Litro #74: Underground

WELCOME TO ISSUE 74 OF LITRO This month’s stories are set close to home – Tom Lynham takes us on a surreal trip around Liverpool Street station, while Robert Finn reunites a wellknown partnership on the Underground. The action starts overleaf.

RANDOMNESS >> The LITRO/Lambeth Libraries young writers short story competition is accepting entries until Friday 16 May. The competition is open to people aged 11-16 who live or go to school in Lambeth – see www.litro.co.uk/comp or posters in any Lambeth library for more details. >> If you’re ever in need of something quick to read at work, or to print out and take with you on a trip, remember that the whole LITRO archive since April 2006 is available online at www.litro.co.uk (where you can also sign up to receive LITRO via email). A small but growing collection of longer, out of copyright stories is also available at www. emergencybooks.net – providing “print on demand” in your home or office. >> Finally, if you like to keep up to date with literary events around London we’d recommend Londonist’s Book Grocer, appearing weekly on www.londonist.com (along with news, reviews and other stuff about London and everything that happens in it). <Then, content as per the current last page, i.e. To get in touch email... bit about Anythingmac.co.uk, Ocean Media, recycled paper, etc. -- please let me know if this isn’t clear>

SOME ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES TOM LYNHAM

This is how it will happen. Circle Line. Liverpool Street.

7.16 a.m. Half asleep. Platform is a rugby scrum. Teetering on the edge. Dangerous territory. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve all been there.

Mutant mice scurry around the live rail. Frantically late.

The train rumbles in and grinds to a halt. The racket eviscerates my hangover. Squeeeeze into carriage. Airless.

Breathless. Elbows jag into necks. Groins grind into bums. Grab at the handrail. Middle finger jams in sliding doors. Oh-fuck ... Yank it out. FINGERFUCKINGTIP MISSING! Blood splatters shirts and ties. Stick stump in mouth and scream FUCK! Try it. Strangely painless.

Dribbling like cartoon vampire. My favourite hand. An exclusion zone will materialise around me. Then some angel pulls the emergency handle. Train judders. Doors crank open. Smother stump with hanky. A fist of crimson candyfloss. I imagine tearing up the escalator past a blur of cheesy advertising models with chewing gum noses.

Rush into the heaving concourse of the main line station.

Out of the darkness and into the light. Shafts of sunshine dazzle down from the crystal roof. A cathedral of collisions; of gothic detail, of digital information, of screaming retail brands, of people from every race, nationality, class, culture, creed and who-knows-what sexual persuasions. Part of me will be going into shock. Part of me will be trying to think rationally; think A&E, think ambulance, think next of kin.

But I’ll be swept along on tides of humanity; workers & skivers, day trippers & train spotters, beggars & scoundrels, pick pockets & ticket stammers; the itinerant and nomadic tribes that wash in and out of here every day. It will become impossible to move in a straight line. I see myself crashing into a tribe of American evangelists in sharp black suits bound for the airport with badges proclaiming Hi! I’m Cy from Miami! Praise the Lord! Outside the Easy-Walk-InTanning-Kiosk, I crunch into a gaggle of Essex girls with bronzed skin, snippety legs and diamanté belly buttons.

I’ll be herded into Boots and collide with a teenage mother pushing two spitting toddlers who eyeball my injury with Midwich Cuckoo stares. I’ll tumble over suitcases, scatter florists displays, skid into scalding cappuccinos, wrestle with flexible queuing systems, emasculate small dogs and banjax signing systems.

I attempt to tack a haphazard course to the station entrance, but the faster I move the slower I go. By now, the blood loss will be making me feel woozy, but then a pair of friendly arms will envelop me, like landing on a cloud of cotton wool. Focusing, I’ll look up and see the face of a saint, her shimmering halo glowing like a Belisha beacon.

Am I in Heaven? And she is going to smile back, a beatific grin that evaporates my anxiety. At this point, the rest of the station goes into slow motion, as if we are suspended in some once-removed dimension. And from this place of safety I’ll dare to ask who she is. She will inspect my throbbing hand, and tell me without a whiff of irony that she is Saint Mechteld, the patron saint of missing fingers.

Programmed by years of religious iconography I’ll look for iridescent robes, celestial trappings, perhaps a pearly harp, or a lute, or a flute, or a magical singing lyre or even a pouting cherub. But she wears Calvin Klein this, Tommy Hilfiger that, FCUK something else and sports a pair of

scruffy Nike Air Zooms. Over her shoulder is a zippered bag with Amsterdam-Schiphol flight tags. Mechteld will tell me in perfect English, with only an inflection of Dutch that she’s just arrived on the Stansted Express. And I hear myself splutter stupid questions like: How did you know I would do it? Can you get my finger back? Why didn’t you stop me? But she will simply whistle through her front teeth, remove a spliff from behind her ear, and plant it between my lips like a shut-your-gob thermometer.

Aided and abetted by an aura of Lebanese gold, she will spirit me out of the station, floating up the escalators into the frantic streets of the City. As we hit the open air, I discover her perfect halo is little better than the glitter and fuse wire constructions we made for our Christmas tree fairy when we were kids. She appears underslept and overworked. Her fingernails are almost nibbled down to the cuticle. But for all this mortal vulnerability, she will exude an ethereal credulity. Then forcing my hand above my head like a red flag, she will steer me through the secretaries, receptionists, managers and personal assistants as they are gobbled up by the office buildings. We’ll slip down the ancient lanes and dog-leg alleys to a Tower Hamlets Health Authority building I’ve never noticed before, with a sign outside announcing the Liverpool Street Finger Clinic.

In reception, a triage nurse who obviously knows Mechteld well, peeps under the sodden wrapping to ascertain the extent of the damage, then logs my details. Our entry to the outpatients’ waiting room is greeted with cheers of recognition by finger victims whom Mechteld has helped in the past. Some wear slings supporting heavily bandaged, half-cocked arms. Some hold pinned and wired fingers aloft like reluctant pupils in a detention class. Others are just popping in for post-op check-ups, and quietly appreciating their mending fingers like never before. Mechteld’s presence warms them up, and knucklebiting narratives of industrial accidents and unfortunate occurrences trundle round the room – everyone has a story to tell: Egbert Monchique sliced his fingers off with a DeWalt radial arm saw at the City & Guilds Apprentice Centre just around the corner. We cringe as Mechteld recalls him carrying the tips to the clinic like fairground goldfish in a plastic bag. He says the surgeons worked

through the night to glue them back on fuelled by fixes of Mars bars and Tizer. Johnny Toronto tells us he works for a geophysical exploration outfit on the 37th floor of the Broadgate Centre above the station. Three months ago he lost his little finger to a maverick detonator during a seismic survey in Azerbaijan. He’s here today because a slip on the Millennium Ice Rink has opened up the old wound again. Nasimah from the Batigalorious Fashion Emporium in Petticoat Lane had her index finger amputated after mangling it in the cogs of a Singer hydraulic steam press.

Jean-Patrice d’Allery, from a Parisienne dynasty of master wood carvers has restored Grinling Gibbons’ masterpieces all over the Parish of Bishopsgate. Jean is a regular at the clinic having whittled away most of his fingers over the years. Albion Milton, the septuagenarian Master at Arms of the Bunhill Fields Burial Grounds severed his ring finger when removing William & Catherine Blake’s restless tombstone during the refurbishment of the unisex public toilets. Hanna Hilb rescued a fox that was hit by a bus right outside the main station and took it back to the Museum of Immigration in the old Huguenot quarter of Spitalfields where she is a curator. But the ungrateful beast attacked her, bit off her middle finger and then stole a chicken from the Three Monkeys Curry House in Brick Lane. Charles Crispill runs a veneer warehouse in Patina Yard, Hoxton. He shredded his left thumb while quarter cutting a burl of precious thuya from the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. He proudly holds up his transplanted big left toe for all to admire, which now flourishes on the space his thumb vacated.

Visits to hospitals confront us with our ephemerality. As we tread limbo in corridors and cubicles, I’ll ask Mechteld how she got the gig to be a patron saint. She’ll explain that Liverpool Street is twinned with Amsterdam Centraal station and they enjoy reciprocal patron saint arrangements.

She says fingers are in her blood and that she comes from a long line of fingery heroes. Her great, great grandfather Joop was the boy who stuck his legendary finger in the Domberg Dyke and saved the village from drowning. Her cousin Geertje’s family have been manufacturing the world famous Gouda cheeses for generations, and every hallmark

hole is still gouged by their stiff Lutheran fingers. Back in the early seventeenth century, Mechteld’s green-fingered ancestor Jochem Hoogaboom, hand-reared the very first tulip bulbs that triggered the tulip mania, that lead to the crash of the Amsterdam stock exchange.

Mechteld will tell me that anyone can become a patron saint: choose your cause and apply for the vocation.

The training is not dissimilar to The Knowledge – the competency test for London taxi drivers. But instead of practising how to get from A to B, you learn how to navigate fate and fortune. There’s not much money in it, but the job satisfaction is beyond measure. Mechteld cautions that in these times of universal diaspora, compulsory multi-tasking and diminishing attention spans, we all need someone to look over our shoulder.

While positioning my hand for X-ray, Mechteld will confront me with my collision and question whether it was really even an accident. Once the film is processed, we pore over my ghostly skeleton. We stare at the missing fingertip; this intrinsic part of me that does not exist anymore.

Mechteld observes that for many of her customers, the accident is often an unconscious cry for help; the body mutinies against the errant ego and attempts to return it to the fold. At first I’ll feel hostile to such a suggestion, because I’ve always believed in the supremacy of mind over matter. But she will couch her arguments in such intriguing and unthreatening terms, I’ll begin to see right through my defences. We’ll talk so effortlessly, I’ll find myself admitting to vulnerabilities I wouldn’t dare share with others; that my life has been like a dog chasing its tail; that I’ve never given much thought to where I was going or why.

A nurse will appear and show us into a small specialist operating theatre with anatomical charts of hands, tendons and nerves on the walls. She sets out plastic sheets, kidney bowls, scalpels, forceps, tweezers and swabs on an orthopaedic trauma table. While waiting for the surgeon, Mechteld and I shall reflect on our progress through life, and the difference between what could have happened, and what did. We’ll talk about what’s true – and what’s not true, and how through failure or disappointment, some

people turn their lives into elaborate fictions.

Dr Bethiana Sanchez â&#x20AC;&#x201C; on secondment from Hospital del Dedo Sagrado in Barcelona â&#x20AC;&#x201C; breezes in like a mother hen surrounded by a flock of medical students. She is delighted to see Mechteld and they embrace like old friends. She inspects the remainder of my finger and instructs the surgical nurse to administer a local anaesthetic. As the needles go in, Mechteld slides her arm round my shoulder.

The doctor talks the procedure through as she sews up the blood vessels, pulls the muscle over the bone, folds the skin into a neat flap and stitches everything together. After dressings, tetanus jab, antibiotics and an appointment for

tomorrow, I am let out on probation.

As we emerge onto the steps of the clinic it is clear that something has happened between us. It’s incredibly tangible but impossible to articulate. We have been manoeuvring towards it since the moment we met, and it feels exhilaratingly awkward.

Wafts of lunch from numerous cafes aggravate our hunger and we walk back towards Liverpool Street and the Great Eastern Hotel, a terracotta temple to the glory of rail travel.

We hog a squashy leather sofa in the Fishmarket Bar, sip pints of medicinal Guinness and talk about the power of fingers and how they are taken so for granted. Mechteld touches my cheek and says fingers are sense organs, a kind of radar, antennae, existential measuring sticks. She clenches her glass and describes fingers as the tools of the hunter-gatherer, designed to catch, select, shape and make their mark. Gathering momentum, she’ll talk excitedly about how we use our fingers to communicate, and with animated gestures, act out the universal signs – pointing, warning, beckoning and ticking off. She’ll poke out her tongue and sneak in a V sign and I’ll instinctively counter with a fist. Then suddenly, giggling like kids we are playing Rock Paper Scissors and the kiss just happens. It startles us but feels alarmingly natural. And then the kisses will come rapidly and spontaneously as if our lips were made for each other.

Our destination for the rest of the afternoon is inevitable, but we need fuel to get us there and find a table in the art deco Aurora Dining Rooms. There is a delicious sense of erotic anticipation as we gorge ourselves on regional dishes expressed into Liverpool Street from all over East Anglia: Butley native oysters dredged from the brackish creeks of Orford Ness. Toad in the Hole made from Norfolk Old Spot porkers reared in Great Snoring with heaps of juicy samphire from Wells-next-the-Sea. And finally Walberswick fudge cake, dripping with sheep’s yoghurt from Suffolk ewes grazed on the Blythburgh flood meadows. Over espresso and armagnac, Mechteld tells me she is being relocated. The world is changing fast and there are new insecurities for patron saints to address

such as self-help groups, international terrorism, cigarette smoking and genetic engineering. She says one of her friends is now the Greek patron saint of mobile phones.

Mechteld has been offered postings in South America; maybe Chile, maybe Honduras, maybe Brazil. But she’ll add that she’s not decided anything about her future ... yet. Then we check into the hotel and take the glass lift to the seventh floor. The luxurious room is set into the eaves and oriel windows peep out over leaded roofs, flagpoles and church spires towards Threadneedle Street. We’ll wash away all the crap and crud of the day in a scalding powershower – my bandages protected by a pedal bin liner – and collapse on the fresh linen sheets. One handed, I’ll feel clumsy, an awkward sexuality, my fingers like blunt instruments without any sensitivity. But Mechteld’s fingers are exquisitely tuned. They have a phenomenal touch; like hummingbird’s sneezes, like a kitten’s inquisitiveness, like peals of laughter. And I’ll learn so much from her.

My fingers will find a new voice and we shall tease and tickle and stroke and squeeze each other into a frenzy of pleasure.

Afterwards, clinging close, as naked as you can get, we’ll listen to the muffled drone of the traffic and the whine of jets limbering up for Heathrow. The rumbling of Tube trains way down below will shudder up through the fabric of the building. I’ll slip into the deepest sleep and wake hours later.

Mechteld has gone but her halo reclines on the pillow, with a small note in spidery handwriting, asking me never to forget what happened to us today, and to light the occasional candle for her.

Tom Lynham tried to change the world by inventing the Televisor and building the Unfinished Table, but now he writes stories about how other people do it.

This story was previously published in the collection From Here to Here (Cyan, 2005, ISBN: 978-1-90487-935-0) edited by John Simmons, Neil Taylor, Tim Rich and Tom Lynham. © Tom Lynham, 2007. All rights reserved.

THE LONDON BREED BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH

I love dis great polluted place Where pop stars come to live their dreams Here ravers come for drum and bass And politicians plan their schemes, The music of the world is here Dis city can play any song They came to here from everywhere Tis they that made dis city strong.

A world of food displayed on streets Where all the world can come and dine On meals that end with bitter sweets And cultures melt and intertwine, Two hundred languages give voice To fifteen thousand changing years And all religions can rejoice With exiled souls and pioneers.

I love dis overcrowded place Where old buildings mark men and time And new buildings all seem to race Up to a cloudy dank skyline, Too many cars mean dire air Too many guns mean danger Too many drugs mean be aware Of strange gifts from a stranger.

It’s so cool when the heat is on And when it’s cool it’s so wicked We just keep melting into one Just like the tribes before us did, I love dis concrete jungle still with all its sirens and its speed The people here united will Create a kind of London breed.

This is the second of two poems by Benjamin Zephaniah to be featured in LITRO (‘What If’ appeared in the previous issue). See www. benjaminzephaniah.com for more. © Benjamin Zephaniah. All rights reserved.

TWO EXCERPTS FROM BREAKING THE CHAIN ANDY MCQUADE I We sat on the sofa, three different sized peas in a pod, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did and he sat there as if he was all alone in the room and enjoying a private joke at our expense. A gardening programme came on the TV, and as the presenter waffled on about the beautiful array of begonias or whatever, I strained my imagination to convert the various shades of grey and black into psychedelic colours of which nature would have approved. In the back of my mind, though, I was keeping that cat firmly on the tin roof, knowing that my father had never set foot in the garden and thus had no real interest in any programme about gardening. Something was coming: I could smell it as clearly as the stench of Park Drive cigarettes that he chain-smoked. Then, without looking at any of us, he told us to go to bed. Iain, logical and implacable as ever, pointed out that it was only eight o’clock and he still had an hour to go before his bedtime. A swift slap promptly corrected him on that matter. We all got up to leave. I for one was grateful for the early night, but he reached for my arm and told me to stay put.

That familiar sinking feeling grabbed me by the balls and suddenly I felt as if all my energy had been sapped. I sat back down and tried to concentrate on the black-and-white garden flickering in front of me, but the certainty that he was up to something seemed to reduce me to a tiny, screwed-up ball of fear and apprehension. After about ten minutes of silence and me waiting nervously for what was coming, he looked at me and said, ‘Come here, son!’

His intonation suggested he was surprised that I wasn’t already nestled in his loving paternal arms and perhaps even a little hurt that there was so much physical distance between us. I almost fell for it, as my mother had done many times previously, and it crossed my mind that maybe all I’d face was a harmless rant, as had happened once or twice before.

Besides, I told myself, he was definitely sober and somehow we’d managed not to incur his wrath when we were all sitting together earlier – perhaps the rest of the evening would just involve one of his surreal conversations.

I sat down at his feet and to my amazement he put his hand on my head and gave it a friendly rub. Above all I felt confused, though I couldn’t help but relax a little as he started to tell me about his childhood. It was soaked in a nostalgic tone that suggested I had nothing to worry about: the streets of his youth, a friend who’d got crushed by a steamroller, and then a tale of a lost sister whom he’d never mentioned before.

Speaking in a soft, tragic voice that barely sounded like that of my father, he explained that she was beautiful and he loved her, but that one day he’d come home to find her dead in bed, with her wrists slashed. ‘She was dead, son . . . slashed her wrists,’ his sad voice repeated over and over again. ‘Slashed her wrists, son – blood everywhere.’ It made his next sentence break me completely. Hand still on my head, his once harsh Glaswegian growl now a soft Scottish brogue, he told me that one day we wouldn’t wake up either, because we’d be with his sister after he’d cut all our throats.

I cracked. The room started to spin around and I burst into tears. They weren’t the usual tears he’d sometimes extract from me, which were produced to convince him that he’d got through to me and to save myself more bruises – these were genuine, and the strangest feeling lay underneath them, fuelling and spitting them out of me. Nothing seemed real any more and I couldn’t get a grip on what I’d heard. He’d threatened all our lives before, but always chewing on red-hot irons and alcohol. Tonight he was sober, calm and exuding a hint of unfamiliar warmth. It made his words all the more terrifying. He’d got me and he knew it. For the first time ever I didn’t get the obligatory slap for ‘greetin’. Instead he calmly told me to go to bed. Still close to hysterical, I got up and left him savouring his victory.

It was at that precise moment I realized my father had to die.

I knew that if I didn’t kill him, he would kill us. I climbed into bed and stayed awake all night knowing that God had failed me, my mother was powerless, the rest of the world was too ignorant and uninterested, and my brothers were far too young. I knew that in a few years’ time Iain would have helped me to save us in any way possible, but I also knew that we didn’t have much time left.

II I followed my father into the kitchen like the proverbial lamb.

‘Get in the sink,’ he snapped, and I obeyed. It struck me that there was nothing odd about the request because I’d come to expect the unexpected where he was concerned.

In fact, I thought, as I squeezed myself into the old, blue, plastic washing-up bowl, it was quite a sensible thing for him to ask; the blood would gush into the bowl and not make a mess in the sink – it was quite a domestic consideration on his part. I remember hoping fervently that whatever happened, I didn’t want it to hurt.

He lifted up the knife, but instead of pointing it in my direction he held the blade in his hand and offered me the handle. ‘See this knife, son?’ he said in a dangerous low voice.

‘You take this, kill that fucking cat and bring it to me when you’re done. If you don’t, I’ll kill you – understand?’

All this was delivered calmly, logically, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I couldn’t see anything except for his face, and for a moment he hypnotized me into believing I was going to do nothing more than slice a loaf of bread.

Then everything went black as a hard smack around the side of my head sent me crashing into the plates and cutlery on the draining board. My father’s face came back into focus. ‘What are you doing in the sink? Get out and find that cat or you’re dead.’ He thrust the knife in my hand, strode off into the living room and left me to climb down on to the kitchen floor as the reality of the task sunk in. I didn’t know what to do or where to go, except that I knew I had to find Dino as quickly as possible to save her from him. I’d faced up to the very real danger of being killed by my father, and was emboldened by the fact that I almost wished he’d stuck the knife in and got it over and done with.

I crept into the storage room that led to the back garden – one of the cats’ many hiding places from him – and softly called out her name. Neither cat seemed to be there, amongst all the piled-up junk, and I became distraught. If Dino wasn’t there, she might have been in the front room – where he was now – hiding behind the sofa. If that was the case then there was no hope for either of us: I couldn’t so much as pluck a hair from her head, let alone do what he’d asked, and so if he found her he’d deal with me then do the job himself. At least, that’s the

way I saw things happening in my head at the time.

I walked back into the kitchen and prayed she was there, somewhere, but amidst the crockery and cutlery strewn across the draining board and floor she was nowhere to be seen.

Holding my breath, I walked into the hallway where the living room door was half open and craned my neck to find out whether my father had beaten me to it and had quietly strangled her in my absence. I could just see the top of his mousy balding head over the back of his armchair. He seemed to be sitting still, waiting for delivery of a dead cat.

Relaxing a little, I realized there was still a chance I could work something out. I made soft noises with my front teeth and lower lip to call Dino, over and over again as quietly as I dared, my heart pumping wildly lest my father heard me.

Then, to my absolute joy, I could see her head peering into the hallway from the front room where she had been hiding all along, and she slowly slunk over to me. She was a mess. He’d thrown some kind of liquid over her, and her fur was sticking up in different directions, making her look like a strange new breed. I lifted her up and quietly opened the front door to let her out. She shot off into the night and I wished I were a cat too.

I returned to the front room, holding out the knife in front of me, and readied myself for what was going to come.

‘Dad, I couldn’t find her.’

No reply.

‘Dad?’ I emerged from behind the back of his chair and meekly stood before him. To my relief, he was out cold. His mouth hung open in a dead sneer and white gunk coated both his lips, making him look like a sleeping rabid dog.

Breaking The Chain: Abuse, Revenge, Redemption: The True Story of a Damaged Childhood by Andy McQuade is priced at £6.99 and is available from bookshops and Amazon.co.uk. It was published in April by Michael O’Mara Books.

This LITRO Taster is sponsored by Michael O’Mara Books.

MYSTERY ON THE DISTRICT RAILWAY ROBERT FINN

I have remarked upon this perversity before, but the most trying of cases may originate with the most ordinary of criminal minds. On this occasion, two wholly unremarkable villains had virtually stymied us. They had run down Fate’s hourglass and now scant hours remained before the pair, together with their ill-gotten gains, were to sail beyond our reach forever. Our last recourse was both elaborate and uncertain. My part in it was to linger at Earl’s Court station until I sighted our quarry, upon which I was to board the same train as them, without exciting their suspicions.

It is not my custom to travel upon the ‘tuppenny tube’ or its competitors, but when my old friend asks something of me, I do not refuse. And while he himself is an acknowledged master of disguise, I had shown myself an able apprentice today in the appearance I presented to the world: tweeds

soon destined for the rag man, shoes called back from gardening duty and buffed to a mirror shine, and a faded regimental tie borrowed from a friend. In short, I was the picture of a retired military man down upon his luck. As we waited for the train, I was scrupulously oblivious to my fellow travellers, my gaze distant as though still fixed upon some hostile Afghan horizon.

Of course I know what my friend would say, because he told me later, once the matter was settled. ‘Romantic nonsense. I grant that you have captured exactly the look of a former military man now in his autumn years, but it is hardly a disguise!’

Hard words perhaps, and if our acquaintance were a few decades younger I might have been offended, but I knew this was simply what passed for wit and high spirits with him.

I chuckled and said, ‘I suppose I cannot accuse you of the same today. But I should like to point out that not every one of your wrinkles was applied with a brush; quite some number of them were acquired in the ordinary way.’

That said, I could not fault him on his deception. When I took my seat in that carriage, I half suspected he would be present too, in some fiendishly unfamiliar guise, but I could not at first uncover his charade. I was the first to be seated and as others boarded I surreptitiously appraised each of them. Like the biblical story of the ark, they came in two by two.

First came the pair I was interested in. Next were two young ladies, perhaps shop girls. Behind them were two gentlemen clearly able to afford more agreeable transportation but no doubt finding ‘the tube’ more of ‘a lark’. And lastly an elderly man and woman – not apparently travelling together. A final pair, two men in poor quality suits, chose instead the next carriage along. I was pleased, as I didn’t much care for the look of them; for an unpleasant moment I had feared that our two felons were really four – a proper criminal gang – but then the rogues turned aside and chose the next carriage and my fear was allayed.

The young ladies sat to one side of me, the well-to-do gentlemen to the other. On the opposite bench, the two felons were joined first by the old woman, and then on

the far side of her, by the old gentlemen – a gentleman I now fancied I recognised! He clutched a handkerchief to his face – conveniently obscuring his features – and coughed a little, in what I suspected was a feigned manner.

I watched him closely, but without giving myself away, and at last I was sure. Over the years my friend had taught me well – sufficiently well that he could no longer fool me.

With my tutored eye, I noted a putty-coloured smudge on the old man’s pocket handkerchief which I was certain had been unmarked a moment before. It was, I was sure, theatrical make-up which had rubbed off upon the cloth.

I had uncovered my friend’s identity! Turning now to business, I strained my ears to hear the murmurings of the two criminals.

Two weeks into the case, they were each as familiar to me as the man I saw in the mirror. Penford – short, holloweyed and twitchy – a night-watchman by trade, was on the left. Close by him was Allinson, of average height with pink fleshy cheeks and sandy hair. They were of similar age, perhaps thirty, but incongruous as a pair in all other ways.

And yet somehow they had formed an alliance; Allinson with his access to the stock ledgers and delivery books knew exactly which items of inventory could most easily be removed from the great department store where they both worked. Penford, having concealed his criminal past, had secured a job watching over the store’s warehouse at night. He was the proverbial fox in the hens’ coop when it came to minding the stock. What had brought them to our attention was a most singular theft and one far above their previous petty form. The owner of the store had placed in the company safe a necklace, intended as a gift for his wife, on the upcoming occasion of their thirtieth wedding anniversary. In keeping with tradition, the necklace was fashioned of pearls, but of such lustre and opulent size that its value was tremendous.

Though the criminals suspected nothing, my friend and I had already confirmed their guilt and penetrated their plan to board a boat to New York later that very day. Their previous thefts had paid for their passage, with a little spending money left over; the necklace would set them up for the rest of their days. According to their travel papers, they were to stay initially with Allinson’s uncle in

New York. He was, we had learned, a jeweller – which was no doubt what had inspired them to steal the necklace in the first place. In short, we had learned everything about their scheme save one vital detail: the whereabouts of the necklace. It still eluded us completely. It was not concealed at their lodgings, or hidden in their luggage (which they had sent ahead the previous day and which the police had intercepted at our request). Our searches had revealed nothing and now, with scarcely two hours before their train left Victoria Station for Dover, we were still in the dark. My private fear was that the necklace was even now on its way to America by post, or via an accomplice, and had already passed beyond our reach.

As nonchalantly as possible, I turned my head to catch the scoundrels’ conspiratorial whispers. I thought I made out a remark about boots – or under the circumstances it may very well have been boats – and then the train started up.

Since electrification had supplanted steam, the cacophony of the Underground was greatly reduced, but still it was far from conducive. The clatter and din as we picked up speed obliterated any hope I had of overhearing their exchange.

Worse still, the other occupants of the carriage raised their voices to make themselves heard, further drowning out anything of interest.

‘He’s lovely manners and never tries nothing on,’ one of the shopgirls was saying to her friend, ‘and I’ll tell you I don’t mind lookin’ at him, not one bit. But there’s something not right and it’s got me in a proper lather. Mum says there’s no half ways with marriage proposals. If it ain’t all right then it’s all wrong and I should get shot of him.’

From a different quarter, one of the gentlemen spoke next, addressing his comrade. ‘Good lord! My wristwatch! I had it before we left the house and now it’s gone.’ He held up his bare wrist in disbelief.

His companion tutted and patted his waistcoat pocket.

‘Wear a proper watch, not a lady’s bauble. I’m sorry you’ve lost it, but let that be a lesson. Mine always needed a new strap or if it wasn’t that then the lugs were coming loose.

I paid more to keep it repaired then it cost me in the first place, and I still never knew the blessed time.’

‘That was an inferior piece, Richard old man, and you

know it. If I might remind you, the very reason you bought yours was envy for mine. Four years on the North West Frontier and it never gave me a bit of trouble.’

They lapsed into silence, and for a moment I thought I might be able to hear our villains conversing but then the young lady who’d spoken earlier started up again. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what I mean. Last month I bumped into Tommy of a Tuesday morning. I was on my way in and there he was in the street. The start of the day and he was a sight. He hadn’t shaved properly; he wasn’t dressed for work; I couldn’t believe it. “You better not go into the bank looking like that,” I says. “Taking today off,” he tells me.

So I says, “Maybe you should take tonight off and all.” By the look of him, he hadn’t even been to bed.’

I couldn’t hear her friend’s response, only the original speaker’s reply. ‘Yeah, but it weren’t just the once. I met him last week on The Strand. I was on an errand, it was hardly gone nine in the morning, and I bumped into him strolling along without a care. “Bankers’ hours,” he said, but it weren’t funny. I could smell drink on him and perfume on top of that – lots of it. He made a promise to me: a pint after work, two at the outside, and no other women. So what am I to think now? But the rest of the time he’s good as gold. I wonder if it’s not working in a bank that does it. He isn’t made for that sort of work. He should get outside, work with his hands.’ I didn’t hear her friend’s comment, but they both laughed intemperately for a while because of it.

We had passed Gloucester Road, with only two stops to go before Victoria, and I had yet to overhear anything of value. I was beginning to despair when I noticed the old woman adjacent to Penford and Allinson scribbling on a scrap of paper. She was crooning to herself and clutching a stub of pencil. What was she writing? Then I recalled that Penford had an elderly aunt, his only living relative. She owned a confectioner’s shop near Sloane Street which was not that far from our current position; might this be her?

Was she accompanying them? If we looked, would we find a berth in her name on the boat to New York? Was the necklace already aboard, concealed in her luggage?

The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed;

but what was I to do about it? I wondered if I dare try to communicate with my friend. As subtly as I could, I caught his eye and threw a glance towards the old woman to his right. He looked positively alarmed and I wondered if he had understood me at all.

The train was slowing for Sloane Street station and time was running out. And then, just before we came to a stop, I finally heard Penford’s voice. ‘Mustn’t forget my uncle has a sweet tooth,’ he said, and then a number of events took place in a short time.

First, our quarry rose from their seats as though they meant to get off here, one stop early. Second, the old

woman pulled a whistle from her sleeve and gave a shrill blast upon it. And finally, a moment later, the two roughlooking men from the next carriage appeared at the door, vigorously pushing their way towards us.

I had no idea what to make of this. I felt that I must act, but I could not arrange the events I had seen into anything approaching a comprehensible order. And then the old woman pulled the wig from her head and stood up, seeming suddenly much taller than she had before, and I realised that I had once again been fooled. Here was my old friend after all – not the elderly cove in the next seat.

‘Constables!’ my friend commanded, addressing the two rough-looking men approaching, ‘take these two into custody.’ He indicated Penford and Allinson. ‘And arrest this man for the theft of a gentleman’s wristwatch,’ he said, pointing at the old fellow opposite me.

For a second I wondered if one or other of those just named would contest their capture, so I stood up to make my presence known, and asked, ‘Need any help?’

‘My dear fellow, everything is in hand,’ he replied. He addressed the carriage in general, saying, ‘Now, let us not delay these good people.’ The policemen escorted Penford and Allinson from the train, and I led the watch thief, who no longer moved as though infirm.

Before disembarking, my friend passed the scrap of paper upon which he had been scribbling to the surprised young woman whose conversation we’d overheard and then he asked the gentleman who had lost his wristwatch to alight with us. Once on the platform, the missing timepiece was quickly retrieved from the pocket of the trickster to the obvious pleasure of its rightful owner. ‘The elderly are often overlooked,’ my friend explained to him. ‘Two of us made use of that knowledge today. My suspicions were aroused by the imprint of your watch strap still visible upon your wrist. Clearly you had lost it only a minute or two before, and probability suggested the culprit was the only other passenger, besides myself, travelling in disguise. Did he approach you?’

‘Damn fellow coughed on me,’ the gentleman said.

The watch thief was led away and our attention turned to

Penford and Allinson. Discreetly I asked my friend, ‘Do you have some plan to make them talk?’

‘Why, they’ve already talked. Surely you heard them; you could hardly fail to,’ he said.

‘Some remark about the uncle’s sweet tooth, that was all I heard. I don’t see how it helps us.’

‘And it didn’t bring to mind at once Allinson’s aunt with her confectioner’s shop?’

I was loath to admit that I had thought he was Allinson’s aunt. All I could do was mutter, ‘I still don’t see...’

‘It’s really very inventive,’ he said. ‘Do you recall the shop window? I’m disappointed with myself that I didn’t see it at once. Nuts, raisins, ginger – all dipped in chocolate.’

‘Good lord!’ I exclaimed, ‘The pearls too?’

‘I believe so. Why leave two hours for so short a trip unless they planned a stop along the way? The remark confirmed it: a visit to a certain confectioners to pick up a very special gift for Allinson’s uncle.’

Impressed, I asked him, ‘And your note? What was written upon it?’

My friend laughed and said, ‘I felt it only fair to explain that the young woman’s fiancé obviously worked in Covent Garden Market. The start of her working day was the end of his. The nearby public houses are opened especially for the departing workers and the scent of flowers is like perfume.

The young man had obviously told her he worked in a bank thinking to impress her.’

‘Marvellous, Holmes,’ I said. ‘Simply marvellous.’

Robert Finn is a former career-Londoner who now finds himself absolutely charmed by living in the countryside. Perhaps his subconscious is trying to tell him something, though, as the last three things he’s written have been set on Underground trains, including his recent mini-novel, Underlife, which has just been published by Snowbooks. © Robert Finn, 2007. All rights reserved.