, that’s … that’s …”

“The Bank of Scotland!” crowed Murdo. “Yon passage there’ll take us right into its vaults or I’m a Dutchman.”

Wullie eyed Murdo questioningly. “A Dutchman?” he
echoed
. “I … er … I always thought you were, well, Scottish like me?” Wullie sounded confused.

Murdo gave him a look and was about to make a really
cutting
remark when he saw the wisdom of keeping Wullie sweet. Wullie was six feet tall and as tough as they come. He was going to need Wullie and, when the time came to blow up the vaults, probably Tammy Souter as well.

Wullie agreed. “Aye,” he nodded at the mention of Tammy Souter’s name. “Aye, Tammy’s a good chap with a stick of dynamite. We’ll get in there fine, nae bother,” he said. Then he paused. “But … but didn’t I read in the papers that that branch has shut down, like? It’s a museum or something. Are you sure they still keep money there?” he asked anxiously.

“Trust me, Wullie!” Murdo grinned, tapping the side of his nose meaningfully.

Getting into the passages had proved a problem at first but Deacon Brodie’s Tavern was always a busy place at night and as the Gents was half-way down the cellar stair they had no trouble in avoiding the brightly-lit main cellars and sneaking into an older, little used part of the building that seemed, if anything, to be a store.

“There’ll be a trapdoor or something,” Murdo had muttered as they looked in one room after another, all of them stacked with empty boxes and old crates. “Has to be, for these tunnels are deep.”

It was Wullie who found the trapdoor in the end. By that time, they’d all but given up hope and Wullie glowed with pride at Murdo’s assertion that he was a genius.

“Not just a pretty face,” he agreed, shining his torch down into the blackness of the pit.

“We’ll need a rope ladder or something to get down there, won’t we?” Murdo muttered.

“No we won’t,” Willie disagreed, his mind working with unaccustomed clarity. “If we heft some of these empty crates down the hole we can easily climb down onto them. Let me go first and then you can pass the crates to me.”

Clambering carefully down the rough stair that Wullie had created out of stacked crates, Murdo shone his torch into the blackness of the Underground City. The powerful beam of light lit long narrow streets with walls of crumbling brickwork and as they moved through the maze of alleys, it didn’t take them long to realize that finding the right one wasn’t going to be easy; for the jumble of passageways that spread in all directions seemed to bear little resemblance to their carefully drawn map. Indeed, had Murdo not remembered that the Bank of Scotland lay downhill from Deacon Brodie’s Tavern, they might never have latched onto the right one at all. As it was, his eyes gleamed hopefully when they stumbled on a grim alley that sloped steeply downwards. Although it ran in the right direction, however, disappointment crossed their faces when they turned a bend and found it blocked by a fall of bricks.

Wullie looked at it, assessing the damage by the light of the torch. “It’ll take weeks to shift that lot, Murdo lad,” he said gloomily. “In fact, I reckon we’ll be lucky to get through it by Christmas.”

“There’s no rush,” Murdo replied. “We’ll take it nice and easy. It’ll take time to get picks and shovels down here for a start. We’ll just play it cool. Bring in stuff bit by bit like.”

The ghosts hadn’t bothered them at first. Although they didn’t know it, it was the old Codger who had first discovered them. He’d heard the thump of the pick and the scrape of the shovel and drifted along through alleys, dusty streets and a few solid walls to find out what was going on. It hadn’t taken him
long to suss them out either. He’d just hung around, listened to their chat, looked at their map and drifted off again to report to Mary King.

The ghosts had hoped that scaring tactics might work. It was, unfortunately, their only weapon, but Murdo and Wullie had proved a tough proposition. Especially Murdo! Murdo was a tough, lean, hard-bitten crook. Nothing fazed him, not even the hardest push and, while Wullie shivered with cold as the ghosts hugged him close, Murdo would cheer him up and give him what he called Dutch courage out of a flask. Wullie always accepted gratefully but to this day the involvement of the Dutch still puzzles him.

“Look, Wullie,” Murdo said on one occasion when the ghosts had worn themselves to a frazzle trying to scare them, “the worst they seem to be able to do is push us around and try to freeze us solid! We’ll wear more clothes tomorrow and ignore the rest. We can’t see them and if that’s the best they can do then we can put up with it! I’m not going to let them beat us. Just think of all the lovely lolly that’s in the bank! We’ll be
millionaires
! Now won’t it be worth it, Wullie — going through all this and getting rich? You don’t get millions for nothing, you know! You’ve got to suffer, one way or another. Nothing in this world is free!”

Wullie agreed with this sentiment wholeheartedly but it was with many a fearful glance into the darkness that he continued to shift vast piles of rubble while Murdo, heaving thick sacks of the stuff down another passage, got rid of it.

At this stage, the ghosts would probably have given up trying to get rid of Murdo and Wullie but it so happened that their prime concern wasn’t really whether or not the Bank of Scotland was reduced to insolvency.

None of the ghosts ever mentioned them but they were all aware of the other inhabitants of the Underground City. The
ghosts of the Plague People! For the cellars that held them were dangerously close to where Wullie was so enthusiastically wielding his pick, and this was the real reason that the ghosts swept frantically along the tunnels every night. They were petrified that the Plague People might escape and bring the Black Death back to the streets of Edinburgh!

Neil hurried home that afternoon, anxious to tell Clara what had happened at Mary King’s Close. Graham had made such a fuss that it had taken them ages to walk all the way back down the High Street to the school. By the time they reached the gates, they’d found the playground empty and the
janitor
, Mr MacGregor, waiting for them.

“Right,” Miss Mackenzie said, “straight to the classroom and get your bags. We’re a bit late but Miss Alison will still be there when you go up.”

“Thought you were never coming,” MacGregor said dourly as Miss Mackenzie shepherded them through the playground towards the school door.

“Ocht, that Graham Flint’s been playing me up all the way back,” she said, watching as a cowed Graham, surrounded by anxious friends, made for the classroom. “Swears he was pushed by a ghost in Mary King’s Close!”

MacGregor laughed, not a thing he did often. Even Miss Mackenzie grinned but she shook her head, nevertheless. “The thing is, though, that the tour guide happened to be looking at him when he hit the wall and he told me later that … well,
he
says that
no one
pushed him!”

MacGregor’s eyes sharpened. “Aye, weel! You never know,” he said thoughtfully. “There’ve been rumours that it’s haunted ever since it opened.”

Neil hurried up with his bag slung over his shoulder.

“Has Clara gone home on her own, Mr MacGregor?” he asked. “I thought she might have waited for me.”

“The lassie said she had a lot of homework, Neil. She’ll be home by this time.”

“Thanks,” Neil grinned. “Bye, Miss Mackenzie!”

“He looks all right now,” Miss Mackenzie said, her eyes
following
Neil as he made his way down the High Street towards Holyrood Palace, “but
he
was another one that was as white as a sheet in that Close. And to tell you the truth,” she said, meeting MacGregor’s eyes, “I didn’t feel at all happy down there myself!”

Neil pulled the hood of his anorak over his head as it started to rain but as he came near his house, he almost ran the last few yards, for Sir James’s car was parked outside the door and that meant news of the pantomime.

“It’s on!” Clara said, rushing into the hall when she heard him open the door. “
Ali Baba’s
on, Neil! Isn’t that fab-u-lous!”

“Great!” Neil replied, going into the living room.

“I see you’ve heard the news,” Sir James smiled. “Everyone is happy about it and it means that we’ll still be able to raise a sizeable amount for Children’s Aid.”

“Which theatre is it going to be in?” asked Neil, mindful of what his mother had said. “I mean, all the big theatres have their own shows and
we
couldn’t think of anywhere else big enough.”

“We approached the Church of Scotland, Neil, and they have given us permission to use the Assembly Hall.”

“The Assembly Hall?”

“You know, that enormous building that sits at the top of the Mound. They wouldn’t normally have allowed us to put on a pantomime there but it’s for charity and a very good cause!”

“When will the next rehearsal be?” asked Clara.

“Saturday evening, perhaps. We don’t usually have them at the weekend, I know, but we’ve missed a lot of rehearsal time because of the fire. The biggest job is going to be moving all the
props and costumes from The King’s Theatre to the Assembly Hall.”

“Were any of them damaged by the fire?” asked Mrs MacLean, who had Mischief on her lap.

“Some of the scenery was damaged, that’s all. It’s being replaced and they say it’ll be ready in time for the opening night.”

Neil jerked his head at Clara and, taking the hint, she
followed
him to the kitchen where he made himself a warm drink. Kitor was perched on the back of one of the kitchen chairs but fluttered to Clara’s shoulder when she entered the room.

“Gosh, this is good,” Neil muttered, warming his hands round the mug. “It’s freezing outside!”

“How was Mary King’s Close?” asked Clara. “I bet you wore your firestone!”

“Yeah,” grinned Neil. “I almost wish I hadn’t now. I’ve bags to tell you!”

“Well,” asked Clara, “did you see any ghosts?”

“Dozens!” Neil said, and laughed at the disbelief on Clara’s face. “I did really!”

“What … what did they look like?” Clara asked in alarm. “Did they scare you?”

“They did, actually,” admitted Neil. “They looked awful. Sort of empty eyes, you know.”

“Did they know you could see them?”

“Yeah, that was the problem really …”

“Problem?” croaked Kitor.

Neil nodded and starting from the beginning, told them everything that had happened in the Close.

“So you saw Mary King herself. What was she like?”

“Quite old, I think. She wore a sort of bonnet on her head and was quite well-dressed. You know, long skirt, blouse and a kind of thick shawl affair. I’m sure she wrote the message, ‘cos
she was pointing to it when it appeared.”

“What did it say again?”

“Neil. We need your help. Come again. Mary King.”

“You’re not going to go back, though, are you?” queried Kitor anxiously.

“I might. Just to see what they want.”

“They can hurt you, Neil. Look what the ghosts did to this Graham Flint that you told us about.”

“There was a reason for that, though. He’d made a fool out of me and they didn’t like it.”

“It must have scared him though!”

“Scared him! It scared him stupid!” Neil grinned. “I told you, he was howling like a baby!”

Clara looked dubious. “You’re having me on, aren’t you? Graham! Crying?” she said.

Kitor flapped his wings, ruffling Clara’s long, brown hair. “You shouldn’t have worn your firestone,” the crow said. “It was asking for trouble and now look what has happened! You’re involved with ghosts!”

“Kitor’s right, you know,” Clara said. “What on earth do they want to see you for? You don’t know their motives. They could be trying to trap you.”

Neil shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They stuck up for me, after all. If Graham hadn’t tried to make a fool of me they’d never have shoved him into a wall or frozen him half to death!”

“I wish the MacArthurs were here,” sighed Clara. “We could have asked Hamish or Archie what to do.”

“Why not ask your father or Sir James?” suggested Kitor reasonably.

Neil and Clara both looked at the crow in disgust. “Get a life, Kitor,” Neil advised. “Ask my dad? He’d freak out!”

“Too right!” agreed Clara.

“I don’t see how I’m going to be able to get into Mary King’s Close, anyway,” Neil said, thinking about it. “I could get in with another tour, I suppose, but it’d be expensive and the guides are sharp. They count you in and don’t let you wander off.”

“And at night, the whole place will be locked up …” added Clara.

“There is a way, though!” Neil said, suddenly. “I could go in on my magic carpet one afternoon after school. I’d be invisible. No one would see me.”

Clara sat up. “What on earth do you mean?
You’d
go in on your magic carpet! No way are you going down into Mary King’s Close on your own, Neil! I’m coming too!”

Neil looked at her doubtfully. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Clara. Really! The ghosts are a bit frightening when you see them close up. You’d be scared! I know you would!”

Kitor looked undecided for a moment. He didn’t fancy going under the ground into dark streets either but he was no coward and, after all, Neil couldn’t possibly be allowed to go on his own. “Don’t worry, Clara,” he said. “I’ll go with Neil.”

“Well, you can certainly come,” she muttered angrily, “but if Neil goes then I’m definitely going as well!”