As he got to his feet, he realized he was in a tall room and below him he could hear a watery sound, like an open well. Nearby was a sign pointing to a staircase. He went over to have a look and saw that it led down into the dark depths. The slits of light in the roof above reflected down there as if in a mirror. The well was filled with water. Shapes floated there motionless, the water almost covering them like varnish. It was a few moments before Ben realized what they were: heads, backs, hands, a sodden baseball jacket, a hoodie, a Drizabone hat. An iPod floating like a white tentacled thing in the water. Bodies.
He moved away quickly, and saw, on the other side of the room, a heavy dark wood door. It was open. On the floor by the toolbox was a torch. He picked it up and flicked it on, being sure to point it away from the bodies floating in the stairwell, then went through the door.
He found himself in a corridor. At the end an open door led to the booking concourse, where a sign said WELCOME TO HYDE PARK CORNER.
On the back of a chair beside the ticket barriers Ben spotted a navy blue jacket with LONDON UNDERGROUND on it. He shrugged off the mac and put on the jacket instead. At least it was warm and dry.
Then he picked an exit from the concourse and went up to street level.
He found himself on an enormous traffic island. He’d almost hoped that the scene would have changed when he got out, but it was the same desolation he’d left behind when he’d gone into the sculptor’s studio in Belgravia. Car and burglar alarms still shrieked alongside the seagulls and the rain came down relentlessly. You didn’t need a compass to work out where the water was; you could see the cluster of helicopters hovering over it like birds of prey. Buses and coaches stood abandoned all round the island, and ducks, geese and swans from the royal parks still patrolled the puddles. Manhole covers lay on the tarmac, water bubbling up onto the road as though from some cauldron below. It stank of sewage.
But it wasn’t a bad vantage point. The land sloped down towards Buckingham Palace to the south; it was surrounded by the dark lip of the water. If he remembered right, Charing Cross was near the river. All he had to do was follow the edge of the flood water eastwards.
As Ben turned his collar up against the unforgiving rain, he was back in the same miserable rhythm, one foot in front of the other. It was almost as if he had never strayed into the studio; as if he’d just been walking the whole time and imagined the whole bizarre incident. He was hungry and cold. If he kept moving, he thought, surely he’d get warm.
The image of the bodies in the Tube station followed him like a ghost, sending shudders through his rain-soaked skin. He began to think how lucky he’d been. What time had he come out of the Tube at Waterloo? And when had the flood hit? His train into London had been delayed. It could so easily have been delayed longer. He could have been trapped in the Tube himself. How many people were cocooned in that black water?
He reached Green Park Station and smelled that stale wet Tube station smell like the breath of old drains, heard the slap of water on shaft walls; saw in his mind’s eye the bodies, hanging like discarded wetsuits in a dripping stairwell.
He passed the Ritz and glanced down a side street. He realized that he needed to keep closer to the edge of the water and went down a narrow street — one car wide and lined with very old, expensive-looking shops: a tailor with gold lettering on the window; a tobacconist with a dark oak humidifier, cigars laid out inside it like a bizarre delicatessen counter.
As he made his way south-east, Ben looked down the next street and realized it was flooded. He stopped and thought. Maybe he should turn back.
A figure was walking further down the street, his green gum boots splashing through the filthy water. The water was moving, as though it still carried the ferocious current of the Thames like an electric charge, but it didn’t seem to be causing him any trouble.
Ben stepped in cautiously and carried on, past a wine shop displaying a dusty bottle of champagne as big as a traffic cone. He was so wet anyway, he didn’t notice any difference between walking on dry land and wading. When he got to the end of the street he could head back up to the main road.
Ben had nearly caught up with the figure in wellies. ‘Hi there,’ he called out, but then the man took a step and vanished.
It was as if the ground had swallowed him.
Chapter Twenty-four
Ben froze. The man must have stepped into an open manhole. Stepped into it and gone straight down.
Ben searched the surface of the water. It swirled around his feet, a parked van, the lampposts, the bollards. There was no sign of the figure he had just seen walking along just moments before. No bubbles, no splashing; nothing rising to the surface. Not even a change in the swirl of the water to show where that manhole waited like an open mouth.
‘Hello?’ called Ben. There was no sound, just the ripple of moving water, claiming the city as its own. Ben’s skin prickled colder and colder. He remembered being in the pipe, the feel of its walls pinning his arms in. A drain probably wasn’t much bigger. You couldn’t move your arms to keep yourself afloat. You’d go down like a stone. Then be swept away? What a horrible way to die.
It was like the city was a monster turning on its people.
And where was the drain? If he couldn’t see it, how would he avoid it? He’d run back the way he’d come.
No, he couldn’t, he thought. There might be open manholes there as well. He would reach dry land faster if he carried on to the end of the street than if he went back. Statistically there would be fewer manholes that way too.
OK: start walking.
Ben’s body wouldn’t obey him. He couldn’t just play a game of Russian roulette and hope he wouldn’t hit the unlucky spot.
There had to be a way to see them. Was there anything he could use as a guide? And where had the man disappeared? In the middle of the road? In the gutter?
He didn’t know. It had happened so fast.
Ben shivered. He had been standing motionless and was getting cold again. He had to get moving. He moved one foot forwards, keeping his weight on his back foot, and tested the ground ahead carefully.
The ground underneath seemed stable. He stepped forward and transferred his weight, then put the other foot forward and tested the ground again. So far so good. He was reminded of films he’d seen of people walking through minefields. He just had to keep his head, be sensible and not rush. That man had disappeared, straight down, in the time it took to blink an eye. Ben just had to take it one step at a time. Foot forward, test, transfer the weight. Repeat again, slowly. No rush.
The end of the road was coming steadily closer. Was he at the point where the man had disappeared?
Ben wished he hadn’t thought of that. Somewhere, not far from where his feet were slowly passing, a man had lost his life. His body was probably still warm.
Once Ben’s imagination started, it wouldn’t stop. Once again he saw the bodies floating in the stairwell at Hyde Park Corner, the heads drooping, the shoulders rounded. He imagined the man with his head bowed like that in the narrow pipe.
Get a grip, he told himself. It’s not far now. One step, then another. Soon he would be at the edge. Another step. He just had to take it slowly. He had come this far safely.
Carefully he felt around with his front foot — and this time it carried on down.
He stumbled backwards. There was open space beneath that foot and he’d nearly put his whole weight on it. He froze, his body shaking. He looked at the carpet of grey-brown water and saw a mass of hidden traps.