Scratch Deeper (6 page)

‘Too right,' Toby agreed forcefully.

Iona glanced at him. You're chucking your opinions in now, too. That's good. ‘So he's not doing so well at making an impression.'

‘Until,' Cropped-hair said, ‘he had a go at the Cornbrook. On his own. Now that is a serious mooch.'

‘Epic,' Hidden Shadow concurred.

‘What is it?' Iona asked.

‘A drain,' Cropped-hair replied. ‘Runs for over five clicks, from Cornbrook—'

‘The Metro stop going out to Salford Quays?' Iona asked.

‘Yeah, near there. Runs below the city to come out near Ardwick.'

Iona tried to gauge distances in her head. Easily over five kilometres, like they said.

‘It is,' Cropped-hair elaborated, ‘a shit-fest of massive proportions. Probably the toughest drain in Manchester.'

‘Parts where you're knee-deep in fester,' Hidden Shadow added. ‘Methane releases, the lot. All manner of debris to wade through.'

‘And the tunnel is never more than four feet high,' Cropped-hair said. ‘So you're bent double the entire way.'

The impact of their words – and the images they created – was causing Iona's pulse to speed up. ‘If I were into betting, I could be tempted into believing you've also been down it.' She smiled.

‘Down it?' Hidden Shadow grinned. ‘We were the first to complete it. That thing is our bitch.' He held up a hand and Cropped-hair gave him a high-five. Lowering his arm, he looked at Iona. ‘This is all off the record, right? Anything we've done?'

She nodded. ‘Within reason, of course. But if you mean exploring tunnels, it honestly does not concern me.'

He leaned to the side and whispered something to Cropped-hair. The other man looked dubious and murmured a reply. Hidden Shadow whispered something else. ‘Come on,' he said more loudly. ‘It's cool.'

Cropped-hair gave a reluctant nod.

Hidden Shadow turned to Iona. ‘You want to see the inside of a storm drain?'

‘Now?' She looked around. ‘I don't think . . . I mean, my shoes – I'm hardly –'

He grinned. ‘We don't mean actually going down one.'

Cropped-hair sniggered as he produced his iPhone. ‘Watch this.' He selected a file, started the footage playing and handed her the device. ‘There's sound, if you can hear it above the noise in here.'

The title, Bunker Storm Drain, faded from the screen and a drumbeat started up. The view was outside, looking across a concrete channel about ten feet wide. Stinging nettles and brambles drooped over each side. The picture zoomed in on a semi-circular opening at ground level. A hand appeared in front of the camera, thumb raised.

The image cut and was replaced by the outline of a figure directing a powerful lamp up the low tunnel. He was wearing waders and had a bandana over his face. Iona could tell it was Hidden Shadow. The camera swung round to show a thick layer of litter on the floor. It homed in on a lump of matted fur – a cat maybe, or the remains of a fox. Whatever it was, it must have stank. Iona was wondering where the second light source was coming from when Cropped-hair said, ‘Many cameras have built-in spotlights. Burns battery power, but can be useful.'

As Hidden Shadow started making his way forward the song's tempo increased, synthesizer notes now layered over the frantic drum rhythms. The footage cut to another section of tunnel. A tripod had been set up with the lamp now mounted on it. Hidden Shadow was thigh-deep in sludgy water, pointing out the complicated-looking brickwork forming the rim of a circular opening in the wall. The liquid seeping over its edge was lumpy and orange. More was oozing between the bricks in the smaller tunnel's roof.

‘What's known as a shrinker,' Hidden Shadow said, peering at the screen from across the table.

Iona glanced up.

‘Wide opening, gets narrow the further in you crawl. Bummers to back your way out of.'

Just the thought of it sent a shudder down her legs. An ankle knocked against the table leg, making their drinks wobble.

Another cut, now the view was off some kind of ledge, looking down on to a smooth, glassy surface. The tunnel seemed to have got bigger. A hand reached out and let go of an empty sweet wrapper. As soon as it touched the surface, it shot off to the side. Iona realized it was water – and it was moving fast. The camera tracked it for a few metres before it was swallowed by the blackness beyond.

‘That's the main tunnel, the bit before was just an overflow,' Hidden Shadow explained.

‘How deep is it?' Iona asked.

‘Hard to say,' Cropped-hair responded. ‘Three, four feet? More than enough to sweep you off your feet.'

‘What if one of you slipped and fell in? Where would you end up?'

‘Just don't slip,' Hidden Shadow laughed.

The footage cut again, Hidden Shadow on the ledge, peering upwards, bathed in a shaft of daylight. It looked for a moment like he was in the beam of space ship and Iona could imagine him rising into the air. The camera drew closer and tilted up. A shaft, one side of it lined by a row of rusty rungs. Sheets of cobwebs stretched across it, dead leaves and twigs causing them to droop. The top of the shaft was capped by some kind of perforated cover through which the sunlight was shining. Hidden Shadow made a spider with one hand and crawled it through the air towards the camera's lens.

The next scene was him approaching a circle of bright light – the mouth of the tunnel. The song came to a stop as he turned and saluted. The picture faded out.

Iona stared at the screen for a moment longer before handing the iPhone back. ‘You're mad.'

They were clearly delighted by her comment.

‘So, back to Cornbrook,' Hidden Shadow said. ‘Which, by the way, makes the Bunker look like a Sunday stroll. In fact, we nearly gave up after four-and-a-half clicks. Backs were killing us. Only reason we carried on was we couldn't shift any liddage to get the fuck out –'

Iona shot him a questioning look. ‘Liddage?'

‘Man-hole covers.'

‘You mean,' she said, voice slightly hoarse, ‘you could have been trapped down there?'

‘No way we wanted to turn back,' Cropped-hair continued. ‘Plus, our GPS told us, if we did surface, it would be in some rather on-top locations. Busy areas with traffic and cameras, you know? So we pressed on to the finish, finally popped a manhole only to find a dome cam directly above us.'

‘Yeah,' Hidden Shadow laughed. ‘Not wanting to outstay our welcome, so to speak, we got moving. Had to schlep right across town to our dry gear, sun coming up, head-to-toe in the most acrid gunk imaginable.'

They looked proudly at each other.

Iona dropped her gaze to her notes. What a pair of weirdos.

‘When he tried it, our man clocked up a fail a few hundred metres in,' Hidden Shadow said. ‘Started pouring down and the poop-flow got too strong for him.'

‘Oh, my God,' Iona said. ‘There's a danger of these things flooding while you're down there?'

‘Well,' Cropped-hair said, looking amused, ‘they are storm drains.'

‘Obviously,' Hidden Shadow added, ‘you pick a dry spell to do them. Which he didn't. Then, a few weeks after that, he posted something that really got our attention. He made it up on to the town hall roof. Took some amazing photos across the city, many from the top of the clock tower.'

‘I thought you were only into below-ground stuff?'

‘Primarily, yes. But we'll go up cranes or on to a roof if the opportunity presents itself.'

Iona pictured the neo-Gothic architecture of the civic building. The clock tower was frighteningly tall. ‘He's got a head for heights, then.'

Hidden Shadow sat forward. ‘Also an ability with locks.' The other two nodded. ‘That's not an easy building to access. Majorly difficult, in fact.'

‘Doing it was deserving of respect,' Cropped-hair stated.

‘So we contacted him,' Hidden Shadow continued. ‘We met in the student union on Oxford Street. He was really keen to visit the tunnels under the cathedral at first. But they've been well gone through.'

‘They have?' Iona asked, giving them her wide-eyed look again. ‘Are there many?'

‘Under the cathedral?' Hidden Shadow looked bored. ‘It's riddled with them. They spread out in all directions. Get to most via the crypt or the passage below the main tower. It's hardly a secret. Next, he wants a look round the Victoria Arches.'

Confused, Iona looked at him.

‘Dug out originally to store goods being transported up and down the River Irwell. No one's quite sure when. Then they were used as air-raid shelters during World War II. Right in front of the cathedral, they are. You can see them looking back across the river from Bridge Street.'

Iona clicked her fingers, picturing the steep walls dropping down to the dirty water. ‘They look like giant bricked-up windows? Set a few metres above water level?'

‘That's them. Over three-and-a-half-thousand people used to shelter in there during the Blitz.'

‘Really?' Iona said. ‘That's a lot of bodies.'

‘Each archway leads into a cavernous great hall, all interconnected by narrow corridors.'

‘You've been in them, too?'

‘Plenty of times.'

‘How do you get in?'

He looked at her. ‘Trade secret. There used to be wooden stairs going down to them from Bridge Street, but they were torn down when the council decided to brick the entrances up. There are other ways in, though – including where the wardens' posts used to be. You just need to know where to look.'

Cropped-hair raised a finger. ‘All this stuff? You're not teasing anything out of us you can't read about on our website. Hope you realize that.'

Iona looked at him. Damn, that was starting to go really well. ‘I wasn't trying to. So, what's down there now?'

‘Not a lot. Part of a tramway gantry. Bits of old pipes, broken bricks – the usual stuff. There's meant to be a way through to the cathedral tunnels but we've never had any luck finding it. We might have done if Hidden Shadow here isn't always so keen to get out.' He smirked at his mate.

‘Sometimes, you hear things,' Hidden Shadow said uncomfortably. ‘Moaning sounds. The back part of the arches must be almost touching the cathedral crypt, we reckon.'

A little smile had appeared on Toby's lips. ‘Like there's a ghost trapped down there.'

Hidden Shadow was staring at his feet. ‘Take the piss. You wouldn't think it was so funny if you actually heard it. Not down there in the pitch black, just the sound of dripping water all around.'

‘OK,' she said, ‘leaving the haunted stuff to one side. This person's interested in the areas below the cathedral . . .'

Across the table, Cropped-hair held up his finger again. ‘At first he was. Then he starts trying to pump us for information about the Deansgate tunnel – which, of course, he gets no joy with.'

Iona paused again in her note-taking. ‘You've lost me again. Deansgate tunnel?'

‘It's a bit of a legend.'

Iona thought about Deansgate's wide lanes. How the little old lady had been stranded at the mid-point with the four-wheel drive edging towards her. ‘And what? It goes from one side to the other?'

‘Not across it,' Hidden Shadow said. ‘Under it.'

Iona blinked. ‘Sorry?'

‘And it's big enough to drive a coach and horses through.'

Iona sat back. ‘You're saying there's a tunnel beneath one of the city's major roads and no one can actually find a way into it?'

Hidden Shadow rocked his bottle from side to side. ‘We didn't say no one can get into it. I made it into a short section once – but it had been bricked up after about forty metres. The council are bound to be aware of it – but life's far easier if they just deny it exists.'

‘But surely something like that couldn't be covered up? Pardon the pun.'

From the sudden way they all shifted in their seats, Iona sensed she'd touched a collective nerve.

Hidden Shadow swigged the last of his beer down before speaking. ‘You're trying to tell me, the authorities don't try and keep stuff secret from the public? We're in the age of WikiLeaks, dude. Calling people like us conspiracy theorists won't wash any more.'

Fair point, Iona said to herself. She was aware of a few cover-ups herself. Like a couple of years ago when the big screens that had been erected in Piccadilly Gardens to show the UEFA cup final had suddenly gone off. It wasn't, she knew, because of any technical fault as official announcements had claimed. It was because senior brass had taken the decision to cut the power when crowds swelled to dangerous levels. They just hadn't anticipated the thousands of infuriated Glaswegians who then rioted through the centre of the city.

‘So which bit of Deansgate is it meant to be beneath?' she asked.

‘Which bit?' A wry smile was on Cropped-hair's face. ‘It doesn't run under just part of it – the thing goes its entire length.'

Iona wasn't sure if she'd heard correctly. ‘From one end to the other?'

‘Correct.'

She did a mental scan of the city. Deansgate started adjacent to the cathedral and then ran in a straight line all the way to Deansgate train station. In between those two points lay such city landmarks as The John Rylands Library, Kendals department store and the Great Northern Railway Terminal; now a leisure complex housing a cinema, gym and several bars. She realized the convention centre was located not far to the side of Deansgate, at the train station end of it. The alarm bell that had rung in her mind when talking with Sergeant Ritter started up again, more loudly this time. ‘Talk me through when you saw this person again.'

Hidden Shadow let out a burp. ‘OK, so you know he walked right past me outside Central Library?'

Iona gave a nod.

‘I wasn't sure if it was him, at first. The way he was dressed was so different. Then again, he may not have recognized me with a tie on and my hair all neat—'