your street started seeing him whenever it rained. He would materialize through the downpour, and walk with his dripping mud-covered head bowed low, mourning his lost love. This continued for some years, until the flood of 1959, when the underground river burst from its tunnel and swamped the street. What do you think happened?’
David shook his head, mesmerized.
‘The boy’s corpse surfaced through the water. It had been washed up from the canal due to the unusual currents caused by the terrible winter storms. Once his body was properly laid to rest, his ghost was at peace, and it was never seen again.’
‘I’m not sure you should be telling the boy this sort of thing,’ said Kirkpatrick in some alarm.
‘Perhaps we could get back to facts.’ Bryant rapped his walking stick on the pavement irritably. ‘Where’s this drain of yours, lad?’
David stopped in the middle of the alley and kicked at the mud with the heel of his boot. ‘It’s around here. The rain’s washed a lot of earth loose.’
Bryant peered out from under his hat to get his bearings. They were standing at the back of Kallie’s garden wall. David was crouching beside an oblong indented iron plate. ‘I don’t know how it opens.’
‘I do,’ said Bryant. ‘It needs a special instrument, shaped like a T, with a hook at one end.’ He thought back to Meera’s report about the disappearance of Tate. She had assured him that the tramp had too much difficulty walking to have run the length of the overgrown ginnel. He was small enough to hide inside a bush. Suppose he had hidden inside the drain until the coast was clear? It would mean that the device he’d used to open it must be hidden somewhere in the alley.
The misted rain, drifting in the half-light of the afternoon, obscured the interiors of the brambles that bordered the rear gardens. He pulled out his pocket torch and shone it around their feet. ‘David, I wonder if you might reach in there for me and take out that metal rod.’
The boy crouched low and pulled the rusted shaft free. Inserting it into the lid of the drain was a simple matter. One hard push levered the top off. Bryant’s torch illuminated a larger hole within, at least four feet square, accessible by an iron-rung ladder set into the wall. One side appeared to lead off to a tunnel.
‘I can get down there,’ said David. ‘Easy.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Maggie warned. ‘I’m getting uncomfortable vibrations.’
‘What does that mean, exactly?’ asked Kirkpatrick. ‘You get vibrations every time a bus goes past.’
Maggie cocked her head on one side and thought for a moment. Rainwater ran in rivulets down her plastic hood. ‘I sense nothing evil, just sadness and loss. A great melancholy.’
‘It’s hardly surprising,’ Bryant pointed out. ‘Some poor homeless old man having to hide in a drain every time someone spots him in their garden. Can you feel anything else, Margaret?’
Maggie placed her hands on her forehead and began to hum gently.
‘Oh, don’t encourage her,’ Kirkpatrick complained. ‘She’s going for an Oscar. There must be so many violent vibrations emanating from the London streets, I don’t know how she manages to get through the day without imploding.’
When they stopped arguing and looked around, they realized that the boy had gone.
‘David!’ called Bryant, panicked. ‘Where are you?’
‘It’s all right—I’m down here.’
‘Good God, get back up here at once! Your parents will crucify me.’ He shone his torch into the hole.
‘He’s been down here, all right,’ the boy called up. ‘There’s a sort of nest made out of old newspapers, and empty KFC boxes. It’s very smelly.’
‘Come on out before you catch something,’ called Bryant, unable to climb down and follow him.
‘Wait, chuck me down your torch.’
It was too late to repair the damage now; the boy was already down there. ‘At least give me your other hand so I can hold on to you.’ Bryant guiltily passed him the light.
‘It looks like the tunnel goes all the way to the end of the street,’ David called back. ‘And there’s another one branching off. I’m going to take a look.’
‘You are most certainly not,’ snapped Bryant, struggling down to his knees. ‘Come back up at once. This investigation is at an end.’
David’s head and shoulders suddenly appeared in the drain. He was smeared with green mud, and highly excited. ‘It’s fantastic! You can go all the way along, but it looks like there’s an iron grille at the end.’