Tunnels 03, Freefall

ground. Thomas Harris armed himself with a ten-foot iron ramrod, while his younger brother, Joshua, wielded a pickaxe handle."

    "And guess what became of the Harris brothers?" Mr. Ashmi called to Mrs. Burrows, sounding as if he was closer now.
    "They were never seen again?" Mrs. Burrows said, peering at the shelves next to her.
    "Got it in one!" Mr. Ashmi congratulated her.
    Mrs. Burrows gave up trying to locate the elusive Mr. Ashmi, and went back to the article.

    "Police officers from the Highfield constabulary were summoned, and shortly afterwards they escorted Mr. Wallace back into the tunnel. The roof above the workface had caved in, and they beheld no sign of the Harris brothers, nor the army of phantoms. Despite further excavations, the bodies of the brothers have not been located."

    "And they never were," Mr. Ashmi put in. "Strange, don't you think?"
    "Yes, very strange," Mrs. Burrows agreed.
    "Well, try this. It's also from the Highfield Bugle , after a raid by the German Luftwaffe in the summer of 1943." Mr. Ashmi breezed by the table, depositing yet another old newspaper in front of Mrs. Burrows.
    "Why?" she said to his retreating back.
    "Just look at the last photographs," he replied, waving a hand in the air as he went.
    Mrs. Burrows sighed. " Report on Yesterday's Raid ," she read, then scanned down the article.

    "Incendiaries fell on
    Vincent Square
    ... roof of St. Joseph's church blown off..."

    "Ah, think I've found it..."

    "At noon, a landmine was dropped on the Lyon's Corner House, killing ten; the millinery works, killing three; and also completely destroying the private residence at No. 46, in which Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their two children, of ages four and seven, perished.

    However, when the bodies of the Smith family were retrieved from the rubble, the corpses of five unidentified men were also discovered. The men had evidently been in the cellar, and were described as being remarkably similar in appearance, with pale faces and thick-set builds. They were dressed in civilian apparel which did not seem to be British in origin, immediately raising suspicions that they might be Nazi spies. The Military Police were called to investigate and the five corpses removed to the St. Pancras Mortuary for further examination, but they were apparently mislaid on the way there. The Smith's family maid, Daisy Heir, had been fortunate not to have been in the scullery at the time of the raid because she was collecting the family's weekly meat rations at the butchers in Disraeli Street. When questioned by the Military Police, she said that there had been no guests staying at the house, and that she had no knowledge whatsoever of the five men and how they came to be there. She could only suggest that they had been looters, who had somehow gained access into the house and secreted themselves down in the cellar during the raid."

    Mrs. Burrows looked up from the newspaper to find Mr. Ashmi standing there. "All this is gripping stuff," she said. "But can you tell me why my husband wrote your name and number in his journal?"
    "These reports are why," Mr. Ashmi replied, easing himself into a chair across the table from her. "Since the early 1800s, there have been accounts of these odd-looking squat men and also the taller 'phantoms' wearing black habits with white collars. These aren't just isolated incidents -- they've occurred with surprising regularity through the centuries and up until the current day."
    "So?" Mrs. Burrows said.
    Mr. Ashmi slid some typewritten pages in front of her. "In the months before he went missing, your husband Roger researched these incidents with me. It took many days of work, but he compiled this list."
    Mrs. Burrows turned through the pages; she had to agree that the sheer numbers of reports was quite extraordinary.
    "Funny thing," Mr. Ashmi began, leaning forward as if he was worried that he might be overheard.
    "What?" Mrs. Burrows asked, also leaning forward, but not entirely convinced she was dealing with a person in possession of all his marbles.
    "I had one of these lists under lock and key in my office," he said. He drew his hands through the air as if he was about to do a magic trick. "But it vanished." He leant even further forward and lowered his voice. "And quite a number of the records themselves have gone walkabout from my shelves in here, too. If it wasn't that I use my own rather idiosyncratic archive system -- which no one else knows -- I expect more of them would