I turned my attention back to the station. Every window and door was bricked up, but a blanket of glass, gravel and debris still crunched under my shoes as I passed along the eastbound platform. Once I was halfway along, I dropped down on to the line and crossed towards the second building. The closer I got, the more of it I could make out beyond the trees. Seconds later, I spotted a space on its wall where a sign had once hung, age and weather rinsing the colour off and on to the brickwork.
It was the red and blue symbol of the Tube.
Suddenly it made sense: this was a two-part station. The island platform and station house fed the overground line, a track that had once run between Highgate and Finsbury Park. Below ground had been a deep-level station – accessed via the second building – cleaving its way through the belly of the city, now disconnected from the network. A ghost station, shut down, bricked up and forgotten.
But not by Duncan Pell.
The Tube station was surrounded – almost swamped – by trees and foliage, but a path still remained, cutting through the overgrowth to the entrance. I headed in. It was uneven, the concrete broken, but it led all the way through to a narrow passageway and a staircase down. At the bottom, a rusting metal grille should have been pulled shut and padlocked to stop people from entering.
Except the grille wasn’t all the way across.
And the padlock was on the floor.
49
Fifteen feet away, in the gnarled bark of an old ash, I found a fallen branch. I picked it up, broke it in two and gripped it like a baseball bat, the thicker end facing up.
Then I headed down.
When I got to the grille, I stopped. Shapes formed in the dark on the other side and, as I manoeuvred myself into the gap, my eyes adjusted to the light and I could make out an old ticket office. Off to the right, barely visible in the darkness, was a lift: its doors were open, but another grille was pulled across. This one was still padlocked.
I got out my mobile, and used a light app to illuminate the area beyond the lift. It was a corridor, about thirty feet long, old-fashioned wooden phone booths on the left and then a door at the far end. Another sign, more difficult to read, was screwed to the wall above. STAIRS. They must have led down to the platform. Except there was no way to get down there now: the lift was padlocked and the door was bricked over.
A noise behind me.
I turned quickly and looked back across the ticket hall. My phone only reached so far into the darkness. Six feet. Maybe less. Something shifted in the shadows above my eyeline, right up in the corner of the room. I lifted the mobile higher. At the very limit of its glow, grey-blue in the light, I could see what it was. Bats. There were eight of them, hanging from a support beam in the roof. One of them was moving, its wings twitching.
I took a couple of steps back towards the office and, as I did, felt a faint draught at ankle level. Not much, but enough. When I stopped again I could hear it moving past me: a whisper, soft and unrefined, like a child’s voice. Eventually it faded out, as if sensing I was listening, and then I realized something else: it was freezing cold. The whole place – the whole building – was like a refrigerator. Turning the phone in the direction of the draught, I felt goosebumps scatter up my arms.
And then I found two further doors.
One was bricked up.
The other was ajar.
The darkness seemed to close in as I moved towards the open door. In front of me, there was no break in the shadows. No sliver of daylight. In the silence, all that came back was the thump of my heart in my chest, over and over, pounding in my ears.
Two feet short of the door, I smelled something.
Beyond was more darkness, thick and impervious, and when I raised the phone I saw it was another staircase down, this time bending around and out of sight. On either side were black wrought-iron handrails. Glazed tiles were on the walls, some broken and on the steps. The same smell drifted past me and out into the room I was in. A stench of decay.
I started the descent.
Before the bend in the staircase, there was a moment where I felt the same breeze as before, felt it pass my face and cling to me, thick and gluey, as if trying to warn me not to go any further. But I carried on. At the bottom was an old staffroom. It was about forty feet long but narrow. There were no windows. On one side, attached to the wall, was a counter. It was a big slab of wood, topped with small white tiles, but the tiles were mostly broken or on the floor in front. On top were a couple of animal traps, big and rusting, a series of knives and some rope. There was no other furniture. The smell was horrendous; a stench of death and suffering that stuck to the back of my throat.
Yet the room was empty.
Further into the darkness were more tools: a saw propped against the counter, a knife, rolls of duct tape. And something else: specks of blood on the white tiles, dotted all along the counter top like a trail on a map.
Then, in front of me, something shifted.
The phone’s glow didn’t reach the far wall, but something in me – some small voice – said not to go any further. I stood there for a moment, heart thumping in my chest, the smell, almost unbearable now, clawing its way into my nose and mouth and staying there like dust. Then – finally – I stepped forward and, on the edge of the glow, two blobs of light came back. At first I couldn’t see what they were. Then, too late, I realized.
Boots. Black, with steel toecaps and red stitching.
Just like Duncan Pell’s.
He’s in the room with me.
50
He launched himself out of the darkness, hood up, leading with his fists. I was barely ready for him, almost side on, but instead of trying to cut me down, he went past me. My body had been prepared for the impact, ready to absorb the blow. Instead, I felt the dead air move, an arm brush mine, and then he was already on the stairs, heading up into the ticket hall above us.
A second later, I followed.
As I came out of the bend on the stairs, I saw him exit through the metal grille and head up the stairs to the line. I tried to close the gap but he was fast. Ex-army. Fit. At the stairs I slowed. Up ahead, it was a blind turn back on to the line, so I came up on the left-hand side to avoid being hit or surprised. But there was no one waiting.
The line was silent.
I took a couple of steps through the trees to where the old eastbound line met the station house. Nothing now. No sound. No movement. The ground was hard, dried and compact. I moved along it, the platform about five feet above me on the island, glass and dust and brick scattered all over it. Halfway down, I placed both hands on the island and hauled myself up. Next to me, the station creaked in the hot sun. I didn’t move. Just stood there and listened. No sound but the station house, baking in the heat.
Crack.
A sound from the other side.
Glass beneath boots.
I moved quickly around the front, watching where my feet fell, and stopped at the edge of the building. Then I peered around the corner, along the westbound side.
No one on the platform.
No one on the line.
I came out from behind the station house. About two hundred feet further along, the island became a ramp and dropped down to meet the path. Fifty feet beyond that, the trees began to close in, swallowing the old line whole. There was nothing now. No breeze at all. The only thing that came back were my footsteps, moving across the thin layer of glass and dust. As the island dropped down, the two lines merging into a single path, I saw a flash of movement up ahead.