Page 18 of Indefensible
“It is for me,” he said. “It’s not dressing up like going to a fancy dress party, it’s part of who I am. It’s not hurting anyone.”
“But you put Phillip in hospital. That’s hurting someone. And you’re a policeman.”
“So?”
“Well, those are masculine things, hitting people and so on. It doesn’t make sense.”
How could he explain what he barely understood himself? “When I look like this, I’m Deryn, the copper who knows how to fight, and when I wear a dress, I’m different, female. She’s called Dee, and she is also me, but she doesn’t hit people. It’s possible to be both. Ilikebeing both.”
“But if people find out …”
“So, don’t tell them. And in return, I won’t tell anyone you left me alone to get beaten up by Shane and his mates, or that Phillip’s drugs have killed three people and orphaned a tiny baby. Or that Mason Abruzziwaskidnapped and is probably dead, too.”
“It’s really not that simple,” she said, “and you know it.” She turned the engine on and merged into the traffic. Deryn didn’t answer, and his mother said nothing more until they were coming into Cwmcoed. “Do you like my new car?” she asked.
Deryn took the proffered olive branch. “Very smart,” he said.
“I’ve sold the house. I’ve decided that I’d like to live somewhere nicer. By the sea, somewhere with better shops. I’ve bought a bungalow at the Mumbles. You can come and visit when I move, in a dress if you like. Do you know, there is a campaign to reopen the old Cwmcoed Railway Tunnel and make it into a cycle path, all the way to the coast? Now, where can I drop you? Post Office OK? So you can go and see your friend.” With that, she drew up outside the Post Office on Cwmcoed’s tired high street, and Deryn got out, his mind reeling. Had his mother just told him where Mason had been taken? Had she just said he could visit her as Dee? Before he could say goodbye, the blue Tesla had gone.
CHAPTER 15
DAY THREE
In somewhat of a daze, Deryn followed his mother’s instructions and made his way to Station Terrace, hoping Brody would be there, and not lost in the woods, looking for abandoned mine workings. The Cwmcoed Railway Tunnel got into the news every few years, when another plan was made to reopen it. None of the plans ever seemed to come to anything, and Deryn had only the vaguest idea where the entrance might be, or what was at the other end. All he knew was that it had carried coal until the mines had closed, and that it had been a railway tunnel, so presumably pretty big. Brody’s hire car was still parked outside the house, and Deryn could see someone moving inside. He opened the garden gate, and knocked on the glass door.
“I know where he is,” Deryn said before Brody could speak, completely forgetting that they parted on bad terms.
Brody grabbed Deryn by the arm and dragged him inside. “Where? How do you know? Is he alive?” It seemed that Brody had forgotten, too.
“The old Cwmcoed Railway Tunnel, my mother told me, and I don’t know. But it’s bound to be in one of Mason’s books.”
Deryn found one of the historical guides to show Brody.
“According to this, the tunnel itself is in good shape, except for one small section. It was deemed uneconomic to repair in the nineteen fifties, so it was closed. It’s been inspected since, and hasn’t got any worse, but both ends have been blocked. The only remaining access is supposed to be through the air shaft. Look at the pictures.”
They showed an arched tunnel lined with brick. There was no sign of the railway, just a level floor. It seemed to be dry, and it was certainly spacious enough to store any amount of stolen or smuggled goods. His father would have known exactly where the tunnel entrance had been. Unfortunately, he didn’t. But thanks to Mason, they had a map. If his family had used the tunnel for storage, it had to be close to a road, and there would be evidence of a path through the woods. His father wouldn’t have been deterred by a bricked-up tunnel entrance. If he’d wanted to get in, he would have done.
Brody shuffled through the bookshelf until he found a facsimile map from the middle of the nineteenth century. They spread it on the floor, and there, in pencil, was an arrow pointing to the entrance to the Cwmcoed tunnel. Dotted lines showed that it ran underneath the mountain for over a mile. The railway line ran from a mine Deryn had never seen, indeed never knew existed, past the end of Station Terrace, across the river and into what was now dense woodland. Deryn had grown up here and had spent his childhood playing in those woods.
He pointed. “This railway line should be obvious on the ground. Only it isn’t. I had no idea it was there. The forestry tracks are all in different places.”
”They must have planted the trees right over the track when they decommissioned the line and blocked the tunnel,” Brody said, eyes bright, “but we’ll find it. This afternoon.”
Thinking about the forestry he played in as a child, Deryn wasn’t so sure. And it would have grown since then.
In the event, they were both right. The path was obvious …afterthey had wormed their way past the piles of fly-tipped rubbish. Old washing machines, beds, sofas, builders’ rubble, at least one bathroom suite, and bags and bags of stinking who-knows-what. Brody helped himself to a compass from Mason’s Scouting supplies, and with the old map, and an up-to-date version as guides, they navigated their way along the forestry tracks until they arrived at the heap of waste half-hidden by bracken at the back of a lay-by. The smell of rot, and the buzz of flies filled the air. By midsummer it would be unbearable.
Brody pointed at the heap. “Behind there,” he said.
Deryn knew he was right. This was exactly the kind of barrier his dad would build, taking money from people to dispose of their refuse, then bringing it here to conceal his secret. A few broken bracken stems indicated that someone else had fought their way between the trash and the trees. He took a deep breath and followed the trail.
The entrance to the tunnel, when they found it, looked like a drain. There was a trickle of water dripping from the open end of one of those heavy concrete pipes usually found to take streams underneath roads, or to take away stormwater. A metal grille covered the end of the pipe, fastened with a heavy padlock to an equally heavy staple set into concrete inside the pipe. They had stripped Mason’s house of tools, including a hammer and a crowbar.
“Fingers crossed,” Deryn said and inserted the end of the crowbar into the hasp of the padlock. It took both of them leaning all their weight on the other end to tear it loose, and it took both of them to pull the grille away from the entrance.
The air flowing out of the pipe smelled stale and somehow damp, in contrast to the fresh, pine-scented air of thesurrounding forest –- as long as the breeze kept the smell of the rubbish away.
Deryn shone his torch into the hole. It was big enough to crawl into on hands and knees, but the bright light failed to show the end. “It could go on for miles,” he said, making room for Brody to crouch down next to him.
