She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Do you know that sometimes I think I made Mickey frightened of the world.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I kept telling her to be careful.”
“All parents do that.”
“Yes, but it wasn't just the normal stuff like not patting stray dogs or talking to strangers. I made her frightened of what can happen if you love something too much and it disappoints you or gets taken away. She wasn't always scared to go outside. It only started when she was about four.”
“What happened?”
In a forlorn voice she describes a Saturday afternoon at a local park, where she and Mickey would often go to feed the ducks. This one particular Saturday there was an old-fashioned fair, with a steam-powered carousel, cotton candy and whirligigs. Mickey rode all by herself on a gaily painted horse, proud of the fact that she didn't need her mother to sit behind her. When the ride finished, she was on the far side of the carousel. Rachel had been drawn into conversation with a woman from her mothers' group and didn't notice the ride ending.
Mickey stepped off. Instead of circling, she wandered through the forest of legs thinking that surely one of the hands belonged to her mother.
She walked back toward the pond where the ducks had gathered in the skirts of a willow tree. Peering over the low railing fence she watched two boys, no older than eleven, throwing stones. The ducks huddled together. Mickey wondered why they didn't fly away. Then she noticed the ducklings, sheltering beneath a feathered breast and muddy tail feathers.
One duckling—a dark ball of down against the darkness of the shade—separated from the others. It took the full force of a stone and disappeared beneath the surface. Seconds later it reappeared, floating lifelessly on the green scum in that corner of the pond.
Mickey burst into hysterical wailing. Tears streamed down her cheeks into the wide corners of her mouth. Her crying made the boys drop their stones and edge away, not wanting to be blamed for whatever had made her cry.
The howls from the edge of the pond created a strange dichotomy of reactions. Some people almost fell over each other to ignore them. Others watched and waited for someone else to intervene.
The pigeon man was nearest. Grizzled and yellow-toothed, he raised himself up from his bench, brushing pigeons off his lap as though they were spilled crumbs. Shuffling across to Mickey, he hitched up his trousers so that he could kneel beside her.
“You got a problem, Missy?”
“Make them stop,” she wailed, with her hands clamped over her ears.
He didn't seem to hear her. “You want to feed the birds?”
“The ducks,” she sobbed.
“You want to feed the ducks?”
Mickey howled again and the pigeon man raised his eyebrows. He could never understand children. Taking her hand, he went in search of a park attendant or the girl's mother.
A policeman was already approaching. He pushed through the crowd and took in the scene. “I want you to let her go,” he demanded.
“I'm looking for her mother,” explained the pigeon man. Spittle clung to his tangled beard.
“Just let the girl go and step away.”
By then Rachel had arrived. She swept Mickey up, held her tightly, and the two of them tried to out-hug each other. Meanwhile, the pigeon man had his arms stretched wide on the back of a park bench, while the policeman patted him down and searched his pockets, spilling birdseed onto the grass.
Mickey didn't ask to feed the ducks again. She didn't go to the park and soon she stopped going outside Dolphin Mansions. A year later she saw her first therapist.
The children's book that Timothy found in Mickey's cubbyhole in the basement was about five little ducks who go out in the world and return home again. Mickey knew from experience that not all little ducks come back.
32
Weatherman Pete brushes milk foam from his mustache and motions toward the river with his paper cup. “Sewers are no place for little girls.”
His van is parked up on a boat ramp in the shadow of Putney Bridge where eight-oared shells skim the surface of the river like gigantic water beetles. Moley is asleep in the back of the van, curled up with one eye open.
“Where could they have kept her?”
Pete exhales slowly, making his lips vibrate. “There are hundreds of places—disused tube stations, service tunnels, bomb shelters, aqueducts, drains . . . What makes you think he's hiding down there?”
“He's scared. People are looking for him.”
Pete hums. “Takes a unique sort of individual to live down there.”
“He is unique.”
“No, you don't get me. You take Moley. If he disappeared down there you wouldn't find him in a hundred years. You see he likes the dark, just like some people prefer the cold. You know what I mean?”
“This guy isn't like that.”
“So how does he know his way down there?”
“He's going from memory. Someone showed him where to hide and how to move around. A former flusher called Ray Murphy.”
“Saccharine Ray! The boxer.”
“You know him?”
“Yeah, I know him. Ray was never really the genuine article as a boxer. He took more dives than Ruud van Nistelrooy. I don't remember him working down the sewers.”
“It was a long time ago. After that he worked as a flood planner.”
A slow sweet smile spreads across Pete's face like jam on toast. “The old HQ of London Flood Management is underground—in the Kingsway Tram Underpass.”
“But there haven't been trams in central London for more than fifty years.”
“Precisely. The tunnel was abandoned. If you ask me it was a bloody silly place to have a flood emergency center. It would have been the first place under water if the Thames broke its banks. Bureaucrats!”
The Kingsway Underpass is one of those strange, almost secret, landmarks you find in cities. Tens of thousands of people walk past it and drive over it every day with no idea it's there. All you can see is a railing fence and a cobblestone approach road before it disappears underground. It runs beneath Kingsway—one of the busiest streets in the West End—down to the Aldwych, where it turns right and comes out directly beneath Waterloo Bridge.
Weatherman Pete parks his van on the approach road, ignoring the painted red lines and NO STOPPING signs. He hands me a hard hat and pulls out a construction sign. “If anyone asks we work for the council.”
The remnants of the tram tracks are embedded in the stones and a large gate guards the entrance to the tunnel.
“Can we get inside?”
“That'd be illegal,” he says, producing the biggest set of bolt cutters I've ever seen. Moley moans and pulls a blanket over his head.
Trying to curb Pete's enthusiasm I explain that Gerry Brandt is dangerous. He's already put Ali in the hospital and I don't want anyone else getting hurt. Once we know he's in there, I'll call the police.
“We could send a mole down the hole.” Pete nudges the bundle of blankets. Moley's head appears. “You're up.”
Trooping down the ramp we look like a trio of engineers on our way to survey something on a typical Saturday morning. The padlock on the gate looks secure enough but the bolt cutters snap it like balsa wood. We slide inside.
Although I can only see about twenty feet of tunnel it appears to open out and grow wider before the darkness becomes absolute. The most obvious feature is a pile of road signs stacked against the walls—street names, traffic controls, posts and paving slabs. The council must use the tunnel for storage.
“We should wait here,” whispers Pete. “No use us blundering around in the dark.” He hands Moley what looks like an emergency flare. “Just in case.”