In a matter of seconds – at about the time she got to her feet – Laurie realised how stupid she was being. Yes, she’d been running in tunnels very similar to this one only a few weeks before, but now the rails were live. She had to stay close to the left-hand wall and make sure that whenever she shuffled forward there was no risk of losing her balance, of touching anything electrified. It made her progress slow, and she could not waste time, or she would still be in the tunnel when the next southbound train arrived.
Forty minutes earlier, Laurie had been so desperate to bring everything to a close that she’d been willing to play Russian roulette with a Tube train. Success had turned her around. Now she was desperate to live, to enjoy the rest of her life. What was she doing? And why was she still feeling solid wall to her left? All that stuff she’d read on the internet made it clear that the spur off to the old platform – the one they used before the Victoria line was built – should be coming up. Where was it?
Laurie continued edging along, feeling out against the wall with her left hand as she did so, the panic rising within her. Every step took her further from the safety of the platform. Every second brought the arrival of another train nearer. Had the background noise changed? Had the general roar changed its pitch, become louder? Surely the rails were starting to ring? Laurie turned her head to the left, looking for her approaching doom.
She was right. There was a light; in less than a second it resolved into two separate pinpricks; they grew larger and moved apart. A familiar voice echoed down the tunnel from the platform: ‘Please stand clear of the platform edge.’ The air around her started to move, pushed by the piston of the oncoming train.
All this time Laurie was shuffling along the tunnel, away from the platform – it was too far away for her to reach by now – using her hand to search for the gap that would let her slip out of harm’s way. She’d had it all planned: the day spent on the disused platform, the one she’d read about online, then, once the electricity was off, a return to familiar ground, back down the track, through the station, onto the right-hand fork that linked through to the Piccadilly line – the one she’d taken by mistake the other night – then on northbound through King’s Cross to the disused station at York Way, and escape. She’d done it all before, much of it without a torch. It wouldn’t matter that she didn’t have one at all this time. The lights in the stations, York Way included, would have been all she needed. But first she needed to find that gap.
Then her hand met something: not a gap but a barrier. Laurie had been so focused on the approaching headlights that it took her a moment – a valuable moment – to understand what she was touching: some sort of metal box, about three or four inches deep, its top roughly level with her shoulder, its bottom with her pelvis. That was it; there was no way she could get around it with the train only seconds away. Nevertheless, the box itself gave hope.
There was no time to think, to calculate her chances. All Laurie could do was flatten herself against the tunnel wall, turn her head to the side, wrap her left arm around the top of the box, and hope that its existence meant there was enough clearance for the train to miss whatever parts of her body remained exposed.
So Laurie was looking straight at the train as it approached. The wind that came before it was deafening in its violence, forcing her to close her eyes just as she caught a glimpse of the driver, an indistinct human form, sitting in the front of the train. She had no idea if he (or she?) had seen her. Her hair streamed out behind her; it was all she could do to keep her grip on the box as she hugged it, one-handed, for protection. There was a thud as the train came level with her. For a moment she was convinced she’d been hit. How else to account for the sound, for the pummelling her body was receiving? But then the train was passing her, slowing down as it came into the station.
Laurie opened her eyes. She did not dare move her head, but she could see the shadows cast by the lights inside the last carriage, moving along the wall towards her. Any passenger looking out would have seen her torso. Laurie had time to register the thought and then the train was gone. She looked back over her shoulder to see its tail lights come to a halt at the end of the tunnel. Black spots danced around them. Flies? No, these were entirely in Laurie’s head.
The possibility of fainting made Laurie’s heart lurch, as if she really had touched the live rail a few feet away. It shocked her into clarity. She might have been spotted; she might not. What was important was that she was still alive, and she wanted to stay that way. All other concerns were secondary. She had to get back on the platform, away from trains, and live rails, and terror. With the tail lights as a beacon, and the light from the platform silhouetting the train, Laurie started back towards humanity.
It seemed to take no time at all. There she was, standing at the back of the train, listening to the doors close. The pitch increased; there was a moment of fear: what if this train reversed as well? And then it pulled off to the south, opening a gap through to the platform on Laurie’s right. No point wasting time on thought. With just a brief glance down to check she wasn’t about to step into the suicide pit, Laurie brought up her knee and levered herself onto the platform. The manoeuvre completed, she indulged in a small internal acknowledgment that she had just contravened the one cardinal rule she still remembered from that rock-climbing course when she was eleven (‘Don’t use your knees; it throws off your centre of gravity’). Then she got to her feet and looked around.
Further up the platform were the backs of the people who had just got off the train, now queuing for the escalator that would take them up to the connecting concourse above. Between them and her, however, a man had just stepped out of the archway connecting through to the Victoria line. For a moment Laurie thought it was Dad, before a part of her subconscious dismissed the notion: ‘Of course not; he’s with Jess.’
And that was enough. Dad was with Jess. Of course. Laurie stared at the man as understanding dawned, ignoring the odd look that he was giving her in return.
Then another thought kicked in. This man had just witnessed Laurie’s reappearance at the end of the platform. He probably hadn’t seen her climb out of the tunnel, and he might not raise any alarm even if he had; all he wanted was to get on the next train with as little delay as possible. Nevertheless, it probably wasn’t wise to stick around. Through the tunnel behind the man, Laurie could hear the whirr of an approaching train. With a grunt of apology, she slipped past him, arriving on the Victoria line platform in time to join the people waiting to board.
One minute more and Laurie was through the doors, hearing them shut behind her. She looked like God knows what; both her arms were immobilised by the crush of other passengers; her face was pressed into an armpit; a briefcase jabbed into her thighs; but she had never felt more exultantly alive.
They were leaving Oxford Circus before Laurie was struck by another thought. She had just been on the platform where, only a few weeks before, she had watched William Pennington die. He had been pushed, she could be pretty sure of that now, as sure as she had once been that he fell. Laurie looked back on her earlier self, on her certainties and insecurities. She’d been so wrong about so many things, so wrapped up in herself that she had thought about no one else – been blind to the blatantly obvious. But she was still alive. She was in a position to put things right. The question was, how?