“It was,” Melissa said. “But I’ve figured it out now. I’d know this place anywhere, from the outside. I’ve never set foot inside before, though. It’s the BT Tower. We’re at the top, right?”
“We are,” I said. “Do you like it?”
“I do,” Melissa said, turning to look back towards the interior of the structure. “But why is it such a mess?”
There was no furniture. Some of the ceiling tiles were missing, and in places pieces of carpet had been removed, too. Wallpaper was hanging off the curved walls, and the doors were missing from a pair of doorways on either side of the lift.
“We’re in the restaurant,” Gerard said. “The place is being refurbished. They’ve got a plan to reopen it to the public. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. But it’s not like they asked for my opinion.”
“Will it still be a restaurant?” I said.
“Yes,” Gerard said. “That’s the idea. They’re looking for a celebrity chef to take the place on, apparently.”
“Where will the kitchens be?” I said. The space seemed much smaller than you would have thought from ground level.
“In there,” Gerard said, nodding to the left-hand doorway.
I moved across and looked inside. The room was tiny. It was about six feet by ten, allowing for the rounded walls. And it was piled to the ceiling with junk. I could see chairs. Four different kinds. Tables. Cardboard boxes. Buckets. Packets of paper towels. Wine glasses. About fifty. Two mops. A broom. A stepladder. And thrown in on the top, a fluorescent yellow coat.
“Really?” I said. “What will they be serving? TV dinners?”
Gerard joined me and immediately shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s not this one. It’s the one over there.”
“Does this place still revolve?” Melissa said, turning to gaze out over the city once again.
“It does,” Gerard said. “That’s always been its most famous feature.”
“Does it go fast?” she said. “I mean, does anyone get sick from it?”
“No,” Gerard said. “It’s not like a fairground ride. It turns so slowly you can hardly feel you’re moving.”
“Are we moving now?” she said.
“Not right now, no,” Gerard said. “The motor isn’t switched on. But I could go and start it up.”
“Really?” she said. “That would be amazing. Could you really do that?”
“Give me five minutes,” Gerard said, turning and heading for the lift.
“Wait,” she said. “Are you sure about this? You won’t get in any trouble?”
“I doubt it,” Gerard said, over his shoulder. “And if anyone asks, I’ll just say a maniac from Royal Navy Intelligence made me do it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Gerard returned at a minute before eleven and escorted us back to the Cleveland Street exit. That got us out of the building, but it didn’t solve my other problem. Ever since we’d left the pub I’d been hankering after a curry, and when Melissa jumped into a cab on Tottenham Court Road I didn’t suddenly stop being hungry. So I stood and watched her taillights disappear around the corner, and then made my way to a little restaurant I knew in Charlotte Street.
I was pretty sure what I wanted to eat, but when I saw some of the things the other customers had chosen I decided to have a quick look at the menu before I ordered. The selection was fairly standard – the place was known more for quality than innovation – but as my eyes scanned the page I picked up on a couple of things that were new. They were tempting, but before I could catch the waiter’s eye to confirm my usual choice - chicken jalfrezi - my phone rang. It was my control. He was the second person I’d called from outside the pub on Albermarle Street, before we left for the Tower. And he had answers to both of the questions I’d asked him.
Melissa had received no emails from GCHQ earlier in the day. And her mobile phone records showed she’d been nowhere near Leytonstone.
I was still wondering what to make of this news when my phone rang again. This time it was Melissa, herself. She told me that Elvis had been caught, and was being held by the police outside St Joseph’s Hospital.
“They took him back there?” I said. “Why?”
“They didn’t take him back,” she said. “They found him there.”
“He’d gone back to work?”
“Not exactly. He was ‘on the job’ when the bobbies grabbed him, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve got to understand, the people in the hospital are pretty paranoid by now. As far as they know there’s been a fire, an explosion, a radiation leak, and a robbery. They’re seeing ghosts in every shadow. Hospital Security’s been overwhelmed with calls, day after day. But tonight, when their lines were jammed even worse than usual people started dialing three nines, saying they could hear screaming coming from the basement.”
“Which turned out to be what? Elvis rehearsing?”
“Ha. No. It was a woman. He had her in a tiny room at the end of one of the corridors. It was barely big enough for a mattress. And the entrance was completely hidden. The police would never have found it without the racket she was making.”
“Was he attacking her?”
“No. She was there voluntarily. Or so she claims. I’m not sure I believe her, though, given that Elvis was fully decked out in sequins and flares.”
“You saw that with your own eyes?”
“No. Fortunately not. His clothes had been taken away as evidence by the time I arrived. But I did get a full description.”
“Poor bloke. Sounds like his delusion’s getting worse.”
“On the contrary. It seems he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s made it into a second job, apparently. I’m told people pay him to sing at pubs and parties. Then, if he plays his cards right, he brings one of the audience members back to his lair. His underground love den. And my impression? The place sees quite a lot of action.”
“And no one knew it was there?”
“No. Not even the caretaker. There are miles of passages down there - literally - and that end of the corridor is a complete warren. And there aren’t even any plans or records, any more. There were all destroyed in the war.”
“Didn’t they make new ones?”
“Of the hospital itself? Yes. And the major parts of the basement. But not the extremities. I guess that’s why the staff have such a free rein down there.”
I thought about the maintenance guys I’d found smoking in the old equipment room, and could see how what she’d heard could be true.
“So what’s happening now?” I said.
“It’s make or break time,” she said. “I’m about to talk to The King, himself, and I thought you’d like to be in on that if you can get down here in time.”
The figure I saw slumped in the back seat of a police car outside the hospital’s main entrance looked like a shrunken, deflated version of the guy I’d fished out of the basement smoking room the previous day. The oversized crime scene overalls he was wearing didn’t help, but when Melissa opened the passenger door and let me in, I sensed the change in his demeanor was more psychological than physical. Bearing in mind his reaction to the policeman he’d seen coming out of my room, I guessed he was never going to feel at home in one of their squad cars. And if he didn’t feel at home, he wasn’t going to be any use to us.