Page 73 of No Man's Land

Alex still had his head down, though, studying an old City and South London Railway map.

“I’m going to see if Peters has any other ideas,” Josef said. “If not, I think we should go. You were right. The sewer—”

“Wait.” Alex grabbed his wrist, still staring at the map. “Look at this.” His finger was on a station just north of London Bridge. “This. King William Street Station.”

“That’s—” Josef frowned. “I don't know it.”

“Me neither.”

They looked at each other. “It must have closed.”

From across the table came an irritated, “Doyou mind? There’s no talking in the reading room.”

“Come on,” Josef said, grabbing the maps and heading back to the desk.

Peters watched their approach expectantly. “Any luck?”

“Perhaps,” Josef said, spreading out the old C&SLR map on the desk. “Have you ever heard of King William Street station?”

After a moment’s thought, Peters’ moustache twitched as he smiled. “Oh, yes. Goodness me, that’s been closed for a long time now. Must be nearly twenty years. I know my father was still alive because I remember he thought it a terrible waste of money to build a station and close it ten years later. Mind you, hehad no time for electric railways.” He smiled fondly. “Truth be told, he’d only grudgingly accepted locomotives.”

“My pa was the same,” Josef said, smiling. “Do you know what happened to the station after it closed?”

Peters blinked. “To the station? Nothing as far as I know. The building’s still there, on King William Street. It used to be the terminus, you see, but when they opened the new line to Monument, it bypassed the line entirely.”

“Wait,” Alex said sharply. “Are you saying the station is in a disused tunnel?”

“I suppose it must be, sir, yes. Now I think about it, I remember something in the papers about the LCC using the tunnels for storage.” His eyes lit up. “I could search our newspaper archive if you—”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Alex said quickly. “You’ve been extremely helpful already. Thank you.”

Hurriedly refolding the map, Josef said, “Yes, thank you, Mr Peters. You’ve proved to my friend here that youcanfind out anything in a public library.”

Peters puffed up a little at that. “I’m gratified to have been of service, Mr Shepel.” He cast another curious glance at Alex, who looked far too well-dressed to be a member of a public library. “Mr Beaumont.”

Replacing his homburg, Alex touched the brim in salute, and then they were off, back out into the cold morning.

“What do you think?” Josef said as they hurried across Blackfriars Bridge.

“I think, if I were a ghoul...” Alex stopped abruptly. Clearing his throat, he said, “I think a disused Underground tunnel is exactly the sort of place that would suit them.”

Josef nodded. “Then the next question is—how the bloody hell do we get down there?”

“Why not start with the most obvious? Through the old station.” He smiled at whatever he saw in Josef’s face. “You’re not averse to a little breaking and entry, are you?”

“In broad daylight?”

“That’s the best time.”

When they finally found the corner of King William Street and Monument Street, Josef was astonished to find a rather ordinary building. If you looked hard, at the very top of its curved frontage, you could see where old letters had once spelled out King William St Station, and lower down City and South London Railway. But the building now appeared to be occupied by W.R. Renshaw Ltd, Boilermakers.

“I’d assumed it would be empty,” Josef confessed as they stopped on the opposite corner. Given the station had closed nearly two decades ago, that had been a silly assumption. Nothing stayed unused for long in London. “I’ll bet you can’t get down to the station anymore.”

Alex gave a distracted shake of his head and pulled out a silver card holder from his breast pocket. Opening it, he shuffled through the contents, and Josef realised that he kept several different cards in there, with several different names. Well, of course he did.

“Your man, Peters, said the tunnels have been used for storage. In which case there’s probably still access from the premises above, don’t you think?”

Which, yes, did make sense.

---