Mind the Gap Page 8

Page 8

  And how else were they to survive down there in the Underground? The rich, Harry insisted, would happily pick their bones. He did not pretend to be some modern-day Robin Hood, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, but Jazz figured the same rules applied. If she was to hide down beneath, she had to survive. A little petty thievery from the arrogant and rich did not trouble her overmuch.

  And the way shed been raised —weaned on paranoia, caution, and suspicion—had laid the groundwork for a life of thievery. Shed learned to be stealthy and to blend in a crowd, and with her natural agility it almost seemed as though her past had been the perfect preparation. Jazz knew she shouldnt take pleasure in discovering a talent for steal-ing, but the thrill was undeniable.

  "Well, whats your haul, then?" Cadge asked.

  Jazz glanced around. By now the mark would have noted the theft, but unless hed done so quickly enough to follow Cadge, there would be no way they would be caught. She plunged her hands into her pockets and drew out their contents. In her left hand she held the mans wallet. She hadnt checked to see how much money hed been carrying and it wasnt safe to do that here, but it felt thick with cash.

  In her right hand she held his mobile phone. Down there in Harrys United Kingdom, they hadnt any need for phones. No one to call. And it would be turned off by morning. But there was no telling when theyd find a use for it, so when her fingers had brushed against it in the right-hand pocket of the mans jacket, she had liberated it.

  "Well done, you," Cadge said.

  His own hands were empty. Today had been her first time hitting the street with them, and Cadge had been as-signed to work the mark, not to do the actual nicking.

  Jazz glanced nervously at the entrance to the platform. "We should go. "

  Cadge nodded. "Wait for the train. "

  Two minutes ticked past with excruciating slowness un-til the train pulled into the station. People were disgorged and others got aboard, and then it rumbled away again. In moments, they were alone.

  Cadge led the way to the edge of the platform. He glanced both ways along the tunnel. According to Stevie Sharpe, there were other ways to get to the unused plat-forms at Tottenham Court Road, but the tracks were fastest. With great care, they picked their way along the side of the tracks, retrieved their torches from a nook where theyd stashed them, and fifty yards along they split off along a section of unused track. The abandoned tunnel ran past the old platform, but they didnt slow. It wasnt the moldering platform they wanted but this lonely, abandoned track. Fol-lowing it would take them back to Holborn station, and from there they could descend to one of the older, deeper stations that had sheltered air-raid refugees during the Blitz. They would meet up with the others and make their way back to Deep Level Shelter 7-K, their sub-subterranean home.

  Home.

  A chill went through her. It was the first time shed thought of the underground refuge as home, and something about it felt very wrong to her. She knew she had to hide, knew that if she ever tried to return to her real home, ugli-ness and murder awaited her there, perhaps along with truths and revelations she had no interest in ever learning. But to think of the shelter as home was to submit to the idea of living there forever, and that she could not do. Silently, she promised herself shed never think of it that way again.

  Ever since the moment Cadge had yanked up her skirt, Jazzs heart had been racing, adrenaline pumping through her. Now, at last, far away from any chance of discovery, her pulse slowed and the thrill began to lessen.

  And then she heard the music, distant and tinny at first, then growing in volume. A plinking piano, a jaunty violin, a tooting horn. . . and then a sudden chorus of wolf whistles and lecherous howls so loud that Jazz felt surrounded.

  "Oh, Jesus," she whispered, and clapped her hands to her ears.

  Frantic, she whipped around, shining her torch into the shadows on both sides of the old track. With the light shin-ing, she saw nothing at all, but when she swung the torch away, she saw spectral images in the darkness left behind. The piano player, the violinist, and the trumpeter, who swayed his hips to get a laugh. And the audience roared.

  Jazz spun and saw them there, rows and rows of them, applauding. They were dressed not in the thirties garb of the spirits shed encountered before but the clothing of an earlier era. Still wartime, though.

  Always wartime. The mu-sic hall had phantom walls and curtains, a stage, and above her hung a ghostly chandelier.

  For a moment the whole room flickered and became a tavern full of men locked in serious debate, and on the plate-glass window at the front she could read the reversed let-tering of the name of the place —the Seven Tankards and Punch Bowl. Then the moment passed, the tavern blurred, and the music hall returned, accompanied by laughter and those wolf whistles.

  Voices called out a name. "Marie!"

  "Marry me, Marie!"

  "Get yer knickers off, Marie!"

  But the voices werent addressing Jazz. She could see in the faces of that spectral audience —many of them in uni-form—that their focus was on the stage. Jazz turned just in time to see the tall blond woman sashay suggestively onto the stage. A microphone awaited her. She ran her fingers down the smooth contours of her body, over the sparkling material of her dress.

  And she sang.

  "I didnt like you much before you joined the army, John," Marie cooed, "but I do like yer cockie now youve got your khaki on. "

  The audience erupted with hoots and applause.

  Jazz fell to her knees and slapped her hands over her ears. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly. The sound of her own breathing filled her head, and her heart thundered in her chest.

  When she felt fingers on her shoulder, she screamed.

  Scrambling away, she rose to a crouch, ready to flee. Blinking, she saw that the apparitions had gone. She had left her torch on the tracks a dozen feet away, and the light shone off into the darkness.

  Cadge stood staring at her, torch trained on her, his eyes wide with concern.

  "Get that light out of my face," she said, but couldnt manage the scolding tone shed attempted.

  He lowered the torch, and they stood staring at each other in its diffused glow.

  "You hear them too," he said.

  Jazz cocked her head, staring at him doubtfully. "What are you saying? You heard that?"

  Cadge moistened his lips. He hesitated a moment as though afraid to confess, but at last he nodded.

  "A song, this time. And cheering. Its always different. Almost always. "

  Torn between relief that she wasnt mad and astonish-ment at this confirmation, she stared at him.

  "Are we the only ones?"

  The boy glanced away, shifting nervously. "Harry hears em, I think. Just echoes, he says. Echoes of old times. But he told me never to mention it to the others. Theyll think Im a nutter. "

  "Echoes," Jazz whispered. Then she narrowed her eyes and studied him. "You see them too?"

  Cadge gave a small shrug. "Sometimes. Like bits of fog. Used to think my eyes were going, the way things would blur. Once. . . once I thought I saw a face. "

  Jazz swallowed and found her throat dry. He might have heard the phantoms lost down there in the tunnels, the ghosts of old London that had manifested to her twice since her descent, but it was obvious Cadge could not see them the way she did.

  She didnt tell him that. Not yet. But she wondered about Harry. If he heard them, maybe he saw them too.

  "So, echoes?" she said.

  "Like memories," Cadge said. "The citys memories; something like that. "

  They fell into step together, more cautiously this time, making their way deeper beneath London.

  "Not ghosts?"

  His eyes widened a little. "No, not ghosts. "

  "Why not?"

  Cadge glanced away. "Cause Im afraid of ghosts. "

  "Just echoes, Cadge," she said, and she sensed Cadge more at ease
beside her. It felt strange, her trying to calm him, but though she seemed to hear and see much more, she could not find it in herself to be frightened. There was something about the visions shed just seen, a sort of sad in-nocence, that perhaps had a little to do with the old times they were from.

  "Hear em now and then," he said. "Thats all. Now and then. "

  "So lets keep them between us for now, yes?"

  Cadge turned to her and smiled, and she saw his plea-sure at their complicity.

  "All right by me," he said. "Besides, theres plenty else to be scared of down here. Ask Harry to tell you about the Hour of Screams sometime. "

  Jazz frowned. "Whats that?"

  "Told ya, ask Harry. Dont even like to talk about it myself. " He shivered theatrically, to make sure she got the point. But then he smiled. "Wed best get moving. "

  Jazz shook her head in amusement. "You are so odd. "

  Cadge offered a courtly bow, grinning, and then they walked on. Rats scurried out of their way, avoiding the torchlight. Now and then they heard the rumble and rattle of a train in the distance, like the Underground grumbling in eternal hunger. A wind pushed through the tunnel from ahead of them, carrying stale scents of dust and despair. Jazz had always sensed that down here, every time shed traveled somewhere with her mother. London has more than its share of sadness, her mother had said once.

  Like an old person, an old city can sometimes get wistful and melancholy.

  Old city, Jazz thought. Thats for sure. She sniffed the breeze and thought of so many people dead and gone, and the sadness of growing toward death.

  Her mother had been forty-four years old when she died.

  Chapter Six

  old news

  Jazz had been down beneath for over a month, but still she searched for news of her mothers death.

  Harry made it his duty to keep tabs on what was going on aboveground, and every day one of the lost kids would return from an excur-sion with a newspaper, bought or nicked. Harry read them, then left them stacked beside one of the storage cupboards, ready to be used to light the occasional fire they had when the tunnels grew cold. Jazz had been looking through these papers, and nobody had interrupted her. They all knew what she was searching for.

  So far, nothing.

  No mention of the Uncles in their black BMWs. No re-ports of the bloody death scene in their house, no stories about the dead mother and the missing daughter who was yet to be found. Nothing. A blank, as though what had happened was so far below the normal surface of things that no-body knew.

  "Someone has to know," Jazz said. Cadge was sitting be-side her, as usual, watching as she scanned the discarded copy of the Times shed picked up from the station platform. "Someone has to know something. "

  "From what you said, lots of people know stuff," he said. "Just that the ones that know dont wanna tell the papers. "

  She turned another page and read some more old news. Everything here described events happening in another world, and she could not find it in herself to care about an-other rise in inflation, a minor royals indiscretion with a pop star, or the latest record-breaking celebrity divorce set-dement. None of that mattered. None of it ever had. Her mother had told her that, and it was her mother who mat-tered, and between these pages of cold dark print there was nothing concerning her mother.

  Up there, her mothers murderers still walked free.

  She had burned with the injustice of things since spying that initial smear of blood on her mothers bedroom door handle. But now, for the first time, Jazzs thoughts were clouded with revenge.

  They celebrated that evening with hot dogs cooked over an open fire, while Harry Fowler relayed a tale of his time as a gentleman. Exaggerated and ridiculous —travels in Africa, hunting tigers in India, and carrying out expeditions to find the Yeti in the Himalayas—but the kids were all entertained, and Jazz found herself caught up in the banter and enjoy-ment.

  But that night she dreamed of her mother, as an idea rather than a real person. In her dream, Harry sat her down one day and broke a terrible truth. Jazz girl, pet, youve been down here with us forever, he said. You were born down here and youll die down here. The upside is just where we go to hunt tigers.

  She woke up with a start and cried in the dark, vowing to never let the memory of her mother fade away.

  ****

  Three days after her first nick, Jazz went back up with Cadge, Stevie, and Hattie.

  "Moneys all good and nice, pets," Harry said, "but our United Kingdom needs plenty more besides.

  Theres stuff money cant buy, but luckily its not just pockets our hands can worm their way into. "

  Everyone listened, but he was speaking to only Jazz.

  They caught the Tube to Covent Garden and parted company before the station exit. Stevie and Hattie went their separate ways, and Jazz watched Stevie disappear quickly into the crowds. For someone so striking, he hid well. She wanted to say good-bye, wish him luck, touch his hand, and try to catch a smile from him. But during the en-tire Tube journey, he had sat opposite her and stared over her head through the dark window. Never once had his eyes flickered down to meet her own. And in his feigned disinter-est, she wondered whether there was something to find.

  Time will tell. Her mother had said that, using it as a full stop after telling her stories about the Uncles, and other people, and what the future might hold for her. Time will tell. And it certainly had.

  Cadge went with Jazz, and the two of them browsed shop windows, chatted, and laughed, keeping one eye on the time. There was a place to be and a time to be there, and everything was leading up to that.

  Cadge seemed even more ebullient than ever. Once or twice he touched Jazzs hand, blushing and looking away as he laughed at something she said. He carried an outwardly cheeky confidence, all bluster and defiance, but it was obvi-ous that there was a deeper side to him that was both vulner-able and delicate. In the beginning, his attentions had made her feel awkward, but now she was flattered. Still, she did her best to temper her response. She liked Cadge —he had a good heart, and she believed he could be a very good friend—but there was an age difference that she could not shake from her mind. She was still all but innocent of the opposite sex, but she knew enough to realize that Cadge was just a boy. So while he touched her hand and exuded an im-age of togetherness, she thought of them more as brother and sister.