The platform of Birmingham’s Moor Street Station was crowded. Late shoppers and office workers stood crushed together waiting for the Leamington train. Bernie, who wanted the one that followed, stood out of the way near the mouth of the tunnel. It fascinated him, this dark cavern that ran under the city and disgorged trains at regular intervals. He had walked through it once, just before they had reopened the rail link between Moor Street and Snow Hill, the station at its far end. But there had been too many people on that special trek for him to be able to appreciate fully its echoing magnificence.
Just a minute or so before the train arrived, there was a disturbance. Shouting distracted Bernie from his contemplation of underground places. As he turned he saw a ripple of movement and a child-sized figure belting along the platform towards him, weaving and barging between commuters. Vaguely registering the cries of “Stop, thief!” Bernie prepared to make a grab for the boy. The child slowed, grinned at him and leapt onto the rails.
“Ilyas!” Bernie would have plunged after him if someone hadn’t grabbed him from behind.
The figure disappeared into the tunnel moments before the lights of the train became visible round the curve in the track. He tensed, waiting for the impact. But the carriages drew quietly into the station. Doors banged open as passengers scrambled for seats, emptying the platform of all but those waiting for the Stratford train, and a small knot of people halfway along.
“D’ya know the kid, sir?” the porter who had restrained him asked Bernie.
“Yes… no… it couldn’t have been,” he stuttered.
“But yer got a good look?”
“Yes, but…”
“An’ yer’d know ‘im agin?”
“I think so.”
“Could yer come an’ ‘ave a word with the station manager, then?”
Bernie glanced at the clock. The yellow numbers flicked over to show 17:39, one minute to his train. His mother would hardly notice if he was late for tea. She never did. “If you think I can help,” he said.
There was a policeman in the Station Manager’s office when they finally showed Bernie in. A tearful woman was being led out as he entered.
“Now, young man, the constable would like you to answer a few questions if you don’t mind.”
Bernie nodded and gave his name and address.
“Do you know the bag-snatcher?” the policeman asked.
“No, sir. He just looked a bit like someone I knew at school.”
“What was his name?”
“Ilyas. I can’t remember his other name. He was in my class, that’s all.”
“This lad was about twelve,” the manager said.
That’s why it couldn’t be him, Bernie thought. He wouldn’t recognize most of the kids from school, just the few he saw sometimes down the market, like Javad who’d nick things off the stall if he wasn’t watching, or Shazad who had a club foot. In six years, Ilyas was sure to have grown a bit, and changed.
The phone rang part-way through the interview. The manager listened, nodding his head from time to time. When he cradled the receiver he spoke to the constable.
“He hasn’t come out at Snow Hill yet. And none of the drivers have seen anyone on the track.”
The policeman wrote it down in his notebook.
Finally, they let Bernie go, just in time to catch the 18:40, the manager saying, “Thank you so much for your help, young man.”
It was dark and raining when the train pulled out. Bernie sat staring at his reflection in the window, seeing the round, grinning face of Ilyas as he passed under the bridges that muted the sound of the wheels. Whoever the boy was, he couldn’t have disappeared.
Bernie found himself searching crowds for familiar faces, especially those pushing their way through the market towards the subway leading to the station. He found it easy to superimpose features on his customers at the fruit stall. Once he was sure he caught sight of the small, dark-haired figure of Ilyas disappearing behind an unloading lorry. When the boy re-emerged he could see clearly that it wasn’t. But from the back…
“Stop daydreaming, lad. We’ve got customers,” his boss told him.
Bernie blinked and stared down at the change he was clasping tightly. He grinned nervously and handed it to the old lady who counted the coins carefully before stowing them in her purse.
“Where’s me oranges?” she said.
Bernie passed her the bag, thankful that no one could see his blushes.
“I don’t know what’s got into you recently, lad,” his boss said later when they were clearing away. “You’ve been a pretty good worker up till now. Don’t spoil it.”
Bernie gave himself a mental shake and resolved to concentrate.
At the station, Bernie took to standing as close to the tunnel entrance as he could. He remembered the Station Manager’s words about the boy not coming out at the other end. There were caverns under Birmingham, he had heard. Vast concrete hangars where they had stored supplies in the war. Perhaps there was a way in through the tunnel. He couldn’t remember any side branches on the day he had walked through.
Bernie decided that he had to go through the tunnel again. Instead of heading for Moor Street as he usually did, he set off across town, deliberately choosing a roundabout route to take him through as many underpasses as possible. He liked the enclosed spaces and wished there were fewer people around. He wanted to hear his own footsteps echo from the walls.
There was a busker in the underpass leading to the main-line station, a bald, elderly violinist whose squeaky music followed Bernie as he passed.
He walked through Old Square. They were just locking the basement doors to Lewis’s. He could see the security man of the department store through the heavy plate glass as he slid the bolts into place. Then down the ramp and past the toilets. Bernie hadn’t realized there were so many small men in the city centre. There was another of them leaning on a broom in the entrance to the gents’. He looked like a gnome.
Bernie glanced at his watch and began to hurry. He didn’t want to miss the train.
The trip was a little disappointing. He managed to get a seat at the front so that he could see through the driver’s cab and out onto the track but it was difficult to watch both sides at once. There were lights strung all along the tunnel and although he could see the shadows of archways set into the walls he missed any dark opening leading away.
Under Colmore Circus, he saw Ilyas again. Bernie had taken to staying later and later in the market area, taking the most circuitous route he could devise to the station and lingering in the empty subways. Some were shabby and rubbish-filled and stank of urine. Others had murals painted on them or incised in the tiles. He was surprised how little graffiti was added to those pictures; the street artists seemed to confine their efforts to the railway, scarring the walls along the lines with their spray-on paint.
Sometimes a subway would open out into an oasis of green.
The walls of the Horsefair had a delicate mosaic depicting the old market, and plants grew unmolested in the centre. Bernie had almost forgotten his search for Ilyas in his growing delight at the variety of underground passages.
Then he saw him. The small figure had his back to him as he crossed the open space under the traffic island. Ilyas disappeared behind a supporting pillar. Bernie hurried after him.
“Ilyas!” he called.
The boy stopped and turned. Ilyas was exactly as he had been six years before, when they had both walked out of school for the last time. They had never been friends, and Bernie remembered him most for his broken front teeth and the fact that he only ever seemed to wear wellies to school.