The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(80)

MacKenzie hurried across to meet him.

“What’ve you got for me, Jack?”

He caught his breath after taking the stairs two at a time.

“There are technically seven entranceways into the tunnel,” he said, rolling out a civil plan dating back to wartime. “This plan was made when the council was converting the tunnel into an air raid shelter, so you can see where the blast walls are located.”

“Phillips heard from Ryan. He’s okay. He says he passed the first blast wall after the museum entrance on Claremont Road.”

“What about Edwards?”

“Somewhere down there, not far ahead of him. Let’s focus on getting Ryan out and getting some teams in place beside the other entranceways.”

They found Ryan’s last known position on the hand-drawn map and estimated he had walked half a mile east of the museum.

“The tunnel follows Claremont Road,” she said. “It runs past the hospital into the city centre, skirting past the Hancock Museum and St. Thomas’s church, then through the city centre towards Byker and Shieldfield in the east, eventually ending up in Ouseburn beside the water.”

“Only two entrances are in general use,” Lowerson said. “The entrance beside the Hancock Museum wasn’t supposed to be operational and the same can be said of an entrance on Crawhall Road. According to the tour guide I spoke to, an emergency exit was installed at Crawhall Road around 2008 or 2009, which could be opened from the inside and gives access to street level. They say the entrance beside St Thomas’s church is impassable as the ramp leading to ground level hasn’t been cleared of years’ worth of debris, but you never know.”

MacKenzie nodded.

“We need teams on the ground outside all working exits,” she said. “We’ll flush the bastard out.”

“What about Ryan?”

“He has to follow the same direction as Edwards,” she said. “We’ll tell him to head for Crawhall Road.”

“It’s a way off,” Lowerson said. “Another mile further along the tunnel. That’s a long way in the dark.”

“I know that, Jack. But there’s no other choice.”





CHAPTER 37


Police response teams were stationed outside every known entrance to the tunnel and roadblocks were set up in a quarter-mile radius of each one. While Ryan made his slow, painstaking journey through the long tunnel below, Phillips traced its pathway above ground, estimating Ryan’s position.

“Sir, it would be easier if we just headed to the first exit,” one of the constables suggested, and Phillips rounded on him.

“Don’t tell me what would be easier. Easier for who? For me?” He shook his head. “My lad’s trapped down there with that bloody nutter gunnin’ for him and a gas leak spreading. I’ll walk alongside him, even if one of us is below ground.”

He spoke into his handset again.

“Ryan? You still down there? Over.”

The radio crackled into life.

“Where else would I be, Frank?”

Phillips smiled.

“I dunno. Might have dug your way out, by now. That’s the trouble with your generation; always expecting to have things handed to them on a plate.”

Somewhere beneath the ground twenty metres further east of where Phillips walked, Ryan managed a laugh.

“Yeah. Nothing but lazy. If it’d been you down here, I’ll bet you’d have dug a new tunnel, by now, eh, Frank?”

“Darn right, I would,” Phillips told him, keeping an even pace as he consulted the directions MacKenzie had given him. “You passed that second blast wall, yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“It’ll be coming up soon. There’ll also be another disused entrance coming up on your left, in around fifty metres,” he said, looking up at St. Thomas’s church. “Sorry to tell you, there’s no way out of there.”

There was a prolonged silence as Ryan dealt with that blow.

“How much further, Frank?” He asked quietly, as his feet stumbled onward through the darkness.

Phillips heard the anxiety in Ryan’s voice and did his best to keep things light.

“Ah, just a bit further. I’m walking with you, lad.”

Ryan thought of his sergeant tracing his footsteps above ground and was deeply moved.

“Frank?”

There came a crackle.

“Aye, lad?”

“Don’t think you’re going to get a pay rise out of this, mind. You just had one, back in January.”

Phillips grinned.

“It was worth a try.”

*

Ryan continued his slow journey east, stopping every so often to touch a hand to the wall. It was stupid, he supposed, but after walking so far in complete darkness a sense of unreality had crept in, as if it were all a bad dream conjured up by his imagination.

But the dream was real. He felt the damp wall on either side of him and could sense there was not much clearance above his head. He had no way of knowing whether Edwards was fifty paces ahead of him, or five; he might have passed him along the way.

His body was attuned to every change in atmosphere, every scent on the air. If the man was near, he would know it.

*

“You still there, lad?”