Underworld (25 page)

'All right,' said Dalziel, 'I'm getting too old for this kind of sport. Where the hell are you taking us?'

'Nowhere,' said Downey.

'Eh?'

'We're here.'

The two policemen looked round. The little there was to see was indistinguishable from what there had been to see for the last ten minutes. Trees and mist and undergrowth.

'Where?' said Dalziel.

'Here,' said Downey impatiently.

He stopped and started to pull at a clump of gorse bushes. They parted easily and he said with satisfaction, 'I knew it. He's been through here.'

'Where the fuck's here!' roared Dalziel.

But Pascoe staring into the even darker darkness revealed beyond the bushes was having his worst suspicions confirmed.

'It's a drift,' said Downey. 'Well, it leads into a drift. Original entry got filled in donkey's years ago. They all did eventually, but there's still ways. This ridge is riddled with workings. First mining in Burrthorpe were all done this side of the valley.’

'I've had the history lesson,' growled Dalziel. 'What makes you think Farr's gone in here and not in some other hole?'

'Look, this is where he'll be,' said Downey impatiently. 'I've seen him coming out of here. And I can tell someone's been through here recently. Give us one of your torches and I'll go in after him and try to talk some sense into him.'

'Hold on! Just how far does this drift go?'

'Far as you like,' said Downey. 'God knows what it links up with. But not much over a furlong on the level.'

'You mean that? Level?'

'More or less,' said Downey.

Pascoe did not like the way this discussion was going. He had an ingrained dislike of dark confined places which he suspected could readily develop into a full-blown hysterical phobia, given encouragement. He could have embraced Downey when the man argued, 'Look, I'm used to being underground. Besides, Colin's more likely to take notice of me alone. You two wait here till I get back.'

'He didn't seem inclined to take much notice of you at the White Rock,' said Dalziel.

Oh God. Let this be token resistance, prayed Pascoe.

But God was deaf behind the drifting mist.

'No,' said Dalziel, making up his mind. 'Can't let you go in there alone, Mr Downey. More than my job's worth. And as long as it's level, a bit of blackness won't hurt us, will it, Peter? Lead on, Mr Downey and let's see what we can find.'

He handed Downey his torch. The man shrugged but didn't argue. Stooping, he stepped forward into the dark cavern. Dalziel followed close behind.

Pascoe still hesitated on the threshold. It was stupid to let some absurd police machismo prevent him from confessing his fear.

'Come on, lad! Hurry up with that torch o' thine, will you?'

He took a deep breath, glanced up at the sky. God might be deaf but he wasn't humourless. Even as he looked the mist was drawn up as though by a sharp intake of breath prior to a good belly laugh, and the sky scintillated with a million stars.

'Oh shit.' said Pascoe. And stepped into the dark.

Chapter 7

It wasn't as bad as he'd feared, he assured himself. A man could walk almost upright in here and there was the occasional draught of cold air like a lifeline with the outside world. Nor was there much chance of getting lost. After the initial narrow squeeze, they'd found themselves in a tunnel which took them straight forward with no sign of any side passage in the torch's bright cone, though it did seem to be descending rather more sharply than Downey had promised.

Dalziel was just ahead. At least he assumed that hunching hulk was still Dalziel and not some time-travelled troglodyte luring him to its bone-strewn lair.

'Sir,' he whispered. 'Sir!'

'What the hell are you muttering about, lad?' said Dalziel irritatedly over his shoulder.

'You shouldn't make too much noise in places like this,' said Pascoe defensively.

'Oh aye. You an expert or something?'

No, but I've seen a lot of movies where people made too much noise, was Pascoe's proper reply.

He said, 'Shouldn't we try to make contact? I mean, we're never going to actually catch up with him, not unless this all comes to a dead end, are we?'

'You mean you want to start shouting to the lad? I thought you were worried about making too much noise just now?'

'I just think we ought to do something,' said Pascoe desperately. Though he couldn't be absolutely certain, he thought he sensed a slight curve developing in the tunnel. Also those comforting draughts of fresh air seemed less frequent here.

'What do you suggest?' said Dalziel.

Pascoe examined his thoughts, tried to separate proper procedure from personal terror, came to an identical conclusion in both cases, and said, 'I think one of us ought to go back and get this thing properly organized.'

Ahead, Dalziel halted, sighed deeply, turned with difficulty, the better, Pascoe guessed, to administer a rebuke.

Instead the fat man said, 'You're right . . .' and Pascoe's heart soared '. . I'll go.' And great was the fall thereof.

But before he could find a method of contradiction short of outright refusal, Downey who'd got some way ahead during this discussion returned.

'He's not there,' he said, causing Pascoe's heart to raise its head hopefully.

'Not where?' said Dalziel, who always seemed to have trouble with Downey's locative adverbs.

'At the end of the drift,' said Downey.

'You mean he didn't come in here after all?' said Pascoe, torn between relief and indignation.

'He must have turned off,' said Downey.

'Turned off?' Pascoe echoed derisively. 'Into solid rock?'

Downey didn't reply but retreated a few paces and did just that.

'Oh God,' said Pascoe.

But Dalziel went forward and said impatiently, 'Bring that bloody torch!'

There was a side passage here. It looked as if a natural fault had been widened by a pick. A draught of air blew through it, not fresh night air, but slightly warmer and with something slightly fetid on its breath.

'Downey!' called Dalziel.

There was no reply and no sign of the miner's torch.

'Come on,' said Dalziel.

'But what about getting help?' demanded Pascoe.

'The bugger who'll need help is that half-wit Downey if he catches up with Farr and we're not there,' retorted Dalziel. 'Come on.'

There seemed to be no way the fat man was going to get through the gap but somehow he seemed to mould his bulk to fit the contours, and like a squid squeezing into a crevasse he vanished from sight.

Pascoe followed. Why not? It had been a day for new and deteriorating experiences. Now the drift seemed to him like a well-lit road. It was his fate, it seemed, to search for the tunnel at the end of the light.

His torch showed he was in a new world now; long stretches were wholly natural as if some ancient movement of the earth had prised these rocks apart. In places he had to duck beneath the atrophied roots of distant trees, sent deep-probing in search of fresh layers of earth and water which they never found. He glimpsed fossils in the walls of rock, leaves and ferns and ammonites, and his imagination turned other ridges and hollows into bones and skulls. And finally he knew that he was quite alone and this was that old nightmare come true in which he went further and further along a tunnel till it grew so narrow that he became wedged in it, unable either to retreat or advance.

Dalziel got through here, he assured himself. Dalziel got through here. Oh God! What he would give to hear a few comforting words from that deep certain voice.

'Look at the state of this fucking suit! Hurry up, lad and shine that torch on it. It's bloody ruined. Look at it. Best tailor in Yorkshire made this, back when they knew how to cut cloth. It'll be three years before I can get him to do another one.'

'Why three years?' asked Pascoe, trying to control the joy in his voice at this summons back to a real world even if it were still subterranean.

'That's how long he's still got to do. I put the sod away for receiving stolen cloth, don't you remember? He blamed it on the government allowing unfair competition from the Far East. I reckon the trouble were a bit nearer east than that. Scarborough. That's where he set his fancy woman up. Expensive tastes, that one. Where's that daft bugger gone now? Downey!'

They were through the fissure and back in a tunnel which the timbered roof showed to be man-made. Up ahead a torch beam appeared and flashed urgently at them. They went forward and found Arthur Downey waiting for them.

'What now?' demanded Dalziel.

'Not so loud,' whispered Downey. 'The roof's a bit dicey here.'

Pascoe shot a triumphant glance at Dalziel, who said, 'Then let's not hang around under it. Mr Downey, if I can't communicate with young Farr by shouting, what're the odds of us getting within whispering distance of him?'

For the first time since this lunatic chase began, Downey seemed to have run out of certainties. He stared around as if surprised to be where he was. Pascoe knew the feeling, hated to know it was shared.

'Mr Downey,' he said gently, 'is there any point in going on?'

'What?' Downey looked at him as if taking this as a general philosophical inquiry and feeling inclined to answer no. Then he shook his head and said, 'A little further. He might be ... a little further.'

He set off once more. Dalziel looked at Pascoe and shrugged his shoulders before following. Pascoe once more found himself bringing up the rear. He walked slowly, letting his torch beam run up and down the walls in an effort to memorize their features. Of course, as long as there was no choice of route there was no chance of getting lost but he still felt as if he should be dropping white pebbles, or leaving a clue of thread to guide him back. But as he had neither thread nor pebbles, he'd have to make do with memory.

Of course he could always unravel his pullover, but Ellie wouldn't like that. Her mother had knitted it for him and though Ellie herself would rather do hard labour on the Gulag than practise such a female submissive craft, she was fearsomely defensive of her mother's artefacts.

Ellie. He wished he hadn't thought of Ellie for now this thought turned naturally to Colin Farr and the relationship between them. What it was, he didn't know. That it was intense he'd had plenty of evidence. It might not be sexual but that didn't matter all that much. There are other kinds of jealousy just as corrosive.

He'd stopped walking. His mind might go wandering in search of mental escape routes but his stay-at-home eyes, directed perhaps by his roaming thoughts, had spotted something on the wall. He beamed his torch sideways. It was unmistakable. A rough arrowhead scratched on the crumbling wall behind the line of wooden props. And another. Someone else had recently been this way, beset by fears of unreturning.

He let his torch beam move onward and upward. The unknown trailblazer had been wise to carve his traffic signs on wall rather than wood. The roof must have been particularly troublesome along this stretch. Props of warped and rotting timber bowed like the ribs of an ancient wreck under sagging cross beams. If Dali had painted the aisle of some ancient cathedral it might have come out looking like this.

We're mad to be down here! thought Pascoe. Yet it had a strange fascination. A man could get used even to this. He had to breathe deep now to remind himself of just how rotten the atmosphere stank! God, it must be like this in a charnel house. Bones and blood and decaying flesh . . .

He flashed his torch ahead, fearful that he'd lost contact with the others, but there they were. They'd stopped still and he hurried to catch up with them.

He saw the reason for their hesitation. There was another side passage. Dalziel was peering into it but Downey was shaking his head.

'No, he'll not have gone down there. It's a dead end down there. And the roof's really rotten round here, we don't want to hang around, just look at the state of it.'

Pascoe raised his torch beam. The roof indeed looked bad but little worse than it had for the past many yards. Dalziel grunted and said, 'All right, you're the boss down here,' without much conviction, but he did resume his progress down the main tunnel with Downey at his side. Pascoe was about to follow when his peripheral vision caught something he'd rather have missed. It was one of those lightly scratched arrows turning into the side passage.

He could ignore it. He could call the others back. The one thing he couldn't do was go down there by himself. Why then were his feet moving slowly, inexorably, into the passage?

The air here was thicker, the stench of decay intensified. He took another couple of steps. The torch beam oozed ahead and touched something bulky, something still beyond mineral stillness. Tiny paws scuttered away. The torch rose slowly in his hand, involuntary as a diviner's wand, tracing a crumple of dark-trousered legs; a swelling paunch; a broad chest on which lay like a tribute a narrow cassette recorder; two chins; a gaping mouth, a ragged moustache; eyes - one staring and one which something had begun to eat - a forehead laid open like a pathological model to show the brain beneath.

And Pascoe knew at last why Monty Boyle had proved so elusive over the past couple of days.

He went down on one knee by the body, motivated neither by piety nor professionalism, but merely by a weariness which had little to do with muscular fatigue. Everyone had limits and he suspected that he had come a body too far. Touch nothing, was the rule and he felt little incentive to break it, but that cassette recorder, Monty Boyle's trade mark, might tell what the Man Who Knew Too Much had known.

He stretched out his hand to take it. Then froze as the horrors which he had thought to have climaxed, resumed. The darkness beyond, which he had taken for the gallery's dead end, shifted, took shape, became distinct, advanced. And Dali's cathedral had its resident angel.

'So we meet at last,' said Pascoe inanely for the sake of hearing his voice.

But Colin Farr returned no words, though his face spoke for him as his young fair features contorted in rage and hate from guardian angel to avenging demon.

What have I done to inspire this? Pascoe wondered in terror. Then the young man launched himself forward. But the name he was screaming was not Pascoe's but 'Downey!' He was past in a single bound. Pascoe twisted round to see the deputy standing at the entry to the side passage. He must have come back to see what was holding Pascoe up.

He only had time to retreat a half-step before Farr was on him driving him backwards by the force of his attack into the main tunnel.

His paralysis broken, Pascoe followed. Somehow Downey had broken loose. Pascoe seized Farr by the shoulder and cried, 'For God's sake, the roof!' But the young man hurled him away with incredible power for so slight a figure and flung himself on Downey with a brute force that drove him against the wall. Pascoe had fetched up against a prop which he distinctly felt give. On the other side he saw a couple more snap like matchsticks as Farr and Downey crashed against them. And overhead he heard the roof start to groan and creak like an old windmill straining into life. Neil Wardle's words sounded mockingly in his head.
Ever been a thousand feet under and heard the timbers cracking over your head?
'

'Peter! Get out of there!'

It was Dalziel's voice behind a torch beam which seemed a half-mile away. He looked at the struggling figures locked together like a pair of lovers for whom the earth is about to move. There was a noise like an explosion. Then he was running towards the voice and the light through a hail of earth and stone with chaos on his heels. The light seemed as far as yesterday and as dim as lost love, but he still thought that, by running faster and striving harder, he might make it. Pebbles hit him like bird-shot, a larger rock clipped the back of his head; he stumbled, half fell, half recovered; then something much bigger and heavier crashed against the back of his legs, forcing him to the ground and pinning him there with pain and pressure till the darkness of the pit rushed in to take away pressure and pain together.