Whispers Under Ground

a break when I spotted him through the grilled windows where the corridor cut across the top of the eastbound platform. We ran as quietly as we could down the next flight of stairs and piled up like cartoon characters at the entrance to the platform. I was just nerving myself to have a look around the corner when Kumar pointed at the convex mirror at head height opposite. This was a holdover from the days before CCTV when station staff and BTP had to scope out stations with the mark one eyeball.
    I spotted him, small and oddly shaped in the mirror, at the far end of the platform.
    ‘If he’s still armed,’ said Kumar. ‘We’ll never get close.’
    I felt a puff of air on my face and the rails began to sing. It was too late – a train was coming.

21
    Oxford Circus
    S ergeant Kumar was very clear about one thing – you don’t do shit when the train is in motion.
    ‘Someone pulls the emergency stop between stations you can lose a passenger to a heart attack there and then,’ he said. ‘And you do not want to be evacuating members of the public down a live track – trust me on this.’
    You certainly didn’t want to be leaping out on a possibly armed suspect in something shaped exactly like a firing range – especially if you’re going to be the target at the far end.
    And the carriages were packed, which took me by surprise, and not with your normal commuters either. Lots of parents with kids, clusters of chattering teenagers, older people in good coats clutching cloth bags or towing shopping trolleys. Last full shopping day before Christmas, I realised, Kumar was right – we really didn’t want to be kicking off anything we couldn’t contain.
    It’s a sad fact, but policing would be so much easier if you didn’t have to worry about members of the public getting under your feet.
    Kumar had Agent Reynolds, the only one of us who didn’t look like they were remaking Ghostbusters , go ahead and peer through the double set of grimy windows and into the next carriage. When she signalled all clear we opened the connecting doors and stepped through.
    There’s no connecting tunnel on a tube train, you open the door and step across the gap to the next carriage. For a moment I was caught in a rush of air and darkness. I swear I heard it then, the whisper, behind the clatter of the wheels and the smell of dust and ozone. Not that I recognised it for what it was – not that I’m sure I know what it was even now.
    The Central Line runs what is imaginatively called 1992 Tube Stock consisting of eight carriages. Our suspect was near the front and we were near the back so it took us twelve minutes and five stops to work our way forward. As the train pulled into Oxford Circus we had our suspect, unknown to him, bottled up in the front carriage. So that, of course, is where he chose to get off.
    Reynolds spotted him first, signalled back to us and – as he walked past the open doorway where we were standing – we jumped him.
    It was as sweet a take-down as anyone could wish for. I got his left arm, Kumar got his right, I slipped my knee behind his, hooked and down he went. We flipped him over on his face and got his arms behind his back.
    He wriggled, as sinuously as a fish. It was difficult to keep him pinned. All the while he was completely silent except for a weird hissing sound like a really pissed off cat.
    I heard someone in the crowd ask what the fuck was going on.
    ‘Police,’ said Kumar. ‘Give us some room.’
    ‘Which one of you has cuffs?’ asked Reynolds.
    I looked at Kumar and he looked at me.
    ‘Shit,’ said Kumar.
    ‘We don’t have any,’ I said.
    Wriggling boy subsided under our hands. Beneath the thin fabric of his hoodie he seemed much skinnier than I expected him to be, but the muscles in his arms were like steel cables.
    ‘I can’t believe you didn’t bring handcuffs,’ said Reynolds.
    ‘ You didn’t,’ I said.
    ‘It’s not my jurisdiction,’ said Reynolds.
    ‘It’s not my jurisdiction,’ I said.
    We both looked at Kumar. ‘Evidence,’ he said. ‘You said we were looking for evidence, not suspects.’
    Our suspect had started shaking and making snorting noises.
    ‘And you can stop laughing,’ I told him. ‘This is really unprofessional.’
    Kumar asked if we could hold him down on our own and I said I thought we could, so he loped off down the platform in search of a Help Point where he could contact the station manager.
    ‘I don’t think you want to be here