Reginald Hill - Under World

‘He didn’t seem inclined to take much notice of you at the White Rock,’ said Dalziel.

Oh God. Let this be token resistance, prayed Pascoe.

But God was deaf behind the drifting mist.

‘No,’ said Dalziel, making up his mind. ‘Can’t let you go in there alone, Mr Downey. More than my job’s worth. And as long as it’s level, a bit of blackness won’t hurt us, will it, Peter? Lead on, Mr Downey and let’s see what we can find.’

He handed Downey his torch. The man shrugged but didn’t argue. Stooping, he stepped forward into the dark cavern. Dalziel followed close behind.

Pascoe still hesitated on the threshold. It was stupid to let some absurd police machismo prevent him from confessing his fear.

‘Come on, lad! Hurry up with that torch o’ thine, will you?’

He took a deep breath, glanced up at the sky. God might be deaf but he wasn’t humourless. Even as he looked the mist was drawn up as though by a sharp intake of breath prior to a good belly laugh, and the sky scintillated with a million stars.

‘Oh shit,’ said Pascoe. And stepped into the dark.

It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, he assured himself. A man could walk almost upright in here and there was the occasional draught of cold air like a lifeline with the outside world. Nor was there much chance of getting lost. After the initial narrow squeeze, they’d found themselves in a tunnel which took them straight forward with no sign of any side passage in the torch’s bright cone, though it did seem to be descending rather more sharply than Downey had promised.

Dalziel was just ahead. At least he assumed that hunching hulk was still Dalziel and not some time-travelled troglodyte luring him to its bone-strewn lair.

‘Sir,’ he whispered. ‘Sir!’

‘What the hell are you muttering about, lad?’ said Dalziel irritatedly over his shoulder.

‘You shouldn’t make too much noise in places like this,’ said Pascoe defensively.

‘Oh aye. You an expert or something?’

No, but I’ve seen a lot of movies where people made too much noise, was Pascoe’s proper reply.

He said, ‘Shouldn’t we try to make contact? I mean, we’re never going to actually catch up with him, not unless this all comes to a dead end, are we?’

‘You mean you want to start shouting to the lad? I thought you were worried about making too much noise just now?’

‘I just think we ought to do something ,’ said Pascoe desperately. Though he couldn’t be absolutely certain, he thought he sensed a slight curve developing in the tunnel. Also those comforting draughts of fresh air seemed less frequent here.

‘What do you suggest?’ said Dalziel.

Pascoe examined his thoughts, tried to separate proper procedure from personal terror, came to an identical conclusion in both cases, and said, ‘I think one of us ought to go back and get this thing properly organized.’

Ahead, Dalziel halted, sighed deeply, turned with difficulty, the better, Pascoe guessed, to administer a rebuke.

Instead the fat man said, ‘You’re right …’ and Pascoe’s heart soared ‘… I’ll go.’ And great was the fall thereof.

But before he could find a method of contradiction short of outright refusal, Downey who’d got some way ahead during this discussion returned.

‘He’s not there,’ he said, causing Pascoe’s heart to raise its head hopefully.

‘Not where?’ said Dalziel, who always seemed to have trouble with Downey’s locative adverbs.

‘At the end of the drift,’ said Downey.

‘You mean he didn’t come in here after all?’ said Pascoe, torn between relief and indignation.

‘He must have turned off,’ said Downey.

‘Turned off?’ Pascoe echoed derisively. ‘Into solid rock?’

Downey didn’t reply but retreated a few paces and did just that.

‘Oh God,’ said Pascoe.

But Dalziel went forward and said impatiently, ‘Bring that bloody torch!’

There was a side passage here. It looked as if a natural fault had been widened by a pick. A draught of air blew through it, not fresh night air, but slightly warmer and with something slightly fetid on its breath.

‘Downey!’ called Dalziel.

There was no reply and no sign of the miner’s torch.

‘Come on,’ said Dalziel.

‘But what about getting help?’ demanded Pascoe.

‘The bugger who’ll need help is that half-wit Downey if he catches up with Farr and we’re not there,’ retorted Dalziel. ‘Come on.’

There seemed to be no way the fat man was going to get through the gap but somehow he seemed to mould his bulk to fit the contours, and like a squid squeezing into a crevasse he vanished from sight.

Pascoe followed. Why not? It had been a day for new and deteriorating experiences. Now the drift seemed to him like a well-lit road. It was his fate, it seemed, to search for the tunnel at the end of the light.

His torch showed he was in a new world now; long stretches were wholly natural as if some ancient movement of the earth had prised these rocks apart. In places he had to duck beneath the atrophied roots of distant trees, sent deep-probing in search of fresh layers of earth and water which they never found. He glimpsed fossils in the walls of rock, leaves and ferns and ammonites, and his imagination turned other ridges and hollows into bones and skulls. And finally he knew that he was quite alone and this was that old nightmare come true in which he went further and further along a tunnel till it grew so narrow that he became wedged in it, unable either to retreat or advance.

Dalziel got through here, he assured himself. Dalziel got through here. Oh God! What he would give to hear a few comforting words from that deep certain voice.

‘Look at the state of this fucking suit! Hurry up, lad and shine that torch on it. It’s bloody ruined. Look at it. Best tailor in Yorkshire made this, back when they knew how to cut cloth. It’ll be three years before I can get him to do another one.’

‘Why three years?’ asked Pascoe, trying to control the joy in his voice at this summons back to a real world even if it were still subterranean.

‘That’s how long he’s still got to do. I put the sod away for receiving stolen cloth, don’t you remember? He blamed it on the government allowing unfair competition from the Far East. I reckon the trouble were a bit nearer east than that. Scarborough. That’s where he set his fancy woman up. Expensive tastes, that one. Where’s that daft bugger gone now? Downey!’

They were through the fissure and back in a tunnel which the timbered roof showed to be man-made. Up ahead a torch beam appeared and flashed urgently at them. They went forward and found Arthur Downey waiting for them.

‘What now?’ demanded Dalziel.

‘Not so loud,’ whispered Downey. ‘The roof’s a bit dicey here.’

Pascoe shot a triumphant glance at Dalziel, who said, ‘Then let’s not hang around under it. Mr Downey, if I can’t communicate with young Farr by shouting, what’re the odds of us getting within whispering distance of him?’

For the first time since this lunatic chase began, Downey seemed to have run out of certainties. He stared around as if surprised to be where he was. Pascoe knew the feeling, hated to know it was shared.

‘Mr Downey,’ he said gently, ‘is there any point in going on?’

‘What?’ Downey looked at him as if taking this as a general philosophical inquiry and feeling inclined to answer no. Then he shook his head and said, ‘A little further. He might be … a little further.’

He set off once more. Dalziel looked at Pascoe and shrugged his shoulders before following. Pascoe once more found himself bringing up the rear. He walked slowly, letting his torch beam run up and down the walls in an effort to memorize their features. Of course, as long as there was no choice of route there was no chance of getting lost but he still felt as if he should be dropping white pebbles, or leaving a clue of thread to guide him back. But as he had neither thread nor pebbles, he’d have to make do with memory.