Mind the Gap

chapter Three

flesh and blood

Her dead mother's whispering woke her up.

Jazz jerked upright, and for a few seconds she thought she was still dreaming. She was surrounded

by a pressing darkness, lessened here and there by dusty bulbs hanging suspended from a high ceiling, and

if she'd been in her bed-room, she'd be looking at a movie poster of Johnny Depp. Instead, the poster that

hung on the rough brick wall above her was of a man lighting a cigarette, and the words said,

"Let 'em all come"

Men 41-55

Home Defense Battalions

Jazz felt a weight on her chest. She reached out and touched cool plastic; the comfort she had gained

from the torch had all but vanished.

She sat up, taking in a few rapid breaths to dispel the dreams she could no longer remember. They

had been bad, that's all she knew. Her mother had been there —alive or dead, she could not recall. But the

echoes of her dead mother's words still reverberated in her mind. She knew that they always would.

She was cold and uncomfortable, and it felt as though she'd been asleep for a long time. Her muscles

were stiff, her neck ached from where she had been resting her head at an awkward angle, and her right

hand tingled with pins and needles.

Jazz clicked on the heavy torch and shone it around the shelter. She was alone. The Uncles had not

come down here and found her, and although she knew the likelihood of that was remote, she still felt

incredibly vulnerable, as though the trail of tears she had left behind was something they could follow.

Who's to say? she thought. Until today I had no idea of what the Uncles were really capable

of. She aimed the strong beam all around the shelter, then clicked it off, satisfied that she was really alone.

They were waiting to kill me. The facts were punching back into her life like knives reinserted into

old wounds. They killed Mum, and they were waiting there to kill me as well! The why still did not

matter, though she thought it would soon. The simple fact of that terrible truth was enough for now.

She stood and stretched, letting out an involuntary groan that echoed around the shelter. She

crouched down, startled. No reaction from anywhere; no sudden burst of activity from the shady corners or

behind the shelving units fixed along the walls.



There was food here. She could smell it beneath the odor of old dampness and forgotten corners, and

she went search-ing. Starting at the end of the tunnel farthest from where she had entered, Jazz began

looking through the stacked shelves. She was immediately struck by the huge variety of goods down here.

This was more than just a hideaway, it was a store, and many of the items she found were distinctly out of

place. One shelf was piled with hundreds of CDs, ranging from Mozart to Metallica. The next shelf down

held boxes of plant seeds still in their packets, and below that were piles of random-sized picture frames, all

of them lacking pictures. A family that never existed, Jazz thought, and the idea chilled her more than it

should.

Between the shelving stacks, on the floor, were small cardboard boxes. Rat traps. She had no wish

to look inside to see what had been caught.

On the next stack were models of fantasy figures still in their boxes, empty sweets tins filled with

one-penny pieces, a shelf of sex toys of varying shapes and sizes, tourist guides to London and beyond,

stacks of watches still in their boxes, a variety of cacti, flat-packed furniture, jewelry, books, bed-ding,

bumper stickers, children's cuddly toys, dining sets, gar-den gnomes, empty wallets and purses, empty

rucksacks...

Peeking out from behind the units were old wartime posters, some of them unreadable but a few still

quite clear. It felt peculiar, reading these exhortations to a lost genera-tion that had feared losing itself. One

in particular struck her:

Keep Mum,

She's not so Dumb!

Across the print a newer message was scrawled in marker pen:

Make them go away!

The tone behind that desperate plea was more disturbing than the age of the poster it was written on.

It chilled her but at the same time made her realize how much her life had changed. Up until recently, things

had been controlled and overseen. But now she was...

Free? she thought. No. No flicking way. I'm more trapped by Mum's murder than I ever was

before.

Fighting back tears —Mum would want her to look after herself, not stand here crying—Jazz moved

on, and on, and eventually she found a series of shelving units with lockable doors. No doors were locked,

but they were all closed, and when she opened the first one her stomach gave an audible rumble of

pleasure.

She plucked out a pack of bourbon cream biscuits and ripped it open. They were soft and probably

well past their use-by date, but the first one tasted exquisite. She had no way of telling the time, but she felt

that she had been down here for a long time. Even if she'd had a watch, it wouldn't have done her any

good; she could never wear one, because they always broke when she put them on. Her mother sus-pected

the radiation from dental X-rays, though whether this was paranoia or a joke, Jazz had never been sure.

Either way, she ignored it as absurd.

Whatever the hour might be, Jazz decided it was lunchtime.

Several biscuits eaten, she moved on to the next cup-board. There was plenty of tinned food in here

but no tin opener, and she did not feel inclined to go searching for one. A box of crackers looked more

inviting, and when she opened the last unit she found four fridges, stacked two high and all working. Inside

—butter, cream cheese, salads, and milk.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of fresh food, and something moved behind her.

Jazz fell to her knees and clicked off her torch. She was still bathed in stark light, and for a moment

she thought she was pinned within the beam of someone else's torch. Then she remembered the fridge

lights, and she slammed the doors closed.

That had definitely been a movement. An echo, per-haps, of something farther away, but definitely

not dripping water. More ghosts? She imagined an endless procession of people fleeing endless bombing,

but the things she had found down here were at odds with that image. Ghosts did not eat biscuits, drink milk,

or listen to Metallica.

Jazz scanned the shelter by the poor light of the hanging bulbs.

Keep your wits about you, her mother had once said. That's the best weapon you can have.



****

"See?" she said. "Richard Kimble's got his wits. Evades cap-ture. Runs. And he's saving himself

too."

"The Fugitive is just a film, Mum," Jazz said. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs tucked up

beneath her, eating strawberry ice cream straight from the tub. Her mum's whiskey tumbler was almost

empty again, but although her eyes glittered and her face was flushed, her words were as clear and concise

as ever.

"But you can learn a lot from a film. Why shouldn't you learn from fiction? It's a vast array of ideas,

and you can take what you need from that. Look at him. You can see the plan-ning in every movement of

his eyes, everything he does. He knows not to stop running. He knows to lose himself and how to find

himself again after that."

"But he's just an actor, Mum. Not flesh and blood."

"Flesh and blood?" her mother said, and she froze for a few seconds, her eyes seeing something

much farther away.

"Mum?"

"Flesh and blood," she repeated, words quieter than ever. "Not everything real is flesh and blood,

Jazz. Not everything at all."



****

Those ghosts were not real, Jazz thought, running low and fast toward the other end of the shelter.

She wanted to get as far from the spiral staircase as possible, and she remembered seeing some cupboards

and storage units piled haphazardly against the end wall. Perhaps there she would find cover from whatever

was coming.

She could hear the footsteps now, a single set descend-ing with confidence.

Whoever it is, they're not expecting anyone to be down here. It gave her a moment's hope, but

still she was terrified.

She almost fumbled the torch and held her breath, loop-ing her index finger through the handle. If she

lost that, she really would be in trouble.

If whoever came down was threatening, she could blind them with light, then run for the stairs. It

wasn't so far to the surface. A hundred feet, maybe? A bit less, a bit more?

She reached the end of the shelter, paused, and heard those footsteps still descending. She should

have been count-ing steps, she knew. Should have been trying to work out how long she had, how close

they were, how fast they were de-scending.

There were a dozen cabinets here, stacked against the crumbling brickwork, and most of them were

full with all manner of goods. She started panicking again. She could lie down on one of the mattresses and

pull a blanket across her, but how effective would that be? She had to hide, and now she was starting to

wish she'd just gone to wait at the en-trance tunnel, ready to clout the visitor over the head with the torch

and run for her life.

She found a cupboard that was only half full, coats and jackets piled flat on its floor. She could fit in

there.

The footsteps echoed so loudly that she was sure they were right behind her.

She glanced back, stepped into the cupboard, pulled the metal doors shut behind her, left an inch gap

through which to see, and the person stepped into view.

He paused for a while at the end of the entrance tunnel, looking around the shelter, nose raised.

He knows I'm here. Oh f*ck, he knows I'm here. He can smell me, see me, sense me!

The man was tall, easily six feet, and stood proud and straight. She thought he was older than his

appearance sug-gested. He had long black hair that was tied in a loose pony-tail and wore a trench coat

that had seen better days. Its material was ripped in several places, and there seemed to be stains beneath

both large pockets, as though he kept some-thing in there that leaked. From this distance, Jazz could not

make out his features, but his face looked pale and long, only the chin and cheeks darkened by stubble.

He held one hand out before him, fingers moving gently as though he was playing the air.

Jazz knew for sure that he was no ghost.

She tried to breathe slow and deep, but she was out of breath from her mad dash along the shelter.

The torch was held between her knees; if it slipped and banged the cabinet, she would be found out.

The man looked around, moving his fingers before him again. What can he see? she thought. She

shifted slightly and looked at the array of cupboards and shelving, trying to pic-ture what it had been like

when she arrived and make out how it had changed. Some doors were open, but they had not all been

closed to begin with. The fridges were closed, the cabinets housing them shut. Some of the blankets on the

mattresses were messed up —had she done that as she ran?— and...



She could just make out the biscuit packet, still half full but discarded carelessly on the floor.

Jazz shifted again until she could see the man. He did not seem to be looking in the direction of the

biscuit cup-board. Indeed, he now seemed to have his eyes closed and his face raised, as though smelling

the air of the place.

"You can come on down now, my pets," he said. "We're very much alone."

The man walked gracefully into the shelter, and then Jazz heard the whisper of many more feet

descending the spiral staircase. From where she was hiding, the footfalls sounded like fingers drumming on

a tabletop, distant and ambiguous.

The man took something from the pocket of his trench coat, stuck out his tongue, and placed the

something on it. He chewed thoughtfully, only turning around when the first shape appeared behind him.

It was barely a shadow, slipping into the shelter and dash-ing across the concrete floor. Jazz tried to

keep track, but the poor lighting defeated her. It was as though this shape —who-ever or whatever it

was—knew just where the lighting levels were lowest and took advantage of that.

Another shape came from the entrance tunnel, then an-other, all of them much smaller and slighter

than the tall man. They came low and fast, parting around the man like a stream flowing around a rock.

Jazz counted four, six, per-haps nine shapes flowing from the tunnel. When she did catch sight of their

faces, she saw only pale skin and dark eyes; the light was too poor, and they were moving too fast to truly

make out any features.

They were all carrying something on their backs.

What am I going to see? she thought. I've moved on from one danger to... what? Something

worse?

The man raised his arms and turned slowly around, and then all the shapes stopped and turned to look

at him.

They were kids. Teenagers and younger. Pale, scruffy, yet most of them with a smile on their face,

and a couple with expressions of outright joy.

"Ahh, my pets, there's nothing like coming home," the tall man said.

Home, Jazz thought, with a sudden longing.

"Now, then," the man continued. He groaned slightly as he sat on a large blanket in the center of the

floor. "Cadge, if you'd be kind enough to illuminate our day's haul, I'd be most grateful."

"No problem, Mr. F." A boy to Jazz's left disappeared out of her line of sight, coming close to the

cabinets and ap-parently slipping between two of them to whatever lay be-hind. She had thought they were

lined against a solid wall, but maybe not. Seconds later, the rest of the strung lights lit up, and Jazz had to

squint against the glare.

There was a brief cheer from the kids and a satisfied smile from the tall man —or Mr. F., as the boy

Cadge had called him.

Cadge came into view again and performed an elaborate, slow bow. He was a short, skinny kid,

maybe fourteen, with an unruly mop of bright ginger hair, baggy jeans, and a denim jacket studded with

button badges. He wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, which seemed too delicate for his face. He glanced

back once —Jazz held her breath—then he slipped the rucksack from his shoulders and went to sit close to

Mr. F. From the brief glimpse of his face lit up by the lights, Jazz was sure she had seen no lenses in his

glasses.

The children gathered around Mr. F., sitting on blan-kets, mattresses, or bare concrete. They all took

off ruck-sacks or duffels and placed them beside them on the floor, and the tall man looked around with a

warm smile. "Good day, my pets?"

"Best I've 'ad in a while," one boy said.

"Ah!" Mr. F. clapped his hands. "If Stevie Sharpe tells me he's had a good day, I know we'll be

eating well tonight."

Stevie Sharpe smiled tightly, the expression hardly changing his face. He tipped up his rucksack, and

Jazz gasped. Dozens of wallets and purses fell from it, pattering to the floor like dead birds. "American bus

trip broke down," the boy said. "They had to catch the Tube to meet up with a new bus." He picked up one

wallet and flipped it through the air.

Mr. F. caught it and put it to his nose. "Real leather, of course," he said. Then he opened the wallet

and flipped through the contents. He smiled. "Yes, eating very well tonight. That's if you all don't mind fillet

steak bought with honestly earned money?"

The children laughed and started offering their own hauls to the man sitting in their midst.

What the hell is this? Jazz thought. And as she watched the strange display before her —more loot,

more celebrat-ing, more banter, and plenty of laughter—another realiza-tion struck her: she needed to pee.



Wallets and purses were the main hauls, handed to Mr. F. as though he were some ancient god to

which the kids had to pay tribute. Jazz guessed that the youngest was maybe twelve , the oldest eighteen. A

couple of them were about her age —seventeen—and old enough to pass as adults.

She closed her eyes and tried not to concentrate on her bladder. However desperate her situation,

she was too proud to piss herself while shut away in some cupboard. Some smelly cupboard, she realized.

The coats and jackets com-pressed beneath her seemed to be exuding an old, musty odor, a mixture of

damp and sweat and something more spicy and exotic.

When she looked again, several of the children were gathering their haul and starting to store it

away. They shoved it seemingly at random into cupboards and cabinets, but they worked in a way that

convinced Jazz there was some sort of system here.

No coats today, she thought. No jackets, no coats or jackets, please, not today.

But remaining undiscovered was simply delaying the in-evitable. Unless she could stay here until

these people went out again, what hope did she have?

Mr. F. stood and strolled to the other end of the shelter, opening the fridge cabinets and taking out a

bottle of beer. He popped the top and drank deep, turning around to watch his kids hide away their stolen

goods.

Bunch of thieves. Nothing more, nothing less. Jazz ac-tually felt disappointed. Discovering this

subterranean place had instilled a sense of mystery in her, distracting to some small degree from the

seriousness of her situation. The hope-lessness. She had been thinking only minutes, maybe hours ahead

—avoid capture by the Uncles, maybe plan forward to where and when she could go back up to the

surface. And then the ghosts—

(though she had not really seen them, had she? Not really. The stress, the strain, the trauma had

thrust visions at her from the darkness, that was all)

—and the discovery of this strange place had combined to help remove her even more from the

world. She had not only come deeper, she had come farther away. That had felt good.

"Just bloody thieves," she whispered.

"Mr. F.?" One of the girls walked to the tall man, hold-ing something in her hand.

Jazz held her breath. What had she left? What had she forgotten?

"So who's the litterbug?" Mr. F. asked. "Cadge?"

"Not me, Mr. F. I'm clean an' tidy."

Mr. F. smiled and held up the half-empty biscuit wrap-per. "Someone craving bourbons? It's hardly

surprising. They are, after all, members of the biscuit royalty, though I'd only bestow a princehood on them.

The king being... ?"

"Chocolate Hobnobs," a tall boy said, rubbing his stomach and sighing.

"Right. So...?"

A chorus of no's and shaken heads, and then the strange group went back to tidying their haul.

"As ever, I believe you all," the man said. His voice was lower than before, and Jazz could see the

confusion on his face.

Damn, she really needed to pee.

Jazz sobbed. She couldn't help it. She quickly pressed her hand to her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut,

and the torch slipped between her knees. The handle touched the metal wall of the cabinet, making a sound

as loud and strik-ing as a school dinner bell.

Oh f*ck!

"Guests?" she heard Mr. F. say.

She tried to open her eyes, but fear kept them glued shut. Tears squeezed out and tickled her cheeks,

and when she finally found the strength to look, the shelter was fran-tic with activity, children darting here

and there as they searched for the intruder. The only person not moving was Mr. F. He was once again

standing on the blanket in the center, turning slowly around until his gaze settled in her di-rection.

"Cadge?" he said.

"Mr. F.?" The voice came from very close by, and Jazz's breath caught in her throat. She leaned

forward slightly and saw the ginger boy, Cadge, standing six feet away.

"The coat cupboard," Mr. F. said.

Jazz kicked open the doors and went to leap out and brandish the torch as a weapon. But her left leg

had gone to sleep, and instead of leaping she stumbled, falling to the ground and sending the torch spinning

away.

Cadge was on her quickly, knocking her left hand away and sending her falling painfully onto her

side. He sat astride her and pinned her right arm beneath his legs.



Jazz struggled for a moment, then realized it was far too late.

"Mr. F.!" Cadge called." 'Fink we caught us a proper lady!" "Is she wearing a hat?" one of the girls

asked, and every-one laughed.

"Trust Hattie to think of the most important things," Mr. F. said. He came into Jazz's field of vision,

sideways be-cause she still had her face pressed to the cool concrete, and he looked even stranger close

up. His skin was so pale as to be almost white, and even beneath the stubbled chin and cheeks it looked like

flesh that had been underwater for too long. He had a large Roman nose, a wide mouth, and deeply piercing

eyes. She thought they were green, but it was diffi-cult to tell in this light.

There were very fine, very intricate tattoo swirls beneath both ears and disappearing down under the

collar of his coat.

"Who are you?" Jazz asked.

"We ask the questions down 'ere," Stevie Sharpe said. "In fact, you don't even talk. Not a word. This

is our place, and the walls hear only our words."

Mr. F. pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. "Don't you think, my pets, that we should hear this girl's

story before we start imposing such rules?"

"She could be trouble," a tall girl said.

"She could be, Faith. But weren't you trouble as well when I found you?"

Faith shrugged, still staring at Jazz. "Suppose."

"First thing I wanna know is how she found us," Stevie said.

Cadge remained silent, still pressing her down. Jazz could sense that he was tensed and ready to

move should she try anything foolish.

"I really need to piss," Jazz said.

Mr. F. frowned. "We don't swear and curse down here, young lady. Avoid vulgarity, please."

"Right. Pee."

Mr. F. regarded her for a while, expression unchanging.

"She does look a bit desperate," a short, chubby boy said.

"Hmm." The tall man squatted and turned his head so that Jazz could see him straight on. "Well then,

Hattie, would you be good enough to take her to the loo?"

"No problem. Cadge?"

Cadge stood from Jazz, gently, so that he didn't hurt her.

Jazz sat up slowly, shifting her foot to test whether she had feeling back in her leg. It seemed better,

but she didn't want to collapse again in front of these people. So she waited awhile, looking around, trying

not to appear as confused and frightened as she felt.

"My name's Harry," Mr. F. said. "And nobody here will hurt you." Jazz believed him. There was

something about his voice that made her suspect that she would believe it if he told her black was white. It

was smooth, intelligent, and assured. Mum would like him, she thought, and the thought surprised her. She

looked down at the ground and stood, rubbing away a tear as she did so.

Facing them, feeling their attention bore into her, sens-ing the suspicion coming off them in waves,

she realized that there was no reason at all to lie.

"My mum's dead," she said. "She was murdered today. And the people who did it are looking for

me."

Harry's expression did not change, but the kids around him all reacted in some way.

"Then you're lost too, just like us," Harry said.

Lost, Jazz thought. Can it really be this easy?



****

Hattie led her to the loos. There was a narrow opening in the end wall of the tunnel, the same place

Cadge had gone to switch on the rest of the lights. The walls were bare brick fes-tooned with cables and

spiderwebs, the concrete floor damp from several leaks that looked decades old. As they walked past a

room off to the right, Jazz felt a draft that could only have come from a vent to the world above. Light from

the corridor shone into the room just enough for her to see several clothes-lines hung with drying laundry

and an ironing board.

Hattie noticed her looking and laughed softly. "What, didn't think a bunch of tunnel rats would want

clean clothes?"

"No," Jazz said, not wanting to offend. Then she shrugged. "The iron surprises me, though."

"Mr. F. likes things neat and tidy," Hattie said. "A bit of cleanup makes it easier to go unnoticed up

above."

The passageway went on another dozen feet before opening into a large round room. Jazz knew this



place had been built as a bomb shelter but still found the chamber re-markable this far underground. At its

center stood three roughly plumbed basins. On one end were two curtained shower stalls, and on the other

there were four toilet cubi-cles. The room smelled faintly of piss and shit and, underly-ing that, the stench of

old bleach.

"Best we can offer," Hattie said. "'Spect you're used to bidets and people handing you the toilet roll."

"No," Jazz said. "Not at all." She went into one of the cubicles and peed, not minding for a second

that the girl was still standing outside.

"Sorry about your..." Hattie said, unable to continue the sentence.

Jazz could not reply. She looked at the floor between her feet, reaching for small talk. "Is Hattie your

real name?" she asked at last.

"No. But I like hats, so Hattie it is. What's your name?"

"Jazz." She realized that none of them had asked her this until now, and that was strange. Surely a

name was the first thing anyone asked?

"Ha! You like music?"

"I do, but it is my real name."

"Right," Hattie said, and Jazz could hear the smile in her voice. "Well, it's strange enough to keep, I

guess."

Jazz finished and flushed the loo. A trap vented into a flowing sewer, then slammed shut again.

"You'll want to use the spray," Hattie said, and Jazz noticed the cans on a shelf above her. She

sprayed the air around her, trying to screw her nose up against the stench.

"That is f*cking foul," she said.

"Hey," Hattie said, "Harry meant it. We don't swear down here." The admonishment seemed strange

coming from a girl her own age.

"So who are you all?" Jazz asked, stepping from the cu-bicle and going to wash her hands. The water

wouldn't get hot, and she shivered as she thought how cold the showers must be in the winter.

"We're the United Kingdom."

Jazz stared at the girl, waiting for the teasing smile. But none came.

"Come on," Hattie said. "I'll let Harry tell you himself."