The Murder Code by Steve Mosby Page A

station before nine. All that remained of the original building was a black door with a rusted chain hanging across the centre and a red circle daubed on at head height. A much grander entrance had been absorbed by the shops to either side, which were typical of the area: shuttered off-licences, bookies, a drab post office. Bin bags clustered against the walls, huddled together for warmth. There were more pigeons around right now than people, most of them pecking inexplicably at dirty stretches of pavement.
    I drove a little further on, then parked up on a road close to the river and walked down to the water. From here, I could see all the way across to the northern bank, to the empty bays where we’d found the second victim. There were no boats in sight today, just the white crosses of gulls turning lazily over the river. I doubled back on myself to find the large circular tunnel leading down under the road above and into the depths of the earth. It was half grilled over, the fractured side ending in hundreds of tiny rusted fingers.
    I kept my gun clipped in its holster, but took out a Maglite torch, clicking it on as I eased around the broken grille and stepped into the tunnel.
    It wasn’t silent inside, but there was an immediate and profound change to the quality of sound. The world felt compacted; existence had shrunk its parameters to the seven-foot-diameter pipe I began walking down, feeling as much as hearing the insistent hiss of pressure in the air. The pipe was built from enormous arching stone blocks, all thick with green lichen and damp. The torch cast meagre light, only ever revealing a few metres ahead, and I kept it mostly on my footing. Beneath my feet, the dank stone ground was strewn with a thatch of twigs and branches that had blown down here from the river. As I walked, the heavy hush of underground air was complemented by the steady drip of water, and the air grew colder.
    After a time, the tunnel reached a larger space: a square room with pipes curling from one wall and then disappearing into the ground, as though they’d poked their heads out and immediately burrowed down out of sight. In another corner, the water was dripping down more profusely, landing on a slumped pile of pale, congealed slime. Puddles of stagnant water sat in pits in the stone floor. The room smelled of mulch and rotting vegetation, like a breeze drifting through an abandoned vegetable stall.
    At the far end, a doorway led into something that more approximated a normal corridor: perhaps it had once connected maintenance areas around the station. That was the way to go—I’d been here before.
    Barely a minute later, my torch caught movement up ahead and then a torch belonging to someone else was shining in my face.
    I held my forearm over my eyes.
    ‘Ow.’
    A voice boomed out, jovial and theatrical: ‘Who goes there?’
    ‘Police,’ I said. ‘Get that light out of my eyes. I’m not looking for trouble.’
    ‘Okey-dokey.’
    The torch beam immediately dropped down to the ground, and a figure up ahead approached.
    The splay of light revealed a large man, with a barrel of a body that seemed to be made primarily from rags. He was bearded, with wild black hair and a red face, and smiling like a loon.
    ‘What can I do for you, Officer?’
    ‘I’m looking for someone,’ I said.
    ‘I can possibly help you with that.’
    The possibly was to be expected, of course. The people down here had nothing to gain by annoying the police, but that didn’t mean they’d openly co-operate if it meant selling out one of their own.
    ‘This particular person is not alive any more,’ I said.
    ‘That doesn’t mean they’re not here!’ His voice echoed in the enclosed space. ‘We’re full of ghosts, Officer. You know that. That’s all some people down here ever talk to.’
    ‘He may be one of yours,’ I said. ‘We found him upside and need to identify him.’
    ‘Description?’
    ‘Not so much. But I’ve got these.’
    I took