*
I slept soundly enough and after a few hours woke to the sound of the locks and slide-bars on the back of the truck being unfastened.
I was awake quickly and snatched up my bag and vaulted over a stack of boxes just as the door let a little light in. I heard voices and an instruction issued tersely and then the door was clanging shut again and soon the truck moving. But not far and I could hear the door of the cab close and the footsteps of the driver fade.
I guessed that we must have arrived at our destination and the driver had reported in and then parked up his truck and headed off for a tea and comfort break. Now seemed the best time to make a break for it and I managed to pop the door from the inside and slip out.
I was in a large compound with warehouses to my rear. There were floodlights illuminating the hundred yards of tarmac that ran to the warehouse entrance and beyond I could see small windows lit from inside. Offices presumably, of whatever operation this was.
Dashing away from the lights I scaled the chain link fence with ease. Soon enough I found a road to follow and began looking for clues as to my whereabouts.
I recalled that the wording on the rear of the truck had been French so was wondering whether I had made it across the channel. The first road sign I spotted soon disabused me of that notion.
It was an arrow pointing at a left turn that listed Northampton and Wellingborough as destinations as well as a sign pointing to the M1.
After all that roaming around the South of England I had headed north. The question was, whether I kept going that way or double back South again? If Frost and Stanford were tracking me, and so far they had proved preternaturally good at doing so, then I'd need to try anything I could.
I made again for the nearest motorway services and figured on either finding a ride with someone or jumping into another truck like the last one.
The car park was wide and wet and half empty. I had 4.30 am by my watch. I began to skirt the car park and noted one car with its interior light on but before I could even make for it the light was extinguished and the car was starting up and pulling away. I headed into the services building, past the burger joint and the newsagent and made for the toilets to freshen up a little.
Exiting, I spotted two things pretty fast. The young woman leaving the ladies at the same time was petite and pretty and looked tired and harassed.
The man leaning against the wall that she passed and did her best to ignore may have been holding a newspaper open, but he wasn't reading it. I watched for a moment and as soon as she hit the automatic doors he had popped up his hood and dropped the paper.
I followed the two of them and noted quickly that the girl had made a very basic error. Passing the cars parked closest to the well-lit buildings of the services she made her way across the car park to a lone car parked a distance away.
Dropping into the shadows I made my way quickly around the edge and watched as the man picked up his pace and closed the gap. She had her keys out well before she got to her car and I could hear them jangling a little more than they should have as she sorted nervously through the bunch to her car key.
Lights flashed as the alarm was disabled and the doors unlocked but with five more yards to cover she had no chance. The man broke into a sprint and was on her before she could react.
The hand over the mouth to stifle her screams and the quick and efficient use of his significantly larger bulk to pin her to the ground told of experience and practice. He struck her once across the face open-handed and growled something at her. She whimpered but did not cry out.
One hand back over her mouth again, the other slipped down to below the waist and began to fumble, either at her jeans or his own. Tears slid down into her hair.
One hard boot into the side of the scum bag and he was up and off her and spinning through the air with none in his lungs. She would find it easy enough to invent a story to explain away the large dent that he left in her rear wing when I kicked him into it. The rest she would simply choose to keep to herself.
I let him lie there dazed and winded a moment and crouched in front of the prone woman.
'You OK?'
She nodded but looked petrified.
I looked at the groaning form of the man as he rolled over and clutched at his ribs. 'Time to go now,' I said.
She scrambled to her feet, rushed to the car.
'Thank you,' she said over the top of the open door as she slipped inside.
I shook my head and kept staring down at her assailant. 'Nothing happened.'
With the roaring sound of her engine as she floored the accelerator the man began to pick himself up. He looked up at me for the first time and his expression was a mixture of anger and confusion. The fear would come. Soon.
The ability to move at speed was one I had developed well enough and when I rushed him he seemed astonished to find me suddenly just inches from his face.
‘What the fuck?' he muttered, stumbling back startled. 'Wanker.'
I looked him in the eye just long enough for him to register the truth of the situation he was finding himself in.
'Rapist.'
I knew that he was not the man that had brutalised and murdered Isobel and I knew that no matter what this man may or may not have done, it was not my place to pronounce judgement on him, nor pass sentence. I knew these things, but nonetheless I did what I did.
A savage kick to the groin floored him again and I fought down the fury and the raging feelings of vengeance and repulsion and refrained from doing what my baser instincts were demanding. I did not drag it out.
Though that said, I didn't make it quick for him either. I snatched up the sharp stubby knife that had skittered from his pocket and I showed it to him before I used it.
After it was done, I stowed his body in the unguarded back of a truck. I felt guilty at the trouble it would cause the driver but figured he would be OK since he was innocent of any crime, and why on earth would he keep the body if he was a murderer?
That would have to do for now so far as justifying myself went. I was having trouble enough convincing myself that taking that man was justified as well. I replayed the scene in my head again; the way he had picked her out, followed her, the way he seemed to know how to keep her still, scare her into acquiescence. My troubled conscience might tell me that these were no more than clues but I was satisfied that I was right.
In any event, no matter my position on the moral absolutes of taking life, there was a grain of necessity to this one. Frost and Stanford were out there somewhere and after me. Their survival of our encounter in that field, the extraordinary manner in which they had chased me through the busy streets of that town; they were formidable opponents and I would need to do something to equip myself for our next meeting which surely would come soon. Before I was able to track down Issy's killer? Impossible to know.
Until then I resolved to move on foot and after the kill I would be able to move in daylight too. Heading straight back down the same motorway I had just come up struck me as less than ideal so I struck west and tried again to stick to fields and woods. It was first light as I set out and as I walked toward the exit of the services a truck slowed up next to me and the driver lowered the window.
'Lift mate? Where you headed?'
'No, I'm good thanks,' I replied. 'Heading sort of off-road actually.'
He grunted and shrugged and was away again and as the long vehicle passed me by I recognised the markings of the same truck that I had stuffed the lifeless body of the rapist into not ten minutes before. I smiled despite myself and headed off.
Chapter 44
There are a number of tributary rivers that flow into the mighty Thames at various points along its length and those in London are largely lost to the streets and buildings of the city, now flowing unseen beneath them.
Some are carried in sections on their course by pipes and viaducts to outlets in the banks of the big river and it is into one of these that R
oth has crawled and finally found himself in the deepest, blackest catacombs of the subterranean city.
The pain high in his chest, beneath the shoulder is intense and throbs more sharply than the aches that rack the rest of his body. The impact on the surface of the water was immense and the stiffness and agony with any movement have rendered him immobile since he hauled himself from the cold dark waters and found a small hard ledge to lie on.
Somewhere, as he lay there in the fog of pain, he had the feeling of things shifting within him, as though righting themselves, and the pain intensified in waves. The wound in his shoulder flared and tensed to a point that seemed impossible to endure but then he felt the strangest sensation and realised that his body had somehow expelled the bullet lodged beneath his shoulder blade. He reached a hand under his clothes and found the small flattened nub of metal resting on his sticky torn flesh.
In a few more hours he felt as though he could move again and found his vision returning.
It was so dark down here, with no way for light to penetrate. But Roth had long since ceased to worry about darkness and he began to move again, upstream some more until he found an exit and he followed his instincts or a change in airflow or the sound of distant echoes and kept moving, climbing rusting ladders, sliding down filthy concrete inclines, wading through wet thick filth.
He was truly in the bowels of the city here and as lost as could be. But turning back to retrace his steps and try different routes would be futile in this warren. Better to press on into the cold unknown.
As he goes, different sounds assail him through the gloom. The shuffle and skitter of rats at every turn, the surge and rush of running water and twice he hears the pounding roar of what he assumes to be tube trains very close by.
This gives him some hope that he may find an exit. Perhaps emerge bloodied and filthy onto a packed tube platform, or happen upon a fire exit to slip out unnoticed.
He keeps on through darkness and cold, climbing, sliding, heaving himself through tiny gaps and emerging into vast cavernous spaces of lost purpose and decay. He encounters the rusting hulks of old tube train carriages, obsolete signage on the walls, unseen for years. He traverses through tube network to sewerage network to God only knew where. Places long forsaken and heavy with the stench of abandonment.
Roth stops where he can stand to, where the draughts and foul air and damp are bearable, to rest himself from the relentless searching for an exit. Gradually his pain is abating but as it fades he feels progressively weaker, like a trade-off has taken place and this healing has spent his dwindling energy the faster. It is only a few days since he replenished, and did so twice with the preacher and the other foolish man who had so recklessly intervened.
But Oxford Circus was a time and distance away from him now. The rifle shot, the fall to the river at terminal velocity, that jarring explosive impact, has all taken its toll. It has smashed his body and required repair, it has stretched him and pushed him to limits that he had not been aware of.
He ponders his options as he finds a patch of cold dry concrete to stretch out on, stares up at the black ceiling above him and wonders whether he has reached an end. Was it folly, there on the wheel, or there in the crowded street, to do the things he has done? He laments his lack of patience and his rashness, his reckless fury. Would they have seen him out there in the crowds, the ones he seeks? Will they have watched on television screens and responded?
Alone in the freezing dark it is hard for Roth to convince himself that he has taken the right turns on this journey, both here in this sprawling catacomb, but also since it all began. He has indulged himself, denied himself. He has inflicted cruelty for fun, exhilarated in the sadism, gloried in the horror and never once known why.
The feeling that he is being both pursued and evaded is not only persistent but ever more pronounced. The things that he has done have made him a target now, made him quarry to be hunted and captured. And those he long has sought remain invisible and silent. This is the Devil's own game of hide and seek.
He can rouse himself again but chooses not to. Not now, not yet. Just a little longer to rest.
Roth begins to drift off and the hard floor and cold air are no longer enough to keep him awake. A toll has been taken on his body and a price must be exacted. He sleeps, but not well and in dreams is visited by victims, real and imagined, and by a nameless nemesis who he has encountered before and who will come for him again. But they do not come, whom he seeks. Not even in his dreams can they be summoned to be questioned and to give Roth his answers.
It is the old woman that wakes him sweating and cold in the darkness. The old woman from the adjoining flat who went to sleep and did not wake up but for a brief terrified moment in the middle of the night, pinned to her mattress and teeth tearing her flesh.
She says nothing to Roth, but she looks him in the eye, that same beseeching look he saw out on the walkway times before, asking him for groceries and conversation. Her neck is bleeding and her eyes are red-rimmed and she sobs and sobs and stares at Roth, holds his gaze, crying and crying and crying and mouthing silent words that he will never hear, nor anyone.
He cannot see at first when he raises his eyelids and slowly sits. His faculties are failing him, and the pit of his stomach churns with the rising hunger.
That fierce ravening appetite is only going to intensify, will burn and rage in him until it is sated. Roth knows this, but does not know what will happen if he does not replenish. He does not know how long it will last nor how painful and awful it will be. He wants to resist, wants to take an easy out, but there isn't one
He is up again, bent double as he walks, weak and in agony. He is being driven and chased by the echo of her sobs and the inferno in his guts.
On through a corridor, long and low. On up rusted rungs and through a tight-locked door that resists his desperate force only momentarily before springing open and on again until his nostrils pick it up.
The smell of fresh air. Or air less stale and fetid.
Behind it something else. A scent that sparks the inferno again, makes it leap and flare inside him.
The space is wider, and runs in straight defined lines and beneath his feet the uneven surface are cobbles. And he notices that there in the cobbles are rails. No, not rails. Tramlines.
Roth has stumbled all the way through tunnels and pipes and underground chambers into this old disused tunnel that once housed the Kingsway tram service. Closed for many long decades it is used only occasionally for access and storage and today it serves as an escape route for Roth. Finally out of the darkness to daylight. Daylight that he has no idea whether he can withstand.
He happens upon a portakabin in the dark, some temporary function here beneath the streets. A naked lightbulb burns inside and as Roth draws nearer a man steps out into the tunnel.
He is clad in a bright orange high-vis jacket, matching trousers and heavy black boots. His hard hat is white and in his hand a sturdy black torch.
When he sees Roth he fumbles the torch a moment then trains the beam on the figure looming at him from nowhere.
'Good grief. Where have you come from fella?' he says as he appraises the man before him.
Roth is streaked and soaked in filth and dirt from his travails and he stumbles as he walks toward the workman, drops to his knees.
The man moves to catch him before he hits the floor and takes his arms to bear his weight. Roth clasps him and clings on and his nostrils fill with the smell of what Roth knows he needs.
'Steady mate, steady,' he says as he pulls him back to his feet. 'Come on, come with me. Come into the cabin, get a drink of water. A tea.'
Roth shifts his feet again, steps in closer to the man who reads it as a following of instruction and shifts away.
'What you doing down here? You been sleeping down here? You alright? You'll be OK. We'll get you sorted out mate. We'll get you right.'
Roth steps forward again, tries to close the small
gap but the other man is moving away as he helps Roth toward the cabin.
'That's it. Let's get you sat down and a hot drink. You're alright mate. Nice cuppa eh? Think I got biscuits,' he chatters nervously. He is unsure of this bedraggled and blackened stranger, this unfortunate man who has said nothing and scarcely seems to register the questions he is asked.
Roth keeps moving with him and shuffles his way into the cabin. He slumps into a chair, sits and watches as the man busies himself with a kettle and mugs, rummages for the promised biscuits.
When he moves close again to Roth with the hot tea in his hand Roth knocks it away and grabs at the man, mustering the effort to grip him properly, pull him in and hold him.
Roth's hunger and fury have not abated but as he makes his move and the man struggles and utters soothing words Roth pauses.
'Easy there mate, easy. You're alright. You're OK. It will be fine, OK? Just take it easy.'
There is fear in the voice but the man refuses to panic and surrender to it. He fights down his instincts and stays in control, stays just on top of it.
Roth shoves him away and watches as he crunches into the wall and drops to the floor shocked and in pain. Finding his feet again, Roth stumbles back through the door of the cabin and into the tunnel. He follows it toward the daylight above and soon emerges into the open, making his way slowly up the slope to street level, springing up over the walls and the cast iron railings.
The sun is not long up and the streets are not busy. Roth sees from his reflection in a window that he must hide himself away soon, clean and change as soon as possible, and probably replenish too before the cramps and the pain become too much. The weak hazy sun is hot but bearable for now.
Back in the tunnel, the workman will rail at the ingratitude of the vagrant he tried to help and who repaid that help with violence and ran away. But he will feel pity too and sympathy and he will know nothing of his great good fortune nor the narrowness of his escape.
Chapter 45