The floor plan in the security centre had shown that the Thinkers only had one option. They planned to go out via the sewer system. But as North lifted the manhole cover in the furthest reaches of the storage room, the sweet smell of human waste made him gag.
‘We should let them kill us,’ Esme said, as together they leant over the hole and stared into the pungent darkness.
He didn’t know if she was right. If this was a good plan or a bad plan. He had no idea if they’d fit. No idea where the sewer came from and where it ran to. But he was trusting the Thinkers had done their homework. And he was trusting the weather forecast was wrong.
Esme climbed down first. He didn’t like it, but he needed to drag the manhole cover back over the drain without it shrieking against the concrete floor in protest. He’d prefer it if Nietzsche and Plato didn’t realize North and Esme had figured out their exit strategy. He used his elbow to hold the MP5 against him as he pulled over the lid, plunging them both into pitch darkness, and started the climb down.
He heard Esme yelp as she lost her footing, then the scramble of her shoes, sending vibrations through the rusting cast-iron struts as she struggled to regain her purchase on the ladder. He heard two splashes, as if she’d dropped first one and then the other into the moving water below. He counted the rungs of the ladder as he lowered himself down. From the sound of the shoes landing in the water, he calculated Esme had about another ten rungs to descend and he had twenty. He heard a bigger splash and a gasp as Esme’s feet hit the water. The ladder shook again – she must have slipped and grabbed for it. He took the rungs as fast as he dared, girding himself for the cold when it came.
His feet almost went from under him and he grabbed for the rail. They were shin-high in water, or what he wanted to think of as water. Esme’s breaths came shallow and fast in the dark. She’d stepped away from the bottom of the ladder to allow him space to set down his feet, but not so far away that he couldn’t feel her shivering. The dress she’d worn to the gala was a thin silk. He slid his phone from his inside pocket, then peeled off the dinner jacket to drop it over her shoulders. He tried not to mind that she reared back at the shock of his touch. ‘You need to stay warm,’ he said into the darkness. ‘Cold slows down your response times and I need you alert.’ He sensed her indecision, before she slid her bare arms into the sleeves. The sound of the silk lining against her skin was loud in the tunnel, even against the noise of the moving water.
He didn’t want to think of her skin. It was too much of a distraction. He preferred to concentrate on keeping them both alive. He checked the phone’s reception. The bars were empty. He tapped his earpiece just in case – nothing. He hadn’t expected to hear anything, but the isolation was acute. They were on their own down here. Cursing, he clicked on the phone’s torch icon and white light illuminated the crumbling bricks of the tunnel arching over their heads. The same bricks, he was guessing, were under their feet – only those bricks were covered in human waste and slime. He started moving, gesturing Esme forward.
He was grateful she wasn’t asking questions, though he could feel them hanging in the stale and fetid air between them. Questions like ‘Was this the best idea?’ She stood stock-still. She had to be terrified for herself and for Tobias, wherever he was. ‘We need to get going,’ North said. ‘Those guys will have found their colleagues’ bodies by now. They’ll be on their way.’
He was thinking hard and fast. There were any number of manhole covers on the streets of London. They needed to get beyond the police cordon, so they weren’t shot by a trigger-happy marksman, but he had no intention of staying in the sewers longer than he had to.