The Dead of Summer. Camilla Way

trailed slowly back along the river, walking in silence through the backstreets of Greenwich.

      Kyle saw them first.

      I had become lost in watching my feet walk, hypnotised by the steady pace of my flip-flops: one-two-left-right-click-clack-flip-flop, and hadn’t noticed that Kyle had stopped until I was nearly on his heels. I looked up when I heard Denis whimper in panic. When I followed Kyle’s gaze I thought, simply, ‘They’re going to kick our heads in,’ and I felt the blood rush to my ears.

      Mike, Lee and Marco were about 100 yards away, and had been joined by four other lads. They were outside a shop at the end of the street, kicking empty beer cans at each other or leaning on cars, boredom and cigarette smoke rising from their huddle into the darkening sky. We were too far down the street now to turn back unnoticed and without saying a word Kyle grabbed Denis’s arm and we started pegging it back the way we came. As we ran we heard Mike shouting out ecstatically to his mates.

      Back at the boat-yard we ducked down behind a low wall. We heard seven pairs of Nikes slapping on tarmac then come to a stop just metres from where we hid. Seconds dripped by like years. I looked at Denis, goggle-eyed and quivering beside me. He reminded me of a beaten dog crouched miserably there, waiting to be told what to do. ‘Let’s go to our place, Kyle,’ he said desperately. ‘We could hide there.’

      But Kyle held up his hand to silence him. The lads were arguing about where we could have gone and Kyle pointed to a gap in some railings fifty yards away. ‘Those steps go down to the river,’ his whisper was barely more than a wheeze. ‘If the tide is out, we can cut along the edge and back to Greenwich.’

      Denis and I nodded. We heard the lads move off to check out the parking lot opposite. The three of us, keeping low behind the wall, made a break for the steps. Just as we reached them we heard Mike shout out. We had been seen.

      We almost free-fell down those steps, skidding and slipping on the slimy moss. I prayed please God, please God, please God, let the tide be out now. At the bottom there was about two feet of silty, green muck to run along, the stinking river nibbling at our feet. I could barely see or hear now, and just ran blindly after Kyle. My head started to throb with the effort of running, and I felt each footfall like a punch in the throat. I looked over my shoulder. Denis, his chin jutting out, his eyes white and his lips pulled back, was flailing along like a demented elephant a few metres back. Behind him the lads were almost sauntering down the steps.

      Finally we saw the next set of stairs ahead. With one more spurt of effort I caught up with Kyle and together we climbed the dank, green stone. We turned to look for Denis. ‘Den, for fuck’s sake, come on,’ Kyle shouted. ‘Come ON!’

      Whimpering and gasping, his eyes on Kyle, Denis finally made it to the top.

      Once up on the walkway we steamed our way through the tourists and at last rounded the corner to the Cutty Sark. We had, probably, twenty seconds left of being completely out of Mike’s sight. There was nowhere for us to hide in that open space. Kyle looked towards the entrance to the foot tunnel. So out of breath he could barely speak, he gripped Denis by the elbow. ‘Look. Den. We. Have. To. Go. Down. There.’

      Panic-stricken, Denis looked from Kyle, to the tunnel’s entrance, to the corner where he knew Mike and the others were going to appear any second. ‘I can’t, Kyle. I just can’t. I don’t want to.’

      ‘Denis, listen to me. They’re going to kick our heads in. Come. Fucking. On.’ Then Kyle ran towards the red and glass dome. A split second later me and Denis followed him.

      To get down to the foot tunnel you can either walk down a load of spiral steps or take an ancient, creaky lift. We made the lift just as the operator slid the metal doors closed. Falling inside the wood-panelled cube, we let it slowly drop us below the Thames, the blue-uniformed man and a couple of German tourists watching us nonplussed as we gasped bug-eyed on the bench.

      I don’t know if you’ve ever been down the Greenwich foot tunnel, but it’s a pretty spooky place. You feel like you’re in the icy, slimy intestines of an enormous snake. When you get out of the lift the temperature drops twenty degrees, and the tunnel dips away from you, the end nowhere in sight. The Thames drips through the roof into dank puddles that glimmer and flicker in the yellow light. It’s on a slight slant and once you start running you can’t seem to stop, but the craziest thing are the echoes; every noise returning amplified and monstrous to smack you in the face. We legged it through the tunnel until we got to the middle, the sounds of our footsteps bouncing off the tiles. Finally we slowed to a halt. We had lost them. There was no way Mike could catch us now. I laughed and clapped my hands, and it sounded like thunder down there. Even Kyle let out a short, sharp bark of pleasure. Denis, his head down and fists clenched with fear, saved his relief until we were safely out the other side.

      But we had escaped Mike, and we had done it together, and I felt that it somehow meant something. That it meant I was a part of things then.

      There’s no way back to Greenwich from the Isle of Dogs other than that tunnel. It took us ages to get home. As we wandered through those wasted docklands, that no-man’s land of lonely estates and random forgotten terraces, we could see signs of the regeneration, the glory that was to come. A lone digger, a crane, an air of quiet flux and expectation. Like a battered housewife who’s suddenly been promised the stars but has been beaten down too much to believe it. Yet still an air of grudging hope. A place wanting to believe it was on the brink of something big. Like we were, like we were.

      We finally found a bus to take us home and Denis and I went over and over what had happened, laughing at our cunning and luck. We shared a fag at the back of the top deck, each taking a puff then passing it on, our feet hanging over the seats in front of us. I will always remember that bus ride, how happy I felt just to be there with them.

      Eventually Denis turned to look admiringly at Kyle. ‘I can’t believe you told Mike his dad sucks cock,’ he said, his voice hushed with awe. Kyle shrugged and looked out the window, but he definitely smiled.

      When Denis got off a couple of stops before us, he waved from the stairs and said, ‘See you later, yeh?’ and me and Kyle nodded, and said, ‘Yeh.’

      But as we made our way up Myre Street a silence fell between us. Suddenly Kyle’s face was tight and closed again, his head bent almost to his chest, and when we got to my house he barely seemed to notice when I said goodbye. I watched from my step as he walked up to his front door, saw how his scrawny shoulder blades tightened under his thin jumper. As he stood there a man with white hair appeared and after saying a few words, ushered him in, the heavy front door slamming closed behind them, the light in their hall snapping instantly off.

four

       New Cross Hospital. 4 September 1986. Transcription of interview between Dr C Barton and Anita Naidu. Police copy.

       He shut me down there with them, pulled the boards and the girders across so I couldn’t get out. I don’t know why he did that. Why would he do that? Why would he keep me down there with the other two dead? They’re saying he was a psycho, that’s what the police are all saying but he was my best friend. I sat there for hours. I had my arms wrapped around my knees and my eyes closed tight because I didn’t want to see how black it was and I didn’t want to touch anything or anything to touch me. And I didn’t know what was worse, the whole time I was down there, I couldn’t make up my mind which would be worse: being left down there, or him coming back.

      By eight o’clock the next morning I was up, dressed, and staring out the window like a dog needing a walk. Had Denis said ‘See you tomorrow’ when he got off the bus last night? Or had it just been ‘See you later’? Had he meant that he’d be seeing both of us later, or just Kyle? What if yesterday had been a one-off? Eventually I left my spot behind the front-room curtains and wandered irritably back upstairs.

      My sisters were lying in bed, chatting about the night before. Esha, a cigarette in one hand, a can of Coke in the