Chapter 3

Fowler turned to look at Charles, who appeared ill - he held a handkerchief to his lips - but otherwise in good humour. There was something indomitable about Charles Pearson, reflected Fowler.

He wasn't sure if it was resolve or lunacy. This was a man who had been laughed at for the best part of two decades, indeed, from when he'd first suggested an underground line.

'Trains in drains', so the scoffing went at the time. They'd laughed when he'd unveiled his plans for an atmospheric railway, carriages pushed through a tube by compressed air. Through a tube. Little wonder that for over a decade Pearson was a fixture of Punch magazine. What fun was had at his expense.

Then, with everybody still chortling at that, there came a scheme, Pearson's brainchild - a plan to build an underground railway between Paddington and Farringdon. The slums of the Fleet Valley would be cleared, their inhabitants moved to homes outside the city - to the suburbs - and people would use this new railway to 'commute'.

A sudden injection of money from the Great Western Railway, the Great Northern Railway and the City of London Corporation, and the scheme became a reality. He, the noted John Fowler, was employed as chief engineer for the Metropolitan Railway and work began on the first shaft at Euston - almost eighteen months ago to the day.

And were people still laughing?

Yes, they were. Only now it was a jagged, mirthless laugh. Because to say that Pearson's vision of the slum clearance had gone badly was to put it mildly. There were no homes in the suburbs and as it turned out, nobody especially willing to build any. And there's no such thing as an undercrowded slum. All those people had to go somewhere, so they went to other slums.

Then, of course, there was the disruption caused by the work itself: streets made impassable, roads dug up, businesses closing and traders demanding compensation. Those who lived along the route existed in an eternal chaos of mud, of engines, of the conveyor's iron chime, of hacking picks and shovels and navvies bellowing at one another, and in perpetual fear of their foundations collapsing.

There was no respite; at night fires were lit and the night shift took over, leaving the day shift to do what men on day shifts do: drink and brawl their way through to morning. London had been invaded by navvies it seemed; everywhere they went they made their own - only the prostitutes and publicans were glad of them.

Then there were the accidents. First a drunken train driver had left the rails at King's Cross and plummeted into the works below. Nobody hurt. Punch had a field day. Then almost a year later the earthworks at Euston Road had collapsed, taking with them gardens, pavements and telegraph wires, destroying gas and water mains, punching a hole in the city. Incredibly, nobody was hurt. Mr Punch enjoyed that episode too.

"I'd hoped to hear good news today, John," shouted Pearson, raising his handkerchief to his mouth. A finicky thing, like a doily. He was sixty-eight to Fowler's forty-four but he looked twice that; his efforts over the last two decades had aged him. Despite his ready smile there was permanent tiredness round the eyes, and the flesh at his jowls was like melted wax on a candle.

"What can I tell you, Mr Pearson?" shouted Fowler. "What would you like to hear other than...?" He gestured over the site.

Pearson laughed. "The roar of the engines is encouraging, that's true enough. But perhaps also that we're back on schedule. Or that every compensation lawyer in London has been struck dead by lightning. That Her Majesty the Queen herself has declared her confidence in the underground and plans to use it at the first opportunity."

Fowler regarded his friend, again marvelling at his spirit. "Then I'm afraid, Mr Pearson, I can give you nothing but bad news. We are still behind schedule. And weather like this simply delays work further. The rain will likely douse the engine and the men on the conveyor will enjoy an unscheduled break."

"Then there is some good news," chortled Pearson.

"And what's that?" shouted Fowler.

"We will have-" the engine spluttered and died - "silence."

And for a moment there was indeed a shocked still as the world adjusted to the absence of the noise. Just the sound of rain slapping on the mud.

Then came a cry from the shaft: 'slippage', and they looked up to see the crane scaffold lurch a little, one of the men suddenly dangling even more precariously than before.

"It'll hold," said Fowler, seeing Pearson's alarm. "It looks worse than it is."

A superstitious man would have crossed his fingers. The navvies were taking no chances either, and the gangs on the crane scrambled to ground level, swarming the wooden struts like pirates on rigging, hundreds of them it seemed, so that Fowler was holding his breath and willing the structure to hold the sudden extra weight.

It should. It must. It did. And the men emerged shouting and coughing, carrying shovels and pickaxes, which were as precious to them as their limbs. They gathered in knots that would divide along regional lines, every single one of them caked in mud.

Fowler and Pearson watched them congregate in the expected groups -

London, Irish, Scottish, rural, other - hands shoved into their pockets or wrapped round them for warmth, shoulders hunched and caps pulled tight against the rain.

Just then there came a shout and Fowler turned to see a commotion by the trench. As one the navvies had moved over to look and now surrounded the lip of the shaft, staring at something inside the cutting.

"Sir!" the site manager Marchant was waving at him, beckoning him over. He cupped his hands to shout. "Sir. You should come and see this."

Moments later Fowler and Pearson had made their way across the mud, the men parting to let them through, and they stood at the top of the trench looking down - past the struts and buckets of the silent conveyor to the lake of muddy water that had formed at the bottom and was already rising. Bobbing in it was a body.

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The rain had eased off, thank God, and the water level in the trench had fallen, but the machines remained silent.

With a hand on his hat, Marchant had rushed away to inform his immediate boss, Cavanagh, a director of the Metropolitan Railway, while another man had been sent to find a bobby.

It was the peeler who arrived first, a young constable with bushy side whiskers who introduced himself as Police Constable Abberline and then cleared his throat and removed his custodian helmet in order to get down to the business of seeing the body.

"Has anybody been down to it, sir?" he asked Pearson, indicating the trench.

"The area was cleared as soon as it was discovered, constable. You can imagine it caused quite a stir."

"Nobody likes to see a dead body before their elevenses, sir."

Those assembled watched as the peeler leaned tentatively to stare into the trench and then signalled to a man nearby.

"Do you mind, mate?" he said, and handed the worker his helmet, then unbuckled and removed his belt, truncheon and handcuffs before descending the ladder to inspect the corpse at close quarters.

They crowded round to stare down into the cutting and watch as he stepped round the body, lifting one arm and then the other. Presently, the peeler crouched and the watchers held their breath in expectation as he turned over the body.

In the trench, Abberline swallowed, unaccustomed to being on show and wishing he'd left instructions that the men be asked to move back. They lined both sides of the trench. Even the figures of Fowler and Mr and Mrs Pearson were there. All of them were gazing down at him fifteen feet below.

Right. He turned his attention back to the corpse, putting aside all self conscious thoughts to concentrate on the job at hand.

The body then. Face down in the mud, with one arm raised as though trying to hail a carriage, the dead man wore a tweed suit. His brown boots were well shod, and though covered in mud were otherwise in good condition.

Not the attire of a derelict, thought Abberline. Crouching, heedless of the mud that soaked his clothes he took a deep breath and reached to the man's shoulders, grunting with the effort as he rolled him over.

From above came a ripple of reaction but Abberline had his eyes closed, wanting to delay the moment he saw the man's face. With trepidation he opened them and stared into the dead gaze of the corpse.

He was in his late thirties and had a bushy white-flecked Prince Albert moustache that looked cared for, as well as thick side whiskers. By the looks of him he wasn't a rich man but neither was he a worker. Like Abberline he was one of the new middle classes.

Either way, this was a man with a life, whose next of kin, when they were informed, would want an explanation as to how he ended up in a trench at New Road.

This was, without doubt - and Abberline couldn't help but feel a small, slightly shameful thrill at the thought of it - an investigation.

He tore his gaze away from the man's sightless open eyes and looked down at his jacket and shirt. Visible despite the mud was a bloodstain with a neat hole at the centre. If Abberline wasn't very much mistaken, a puncture wound.

Abberline had seen victims of stab wounds before, of course, and he knew that people armed with knives stabbed and slashed the same way they punched.

In quick haphazard multiples: bomf, bomf, bomf.

But this was a single wound, direct into the heart. What you might call a clean kill.

By now, Abberline was vibrating with excitement. He'd feel guilty about that later, remembering that there was, after all, a dead man involved, and you shouldn't really feel anything but sorrow for him and his family in that situation, and certainly not excitement. But even so...

He began a quick search of the body and found it immediately: a revolver. Christ, he thought, this was a geezer armed with a gun who'd lost a fight with a knifeman. He pushed the gun back into a jacket pocket.

"We'll need to lift this body out of here," he called up in the general direction of the bossmen. "Sirs, could you help me to cover him and put him in a cart for taking to the police morgue?"

With that he started to ascend the ladder, just as orders were called out and a team of men began to descend the other ladders with varying degrees of eagerness and trepidation. At the top, Abberline stood wiping his mucky hands on the seat of his trousers.

At the same time he scanned the lines of assembled men, wondering if the killer was in there somewhere, admiring his handiwork. All he saw was row upon row of dirty faces, all watching him intently.

Others still crowded around the mouth of the cutting, watching as the body was brought up then laid on the flatbed of a cart. The tarpaulin flapped as it was shaken out then draped over him, a shroud, the face of the dead man hidden again.

By now it had started to rain in earnest, but Abberline's attention had been arrested by the sight of a smartly dressed man making his way over the boards that crossed the expanse of mud towards them. Not far behind lolloped a lackey carrying a large leather-bound journal, its laces dancing and jerking as the lackey tried unsuccessfully to keep up with his master.

"Mr Fowler! Mr Pearson!" called the man, gesturing with his cane and instantly commanding their attention.

The entire site quietened, but in a new way.

There was much shuffling of feet. Men were suddenly studying their boots intently.

Oh yes? thought Abberline. What have we here?

Like Fowler and Pearson the new arrival wore a smart suit, though he wore it with more style - in a way that suggested he was used to catching the eye of a passing lady.

He had no paunch and his shoulders were squared, not stooped with stress and worry like his two colleagues.

Abberline could see that when he doffed his hat it would be to reveal a full head of almost shoulder-length hair.

But though his greeting was warm, his smile, which was a mechanical thing that was off as quickly as it was on, never reached his eyes.

Those ladies impressed by his mode of dress and general demeanour might well have thought twice upon seeing the look in those cold and piercing eyes.

As the man and his lackey drew close to them Abberline looked first at Pearson and Fowler, noting the discomfort in their eyes and the hesitation in Charles Pearson as he introduced the man.

"This is our associate, Mr Cavanagh, a director of the Metropolitan company. He oversees the day-to-day running of the dig."

Abberline touched his brow, thinking to himself, What's your story then?